Now that dealing with her on her own turf in the manner that he had originally planned was out of the question, Sergei turned his attention to trying to work out how to get her to come to him, and then how to deal with her when she was there. The last thing he wanted to do was underestimate her. Even the slightest error on his part from now on, could lead to his demise.

Sergei hadn’t got very far when Naomi sent him an email marked ‘Urgent’. That was the only part of it that was in plain text. Everything else was encrypted using a new private key. He was waiting for another message with the key when a text arrived on the phone that he’d used to call Naomi. All it contained was a web address. He guessed that it was the location of the public key part and knowing Naomi, it would be a one-shot access. The first person to access the page would get the data and then it would magically disappear.

Sergei copied the URL to his laptop and security erased the phone three times. He was not going to take any chances with the information that Naomi wanted to send him.

The decrypted message pulled no punches.

"Chameleon, my supplier of your solution has reported another sale to a mutual friend. Be careful.
Naomi.
PS
If I don’t hear back from you in 72 then I’ll have a discrete conversation with ‘Sam’.”
“

As he read it, a shiver ran down his spine. Things were starting to move up a gear. Naomi was telling him that she had his back and that if things went pear-shaped, he could rely on Sam and his people to clean shop. It was small comfort but at least she would not get away with killing him or at least he hoped that was not going to happen. If she prevailed, then she would have an exit plan already to go. She could be long gone before his demise was noticed. While that would no longer be his problem, Sergei hated loose ends. That made him even more determined to come out on top.

After a period of contemplation, Sergei sent a reply in code to Naomi.

“I’ll text you when the curtain is about to go up.”

Then he sent a brief update to 'Sam' that indicated that it was all going to go down within the next 72 to 96 hours. He ended it with 'NNTR', No Need to Reply.

Sergei’s immediate problem was that he had no idea when the curtain was going to go up.

Once the messages had been sent, Sergei security erased the laptop and restored it from a backup that he’d made after setting it up. The time it took him to do this allowed him to think about his adversary and how she was managing to outsmart him at almost every move. To say that he’d never met an adversary like her was an understatement of monumental proportions. He did the same to the phone. That would give him two ‘clean’ devices to use for the finale of this most weird operation.

The news about her procuring some Curare was a clear indication that things were moving rapidly towards a climax. With her very much running the show, he could only do so much in advance of her attack.

The more he thought about the situation, the one and only way out of this dilemma was to let her make the next move. All he could do was hope that the antidote to Curare would allow him to take control of the situation at the appropriate time. He had no idea when that would be. Thankfully, the antidote was in tablet form. All he could do was to make sure that he took a dose regularly. There was little else he could do but wait.

Sergei hated waiting for more than half an hour for anything when he wasn't in control… Waiting for her to move would be hard, very hard.

Ayesha’s move came four days later.

For a casual observer, it had been just another Friday but for Sergei, he knew that as the saying goes, ‘tonight’s the night’ thanks to the security system he had installed at his rented home.

He’d watched Ayesha leave her work early and head for the railway station. From the time of her departure, he guessed that she was going to take the Gatwick Airport service that ran non-stop to Wokingham.

His guess was proved correct when at 16:47, his systems lost contact with the 4G modem that he was using to run the system. It was only offline for three minutes but it was enough for him to know that she was making her move. Sergei smiled. She’d made her move and unlike her home, his was not a fortress but he had unseen protection in the form of a Raspberry Pi system that sent a ‘keep-alive’ message to a cloud server every 30 seconds. If the server missed two consecutive messages, a text would be sent to his phone. The message would be in Spanish and would say that he had missed a check-up appointment. That seemingly innocuous message told him that today was the day.
Sergei smiled and for a moment, he felt pleased with himself for making his system work that way. She’d blocked the 4G signal while she gained entry to his rented home.

He checked the video feed and that had not been blocked. She was good. A bit of pre-recorded video hid her entry to the house. The small server that sent the ‘keep-alive’ messages was well hidden and unless she’d used a network sniffer, the small 96 byte message that it sent would remain undetected. The message was at first glance, a DHCP renewal message. He mentally thanked an associate in the USA for the software and hardware. This was the third contract that he’d used the device on. It had certainly paid for itself now.

