The Story So Far... in order

07.16hrs.

Iris Green peers through the white net curtains, through a carefully cut hole, about one centimetre square, and spies Douglas heading out for work. A soft brown leather satchel containing his laptop, lunch, and paperwork, is slung over his shoulder. She watches him as he carelessly throws the satchel onto the back seat of his Range Rover. She blinks as the sunlight reflects from his wing mirror and glances her eye. Iris looks at her watch, thumbs open a school exercise book and jots down the following:- ‘07.16hrs, Douglas Manning leaves for work,’ beneath an entry that reads ‘20.16hrs, Douglas Manning returns from work.’ She takes a photograph with her camera as Douglas drives off up the road and out of focus. She will print it off later. She will then stick it, with Pritt Stick, into a scrapbook filled with similar images, and items of sentiment. Iris looks back at the red panelled front door where moments earlier Douglas had stood. Even though he isn’t there she takes another photograph anyway. The red panelled front door opens, and Annie Manning, in a pink dressing robe and bare feet, slaps flat footed up the tiled path and stuffs a black sack of rubbish into a wheelie bin. The sack is torn and a chocolate wrapper drops onto the path.

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07.18hrs.

Annie is dreaming of fur-lined slippers as she sidesteps a snail, and her slight shiver is caused by a distinct nip in the air, rather than the basilisk glare hurled at her from behind the net curtains. Another half hour before getting up, she decides, shutting the door, but is suddenly wide awake as an intruder appears from the kitchen. It is a small man with a large gun.

A good six inches shorter than Annie, he cuts a peculiar figure with his tubby physique, extraordinarily bushy eyebrows and horn-rimmed glasses in a style so far undiscovered by hipsters and Post Modern ironists. He would perhaps resemble nothing so much as a garden gnome were it not for the pink rabbit onesie he is wearing. When he speaks it is in an incongruous basso profundo, with a pleasant Geordie lilt.

"Come with me if you want to live, pet".


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Douglas eased his cuff back and checked his watch (not the too-flashy Rolex; no point making yourself too noticeable.)

10.15am. Hmm... he might be cutting it a bit fine, but, provided that bloody farmer with the muck-spreader didn't get in front of him he should make it home after Annie usually left for work.

But that wretched curtain-twitcher next door might still be at her window! He wondered if she also had a watch point from the back of her house. He'd have to wing it...

Hardly any traffic and he really would have liked to give the car a good, racing run. Better not to spoil things by getting a ticket to the Policemen's Ball. He eased his foot up and settled at 60.

He allowed his mind to go over his plan once more. Mr Short had never seen him and the money had all been odd bills, from various sources. So, really, all he had to do was nip back into his house, pick up the second briefcase, nip out and head for Harwich. A doddle, really...


*******************************************************

Meanwhile, in a mid-sized city in the Pacific Northwest, Rennie Hightower looked up from his Chromebook to check the time on the digital clock on the gas range, barely three feet from his “desk”, which also served as dining table and kitchen counter in his tiny efficiency apartment. 3:15...in the morning! Jesus! He’d been staring at the damned internet since he’d gotten home around 7 the night before. He hadn’t even stopped scrolling long enough to eat.

“I’ve got to get up in 4 hours,” Rennie thought reproachfully to himself, “What is wrong with me?” Not that his job as a janitor at a strip club required much mental alertness or peak physical conditioning. In his self-induced guilt, he thought he’d better throw himself headlong into the bed. It wouldn’t even be hard to do, even from a sitting position. After all, the bed was only about two feet to his right and back a bit. Efficient, indeed.

But having broken the spell held upon him by the siren song of social media, he realized he was too hungry to sleep. Now that he was again aware that he had a body (such as it was), all he could think about was sustenance. As he began the difficult process of prying his carcass from the wooden chair with a foam cushion in which he had been sitting for the past 8 hours, he spied a notification that he had a message from his friend Iris in the UK.

Thoughts of food were immediately pushed from his mind as he settled back onto the chair. Rennie was a little bit in love with Iris. More than a little, if he was honest about it. He was not well acquainted with any females “in real life”. He had “met” Iris on-line in a Facebook group for fans of author P.G. Wodehouse. While they of course loved Bertie and Jeeves, their shared favorite character was Psmith (“the P is silent, as in ‘pshrimp’”). Iris and Rennie would often type this “Psmith-ism” to each other whenever chatting about the character. Rennie laughed every time Iris did it, and he liked to imagine that Iris was laughing when he did it. It would have done his lonely heart no end of good if he could have known that she did laugh. But only we know that, and we mustn’t tell.

He hadn’t heard from Iris for a few weeks. She seemed to have developed some sort of obsession with the doings of her next door neighbors - David or something, and his wife...Angela? No. That couldn’t be it. Oh, well. Nevermind! He rather feverishly clicked onto Iris’ message, and what to his wondering eyes should he see but “Rennie - I need your help!”

