Confessions of a Private Dick
BY TIMOTHY LEA

Contents

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Also available in the CONFESSIONS series

About the Author

Also by Timothy Lea & Rosie Dixon

Copyright

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

‘I still don’t understand how she knew that he knew,’ says Sid. ‘When he went down to the waterfront in the rain and they fished the two stiffs out of the drink, the D.A. gave him a funny sort of smile. Did that mean that he knew as well?’

‘Search me, Sid,’ I say. ‘I lost touch when the bloke in the wheelchair opened up with his artificial leg. That bird had a nice pair, didn’t she?’

I see immediately that my observation has given offence. ‘ “That bird had a nice pair”! ’ snorts Sid. ‘Is that all you can think about? I’m trying to have an intelligent conversation about the plot of the film and all you can do is give vent to your knocker complex. Can’t you raise your mind to anything higher?’

‘There wasn’t much higher than those bristols,’ I say. ‘Honestly, Sid, that girl had curves in places where other people don’t have places.’

‘I still can’t understand it,’ muses Sid. ‘Maybe they cut something out of it. All those bleeding commercials. They have to make room for them somehow.’

‘They make it so difficult to follow, don’t they?’ I say. ‘I was wondering who that mysterious bird was who kept running down the beach every half hour. I never cocoed it was a cigar commercial.’

‘You only watch when there’s a bird on the screen, don’t you?’ says Sid. ‘The television companies are wasting their time putting out programmes with blokes as far as you’re concerned. I’d have thought you’d have had enough after our trip home with Nancy and Felicity.’

Do those names ring a bell? If the answer is yes you may well have come across them in Confessions of a Plumber’s Mate. I certainly did. What a right couple of nautical ravers they were. Employed to look decorative on the poop deck of the SK498 at the Indoor Outdoor Exhibition but, in reality, knocking back a couple of bottles of ‘Southern Courage – the drink that lost the South the American Civil War’ – and taking it out on Sid and myself – not so much taking it out as ripping it out! Small wonder that we lost control of the boat as well as ourselves and drove off the marina and through the exit doors at Earls Court. That was all right because the boat was designed to travel on land as well as water. The only drawback was that it did not travel so well under water. We found that out when we ran up the back of a car transporter on the Chelsea Embankment and dived into the Thames. Frankly, I thought we had less chance of coming up than a winning line on a pools coupon but we surfaced just opposite Battersea Funfair – or where it used to be. A bloke who was about to commit suicide by jumping off Battersea Bridge took one look at us and fell backwards in a dead faint – actually, I must be honest, I made that last bit up. Sorry, Mum always said I was a whimsical child.

By the time we got ashore, the romance was deader than a set of election promises and we had drunk all the Southern Courage – or maybe the two things were connected. The girls got a taxi out of our lives and we got a 49 bus leaving a trail of bubbles behind us where the SK498 got its head down for a long kip on the bed of the Thames.

‘I hope that the whole distressing incident is not shambolic of the future of British industry,’ says Sid as we sip our tea and watch the little pinpoint of light die away in the middle of the telly screen.

‘Symbolic,’ I say, thinking as I speak that Sid may be right. ‘Crispin isn’t exactly going to cream his jeans over this lot, is he?’

‘I’ve been thinking about Crispin,’ says Sid.

Just in case your shop was sold out, or in a fit of reckless madness, you thought you could exist without Confessions of a Plumber’s Mate – or you have forgotten – let me point out that Crispin Fletcher is our interior decorator boss/partner who has been instrumental in securing us the job of maintenance men at the Indoor Outdoor Exhibition. As I have intimated, first indications suggest that he is going to be less than totally satisfied with our latest contribution to the profit/loss account of Home Enhancers.

‘What have you been thinking?’ I say.

‘I’ve been thinking that I might have made a mistake,’ says Sid.

This statement affects me like an Irish navvy stamping out his cigar butt on my groin. Though speedy to confess to weakness in others, Sid has never won renown for pointing the rigid digit in his own direction.

‘Mistake, Sid?’ I say.

‘Well,’ Sid double banks his lips in a north-easterly direction and waggles his mitts. ‘More an error of judgement than a mistake. A miscalculation.’ I breathe more easily. For a moment I thought that Sid’s subterranean passage had played havoc with his down the drains. ‘There is a stage beyond Crispin.’

This is indeed interesting news. I had always thought that Crispin went about as far as you could go. It is not everybody that wears pink velvet kneebreeches and sabots especially when they are pushing a wire basket round the supermarket. I know because I saw him. He was wheeling fourteen avocados and a jar of Vaseline at the time – don’t ask me, your guess is as good as mine.

‘When I decided to turn my back on big business,’ says Sid who was sacked from his position at the Slumbernog Bedding Company – ‘And decided that there was too much capital investment involved in the transport business’ – two-thirds of the Nogget transport fleet was wiped out by unfortunate accidents involving ladies – ‘I was approaching the answer: fewer hands make light broth and keep the overheads down.’

‘I see,’ I say, wondering what he is rabbiting on about.

‘Home Enhancers was right in concept but it was a mistake to get involved with Crispin. Even one other bloke can be one bloke too many. There are misunderstandings, personality clashes. What you need is a really lightweight operation: one bloke issuing the orders and another bloke carrying them out with scrupulous attention to detail.’

‘I see,’ I say. ‘So you’re not going to give Crispin another chance?’

If Sid perceives that there is a trace of sarcasm in my voice he is a master at disguising it. ‘I don’t think so,’ he says. ‘I don’t think there would be any point.’ At that moment, the telephone rings. Sid puts down his cuppa and strolls across the lounge of his sumptuous Vauxhall pad. ‘Hello, Crispin,’ he says as the earpiece nestles against his earhole. That is all he does say. He listens for a while and then stares into the mouthpiece like he reckons Crispin might be just visible through the little holes.

‘What did he say?’ I ask.

Sid puts the phone down. ‘He agrees with me.’

‘Well, that’s that then,’ I say. ‘Back to the Labour. It’s getting so crowded these days you have to be early to be sure of a chair.’

‘I know,’ says Sid. ‘It’s hard work, isn’t it? They ought to send it to you through the post. Think of all the clerical staff it would save. One bloke could probably do the whole thing.’

‘Yes, but that would make the others redundant,’ I explain. ‘Then they’d all go on strike, wouldn’t they?’

‘If they were redundant, it wouldn’t matter, would it?’ says Sid. ‘They couldn’t do anything.’

‘They’d probably picket the place so the one bloke who was doing all the work couldn’t get in,’ I say.

