mystic decision point

Some of my regular readers will hopefully(!) be wondering what is happening with the mystic detective. Well he got to California and eventually met up with Jonathan Walters the head of OM for a showdown that resulted in OM being closed down but its head cut a deal with the US authorities and got off. I want to reflect on these more recent mystic bits before putting them up here. Having reached this conclusion tot eh story I then downloaded all of it into a file (backed up also) and then arranged it into chapters roughly sequenced with when they were first written. I had in a few lines to connect stuff etc. And ironed out some of the lose ends.

I have about 22,000 words which is either a very long short story and a very short novel. So I am wondering what to do next with it. Thankfully I will be at Fuel on Saturday for the monthly creative writing class with Steve and Tony so maybe the muse will speak to me there.

I also wonder if any of you would be mad enough to read through what I have got so far and pass a friendly but critical comment or two. I am not sure exactly what I have got here. The mystic is a private eye figure and a vehicle for some of my own ramblings etc. He’s not a spoof and yet he is not quite the real thing but I have had immense pleasure so far in writing him and in your reactions.

Mystic Detective(21)

It was cold, so cold that the usual gauntlet of smokers sat out on stools in the doorway of Fuel had vanished. Inside it was steamy hot and George was serving behind the counter and freely offered to bring over Paul's cappuccino to his table.
- Things are looking up, muttered Paul under his breath as George came over
- Whaat?
- Oh nothing
Paul smiled but George looked back at him blankly. It was obviously too early, if ever for such a conversation.

Paul remembered how last night his daughter had been singing in her school choir at the carol service. Paul didn't stick out like the sore thumb he expected to but conversation with his fellow parents was a bit stilted despite mulled wine and hot mince pies.

However, singing carols usually lifted his spirits - especially when he could hit the right key and more or less the right note. He could feel the music inside him in his guts which was fairly usual but also in his chest, unusual. Being given a lighted candle added to the mood and then a reading from the start of the gospel of St John set him off over the edge into weeping and a deep sense of inter connectedness with everything and an understanding of a truer meaning of being born again of the spirit and not of the flesh. Time to be uniquely himself in a wondrous created universe while his time lasted.

A very young baby cried out and brought Paul back into the present, into Fuel, in a good way. Apple came into Fuel at that moment
- Hi App
- N'mystic
Paul raised a quizzical eyebrow having already succumbed to Apple's monosyllabic form of communication - maybe this was parallel to texting or perhaps a consequence of too much of it.
Apple shrugged his shoulders in response to Paul's unspoken question
_ Nothing? queried Paul.
Apple almost imperceptibly shock his head and loped off.

Mystic detective(20)

Paul was restless he couldn’t settle to anything. His breakfast at Fuel that morning was not settling well inside him, he felt distinctly queasy. A frosty bike ride to visit Frankie had not improved his spirits like it usually did and neither did his time with his friend. Frankie had at least improved from his suicidal state to something resembling his ordinary state of misery. So perhaps Paul was feeling redundant now that Frankie no longer needed him and his own troubles crowded in. His evening of food and dancing and the subsequent night with Martha had been sweet. But their farewells had a bitter undercurrent unexpressed in words but communicated in the look she gave him – anguish? imploring? needing? – whatever it was he did not want to see it and certainly not speak of it.
Of course his vicar friend Keith would probably refer to this experience as ‘Your time on the cross’ or ‘Your dark night of the soul’. ‘Yeah thanks Keith… for nothing’ thought Paul, ‘Bloody clever, I don’t think’. Actually this was not the way his friend Keith would respond to whatever was up with Paul and Paul knew that. He was just angry.
After 30 years of relative quietness the students were revolting again, marching in their thousands against the proposed tripling of university fees and cuts in education spending. There was something about the quality of their anger which spoke to something in Paul. He knew that this good be a dangerous impulse, that he needed his cold analytic wits about him to tackle OM but it was a hotter anger that he felt. He was ready fro a fight. He was ready to fight for Percy, Abdullah, Frankie, Claudia and above all for himself.
Justice was a harsh mistress never truly satisfied always demanding more. Sometimes Paul wanted to turn his back on her and run away, hide, or play but again and again she called him back to her and he could not resist. He was the mystic detective after all and his trip to California could not longer be put off. ‘California here I come’ so online to book his flight and Santa Barbara hotel.

