The Recoverer.
by
Angharad.

I suppose I should be used to it, being mistaken for a woman. Sometimes it's embarrassing, sometimes amusing and occasionally it leads to violence. I have taken some training to defend myself, based on Baritsu, which was used by Sherlock Holmes, which if you recall involved a mix of boxing, cane fighting and ju-jitsu. The sort I did is more based on karate, kick-boxing and a bit I suppose of judo, but is designed to use an opponent's weight, movement and actions against them which many martial arts do. Just think of throws in judo and most are designed to unbalance an opponent and with minimum effort throw them over a hip or less used, a stomach throw. I once put a bloke that attacked me through a plate glass window and left him there to explain to the police why he was lying in amongst the soft furnishings and groaning. I walked away with minimal injury.

I learned how to use the environment as a resource, to always keep my back to a wall or immovable object, how to use objects I could lift or swing or throw, like fire extinguishers, or portable furniture. I have also stabbed someone with their own knife, and hit someone on the head with their own gun. I decided, I didn't want a manslaughter charge against me or worse, a murder one. I was tempted to shove it up his rectum after I knocked him down, but threw it in a river instead having removed my fingerprints.

My work is a free-lance recoverer of stolen objects, usually employed by insurance companies but occasionally by collectors or by previous owners from whom an object was stolen. It's usually Objet d'art, jewellery, gemstones, documents, manuscripts and other valuables. I have recovered stolen paintings and once a vintage Rolls Royce and super valuable Ferrari but this latest object was a first - a child, a real life one not a statuette. The parent was a rather wealthy man and the child had been kidnapped.

"You are Adam Bright?"

"I am." He regarded me doubtfully, my longish fair hair, my slight figure and fine features. Hence the mistaken for woman comment earlier.

"Are you sure you are up this physically? The people who abducted my daughter, Sophie, are quite physical, one of her so-called protectors, is still in hospital."

"I can look after myself most of the time, so unless they're in large numbers and huge, with guns or large knives, I usually give a good account of myself, and the fact that I am small and rather spindly looking gives me the advantage of surprise as many opponents have discovered."

"But you look like a young woman."

"I had an illness that affected my development as a man, but it hasn't held me back, my mind is quite sharp and my body disguises just how physical I can get, as one or two men have found out." He seemed to relax a little but maintained a dubious appearance.

"I'm expecting a ransom demand, it's a day or so since she was abducted. The money's not important, I can get that back eventually, but my daughter is priceless."

"Exactly when was she abducted?" I asked wanting to examine the site myself in case they left any clues.

"Yesterday, going to school."

"Damn, they have a whole day's lead on us, how old is Sophie?"

"Nine, it was her birthday about a month ago." He said showing me a photograph of his missing daughter, she was a pretty little thing.

"Why aren't you talking to the police?" I asked him.

"They said if I did, they'd kill her." He swallowed and his eyes moistened. I was seeing a side of the richest man in Britain that very few ever saw, he was usually seen as unemotional but this man was showing me he actually cared about this young woman.

"What sort of ransom would you pay?" I expected a pile of money, preferably in small denominations like insurance companies pay for objects of value.

"Whatever it takes."

"You realise my fee goes up depending on the value of the object that I try to reclaim."

"She isn't an object, she's a little girl; my wife has had to be sedated, she's going mad."

"I'm sorry," I said and genuinely felt their loss and anxiety, more than I usually did.

"Just find her, you can name your price afterwards." He turned to go, leaving me with his flunky to fill in the details. We drove to the entrance to the school, it made most others I'd visited look cheap and cheerful. The man went through what had happened according to the reports made by the two body guards, one being unconscious in hospital. They were confronted by a group of thugs who stopped the car and shoved a jack under the front wheels as quickly as an F1 pit team do it. A noxious gas was fed into the air vents and the men in the car had to open the door to breathe, once they opened the door, it was soon over, with Sophie having succumbed to the gas being removed to a waiting car. It all took about two minutes from start to finish.

