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When reported for duty on Saturday morning Superintendent Willis was just inside the door of the police station.

“Constable Clarke," he said, “a word.”

I followed him into his office where he offered me a chair.

“Don’t look so worried, lad, you don’t need your federation rep. I want you to do something for the city division. This is not a transfer. You are being lent to them by me and no paperwork involved. Whilst there you will answer directly to Detective Inspector Wren and nobody, and I do mean nobody else. What we want you to do is a little out of the ordinary and if it comes off will be a real feather in your cap. I will involve undercover work and before you ask I do have the Chief Constable’s authority for that although even he does not know the precise nature of the assignment. Interested?”

“Yes, Sir”

“You can pull out now if you want to but I can’t tell you much more until you are committed to do the job”

“I’m committed, Sir. This is just what I joined the police service for.”

“OK then, During this operation, which has no name because that would involve registering the operation name at HQ and with the home office, Your identity will not be known to other officers at City. Nor will anyone know of your involvement in the case. In fact only three people are in on this, you, me and Jenny. I have not chosen you, as you will have already guessed, for your vast experience of police work nor for your particular aptitude for undercover work, but because you fit the specification that Jenny has set out. Which is more to do with your shape and size than your experience.”

“Jenny?”

“Detective Inspector Wren.”

“So this DI Wren, wanted a skinny little bloke to do her dirty work for her.”

“Now don’t take that attitude, this is a genuine opportunity to do something important.”

“I am worried about the secrecy. Seems to me something that professional standards ought to be aware of.”

“Well they are not, not yet anyway. If Jenny is right then they will be.”

“Ah.”

“Don’t jump to any conclusions about this. And whilst I am at it don’t jump to conclusions about Jenny either. She is not what might expect. She’s real looker, our Jenny, posh too. Some will say that’s what got her where she is, Inspector before 30. It’s not true. I have never known her to use feminine wiles or social connections, easy as it would have been. More often the opposite is true. She has a fine intellect and is a very good detective.”

“What do I tell the others?”

“As if that would bother you. You are not particularly ‘in’ with the rest of them are you? Comes of being the only university educated one on the crew. You will tell them nothing. I will tell them that you are on indefinite compassionate leave. I’m going to walk out of here with you and escort you to the section house. I want you to change into plain clothes, casual like, don’t look like a copper in a uniform shirt and a sports jacket and take nothing but your warrant card. When you meet up with Jenny she will take charge of that and provide everything else you need.

Forty minutes later I was in the car park of a pub on the coast a few miles from the city. Superintendent Willis was driving away. I did not even have a toothbrush with me.

I went into the bar as previously instructed and bought myself a drink. There were twenty or so people in the large bar. I studied them surreptitiously. They were mostly men and none of the few women fitted the description I had been given. Then there was a movement amongst the men in the room. With one mind they all looked towards the French windows leading to the garden. I followed their eyes and saw what had attracted their attention. She stood in the doorway looking around the room as if looking for her date.

About twenty-six or so, slim with blonde hair in a luxuriant long bob style. She wore a grey suit with a three-quarter sleeve jacket and a pencil skirt. Her blouse was white satin. Black stockings led to black patent high heel shoes. She saw me and immediately I knew that this was Jenny Wren. Despite what I had been told I was as dumbstruck as any other man in the room would have been. She walked like a model with her handbag in the crook of her left arm and her sunglasses dangling casually from her right hand. As she approached every man in the room looked at me with undisguised hatred. She took my hands in hers, pulled me close and ‘air kissed’ both cheeks. Her perfume was heady and her make-up exquisite.

“There you are, Darling, mine’s a gin and tonic. I’ll find us a place in the garden.”

Her progress back to the French windows was watched with no less attention than her entry.

I recovered as quickly as I could, bought two gin and tonics and made my way outside. She was sitting at a table by herself in the centre of the garden. Not close to any other drinkers and not close to the hedge. I saw straight away that this was not by accident. I took the seat opposite her.

“Hidden in plain sigh, eh?”

That’s right. Nobody will remember seeing two coppers whispering in a corner. You catch on quickly.”

“I do my best, Ma’am”

“Less of that. Call me Louise, it’s my real name. Jenny is the inevitable nickname. What do they call you?”