Sid’s face contorts in anger. ‘Bastards!’ he says. ‘No wonder this country’s going to the dogs when bloody bolsheviks can prevent you getting your unemployment benefit. What’s the ordinary working man expected to do?’

Further discussion on this interesting point is interrupted by the arrival of a taxi outside the front door. Out of it gets my sister and Sid’s wife – only one person as regular readers will recall – in a soaking wet condition and wearing an expression that would be rejected by a voodoo mask maker as being likely to frighten off prospective customers. Since we are both well acquainted with her vindictive nature and could be accused of having contributed to her bedraggled condition (she fell in the marina when the SK498 went berserk) it is a matter of seconds before we are letting ourselves out by the back door.

‘A taxi,’ says Sid. ‘That’s marvellous, isn’t it? Even if I had a million quid I could never travel in a taxi. I’d feel awkward somehow. But it doesn’t worry her, does it?’

‘I expect she’s more adaptable,’ I say diplomatically. I could also say that, thanks to the success of the boutiques and the wine bars, Rosie is a blooming sight nearer to a million quid than her old man and therefore able to afford the odd taxi, but I deem it inadvisable. There is no doubt that Sid’s half-baked schemes to make money at any cost are a direct result of Rosie’s successful moola-making activities.

‘Hello, Dad Dad.’ The appealing waif fondling his ferret through the bars of its cage with a length of bamboo cane is my nephew, Jason Noggett – or ‘The Child Piranha’ as he is known in some circles.

‘Don’t poke him like that,’ says Sid. ‘He doesn’t like it.’

‘When you buy Jason rabbit, Dad Dad?’ says the little fiend, looking up towards the house thoughtfully.

Sid opens the back gate. ‘I’ve told you! You’re not having one until we get another cage.’

‘That’s right,’ I say. ‘We don’t want Mr Ferret to gobble bunny up, do we?’

Jason flashes me a quick ‘Piss off, Uncle Timmy!’ look and continues to address his father. ‘Mummy home now? Daddy go boozer?’

‘I’m having a word with your uncle,’ says Sid irritably. ‘Where’s Jerome?’

‘We play Red Indians,’ says Jason, giving his ferret a last affectionate poke. ‘He staked out on ant hill.’

In fact, it is only the manure heap next door but the child is in a very anti-social condition.

‘I don’t know what’s got into that child,’ says Sid when we have handed over some ‘sweety money’ blackmail and been allowed to continue on our way. ‘He’s never wanted for anything – except that alligator he’s always on about – and yet he’s a real handful.’

‘Kids today,’ I say in my best ‘old codgers’ manner.

‘That’s right,’ says Sid. ‘Sometimes I think we’re cruel when we try to be kind. You give them too much and they miss out on the simple things.’

‘Still, it’s a violent age, isn’t it?’ I say. ‘That’s got to have an effect on them.’

‘Must have an effect on all of us,’ says Sid. ‘Still, it’s always been like that, hasn’t it? Look at that film on the telly this afternoon. Every time that bloke stuck the brim of his fedora round the frosted glass somebody bashed him over the nut.’

‘And it wasn’t just “The Mob” was it?’ I say. ‘Those Bay City cops were really mean, weren’t they? You needed a paper bag to put your teeth in if you went round to report that your cat was missing.’

‘Yet all the time he preserved a kind of simple dignity, didn’t he?’ says Sid admiringly. ‘One man against a corrupt society – and pulling all the crumpet on the side. Can’t be bad.’ He suddenly clutches my arm. ‘Timmo! I’ve just had an idea.’ Strong men – and ones with brains – run when Sid says that but I stand my ground bravely. ‘You know he worked out of that office above the launderette?’

‘You need capital to set up a launderette,’ I say. ‘Anyway, all the best sites have gone.’

‘I didn’t mean that!’ says Sid. ‘I was referring to the simplicity of the operation. All you need is a telephone. You could do it from home.’

‘Mum wouldn’t stand for it,’ I say. ‘All that washing everywhere. Where would you hang it?’

‘Forget about the bloody washing!’ shouts Sid so loud that an old lady wheels her shopping basket into a lamp post. ‘I’m talking about becoming a private detective. Don’t you see? It’s perfect. No overheads, no partners, no qualifications. Crime is the only growth industry in this country at the moment and more people are getting divorced than get married. We can’t go wrong. What’s more, it’s legit.’

‘Yeah,’ I breathe, buying my imagination a one-way ticket to romantic places. ‘I can just see it: “Timothy Lea, Private Dick”.’

CHAPTER TWO

‘I find it very unsavoury,’ says Mum.

‘So do I,’ says Dad pushing his plate away. ‘I think it was a mistake to fry it. I never heard of anybody frying spaghetti.’

‘I thought it would make a change,’ says Mum. ‘It seems wicked to throw food away these days. Anyway, I wasn’t talking about that. I was referring to this detective business. I don’t like to think of Timmy getting mixed up with a lot of criminals.’

‘You’ve left it a bit late to express concern in that direction, haven’t you?’ sneers Dad. ‘It’s the criminals you ought to start feeling sorry for. Get your precious Sidney amongst them and they’ll be asking for police protection. He’ll be in his element with a load of Bernards.’ (Bernard Dillon: Villain. Ed.)

‘Do you want your father’s spaghetti?’ sniffs Mum. ‘There’s some more gravy.’

I decline gracefully and wonder how Mum manages to get that distinctive roasted flavour into the tea.

‘I hope the neighbours don’t get to hear about it,’ says Dad. ‘You remember what it was like when Mrs Brown’s boy became a copper. Nobody would speak to the family for three months. Even when he got busted for nicking the Doctor Barnardo’s box, people were slow to forgive. It won’t be easy for your mother and I if the news gets out. We’re well thought of in this neighbourhood.’

‘Only because people think you’re a fence,’ I say. ‘All that stuff you nick from work. It’s no wonder we had that bloke round with the rings.’

Dad’s habit of knocking off items from the lost-property office where he works has not gone unnoticed by the neighbours. Probably because he has an unhealthy leaning towards large stuffed animals that do not fit snugly into any of the suitcases he has nicked. Talking of suitcases, I remember how when I was a kid I used to think he was a conjurer. He brought home this blooming enormous suitcase, opened it, took out another suitcase, opened it, took out another suitcase, opened it, took out— in the end he had six suitcases and a set of cork table mats with the pattern nearly faded away. I remember how disappointed I was with the table mats because they did not do anything. It was like a game of pass-the-parcel when you end up with a tooth brush.

‘I’ve never done anything to reproach myself with,’ moans Dad. ‘I’ve served three kings and a queen and none of them found cause to point the finger at me. They weren’t half-inched, those rings. They’d just fallen off the back of a lorry, that’s all.’