It was obviously a professional job, I was half surprised that the body guards hadn't been killed. However, according to their report, the group of attackers wore masks and said nothing to each other, so it was almost certainly well rehearsed. I wanted to speak to the bodyguards involved, but one was still unconscious in hospital and the other was still shocked by the speed and cold-blooded way that the hit had been carried out.

I examined the site, all that we could see was a mark in the road where they had positioned the jack under the limo which was heavy and bullet proof; seems nobody had thought of gas in the air inlets, except the abductors. Once they had Sophie, they were off in seconds. I had to keep thinking of her name to remind myself that I was dealing with a little girl, a commodity which was perishable and for all I knew, she could be already dead.

I got them to take the car to a private forensic firm that I used from time to time, they were as good as anything the Metropolitan Police had and they would go over the car with a toothcomb and quickly.

I told the flunky I had more questions after visiting the site of the attack and seeing the car. He told me that Sir Louis, the girl's father would call me tomorrow to get a progress report. What does he think I am, a magician? My job involves seeing clues others don't, being plugged into a very good information network and perhaps putting myself in the place of the people I am pursuing or their mindset; what would I do next if I had just stolen...someone's daughter. Nah, it didn't work. I mean I don't know anything about children. I mean I can't father any, so what woman is interested in a weed like me, albeit a carnivorous one.

I returned to my office and began running down possible leads. The most obvious was the jack. It wasn't a normal garage one. I got my researcher checking where racing teams get theirs, and a list of customers who had recently bought one. They weren't cheap and usually only bought by racing teams where time is so important in pit stops.

My researcher Mike, went home at eight o'clock and I had a microwaved jacket potato with some salad and grated cheese. Then I went back to my desk as the preliminary report from the lab came in. I'd also had the clothes worn by the bodyguards analyzed for alien DNA and any fibres. Having taken samples of DNA from the guards, even the one in hospital - that took us a while to get the hospital to agree. I had to go and plead for them to allow us run a swab over the inside of the cheek on the unconscious man, I had to tell them that a little girl's life may depend on it. An hour later we had our swab and the lab I use could do their examination of the clothing.

I was amazed at how much they could tell me about the paintwork of the Mercedes they'd attacked and the scrapings from the jack. They were only made in this country where I learned most of the F1 equipment was made and used, all a few miles from Oxford and the White Horse of Uffington, in the opposite direction.

I slept for a few hours in my office and showered there. I always kept fresh clothes there although much of the time I wore jeans, a polo shirt and when cool a sweat shirt or sweater. I didn't need to shave, the virus that destroyed my testicles also meant I had little or no testosterone and my testicles were subsequently removed in case they became cancerous. I was agonadal and had occasional shots of androgens but never enough to make me masculine looking and I sometimes had oestrogen to keep me looking young and keep my hair thick and my body hair minimal. It also helped when I occasionally cross-dressed in the line of my work.

Because I wasn't subject to the ravages of androgens, my body produced so little quantity after my illness, my hips were much broader than most men and my shoulders and stature remained smaller than average. I had my mother to thank for that, she didn't want my body full of all sorts of drugs, so my body became semi-female. At the time it was an embarrassment and I got called lots of names and picked on by bullies but after one such beating, I decided to learn self-defence. It took a few months to get the basics because I wasn't as strong as most boys after puberty, but I learnt how to use my environment to my advantage. The boy who beat and humiliated me ended up eating the biggest part of his physics textbook and losing a few teeth in the process. No one saw it and believed a weed like me, girly-boy could inflict such damage. I was lucky, if they had spotted my locker door had the outline of Smith's forehead and face, I could have been expelled or charged with assault. Amazingly the bullying stopped and Smith's parents withdrew him because they felt he was no longer safe there until the gang that attacked him was caught. I did smile a bit about that.

I had called a teacher when Smith lost consciousness, well he had banged his head on the floor a few times as I was stuffing the textbook down his throat, while telling him to digest the chapter on force. He'd tried it on at my locker, usually I just stood there and told him to leave me alone, this time, I let my training take over, whispered something to him and when he stooped down to listen, I grabbed his tie and hit his face and head a few times with my locker door, I then kicked his legs from under him and he smacked his head on the floor. I opened his bag pulled out the textbook and bashed him a few times and began feeding its pages to him. I wore latex gloves and then removed them before I got him help. Brute force may win some encounters but intelligent force and surprise wins more of them.