“In the station they call me Kim. It’s a joke about Kimberley Clark. I accept it because it could have been worse. Amongst other things they make toilet paper. My sisters call me Eric which is my real name.”

She had been fiddling with something behind the open flap of her handbag and now produced a long cigarette in a short black holder. I took out my lighter and lit it for her.

“Well I am really pleased to meet you, Eric.” She blew a stream of smoke upwards. “Tell me the bits about you that are not in your personal file.”

“What do you know already?”

“You are unmarried, 28, you live in the section house so you actually are ‘single’. You joined the job after a degree in information technology and a short career in business. You have been in the job for less than three years but have already passed your sergeants’ exams.”

“That’s about it really.”

“No steady girlfriend?”

“No.”

“Nor boyfriend?”

“If there was a significant other it would be a female.”

“Family?”

“Two sisters.”

“Ever done any acting?”

“Not since school.”

“What did you play?”

“Can nothing be secret?”

“From me, No.”

“You must understand that there were no girls in the school, and I was one of the smaller fifth formers.”

She smiled, at the same time drawing on her cigarette.

“Juliet?”

“Got it in one.” I grimaced, “Surely we are not here to talk about my fifteen-year-old foray into transvestism?”

She smiled again. “How did it go down?”

“As I remember the headmaster did say he found my portrayal ‘somewhat disturbing’. Look, what are we here for?”

“Drink up. We’ll talk in the car.”

The car was a surprise, an Aston Martin DBS Volante. I must have shown how impressed I was.

“Don’t drool. It was my father’s, he gave it to me when they cancelled his driving licence after his stroke. I use a mini for work. Daddy has me keep this on so that I can take him out in it.”

Louise put on her sunglasses and we set off along the coast road. At first I just sat back to enjoy the ride, then she spoke.

“We, and I mean you and me, Eric, are going to catch a rapist. To be more exact we are going to catch a man who has attempted four rapes but not yet actually succeeded in completing the act. We are going to get him before he gets any better at it.”

She looked at me an, apparently satisfied that I was listening, carried on.

“So far, the attacker has been clever. He never leaves DNA or any other trace that we can use. Not a sniff. What is worse he is one jump ahead of us all the time. Every trap we set has been compromised. He is in on the story every time. At first I suspected that there was a leak. Later I came to the view that it must be one of my own officers carrying out the attacks. After the third attack I re-formed the team. The fourth attack took place despite all of our precautions. On top of that it was an explicit warning. He grabbed one of the watchers, not the decoy you understand but one of the watchers, pulled her into the bushes and pushed his erection hard up against her backside and boasted that we could do nothing about him. Left her with a great lump on her head and a note repeating the warning in case concussion or something worse prevented the message from getting through.”

“What’s the next move?”

“There’s something else you ought to know first.”

“Oh”

“The part I have not told anyone is this. I am involved. Not just with the investigation of theses crimes but also with their commission. The first three women were known to me and knew me. The fourth was a member of my team. The links are too tenuous to come up on anyone else’s radar but it is becoming clear, to me at least, that if am not the actual eventual target then I may be the unwitting way that the victims are chosen. Whatever the truth of it or the reason for it he is getting closer and that is what gives us the opportunity to catch him.”

“What are you, we, going to do?”

“We are going to offer the bastard my sister as bait.”

“Your sister?”

“You.”

“Eh?”

“You will be my sister. I will be close by. He will not be able to resist the bait.

“Isn’t that a job for a female officer?”

“We have tried several female officers at enormous overtime cost and at some detriment to their state of mind. The attacker knew who they were. What I need is someone from outside, unknown to anyone including my team who I can introduce into my circle in such a way that he cannot fail to notice. I also need someone who is handy in a fight.”

“Lots of female officers can do that.”

“Most of those are not slightly built blue-eyed blondes. Some of them don’t even look as good as you do in a frock.”

“You knew about Juliet.”

“I was there.”

“You were what? Wren! Bugger me. I should have made the connection. You are Mr Wren’s daughter! We even met after the play. Your dad was the chairman of the governors.”

“I thought you had forgotten me. It was half a lifetime and two hundred miles away.”