‘Must have been why most of the stones had jumped out of their settings,’ I say. ‘You were done there, there’s no doubt about it.’

‘The boy’s right, Walter,’ says Mum. ‘That eternity ring you gave me dissolved the first time I did the washing up.’

Dad is still shouting about ingratitude as I go out of the door. Sid has made me responsible for finding us an office and I have an appointment with a Miss Bradford who is going to show me some offices at ‘my end of the market’. I remember the phrase because the geezer I spoke to on the phone underlined it when I told him how much we were willing to pay. Sid has a theory that it is an advantage for a private eye to have an office on the shady side of town and there seems little likelihood of him failing to achieve his aim.

Miss Bradford is richly knockered and has a dark complexion – very dark. In fact she is black all over, or, at least, all the parts I can see. Hold my bike for a minute and I’ll check. I gaze with interest at the way the waft and weft of her sweater is being stretched asunder by the thrust of her bust and then move up to her wide brown eyes. Two of them, placed on either side of her hooter to achieve maximum effect. She seems surprised to see me.

‘You’re much younger than the fellers I usually show round,’ she says. ‘What are you, a designer, commercial artist?’

‘I’m a dick,’ I say. The moment I hear how it sounds I wish I hadn’t. ‘A private investigator,’ I correct myself.

Miss Bradford nods. ‘Good, I thought you might need a lot of daylight for your work. In most of the places I’ll be showing you, you wouldn’t be able to see if you were holding your pencil the right way round unless the light was on.’

‘Where are you from?’ I say, always dynamite when it comes to casual banter.

‘Peckham,’ she says.

‘I meant before that.’

‘Southwark.’ Her eyes send tracer bullets towards mine. ‘You thought I was going to say Bongo Bongo, didn’t you?’

‘South Bongo Bongo,’ I say. ‘I’m from Clapham, myself. Europe’s Disneyland. It’s looking lovely this time of year. The goal mouths are cutting up a bit but you can’t have everything, can you?’

Miss Bradford does not reply to my question and I sense that the state of the football pitches in my homeland is not of prime concern to her. There is more than a touch of the Matilda Ngoblas about her and it is a real trip down mammary lane to case those bounteous boobs. Matilda, faithful readers will recall, used to be one of our next door neighbours at 17 Scraggs Lane, ancestral home of the Leas since times immoral and it was with her that I proved that two young people can reach across the barriers of race and colour, and have it off on the sitting-room carpet just like you and me – well, just like me and your sister. Unfortunately, Dad’s unexpected arrival put the kibosh on that spot of instant romance but I see no reason why lightning Lea should not strike twice.

‘What do you think of it?’

I wrench my mince pies off Miss Bradford’s bristols and look round the room. ‘This is where the bluebottles come to die, is it?’ I say with a light laugh.

‘It needs cleaning up,’ agrees the comely blackamoor. ‘Still, what do you expect for the money you’re prepared to pay? It’s a wonder you’re not working out of a telephone box.’

We would have been if Sid had thought of it, I muse to myself idly tracing ‘fuck’ in the dust on top of the desk – well, it makes a change from ‘clean me’, doesn’t it? One thing I do like about the office is the frosted glass in the door that gives out on to the corridor. Just right for grabbing a trailer of Lauren Bacall’s profile or the outline of the two hoods who have come to bounce you off the walls. I can just see myself behind the desk reaching out for the two fingers of Tizer that live in the top right hand drawer and – hang on a minute! The profile outside the door is not at all the kind of thing I was thinking of. It is of some geezer armed with an enormous hard going into orbit at an angle of forty-five degrees to his body. I glance at Miss Bradford and see that she has clocked this new threat to our already over-congested airways. An expression more of interest than of outrage hovers around her dusky chops. This is too much! I always suspected that flashers had big ones and this proves it. Filthy brute, going around making everyone discontented with their lot – or in my case, not such a lot.

‘Excuse me,’ I say briskly. ‘I must put an end to this.’

‘Just what I was thinking,’ murmurs Miss Bradford wistfully.

I try not to think what she means by that remark and wrench open the door. Maybe if I gave the bloke 10p he would go and stand outside somebody else’s office.

‘Now look—!’ I begin. I stop when I see an old man holding a broom at his side. ‘All right?’ I say weakly.

The old man looks me up and down as if he finds it a very unrewarding occupation. ‘Your flies are undone,’ he says. I mumble something and close the door.

Miss Bradford is laughing. ‘I thought that was too good to be true,’ she says.

‘Yeah. Looked, er – a bit funny, didn’t it?’ I say.

‘Looked like the answer to a maiden’s prayer,’ says Miss Bradford. ‘That’s what sent you bustling to the door, wasn’t it? You didn’t like the competition.’

‘I don’t think of flashers as competition,’ I say. ‘They do that instead of the real thing.’ I turn my back and do up my fly.

‘Are you going to give me a demonstration?’ mocks Miss B.

‘What of?’ I say.

‘That’s up to you. You’re handling the equipment.’

‘I’m not handling it,’ I say. ‘I’m readjusting my clothing.’

‘Are you shy?’ she says.

If I was going to be honest, I would say yes. Self-confident birds always knock me back on my heels and this one is a spade to boot. We all know what they’re like, don’t we? Carrying a black anaconda between their legs and blessed with a natural sense of rhythm. It is not the dancing I am worrying about as much as the ballroom if you take my meaning. Percy is no pouch slouch but size-wise he may fall a few feet short of what Miss Bradford is used to when the tom toms beat out their jungle love call to the turn turns.

‘Shy?’ I say with the suspicion of an amazed laugh. ‘Me? Ouch!’ I have just stumbled back against the filing cabinet and those handles do stick in your back, don’t they? The whole structure gives a hollow rumble and I clear my throat uneasily. ‘This comes with it, does it?’

Miss Bradford gazes into my minces as if she expects the answer to my question to come up on them like a telex machine. ‘It’s funny about white skin,’ she says as if talking to herself. ‘It looks so soft.’ She reaches up and draws her hand down the side of my cheek. ‘Terry likes it.’

‘Does he?’ I say. ‘What a pity he’s not here. I could have—’

‘She is here,’ says Miss Bradford propping her bristols against my all the best. ‘I’m Terry. Short for Teresa.’

‘It’s funny you should say that,’ I say. ‘I’ve always been partial to – er, br-bl-col—’

‘Black pussy,’ says Terry helpfully. ‘I could tell by the way you were looking at me that you wanted to get my panties off.’

‘Ye-es,’ I say. Terry Bradford is what you might call direct when it comes to filling in the plot.