The school got cctv in the corridors after my revenge attack, but I was never troubled thereafter. I had used my form of self-defence since several times, once or twice while wearing a skirt, which gave me the advantage of surprise, so they didn't know what had hit 'em before I won the encounter. In one, my high heeled shoe got kicked into someone's crotch, as he has shoved me into a chair and then advanced towards me. I suspect he may have needed surgery after, but he started it. I was undercover at the time and we heard later that someone had employed a female assassin and she beat him up. It was just me, girlyboy, who was using her training to keep herself safe.

Back to the lab results, we had some DNA, the guard who hadn't been knocked out did manage to hit one of his attackers. There was a minute drop of blood on his clothing. My lab found it and through various intermediaries we got a result from the police data base, we now had a name, though we still had to find him, as he wasn't likely to be at home. He'd be hopefully entertaining a little girl and if we did get him I suspect Sophie's father might make his future relatively short.

I contacted a detective inspector I knew, he tolerated my actions because I usually invited him to make arrests for which he got some kudos and I also contributed to several police charities when he helped me and I got as good a fee. I mean twenty per cent of a few million means my tax bill pays off the national debt, or feels like it. I always make my donations before tax, so I'm not entirely stupid and have a good accountant.

"Hi, Steve, what can you tell me about Philip Larkin?"

"He's a poet, Adam, used to be a librarian at somewhere like Hull."

"Not that Philip Larkin, but Philip Reginald Larkin?"

"This for a case?"

"No, he asked me to marry him, of course it's for a case, an urgent one."

"They always are with you."

"You do alright from them." I heard him typing and pause as he read the screen.

"The other Philip Larkin, is probably nicer."

"He's dead, Steve."

"It's pity this one isn't, he's a nasty piece of work, form as long as your arm."

"Where does he live I'd like to have a word with him."

"So would we, he's involved in one of our current cases. Let me know if you find him, his wife lives at number 25 Millpond Lane, Fenchurch."

"Thanks, if I find him I shall let you know."

"She has a record too, receiving stolen property, perjury and assaulting a police officer. If she thinks you're helping us she will be evasive if not violent." I thanked him and decided a disguise may make things easier, so I changed in my bedroom, donned some makeup, added some lingerie, put my hair in a pony tail and wore a skirt suit. I slipped on some heels and after a spritz of perfume went through my office and collected a few things including my handbag.

"Oh hi, Eve," said Mike my researcher, "The jack's components are made in Germany but imported by Hargreaves and Hampshire, I've tried phoning them but they're not answering." He'd seen me dressed as woman dozens of time, in fact he'd escorted me a few times when I was impersonating someone at a social occasion.

"Keep trying, someone supplied it and it wasn't a normal retailer. I'm off to see a villain's wife to see if she knows where he is and if he wants to buy any insurance or if she does."

"Okay, good luck," he smiled at me. The first time we met he thought I was a woman, I suppose I can look the part and my voice never broke and I enjoyed playing him along. He wanted Adam for a job interview and I was going out to do some undercover work. To be truthful, I 'd forgotten he was coming. Instead of an interview I put him to work to find out all he could about someone I was investigating for insurance fraud. I disappeared for two hours and he'd discovered loads, so he got the job and also a surprise when he discovered who I really was.

I dashed off to Mrs Myrtle Larkin in Fenchurch. As I hadn't checked before I didn't even know if she was in. If she wasn't I'd call on neighbours and tell them he was suspected of insurance fraud, which was a porkie, but I'd show them I was bona fide insurance investigator. I had ID in both sexes just in case.

I was surprised when she answered the door wreathed in a cloud of cigarette smoke. She was in her forties but I suspect if she stopped smoking, she'd look younger. "Hello, my name is Eve Bright and I'm looking for Mr Larkin."

"He ain't 'ere," she said and went to slam the door.

"Oh dear," I whimpered, "my last client was out too, I'll never make any commission at this rate."

She hesitated in closing the door. "What yer selling?"

