My small workshop was quiet for once. I’d recently finished and delivered a large order and was cleaning up when I noticed someone standing in the doorway.
I looked up and saw silhouetted against the later afternoon sun, a very shapely young woman. As I looked at her, she flicked her long hair. For half a second, I wondered if I was going to have a heart attack.
I didn’t so I walked towards this vision of beauty.
“Hello,” I said.
I stood alongside her and seeing her for real was just as beautiful as her silhouette.
“Can I help you?”
“I hope so,” she replied slightly hesitantly.
“My car hit a pothole just up the road and something went bang. Then the car started making all sorts of loud noises. I wonder… Would it be possible for you take a look?”
Then she fluttered her lashes at me and added,
“Please?”
My heart started racing as I saw her and had visions of me being her knight in dirty overalls. Then reality came to the rescue.
“Sure. If you will let me get my flashlight and tools and I’ll gladly take a look.”
She didn’t answer but managed a slight smile.
As we walked the 100yds up the very quiet country lane towards her obviously stricken car I said,
“I’m Mike James by the way.”
She managed another smile.
“I saw that on the sign above your door,” she replied.
Then she added,
“What exactly do you do in your workshop?”
I took this as an alternative to her giving me her name.
“Most of the time, I make custom metalwork mostly gates and the like for large houses. I delivered and installed a large set early this morning so I’m basically clearing up after the work. It was a bit of rush job so I do apologise for the state of the place and of me. I’m not normally this dirty and the place is in a bit of a muddle at the moment.”
“It is nice to see someone who obviously enjoys their work,” she replied with a straight face.
I couldn’t answer that so I just kept walking.
As we neared the car, I could see something hanging down from underneath.
“I’ll take a look underneath the car. It certainly does not look right.”
She didn’t reply. Just being with her had made my day. She was effing gorgeous. On a scale of 1 to 10, she was a 20 without a doubt. Tall, thin if not a tad skinny, legs that went on forever what were accentuated by high but not too high heels. Her porcelain quality makeup with stunning cupid shaped deep red lips and eyes to die for was topped by hair that would not look out of place on the front cover of Vogue.
I quickly shimmied under her car, a high-end red Mercedes Coupe with a white leather interior. The number plate told me that it was six years old but it looked like it had just come straight out of the showroom. Someone obviously cared for the machine but I doubted it would be her. I tried to imagine her in overalls and a … I shuddered and told myself, concentrate on the matters at hand.
The damage was obvious to me. There was a big hole in her exhaust and one section of it had come adrift. It was that what I’d seen hanging down as we’d walked up the road.
I got out from under the car and gave her the news.
“Your exhaust is broken and there is a big hole in one of the silencer boxes.”
And before she could ask,
“It isn’t driveable as it is, but I might be able to patch it up so that you can get to wherever you are going today.”
She managed a proper smile for the first time.
“Let me run back to my shop and get something to protect your seats. Then I’ll drive the car back to my workshop and see what I can do? If I can’t patch it, at least it is off the road.”
She just nodded her head.
I picked up my toolbox and basically legged it back to my workshop and grabbed a couple of clean towels from the rack by my small shower room and headed back towards the car.
After putting the towels over the pristine white leather seat, I slid into the driver’s seat. The car started in an instant. The exhaust was naturally very loud and throaty.
She got in beside me and treated me to a display of even more leg. I quickly put it out of my mind as I gently backed the car down the slight hill towards my workshop. It was an old garage and there was still a full car lift. I used it from time to time to lift gates onto the back of a delivery vehicle. Thanks to finishing the order earlier, it was clear so once she was out of the car, I drove it onto the lift and switched off the engine.
She was obviously not a woman of many words. Just the sight of her beauty and perfume had made my day already.
I found a chair and covered it with more clean towels.
“Please take a seat while I fix the exhaust. It shouldn’t take too long.”
She didn’t reply but sat down and watched everything I did.