Paul was dreaming of Abdullah, moving through a hot sandy Turkish landscape. Abdullah was desperate to contact him but every time they nearly got to meet Abdullah was whisked away by some strange force. At first this not quite meeting almost seemed like fun, a kind of weird sort of dance but then it got more and more serious, more and more darker and at the last time of nearly meeting their fingertips brushed, there was a look of real terror on Abdullah’s face and pain surged up Paul’s arms causing him to cry and wake up yelling out Abdullah’s name.
The phone was ringing
- Paul?
- Whaa
- Paul it’s Mickey
- Yeah
- Yeah. I’ve just had a call from Kings Cross, yer mate Abdullah
- Whaat? (Paul came wide awake)
- He’s been beaten up, expertly, cracked ribs, broken, nose, broken cheekbone, lots of bruises.
- Oh fuck
- Yeah, he’ll live but he is mess
- Shit … I’m off to California the day after tomorrow but I can stop off in London and visit him first… what hospital?
- King’s Cross, near the station. I’ll fax through the Santa Barbara details
- And Paul?
- Yes?
- Take care
- I will you know me.
Paul was calm now. He had a job to do. Too many people were suffering, time to bring things to a head.

Mystic detective(119)

Paul was tired. His head was hurting and he didn’t have the satisfactory explanations that it hurt because someone had hit him or that he had a hangover from drinking too much. No, it was just hurting. He couldn’t thinks straight about OM; he was still worried about Frankie and Claudia; he wasn’t sure how to proceed with rescuing Percy and his daughter Catherine was away on a school trip to Brittany.
Time to see Martha again. Paul was never quiet sure where he was with Martha or how to describe her. Lover sounds a bit naïf, significant other even worse and he was not that sure how ‘significant’ she was to him or he to her. At the times when he thought they might really get together, maybe even move in together she seemed not that bothered and vice versa. It was no longer an apparent tension between them – they weren’t an ‘item’ and they weren’t ‘just good friends’. When they met up they didn’t always end up in bed together but sometimes they did. It was convenient, comfortable, a bit like a marriage without passing through the getting married bit and without the living together bit. It suited them both – for now.
- Hi Martha
- Hi mystic
- Fancy a drink?
- And how
- Lead Station or?
- Lead’ll do
The Lead Station was a bar cum restaurant in the increasingly fashionable Beech Road n the increasing fashionable Chorlton. In recent years Chorlton had suffered that familiar blight of a relatively cheap mixed neighbourhood – think Irish, student, bohemian, alternative, organic, young professionals –t hat becomes so fashionable and popular that he kind of people who made it so interesting can no longer afford to move or live there.
Martha was nursing a Corona at the bar when Paul arrived. They shared a brief kiss.
- Hi mystic
- Hi Martha, you early or
- Yeah, you know me.
Martha was always, always early and Paul usually about punctual.
- Nother drink?
- Na, I’m ready to eat
Paul signalled the barman for a Corona and then made their way into the restaurant area
- How are you Paul, you look bushed
- If not only (They both laughed) I am… and I’m worried about Frankie
- Me too, he’s still off work thank goodness…. That Claudia is a minx
- You reckon? (Paul was surprised at Martha’s unusual forthright judgement of Claudia but there again she did work for Frankie was very fond of him and protective of him in the way that secretary’s can often be)
- I reckon… Frankie was fine until she turned up
- Yes but-
- No buts… He was level headed enough
- Frankie… level headed?
- - OK maybe not (They both laughed) but after he split up with his wife and came out things did get better for him
- True
- And now…
- And now?
- And now we must all do what we can
- Sure
They both paused to drink a slug of their Coronas.
- Anyway what’s with you?
- With me?
- Yes you
There was another brief pause whilst their waiter took their food order.
- Well I guess it is all getting a bit much fro me… Clients is one thing, friends another… With clients I have a professional role and can look after myself… but Frankie and Claudia …well it does me in
- Hmm
- Yeah
- I heard you were there for 36 hours at his bedside
- Yes
- Perhaps you better come to mine tonight?
- Yes I’d like that
They clinked their beer bottles to acknowledge this agreement.