"Insurance, life insurance mainly, but my office had a query for me to see if I could encourage him to take out a policy. I get a fee if they send you an information package, we give quite good rates to spouses if the insured should die."

"Weren't me luv, haven't seen Phil for a few weeks but if he had been 'ere a pretty little thing like you could have sold 'im the pyramids, he's push over fro a pretty face."

"Oh dear," I pretended to be distressed. "Could I ask you to receive a policy package, it would mean a lot to me?"

"Go on then, I won't buy nuffin' but at least you'll get somefin'."

"Oh thank you, " I virtually grovelled to her, got her name and would arrange for the insurance company to send her an invitation to buy a policy. Seeing as I worked for them recovering stolen property, they played along with me as they knew I used them as a cover, they were also aware of Eve, my alter ego but were very discreet about it.

After she'd gone back in I knocked on a few doors to see if anyone knew anything of Larkin's whereabouts saying I was investigating an insurance fraud. No one said anything useful except one middle-aged woman who said it wouldn't surprise her if he was because he was a wrong 'un.

I called in the pub on the corner of the street. DI Harris had sent me a photo of the man, so I asked if anyone knew where he was, as I had an insurance payout for him. No one said they recognised him but as I was leaving a man who looked as shifty as they come told me to try a pub a mile or two away, called the Nag's Head, as someone may know where he was, there.

It was lunch time and I ordered a tuna roll from the bar. As soon as I started sipping my coffee a mid-thirties bloke started to chat me up. I'm used to it and know how to send them packing but thought I'd see if he knew Larkin.

"'Ello, darlin', no one to talk to?"

"I'm just waiting for my lunch, so I'm not looking for conversation," I smiled and shrugged and he started to slope off. "Oh, I'm looking for a Mr Philip Larkin."

"What d'you want 'im for?"

"I'm working for an insurance company and he's claimed some money for a damaged carpet, I have a cheque for him."

"I think I know who you want, I'll tell 'im if I sees 'im." I gave him a card with a mobile number.

"Please do, here's my number." I ate my roll and left quite rapidly after I hate these chat up creeps, they all think they're attractive to young women but they are anything but. I went to the ladies and washed my hands where he'd touched me accepting my business card.

I went back to my office and spoke to Mike. "Anything new?"

"Sorry, boss. I've at last made contact with the jack importers but they said they only sell to various racing teams and not to private individuals. So I rang all the teams again and asked if they'd lost a jack. Apparently, Jaguar had one stolen two weeks ago."

"Good work, where are they based?"

"East Hanney, near Wantage."

He passed over a sheet with the address and looked for a phone number. I picked up the phone and dialled, well I didn't as it's all pushbutton these days, but I rang the company.

"Hello Jaguar Racing, can I help you."

"Hello, I'm Eve Bright, did you have a racing jack stolen recently."

"I'll pass you through to my boss, Mr Carmichael, hold on."

"Carmichael," said an obviously male voice.

"Hello, I'm Eve Bright, an insurance investigator, we believe you have recently had a racing jack stolen."

"We have but I don't know if we have claimed for it yet, sort of on the 'to do' pile, you know?"

"Yes, I know the feeling," I said and chuckled then realised it was a serious matter and stopped, "the reason I'm phoning is we believe it may have been used in a serious crime a couple of days ago."

"Oh, so why aren't the police calling me?"

"We liaise with the police, especially New Scotland Yard, and keep them fully appraised of any information we obtain."

"I don't see how our jack could be used in a crime, but yes we have lost one, have you found it."

"If we do we shall let you know or ask the police to notify you, but from what I understand the jack featured in the crime."

"Good Lord, well I never. Thanks for letting me know, Miss Bright, did you say?"

"Sounds like it's their jack," I said and congratulated Mike.

"Hello?" he said, "Looks like they've found it. They've packed it off to the lab without adding to the finger prints."

"Oh good, they may be able to say where it's been." It was heading for the evening and we both did a few more hour's work before I suggested we eat and cooked a meal in the kitchen behind my office. Really, cooking was an exaggeration as I had cooked last week and added a few veg to a frozen casserole. We ate and went back to our work.

