The Recoverer (11).
by
Angharad.
Work came in at a constant and steady stream. I was asked to look at a supposed arson or a suspicious fire that the assessor was wary of passing as a claim. The fire brigade, with their specialist investigators were unsure of, normally they yeah or nay it within minutes unless there has been a fatality in which case they analyze it to the nth degree, helped by police forensic scientists. But for just minor building work and furniture and carpets, they just gave us a shrug.

Several Chinese carpets or Persian ones were purportedly ruined by the fire or efforts to extinguish it, water damage and so on. Now, I have some Chinese carpets or more correctly rugs and something was decidedly odd about these ones. I got agreement to send them to a forensic lab I regularly used. They agreed that there was something odd about them, they were fakes, cheap copies and one of the reasons for them being so fire damaged was the use of some plastic fibres present in the carpet. It meant I was asked to investigate while the insurance company dealing with the claim stalled settling the claim.

The claim was for forty thousand pounds, so not a trifling amount, they had claimed for antiques as well but I suggested we weren't accepting that as little or no provenance was offered other than a few photos of paintings on the wall and some supposedly antique vases on a dresser that caught fire. I went to see a friend of mine who is an expert on antiques, well he should be, he works at the British Museum. I can tell fake jewellery at a glance, well with a lens and in good light, Anton, can look at a picture and tell who is probably the painter, when it was painted and what it's worth. It cost me an expensive lunch but he confirmed nothing looked particularly valuable. He wrote me a letter to that effect and enjoyed his smoked salmon.

We were dealing with a possible fraud case and that meant the police became involved. They grumbled like mad, no one was hurt, so why couldn't I deal with it. I tried to point out that fraud is breaking the law, so worthy of their attention. Again I pointed out that it may not be important to them but it's my job to stop it and theirs to assist me doing so. Inspector Peters pointed at his in tray and shook his head, I told him my office was similar. "But at least you get paid for it."

"Only the ones I resolve, you get paid whether or not you do," he shook his head again and said he'd never thought of it that way I told him that I had two staff to whom I paid a regular salary but my income was based on the commission I earned.

"Yeah, but you don't go short, do you?"

"No, but that's because I work silly hours and am very successful - I'm good at what I do. I have a reputation and I work hard to protect it. In my business it's important and also brings in new work. Like this one, the assessor thought he saw something which didn't look right and called me to have a look and see what I thought. We don't charge for that. When I agreed with him and sent off some specimens for forensic analysis it supported both our disquiet and suggested a fraud was being perpetrated but it's left to me to prove it."

"So you can do that by pretending to be a woman, can you?"

"I've had no problems with clients or sponsors, why does it matter to you?"

"Well, if we're investigating fraud, doesn't you being one tend to suggest it's okay? Shouldn't I arrest you if you go near a ladies toilet?" Oh dear, good old fashioned double standards and police bigotry.

"I am presenting as female because I am ostensibly one. My body is more female than male, I pee sitting down, because I have to, otherwise it runs down my leg. I have female genitalia, I have breasts, but then you know that you've spent half the morning looking at them." He blushed.

"Okay, I grant you that you seem to have a female body shape, but it's all artificial, isn't it."

"I admit I had a surgeon modify my genitals from useless male ones to useful female ones, but all the rest is homegrown, like the bit you have been giving your attention for the last hour."
"So no implants?"

"Nope, I grew them myself and it's taken me two or three years. Unless you have a baby it does tend to be slow growing, but if you have implants they need replacing in ten years and lovers can tell the difference."

"Oh, so you've done some experimenting then? Doesn't that make you gay?"

"I see myself as a heterosexual woman, and I hope anyone making love to me sees the same. If they don't then they are either a bigot like you or seem inured to feminine charms or gay."

He laughed at me. "I ain't no bigot, but apart from yer tits I 'aven't seen these so called feminine charms."

"You're not likely to, you're as big a turn on as a dead fish, and you are a bigot."

No, I ain't, give me a proper woman and I can do it as good as anyone."