Iris had never asked for his help before. His heart skipped a beat, both out of concern for his friend, and the excitement of possible romantic adventure. He began to type to ask how he could be of assistance.

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Iris returned the scrapbook to its hidden spot. Glancing down at her ankles, she questioned her mental abilities for remembering daily tasks. Why can’t I remember to moisturize my legs, she mumbled to herself.

As Iris applied lotion on her long legs, memories of past adventures flashed before her. Life in London was fast and fun long ago. She was sure it was those shapely legs that landed her a dancing gig in the London go-go cages at an early age.

Her mind’s eye had stored images of a luxurious dinner at St. Ermin’s Hotel. Lamb shanks roasted with pomegranate. Her handsome young host sitting across from her. The man whose mysterious life she would come to know through their shared adventures. Distracted by his eyes, she recalled difficulty in keeping track of his espionage story’s connection to the hotel.

The exciting thrilling trips with him were a joy to remember. However, it didn’t take long before the scary memories engulfed her mood. A rich fast world she never had known shock her with its dark dangerous side. She escaped from it but now she feared that some part, some secret was back looking for her.

Why did Douglas Manning appear so strange. Was he watching her?

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"Iris, what are you doing? Can you hear me?"

Douglas shook Iris's shoulder in an effort to wake her.

"What did you see? It's really important that you wake up now."

Iris lay on her bed, her eyes were open, staring at the ceiling, but she wasn't dead.

"Iris, FOR PITY'S SAKE WOMAN, what did you see? And when did you see it?"

Douglas thumped his fist against the wall and as he did so a framed print of Salvador Dali's Persistence of Memory fell to the floor. Douglas bent to pick it up [if nothing else he was always tidy] and as he did so he noticed that stored under Iris's bed was an impressive array of shoeboxes.

'Wow', thought Douglas, 'this is an impressive array of shoeboxes, but Iris always wears battered old brogues, how peculiar.'

Douglas stopped thinking and pulled out one of the shoeboxes, he opened it, and gasped for dramatic effect. The shoebox did not contain leopard print mules, as suggested by the picture on the lid of the box, but three bulging scrapbooks and 10 used notebooks of the school variety.

He opened a notebook, this was exactly the information Douglas was looking for. He looked up fondly towards the slender, brogue wearing woman still laying unconscious, yet wide eyed on the bed, "I knew I could rely on you Iris, I'm so sorry I referred to you as a wretched curtain twitcher in a previous post, you were always such a meticulous record keeper, even when we were trapped together in that underwater cavern for days on end without food, water, a cuddly toy, a toaster, or your favourite Beatles album, you still found a way to keep meticulous records. What a woman."

Douglas began to read Iris's last entry, as he read his eyebrows began knitting together like two hairy caterpillars trying to make a sweater. When Douglas had finished reading he had three important questions:-

1) WHO IS THE SHORT MAN IN THE PINK RABBIT ONSIE WITH THE BIG GUN? [Clue: He isn't Mr Short]
2) WHO IS THIS RENNIE CHARACTER? AND WHY DID IRIS NEED HIS HELP?
3) WHERE IS ANNIE?
4) WOULD HE GET TO HARWICH IN TIME?
5) SHOULD HE PLAY IRIS'S FAVOURITE BEATLES TUNE?
6) WOULD IRIS'S FAVOURITE BEATLES TUNE WAKE HER FROM HER OPEN-EYED SLUMBER?

So many questions...but, as in every good epic, only three are important...


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Rennie quickly messaged Iris back, asking what was the matter. Almost immediately her response came, and it was rather long.

"That's weird", thought Rennie, "She couldn't possibly have written all this in a few seconds." He read on, however, and became more puzzled. Her message was a reprint of yet another boring diatribe by one of the more annoying members of their P.G. Wodehouse fan group on Facebook.

As Rennie tried to make sense of the passage, and figure out how this seemed so important to Iris, his eyes kept being drawn back to the first word in the each of the first six lines of the paragraph. What seemed significant about those words? Taken in order of appearance, they didn't make any kind of coherent sentence, nor did they if rearranged in every possible combination. Rennie felt a vague sense of surprise that he was performing this mental exercise. Puzzles and brain challenges weren't really his cup of tea. Or...were they? Then something clicked in Rennie's brain.

And Rennie wasn't Rennie anymore. He couldn't say for sure who he was. That wasn't important. But he suddenly knew what he was, and what he needed to do. He clicked a sequence of keys on his Chromebook, and a secret function buried deep within this particular device wiped away all traces of everything he had ever done on it. Then the function removed any trace of itself, but not before initiating a sequence which would remove any public or private record of Rennie Hightower.

