In the Course of Time

Stan Mason

Description

Gus is twenty years old and his life was just beginning even though he had a long start by reason of experience and there was also the remote possibility of the crown of Sweden in his sights! This is the third book in the series from exciting author Stan Mason.

Sujets

• Thriller

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 12 novembre 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785380495
• Langue: English

Extrait

Title Page
IN THE COURSE OF TIME
BOOK THREE
by
Stan Mason



Publisher Information
Published in 2014 by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
The right of Stan Mason to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998
Copyright © 2014 Stan Mason
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any person who does so may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.



Chapter One
It was 1951 and the events that took place consisted of motives that ranged from pure anger to frustration with an element of jealousy. There was no other reason why it happened. Richards was sitting at the table in the kitchen of his rented apartment with a blank sheet of paper in front of him. He had been married to Stella for almost three years; he worshipped her, knew all the good and bad things about her and he adored her beautiful face and elegant figure. Yet in the passion of a mid-life crisis, he suffered a brainstorm. In a moment of sheer stupidity, he suddenly desired a short-skirted teenager with a large bosom forced into a small-sized blouse and came to the conclusion that she could satisfy him for the rest of his life. Not surprisingly, the affair was ill-conceived and lasted only a few weeks. At forty-eight years of age, thirty years her senior, it was hopeless for the young woman was merely developing her sexuality. To her all men were exciting, especially those willing to have intimate sex with her. Unlike Howard however she view the relationship as ephemeral. He was her stepping-stone for better things to come. When she left him for a young handsome life-guard, Howard tried to pursue her but it was pointless. Poor Howard. He found himself left alone with reflections of his stupidity, having left his wife who he now wanted to love and cherish as he had done in the early days of their marriage... but man is fated to go forwards and not backwards. What was done was done and no one could ever change it!
He stared bleakly out of the window one morning, The divorce action being taken by his wife was still running and it would be a month before she received her Decree Nisi, but one thing was certain... their marriage was over! He had been in the army during the war designing bombs of all sizes. Some friends who sympathised with him in his dilemma told him, in addition, that his paramour had not gone with a life-saving instructor but with a solicitor called Gus Ekland. He cared little whether or not it was true. It was so easy to blame someone else for one’s indiscretions and the solicitor became his target. In his tormented mind, he believed that he had the means to drive a wedge between them. However the rumour was entirely untrue.
The result stemming from the design of a bomb made its impact six days later. Howard managed to smuggle it into Gus’s office by masquerading as a postman and taking the device to it’s target point. As soon as the solicitor entered the office, he intended to detonate the device. It was Wednesday, when normally dozens of people were passing by the office yet it was only by chance that no one in the vicinity was hurt or killed when the bomb went off. The explosion ripped out the front of the building demolishing Gus’s office entirely. Amid the giant cloud of dust and smoke, a great gaping hole appeared in the High Street. Loose stone, brickwork, glass, wood and pavement flew into the air as the explosion erupted to cascade into the street for a distance of a hundred yards. The result was a complete debacle.
Gus would have been in the office at the time and Howard could see only a silhouette in the frosted window believing it to be him but he was badly mistaken. It was the outline of Elsie McKay, Gus’s secretary, who was tidying the papers on his desk. She was the only casualty of the blast but, unfortunately for her, it was fatal. Gus was saved by a minor mission of mercy, He had seen an old lady struggling off a bus with a load of shopping bags. He stopped his car and drove her to her home. The act of kindness saved his life!
An ambulance arrived shortly and two men placed the body of Elsie McKay on a stretcher, covering it with a blanket and loading it into the vehicle. Howard Richards watched from the distance, convinced that the dead person was his victim. It was not until he read the headlines of the evening newspaper that he realised he had killed the wrong person. Nursing mental pain and torment, he headed for the railway station It was dark when he got there. He walked almost a mile along the track and waited for the next train to arrive. When it came, the train was speeding at fifty miles an hour with smoke puffing from its single chimney. The moment he saw a man standing on the tracks, the driver slammed on the brakes but it was too late. The sickening sound of flesh and bone being crushed against the steel rails was lost in the roar of the engine. Howard Richards was no longer troubled by his problems. He left no suicide not, told no one of his intentions, and passed away without any identification on his person. In the eyes of the authorities, he was a vagrant who had died through misadventure. The police would not waste any time keeping the file open. He had been killed in an accident and would remain anonymous for ever!
***
Jeremy Banks was furious. As the senior partner in Banks & Ekland he was extremely angry at the damage done to his property, the disruption caused by the explosion, and the murder of one of his staff. He demanded a full investigation and sought further protection from the police in case it happened again. However Gus calmed him down telling him that they were fully insured and all the damage would be paid for in due course. Gus himself preferred to keep a low profile especially as he was about to stand as a candidate in the General Election. He was sad about his secretary. She had been nearing her sixtieth birthday, a caring helpful woman with a strong sense of humour. No one would forget her and, without exception, they all wanted to see her killer brought to justice. However they were to be denied... the identity of the murderer was never discovered.
Gus kept his anger under restraint. It was a time to swallow hard, to reorganise, and to allow life to continue in the normal way. Inevitably, it was the way of nature. Yet the incident did create change. Banks recognised that his partner would be absent for long periods from the firm if he were elected at the General Election so he took a new legal assistant on board by the name of Sam Lockwood. At the time, none of them was aware of the impact of that appointment.
Samantha Short was at the point of having an identity crisis. She was born of a working-class family in the East End of London but had improved her education and secretarial skills by attending evening classes regularly. In due course, she found employment with a local legal firm as a secretary, but her ambitions ranged higher... far higher. She wanted to prove herself by becoming a solicitor with all her heart and soul. However, in 1951, female solicitors were extremely few and far between. It was a man’s province and women were not regarded as being adequate for the tasks that came along. At that time, there were more women barristers than female solicitors which added to the problem. After all, women were required to cook, wash, sew, clean, bear children, and care for their elderly folk. They had no time to become solicitors lets alone qualify for the task. As a result, it was practically impossible for a woman to enter the legal profession at a reasonable level.
At twenty-one years of age, Samantha was extremely pretty, with dark brown hair and deep-brown eyes. She had the advantage of high cheekbones which gave her a slightly oriental expression, enhancing her beauty. She had become the target of sexual harassment from her superior in the law firm where she worked, having to suffer his constant attention, his pinching of her bottom, and his touching of her in various places according to his whim. When it became impossible to tolerate his actions any more, she tendered her resignation. He became very angry and refused to give her a good reference causing Samantha to review her situation. She would now start a new career, not as a legal secretary, but as a solicitor. The first stage was to write to a number of legal practices but it was almost certain they would refuse to employ a woman. In order to succeed, she would have to do something drastic... something entirely different to convince the legal world that she was worth her salt... even if it was outrageous.
She ran through a number of scenarios in her mind to try to establish a method of approach. On each occasion, the final solution melted away like snow in warm sunshine and she began to despair of resolving the problem. It appeared that she would have to find a job as a secretary, not necessarily in a legal firm. Then, one morning, she awoke early from an uncomfortable sleep with the most obvious answer staring at her in the face. If she wanted to accomplish her ambition as a woman, she would have to pretend that she was a man! Before she started out on such a venture, however, there were some matters to establish. Firstly, it was necessary to change her name from Samantha Short to Sam Lockwood by Deed Poll. After