Читать книгу Timothy Lea's Complete Confessions - Timothy Lea - Страница 28

Breakfast the next morning has as much snap, crackle and pop as a damp cornflake and I am relieved when I can escape from the brooding Mrs. B. and head for the E.C.D.S. At least my reception there won’t be silent. If Mrs. B. goes on like this, I will have to change my lodgings, though probably after my latest episode, that will be taken care of for me.

I am working out my best approach to Cronk when I notice a primrose Rolls Royce pull up alongside me at the traffic lights. It is cleaner than a choirboy’s foreskin and has a venetian blind at the back and a few magenta cushions scattered along the width of the rear window. The driver is about fifty, with close-cropped hair, a small waxed moustache and a pillar box red complexion. He is wearing a camel hair overcoat and backless driving gloves and tapping the wheel impatiently whilst peering fixedly at the red light. Even before I see Sharp sitting by his side I feel positive it must be Major Minto. Neither of them takes any notice of me and as the amber comes up, the car leaps forward and roars out of sight. Nobody at M.S.M. seems to like driving slowly.

I get to the E.C.D.S. before nine o’clock but it is not early enough to beat Garth, Crippsy, Lester and Petal who are all hovering like expectant vultures and waving their morning papers.

“Ooh, but you’ve had it this time, ducky,” squeals Petal, “front page news on half the nationals. Cronky is going to go out of his tiny mind.”

Sure enough “The Sun” carries one of Gruntscomb’s poxy photographs with “How Miss Frankcom was driven to the drink” plastered above it and the “Express” combines that with a picture of the duckpond incident under the headlines “How to make a splash as a driving instructor”. Very funny. Gruntscomb has obviously done a world-class job.

I have no more time to sample the wit of the British press because Cronk sweeps through with an expression on his face like a man who has had his “Special K” laced with cement. He says nothing but merely jerks his thumb at me to follow him into his office.

“Is it going to be like this every day?” says Petal. “I can’t wait to see tomorrow’s papers.”

I tell him to get his roots tinted and pad after Cronk.

“Now—” he starts, but then the telephone rings. He lets it ring for a few moments and then snatches it up. “Where the hell is that girl? She’s never on—. Hello, East Coast Driving School. Oh, I was just beginning to wonder where you were. Yes, I’m sorry to hear that. O.K. Well get in when you can. Goodbye.” He slams down the ’phone. “She’s got ’flu and won’t be in today. Now—” His ’phone rings again. “Good morning, East Coast Driving School, Cronk speaking. Oh yes. Did you—wait a minute. I’m afraid my girl’s away, I’ll have to get the book.” He turns to me. “Get the appointment book from Dawn’s desk.” I hand it to him and he flips through the pages. “Yes, we can manage tomorrow afternoon at four o’clock. You know where we are? And the fees? Good. Oh did you? But then things do get exaggerated a bit you know. Yes, well, goodbye. We look forward to seeing you tomorrow.” He puts down the ’phone and turns back to me.

“The dual control packed in,” I say desperately. “You can check it yourself if you like.”

“I will do that. Now perhaps you can explain how the Echo seems to be following you about everywhere you go. This publicity could ruin us.”

The telephone goes again. “Good morning. East Coast Driving School. Yes, yes. Yes I think we can.” He flips through the book again. “Mrs. Dobson? Fine. Right, we’ll see you then. Oh, did you? Yes, I know what you mean. I’m talking to the young man now. Do you? Well, we’ll have to see about that, Mrs. Dobson. It all depends on our rotation schedules. Goodbye.” He puts the ’phone down and shakes his head. “Woman must be mad, quite me-add! Now, where was I—oh yes, I was talking about all this rubbish in the papers. It’s making us a laughing stock. At your current rate of progress, we’ll be out of business in a few weeks if I go on employing you.” The ’phone rings again.

“East Coast Driving School. You saw our what in the paper? But we don’t advertise. Oh, well. It doesn’t matter. Of course we’d be delighted to enrol you.” He reaches for his pen.

