NATIONAL TREASURE, Barry Faulkner [audio ebook reader TXT] 📗

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance or act relating to any persons, living or dead, locations or events involving them, is entirely alleged or coincidental. Published by BSA Publishing 2021 who

assert the right that no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means without the prior permission of the publishers.

Copyright @ B.L.Faulkner 2021 who

asserts the moral right to be identified as

the author of this work

Proof read/editing by Zeldos

Cover art by Orphan Press, Leominster

               NATIONAL TREASURE

 Ben Nevis and the Gold Digger Book 2

          CHAPTER 1

Harry Cohen had said she was a ‘national treasure’. That’s what he’d said on the phone: ‘Wear a decent suit, she’s a national treasure.’

She didn’t look much like any type of treasure to me, let alone a national one – buried treasure maybe; found, dug up, and needing bit of restoration.

Harry had called me on the office phone that morning.

‘I’ve got a job for you, Ben, not the usual type. Can you come round later?’

‘Not the usual type’ sounded interesting. The usual type of job for Harry Cohen, ‘Theatrical Agent to the Stars’ – well, that’s what his business card says, although most of the stars he handles are burnt out and on their last twinkling. The majority of his clients these days are young Z-list celebrities nobody has heard of who do a couple of reality television series where the blokes flex their abs and the girls get their tits out and then they disappear – the usual job I do for Harry is security: keeping people at a fair distance from one of these Z-listers when they open a supermarket or similar major cultural event in their brief time in the public eye, or keeping screaming girls away from Harry’s latest boy band and getting them from the concert venue to their hotel and keeping them there. Are you getting the vibe that I’m not impressed by these ‘stars’? You’re dead right, I’m not. So a ‘national treasure’ had sounded intriguing. The lady in his office wasn’t.

Harry Cohen’s offices took up the first floor of an updated Victorian building in Wardour Street, very handy for the theatre area of London and for the offices of a host of other agents and entertainment production companies. Being in central London there’s no parking of course, so rather than pay the exorbitant NCP charges I took a leisurely stroll across London Bridge from my office in the Borough High Street and wound my way through the tangle of streets to his lair. I like doing that in London, taking in the vibes and energy of the place. It never sleeps and hardly ever pauses for breath. Love it.

I wore a decent suit like Harry had asked, but kept the faith with my social class with a Status Quo T-shirt. Harry pulled his semi-obese body up from the large swivel chair behind his large desk in his large office, with large pictures of his stable of talent on the walls, as his secretary showed me, in using one hand to push my hand off her shapely backside. It was just a bit of fun; we’d known each other a long time, ever since I started working for Harry about six years ago when he’d been one of my first clients after I left the Met and went solo, and his recommendations to others in the entertainment industry had brought a lot of business my way so I felt I owed him a bit.

He stood and came round to shake my hand. Everything with Harry was large – the office, the swivel chair, his desk, his cigars, his ego, especially his ego – and lots of things with Harry were also a bit far from the truth, like the large pictures of Tom Hanks, George Clooney, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci on the wall, with Harry’s agency details overlaid in the corner. No doubt those major stars do have UK representation, but it ain’t Harry Cohen; not unless they’re up for Love Island and I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here.

The ‘national treasure’ was sitting this side of the desk facing Harry, so I couldn’t get a good look as I entered.

‘Ben, thank you for coming,’ Harry said as he pumped my hand. ‘I don’t think you’ve met Marcia before, have you?’ He waved a hand towards Marcia, who I took to be the ‘treasure’. She stood and turned towards us. ‘Ben Nevis, Marcia Johnson. Marcia Johnson, Ben Nevis.’ Harry beamed his introductions. The name didn’t register with me. One thing that did was that she didn’t remark on my name; most people who meet me for the first time do. I guessed Harry had filled her in on the fact that I had been named after a Grand National winner that my dad had won a bundle on, and not a bloody mountain. Good. We won’t have to go through that old story again.

We shook hands, she retook her seat, and Harry fetched a chair from the side of the room for me and put it down in front of the desk where we could all see each other. Bells were ringing in my head; I sort of recognised this lady. She was in her early sixties, slim and elegant in a tailored brown trouser suit, dark ankle boots and bluish-gray shirt that matched her hair, which was in a multidimensional pixie cut. Impressed on my fashion knowledge, eh? Google. But what struck me most about Marcia Johnson were her eyes. Cornflower blue, striking – could be colour contact lenses, but nevertheless striking. So, as I