The Sudoku Inheritance

Part I - Foreplay

And everything had all gone black.  

Now, the blackness had engulfed me. There was no light on in my brain. Time to give in to the black. Time to give up hope. 

But wait! 

A flash of light from down the beach. 

It must be Jasmine. 

She'd seen me. Any minute now she'd pull me from the mire, break its claws and haul me to safety.  

But it was only a tormenting flash of lightning whose thunderous roar rumbled all around me like a goading pack of hyenas. 

Please, sweet Jesus, I will go to church if you save me now. I will give my money to the poor... most of it... I will try to be less wrathful, less greedy, less slothful, less proud, less lusty - that could be hard - less envious, and less gluttonous, and less of any other sin you can think of. 

Oh, God, I will take life seriously and treasure it forever. I will... Please... Please... Please... 

But the other gods, Zeus and his brother Poseidon, simply laughed and continued their hectoring. Wave after wave tossed me around like a salad spinner. Again and again they rolled the dice and played their game.  

It was a game that only they could win.

Part I - Foreplay 

Chapter 1.  

A few months earlier. 

You'd expect to find a goddess in a temple or on Mount Olympus or somewhere esoteric, but not here in the supermarket. The first time I saw Jasmine was Thursday evening, my regular re-stocking day, looking suitably goddess-like and serene contemplating the dairy aisles. As shops have now usurped churches as places of worship then maybe the Temple of Sainsbury's made a perfectly reasonable venue for a deity trying to move with the times.  

Her long, sleek, black hair hung down the back of her short white summer raincoat like an unmined seam of anthracite. Black heeled shoes accentuated her shapely legs, legs that disappeared up into the raincoat to an unimaginable rainforest of pleasure. She reminded me of Ellen Barkin in that classic film with Al Pacino, what was it called?... The Sea of Love, where she meets him in an all night grocery store, dressed in nothing but a raincoat and high-heeled shoes. And I mean nothing.  

I could see from her basket that she had already selected skimmed milk and salads and was deliberating over the yoghurts. I quickly dreamt up a casual gambit, "Excuse me, but what's the difference between this Greek yoghurt and the other ones? Is it healthier?" How could that fail to engage her - a man who is careful about his food. 

"What?" She turned to face me. Beautiful green eyes... that looked blankly at the toad that had slithered up beside her. 

"Greek. Is it healthier?" I repeated, pointing to the display. Not that I cared really but I could imagine licking it off her sweet body with honey and... 

"No idea," she replied curtly, and she was gone before I could even begin to debate the merits of probiotics and prebiotics. 

Rejection and defeat are two words that really have no place in my vocabulary, they are simply synonyms for must try harder. 

Why had she spurned me so quickly? She couldn't possibly have a boyfriend already. How did I know? Well, you can always spot the single girls in the supermarket by the contents of their baskets. At least, that is the theory behind my latest blockbuster Kindle e-book How to Pick Up Girls in Sainsbury's. That is, if I ever get around to writing it. Their shopping basket would be full of yoghurts, skimmed milk, fruit juice, quorn, salads, brown rice and bread. All in small packets. And of course, a shed load of toiletries. Definitely no Shredded Wheat, baked beans or Gillette Mach 3 razors. On second thoughts, three-bladed razors would be OK but no way would a girl be seduced by the techno-babbling adverts for five blades - only a vain man would fall for that. Oh, and tampons: boxes of them - regular, lite, super-lite, mega-heavy - how can it all be so complicated?