The Recoverer (3).
by
Angharad.
The money from the reward of the Devon stolen property was a few hundred in the end, which meant I had to declare it because it's what I do for a living. It was paid into Eve's account which is separate from Adam's though Eve is acknowledged as one of the two owners of the agency. Life continued to be busy, the economy was almost flat- lining so with less opportunity to make honest money, the population seemed to be doing so dishonestly, faking thefts and claiming insurance, or actually stealing someone else's property and then selling it. So instead of a nation of shopkeepers we seemed to be nation of fraudsters and thieves. Retailers have been complaining about the flagrant attitude of many to think they have a right to shoplift, while others are doing it because they can't afford to buy, and in places it appears to be organised crime based or certainly organised with gangs of shoplifters. The police weren't that interested until politicians became voluble about it, then suddenly they were interested.

I know we are mainly funded by insurance companies and once they were paying out significant sums for claims of theft, we were asked to take a look at it. We were authorised to detain shoplifters we caught but to keep the violence down, some were known to intimidate shopkeepers or security people with violence, carrying large knives or hammers, so they were often allowed to leave unchallenged. I went undercover as a shop detective and saw the problem for myself. I'd never seen myself detaining someone over a tin of corned beef, but it had -partly come to that.

I was still in Eve guise, feeling more comfortable by the day, and I thought I'd be less visible than as a man. That wasn't probably quite true but as a rather androgynous man, I would probably have been quite noticeable and also I thought I might encourage violence if male shoplifters felt able to threaten me.

The shop had displayed notices saying that store detectives were operating and that shoplifters would be detained for the police, and anyone threatening violence would mean that the perpetrator would be charged with robbery with violence or armed robbery if they produced a weapon. It also said that the shop detectives had the right to defend themselves if they felt threatened. They had been warned.

The first I caught was a young woman stealing formula baby food, not just one tin but several. I nicked her and despite her tears and accusations of false arrest, they found her with the stolen goods and the police were called. It was upsetting until you knew that women thieves can turn on the tears faster than CS gas. They are more accomplished actors than you see in the West End and will lie and swear like street girls. Once you realise this may happen, it inures you a little.

The men were a different category, especially the professionals. They were flagrant and when challenged they tried to play innocent and then to try and intimidate. I spotted a bloke pocketing some expensive perfume, so not so poor he couldn't afford food. He was also relative well dressed, so the proceeds of crime can obviously pay.

I challenged him and went through the usual gamut of excuses, then he tried to act bigger and stronger than I was. He was without any doubt of that, but he didn't know how I'd respond. Most female store-detectives are advised to let the police deal with it or to let them go if in any personal danger. I hadn't been told this even if the thief had been. I told him to accompany to the manager's office and he pulled his arm from me and was going to run for the door. I wasn't in heels this time and as he dashed off, I did the same and beat him to the door. He pulled a knife and flashed it at me. I made sure the security cameras caught his actions on film, told him I was detaining him, so he flashed the knife again. I then told him that I was allowed to defend myself so he ought to come quietly. His reaction was to laugh, he soon stopped.

He slashed at me I parried then pulled his wrist behind him possible dislocating some joint in doing so. He dropped the knife, yelled and tried to punch me but by this time he was on his knees and I was threatening to break his wrist if not do more damage to him. It was painful for him, I made sure of that, and I held him for the police who had been summoned when the knife appeared arrested him. I was commended for taking him down but told that I had put myself at risk and not to do it again.

I replied that I never considered myself in any danger except damaging my attacker to the point of nullifying him. The copper wasn't impressed but I smiled at him. By teatime that day, I had caught five criminals including one I suspected was working with accomplices. He went off via cop car and I was warned to be careful when I left. The warning was correct, his friends surrounded me in the car park. I hoped that it was being filmed on cctv by the security people.

There were six, all men and they were using jibes to frighten me. Six against one is quite intimidating. I tried to show I wasn't scared and warned them that they were being filmed and they were likely to pay for their crimes with jail sentences. I advised them to fold up their tents and go, because my company would prosecute to the highest punishment.

I backed against my car. They looked at each other first before deciding who was first. One lunged at me and I grabbed and threw him over my hip and landed hard on the tarmac. Two more thought to attack together. I managed to run them into each other kicked one in his kneecap and elbowed the other in the throat, they both went down. Three left, one ran for it, another pulled a knife, he got close and I broke his arm the other rushed at me with a hammer swearing his friends would be avenged, but not by him he swung his hammer and I sidestepped, he hit my car and damaged a side window. Now I was angry, he lunged again and I threw him and his hammer over my shoulder. He landed on his head. One of the others stood up to attack me again and I used a flying kick which caught him under the jaw.