‘But you’re not going to get the chance.’ My spirits fall and percy suspends his clumsy clamber into the vertical. Could it be that I am in the presence of a prick teaser – or prick Teresa as seems more nearly the case? ‘I’m not wearing any.’

This is interesting news and delivered in terms that invite verification – good word that, isn’t it? I think I will be using it a lot when I become a private dick: ‘I’m going to have to ask you to verify that alibi, Mrs Cholmondeley.’ Terry’s well-defined lips are hovering before the identical feature on my own Jem Mace and a tilt of the nut is all it requires to set the merry scamps clambering over each other. Whilst the bits that stop your cakeholes from fraying are thus pleasurably engaged, I slip one of my germans up the back of Terry’s dress and feel the overhang of her well-defined sit feature cutting into her thighs. Some birds have back bumpers like a couple of under-filled water cushions but this chick is the last load out of the melon field. Firm as a weightlifter’s handshake and definitely unhampered by any contact with the knicker counter of Marks and Sparks. It is probably my imagination set off by her own comments on white flesh but there seems to be a tougher texture to her skin. More tensility. It all helps build up the impression of strength and formidableness that is restraining the progress of my hampton towards the ceiling. Will the midnight mauler of the Clapham Common children’s playground sand pit be a match for the coloured snatch? That is the question the free world is asking itself at this time. Normally my action man kit would be pointing towards the airholes in my hooter but at the moment it is a quarter to nine and losing time fast. A most unusual occasion when you consider the proximity of this obviously willing curve carnival. Wake up Lea! What has got into the marrow arrow that it seems unlikely to get into anything else? Most of the time my mind and body work independently. Now, my fears of being found wanting threatens to prevent me from slipping my fun gunny into this jungle bunny.

Terry pulls back her head and brushes her lips to and fro across mine. At hip level her crutch imitates the motion and I feel like a piece of carved wood that is being polished. My right hand hovers around the slit in the collecting box and I probe the soft, tight curls; feeling the whole feature quiver beneath my fingertips. As I had imagined they might, Terry’s hands drop to my waist and she fumbles untidily with the catch of my trousers. Just when I am thinking that she may need help, the zip jerks downwards and my slack cock is exposed like a fish in a net dangling against the side of a vessel. Terry sucks in her breath and dips a mitt down the front of my Y-fronts.

‘Oooom!’ she says. ‘That’s nice.’

I don’t think she is tempted to write to the Guinness Book of Records about it but the remark is just what percy needs to get all pinky and perky. Make no mistake about it, ladies. You can work wonders with a shy, sensitive lad if you give him a bit of admiration and encouragement. ‘What an attractive spot to have a prick’ or ‘Goodness! I doubt if my slight frame will be able to withstand the onslaught of such a monster’, go down a lot better than ‘Everything seems to be miniaturised these days, doesn’t it?’ or ‘OK, vole parts, let’s be having you!’

The minute that percy hears Teresa’s comforting words he responds as if plugged into a recharging machine. Any hint of the horizontal is brushed aside by a new sense of dynamic purpose and an angel choir bursts into song. Actually, it is somebody turning on a transistor radio across the other side of the light well but it does make me think about where we are. Miss Bradford has now started to fondle my spheroids and it is clear that a desire for intimacy is somewhat nearer than the back of her mind.

‘Nice black pussy,’ she husks bullying my lower lip with both of hers. My right hand has now discovered an opening with great opportunities for advancement and I look around for somewhere to start thrusting my way to the top. Though not expecting a four poster bed to be lowered through the ceiling on silken ropes it would be nice if there was somewhere a little more prepossessing than rutted, crumbling lino to plight our troth on. You could blight it rather than plight it in these surroundings. Still, it is no good worrying too much. We are lucky to have the desire, the opportunity and the capability. A stand-up quickie against the side of the filing cabinet seems to be the order of the day. Be just like the office party, won’t it? You always fancied that shy girl in accounts but you never knew she was like that – not until you poured half a bottle of gin into her lemonade.

In practice, the filing cabinet rattles too much so we stagger back against the door that connects with the next office. Teresa has thoughtfully yanked my trousers and pants down to knee level and percy is peering through the curtain of my shirt like an actor looking to see if the theatre is filling up. It would be but a second’s work to engage the lady’s parts with my towing equipment but I feel that those lovely knockers deserve closer inspection. As I have already indicated, Teresa is handing out a terrible beating to the front of her sweater and I almost hear the fibres groan with relief as I start to put the merchandise on display. What a hammockful! She may not wear any knicks but she needs a bra in case she turns round quickly and kills someone. Talk about Black Beauties. She makes Chesty Morgan seem like Olive Oyl’s kid sister on a diet. Some birds stuff a handkerchief between their knockers. This chick could manage a couple of sheets – and you wouldn’t have to take them off the bed first. Of course, I exaggerate a trifle – I exaggerate a jelly if you give me half a chance – but this bird is definitely an experience bristol-wise. For a moment I gawp. Then my itching fingers flip up the bra cups like they are garage doors. Bouncing out to meet me come a couple of nipples like the last third of a brown cucumber. She is obviously pleased with them because her hands leave my hampton and thrust up her bristols until the nipples are tickling my bracket.

‘You like black titties?’ she says. I don’t answer her because I have my mouth full. Miss Bradford would clearly prefer it if I had two cakeholes or one very wide one because she keeps counter punching with her knockers until I am in danger of going down for the count – as opposed to the cunt which is what I normally go down for. This is all very, very well but my appetite is now sufficiently worked up for the main course – shish kebab of Teresa Bradford: tender portions of grumble and grunt speared on my steaming hampton and cooked over a couple of white hot balls. I am about to pocket the lady’s socket on my sprocket when she gives a shudder like a cabinet minister looking at the latest trade figures and dives down the front of my body until her Manchesters are pummelling my knee caps. What those soft, tender lips and talented tongue are dishing out I hesitate to reveal but it is not a million miles from what must go on in the testing department of a trumpet factory. I am not surprised that the Queen is looking the other way as she salutes – she is on a calendar on the far wall of the office.

Teresa slips a hand between my legs and – ‘OOOOOOOOOOOOHHHH!!’ Any more of that and I will be using her epiglottis as the spring-up target for my fun gun. Taking a deep breath and hoping that Teresa will not do the same, I haul the sensational syrup (syrup of figs: nigs. Ed.) up my power-packed frame and cup my hands under her back bumpers. As our lips collide I hitch her into the air and guide her into the right position for a quick game of furry quoits. Her helpful fingers pull back percy from his streamlined – or more like it, steamlined – position against my body and I slowly ease her down until her feet are resting on top of mine and percy is flying blind. She grinds slowly whilst my nervous system responds like an under cranked pin table with two balls running and everything lighting up at the same time.