Rennie (for that name will do as well as any other) stood up. No grunting or difficulty this time, but he was now much more aware of his body and the effects that an unknown period of relative inactivity had wrought upon a formerly fine-tuned physique. He wondered idly how long he had been dormant. Oh, well, no matter. He'd quickly sort that out.

He walked to his closet and knelt and moved aside shoes and pulled back the carpeting, then worked loose one of the floorboards. From the cavity underneath he withdrew a lock box. From memory he punched the 32 digit pass code into the electronic lock's keypad. Inside the box were passports from several nations. All had his picture. Each had a different name. Also in the box were credit cards, with names to match the passports. Lastly he took out a phone and powered it on. This unremarkable-looking "smart" phone was connected to a very exclusive network, operated by a super-computer that actually was smart, in the sense that it was capable of highly intelligent thought.

Rennie selected one pair of passport and credit card and put them in the pocket of his jacket, the phone in another. He put the other items in a backpack and walked outside, where an Uber was waiting to take him to the airport.

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Douglas squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to concentrate on the many questions brought into being from the situation he found himself in. He had to whittle them down to just the three important ones, but Iris's staring eyes were putting him off. How was he supposed to think?!

After a minute or two of fruitless reasoning, Douglas still hadn't decided if "Should he play Iris's favourite Beatles tune?" was an important question or not - and he really fancied a banana which didn't help matters. He was dithering between including the question or not because a) he wasn't sure if he knew for definite which Beatles tune was her favourite - despite her singing "Hey Jude" somewhat incessantly in that underwater cave to take her mind off not having a toaster, and b) the fact that the question had cropped up surely meant that it was a plot point to be remembered at a later time, so it had to be important. Right? He didn't know so he opened his eyes. Iris seemed to be staring even more intently, even though, from her recumbent position on the bed, her line of sight was directed at the ceiling. He looked at his watch - time was escaping him. All thoughts of bananas evaporated.

"Sorry, Iris" Douglas muttered as he stooped down, brushed an errant chocolate raisin off the bed, then slid his forearms between Iris's unconscious form and the rather old fashioned candlewick bedspread, and turned her on to her side to face the wall. "What the hells...?"

A faint, blinking light behind Iris's right ear caught his attention. He gently brushed aside a lock of her dark hair to get a better look. It was probably a bluetooth earpiece, he told himself as he moved closer. Or a hearing aid? Although, Iris never had any hearing problems as far as he knew? But there was nothing there. No audio technology, no medical devices, nothing. Except for the light that continued to blink once every second or so. A light that was flashing under her skin!

Douglas was momentarily stunned. After a second or two that felt like hours, he gathered his wits and looked as his watch again. Then at Iris. The light was still blinking and, from his new position amongst the shoeboxes and notebooks, he noticed that the light was reflecting off a small, white triangle jutting out from her skin next to her hairline. He moved in for a closer look. The triangle looked like the corner of a label. There was even something printed on it - a letter, by the look of it, but only part of it was showing above the skin's surface. Gingerly (Douglas was proud of being a red-head), he gripped the label betwixt finger and thumb and gently pulled it out. One centimetre, two, three, then it stopped - clearly fixed to something within Iris.

Douglas read the fine, block-cap text: MADE IN TAIWAN

*******************************************************

At that very moment, Rennie received a message via the microscopic speaker implanted in his ear canal.

“The Iris unit has been compromised. Make haste.”


It was the voice of SpodeChode69, the self-applied nickname of Super Computer 6900. After all, what good was artificial intelligence without a sense of humor? The earlier text message from Iris had actually come from SpodeChode. Its highly evolved algorithms had detected the imminent breakdown in Iris’ relatively crude system (the early models always were a bit twitchy, as the movie quote goes). Its summations were proved by Douglas’ tugging at Iris’ tag. Why had they left that there, anyway? Oh, well, that decision had been made before SpodeChode’s time. Now it was up to SpodeChode to fix the problem. Typical.


Rennie said to the Uber driver, “I’m going to need to take over.” As the driver turned a wondering look toward him, Rennie snatched up a banana that the driver had been intending to eat for lunch from the cup holder in the center console and rammed it into the pressure point behind the driver’s left ear, momentarily stunning him. In practically the same fluid movement, Rennie unbuckled the driver’s seat belt, opened his door and shoved him out, then slipped behind the wheel and sped away.


The driver came too as he was doing a fast barrel roll right into the path of an oncoming light rail vehicle. “Oh, well”, he thought, “that job sucked anyway”.


Rennie made great time to the airport. His speeding and the many incongruously placed vegetable stands and stacks of cardboard boxes that he smashed through failed to initiate a police chase, thanks in large part to SpodeChode’s ability to control many human systems and activities, such as 911 calls, traffic cameras, police bulletins and even to issue “do not pursue” orders anywhere in the world.