Sergei waited until 17:00 before springing into action.

He sent a text to Naoimi. The message said, “One small step”.

Sergei sent another cryptic message to Sam. Both of his backups would be primed and ready to go should his plan go badly wrong.
It was up to him to go home on time, and appear as unsuspecting as he could.

He didn’t wait for a reply as none would be forthcoming. Instead, he initiated a factory reset on the phone. He repeated it two more times before removing the SIM card and cutting it into small pieces. These, he wrapped in a piece of paper. That would be put into a bin in the street or at the station.

His last action before leaving the office was to take a dose of the curare antidote. He had to hope that she wanted to prolong his agony and
would not give him a fatal dose as he stepped through his front door.

Sergei walked to the station and made the Gatwick Airport train just before it departed. As he watched the lights of Reading disappear into the looming night, he hoped that he’d be still alive by the end of the evening. Despite the horrible architecture, he’d grown rather attached to the place.

His home was all in darkness when he arrived just before 18:50. He’d stopped to buy some food as was his normal practice for a Friday. If she had anyone watching him then it would appear to be a perfectly normal Friday.

Sergei walked up to the front door and without hesitation, opened it. There were a couple of flyers for local fast-food joints lying on the mat. He ignored them and headed for the kitchen.

That’s when he felt a prick in his neck. His reaction was to strike out but she ducked and missed his arm.

“I’d sit down before you fall down Sergei,” came her voice from the darkness. She flicked on the light. A gun was in her right hand. He guessed that it was a Glock 17 with a silencer.

“Finally… I have you right where I want you. I am going to enjoy this, really enjoy this.”

Sergei put down the bag of food and sat on a chair. The gun and especially the silencer told him that she really did mean business.

“Is it starting to take effect yet? I do hope so,” said Ayesha who was clearly enjoying his misery.

She grinned as she came close to Sergei. He smelt her perfume. Subtle but alluring and very different from the exclusive sent she’d worn before.

“There is a saying, do unto others as they do unto you. I’m going to do unto you as you did to someone else. You see Sergei Labrov, I have followed your career very closely for some years. Burying Gustav Henkel alive in the foundations of his new house was a masterstroke. You did unto him as he did to his victims and now it will be your turn to experience that fate. There is a new building going up in Forbury Gardens. There is a concrete pour due at 08:30 tomorrow morning. You will be underneath that pour. Perhaps in a thousand years, your body will be found like that of King Richard in that car park in Leicester. If you are wondering who is paying me to dispose of you then wonder no more… It is Gustav Henkel’s widow. She is going to pay me a cool five million for getting rid of you. Then it will be me who retires to your home in Puerto Soller. Oh, don’t worry, the records in Palma will show that you sold it to me a year ago. Yes, that’s how long I have been planning this.”

Sergei almost let the cat out of the bag and said that she was lying. His property in Spain was owned on paper by a company in Andorra. The only officer of the company was his German lawyer who could not sell it without him signing the authorisation in person. Thankfully, he managed to stay perfectly still. Only his eyes moved as he watched her 'assume' control of the situation.

Ayesha went over to her handbag and extracted a small case. She put it down on the table and opened it. While her back was turned, Sergei attempted to lift up his left leg. The antidote was working. He was able to move it just an inch or two. He relaxed and waited for her to continue to gloat about her victory over him.

Inside was another syringe and a small bottle that contained a liquid.

She turned to face him again.

“This is concentrated curare. The dose that I gave you just now was enough to slow you down. This one will keep you motionless for the next twelve hours. When this has taken effect, I’ll take you to your last resting place and may God help your murderous soul or perhaps the devil will be opening the gates of hell for you. Either way Sergei, the game of chess is over and my queen has your king in a trap. One last move and you are gone.”

She picked the syringe up from the case, and after holding it up and removing some air from it, she approached Sergei grinning from ear to ear.
This was the trigger that Sergei needed. He sprang into action by swinging his left leg. It caught her by surprise and she lost her balance as she tried desperately not to stab herself with the syringe. She failed and it rolled away as she fell to the floor.