An hour later, I lowered the car down from the lift, my patching of her exhaust system was done and dusted. I started the engine and it sounded perfectly normal. At least there were no abnormal sounds coming from the exhaust system.
“There you are, that should see you home but you really do need to get the car to a dealer or to an exhaust specialist to get the exhaust sorted out properly. I’ve patched it, not repaired it. It is only a temporary repair so don’t leave it too long before you get it professional seen to.”
“Thank you so much. What do I owe you?”
I smiled at her.
“How about a promise that you will drop in and say hello the next time you are passing by?”
“But…,” she stuttered.
Then she smiled.
“Very well, I promise. Thank you again,” she said smiling broadly for the first time.
I opened the door to her car and let her get in. As she passed me her delightful perfume filled my nostrils. I savoured every molecule.
As she drove away, I wondered what else the day would have in store for me.
It was more than likely that there would be only bills and my cat ‘Freda’ waiting for me when I got home. Such is life.
Home for me was a small flat above the general store in the next village. It was good enough for Freda and me and was less than a mile away from my workshop. Most days, I’d either walk or cycle to work. Apart from the days when it was raining cats and dogs, that was enough to set me up for the day.
The next evening, I cycled home as usual and dropped into the shop to get some bread. One rather dog-eared copy of a ‘Red Top’ daily newspaper remained on the newsstand. The headline read,
“Millionaire Murdered, Wife Missing!”
There on the bottom right corner of the page was a picture of her.
I stopped dead in my tracks.
“Is there something wrong Mike?” asked a voice from behind the counter.
“N…No. Thanks Margery,” said haltingly.
“Do you have any of that bread I like left?”
Margery was the manager of the shop smiled back at me.
“I put one aside for you as usual,” she said as she bent down behind the counter and pulled out a loaf of bread.
I quickly grabbed some milk from the chiller cabinet and put some money on the counter and left the shop.
Once inside the relative safety of my flat I breathed a huge sigh of relief.
Then I fired up my Laptop and went looking for details of the case.
It didn’t take long to find out that she lived with her now deceased husband about sixteen miles to the south. The Police reports said that the husband was believed to have been murdered at 4:00pm and that they were looking for the wife, one Nancy Blackmore for questioning in relation to the case.
This didn’t make sense to me. She was with me at the time they said her husband had died. It, sort of made sense why she hadn’t volunteered her name to me but if the times were correct then there was no way that she could be the killer.
I sat and thought about what to do next. I could say nothing or call the Police. I didn’t know what to do.
In the end, I decided to call the Police or rather ‘Crime Stoppers’.
I’d just finished my evening meal when there was a heavy thump on my front door. It could only mean one thing the Police were here. I peered outside and there were at least three Police Cars with lights flashing blocking the whole road. I shook my head and went downstairs to open the front door.
I opened it to find what looked like a fairly senior officer standing there.
“Mr James? I hear you have some information for us relating to the incident at Tilling Hall?”
“Yes, that’s me and I do have some information such as it is. Please come in Officer?”
“Detective Inspector Phillip McShane,” he replied as he came inside my front door.
“Please sit down,” I said when we were upstairs.
He didn’t beat about the bush.
“How long have you known Mrs Blackmore?”
“Is that her name? She never told me what it was.”
“When did you first meet her then?”
“Yesterday afternoon. She was driving through the next village when her car hit a pothole. It wasn't far from my workshop so she came into it looking for help. The result was that I was able to repair the damage to her exhaust system.”
“At what time was this?”
“She first appeared around 4:00pm. It was well after 5:00pm, probably closer to 5:30pm by the time I had repaired the damage.”
“And what damage was that?”
“As I said, she’d holed the exhaust and dislodged the pipe to the catalytic converter.”
“And where exactly was this?”
“I have my workshop about a mile up the road that runs from here to Peaslake.”
“What do you do at your workshop?”
“I normally make gates and other architectural ironwork. If you doubt me then a call to your Chief Constable will confirm what I do for a living. I made a set of gates for him last year.”