‘Love that white flesh!’ she groans, stretching her long fingers down the back of my thighs and chewing my neck. Call me impulsive if you like – though I usually answer to Tiger Lips – but all the signs indicate that this is going to be a quick romance. Miss Bradford presses her body against mine at many points and I lift her into the air so that her knees are on either side of my thighs and proceed to see how far percy can push pussy without losing contact. Teresa clearly likes this game and it is not long before her knees are banging against the connecting door like a couple of battering rams. My eyes glaze over and it seems as if the Queen is sliding off her horse – I know how she feels.

‘Go on! Go on!’ I never know why women say things like that because you have no intention of stopping, do you? I press back against the door for the last, telling thrusts and – ‘AAAAAAAAARRRRGGGG!!!’ No, you’re wrong. That’s not me going into orbit. Some blooming idiot has opened the door. Still carrying Teresa with me, I take a series of increasingly fast backwards steps and collapse on what turns out to be a button-back sofa. We must look as if we are doing a speeded up tango. My crotch needs one – or a couple – of splints and my high-pitched yelp of pain threatens to shatter the lamp bowl. When I have moved Teresa to a part of my body that is not a disaster area, I look over her shoulder and see a middle-aged bag of coke looking over his specs at us and rubbing his hands together nervously.

‘Righty ho,’ he says. ‘Glad you could make it.’

He goes behind a desk – I mean, of course, that he takes a seat behind a desk – and I try and work out what makes him so certain that we have made it. I am not so sure myself and I should be one of the first to know. At least he is being very reasonable about the whole thing. A lot of people would react very badly if you charged into their office in full knee tremble. Teresa pulls down the shutters over her knockers and I sweep the remains of percy into my Y-fronts. I will have to hold the autopsy later. The geezer in the blue pin stripe leans forward on his desk and places his fingertips together.

‘Of course, that’s all very gratifying,’ he muses, waving a hand in the direction of his left earhole. ‘But how are we to know it’s not just a flash in the pan? It’s when you’re waiting in the anteroom that you really get to grips with it, isn’t it? You realise what you’re letting yourself in for.’

This bloke is leaving me behind fast. If he is handing out a mild bollocking, I don’t get it. And why is he smiling at us like that? He reminds me of the bloke who came up to me when I was having a gypsy’s kiss in the gents at Piccadilly Underground – not a pursuit I recommend, incidentally.

‘We’d better be going,’ says Teresa.

‘But you’ve only just come,’ says Pin Stripe. There he goes! Jumping to conclusions again. ‘I know it’s awkward talking to a complete stranger about intimate matters but don’t worry, we’ve all been through it.’ He smiles at Teresa when he says this and I wonder if he means what I think he means. She was certainly very friendly when you come to think about it. The bloke unscrews a fountain pen and pulls a pad towards him. ‘How long have you two been together?’

‘Since about ten o’clock this morning,’ I say.

The smile drops faster than a pair of lead knickers. ‘Ten o’clock this morning and you’re here already?’

‘It wasn’t very far, was it?’ I say, turning to Teresa. ‘We wasted a bit of time trying to park but —’

‘You can’t expect things to work out right from the beginning,’ says the bloke. ‘There’s got to be a period of acclimatisation. You know what that means, don’t you?’

‘Oh yes,’ I say. ‘It’s what you have to do before you get out of a diver’s suit.’

Pin Stripe does not seem to hear my remark and helps himself to a couple of pills from the pocket of his waistcoat. ‘God knows, we live in troubled times and the whole fabric of society as we understand it is threatened – but really! You have to give it a little more time than this! What makes you think you have problems when you’ve only been married four hours – Good God!’ He strikes his forehead with his clenched fist. ‘You made the appointment yesterday – before you were even married!’

Before we can say anything, the door behind us has burst open and a bloke with a black eye and scratch marks down his cheek is revealed dragging a screaming woman by the hair. ‘Sorry we’re late, guv,’ he says. ‘We had words on the way here.’

While the couple trade punches in the doorway and Pin Stripe slides beneath his desk with a strangled croak, I am busy reading the sign stencilled on the office door. It says: ‘J. Bugstrode, Marriage Guidance Counsellor.’

CHAPTER THREE

‘Not much happening, is there?’ says Sid.

It is three days after my first visit to the building which now houses the N.I.B. (Noggett Investigation Bureau) and Sid and I are well and truly ensconced – as El Sid chooses to call it. This means that we have straightened out all the paper clips and folded them again, and watched Mr J. Bugstrode taken away by a couple of men in white coats. I have not said anything to Sid about Mr Bugstrode and Teresa Bradford. I don’t feel that it would help anybody, somehow.

Sid picks up the telephone and holds it to his ear. ‘It’s working,’ he says.

‘Don’t worry, Sid,’ I say. ‘The word’s got to get around, hasn’t it? We’re not in the book or anything like that. Those leaflets we dropped off in the Co-op are going to take a few days to get around. We’re competing against a special offer on dried figs.’

‘Funny about that bloke next door,’ muses Sid. ‘I wonder if there was more to it than the job. It might be blackmail, you know. He could have had a go at one of his patients.’

‘Unlikely, Sid,’ I say. ‘These geezers are very prone to mental disorders and nervous breakdowns.’

‘Exactly,’ says Sid. ‘He might have found that he was giving the helpful advice from inside some bloke’s old lady. The job getting on top of him in fact. Then, the door bursts open and—’

‘I don’t think it was like that,’ I say hurriedly. ‘Do you fancy a cup of cha?’

‘Not from that bleeding machine, I don’t,’ says Sid. ‘That’s not powder they have at the bottom of those cups – it’s rust.’ He glances at his watch and picks up his new raincoat – the one which has epaulettes, panels, brass rings, restraining straps at the sleeves and is three sizes too big for him. Alan Ladd wore something like it in ‘This Gun For Hire’. ‘I’ll leave you to look after the shop. Don’t do anything stupid. Take down any messages and try to get some of that pigeon shit off the windows.’

‘Where are you going?’ I ask.

‘I’m going round to the public library to look at the footprints.’

Before I can decide whether or not it would be wise to enquire further, Sid has gone. Opening time is not many seconds away and no doubt he has nipped off to get a bit Chopin before Lilley and Skinner. (Chopin and Liszt: pissed. Lilley and Skinner: dinner. Ed.) What can I do to while away the weary hours? I could write a few letters if I had anyone to write to, or try to unclog my biro. It has also been a long time since I pushed back the cuticles on my toenails. It hurts but at the same time you get a funny electric feeling which I quite fancy. You must know what I mean. I have not cleaned my belly button for a few months, either. My spirits rise as I see a whole programme of personal hygiene beginning to take shape. I will start on my toes and work upwards, skipping the most difficult bits until I get home.