In a move that he had his long-dead bully of a father to be thankful for, Sergei had Ayesha pinned down on the ground in under three seconds. She was not giving up and stretched out a hand in the hope of grabbing the syringe.

“Noooooooo!” she shrieked as Sergei moved it out of her reach. He turned her over onto her front that took her even farther away from the syringe.

“Yes, Ayesha. Karma is a bitch, isn’t it?”

Sergei reached up under her skirt and pulled down her tights.
“Go on then fuck me. I’ll enjoy every moment of it and then I’ll come back to haunt you.”

“I’m not going to touch you. I just need these to tie you up while I deal with you. Using curare or should I say trying to use it was your undoing. Your suppler told a good friend of mine who told me. That same supplier gave me some antidote that’s why your initial dose had zero effect on me. I did my research on you Ayesha just like you did on me. The difference is that I have a number of associates who work for a number of Governments who would very much like to see the end of you. These departments have been most helpful to me in this case. That’s also how I came to know that you are the elusive ‘Uncle Vanya’. You really should not have taken out an asset of MI6. They are very protective of their people.

Ayesha struggled a bit more but he had her pinned down on her stomach. All the time, he was tying her hands tightly.

“Yes Ayesha. I will have to admit that it was a good move to make yourself my target. Because you know my methods there was little danger of me taking you out from 500 yards with a sniper rifle. You certainly did your homework on me but even that was deficient in so many ways. Your demise will make a fitting end to my career. I can head for retirement knowing that I finished on a high. Yes Ayesha, I had more or less made the decision to quit the game before you came and interrupted my slumbers. It is a shame. If you had just waited then you could have had one less competitor without even lifting a finger."

Sergei proceeded to hog-tie her arms and legs. She struggled but he knew the right pressure points that would nullify her struggles until she was securely bound.

Once she was secure, he rolled her over onto her side.

She spat at him like a hissing cobra. Sergei just smiled.

After removing a handkerchief from his trouser pocket, he picked up the syringe.

“Now it is my turn. Just a little to incapacitate you and keep you quiet. The rest I’ll leave for later.”

Ayesha struggled but it was no use. He injected her with a small amount of the contents of the syringe between the big toe and the next one on her left foot. Her struggling motions continued for almost two minutes before gradually subsiding.

“Good!” he said as he stood up.

“I’m going to get my van. When I return, you will go on your last journey. May you rot in hell or rather down a collapsed tunnel vent. Your body will probably never be discovered.”

He went towards the door but turned around and knelt down in front of her.

“If only you had waited. They say that ‘only fools rush in’. Well Ayesha, you rushed in and you will pay the price for your foolhardiness. I was going to bring the fight to you, but I discovered that your home is defended like Fort Knox. That’s when I knew that you were coming to play on my turf. Interrupting my video feeds was good but not good enough. I have another data feed running in the background that you missed. That was when I knew that today was the day. I win and you lose.”

Sergei returned a few minutes later. Ayesha remained motionless on the floor but her eyes followed his every move.
“I must remember to thank your sister, the delectable Ms Foster for suggesting this house. The private access to the garage from the kitchen is going to prove most useful, most useful indeed.”

Ayesha’s eyes told him that he’d hit a raw nerve. That was what he intended.

Sergei dragged her into the kitchen and out to the garage. After a bit of a struggle, he got her into the back of his van.

“I’ll be back,” he chanted hoping to sound like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Sergei, as was his habit, did not leave anything to chance. He left the van doors open and retreated to the kitchen and therefore out of sight of the door to the garage. He waited to see if she would try to move. The grunting that came from the rear of the van told him that he’d been successful with the dose of curare.

Sergei returned to the garage and checked on Ayesha. Her eyes followed his every move. They were still filled with hate and vile so he put a towel over her face effectively blinding her. It would also stop her from spitting at him again.

After returning to the house once more, he began to pack up for a night time trip to the middle of nowhere as well. Then he’d start the process of tidying up all the loose ends.