I admit there are many more beautiful women than I am, but I reckon that I'd only have to suggest they were trans and he wouldn't be able to get it up and I have been told by someone I respect, that I am quite a good lay. But this circular argument was getting us nowhere and no closer to me collecting my fees.

"So are you allowing personal feelings to interfere with your work, isn't that unprofessional", take that you bastard. that made him blush too. "Should I ask for another officer to help me?" I knew that Peters was not flavour of the month to the Chief Inspector, he wasn't my choice either. He was lazy, old fashioned and bigoted. Otherwise he was just as good a pile of shit as any other bucket of manure.

"No, we'll work round it."

"Right, so you won't arrest me if I use the toilets?"

"Not this time." He chuckled to himself but he was laughable, risible even but he couldn't see it, still that's what they gave me to work with so I shall. Just then Stephanie, who is growing into a very pretty young thing came to us and handed me a package which had just been delivered. It was more forensics. I thanked her and hugged her, kissing her on the cheek as she left. "Now that's a cracking bit of stuff."

"That's my niece you dirty bastard. Lay a finger on her and I'll forget I'm a lady and spread you all over that wall."

"Ooh, so you got some balls after all, thought you 'ad 'em removed."

"Leave her alone, she's still in fucking school." She wasn't but she could have been. Things calmed down, him still believing he was a superior being, the fact that I could probably reduce him to a dirty mark on the floor because I train regularly, including in Keysi, a form of all in fighting developed by Spanish gypsies or so the story goes. All I know is that if someone starts anything, they are unlikely to be able to walk away unless I want them to, it's pretty bloody and my instructor makes me practice what would be lethal movements, only we pull them at the last minute.

I showed him the packet from the lab, it was an analysis of the antique vase, which was modern as some of the glazes were not developed until the last century, they gave chapter and verse of the reasons why and the chemistry involved. He read it and cleared his throat, "Looks like fraud unless they believed it was older or were sold a pup."

"I've spoken to them and they didn't suggest it was anything but an antique and very valuable, like the Chinese carpets that weren't, full of plastic fibres, so perhaps modern Chinese carpets are like that but they drew my attention because they seemed to scorch so quickly, whereas felt takes a while to catch fire unless you use an accelerant."

"Okay, you've convinced me to have a look."

"The provenance for everything seems to have perished in the fire but very little else was lost."

"Gets more and more suspicious, they seem like they are total morons or playing stupid."

"I think it may be the latter, hoping no one would notice, but it seems a bit obvious for that, perhaps they didn't think anyone could be that stupid and still breathe unaided." He laughed at my description, at last we were working without an atmosphere so thick you would need breathing apparatus if in it for any length of time. I left and told him I'd collect him tomorrow at ten. He walked me to the door and saw my car for the first time.

"Jesus, we going in that jet fighter?"

"I've got a bicycle and could probably borrow another." He laughed and told me that my car would do at a pinch and that perhaps he was in the wrong job. I agreed with him in my head, but I doubted he'd make much of a living as an investigator, he wasn't diplomatic enough and he was too stupid, how he got to inspector surprised me, but the DCI was on to him, hence he was helping me, but he still had the power of arrest, which I didn't.

"Who was the dick in the ill-fitting suit?" asked Stephanie referring, I hoped, to Peters.

"The DCI reckoned they could spare him for a couple of days, wonder why? He's a bigot suggesting he could arrest me if I used a female toilet, but he fancied you" I told her.

"See he could tell quality," she laughed.

"No, like lots of men, he fancies young teens, shades of virginity and all that."

"For a cop he sounds like a dirty old man."

The only reason I put up with him is because he has a warrant card and can make an arrest once I've made a case, which is coming together. It seems our clients are incredibly thick, or would like us to think they were, or very shady and are trying to pull off an insurance fraud. Tomorrow, I hope to accuse them and present some of the evidence I have, so it should have a bit of excitement. Up until the last minute they can withdraw the claim, but if dopey is there, he can charge them with attempting to defraud an insurance company and I'll give him my evidence, then it's up to the CPS what they go for. Personally, I think they should be charged because if they'd succeeded they quite happily have pocketed forty grand."

