Like a fresh turd draws flies.

A few thoughts, rough draft only, on developing a writing project.

A high granite wall stretched as far as the eye could see in both directions. The only break in the wall was a metal gate, painted dark green and supported by twin upright slabs of stone. Beyond the wall was a seemingly unbroken forest of trees. I left my car alongside the wall and climbed out to inspect the gates. Solid oak, eight feet high, solid enough to withstand a rocket attack. No joy there.

I took a step back, leapt jumped up to clamp my fingers over the top rail and heave myself up, feet scrabbling for purchase, until I was sitting astride the gate and looking out at the other side. A broad stretch of tarmac bordered by a thick grove of trees on either side led towards a sharp curve fifty metres from my vantage point when it disappeared from view. I swung my other leg over the gate and prepared to drop down to the ground. As I moved a tiny camera swiveled with my movement, tracking my every move. I faced the lens and smiled my most ingratiating smile. So they knew I was coming? So what?

As I set off along the drive, I tried to visualise the house that I was about to see. It would be grand. That much was certain given the surroundings and the impressive nature of the entrance but beyond that I knew nothing.

Five minutes steady walking later and I was beginning to have my doubts that the house even existed. Maybe this was some Victorian folly; a long curving path to nowhere.

The trees on either side merged high overhead muffling the sound of my footsteps to an eerie silence. It was dark enough on the path and beyond the fringe was a black mystery. Anything could be living in the depths of these woods, watching my every step and edging closer all the time. I stepped up my pace as an irrational chill settled in my bones.

Seed pods crackled underfoot like breakfast cereal and stray fingers of fern reached out from the verges. Another long sweeping curve revealed nothing more than more of the same; a gravel drive neatly bisecting dark and mysterious woods.

Five more minutes of brisk walking, practically marching, and still there were only trees and even more trees in view. When the house finally appeared, fronted by a vast expanse of immaculate lawn, I came to a juddering halt.

This wasn’t a house as I understood the term, this was a palace. A frontage of soft golden stone with window ledges picked out in a delicate cream, an irregular roof line with great swooping curves above the windows in the eaves and a vast studded central door faced the lawns.

What I took to be the former lodge or coach house, now converted to garages, was larger than almost any house I’d ever seen before.

For all its size and opulence, the overwhelming virtue for any owner would surely have been privacy. The encircling woods and the seemingly endless entrance drive shielded the house and its occupants from the prying eyes of other less fortunate mortals. The site had obviously been chosen with seclusion in mind.

The trees were all mature broad-leaved specimens, surely already in their prime when the original owner commissioned his first architect’s plans.

I seemed to have spent an age studying the façade of the house. Actually it hadn’t been that long. No more than a climber took to plan the best route up the North Face of the Eiger.

I took a step towards the entrance and for the first time wondered what sort of welcome I was about to face. The occupants knew from their little camera that I was on the way and had plenty of time to anticipate my arrival. Technically I was a trespasser – rather more than technically actually -  and hardly likely to be greeted with a welcoming glass of sherry and an invitation into the drawing-room for toasted muffins.

I took a second step and my left foot slipped to one side sending me crashing to the ground. It wasn’t the most graceful of falls with limbs pirouetting slowly through the air: I fell like a sack of spuds tossed into the boot of a car.

Rising on one knee and in the act of climbing to my feet, I saw what I would otherwise have missed: a slender strand of dull wire stretched at ankle height around the entire perimeter of the lawn. Literally, a trip wire! Presumably linked to some sort of alarm system in the main house. I stepped daintily over the wire and walked swiftly towards the house until I stood at the foot of the steps before the main entrance.

As if by mutual arrangement, the door opened and a man appeared. He was exceptionally tall, even standing in silhouette his head reached almost to the top of the door frame and this was a very big door, with broad shoulders and close-cropped hair. I moved forward.

At close quarters he was even bigger. A veritable giant and not a big friendly one either. Large coarse hands with bony knuckles and

a shiny scar like knotted rope above his right eye.  His jacket strained to contain the broad expanse of his shoulders. I’d not be picking any fights with this man.

Unsmiling and expressionless, he stood absolutely still in the doorway until I was right in front of him. Still without any change of expression, he turned abruptly and entered the dark hall behind him. I followed, a pace behind, down a long hallway, our shoes clattering on the marble tiles.

A plain door at the far end of the hall was partly ajar. My silent companion inclined his head towards it, moving to one side to allow me to pass by.

I walked into a vast room, dark panelling all around and leather sofas arranged around an Adam fireplace that must be worth more than the average house. The man facing me beckoned me closer.

‘You attract trouble like a fresh turd draws flies,’ he said.

I nodded. ‘Attention-seeker, that’s me,’ I replied. ‘You’re not the easiest person to find, Jimmy.’

‘No,’ Jimmy agreed. ‘So I’ve been told. What’s so important you felt the need to put three of my best boys in hospital just to get my attention?’

‘Best boys? I don’t think so.’

Jimmy gave a bark of laughter. ‘No, perhaps not. I should have sent Thomas instead. You met him just now. I very much doubt we’d be having this conversation if I had.’

I grinned. No arguments from me on that score. Jimmy was old school. I was safe enough here. In his home. He looked and acted like a retired schoolteacher, but he had been directly responsible for most of the Class A drugs trade in this city for the past decade. He’d knocked a few heads together in his day, but now that pleasure had been delegated to men like Thomas.

‘So, then, what’s so important you couldn’t have rang my secretary to arrange?’ The question was light-hearted, but there was steel behind the words. The next few minutes would determine whether I returned to my car the same way I came in or in the back of a van to be dumped outside the entrance of Arrowe Park hospital A and E department.