Ten minutes later, he returned to the van. He had bagged up all her things including the ‘zapper’ that would disable her home security system.
Sergei cut the bonds holding Ayesha’s feet. She didn’t move. He smiled and began to tie her down to the floor of the van. The previous owners had welded some ‘D’ rings to the floow and walls to secure loads. They were perfect for her last journey. His last job was to cover her up with a coat.

Five minutes later, he was driving away from Wokingham. There was still a good amount of traffic around but that didn’t bother him in the slightest. He headed for the A329M and then the M4 in a westbound direction. At the next junction, he turned off and took the A33 towards the centre of Reading where he stopped at a large DIY store a mile or so from the junction. Ten minutes later, he returned with a wheelbarrow, a large tarpaulin and a set of work gloves. After loading them into the van, he drove back to the M4 and continued westbound to the nearby Services.

Before continuing west, he bought himself a large coffee. It was going to be a long night.

Just over an hour later, he left the M4 at Junction 17 and headed north. At the first opportunity, he pulled over and went to the back of the van putting on a head torch as he did so.

He removed the coat from over her face. The look of defiance on her face told him that he was just in time as she began to struggle against the lashings.

“Well Uncle Vanya, it is time for your last journey. I really do hope that you enjoy your last moments on this earth.”

Sergei straddled her and forced her mouth open. Then, he injected the remainder of the drug into the inside of her cheek. He waited for her to lapse into unconsciousness. The amount of curare in her system would probably be enough to stop the breathing reflex in a few minutes. He switched off the torch and waited. A few cars went along the main road that was about 100m away but none of them turned into this small lane.
Her breathing stopped and the job was done. This was one job that would always leave a bitter taste in his mouth. Killing a woman had done it for him. He was done with the assassination game for good no matter how much she deserved to be his last target.

Sergei closed up the back of the van and carried on north. His destination was not that far away and was thanks to a book he’d found in Reading Library. The book had been about the history of the ‘Thames and Severn Navigation’.

From that book, he had discovered that the long abandoned Sapperton Tunnel had several airshafts. One of those is blocked by a rockfall about 30m from the surface. That is where he was going to dispose of her body and the wheelbarrow would help him move it from the car to the shaft once he’d wrapped her in the tarpaulin. The work gloves would make sure that he left no fingerprints on it once he’d removed it from the plastic bag. That bag was safely stowed in his pocket. Sergei’s training had kicked in big-time. He was determined not to leave any trace of his actions behind.

Ayesha’s cooling body disappeared into the blackness of the shaft just over an hour later. Sergei tossed the body of the syringe body parts into a river just off the M5 near Bridgewater two hours after that. Only her fingerprints were on it but the water would wash them away very quickly. The water would dissolve what remained of the curare very quickly. After that? It would be regarded as just another junkie syringe. The needle was dropped into a discarded beer can which was dumped into a wastebin, on the forecourt of an all-night filling station on the A38 south of Taunton.

Sergei carried on driving south and rejoined the M5, and passed Exeter just before 04:00. Only then did he begin to breathe a bit easier. Every mile that he travelled was one more mile away from the scene of his most distasteful job, a job that would always leave a bitter taste in his mouth but he was finished with the game. Once the cleanup was done, he could start to think about the future.

He found a café near the port in Plymouth not long after 05:00. It didn’t open until 06:00 but he didn’t mind. All he hoped was that there was space on the morning ferry to Roscoff.

From where he was parked, he sent an email to Naomi saying that it was done. He also sent an email to ‘Sam’ saying the same thing and also letting him know about her house and importantly the location of the security device that would disable the security system that protected her now former home.

“The job with Uncle Vanya is over. If your boys fancy a spot of B&E training then please go ahead and use it, otherwise, the keyfob that will open up the property, is in the mail to your Paddington mail drop. I am officially retired. I have a few bits of cleaning of my own to do and I should be back in sunny Spain in a few weeks. Thank you Sam and I will not go back on my word.”
Sergei”

While waiting for the café to open, Sergei booked a place for him and the van on the ferry to Roscoff. He also booked a cabin in the hope that he could get a few hours of sleep because his adrenaline high was rapidly coming to an end.