My mentioning of his big boss threw him somewhat.
“And you had never met her before yesterday?”
“That is correct. I saw a copy of a daily newspaper in the shop downstairs earlier. The murder was front page news. I verified the story on the internet and then called Crime Stoppers. The news reports say that her husband was killed around 4pm. She was with me at that time. I’ll stand up in court if needed and say exactly that.”
He remained expressionless.
“Which way did she go when she left you?”
“She took the route I’d take if I was going to her home. Where she went once she was out of my sight is obviously open to question. I simply don’t know and she didn’t volunteer much information at all and that included her name.”
He finished writing down some notes in his pad. Then he stood up.
“I think that will be all for now Mr James. I or one of my officers may well return to take a formal statement.”
As he stood up, a loud noise came from my bedroom.
The smile disappeared from the Inspectors face in a flash.
“Do you mind if I take a look in there?”
“N… No. It is probably my cat, Freda. Please go ahead and look. I can assure you that I am the only person here apart from your good self that is.”
The Inspector disappeared into my bedroom. A few seconds later, the white ball of fur that was my Freda came dashing out. She raced past the Inspector and his constable and disappeared down the stairs.
The Inspector went red in the face but he still searched my spare room in the hope that ‘she’ was there. Naturally, she wasn’t but while they were turning my spare room upside down, the thought that I’d secreted her to my remote island did cross my mind. It was probably the only way that I managed to keep smiling and not give those bumbling idiots a telling off.
Much to my relief, they left a few minutes later. I wondered why they had to be so officious? It was as if they suspected me to be her accomplice. I didn’t appreciate that in the slightest. I would not have said no to being with her at that moment. The memory of her perfume would stay with me for a long time but there was one thing abundantly clear and that was that she was way, way out of my league.
Life carried on as normal once I’d explained to the villagers that I was not some super criminal and that I was a possible witness to a crime. I didn’t say what crime it was but it seemed to placate my neighbours.
[One month later]
I’d just finished another installation in Stoke Poges which if you don’t know is regarded as the 'posh' end of Slough and was taking a break in a Supermarket Coffee Shop near Woking on my way home when I saw the headlines in the ‘Evening Standard’. It read,
“Man charged with Slinfold Murder.”
I knew exactly what ‘murder’ and I felt very relieved that ‘she’ seemed to be in the clear. I also eager to learn a bit more about her. Until that day, I only knew her name, Nancy Blackmore.
I got hold of a copy of the newspaper and read the article myself. It seemed that this man had been arrested after a fight when he was burgling a house in Oxted in broad daylight. His fingerprints matched those that had been found at the house where ‘she’ lived. He was due to appear in court the following day.
As I walked back to my Land Rover I wondered if I’d be seeing ‘her’ again? Probably not but you can hope, can’t you? According to the newspaper, her former husband had been a high-flying financier or something. He had to be loaded if his wife drove such an expensive car.
I put my brief encounter with ‘her’ behind me and got on with life again. I could not get the words to the old rock song, ‘Strange Kind of Woman’ out of my mind.
[continued in part 2]
Being my own boss has both advantages and disadvantages. One of the former, is that if I’m on top of work, I could head off into the country for a long weekend whenever I felt like it. As I already lived in the county I’ve had more than a few questions along the line of ‘why I’d want to go into the country as I was already there’. It takes all sorts to make this world we live in.
That was true but… I was less than thirty miles from central London. Then the roads around my part of Surrey get pretty clogged up at weekends with cyclists. That isn’t bad but the ‘townies’ who come down from London at weekends in their monster Chelsea Tractors seem to think that the roads should be reserved for them and them only. This is not my idea of tranquillity. Ergo, I need somewhere that is deep in the country to relax and be myself.
Thanks to Great Aunt Dorothy, I have such a place. It is located in the west of Herefordshire. In that part of the world, the only time things move quickly are the farmers during the Asparagus Season and once again during the Apple and Pear picking season in September and October. The rest of the time life moves along at a veritable snail’s pace. The drawback is that it is a real PITA to get too especially on Holiday weekends. Thankfully, most tourists bypass the area and head for the welsh coast.