Forgotten her! Not likely! She was about 17 in a grey silk mini-dress. Sparkling pale blue eyes, long blonde hair down to her waist. She had been the subject of my fantasies for a long time. I must have blushed. She gave me a very knowing smile ten looked away.

“You have got a sister. She was there. I couldn’t possibly impersonate her.”

“Ali is married to a US Navy officer and lives in Hawaii, happily raising babies. There is absolutely no way that she is going to turn up here.“

Louise opened her handbag with her left hand and produced a Passport. She passed it to me. Alicia Marie Wren, place and date of birth exactly the same as mine. That was spooky enough without what was being proposed. The passport was valid for three more years. The photograph could have been Louise. The sisters were very alike.”

“Doesn’t she need this?”

“No, she is a US citizen now. She gave it to me for safekeeping.”

“We need more than a passport.”

“With the passport we can get other things, bank account, etcetera.”

“I wasn’t thinking of that. Look, I played Juliet 13 years ago because my school was too stuck in its ways to invite girls from the school over the road to join in our amateur dramatics.”

“But you were chosen from the available candidates because of your eminent suitability.”

“I was small, less able to refuse.”

“Look, I’m taking you to father’s house. There is some stuff there I want you to see. He also wants to meet you. All I have told him is the coincidence of our meeting. He said he would like to see you again. Not a word of this, OK?”

“How did you find me anyway?”

“Luck, kismet, call it what you like. I searched the personnel database with Ali’s birthday and only you came up. I knew you straight away. I have often thought of that night.”

My heart leapt at that. This beautiful woman remembered my performance and often thought of it! I analysed what had been said. She had remembered the night, not me. She would have been seventeen or eighteen. A fifteen-year-old boy in a frock would have been beneath her consideration. My thoughts were interrupted at that point as we pulled off the road into the drive of a Victorian detached house.

“Remember, we met by chance at work!”

A uniformed nurse let us in. We found Mr Wren in a wheelchair on the terrace behind the house. I was shocked at the difference to the man I had known in my schooldays. The stroke had robbed him of control of the left side of his body, his speech was, although mostly intelligible, sometimes slurred and often repeated.

“Much of me right brain has packed in” he said “just after we moved down here to retire. I get a bit down sometimes, especially since the wife passed away. Are you two an item then?”

Louise seemed embarrassed.

“Daddy! I told you, I only met Eric today after a thirteen year gap!”

“He’s your sort though, Darling, not one of those hairy rugger-buggers that you so despise. She speaks very highly of you, Eric, don’t let her slip through your fingers this time.”

Louise made our excuses and dragged me off to show me the house and garden. This involved taking me by the hand. I had my work cut out to prevent myself from hyperventilating! She showed me photos of Alicia and clothes that she had left behind when she went to America for her new life. Some of this was already packed into two large suitcases with some stuff of their mother’s. Louise explained that it all had to go anyway as the house was to be sold. Her father was soon to move to a bungalow more suited to his needs. Taking our leave of the old man we got back on the road.

“Now what?”

“I can’t risk you being seen in the city with me or even near me. We need to go to a hotel somewhere to change to into a rough approximation of Ali. She never lived in this area, she met Matt whilst she was an exchange student at Berkley and was married out there.”

“How far do you want to go?”

“I beg your pardon.”

“My place is in Dorset, near Bridport. I go there on leave and long breaks.”

“Its not in the personnel record.”

“Er, no, its not. It’s a bit of private space.”

“We could be there in half an hour.”

I gave the final directions just over twenty minutes later. I let us in to my isolated cottage and gave Louise the quick tour. It was six-thirty by this time so I offered to cook. Instead we drove to a pub and we had dinner and just small talked. The reaction of the other men in the pub was just the same as before but I loved it.

It was twilight when we got back to my cottage. I made coffee whilst Louise went into the bathroom. When I carried the mugs into the sitting room Louise was standing with her hands behind her.

“What have you got there?”

She produced a blonde wig. The colour was identical to her own.

“I was just unpacking some of the props.”

Louise turned the wig inside out and stepped towards me; she pulled the wig over my head and adjusted its fit. I could do nothing with a mug of hot coffee in each hand. She stood with her hands on my shoulders and a strange little smile on her red lips. In her heels she was taller than me.

