Hello!, Bell and Fletcher #1

‘And that’s your explanation, is it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Republican insurrectionists from France?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you are sure, Inspector?’

‘Yes, what else could it be?’

Bell’s sigh was brim full of impatience and the weariness of experience, and the unexpected feeling that there had been no further developments in the case since it was handed over to the police. ‘Well, you do tend to rely on that particular group of imaginary suspects in situations such as this. I mean, last month you had the owner of the Abbey Cinema arrested for being a French republican agent.’

‘He was showing subversive films.’

‘He was only showing films that had been shown at the British Film Institution earlier. Last I heard no one has been arrested in London.’

The Inspector was defiantly deflated, like a child sulking. ‘They do things differently-’

‘Not that differently.’

Hats Off!

It was a popular and influential myth that the work of a private eye was glamorous, involving high stakes on the gambling table of life: the unfaithful mistress; the missing husband and the company shares; mistaken blackmail fraud. 

The reality was much more mundane, much more grounded in everyday life: a missing pet; tenants looking to trail a landlord; a company owner wanting to know just what happened on their factory floor. When cases were lean, the level of mundaneness rose.

When people had no other choice they hired C. Card; when private investigators had no other choice they took hat cases.

By the twentieth of March, 1963, Bellamy ‘Bell’ Hesketh opened his third hat case. The instructing letter informed him brightly that said hat “might have been placed on a chair in the Majestic or given to the cloakroom of Harold’s near the Grand Arcade.” Such a narrow search area focused on the two opposing corners of Leeds city centre.

Bell mused on the last time he and Fletcher had money enough to go out. Harold’s was a new establishment on him, and the commission for this hat wouldn’t warrant a visit for pleasure. Being a private investigator had seemed such a vital peace-time role, the wage was the least vital.

‘If this continues we shall be paying the bank with letters,’ Bell aimed his comment at Fletcher, his partner.

Without looking up from his book, Jacques Fletcher paraphrased: ‘Business is very poorly, if this continues you will end up in the poor house.’

They were quiet for a moment, Bell thinking of lost property offices, Fletcher contemplating Dylan Thomas. Only one of their trains of thought offered any hope of finding an essential truth about humans’ existence in a cruel universe. Had they shared their thoughts they would have agreed it was with the Welshman.

‘You’ll visit me, won’t you, Fletcher, why, you’ll be there with me.’

‘I am too handsome for the poor house, if you end up in there expect my letters from Belgium.’

Calling Bell and Fletcher

I am short for a word[1]. The word I need is required to bring together both a recent event and a twenty-five year project. This word has a lot of past tense in it, though it is really about what happens next.

What has happened recently is I have felt my work life move me away from things I do outside of work. In relation to what happens next, I felt further away from the project. For lots of reasons I found myself putting my head in the sand and not taking it out until I was well free of work (usually just as I woke up the next day for work). The project requires dedication, not out and out, but enough to know when it is falling off the rails and into the mines under the Temple of Doom. So, once some work things had been sorted, I turned my attention to the project, but before I introduce the project, let's talk about the twenty-five year thing.

What happens next has not taken twenty-five years. At the most, four years[2], though bulk of the work was done in 2013 and 2014. I keep lots of notes with dates on them, and the plot for the project was written 2013, with the first draft (up to Scarborough, if one reads this at a later date and "Scarborough" makes sense) in the second half of 2014. But all drafts, ideas, narration, plots and stuff, all born out of a decision when I was about thirteen, fueled by the Beatles, lured by Terry Pratchett novels, I wanted to be a paperback writer.

I am unlikely to be a paperback writer. My audience is small (thank you for reading) and this is a sideline, not my main job. I will start posting each chapter as I complete them, but there's going to be holidays and other things competing for my time.

Let me introduce my alternative Leeds of 1963, and my private investigators, Bellamy 'Bell' Hesketh and Jacques Fletcher[3]. I like them a lot, and know you're going to get on just fine.

1- Given how frustrated words, letters, and numbers can make me and confuse me, it often occurs to me that it might be odd I enjoy words and reading. That I should then use words regularly *for my own purpose* might just tip me over the edge one day.
2- I can be quite sure of this because I remember thinking about tea poisoning in 2011.
3- I am not sure where Bell or Bellamy came from, though Hesketh is the name of a street near where I live. Jacques Fletcher is a homage to one of my most favourite TV detectives.