And that is how it goes on all day. Any publicity seems to be good publicity and there are twenty people who ring up to say that they had been meaning to take lessons for years and decided to do something about it after reading about us in the papers. Faced with this sudden upsurge in business Cronky finds it increasingly difficult to keep the rough edge on his tongue and by the time someone from Anglia T.V. rings up to see if I will appear with Miss Frankcom on “Anglia in the News”, he is almost purring.

In fact, I do trip along to the studios and, though I say so myself, I am a wild success, mentioning the East Coast Driving School twice and giving the impression that I love helping old ladies across the road and being kind to animals. Petal notices that my fly is undone but you can’t have everything and overall it must have gone well because for the rest of the week we are besieged with people wanting to learn to drive and one woman from Felixstowe who craves a lock of my hair—I send it to her, of course.

I continue to take Miss Frankcom and people nudge each other in the street as we go past. We are like a travelling advertisement for the E.C.D.S. With all this goodwill and public image flying about I am keen not to spoil it by kicking Sharp in the crutch but this does not change my resolve to get the bastard when the right moment comes along. In the meantime, there is Mrs. Dent to keep me occupied.

She is one of Garth’s pupils, and I can see why when I get a crack at her while he is taking a week’s holiday with his aunt under the shadow of the Brecon Beacons. She is a wispy blonde of about thirty who is constantly biting her lip and fingering her necklace when her hands aren’t creeping round the edge of the driving wheel. She chats to herself at moments of stress and is as mixed up as a kid’s fishing line. I remember birds like her from when I was cleaning windows and I am quick to check out her background as we spiral up towards the golf course.

“What kind of car does your husband drive?” I say conversationally.

“Some kind of Jag, I think. The latest saloon.”

“Has he ever taken you out in it?”

She laughs derisively. “You must be joking. I hardly ever see either of them. No—that’s a lie. I see them together on Saturday mornings when he’s cleaning the blasted thing. I’ve often wished I could get that much attention, but it’s difficult when you’re a woman.”

“He’s fond of the car, is he?” I say innocently.

“Fond of it!? If he had the choice between it and me and the kids I wouldn’t fancy our chances. That and his golf are the only things he cares about.”

For a girl with a soft face she comes over very hard and her voice is flat as shovel.

“What does he do?”

“He’s a Brand Manager for Python’s. That’s like being one of the ones who was crucified next to Jesus.”

“I’ve heard of them.”

“It’s the only thing you ever hear about in our house. That, and ‘why don’t you try and do a bit more with yourself. I give you enough money, don’t I?’ I’m supposed to prance around in front of his business associates just in case the marketing director has a heart attack.”

“What, because of you prancing around in front of him? Don’t hog the middle of the road so much!”

“No! Because of the—oh, it doesn’t matter. The whole bloody thing doesn’t matter. Look, can we stop for a cigarette in a minute?”

“Yes. There’s a lay-by up here on the right. Pull in there.”

She dives in her handbag and lights up as if she was doing it against the clock; then puffs a thin stream of smoke over her left shoulder.

“Do you want one?”

“No. I gave it up.”

“That’s very strong-minded of you.”

“Not strong-minded. Just scared. I was frightened of killing myself.”

“You could die crossing the road.”

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t do it by throwing myself under a car.”

She shrugs her shoulders and gazes out across the golf course.

“That’s the seventeenth over there,” she says.

“Oh.” I try to sound interested. “Do you play too?”

She smiles. “No, I don’t. Where’s Mr. Williams?”

“Garth, you mean? He’s visiting his mum in Wales, I think. You have him usually, don’t you?”

She looks at me a bit sharpish as if she suspects I might be trying to suggest something.

“Yes, that’s right.” She decides that I didn’t mean anything and her expression softens. “I didn’t know you called him Garth.”

“Well, he’s a big fellow, isn’t he?”

“Yes, I suppose he is. What do they call you?”

