Chapter 8 of A Net Too Wide To Break His Fall, by Matt Boothman
I wrote this story chapter by chapter, without outlining first. It was an experiment in writing consistently, producing a chapter once a month, without fail, for the Foggy Outline newsletter. So don’t expect something polished or finished; but what it does have is momentum, and a fluidity that came from wanting to change things up enough to keep myself interested enough to write more.
If you’d be interested in a properly edited, fleshed out, finished version of this story, let me know!
“…so there was someone there.”
On the chaise under the window that Autumn Wray Benjamin reserved for guests, Callum tensed for flight. What time was it? What day?
“…we’ll never make a dent in the Hithercombe operation while whoever was in that room is still in play.”
His search had ended. Around midday the day after armed operatives had sent him fleeing his suite at the Horizon Hotel, while on his way to the bottom of the barrel of suspects who could have ordered that attack, Callum had walked into a wall that wasn’t there. The hand that had been tightening around his guts all night and all morning had shifted its grip to his lungs and heart and twisted. In that state, and with his suite probably still being watched and reeking of knockout gas, there was nowhere else he could have ended up but here, in the plush nest where Autumn Wray Benjamin roosted.
“…it’s all right. I’ve been lucky up to this point. Something was bound to give sooner or later. I’ll work out a new angle.”
And now here was the answer he’d been plundering the city’s underbelly for. Here, in the last place he would ever have looked, was the person who’d ordered him taken, or taken out. And they had no idea their target was with them in the room – or that he’d been there many, many times before.
It started as idle curiosity. Autumn Wray Benjamin was, in one sense, Callum’s point of entry into Vivian Hithercombe’s world, into this year of comfortable living and distasteful work, promising prospects and infuriating hurdles. He shoulder-surfed with them into Vivian Hithercombe’s Bronze Street house and there it all began.
And Autumn didn’t belong. Not at the Bronze Street soiree and not in Vivian Hithercombe’s inner circle. They stuck out in a way that was unmistakably cultivated. While every other party guest and employee competed over how close, how indispensable they were to Vivian Hithercombe, Autumn resisted Vivian’s attempts to hold them close. In their choice of seat, in their folded arms and rolled eyes, in their acid comments and barbed glances, Autumn held themself apart from the crowd and from the centre they all gravitated towards. Callum observed this the way a claustrophobe might a contortionist folding themself into a suitcase.
Curiosity turned to fascination. Autumn Wray Benjamin became the puzzle Callum worked on to wind down from working for Vivian Hithercombe.
Because working for Vivian Hithercombe, Autumn Wray Benjamin was inescapable, even though they only shared a room with Vivian as infrequently as they could get away with. Vivian had and made a lot of money. She owned a lot of property. And the only interior designer she would allow near any of those properties was Autumn. Whenever Callum met with Vivian Hithercombe, Autumn Wray Benjamin was all around in the play of the colours, the choice of pieces, the texture of the fabrics.
Vivian liked to show Autumn off, to boast about their taste and the fact it worked exclusively for her. But for all that, Autumn was still peripheral at best to Vivian’s actual business: more a professional perk than a member of the team. Not unlike Callum himself, who Vivian held close but jealously, separated from anyone she thought she might one day need to use him against.
There was a closeness in that, a kind of camaraderie, if there could be such a thing between two people when only one had any idea the other existed.
Whenever the solitude of the suite at the Horizon Hotel drowned out its comfort and convenience, Callum visited Autumn here, at the flat where Vivian Hithercombe kept them. It was the one place Vivian owned that was designed for someone other than her.
Autumn had an appetite for luxury, which Vivian’s money kept well fed. But they also scorned ostentation, which kept their designs reined on the tasteful side of opulent. For Vivian, those opposing forces produced a kind of restrained grandeur, a look that hinted at all the money available to be spent on the space which hadn’t been. Here, Autumn had turned all their talent towards comfort. The flat was a warm, soft refuge. Now and then, Callum would accompany Autumn while they made stir-fry in the narrow kitchen, and spend evenings on the sofa with them, unseen and unacknowledged, while they scoffed and snorted at police procedurals and gangster movies; and the loneliness of the suite at the Horizon would recede. It was exactly as much companionship as he needed. When Vivian Hithercombe was pleased enough with his work to offer an introduction to someone new, Autumn Wray Benjamin was bottom of the list. Becoming visible and real to Autumn could only spoil a good thing.
And now:
Autumn wanted Callum gone, taken care of, and apparently, somehow, had the contacts to make it happen.
Autumn frowned at their phone. Callum scanned them the way he’d scanned the Horizon Hotel suite for exits as the choking vapour rose. The chaise that had embraced him as he collapsed from the long night now felt like sucking quicksand.
Autumn wanted Callum gone.
No: not Callum. “The Hithercombe operation.” They didn’t know about Callum. They only knew about Vivian Hithercombe’s pet phantom, who could listen in on any conversation and access any space.
The Hithercombe operation. Callum’s safety net. The thing he was relying on to keep him from slipping into the lonely void, known by no-one.
Callum rose from the chaise. He didn’t move for the exit.
“All right,” he said. “You want to take her on? You’re going to need my help.”