The Gilgamesh Conspiracy (44 page)

‘Oh I see, that explains a lot.’

‘Yeah, and remember the old hippy guy at the campsite with the motor bike who stopped Parker from killing me.’

‘Yes of course I remember him…wait! You’re not serious! How could we have not recognised him?’

‘Well he’s the last person we would have expected to be helping us. He wants to see us when we’ve got ourselves sorted out.’

‘Good, I’ll look forward to that.’ He stopped and gazed at her. ‘Gerry, I know we’re going to eat dinner and go to a hotel and all that, but you’re…well you’re a different kind of woman from most. I need to know…are you and me an item from now on then?’

‘We are, absolutely.’

‘There’s a package delivered by UPS,’ said Hilary Morris. ‘It’s heavy, so I left it in the lobby.’ She watched Steven, her new English husband carefully inspect the package before heaving it up and carrying it through to the kitchen where he dumped it down on to the granite island unit. He looked it over and then tugged the delivery note off the outside. He read through it and then said ‘bloody hell it’s from Gerry.’

She thought his expression suddenly turned somewhat wary, or even slightly embarrassed, but they had only known each other for four months and they had only been married for three weeks so she was under no illusion that she could read his every mood or expression yet.

‘Who’s Gerry?’ was her perfectly reasonable question, but he was already tearing through the packaging and after a few moments he pulled out a book which struck her as rather old, entitled “Desolation Island” by Patrick O’Brian, with a picture of a historic ship on the front cover.

‘Gosh, it looks like a first edition!’ he exclaimed. He carefully pulled out another book and held it reverentially. ‘So is this!’ He lifted out another which was titled “The Far Side of the World.”

‘I bet they’re all here,’ he said with some excitement.

Hilary peered into the package and on top of a book titled “HMS Surprise” she saw a card which she deftly removed.

“To Steven, thank you for your help and I hope any future surprises are pleasant. Best wishes Gerry,” she read. ‘Gerry’s another one of your sailing buddies is he?’

‘Yes that’s right,’ said Steven.

Hi,

I have spent many  happy and relaxing hours reading books of all kinds, and now I enjoy writing as well.

My name is actually Ian Fleming, and on meeting me, people have frequently asked me if I am the James Bond author, or related to him in any way, and I say sadly not, otherwise I would be fabulously wealthy and probably living on my own tropical island. On the other hand he died many years ago.

They have also asked if I have written any books lately and until recently I have always replied no.

But now I have written two, and I expect to add more to my bookshelf.

The next one will continue the story of Gerry Tate. It might take some time to complete as I have to keep doing the day job, but I hope it should be published before the end of 2015.

The other one I have already published on Amazon is science fiction, “The Resurrection of Ritara”.

You may think you don’t like SF, but maybe this is worth a try, as it is also meant to be more of a thriller than the usual kind of SF novel. And the author thinks it’s good!

If you have enjoyed reading this, then please leave some feedback on the Amazon web site. It is very welcome.

And of course, please tell your friends.

Best wishes,  Jeffrey Fleming

Additional note

This is a revised version of this novel. The story is the same, but after several reviews, most of which have been complementary I decided to make a change in the way the novel is constructed. Apart from the opening chapter and a couple of short backstories, the novel is now in a linear time sequence.

The spelling is in UK English
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