She settles down in her seat and tilts her head back so she is blowing smoke against the car roof. Her tits stand out firm against her blouse and I would like to put my hands on them. Sitting like this she is asking for it. But you never know with some birds. Often the pushy ones are the first to start yelling for a copper. It’s the quiet ones who won’t look you in the eyes who usually turn up trumps. At least, that is how it was when I was cleaning windows and my clientele is not all that different.

“Well?” she says.

“Well what?”

“What do they call you?”

“Oh!” I’ve been so busy looking at her tits I have forgotten what she was rabbiting about. “I don’t know. I haven’t been with the firm long enough to get a nickname.”

“You make it sound as if you qualify for one when you retire. My husband would approve of that. Another non-contributory fringe benefit.”

Back to the old man again. I don’t have to be able to do the Times crossword to get the message that he is not looming very large in her legend at the moment. It would be nice to think that this probably spelled out a big welcome for my hand testing her knicker elastic but that might not be true either. I have often found that women who rabbit on like maniacs about how wonderful their husbands are become the first to ask you if you would like to see their new counterpanes. This is because they feel guilty about their adulterous desires and don’t want to commit the additional sin of blaming their innocent husbands for them. Similarly, the women who bitch about their husbands are really making them scapegoats for their own lack of guts in not having an affair. “If my husband wasn’t so pathetically jealous and old-fashioned,” they grumble to themselves, “I could have a whale of a time.” The fact is that they are usually dyed-in-the-wool Puritans who would pass out if you tweaked their suspenders coming out of a ‘War on Want’ lunch.

Fascinating lot of old cobblers, isn’t it? No? Oh, well, I don’t blame you if you disagree with me. Any theory you have about women is unlikely to be provable in more than one case. Anyway, there we are, with Mrs. Dent flashing her tits at me and throwing in a bit of thigh for good measure and me wondering what is the best method of getting my hands on both of them. I am also wondering just how much driving Mrs. D. expects to fit into an hour’s session. I don’t mind watching the East wind turn every blade of grass on the Cromingham golf course into a hunchback, but I feel I should be doing a bit more for my money.

“Is this what you usually do when you’re having a lesson?” I say.

“It depends on the instructor,” she says, looking at me like Lauren Bacall used to look at Humphrey Bogart. I wait for her to eject a meaningful puff of smoke in my direction, and sure enough she does.

“You mean that some are more easy going than others?”

“You could put it like that. I prefer to say that some are more imaginative than others.”

“What do you mean?” It’s always worth while asking women that when you don’t know what to say next.

“John Williams knows that there is more to playing golf than hitting a golf ball four hundred yards. Do you know that if there’s a hint of sun, you can lie in the bottom of that bunker by the seventeenth green in a bikini?”

“Fascinating, but what’s that got to do with learning to drive?”

“What’s learning to drive got to do with learning to drive?” She laughs hollowly. “I came out here with my husband once when he was flogging his way round with one of his clients. You could smell him three holes away. Scared stiff that he wouldn’t put up a good show. Wanting not to appear wanting.” She laughs again. “I watched him digging a hole in the bottom of that bunker with the sweat dripping off him and his expression getting more and more racked. And do you know? Just where he was flapping away I had been lying a few days earlier with my lover. Ironic, isn’t it? I started laughing out loud and that made him furious. We had quite a row about it.”

“What did the client do?”

“He didn’t mind. I’m having lunch with him tomorrow.”

“Sandwiches at the seventeenth?”

“No. He’s staying at a hotel. You sound as if you don’t approve.”

“I’m jealous.”

“There’s no need to be.”

She turns towards me and reaches up an arm to pat my cheek. That’s it! I don’t have to have a crystal ball to know what she is thinking. I bend down and kiss her and her tongue comes out like one of those curled up squeaker things that kids blow at Christmas time. At the same time her hand goes down to my fly so fast it might be tied to the top of my zipper with a piece of elastic. She is the quickest worker since God made the world without breaking into double time. I hardly have time to breathe in through the nose before her practised fingers have poured over the side of my jockey briefs like Attila the Hun and she is rummaging away like a champion shop lifter who has got her hand caught down the side of the deep freeze cabinet. Not that there is much frozen goods being displayed. That kind of thing brings me on faster than a Derby winner and I’m giving her a bit of the same before the first appreciative murmur has escaped from her throat.