Late that afternoon found a much-rested Sergei back in France. He’d declared the wheelbarrow at French customs. The official didn’t believe him but did so after seeing it in person. He and his colleagues had a good laugh at his expense.

Once out of the port, he drove the short distance to his friend George’s home and left the wheelbarrow on his front porch with a little note of thanks for his help plus an envelope containing five hundred euros. George could use the barrow on his vegetable patch where he grew prize-winning onions and garlic.

Sergei drove off into the gathering dusk with a smile on his face. At last, he could relax and head east towards Paris. Shortly after 02:00, he pulled up at a small industrial area between the suburb of 'Choisy Le Roix’ and Orly Airport. The area was very quiet with traffic or people moving about which was good for this part of his clean-up operation. The nearby market at Orly was a hive of activity, but this part of the area was pretty dead at that time of night. That was perfect for this last act in his fight for survival.

“Well old girl, you have done a great job these past weeks. Now it is time for me to leave you,” he muttered to the van.

Sergei gathered his things together and got out of the van. He left the keys in the ignition, the driver's window wound down and walked away from the vehicle and didn’t look back. He didn’t need the reminder of what he’d done just over a day ago.

The river Seine was not that far away and he intended to follow it as far as Notre Dame before heading for the Gare Du Nord and a Eurostar train to London. He was in no hurry and to be honest, he enjoyed watching the city come alive.

A baguette and a coffee from a vendor at the Gare du Nord satisfied his hunger as he waited for the first London train of the day. While he waited, he sent an email to his sister explaining that the van had been stolen from an address in Paris the previous evening. She would know that it was a lie, but it would be enough to keep the Paris Gendarmerie off their backs. They might want to speak to Sergei but by then, he’d be in London.

The train journey to London and again on to Reading was not enough respite for Sergei and he was definitely running on empty by the time he reached his destination.

A very tired but slightly happy Sergei was back in his Office in Reading and eating a Cheese and Ham Baguette from Pierre’s just after one in the afternoon. Ironically, this one was far tastier than the one he’d bought in Paris.

He looked around and felt rather sad. A lot had happened since he was last sitting at that desk and looking out at the street below. Now it was time to tidy up a few loose ends before heading off into retirement.

His only worry was that he’d be connected to the disappearance of Ayesha despite the fact that he’d been very careful when contacting her. On the plus side, he had never been seen going anywhere near her home. She had been to his rented place and that would need a deep, deep clean before he handed back the keys. The office would need the same treatment just in case she had been inside as she had boasted.
That thought reminded him of something. None of the ‘watchers’ had been waiting for him at the station. Ayesha must had been so confident of her success that she’d called them off before that fateful evening.

He finished the baguette and made himself a cup of coffee. There was a huge weight on his shoulders. There was a persistent nagging thought that he’d forgotten something. That was so unlike him. Planning and more planning was his hallmark and so far, he’d managed not to leave incriminating evidence behind. Having to act very much on the fly was strange to him. Only time would tell on that one.

Before leaving for the day, he sent off a longer email to his sister Iliana telling her that he was fine and would be going home shortly. That would tell her that the job was done. The local Gendarmerie would probably be asking questions about the van. In his mind, it was either being broken up for spares or driven around on false plates. He’d chosen the place for the drop off carefully because in the past those units had been a place that people went to for a dodgy car or cheap original parts for expensive cars.

Sergei took the bus to Wokingham even though the train would have been a lot quicker, but taking the train didn’t allow him to make a stop at the supermarket in Winnersh, for some food and some cleaning materials. He planned to start on the house cleaning in the morning, but tonight he was going to eat a nice steak, wash it down with a fairly decent Claret and hopefully get a good night's sleep in a bed after sending an email to Sam. Sam replied saying that their operation to cleanup her affairs would begin the next day. They’d confiscate any funds from her accounts. That was just part of how they worked after all, their department does not appear on any records in H.M. Treasury.