By now the police had arrived and again warned me of violence, I told them what would they do if surrounded by six thugs intent on doing them damage. I had used restraint, next time I would badly injure them. "What do you call this then, a verbal warning?" asked the police sergeant. I told him to look at my car, that window was going to cost, next time I would take it out of the attacker's nose, as the expression goes.

I got home two hours later, by then my car window was repaired. I was again warned about excessive violence and was I a martial arts practitioner. I wasn't registered as one but I borrowed moves from various ones, including the judo throws and the tai- kwon- do kick.

They cautioned me, but had seen the film of the car park episode and I had let them make the first move. There was no doubt it was self-defence, plus I got a copy for my brief, and would sue all my attackers and demand maximum sentencing and if the police wanted to make anything of it other than the obvious, I'd sue them as well. I hadn't made any friends but I wasn't going to be intimidated by anyone including the local constabulary.

In the end, I had just finished my dinner and telling Mike all about the two scuffles I'd had when a senior detective called me. I agreed to meet him in a local pub the next day. I wasn't sure if he intended to read the riot act or what. I supposed I'd soon find out. The store were surprised to see me the next day but there I was, large as life and twice as beautiful - okay the last bit was an exaggeration. It had gone around the local grapevine that Wonder Woman was at the store catching crims, so they all seemed to go elsewhere. I only caught one all day, so I had quite an easy day for a change.

I wore a suit to my meeting with DCI Crambourne, along with sandals with four inch heels. I always carry spare shoes in the car in case I'm doing lots of walking or getting physical although I have learned how to dance in heels and also to handle myself if attacked. If our hammer holder had managed to land a hit, it would have hurt, if the hit had been my head he could have disabled me for life or killed me. These morons are usually driven by impulse rather than rational thought. If they think at all it's all about how they are going to share the loot or get revenge. The planning is spontaneous not thought-out, so with minimal racking of brain cells they can be intercepted and caught. From an insurance point of view, I am only interested in recovery of the lost or stolen property not the detention and prosecution of the felon, that becomes the police responsibility. I was however required to show my evidence to the police or courts if they asked for it, very often they didn't, neither did the insurance companies. Like banks they are only interested in money, the accumulation of it with minimal pay outs. The whole of British and American society is built on taking money off the little man, at least in the higher echelons, the higher you rise or richer you become, it's still the same except you pay others to get their hands dirty rather than doing it yourself. I therefore have a very jaded view of society especially the rich and famous, who are basically all arseholes.

We met at the pub by the river, which also called by the same. Its main lounge has brass markers on the wall to demonstrate how high the river was last time it flooded. It is a very nice pub and does a roaring trade most of the time except when the river is in spate. Then it hits the insurance companies, although if it has been flooded before they load the premiums. So unless you are rich you can't afford them so you don't bother, and take the risk. On the bank of a river it makes it very popular but very expensive to run, next time you go to such a pub, ask the landlord how much his insurance is.

Anyway, we sat ourselves down in the garden, protected from the sun by a large parasol, which kept off some of the rain as well, but not when it's being driven by gales. Fortunately, we only get such weather for 360 days a year in England, 370 days a year in Scotland and Wales and Ireland can also be rather damp. It was suggested that the British Empire controlled half the known world as the natives tried to escape the weather. I was enjoying watching the ducks on the river while Crambourne got the drinks and the menus, it was close enough to lunch. He returned and I told him I'd have the risotto while he settled for the lasagne, both great British pub dishes - only joking. I'd have settled for a ploughman's but it can lie heavy on the tum and all I'd want to do afterwards was sleep.

I don't drink much except fruit juice, especially at lunchtime, but you don't save anything because the pubs charge exorbitant prices for all the drinks they carry. I have even been asked for money for a glass of tap-water, the landlord reminding me that he had to pay for it. Unfortunately, I dropped the glass taking it back so we were quits and I vowed to never return to that pub. It closed a year or so later and was developed as executive housing. When will governments and developers realise it's housing for poor people we need, executives can usually afford the cost of a house in all but the most desirable parts of London or Edinburgh.

We talked about our most unusual cases, his were much more hair-raising because the police deal with everything from litter-bugs to murder. In fact he had just finished a murder case recently. He hoped the courts were lenient. I asked why. He said none wants to convict a ninety-year old man who killed a twenty-year old after years of harassment by the younger one and on whom, the older man blamed the death of his wife a year before. She was eighty nine and he reckoned she fell going down the steps of their tower block because it had a trip wire.

