The Sudoku Inheritance

Part I - Foreplay

I should have walked away.  

But no. My groin said stay.  

And it always wins.

One look at the SuDoku told me that it belonged in the "extremely fiendish" category. What it didn't tell me was precisely how fiendish the other players would turn out to be. Male or female. Black or white. Beatles' fan or Mozart. Who could you trust?  

It should have been a doddle. They always are. Hard, difficult, fiendish - bring 'em on, I say.  

It should've been a steal. In fact, I stole it from Jasmine. Goddess Jasmine, from the New Church of Sainsbury's. I hadn't yet managed to steal her heart so I started with something easier. 

Easier? 

Yeah right!

Oh, and I haven't even begun to mention the family baggage. More skeletons in more cupboards than the average city mortuary. And that's before we get to mine. 

As for clues? Well, the fish counter at my local Tesco has fewer red herrings.

The SuDoku wasn't hard. Not even difficult. Just frigging impossible. 

But I did it. 

Well, we did it. Me and the girls.

Apparently, SuDoku literally means each digit occurs just once. I know now which digit I'd use just once on the next puzzle - the forefinger on my right hand. Up yours, Mr SuDoku!

 

If I had my way, every SuDoku puzzle would carry a sticker:

GOVERNMENT WARNING 

SuDoku can seriously damage your health

Prologue 

When I was a boy, I loved the sea. 

It allowed me to float free.  

Free of all childhood worries: teachers, history and Latin, bullies, acne, pubic hair, and girls.  

Free of uncertainty. 

Life was simply a big carefree game. 

Then one day - it was a summer solstice, they said - a storm blew and savagely washed away my boyhood. 

Within seconds, freedom had turned to imprisonment and a yoke of guilt burdened my young slender shoulders . Whispers, innuendos, accusations and admonishments became my companions. 

The sea had betrayed me. 

And I loved the sea no more. 

Now, some twenty years later, having built a reef of protective isolation around my island, that same capricious sea was playing another cruel game. 

Having stole my childhood, it was now taking my manhood too. My very life. 

Davy Jones had set aside a locker with my name on it. 

There was no point in fighting fate. 

There was a full moon, which meant high tide was in the early hours of the morning in these waters. I had been tumbled viciously over the reef of razor-sharp rocks like a pair of stone-washed denims. The rocks formed a natural groyne - a groyne in my groin, I mused, my puerile sense of humour not quite battered into submission. Those rocks got covered two or three hours before high water so I figured it must be around midnight, but logical thought was not my strong suit at the moment, so I could have been hopelessly wrong. I knew that if I didn't get inside the reef then I'd be swept clear past the headland, on across Bournemouth Bay, and down to the Channel Isles. Next stop Ireland or even America.