[four days later]

“Mr Labrov, I have never seen a place so clean at the end of a rental contract,” said the Estate Agent, Yvonne Foster as she inspected the house that he’d rented.

“My later father used to say that a job worth doing is a job worth doing well,” he replied.

It was only a bit of a lie. His KGB training had actually said, ‘don’t leave loose ends alive’.

“I can agree to that.”

Then she added,
“There is still six weeks to run on the lease…?”

She’d left a question hanging in the air.

Sergei couldn’t take his eyes off this delightful creature. She was clearly in the wrong job.

“I don’t want a refund. My work here finished earlier than expected and I have been paid in full.”

“A good result I hope?”
“Not entirely. There were some surprises, but it should work out in the end, but only time will tell.”

“Where to next? Somewhere nice I hope.”

“As this contract finished early, I’m going home. I’d planned on being here for Christmas but that is not going to happen now.”

“Where’s home if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Not at all. At the moment, I live in a house on the island of Mallorca. That is about as close to home as it can be.”

“Is home somewhere in Russia? Your name seems to be Russian.”

He nodded.
“I was born in a place called Yekaterinburg. That is a good number of hundred kilometres east of Moscow. It is not a place I ever want to return to. Mallorca has been my home for a while, but it may be time to move on. Far too many tourists these days.”

Yvonne took the hint and didn’t press him further. Sergei took that as a good sign.

[The next day at the Office in Reading]

“You do make my job very easy Mr Labrov. This place is as clean as the house,” said Ms Foster.

“Thank you again for the compliment. As I think I said yesterday, I hate leaving a mess behind me.”

“Everything seems to be just as it was when you rented it. I’ll sign off the rental document. Then we can arrange for the deposits to be transferred to your bank.”

Sergei was prepared for this problem.

“Mr Foster, if it is at all possible, I’d like the deposits back in cash. I need some funds for the remainder of my stay here. If the money is sent to my bank, then I would have to pay currency conversion charges when it is converted to Euro’s. Then I would pay them again to convert them to pounds. Do you see my problem?”

She smiled.

“I understand perfectly. Let me make a phone call to my boss.”

“Please go ahead. If it ok with you don’t mind, I’m going to adjourn to my hotel. I’m staying at the newish hotel next to Caversham Bridge. If you could join me there once you have discussed things with your manager? Shall we say three hours from now?”

“Well… I suppose it will be ok.”

“I’m going to be waiting in the bar. It will be lunchtime then. I hope that you could join me?”

Sergei was winging it and had been for a while. If he fell flat on his face, then so be it.

“Mr Labrov, I’d be happy to join you for lunch,” said a smiling Yvonne.

“Thanks for coming Yvonne,” said Sergei as she arrived in the restaurant with an excellent view along the river Thames.

“This is very nice. I’ve never been here before.”

“This place is a bit too formulaic for my tastes but for a few days, it will do. The best places all need a car to get to and I’m without one at the moment.”

“Oh, you had a van, didn’t you?”

“Yes. I had an old van. It was stolen from an office car park on the Slough Trading Estate, last week. In my line of work, it does not look very good at a lot of places if you turn up in a shiny new Mercedes or BMW, only to make half the workforce redundant. I only paid a thousand euros for it on my last job before here.”

“I suppose so. I’ve only had this job for two years since I graduated from university.”

“Oh, what did you study?”

“PPE. Politics, Philosophy and Economics. It put me off politics for life I’m afraid.”

“So, you became an Estate Agent?”

“For want of something else to do. I should have chosen a different degree.

Sergei chuckled as the waiter arrived with the menu.

[an hour later]
“Yvonne, if you don’t mind me asking, what are your plans for the future?”

She chuckled.

“I don’t mind at all. The honest answer is that I don’t have a clue. I can’t see me being an estate agent for all my working life. But… what my next step is…? As I said, I don’t have a clue. If you don’t mind me asking… why did you ask?”

“Touche!”

“I asked because I might have a job for you. It is totally above board and could turn out to be very lucrative for both of us. Are you interested in finding out at least a bit about it?”