Before heading off to Martha’s place they decided to go dancing at battleship Potemkin a new nitespot that had opened up in the student area of Withington. It had massive photos of Russian sailors and ships plastered on its walls and did a regular 80s retro night on Wednesdays. Paul loved to dance to the music of his childhood and adolescence – Pet Shops Boys, OMD, Culture Club etc. Dancing for Paul was sometimes akin to a mystical experience, even without drugs or alcohol. He wasn’t always good to watch, indeed at first he would be dancing out his tensions but later as his body relaxed his dancing became more fluid and graceful. He would then feel like he could dance all night without effort which he sometimes did. Many was the time that eh had danced until a club had closed at 2, 4 or 6 am.
It was not easy to be Paul’s dance partner but Martha was used to him and music had a somewhat similar meaning to her, if less intense. And dancing was part of what they did together. And they sparked each other’s energy and movements. After such dancing it was natural to end up in bed together. Indeed this was how their relationship had begun.

Mystic detective (18)

Mickey was waiting for Paul in Fuel, nursing a coffee and a black eye. Not a recent one, it was a lovely shade of yellow and purple. So presumably he had not had a run in with Samantha who was serving behind the counter that day. Unlike most of the Fuel staff Samantha was well spoken and pleasant without much obvious attitude. However, Paul had witnessed her dealing very effectively with a rather overly familiar male visitor.
- Hi Mickey, been in the wars?
- No, not a domestic, just some drunken idiot at Piccadilly gardens last Saturday night. And I wasn’t even on duty at the time!
Samantha brought Paul’s cappuccino and veggie breakfast over and served him with a smile. Her smile lit up her face and made Paul feel good inside. Mickey waited until she left
- She smiled!
- Must be my charm and charisma!
- Charisma my arse!
They laughed and Paul began eating with relish.
- So mystic what can I do for you?
- What’s the word on the street about OM?
- Thieving load of buggers – pardon my French –worse than Man U and that’s saying something
- Any evidence?
- Nothing that will stand up just yet
- Ah so you are after them
Mickey glanced around the room checking whether they could possibly be overheard,
- We do have them under surveillance
- Oh
- Yeah for immigration fraud for starters
- I don’t want to queer your pitch but I have a client to find whose gone missing
- OK but keep me posted and stay out of harm’s way
- I am thinking of visiting them in California
- OM in California? (Paul nodded) If you do go speak to me again before you do and I’ll put you in touch with our opposite numbers – FBI – over there in Santa Barbara.

Soon after Mickey left Apple Mac came into Fuel. Apple Mac – real name Thomas Macintyre was probably the geekiest of the cyber regulars who hang out at Fuel – hence his nickname. He was tall and pretty thin and pretty too in a rather rough and ready way. He was wearing his habitual uniform of black jeans, black T shirt and a black leather jacket all of which had seen better days. He had black curly rather lank hair and black Buddy Holly style glasses although he wouldn’t have known it.
Paul had texted Apple to dig out what eh could find on OM by ‘fair means and foul’ and had arranged to meet him at Fuel that morning
- Hi Apple
- N’ Paul
- What have you got for me?
Apple passed over some printed sheets – a mixture of web pages and plain text.
- Headlines?
Paul noticed once again how with Apple his own conversation style became rather brief and monosyllabic and he wondered if Apple had this same effect on everyone he encountered.
- They are a scam (Paul nodded). They move people around… take a cut from their earnings… they supply their false documents… keep a hold on them permanently
- Anything else?
- Money laundering…. Maybe drug dealing… but small scale mostly Chinese
- Drugs or people?
- Both
- Spying?
- Anything for money
- Whose behind them?
- Not sure
- Guess?
- Triads… mafia
- Thanks
- Be very careful… website had a cyber lock and booby traps… it would be hard not to be detected
- You weren’t?
Apple shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.
- Of course… What do I owe you?
- The usual… plus
- Plus?
- Full veggie breakfast.
Paul smiled and signalled over to Samantha. Apple was already keying into his notepad. Paul paid Samantha, smiled and left.
Apple’s information matched Mickey’s and more and it fitted Paul’s growing sense of what OM was about. There were still too many unanswered questions and Paul was not that sure he wanted to get hat involved. Frankie was on the mend, Claudia was safe in rehab for the moment and only Percy Hampton, the husband of his client, remained in OM’s clutches.