I have just got my shoes and socks off and one of my feet on the desk when a shadow falls across the frosted glass. It does not do any damage but the shock makes me whip my tootsie off the desk and kick the telephone into the wastepaper basket. Before I can shout ‘goal!’, the door opens and a large, worried looking guy comes into the room. I would have preferred a beautiful blonde reeking of expensive perfume but you can’t have everything.

I advance round my desk to meet him and then shuffle back as I see him looking at my bare feet.

‘Hot, isn’t it?’ I say. ‘What can I do for you, Mr—?’ ‘Brown,’ says the bloke. ‘You handle divorce business, don’t you?’ His eyes follow me as I replace the receiver on the phone in the wastepaper basket.

‘We’re getting a new one,’ I explain. ‘Yes, Mr Brown. We handle divorce business. We handle anything. What’s your problem?’

The man looks round and lowers his voice confidentially. ‘It’s my wife,’ he says.

That’s a relief, I think to myself. Nothing too complicated to begin with. ‘Playing around, is she?’ I say.

Mr Brown looks impressed. ‘How did you know that? I only dropped her off at the golf club on my way here.’

I wave my hand airily. ‘Just call it instinct, Mr Brown. What do you want us to do for you?’

Mr Brown buries his face in his hands. ‘I can’t take any more. It’s too humiliating. The men – her lovers. She’s insatiable.’

‘In where?’ I say. ‘That’s the Indian Ocean, isn’t it? I had a mate who went there for his holidays.’

‘I believe you’re thinking of the Seychelles,’ says the bloke. ‘I was referring to my wife’s sexual appetites.’

‘Oh yes,’ I say, keeping the professional cool that is doing so well for me. ‘So your wife is in the Seychelles having it off – I mean, behaving indiscreetly, with whatever kind of person lives there, a fact that is inevitably causing you to feel dead choked?’

‘My wife has never been near the Seychelles,’ says the bloke beginning to turn red. ‘Not that it makes much difference where she’s been. She has relations everywhere.’

‘We’re a bit like that,’ I say chattily. ‘I’ve even got an aunty in New Zealand. Takapuna. It’s north of Auckland. She sends us a Christmas card every year. Same one usually. Maybe they don’t have a lot of Christmas cards down there or she bought a job lot.’

To my surprise, Mr Brown starts to quiver. ‘I am not in the slightest bit interested in your aunt in New Zealand!’ he hisses. ‘I have other things on my mind! My wife has become an unbearable burden and I wish to rid myself of her. I want a divorce!’

‘I see,’ I say. ‘You’re sure that’s really what you want? There’s a bloke next door – no, he’s not there any more.’

I feel sad when I think that Mr Bugstrode has taken a trip to the funny farm. We might have been able to do business together. He could have sent us the marriages he was unable to save.

‘I want you to procure the evidence with which I can divorce the slut! Take photographs of her in flagrante delicto!’

‘She gets abroad a lot, doesn’t she?’ I say. ‘Prefers foreigners and that kind of thing, I suppose. A lot of birds do. Personally, I think it’s all in the mind. I don’t believe they’re any—’

‘If I could get my hands on one of those swine,’ says Brown, thoughtfully gazing into space and picking up the wastepaper basket. ‘I’d crumple him up like a piece of paper. I’d rip him apart!’

I watch, fascinated, as Brown folds the waste-bin in half and then tears the metal as if it is a piece of tin foil. When that look comes into his eyes I would hate to be found practising press-ups on his old lady. ‘What does she look like?’ I say. ‘Where can I find her?’

Brown produces a much fingered photo and pushes it across the table to me. ‘By the cringe!’ I say ‘She’s a bit of—’ I pause when I see how Brown is staring at me. His eyes are harder than petrified cherry stones. ‘—very nice, very refined.’

When you look at Brown and you look at the photograph it is not easy to relate the two. The missus is definitely a looker and a bit flash with it. Brown seems like the sort of bloke who would turn down a job as a bank clerk because he thought the uniform was too daring.

‘She’s booked in to the Densford Hotel,’ says Brown. ‘I found this card in her handbag – quite by chance, of course.’

‘Of course,’ I say. The card is a postcard announcing that Room Number 367 has been booked for today’s date. I turn it over and see that it is addressed to a Mr Brown. ‘That’s not you?’ I say.

‘Of course it isn’t!’ snaps Brown. ‘Don’t you see? Her lover has given her that and used my name!’ He starts trembling again and suddenly picks up Sid’s paperknife and drives it through the desk. ‘I’d go there myself but I’m frightened that I wouldn’t be able to restrain myself. I only have to think of what they might be doing and—!’ He brings his fist down on top of the filing cabinet and all the drawers lock. I know because I try to open one of them.

‘Leave it to us,’ I say soothingly and start walking towards the door in the hopes that he will follow. At this rate there will be little of the office left when Sid gets back.

‘You’ll take a photograph, will you?’ says Brown.

‘That’s right,’ I say, grateful for the suggestion.

Brown shakes his head. ‘A dirty business. Still—’ he looks me up and down. ‘I suppose you’re the man for it. How soon will you have results? I want this matter dealt with speedily!’ He starts looking as if he is about to smash something else and I open the door like the cat has just started saying goodbye to a Richard III on a mat.

‘Tomorrow evening,’ I say. ‘How can I get in touch with you?’

‘I’ll come here,’ he says. ‘Six o’clock?’

‘Right,’ I breathe.

Mr Brown’s vengeful footsteps echo away down the corridor and I put my shoes and socks on. I will attack my cuticles another day. You need a bit of hot water to soften them up anyway. I could use something from the coffee machine but there is the danger that it might melt my toes off. Difficult to get your feet in the beakers, too.

I am really chuffed after my interview with Mr Brown. He seemed to accept me without question – mind you, I did handle myself well. I put him at his ease and got straight down to the nitty-gritty with the minimum of flannel. Sid will be pleased when I tell him. But why should I tell him? I have got this far by myself, why not finish the job? Close the file and tie a pink ribbon round it before throwing it on the D.A.’s desk. That’s what Clint Eastwood would do. Yes, I will show Sid what a smooth operator I can be when he is not around to foul me up.

In fact, Sid is so elephants (elephant’s trunk: drunk. Ed.) when he rolls back at a quarter past three that I doubt if he would understand if I did tell him. He starts reading a paperback entitled Blondes Like It Backwards and then falls asleep on it so that the centre spine forms a trough for his spittle. All very Homes and Gardens.