Yvonne smiled back at Sergei.

“There had to be an ulterior motive for splashing the cash on me on a nice lunch so please… go ahead.”

“I’m beginning to like you, Yvonne. You are a very smart person, which I like.”

She sat patiently waiting for him to make his pitch.

“There is an old song called ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ by Lou Reed. Do you know it?”

“I don’t think I’ve heard of it.”

“Let me play it to you. I have the track on my phone.”

He found the track and handed her one earbud before pressing 'play'.

Yvonne listened to the song. As she did so, a smile broke out on her face.
“I have heard it before.”

“Are you willing to take that walk into the unknown?”

“But… the lyrics are about someone who is Trans or at least pretending to be?”

Sergei nodded.
“The challenge is to make me the best woman possible. I know the basics but there is so much that I don’t know.”

“What is in it for me while all this is happening or is that the wrong thing to ask?”

He grinned.

“It is fine. What is in it for you is this.”

He pulled out a sheet of paper from a folder that was by the side of the table. It contained the details of his Peterborough hideaway.

“That’s yours free and clear at the end of the job. I paid just under three hundred thousand for it almost three years ago.”
Yvonne scanned the sheet hardly believing her eyes.

“Are you trying to scam me?”

“Not at all. I’m prepared to get a contract drawn up that you can take to a lawyer to get checked. There is no mortgage on the property so as I said, it is yours free and clear at the end of your work. In the interim, you would live with me all expenses paid. We could agree on a salary that would be paid here if you desire just to keep your taxes ticking over. It is all open to negotiation but I’m not a skinflint. At the very least, you could sell the flat, pay off your student loan and have more than enough to put down on a place of your own or even bum around for a few years while you decide what to do next but I don’t think that is really you is it?”

“But… you don’t know me from the woman in charge of the front desk here?” replied Yvonne as she ignored what he’d just said.

“I’ve seen you operate. That told me a lot about you as a person. Methodical was the first word that came to mine. That is very much like myself.”

Yvonne didn’t say anything so Sergei carried on.

“As I said, I need someone to educate me in the fine art of becoming a woman. A guestimate is that this is a twelve to eighteen-month assignment.”

“Why? Why do you want to do this?”

Sergei smiled.

“Have you even met a Trans person before?”

She shook her head.
“I can’t say for sure but I don’t think I have.”

“Most of us know from an early age that we were born in the wrong body. I knew when I was about six. My father was not happy when he found me wearing my sister’s clothes. He beat me so badly that I ended up in the hospital for a week. When I recovered, I wised up and never tried to do that again, but the desire never went away. I bided my time and two days after my tenth birthday, I left home and stowed away on a train that was heading for Moscow. From there, I carried on west and with a good dose of luck, I arrived here eleven weeks after leaving home. I applied for and was granted refugee status on account of the number of broken bones that I had thanks to my late father and the growing persecution of LGBT people in Putin’s Russia. It is ten, twenty times worse now but the writing was on the wall with the Pussy Riot group.”
Sergei took a deep breath as he remembered those dark days in Russia.

“I was in a children’s home for a year but luckily, I was sent to as a foster child to a lovely couple in Newmarket. One of them was from Minsk. They helped me become a British citizen.”

“You poor thing…”

“What about your history?”

“Much like you. I was adopted. I found out earlier this year that I have a sister. I felt that she was close by until very recently. Then one day just about a week ago… it was as if part of me died. I never knew her so I can’t miss what I didn’t know.”

Sergei felt a little uncomfortable. He put that aside and carried on with his close-to-the-truth, but not quite the truth backstory.

“Now it is time for me to realise that dream, but I am savvy enough to know that I can’t do it alone. I had no idea about how to make it come true.”

He smiled at Yvonne.

“Then I met you.”

"That is quite a carrot you are dangling in front of me," said Yvonne after a few seconds of thought.

“This is a photo of me a week or so back.”

He passed over a selfie of him dressed as an older woman.

“That is very good. Why do you need me?”