“I really am glad I found you, Eric, and not just because of the investigation.”

Then she kissed me. Not an air kiss, not a peck on the cheek but a full-blown kiss, Her hands caressed the back of my neck. I responded the best I could but soon came up for air.

“What’s the matter? Didn’t you like that?”

“I loved it, but I have just spilt scalding coffee on both my hands.”

We laughed until it hurt, cleaned up the mess and fell into each other’s arms. We never got to drink what was left of the coffee. I woke just after dawn to find the most beautiful woman in the world in my bed. Our legs were intertwined and her arm was round my neck. Her exquisite nose pressed up against my cheek. A muffled sleepy voice came from inside the tousled mop of blonde hair.

“Don’t you ever shave?

“No, never started.”

“You’re all man, though.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Mmmm, I wonder! Any chance of coffee in this remote establishment?”

“Your wish is my command, oh wonderful one!”

She pulled me to her for a kiss. We finally got coffee forty-five minutes later.

After coffee we showered together then Louise sat me down in front of the mirror. She produced a vanity case and set out all the various potions and lotions. Louise put on a robe which she produced from one of the suitcases and passed another to me.

“We have to start getting you into character” .

The wig was reapplied in order, so she said, to ensure the proper colour match. Actually it was almost the same colour as my own hair. Louise styled the wig on my head. It was of very superior quality. It framed my face making it seem rounder and softer. Foundation was followed by eye-shadow from a palette that looked like a kid’s paint set. Eyeliner and mascara were applied and a female version of me, or was it Alicia Wren, began to appear before my eyes. Pink lipstick completed the look. I thought I looked a bit like a sixties chick but Louise was well pleased with the effect. ”

“You won’t actually meet anyone who has met Ali face to face so the resemblance only has to be approximate. Which is good because if you looked too much like her I wouldn’t be able to do this.”

I had never before then experienced kissing where both participants are wearing lipstick. It has a lot to recommend it. We broke off after a couple of minutes and Louise looked into my eyes from close range.

“You don’t have to take this risk, you know. We could go back to the way we were and then arrange a ‘chance’ meeting at some function or other. Nobody would ever know about this and I would find another way of catching this bastard. I don’t want anything to happen to you. You are very important to me, you know.”

“As you are to me but we are both coppers even if you are a cleverer detective than I will ever be. I agreed to do what was necessary to catch this attacker and I will. After that I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“You old romantic! Was that a proposal?”

“If you want it to be a proposal then it was.”

“In that case I accept!”

I thought I would burst. We held on to each other and both cried a little. Then once again that beautiful face was in front of mine and the pale blue eyes studied me.

“I was worried that you would be scared off by my position in the job and my family’s money. I’ll give it all up if you want.”

I laughed and squeezed her again.

“Don’t you dare, I fell in love with the beautiful lady detective, not a little homebody in a pinafore. The money is not a problem, you see, the other thing the personnel file didn’t tell you was that my short career in business was in my own business. When my competitors bought me out the offered a very handsome premium on the deal if I would undertake not to compete with them in UK for 5 years and an absolute packet if I agreed not to compete with them anywhere, ever. On top of that they pay me an annual retainer and I get royalties on every program sold. After they bought me out I went on a world tour for six months and then decided that I was wasting my life. My ambition as a boy was always to be a police officer. So I applied and here I am.”

“Are there any more surprises?”

“Such as what?”

“Ex wives, children, castles in Spain?”

“As for the first, no, to tell you the truth I was a bit of a geek at university, then I had the idea for the program and spent two years in a darkened room full of computers. Then there was running the business and no, there were no sexy secretaries. If you want to run a successful computer company you employ geeks. As for the second there is no castle in Spain, just this place, fully paid up and a small place in Rome, near the Trevi Fountain. What about you?”

“Poor little rich girl rebels. Public School then Lucy Clayton’s learning how to get in and out of a sports car without showing your knickers. Daddy lined me up with a PA position with a major law firm and gave me some of my inheritance up front to buy a flat in London. I joined the Metropolitan Police the day after the flat was transferred to me. I was just 20. Concentrated on my career and fighting of hairy-arsed Rugger-Buggers as my father called them. No serious attachments, except to a memory of a beautiful bot in a frock. The rest you probably know. What did Wilf Willis say.”