Mystic detective (15)

[With thanks to Patrick and Josie]

Paul was having a bad night. He couldn’t sleep. He was worried about his friend Frankie, Claudia’s heroin addiction and what the hell to do about OM? To cap it all, his daughter Catherine was staying with him overnight and needed to be up in good time fro a school trip early the next morning. Paul heard his daughter get up and enter the bathroom woke up as usual by her travelling alarm clock. He stared myopically at his beside digital radio alarm which was a blur of numbers to him. He got up and met coming out of the bathroom which shocked her and caused her to flinch away from his gaze,
- It’s Ok sweetheart
She smiled in reply and went back into her bedroom and firmly closed the door. Paul made his way downstairs dog (or was it cat?) tired. His kitchen clock read ten past six, so just the right time for a brew and to pout an orange juice for Catherine and to prepare her fruity breakfast of diced pear and Greek yoghurt.
He sat down and yawned and glanced again at the kitchen clock. Oh hell, it was not morning at all but twenty to two - the middle of the bloody night, not ten past six but half past one. Back to bed lying flat out unable to sleep, not worth trying, too tired to do anything but to let his mind wander, maybe musing on Van Morrison’s Hymns to the silence which starts out about a relationship that’s being missed but ends up like a mystical love song to the divine, a vocal version of Rumi’s poetry.
Questions came to Paul unbidden. How did Claudia first become an addict? Who first turned her on? Who supplies her and how does she pay for it or rather in what currency? What was OM’s role if any in her addiction? And as sure as hell it was playing a part.
And Frankie? His old mate, well out of his depth and heading for a breakdown. (‘I can’t bear Frankie to lose it like Marie did. Who can help Frankie? I can’t. Let me talk to Keith the gay vicar about him.’) Keith – the Reverend Keith Poulson, was a one-ff. he was a passionately committed Church of England Christian, inspired by the life of Christ and the life of the Early Christian church, with a wicked sense of humour and delightfully camp manner which only barely masked a truly compassionate and loving soul. Keith’s church was in a poor beat up part of South Manchester. Somehow Keith’s own very brokenness/not fitting in made him a magnet for worried souls who needed to talk and listen to one another without judgement – ‘let he who is without sin let him cast the first stone’ was a popular line of Christ’s never very far from Keith’s lips. And it worked, it wasn’t orthodox and it regular almost gave the Bishop a heart attack on hearing even a watered down version of Keith’s ministry. Needless to say Keith’s congregation loved him to bits. Yes Keith might well work wonders if anyone could with Frankie.
[And where did Paul meet Keith? Well it was a strange book launch at Manchester Cathedral but that’s another story – Murder at the cathedral?]
Meanwhile Paul had fallen asleep again just before dawn and his radio alarm clock was sounding and the curiously grating voice of John Humphreys was speak from the Radio and invading his dreams. His bedside clock radio was saying ten past six for real this time as Paul checked it out with his glasses on.

Mystic detective (12)

‘Don’t give all your Northern pain’ sang Neil Tenant through Paul’s headphones on the train to London. London had been the magic metropolis of his childhood and a place for teenage delights later. But no older but probably no wiser London was more like a down at heel eccentric but still lively aunt. ‘I’m getting too old for this caper. No I’m getting to healthy to want to live this way’.

Paul was in London for a meeting with Abdul who insisted that he had some hot information on OM and must, must see Paul right away. Abdul was in London for a few days prior to an extended visit to India – ‘sort of spiritual sabbatical’ and he had information he did not want to put in an email or speak on Skype or over the phone about – ‘call me paranoid if you like’.

They had agreed to meet up at Euston Station and then walk to a nearby coffee shop. This way it would be easy to tell if they were being followed. Abdul had a cautious edge to him and kept looking back and stopping to look in shop windows.