“It’s a bit cramped in here, isn’t it?” she says.

“Yeah! I used to have a pantechnicon but I fell behind with the payments. Let’s go back to your place.”

“I daren’t do that. I’ve got too many nosey neighbours. What about you?”

“No dice. I’ve got the same kind of problem.” I can just see Mrs. Bendon’s face if I rolled up with this one. She would do her nut. “Come on my lap,” I murmur, helpfully.

“I don’t like that. I can only come when I’m lying flat out.” She’s honest, isn’t she? Germaine Greer herself could not be more direct. “There’s a bunker at the fifteenth,” she goes on. “Let’s go there.”

“Not the sixteenth?”

“It has sentimental memories for me.”

I would not have suspected that she was the romantic type, but there you are. As an alternative to my usual chores as an instructor a length on the links seems very attractive—but in mid-November?

“It’s going to be a bit parky out there, isn’t it?” I say nervously.

“I’ve already told you. Once you get out of the wind it’s alright. Look, there’s even a bit of sunshine.”

She is right, too. A few perished shafts are breaking through the blanket of grey that has hung over my head ever since I left Liverpool Street Station.

“O.K. Let’s give it a whirl.”

“You needn’t sound so enthusiastic. I know some fellows who’d stay all night in an open lifeboat for a chance to hold my hand.”

“I can believe it,” I lie enthusiastically. I mean, really! Twice round the boating pool whilst you finished your cheese sandwich would be more like it. Some women get delusions of grandeur about what they are trying to give away. At least a whore has the guts to put a price on her goodies. As my old schoolmaster used to say: you don’t have to like capitalism but at least it separates the professionals from the amateurs.

Anyway, off we go across the golf course with me trying to look at my watch without her noticing and hoping that we will be able to squeeze a happy memory out of the fifteenth. I reckon she must have played every hole on the course in her day because she does not deviate by an inch but pushes through the bracken and brings us out a long-distance spit from a neat little circle of grass with a flag in the middle of it.

“Where do we go from here?” I ask, but she is already scrambling up the side of a low mound and beckoning for me to follow. When I get there, I can see that we are perched on the edge of a deep sand trap and she squeezes my arm ferociously, presumably intending to suggest the pleasure to come. Down we go and she leans back against the wall of the bunker and gazes at me expectantly. I have to confess that out of the wind it is almost bearable, though I don’t go a bundle on the old Woodbine packets and the used french letter I can see out of the corner of my eye.

“You see,” she says. “It’s quite cosy, isn’t it?”

It is hardly the word I would have used but then I am not a country boy at heart.

“Come here,” I say, which is another great non-phrase I use a lot with birds. Roughly translated, it means: “I can’t think of anything to say so I am going to try to kiss you/put my hand up your skirt/both.”

Mrs. D. offers me her mouth and we chew away hungrily whilst her hands start a reprise of ‘Love’s Old Sweet Song’ on the zip of my fly. The sand is a bit damp and I would normally reckon this as being a knee-tremble job but for what Mrs. D. said about liking to get stretched out for maximum satisfaction. She has pulled open my trousers like the mouth of a flour sack and has got both hands round my hampton while I am easing her knickers down to knee level with a skill any window dresser would envy. It may not be the most elegant sight in the world but it is giving us both a lot of pleasure and I am fast forgetting about the weather. I prod forward a couple of times and Mrs. D. gives a shiver of passion which just might be for real and starts licking my ear.

“I want to lie down now,” she says, “and then you put it in.”

Try to stop me, I think, and, perfect gent that I am, I bend down to remove the panties that are flapping pathetically round her ankles.

In doing this I am hindered by her whole weight suddenly flopping over my shoulders as if she wanted to be given a piggy-back.