Mike showed me what he'd been working on, that was another fraud case which I collected evidence months before, and he was submitting the paperwork and the evidence, the insurance company would call in the Met's fraud squad and prosecute on the case we had made. It was for hundreds of thousands, so a bit more than this one. Stephanie was looking at a robbery from a wealthy family in Hampstead and how similar it was to one in Wimbledon. I'd been offered some gems on the black market which probably came from both. The gems were genuine but the current ownership wasn't so Stephanie was liaising with police to set up a sting. I'd be involved again then, so plenty in the pipeline.

Rather than be seen with me, I'm not sure why, but Peters agreed to meet me at the client's house at 10.30 the next day. Stephanie took the call, Mike had gone home and I was cooking dinner, a paella. I make quite a good one but then that isn't too hard, the cookery not the actual paella. If that's hard something has gone very wrong. Ours didn't and we both enjoyed it, talking about our cases as we relaxed. I had changed into a velvet lounger suit, so soft after wearing fairly formal clothes all day, Stephanie who was still finding her feet, was dressed in jeans that seemed painted on, quite how she managed to cross her legs in them without doing herself an injury, puzzled me, but that's the way that youth asserts itself, I'm not that old but compared to her I am.

The next morning I arrived at the client's house and while I replacing the flat shoes I drive in with stilettos to match my rather nice Chanel suit, Peters arrived in a Vauxhall Vectra, a few years old, my Jag is less than two years old. It was an ex demonstrator with twenty thou on the clock when I bought it, it has a few more miles under it since then but is in perfect working order. My life could depend on a clean getaway after accusing people of theft or fraud, so I make sure it can go like a rocket. Maybe a Porsche 911 would catch it, but I have been trained to drive defensively, so I hope my pursuer hadn't and right would prevail, well me anyway.

Peters nodded at me and I left my car and strutted to the front door which still showed smoke damage. Peters followed me and our clients admitted us to their house. I declined coffee, I was going to shatter their dreams in a moment.

"Do you still wish to make this claim for forty thousand pounds?" they both said yes. "Is there anything else we should know about that you wish to bring to our attention." They both told us no. I looked at Peters and he knew I was about to deliver a coup de grâce. "You still maintain the fire damaged valuable paintings, antiques and Chinese carpets?" They both nodded.

"I'm sorry but I believe you are trying to fraudulently claim for items which are not as you claim and are actually worth much less than you claim. I have forensic evidence backing up my opinion from a laboratory I use regarding the carpets and the antique vases, and an expert opinion from the curator of art from the British Museum telling me the paintings were only worth a few pounds and forensically they tend to suggest very modern on rather poor quality canvases." I gave them a chance to reply but they only protested their innocence. I nodded to Peters and he stepped up to make an arrest. They just collapsed into a weeping heap, no not Peters, he was in his element. He got the collars while I had done all the work, I suppose it paid for two tanks of fuel, which Jaguars have, well it can be thirsty if you drive it fast. I give it the odd burst when I feel the conditions are safe and only for a few minutes, 140mph is double the limit so very risky, but it is a high performance engine and quite a large one.

Peters took charge and I arranged to send him the evidence while I went home to make my own claim to the insurance company and find out what Stephanie had arranged with the Met. I sometimes wonder about what I do, spoiling people's lives but when I consider it objectively, I don't spoil their lives, they do it themselves, I protect the insurance companies from their dishonesty and make a reasonable living at it. Still if everybody was upright and honest, I'd make a much poorer one and have to go back to academia and teach psychology or something, but then, there is enough dishonesty about for me to be needed, so I'll just take a bow, or should it be curtsy these days and go and celebrate another positive result with Steph, oh, nearly forgot her mother's supposed to be coming to dinner this evening, have to think what I'm going to cook and get it.