“There is a world of difference between playing a part for a few hours and living that part for good. I needed to disguise myself in order to follow the person who I suspected of selling the company secrets to the opposition. Most people don’t even think about old people they see out and about. I got the information and that’s why we are here today. He was selling the company out to help fund his wife’s addiction to painkillers. He was quietly shown the door without any severance money. Unofficially, he’s been blacklisted and will never get an executive level job again unless he starts his own company.”

Yvonne looked at the photo and back to him several times. Her face remained almost expressionless.

“Please take some time and think about it. A week won’t be a problem. As I said, I am prepared to make it formal with a contract and everything. As for salary… That will be at least twice what you are making in your present job and there will be very few outgoings.”
Yvonne smiled.

“Mr Labrov…”

“Sergei please.”

“Sergei… When I accepted your offer to come to lunch, I knew that there was an ulterior motive, but not anything untoward. That is not you. I never expected to be offered a job even remotely like the one you have laid out for me. I underestimated you.”

“In a good way I hope?”

“Oh yes. You have given me something to think about. That something was not what I had expected which is good.”

To seal the moment, they chinked their glasses.

[one week later]
Sergei glanced at his watch for at least the tenth time since he had sat down at the same table as a week earlier. He was getting a bit anxious. With every minute that ticked by, his hopes for a successful conclusion were becoming more and more remote.

After one final glance at his watch, he stood up, dropped a £10 note onto the table and headed for the lifts. He intended to check out and head back to Mallorca with his tail firmly between his legs.

Twenty minutes later, he returned to reception and paid his bill.

“Can you ring for a taxi? I want to go to the Railway Station to get the bus to Heathrow.”

“They normally take about ten minutes to get here. The road works on the IDR are playing hell with the traffic on Caversham Road.”

“I know,” replied Sergei.

“Don’t bother with the taxi, I’ll walk along the river. I could do with some exercise.”

Sergei's mind was elsewhere because he'd missed the arrival of Yvonne. She was standing right behind him. As he turned away from the counter, he bumped right into her.

“Going somewhere without me?” she said grinning.

A very relieved Sergei smiled back at Yvonne. By her side was a single wheeled suitcase. His prayers had been answered.

“Nearly, but not now. Come on, we have a plane to catch.”

[two and a half years later]

A very different Sergei who was now officially called Maria, was sitting under an umbrella on the terrace of the villa that sat high up on the coast some 55km from Santiago de Compostela, the capital of Galicia, looked up at Yvonne who had just returned from a trip to the market and smiled.

“Shhhh. I’ve just got the twins to sleep for their post lunch nap.”
Two babies were in her arms. Each of them was gently sucking on one of her breasts. Maria tucked a strand of her now long blonde hair behind one ear before blowing a kiss at her wife.

Both of them had changed a lot in the past thirty months but together it had been quite a ride especially now that they had twin girls to look after.

Covid had come and almost gone without drastically affecting their little household. The couple had found and moved into their new home just before the pandemic hit the world. The periods of lockdown had cemented their relationship and any thoughts that Yvonne might have had about leaving after her work transforming Sergei had been completed were long forgotten as was her old life and the crazy upside-down case that had brought them together.

Because the twins had been born in Spain and were therefore Spanish Citizens, both Yvonne and Maria had easily qualified for EU residency after the BREXIT deal was signed. Eventually, they would get dual nationality but that was in the future.

Transforming Maria had given her a purpose in life that was missing in the estate agent’s office in Wokingham. Being together 24/7 had allowed their relationship to blossom. The arrival of the twins had cemented their life together.

Any thoughts of Ayesha had been sent to the dark depths of her mind like the death of her father. They were history. Now they had a different life to persue.

The Chameleon had changed its colours for the last time. Its tongue would no longer strike at the speed of light at its prey but was content to move slowly through life looking after his family.
[the end]

[authors note]

The ending for this story was inspired after watching the 1957 film, ‘Witness for the Prosecution’ starring, Charles Laughton, Marlene Dietrich and Tyrone Power. This was shown on the Freesat ‘Talking Pictures TV’ channel in late Dec 2021.