“Hey! Steady on—” I begin, thinking this is some kinky game she likes to play, or a request for a muff job, but when I straighten up she slides down between my legs and I notice there is a swelling on the side of her head which is growing as I look at it. There is also a small white ball nestling beside my foot and it has more pock-marks on it than my Aunt Ethel. Some clumsy berk has bounced a golf ball off her bonce! Just my flaming luck. The bloody game should be banned.

“Wake up,” I squeal, slapping her cheeks and gazing into her lifeless mug. “Are you all right?” She does not say anything but groans weakly and pulls her hands up to her head. She is not going anywhere in a hurry in the next few minutes and I am prepared to lay bets on it. One possible taker is the prick who clobbered her and I raise my head carefully over the side of the bunker to see if anyone is coming. By the cringe! Two blokes are striding purposefully towards us and I recognise both of them. Minto and Sharp!

“I don’t know what I’m going to do about my slice,” sings out Minto and I can’t hear what Sharp says. Minto may think he has problems but they are fleabites compared with what is facing me. Caught in a bunker with a senseless, knickerless pupil can’t be good for business. Knickerless! I snatch up Mrs. D.’s panties and shove them into my pocket, dislodging one of her shoes in my frenzy. I force it on again and there she is, looking just like any other thirty-year-old woman you would expect to find lying senseless in a bunker every time you play a round of golf.

It is then that I act foolishly—well, act foolishly again, if you feel that trying to shaft a bird in a golf bunker in the middle of November is a bit stupid in the first place. I pick up the ball and roll it carefully onto the fairway, hoping that Minto and Sharp will stumble upon it and not the lovely Mrs. D. and myself. No sooner have I done this than my pupil starting groaning like she is auditioning for the ‘Red Barn’ and I spring to her side and try to muffle the noise with my shoulder. In this position I am glad to hear a cry of surprise from the fairway.

“Good God, is this your ball?”

“No, I’m on the green,” says the blond streak of piss impatiently, “and you’re in the bunker, so don’t try anything.”

“I’m not trying anything, you fool.” Minto’s voice is quick to sound irritated. “This is a number four and that’s what I’m playing. It must have hit something and come out.”

“Or pigs can fly, or it’s somebody else’s ball. We’ll soon find out.”

Before I can congratulate myself on another great idea, Sharp’s self-satisfied mug appears over the side of the bunker and he pulls back in surprise. Since Mrs. D. and I are kneeling against each other like a couple of out-of-work bookends it is an emotion you can forgive him.

“Good Gawd!”

Sharp’s voice usually sounds dead middle-class with pretensions to something better, but now, caught off guard, it slips a couple of notches.

“What is it?”

Minto looms up at his elbow and his mouth jumps open when he sees us.

“What the hell are you doing down there?”

He is blustering because he is frightened. I don’t blame him. So am I.

“This lady fell into the bunker and hit her head,” I say. Well, it must happen all the time, mustn’t it? Sharp obviously does not agree with me.

“How long have you been there?” he says, suspiciously. “Wait a minute! I know you. You work for Cronk’s crowd. You were at the Shermer YCs the other night with their receptionist. I’ve seen this bloke before—” he starts explaining it all over again to Minto.

“Yeah. And I know you,” I chip in. “You forced me off the road and nearly killed me.”

“You forced yourself off. It was a bloody stupid place to try to overtake.”

“I don’t like this,” says Minto, who has been staring fixedly at Mrs. Dent ever since he saw us. “She’s got a bump on the side of her head.”

“I told you: she fell in,” I say desperately, but Mrs. D. doesn’t help matters by redoubling her groan rate.

“I see what you mean,” says Sharp menacingly. “It’s not the first time something like this has happened up here.”

“Yes. There was that chap—what was his name? Medley? Smedley?”

“Bachelor. Strangled them and then—”

“—when he’d sexually assaulted them—”

“—he buried them in the bunkers.”

“That’s the one.”

They beam at each other like a couple of excited kids who have just landed a large minnow.

“You’re round the twist,” I say indignantly and start to pat Mrs. D.’s cheeks gently.

“Come on, love. You’re all right. Pull yourself together.”

To my relief, her groans start turning into words and she stretches out her arms for support.