It occurs to me that I am going to need a flashlight camera for my assignment and that my Instamatic is not going to do, even if I run into the bedroom holding a freshly struck match above my head. Luckily I know a bag of coke who frightens American tourists into parting with a few bob by chasing them down Lower Regent Street with his camera and saying that the snaps will be waiting for them when they get back to the States – he even charges them postage. I don’t think he has ever taken an actual photograph in his life but the camera looks impressive.

I wait till Sid has slouched off saying that he has got an urgent appointment and start making arrangements. My mate says that I can have the camera if I pop round for it and let him have a couple of prints if they turn out to be a bit fruity. I suppose Mr Brown is right. It is a dirty business. I would not fancy it if some geezer rushed in and started snapping away while I was exercising the pocket python. I will have to move fast in case there is unpleasantness.

One thing that worries me is when the dastardly deed is going to take place. I should have asked Mr Brown if he had an inkling but it might have set him off on a rampage. The dirty duo could be on the job at this very moment. I hope they have a lot of stamina otherwise everything might be over before I have screwed in my flash bulb. To check out this unsavoury thought I ring up the hotel and ask to speak to Mr Brown – I can always pretend to be room service if he answers – but there is no one there. Diabolically clever, isn’t it? If I can keep up this form no criminal will be safe.

An hour later, I am sitting in the lounge of the Densford Hotel and wondering how I got lumbered with the disgusting thimbleful of brown liquid nestling between my thumbs. I asked for a beer and the bloke behind the bar gave me something out of a bottle with ‘Byrrh’ written on it. He seemed to think I was joking when I pointed out his mistake and I thought he was joking when he told me how much the muck cost: 45p! It is shocking, isn’t it? Still, I suppose if you are a private eye you have to get used to ritzing it up a bit. Which reminds me, I never talked to Brown about moola. Sid was very concerned that we did not take anything on without getting some cash in advance. Not that Brown can welsh on us because he will be coming round for his photographs. We can collect then.

I take another casual gander round the room and retire behind my copy of London Cries – at these bar prices it should be bleeding weeping. I have checked that the key to Room 367 is in reception, now all I have to do is wait for Mrs Brown and her lover to show up. From what I saw of the photograph I would not mind being around if she was looking for something to scratch her snatch with. I hope I will be able to recognize her. Birds can change very easily. Hang on a minute! That looks like her following the two knockers into the reception area. What a figure! She makes an hour glass seem like a test tube. And that arse! It looks as if it is hovering over a warm air duct. All this and V.P.L. (visible pant line). No wonder Mr Brown gets his knickers in a twist when he thinks of other geezers giving her pussy a protein injection. I could be up that like a rat up a drainpipe. But, restrain yourself, Lea! I must get my priorities straightened out – regular readers will not be surprised to hear that my number one priority started shaking out the kinks the moment I clapped eyes on Mrs Brown. I must keep a cool head, steady hands and a limp hampton and remember whose side I am on. To get mixed up with your clients must be fatal in this game.

The lovely Mrs Brown exchanges a smile for a room key and heads for the lift leaving a fine veil of steam rising from the desk clerk’s eyeballs. When she moves away from you it is like a couple of small medicine balls nuzzling each other. I am so mesmerized that I knock back my drink without thinking. Ugh! The stuff that Dad rubs on his chest must taste better than that.

No sooner have the lift doors closed than an ugly thought assails me: I don’t know what Mrs Brown’s fancy man looks like. He could be anybody. I had better get up to the room and keep an eye open. There is also the question of how I am going to get into the room. The key has gone and the desk clerk is not going to give me another one. Maybe they will leave it in the door. I can see less chance of that than of it raining potatoes on St Patrick’s Day. I step out of the lift, walk past the door of the room and hear what sounds like a bloke laughing and the chink of glasses. Gordon Bennett. Don’t say he was in there all the time? The swine! I hope the tassel of his silk dressing-gown dangles in the ice bucket and brushes against the tip of his hampton. At any second, he may come behind her and kiss the side bit where her neck joins her shoulders. I know the kind of devilish practices these blokes get up to. Unless I move fast he will be getting in before I do. Where am I going to find a pass key or a fire escape? You don’t have one on you, do you? I glance up the corridor and see a bird coming out of a room carrying an armful of bedding. Maybe she will be able to help.

‘Excuse me,’ I say, scampering to her side. ‘You – er, don’t happen to have a key to three six seven, do you? I seem to – er—’ I pat my chest and hope that she will reckon I have misplaced my key.

‘Not your room,’ she says reproachfully. Knickers! I would have to cop some central European bird with a strong sense of right and wrong.

‘I am private detective,’ I say. ‘Like policeman. Very good.’

The bird leads the way into a small room full of laundry baskets and shelves of sheets, and dumps the bedclothes on a pile in the corner.

‘I do not know,’ she says.

She is an appealing bird. Slim and with harassed wisps of hair fluffing out of her bamet. Though small she has big eyes and a wide mouth that turns up attractively at the coners.

‘I only want it for a few minutes,’ I say. ‘I’m not going to nick anything.’

‘Nick?’ she says.

‘Steal,’ I say. ‘I want to take a photograph of the inside of the room, that’s all.’

The bird’s face brightens. ‘You can take photograph of three six five. Is same inside.’

‘It’s not just the room,’ I say. ‘It’s the people as well. It’s sort of – how can I explain it?’

‘Surprise?’ says the bird.

‘That’s it,’ I say. ‘You’ve got it. A surprise.’ I reach out my hand hopefully.

Maybe I am going too fast because the bird does not make a move. ‘It would be best thing if you ask manager, I think,’ she says. Right at the back of her eyes where the dark blue is practically black, I think I can see a twinkle.

‘I’m prepared to make it worth your while,’ I say, feeling inside my jacket. ‘I’m not asking you to do it for nothing.’

The girl stretches out a hand and pokes my forearm. It is as if she is testing a piece of meat to see if it is tender. ‘Money?’ she says.

‘Whatever you like,’ I say. Back in three six seven a naked Mrs Brown is probably swinging upside down from the chandelier while her boyfriend stands on the mantelpiece and attempts to harpoon her with his funny gun, but I sense that it would be a mistake to rush things with this particular bint. ‘What’s your name?’ I say.

‘Gretchen,’ she says. ‘And your name?’

‘Timmy,’ I say. ‘Have you been over here long?’

‘Six weeks,’ she says.

‘Made a lot of friends?’

She shakes her head sadly. ‘No.’

‘Oh well,’ I say, giving her arm a pat. ‘You’ve made a friend now.’ I am not just saying it either. She is an appealing little bird and very fanciable. It is a shame that she does not have anyone to take her to see Confessions of a Pop Performer. Maybe I can fill a gap.

‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘It is not easy to meet peoples in London, is it?’

‘It’s a question of breaking the ice,’ I say. ‘Like so many things.’

OK, so William Shakespeare might have put it differently but it does provide the chance for me to give her arm a sympathetic squeeze and plant those luscious Lea lips on her forehead for a friendly second. Such a gesture cannot be taken exception to and may prove the springboard for more positive demonstrations of an intention to be friendly – a firm intention as percy informs me from his eyrie in my Y-fronts. Losing not a second of precious time, I kiss one of Gretchen’s mince pies and zoom in fast under her hooter. Experience has taught me that this is where most judies keep their cakeholes and I am not disappointed. Gretchen’s head tilts back and she stretches out her neck to push power into her kiss. Mouths are funny, aren’t they? You never seem to fit quite right the first time. It is like a new pair of shoes. I draw back, give her a big smile and we try again. That’s better – very nice in fact. I could be happy doing this more often. I think that Gretchen is happy too. Her body starts to shudder and she slips an arm round me and ruffles the hair at the back of my neck.

Poor kid! She probably hasn’t had a Friar Tuck since she left the motherland. Time is pressing but it would be out of character if I failed to oblige. I kick the door shut behind me and quickly unzip my fly. I know that this could be considered slightly forward behaviour even in today’s free and easy times but I cannot afford the extra seconds it would take me to hum the love theme from Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet.

Gretchen lets out a little gasp as she catches a glimpse of my rampant Mad Mick and I press her to me so that its brute majesty is shut off from her eyes – you can’t fault me for delicacy of feeling, can you? While I send my own mitt off on a ramble up her skirt, her hesitant fingers touch and then close around the pride of the Lea fleet.

‘No,’ she says.

‘You mean “yes”,’ I tell her. ‘ “No” means “yes” in English.’

She shakes her head sadly. ‘Too big,’ she says.

‘Too big?’ I say. I mean, it is a nice thought but I cannot allow myself to be quartered in a fool’s paradise. Percy is definitely a quality article but birds don’t jump out of bed and run home to mother screaming. He is just 15½ centimetres of prime British hampton trying to do his bit for the old country – I say centimetres because everything is going metric these days, isn’t it? Also, it sounds bigger.

‘I no do this.’

Ah ha. I have just put my finger on the reason for the lady’s statement. The entrance to her grumble is tighter than a mouse’s earhole. She is a virgin. Blimey, I did not know they still made them. What a turn up for the tip of my hampton. I try and insert a digit and give up after the first squeak. I would make more progress up a valve rubber. Stick with this bird and you could have the long sensitive fingers of your dreams. Unfortunately, I do not have time to stick with the fair Gretchen. I must press on – and not up happy valley.

‘I see what you mean,’ I say. ‘Look, I’d like to see more of you – um – seriously. What are you doing tomorrow night?’

In the end I make a date to see her at the weekend and persuade her to part with the key to 367. I hope Mrs Brown is having a bit more luck than I am and is still enjoying it. I leave Gretchen sorting out her dirty laundry in private and slip into the corridor with percy coiled reproachfully between my legs. It is not often that he gets the dish dashed from his lips like that and he is taking it badly. Almost smarting in fact.

There is no one about so I stalk down the corridor and check my equipment outside the door of 367 – my photographic equipment that is. I plan to rush in, bash off a few quick shots and scarper. I don’t reckon that anyone is going to start chasing me, especially if they are in the altogether.

I listen carefully and try to remember if there was a light showing under the door when I was last here. There isn’t now. No sounds either – wait a minute! A sharp exclamation and a squeak of bedsprings. They must be on the job right at this moment. Good timing, Sherlock! Just as well that I did not get to the balaclava (chaver. Ed.) stage with Gretchen or I might have fallen down on the job – never a nice thing to do as we all know from bitter experience.

Taking a deep breath, I position the camera at my feet and start to insert the key in the lock like I am defusing a mine – if the tension is too much for you go out and make a cup of tea. I do hope the lock isn’t stiff. I won’t get much of a photo through the keyhole. I turn the key as far as it will go without meeting resistence and take another deep breath. Here we go! One two, and – bam! I turn the key, push the door open, pick up the camera and charge into the room. It is pitch dark and I stumble into a chair. Where are they?

‘What the—!!??’ A bloke shouts, and there is a rustle of bedclothes. I press the tit on the camera and there is a blinding flash. I press again and the bloke comes rushing at me out of the darkness – at least, I think he is coming for me. In fact, he pushes past me and dashes for the curtains. By the cringe, but he can move, that bloke! There is the sound of breaking glass and for a terrible moment I think he has chucked himself out of the window. What a love dive that would be.

Unfortunately for The Guinness Book of Records, there is a fire escape outside the window. I lean out and catch a glimpse of a bare bum through the ironwork. It is about three floors down and gathering speed like a grape rolling down a helter skelter. Thank gawd for that! Now I can scarper with a clear conscience – at least I could if some clumsy basket had not left a case in the middle of the floor. I take a purler over it and the light that clicks on in the room joins the five hundred that are flashing inside my dented nut. When I look up, Mrs Brown is kneeling on the end of the bed and trying to look at me over the top of her naked knockers. She is bristling and, believe me, she has a lot of bristol to bristle with.

‘Snivelling little creep!’ she hisses. ‘I suppose my husband paid you to come bursting in here ?’

‘I don’t think that Mr Brown would like me to make any comment concerning that statement,’ I say, ruthlessly professional to the last.

‘I could give you an albumful of photographs that would make Gordon throw a purple fit. Do you remember when the World Limbo Dancing Championships were held over here—?’

‘Don’t tell me,’ I say. ‘I have a weak heart and my doctor says that I shouldn’t get over-excited.’ I pick up my camera and am relieved that Mrs Brown makes no move to stop me.

‘Send me a print for my collection,’ she says, slumping back on the bed. ‘I hope you got my best side. Why don’t you take one especially for my husband?’ She sticks out her tongue and extends two fingers. I raise my camera and then think better of it. Mr Brown gave few indications of being a one-man laugh riot. ‘You came a couple of minutes too early. Do you know that?’ Mrs Brown rotates her shoulders against the bed and draws up one of her legs so that I cop an eyeful of snatch thatch. This is obviously a very naughty lady and it is a good job that I am incorruptible. Men of lesser moral fibre might fancy their chances of filling the gap vacated by the gent now probably skipping down Baker Street in a dustbin. ‘Come and sit down,’ says Mrs Brown, patting the bed beside her. Her spare hand drifts down between her legs and it is soon clear that something is itching.

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