This particular week had seen me complete a commission on the Wednesday and suddenly, I had some free time before I was due to start my next set of gates. It was also the ‘Ride London’ weekend so the road outside both my workshop and home would be closed for much of the day on Sunday so I took advantage of the early finish and headed off to Herefordshire late that evening after I’d arranged for my cat Freda to be fed and watered while I was away.
Eventually the call of nature and a desire for some coffee got me out of bed.
After breakfast, I went upstairs and into the second bedroom of the cottage. There before me was my secret desire all ready and waiting. Ever since my Aunt had discovered me wearing some of her clothes during a childhood visit, I’d had a place of refuge and safety where I could dress as I pleased and be myself.
As I selected what items of female attire to wear, I began to smile. I remembered Aunt ‘D’ taking me and sitting me on her lap. I wasn’t even eight years old. Far from punishing me, she hugged me and told me that she knew exactly what I was going through.
After a bit, I began to trust her and she showed me the clothes that her late Husband, Geoffrey had worn when he was home on leave from the Army. He’d been killed in a training exercise on Germany before I’d been born but somehow, she’d never had it in her to get rid of his female wardrobe. He’d worn the clothes only when he and Dorothy were alone. This caused obvious sadness to her.
When I was older, we shopped together for my own and gradually the number of his clothes dwindled until there was just a few things remaining. This made Dorothy very happy which also made me happy. For a few days or even a week, two or three times a year, I could be myself.
I selected a flower patterned pleated skirt and a lilac coloured top to wear that fateful Thursday.
As I put them on and applied a little makeup my spirits rose. Finally, I undid my hair from its usual pony-tail and brushed it out. A little styling and some spray, and I was all set to face the day.
I slipped on a pair of cream coloured sandals and went outside to inspect my garden. I employed a local man to keep it looking good and as it was mid-summer, things were coming into full bloom. I felt alive again for the first time in weeks. The lupins and hollyhocks were in full bloom and smelling sweetly. My hideaway home from home even had roses growing around the back door just like all those biscuit tins of old.
I spent an hour just wandering through the garden just enjoying the smells and the sights. A few flowers had seen better days so I deadheaded them. There were bees everywhere which pleased me no end. A neighbour from over the hill kept at least a dozen hives in the area. Most of them were used to pollinate the numerous Apple and Pear Orchards in the area. At this time of year there flowers in my and many other gardens allowed them to gorge themselves on nectar.
I felt totally at home here but I knew deep down that it was getting harder and harder to leave and go back to my home in Surrey and get back to work. Despite me living very simply I just didn’t have enough money saved to stop work and move here and live as the real me, Annabelle full time.
“One day,” I said to myself, “One day.”
After another tour of the garden, I went into the kitchen and made myself some lunch.
I was sitting in the shade of an old Apple Tree relaxing after finishing lunch when I heard a car pull up on the other side of the hedge.
“Hello?” came a female voice.
‘Oh well’, I though. I can’t dodge this one. I also hoped that it wasn’t a local just stopping by for a chat. Sometimes, those little chats can involve several pots of tea and several hours in time.
I got up and walked towards the gate.
The woman turned and said,
“I’m looking for Lavender Cottage?”
As she said those first words, I knew it was ‘her’, Mrs Nancy Blackmore.
My face must have gone as white as a sheet.
“You look as if…”
Then she smiled.
“I know you...”
My heart stopped.
“You helped me out with my car when I ripped off the exhaust.”
“Guilty as charged I'm afraid.”
“Thanks for telling what happened to the Police. Apparently, they found my car on some CCTV camera not long after I’d left here. They were not that happy at first. They thought they’d got me until your call came in. They let me go the next day after their tech people had looked at the car. Your repair was there for all to see.”
“It really wasn’t anything. I just told them what happened that’s all.”