"Eve Bright," I answered my mobile.

"Oh, yeah, I seen Larkin in the pub, 'e don't know nuffin' about any carpet, so who are you?"

"I'm who I said I was, may be his wife put in the claim. I'll go and see her tomorrow." I rang off, he might not have been as stupid as he looked.

"C'mon," I said to Mike. "We could have a stake out,to put something warm on."

"You going like that?"

"Why what's wrong with it?"

"Nothing, are you wearing a coat?"

"You can drive, I'll check my makeup as we go." We drove to the pub and I sent Mike in to look at the clientele. He came out with a soft drink for me and a can of beer for himself. We sat down and waited, the photo of Larkin on the dash board.

It was dark and we were getting sleepy when suddenly the doors of the car were ripped open and we were dragged out. It was quite a shock and Mike was punched and he fell by the side of the car. "Don't hit me," I whimpered while taking stock of my predicament. They were big blokes and I appeared as an average woman.

"What d'you want wiv me?" Larking stood before me. I needed to detain him. He was big and without some clever moves he was going to flatten me. Mike was groaning from the other side of the car. Larkin went to kick him and I had to stop him.

"Please don't hurt him, he only came because I asked him to."

"Get talkin' bitch or he's gonna get beat up somefin' awful."

"Okay, okay. I have a cheque in my handbag for you for the cost of a carpet, that's all I know."

"So why was yer stakin' out the pub."

"I had a phone call from a bloke who said he'd seen you."

"So what's special about this 'ere carpet?"

"I get half the amount as commission once you sign the form."

"It must be worth a bit then, but I 'aven't claimed for no carpet."

"The envelope is in my handbag. Can I get it?"

"No tricks now," he warned.

"Well you can grab it for me," I smiled. There's one born every minute. He reached in and I shut the car door on him, quite hard, I then punched him on the back of his neck, as his friend came to help, I opened the car door and caught him with it. He stopped with shock and I elbowed him in the face and finished with a chop to his throat. The other man who'd been going to kick Mike came rushing at me and I turned grabbed his jacket and threw him over my hip he landed quite hard on the road banging his head.

I began tying their wrists with cable ties. Mike stood up groaning and asked if I needed any help. I called Steve Harris and he promised to come quickly. He did - fifteen minutes and we saw two police cars flashing blues and twos as they approached us.

"You realise you could be done for false imprisonment?"

"I was just detaining them until you got here." We all went off to the local nick and I explained that we were pretty sure they were involved in the abduction of Sophie.

Steve's demeanour changed immediately. "Why didn't you tell us immediately, there's a little girl's life at stake?"

"I wanted to but Sir Louis was adamant, they had told him no police."

I phoned the lab and Larkin and one of the others had left dabs all over the jack they'd stolen. Under ferocious interrogation, the other man cracked and said where the girl was. I insisted on going with Steve to see if she was there.

We had a little trouble with another thug but Steve had decked him before I could blink. They had her in a boarded up shop and as soon as we got in I went to gather her in a huge hug. She burst into tears calling for her mother. I sat in the back of the car and cuddled her until we got back to the nick where she was examined by a lady police surgeon. Thankfully, she was physically okay, but very shocked. Her parents came to collect her and Sir Louis looked oddly at me. "That lady rescued me from the nasty men," offered Sophie and Lady Martin, thanked me and shook my hand.

Sir Louis beckoned me to speak with him. "No wonder you look androgynous it means you can impersonate a woman quite easily. Well thank you, um..."

"Eve Bright, Sir Louis."

"Name your price, um Eve."

"I shall send you my account plus expenses."

"I'll pay it within the day," he said and kissed me on the cheek.

"Well that's got to be a new experience, a kiss from the country's richest bloke," said Steve and we all laughed. He'll get the credit, I'll get a nice fat fee and the police charity will get a decent donation. I'm just glad we managed to save the little girl before anything else happened. I also saw in the diary I was due a hormone shot. This time I'd have oestrogen, I quite like dressing as Eve, this time it worked out well and the look on the thugs faces when they saw me in the police station was priceless.

The End.