“He said you were very good at your job.”

“Really?”

“Yes, and that you didn’t get where you are by using feminine wiles on people.”

“I used them on you”

“I wanted you to.”

“And now I am going to teach you to do the same thing. I am sorry.”

“Sorry? For what?”

“For wasting thirteen years.”

“We were different then, younger, more fickle and I was too scared to talk to you. Now we know what we want.”

We wasted a bit more time, not, dear reader in the way you suppose. We just hugged, and cried a little more. Louise was the first the break the spell.

“If we are going to do this thing we have to get on.”

“Let’s get going then.”

“When you played Juliet what were you wearing under the clothes.”

“I can assure you, Madam, that at all material times I was completely stark naked under my clothes!”

She laughed! She actually laughed! The wonderful tinkling sound convinced me, if I had any doubts at all. It must be love if she laughs when my jokes are that bad!

“Now stop messing around, sister dear, and pay attention. To be Alicia you have to be slightly old fashioned and a little formal. All the photos on my desk and the ones that my colleagues have seen are from the period after she married her commander. The Commander’s lady, it would appear, is expected to dress in a certain way. The reason I asked about what you wore is did you have your Y fronts on under that frock or what?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes, It matters because the bring off the part you have to subscribe to the whole package.”

“That’s what the English Master’s wife said when she designed the costume. It had to be from the skin up to be convincing.”

“No Y fronts?”

“No, a corset with suspenders, real silk stockings and silk panties.”

“I am impressed. Were they hers?”

“She provided them and dressed me in them”

“Didn’t that have an effect?”

“On the acting? It was supposed to.”

“No, silly, on you.”

“It would have done if I wasn’t wearing the cache thingy”

“The what?”

“Cache-sexe, it’s a sort of chamois leather G string which keeps things under control and hidden away.”

I went to my dressing table and reached into the back of the top drawer behind some ties.

“There it is, Good quality leather too it’s still as soft as ever.”

Louise took the garment and examined it closely.

“Excellent, just the job, let me put it on you.”

“Absolutely no way!”

“I though you were keen for this to work?”

“I am. You go into the kitchen and make coffee. Take your time about it. I will go into the bathroom and think pure thoughts. If you come anywhere near me it will never fit!”

Twenty minutes later I had the thing on. It had taken that long to get Louise out of my thoughts long enough to do it. I sat on the edge of the bath and wrote a relational database error-trap routine in my head imagining the lines of code on the tiled walls. When I came back into the bedroom my new-found fiancée was loosening the laces on a black corset.

“Black?”

“Actually there are three choices. It’s black or black, otherwise there’s black.”

“In that case I will have the black one.”

Louise affected the stance of a very superior shop-assistant”

“Ay think Moddom will find that it suits.”

I stepped into the corset which Louise pulled up and then closed around me. As she pulled on the laces I began to change shape. My waist got smaller and my hips and chest correspondingly larger. After what seemed an age of tugging and straining Louise declared herself satisfied and tied off the surplus lace around my waist. Although a lot of adipose tissue had been redistributed the bra cups were still empty. Louise delved into a plastic bag which had been in one of the suitcases. Two wobbling flesh-coloured lumps were produced.

“I’ll bet Juliet didn’t have these.”

“No, condoms full of strawberry flavoured jelly. Where did you get those?”

Louise looked sad.

“I sort of inherited them. Mummy wore them for a while after her mastectomy. That’s where the wig came from too. All her hair fell out towards the end. Chemo…”

I gave her a squeeze. She did not speak for a while so I waited. Eventually she pulled back and smiled, but only with her mouth.

“I can’t even mention my mother in front of other people. Can’t show weakness. I don’t mind you knowing though. I feel safe with you.”

“You know I’m going to nag you, don’t you, about going to scan and mammography appointments regularly. You are nearly three years older than me. I want to make sure that you live at least that much longer than me and I plan to live another sixty years.”

“I won’t always look like this, you know.”

“You will to me.”