Then I changed the subject.
“Lavender Cottage is back the way you came about a quarter of a mile. You can only see the sign when going that way. You went right past it.”
I hoped that she would take my directions as an end to our conversation.
“Thank you. Can I turn around in your drive?”
“Please. Go ahead.”
To make sure that we were done, I turned and walked back to the table under the tree and picked up my lunch things and went into the kitchen without looking back at her.
The only plus point was that she hadn’t laughed herself silly at the sight of me wearing a skirt or tried to take a picture of me to be plastered all over social media.
After a while I’d recovered enough to do the dishes and tidy things away.
The property she was looking for, ‘Lavender Cottage’ was up for sale. It was an order of magnitude smaller than her old home near Horsham. It was as the agents say, ‘a very desirable’. Hopefully, I thought that if she bought it, it was a second home that would be used just a few weekends a year and that our paths would rarely if ever cross.
She didn’t return so gradually, I relaxed and enjoyed the decent weather as much as I could, the remainder of my time but the place felt desecrated. It was as if some ghost had walked all over it. My secret hideaway was not a ‘secret’ any longer. I felt violated. Violated that my cozy little world had been discovered by someone who also knew about my other life.
By the time I went to bed that night, I’d accepted that sooner or later my hideout would be discovered. The thing that troubled me was that why did it have to be her that found me. She was so effing beautiful that… well that was the problem. No matter what I did or how many operations I had, I could never look even remotely as good as her. In my eyes, she was perfect.
After a week, thinking about work stopped me brooding about the encounter with her and everything. The events of the weekend took second place to things at had like feeding Freda and how I was going to deliver a 6 metre long gate to a place the other side of East Grinstead but the even was never far from my mind. When it did bubble up, I would shudder for a few seconds before getting on with something else just to keep it in check for the time being.
Two weeks after the encounter with ‘her’, I was relaxing at home with a beer and Freda purring gently on my lap as I watched a TV programme that I’d recorded earlier in the week when there was a knock at the front door.
With a sigh, I went to open it.
It was ‘her’.
“Hi. I promised that I’d drop by when I was in the area and... Well, here I am.”
“Oh!”
“I can go if it isn’t convenient?”
She smiled at me. I knew that I’d have to let her in. Well, part of me wanted to run a mile and another part of me wanted to be in her presence.
“Please come in.”
I let her in and showed her up to my flat. She was wearing a beautiful yellow dress that had black piping around the scooped neck. A single strand black pearls was the only jewellery that she was. Clearly a case of less is more. Delightful and most certainly not bought from an online or a high street store.
“Can I get you something to drink?” I asked getting my brain back into gear.
“Something non-alcoholic if possible. I’m driving.”
I chuckled.
“That does not stop most of the locals but I have some homemade Lemonade in the fridge. Is that ok?”
“Real Lemons?”
“Is there any other way?”
“That will be fine.”
“Please take a seat and I’ll get to the drink.”
She didn’t sit down but followed me into the kitchen.
“This is very nice,” she said looking at the décor.
“Really? Don’t you have a stonking great house to live in?”
She laughed.
“That place was only rented. In reality, he had very little money. It was all for show. He was a con man, pure and simple. We were not really married. I just changed my surname to match his. To be blunt about it, I was only there to show my tits and legs to the marks. But I did get a lot of pretty decent clothes out of it. He always used to say, keeping up appearances makes money.”
I didn’t know what to say so I let her continue.
“Now that the court case is over I need to get away from London and all that it entails. The numbers of cameras that were pointed in my direction every day during the trial convinced me that it was time to get out of town. That’s why I was house hunting in Herefordshire. I watched one of those daytime TV shows about moving to the country that went down there and… it sort of sounded remote and quiet and where no one would know me...”
Her words stopped me mid thought.
“Oh!”
“I know it seems strange but I was really looking for a new place to live and not a holiday home.”
“And we met again?”
“We did. I had no idea that you had a place down there?”