They found a small brightly decorated but otherwise nondescript café – Kool and sat down with a cappuccino for Paul and an Americano for Abdul.
- So
- So mystic
- What have you got for me?
With a quick glance around Abdullah leaned forward and spoke
- This OM shit is even worse than thought
- Yeah?
- Yeah. They have got a dirty trick department and by the saints it is dirty. They target anyone they don’t like, anyone who speaks out against them so you be careful Paul. They’ll plant newspaper stories, arrange sexual set-ups for you in which you get videod in compromising situations. They’ll even get people to testify against you. They’ll use drugs (Paul nodded)… People have been beaten up. Documents they’ll forge them. Computers, phones, mobes, they’ll hack them. You name it they’ll do it
- Why?
- Why?
- Yes why?
- This is the key bit. OM is whatever their Guru decides it will be. OM serves its Master who is keen to build up his fortune and influence. He has 7 Roll Royce, one for each day of the week, one for each chakras – you know what the chakras are? (Paul nodded) – each one one colour of the rainbow, each colour linked to a different chakra.
- Apart from serving their Guru what else is OM about?
- One of its rackets is illegal immigrants, they are old hands at forging papers, changing people’s identities, moving people between their various centres. They are also heavily into the high end of the drug trade mostly coke. And they’ve got big connections in the Tory party and the police.
- This makes so much sense to me and pulls together a lot of what I already know…. But what are they really up to? What’s their ultimate aim?
- They are amoral, they hide behind their simplification of Hinduism. Their spirituality is a front – well I guess some of them truly believe it but not the leadership and certainly not their Guru
- And is there something big, something else going on?
- Yes, said Abdul who suddenly went quiet as a stranger entered the deserted café. He was white with denim jeans and jacket with next to no hair, deep set blue eyes, designer stubble and the body of a man who worked out, every day. Sensing his friend’s discomfort Paul said, ‘Let’s go.’
Abdullah nodded but first went to the bathroom.

Paul waited and watched while the stranger bought a coffee. A few minutes passed and Paul began to grow uneasy and decided to check out the toilets. They were empty apart from Abdul’s prayer cap lying on the ground. Paul frowned. Abdul would never leave his prayer cap behind and certainly not on the floor.

Outside the toilet was a door that led out on tot eh backstreets and it was ajar. Paul quietly slipped outside but there was no sign of his friend.

Mystic Detective(8)

Paul was in Leeds – only an hour or so away from Manchester – but a very different culture. Not as cosmopolitan or as rich as Manchester and a different kind of meanness haunted its city streets. Both cities had known poverty (and still did) especially during Paul’s childhood in the 1980s when the destructive madness of Margaret Thatcher blighted a whole generation in the North.

The recovery was slow. Manchester re-branded itself as a modern multi cultural post industrial city. Dirty deals were done with the money men and a boom of sorts resulted. Leeds with its lingering Yorkshire dourness was slower off the mark but a kind of prosperity seemed to arrive by the mid to late 1990s.

Paul was in Leeds for a meeting with an informant, Clive, a disillusioned ex member of OM who Frankie had tracked down via an ex student of his. They met in the bar at lunchtime at the Playhouse Theatre among luvvies and wrinkles. Clive was a youngish looking man dressed in a lurid T shirt (featuring the Clash of all bands!) and jeans despite the rather cold Autumnal weather. He was thin and tall with a pencil thin moustache and a goatee beard, looking rather like a hackneyed painter but without the acne.

- I understand you can help me with some information about OM
- It will cost you (was the reply as Clive, furtively looked round and leaned forward to speak softly to Paul)
- Fine, if its good
- How about one hundred quid upfront?
- Fifty for starters
- OK
Paul handed over 5 ten pound notes.
- What do you want to know?
- Well, a client of mine has a daughter who got caught up with OM and when she left they wouldn’t let her go, started stalking her, demanding money…
- Sounds typical
- What’s it all about, I don’t get it
- You need to understand the way they think
- Tell me
- Well. The self as we no it is an illusion. When you join OM then you lose your separateness and join the Overself, the OM Self. So everything you have is signed over to OM. Until you take this step you wont be happy. When you do you are guaranteed eternal bliss. OM will then take care of all of your material needs. They target well off unhappy people, loners, people with a spiritual itch.
- So what happens when you leave?
- Probably your client’s daughter had not done the final death of the self ceremony.
- Death of the self?
- Yes it’s a ritual practice in which the sanyasin fasts for 72 hours and then at dawn a special ceremony occurs in which they are given a new OM name and hand over all their worldly goods.
- Hmmm (Paul remembered the state his friend Xavier was in after his time at the OM Centre in York and his own visit their.)
- It sounds like she quit just before the ceremony and that they are trying to get her back. They are very good with IT stuff. They’ve hack into her email, Facebook, Myspace and Twitter accounts. Probably even her mobile phone.
- How do you stop them?
- They are very tenacious
- You might be able to pay them off but it would cost a packet. And they don’t like people quitting and telling what happened.
- You got contacts
- Yes but it will cost you (Paul assed over another 50 quid) and don’t tell them were you got the information. York is not their main centre. It is just their public face, it is their level one. It is at their level two centre that the real damage is done. That’s where the death of the self happens. Their level two centre is in California.