“What happened? Where am I? Was there an accident?”

“No, no, it’s all right,” I say soothingly. “Everything is going to be fine.”

But it isn’t. Mrs. D.’s faltering fingers catch hold of her knickers and pull them out of my pocket.

The following few seconds seem like hours and then Mrs. D. drives the final nail into my coffin by uttering her first recognisable words in minutes.

“Those are my knickers,” she says, and her voice has just the right note of surprise and indignation to ensure that any judge worth his assault would have me inside for eleven years.

“Now wait—” I begin, but Sharp does not. Leaping into the bunker, he brandishes his putter like a club of the non-golf variety and throws a few words over his shoulder to Minto.

“You get the police. I’ll hang on to this bastard.”

“Don’t be wet,” I tell him. “You’ve behaving like an overgrown boy scout. I’m no more a sex maniac than you are. A bloody sight less if what I saw last night is anything to go by.”

Although constructed purely out of spite and imagination, this is a master stroke because Dawn has told me that the bird Sharp was with at the YCs dance was none other than Minto’s daughter and that they are practically engaged. Certainly Sharp’s interchange with Minto before my discovery has revealed a considerable familiarity. From the looks on both their faces I can see that this may well be a thing of the past, and I am not slow to follow up my advantage.

“I saw you in the car park with that dark-haired bird. Bloody good job the police didn’t. You want to get some blinds on the car if you’re going to carry on like that.”

“Shut your lying mouth,” howls Sharp, clenching his teeth and bringing back the head of the putter.

“Why? A bit close to home, is it? You don’t mind pointing the finger at other people, do you? But when it comes to—”

“Get the police!” snarls Sharp. “Can’t you see he’s trying to play for time? If we hadn’t got here when we did, he’d probably have killed that poor girl.”

“Just what I thought last night when I saw your friend’s feet wedged against the windscreen,” I go on. But I don’t get any further. Sharp takes a swing at me and the putter slices the air above my head. Before he can try another one I step forward and hook him hard to the pit of the stomach. His head jerks forward and my left swings in and catches him flush on the side of the jaw. They are as pretty a couple of punches as I have ever thrown and when my left whips into his mug I know it is going to need a crane to set him on his feet within five minutes.

At the sight of his mate biting the dust, Minto looks about as happy as a goldfish dropped into a tank of piranha, but he still tries to come cocky with it.

“Stay where you are,” he snaps, his voice quavering a bit. “Don’t try anything.”

“Piss off,” I say, because I am no stranger to the big bluster myself. “Get in my way and I’ll push your face in.”

I get my arms under Mrs. D. and haul her up until I can give her a fireman’s lift on to my shoulder. Sharp is beginning to stir but he is in no mood to cause anybody any problems and I step over him and out of the bunker like Edmund Hillary. Minto runs along beside me, jumping up like a Yorkshire terrier.

“I’ve warned you. You won’t get away with it. Put that woman down. I’ll fetch the police.”

“Why don’t you do that. I’ll lend you a soap box if you have trouble reaching the receiver.”

He splutters something and I keep walking. In fact, I have no idea what I am going to do apart from getting the hell away from the place. Fate obviously does not want me to become a driving instructor and after today’s little episode my career beside the wheel seems likely to become one of the shortest on record.

I stalk over to the car and pour Mrs. D. into the back seat whilst Minto makes an M.G.M. production of taking my number from a safe twenty yards.

“There’s three more on the seventh green,” I shout to him. “I cut them up into little pieces and poked them into the hole with the flag.” I throw in my mad laugh for good measure and he starts scuttling off down the road towards the clubhouse. Good luck to him.

I climb behind the wheel and jet off towards town, wondering what I am going to do with Mrs. D. I am supposed to take her back to the School but I don’t fancy that although I don’t know where she lives. I wish my mind would sort itself out and start thinking clearly, but it won’t.

Luckily, Mrs. D.’s mind is more helpful.

“Ooh, my God!” she groans. “What happened?”