“Not many people do and I wanted to keep it that way. I inherited it. But the people with enough money for what I do for a living are here so my work is here. Herefordshire is my bolt hole. For the real me that is. This here is just until I can get enough money to move down there for good.”
I poured her a glass of lemonade and handed it to her.
“Thanks.”
“Please take a seat,” I said slightly nervously.
She sat down and cradled the glass in both hands.
“How long have you been saying that to yourself? You know moving down there…?”
I sighed.
“Too long but one day.”
“Don’t make it too long. I’d like to have a friendly neighbour.”
“Are you buying Lavender Cottage then?”
“It seems so or at least that’s what my Lawyer told me yesterday. The seller has accepted my offer for the place including the contents.”
“Including the contents?”
“Yeah. Saves hunting for furniture. I suppose I’ve gotten used to living in fully furnished places over the year and everything I saw when I viewed the place seemed to be perfectly suited to the place. Besides, I don’t have any of my own. Furniture that is. The place… The place where he died was rented fully furnished.”
“When? When should the deal close?”
“They are saying at the end of next month. I’m a cash buyer so there won’t be any finance to sort out but you never know lawyers eh?”
“Yeah. Slow means more money to them.”
“Why did you come? Here I mean?”
“You did ask me to call in if you remember?”
“Oh yes I did.”
Then she said,
“I don’t want to impose but… Well, I have to say that I’m not a threat to you. I know only too well how hard it can be for people like you. The other you that I saw you in Herefordshire I mean.”
I was about to say something but she raised her hand.
“I need to say this. I had a dear friend as a child who was like you. For years Ian would dress in private and even go out with me from time to time. We were like two sisters when we did that. Then his dad found out about his other side and lost it. I mean totally lost it.”
She sighed and looked really sad.
“Ian suffered at his hands and can never be the same again. He can never be anything again. His dad threw him down the stairs and subsequently ended up in a coma. He woke up a month later but is severely brain damaged.”
Then she managed a smile.
“The thing is that if anyone tries to dress him in male clothes he gets rather violent. Put a dress on him and he’s as happy as a lamb. He’s happy in his own world…”
She paused.
I saw a small tear form in the corner of her eyes. It was obvious that this Ian friend of hers meant a lot to her.
“When I saw you… dressed like that and looking so happy, the memories of Ian came flooding back. You see, I do understand and I would love to get to know you, both of you a lot better. You helped me in my time of need and for that I owe you but… If you tell me to go I will and I won’t bother you again.”
She’d put me right on the spot with her statement.
“I… I can’t…” I muttered. Every minute she was here in my home made me want to be with her even more.
She made a move towards the door.
“I… I can’t ask you to leave. If you would like to try… try being a couple then I’d like to try.”
She stopped mid step.
“Sorry, I’m rambling,” I said as I tried desperately hard to think of something that would keep her here.
“No, you are making perfect sense.”
“But why me? You are so beautiful and intelligent. You could have a relationship with just about any man you want.”
“Yeah I could but you are different. For starters, you didn’t hit on me when we first met. After we’d accidentally met in Herefordshire I realised that you were the sort of person I’d like to get to know properly. You are totally the opposite to all the men I’ve had in my life for the past five years. That’s why I came here today. I was sort of hoping that you might feel the same about me.”
She came up to me and after wrapping her arms around me, she gave me a big kiss.
When we came up for air, she said,
“I do have one problem though. I’m currently homeless until my purchase of Lavender Cottage goes through.”
I laughed.
“I have a spare room you know. This place isn’t much but…”
“You say the nicest things.”
Then we kissed again.
The purring that was coming from Freda as she rubbed her head against her legs told me that she approved of Nancy as well.
I sensed that my life was never going to be the same again. This “strange kind of woman” had really gotten to me. This time for good or so I hoped.
There once was a woman
A strange kind of woman
The kind that gets written down in history
Her name was Nancy
{words from ‘Strange Kind of Woman’ by Deep Purple}
[the end]