He thought the old man was right in his accusation but you can't get fingerprints off a piece of wire and they couldn't get enough DNA for a conviction, but then as the gang leader, he may have ordered someone else to do it. He's still guilty, but unlikely to be convicted. It must be very frustrating to be able to prove what you feel sure is the case. Mine was about an heiress who complained someone in a hotel had stolen her silk knickers. It turned out to a spurious case of the rich demanding satisfaction from an insurance claim for something that had never happened. I was only involved after the local police couldn't prove anything, but my research showed she had a history of spurious claims and the insurance company rejected it.

"How much did you get for that one, fifty knicker?" asked my lunch companion.

"No, but I realised that my own were much nicer," we both laughed, but I did rather enjoy expensive lingerie.

"So, is there good money in recovering property or is it all one big scam?"

"It depends on the item you're trying to recover. A Vermeer is worth a bit more than a Banksie, so I get 20% of what they want back, and remember they don't send for me until after you lot can't get it for them."

"Why wait so long?"

"It's all about money, it doesn't cost them much if you recover the item within a few days of it being stolen, but if it's a year later, your, methods may not be suitable, so they send for me."

"We don't close cases because they're old ones."

"Where's Shirgar, then?" I asked about the never recovered super race horse, that they suspect was taken by the IRA.

"You didn't find it either did you?"

"No, it was before my time but 20% of the twenty million it was valued at would have paid the mortgage for a while."

"Didn't I hear you were involved in a kidnapping case resolution, a little while ago?"

"Yeah, I did tell Sir Louis to call the police, because you are the people who should have dealt with it."

"So, why didn't he?"

"He believed the abductors when they said they'd kill her if he did."

"They always say that."

"I told him that and we did need your lot to make the arrests in the end."

"Glad we're good for something, then." He shrugged as he said this. "What's 20% of a kid then, an arm or a leg?"

"I don't know, I don't usually deal with perishables." He roared with laughter although we both knew it could have ended in tragedy. "So why did you invite me for lunch?"

"Because you couldn't do breakfast."

"No I prefer to eat my cornflakes while I wake my brain up."

"I can't believe that."

"I'm not human until I've had two cups of tea."

"I'm sure that's not true." He flattered me.

"So this wasn't just an attempted pick-up then." I asked him straight out what I suspected, he was after those expensive knickers, or at least getting inside them. He'd have had a surprise wouldn't he?

"Nice idea but my wife would kill me." He blushed, it may have been a partial motive, "You're a nice looking woman." Now it was my turn to blush.

"Sorry, I'm spoken for, too." I lied and I blushed but I think he believed me.

"Thought so, all those 20%s." He smiled.

"Ain't it the truth." I declared and we both laughed.

"Look this business with all the thefts from shops, we're getting a bit of aggro from the Home Secretary."

"The insurers aren't too happy with it either, it's costing them money." we discussed this for a while and what we were going to do about it. "The organised crime element is worrying although I only encountered a localised form of that with gang of half-wits."

"Still, six against one, especially one woman, is quite frightening, even if she is Wonder Woman. Weren't you terrified."

"No, because if you have to deal with violence, never think you're going to lose, because you will. At the same time, keep telling the other guy, what if he does? It unsettles them. Mind you one of them damaged my car."

"A Jag F type, I heard."

"You heard right, my own fault I should have used the Renault." I had a couple of cars which were especially useful when working under cover, the Jag does tend to draw a bit of attention and tends to indicate I am as valuable as the car I drive. "It did annoy me, didn't the bastard know how expensive glass for them is?"

"So you fractured his skull."

"I wasn't thinking too much of outcomes, he came at me with a hammer, missed and hit my car. I just wanted to deal with the threat as quickly as possible, so he went over my shoulder using his momentum to help it."

"If a copper had done that, he'd a been in big trouble."

"Most coppers would have tazered him or hit him with their baton. If I'd had one I'd have used it."

"You took care of six attackers, you were like James Bond out there."

"So, I keep myself fighting fit."

"I'll say, no copper I know can fight like that, where'd you learn the SAS?"

"No, they don't take women, but the guy who taught me could have been one when he was younger. He taught me to expect to win, the opponent is disposable and to use them as weapons if the potential arises, but also to never fight if you can run away. When you're surrounded you can't, so you have to fight and hope you don't meet someone who's been trained."

"What if one of them had had a gun?"