“We were having a quick grope in a bunker when you caught a golf ball across the side of your nut.”

“Ouch!” She touches her temple gingerly. “My God, it feels like another head.”

“It’s not so bad. Just a bruise. You’ll be alright.”

“You don’t sound very worried. I might have been killed.”

“That’s just what my friends thought.”

“What are you on about?”

So I tell her and she makes a few clucking noises and tut-tuts a couple of times and then she actually laughs.

“I don’t see what you’re worried about,” she says finally, patting her hair into place.

“I’m worried about getting fifteen years nick, aren’t I?” I tell her.

“Well, that all depends on me, doesn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, they’re only going to be able to put you inside if you were assaulting me and I’m the only person who can say whether you were or weren’t.”

“Yeah, I see what you mean.” I look at her with new interest. “You’ll tell them it was an accident, of course. Better stick to my story. You know, how you fell into—”

“Turn left up this track,” she interrupts. “You’ll like the view.”

“Well—er—yes, alright.” I would be a mug to argue with her, wouldn’t I? We go along the track for fifty yards and then we are in the middle of a clump of trees with no way out except the one we came in by.

“Where do we go from here?” I ask.

“That’s up to you.” She turns and faces me with her elbow resting on the back of the seat.

“Are you feeling all right?”

She looks at me very levelly. “I’ve got a little pain you might try to kiss better.”

She is a game girl, isn’t she? Either that or a bit gaga after her bash on the bonce. Either way, it’s not in my interest to be less than co-operative, so I slide my arm round her shoulder and start pulling her mouth towards mine. To my surprise, she puts her hand on my lips and shakes her head.

“I thought you said you wanted me to kiss it better?”

“I did, but that’s not where it hurts.”

She stretches back in her seat and at the same time drops her hands and starts gently pulling up her skirt. My eyes go down and I don’t need crystal balls to see what I am expected to do.

“Good boy,” she says, stroking the hair at the back of my neck. “I feel better just thinking about it… .”

Twenty minutes later I am driving Mrs. D. home when a police car roars up alongside me and I am crowded into the side of the road before you can say “All coppers are bastards”. Four fuzz pile out of it like it is on fire and one of them wrenches open my door and stands there breathing hard. He is about to grab a handful of me when he sees Mrs. D.

“Thank God!” he says. “Has this man attacked you?”

“No,” she says. “Have you got one that will?”

This is so clearly not the answer he was expecting that for a moment he is speechless.

“Were you up on Cromingham golf course with him about half an hour ago?”

“About that, yes.”

“And he attacked you in a bunker?”

“No, nothing of the kind. Look, let me tell you what really happened. Mr. Lea here was giving me a driving lesson and I felt a bit sick—something I’d had for lunch, I think—and he kindly stopped the car and walked me across the golf course for a few minutes deep breathing. I must have been a bit off colour because I stumbled and fell into a bunker and the next thing I know was Mr. Lea being menaced by a tall blond man who was threatening him with a golf club. It was horrible.”

Listening to her, I almost believe it.

“Luckily, Mr. Lea managed to overpower the fellow and we got away. There was another one, too. An ugly little red-faced man with a moustache like Gerald Nabarro’s. We were on our way to the police station to report the incident. Perhaps if you got up to the golf course you might still find them. They probably make a living robbing members whilst pretending to be them, if you know what I mean. What a blessing we bumped into you when we did!”

“Are you sure you’re all right, Madam?” The poor sod looks as miserable as Christmas Day with your in-laws.

“Positive, officer, thanks to Mr. Lea here. You will try to catch those men, won’t you?”

“We’ll certainly do all we can, Madam; you can rely on it,” he says grimly and I wish I could be a fly on the wall when he gets back to Sharp and Minto. “Sorry to have troubled you.” He throws a half-hearted salute and goes off talking furiously to his three mates. Four car doors slam in unison and they roar off up the road.

“Phew! That was close,” I gasp. “You were bloody good. Thanks.”

“A girl has to protect her reputation,” says Mrs. D. coolly. She smiles gently and feels in my pocket for her knickers.