We kissed then broke apart and Louise fitted the breast forms into the cups of the corset. The extra weight caused me to lean back slightly to compensate. A royal blue sleeveless blouse followed. At first I thought that Louise was putting it on me the wrong way round but soon discovered that it buttoned up the back. The front had a scoop neckline. Louise produced a double string of pearls from a jewellery box in one of the suitcases. She fastened them around my neck then stepped back to examine the effect.

“This is really going to work”

Louise put a ladies watch on my left wrist, a pearl bracelet on my right and clipped pearl earrings to each of my ears. She then produced a pair of stockings from a flat cellophane wrapper and showed me how to bunch them up then pull them up each leg. The fine blonde down on my legs did not show through.

“Do you know you have lovely legs?”

I think I blushed. The feeling of the delicate material against my legs was making tingles run up and down my back. The feeling of my legs rubbing together was heady stuff. The tug of the suspender straps across my bare upper thighs was distracting. I know that I would have been in some trouble without the cache-sexe.

“I am glad you are the first one to notice. But don’t ladies wear tights nowadays?”

“Mostly, yes. But to get the effect we want you have to feel the part as well as look it. You have to feel sexy to pull this off. You are going to drive our man to distraction, probably a few others too.”

“Won’t that confuse the situation?”

“Hopefully it will confuse our man and lead him to make a mistake. What size shoes do you wear.”

“Usually I wear sixes but they can be a bit big.”

Louise clapped her hands.

“My love, you are perfect. How do you get by in police boots?”

“Thick socks.”

Louise produced a black velvet bag from the larger of the two suitcases. Inside was a pair of black stiletto shoes. The heels were very slim and very high.”

“Size five and a half!”

“Another heirloom?”

“No, mine. An ill advised purchase.”

“What’s wrong with them?”

“I take size six.”

“I am never going to walk in them.”

“Oh yes you will and that’s an order!”

“So walk I did, in corset, stockings and high heels, around the bedroom, up and down the landing and up and down the stairs. Louise was a hard task mistress. At one point she even made me walk with a book on my head. She then dressed me in a blue business suit with three-quarter length sleeves and a pencil skirt with a split at the back. The skirt was lined with a silky material and the effect of this against the stockings made concentration very difficult. The constricting effect of the tight skirt forced me to walk with even shorter steps. Pretty much the whole walking practice needed to be repeated. And again once I was carrying a black leather handbag in one hand and a pair of very thin black leather gloves in the other.

“I need to pee”

“Do you have to take off the gadget?”

“No, but I have to sit.”

“But of course, from now on it’s the only way.”

Once I had cleaned myself up I came out of the bathroom to find Louise on her mobile.

“Ok, thank you, We’ll be there at twelve thirty.”

“Where’s that?”

“You’ll see. Now just sit here and wait whilst I get dressed. Do you want a smoke?”

“It might calm my nerves if we are going out.”

“Right, you have to remember that Ali would never go for a quick drag in an alley like a copper out on patrol. Smoking can be sexy and a woman like Ali never let an opportunity to be sexy pass her by. Apart from that you don’t want to spoil your lipstick. First put your gloves on. Here.”

Louise produced a packet of Dunhill International cigarettes from her handbag and a white cigarette holder in a clear plastic bag. She broke the seal and handed me the holder. Showed me how to fit the cigarette into the holder and lit it for me with a gold lighter.”

“Never light your own cigarette if you can possibly get someone else to light it for you. Never, ever, use matches.”

I drew a lungful of smoke and then blew it out in a long stream.

“See, you’re a natural. You look so sexy I could ravish you here and now, but that will have to wait. Don’t smoke the whole thing. Leave at least an inch. Now cross your legs, lean back and enjoy. I won’t be long.”

I did just that. I looked down at my nylon-clad legs and crossed my right leg over the left, eased my heel out of the shoe and allowed it to dangle on my toes. I sat there smoking feeling the constriction of the corset, the taste of lipstick, the nylon against my legs, the tug of the suspenders and the weight of the breast forms. I could not see much of myself except for my legs and my gloved hand holding the long cigarette by its holder.

I wondered how I could go back to the way things were just yesterday morning. More to the point, did I want to?

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To Be Continued…