"Then I become scared, it's only happened once. I nearly killed him. I don't like having to face that level of threat."

"So I heard, they described your victim as looking like a train had hit him."

"I must admit the fact that I expected to feel a bullet hit me at any moment caused a new incentive to make sure it didn't. He hesitated, I didn't and I hit him a few times after disarming him."

"Why did you go on hitting him?"

"That was reaction, the adrenaline thing." I still remembered the fear I felt that day and I managed to control it and move faster than I had in my life to knock the gun from his hand and then to knock him a few times, so he'd be in no position to threaten me again. I didn't care how badly I injured him, he was trying to kill me all I thought about was how I'd avoid that, being dead or badly injured, guns are for killing things. I hated them before, I did doubly so now and believed passionately that no individual should be allowed to possess one unless they were in the armed services or police and even they frightened me a little.

I once spoke to a retired SAS soldier, who was the weapons man, they operated in teams of four, one was the medic, one did ordnance - mainly explosives, one was a marksman and the fourth did the weapons and radio. He thought a copper with a gun was scary because they're as nervous as a kitten and as likely to shoot too early or shoot the non target. It's different in America because everyone there thinks they're John Wayne and they all carry guns, still they are even worse with cars or should I say more dangerous as they all drive round in tanks.

"May be we could work together on the shop lifting thing?" said the copper.

"If it saves the company money, then I get a commission. We both know that putting them away doesn't stop them and they'll only get fines or community service which they won't complete or pay the fines."

"I see that day after day, we arrest and convict them and courts discharge them, it's one of the reasons coppers resign so early."

"Now you can see why I didn't become a policewoman, apart from the sexism, misogyny, racism, bullying and corruption - wasn't worth it, besides I had just spent four years in university, so I needed to get some money, it was just luck that they needed insurance investigators. I did that for a couple of years, got beaten up a couple of times, learned how to fight, 'total street fighting' and went on my own. No one has beaten me up since. It works and I don't look like the Incredible Hulk."

"I thought you'd look nice in green."

"The last man who told me that, swallowed some of his teeth."

"Sounds like you have anger control issues."

"Only when someone annoys me."

"Okay, I am forewarned. What about this organised crime stuff?"

"I'll share what I have if you do the same, equal partners or we do nothing." I had been stiffed by coppers often enough in having solved thefts, who did me out of my commission. They get the collar, I get the 20%.

"Okay, with me got to get the top brass of my back," he admitted and I suddenly realised they had more jewellery on their hats as they worked up the ranks than I found when I got the loot back from an Asprey's robbery. I think in the services they called it scrambled egg, or that might just be the RAF, they tend to have a good line in their slang.

We ended up at his office, I showed him the photos I'd taken of shoplifters and he showed a few mug shots. I recognised one or two because I'd seen them elsewhere not in the store I'd been working in. We pooled our information and we would work in a store that had more items the gangs were interested in and the level of theft was frightening.

We had two ordinary coppers in plain clothes who stood out like sore thumbs and they were bit wooden, doubtless if anyone had parked illegally in the store, they'd have nicked them. In the end I had one working with me, so when I spotted someone half-inching the stock I pointed them out and my young colleague grabbed them, until he did so to the wrong person and got a Glasgow kiss for his troubles. Unsurprisingly he went down and before the thug could put the boot in, I tapped him on the shoulder then smacked him in the throat then kneed his family jewels, he went down as well and we arrested him. The thug had just dropped a copper so what I did short of killing him, they blind eyed it.

An hour later we caught another pocketing an iPhone and in case he wanted to play rough one of the coppers said he was police and I grabbed him wrenched his arm behind his back and we handcuffed him. If only I had that authority all the time... I could by joining the plod, nah, not for me too much of a maverick.

"By the time we had three of them in custody we were able to make a few connections and made a raid and got some of the gang leaders. After that I left it to the police and they took out a whole group. I was invited to dinner with Crambourne and met his lovely wife. He thanked me for my assistance especially in spotting shoplifters. I asked after the young copper who got himself a broken nose and learned he was okay and would be more aware another time. I got a nice commission for saving them thousands and bouquet from the store, and I now had another copper with whom I could liaise if I need help. That's how we all work after all by sharing info and helping each other, networking, is I believe the term used.

On a personal level, I realised that there had been no sign of Adam for a few months, I was still taking oestrogens and Mike did ask me when I was going to do something about it. I shrugged, did I want have sex with a man? I didn't know and until I did, did I need the wherewithal to do so? I shrugged and went back to my paperwork.