When Rennie arrived at the airport, he didn’t bother with such mundane affairs as ticket counters and boarding gates. Instead, he took a service road to a seemingly disused hangar in a remote corner of the complex, where a super-fast stealth plane waited to whisk him to England.


During the flight, Rennie had time to reflect upon his relationship with Iris. He had seen her dancing at a go-go club, and had taken her to dinner at St. Ermin’s Hotel. He was trying to impress her, so he told her fantastic tales of espionage, when in reality he was only a private in the army, with dreams of one day being a spy. Be careful what you wish for.


He didn’t know then that Iris wasn’t a human. Even Iris didn’t know her true nature. By the time he found out, it was already too late for both of them. He had already gone down a dark path, one lined with laboratories where his body and mind were modified and enhanced to serve a powerful master.


He realized he was still holding the banana. He ate it. Mmmm, banana.

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"Come with me if you want to live, pet", he had said. Annie had not gone with him. Her brain had worked swiftly and she had rationalised that if he wanted her to live then it was unlikely that he was going to shoot her, so she had simply picked him up by the ears of the pink rabbit onesie, and shaken him until he dropped the gun. She had then locked him in her attic with a plate of fish fingers and a large colouring book.

Annie Manning was now glaring at her computer screen. How could they do this to her?? How could they leave her to be taken by a small man with a large gun wearing a pink rabbit onesie, and never refer to her again?? Weren't they worried that she had been taken captive by a wee Geordie? Did nobody want to save her? Did nobody care? Had she made a bad impression by slapping flat footed up the tiled path? It was a disgrace, an outrage.

All the attention seemed to be on Iris Green, the brogue loving woman from across the road who liked to spy on everyone. Even Douglas had a thing for her, and Douglas was supposed to be Annie's husband. Annie was furious. After all, Annie was the blonde, busty, attention grabbing female around here, NOT robotic Iris, who was flat-chested, wore her hair in a prim little bun, and looked like a stereotypical school teacher from the 1940s.

Annie was jealous and she didn't care who knew it. First she frowned a bit, though her pretty eyebrows remained arched above her milky blue eyes due to botox, and did not aspire to making random items of knitwear, and then she pouted. Annie had a plan. A big plan that would change EVERYTHING. She also had a loaded gun.

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Tina Cruet tottered up the garden path of her neighbours Aubrey and Martharine Stoad, her red high heel shoes scraping on the block paving as she went along. She stopped midway to admire the beautiful old laburnum tree that has graced the Stoads garden for many a year with it's drooping clusters of yellow flowers billowing in the gentle summer breeze, the sight of it made Tina's heart leap with gay abandon. It was the only tree in the vicinity of the small cul-de-sac of semi detached houses, built in the 1920's by builders Burke and Hare.

Tina lives at the bottom of the bag but now thanks to her new status of widow comes ambition, to move to the very top of the cul-de-sac and by hook or by crook she was going to succeed or die trying. Whilst she was admiring it's lovely branches she happened to look pass the tree at the mock Tudor mansion opposite, the only detached property in the neighbourhood, 'If I lived there' thought Tina 'I could really Queen it over everyone' In the bedroom window of the mock Tudor mansion almost hidden by a secret veil stood the profile of Iris Green the moral watch dog of Frigwell Crescent looking directly at Tina. Iris pulled back the net and locked eyes with the fleshpot trollop. Tina gasped as she saw to her horror two flashing blue lights emitting from Iris's eyes than laughed remembering that the old bag wore jam jar glasses and was just the sun light reflecting off them.

Tina turned her back on the nosy cow and continued her walk up the Stoads path, plucking her knickers out from between her arse cheeks, she rang the door bell.

She was greeted at the door by Martharine, a rabbity faced woman in her late 50s with a pudding bowl haircut. "Come in and go on through to the sitting room, Cheryl's in there with daddy, as you can hear by the noise, ha-ha! she's practising for Britain's Got Talent." Martharine had a peculiar and some might say unhealthy way of addressing her husband Aubrey as 'daddy'. Tina went through to the sitting room and sat down, father and daughter together facing the bay window playing to an imaginary audience, they didn't see Tina enter. Cheryl on the recorder was playing Go and Tell Aunt Nancy accompanied by her father on the armpit.

The Stoads dog, Scarlet, a golden retriever came bounding up to Tina for a friendly pat on the head then quickly moved away to drag it's arse back and forth along the carpet and then began to yacht in a big circle, leaving her mark behind her. "Oh Cheryl love" said Martharine. "Take Scarlet to the kitchen, she needs her glands squeezing again, better still, take her outside, be gentle, you remember what happened last time? Martharine turned to her friend Tina and mouthed "There was shit everywhere" always eager to please her parents Cheryl with the same rabbity face as her mother and the same pudding bowl haircut trudged out of the room clutching Scarlet by the collar. "and when you finished you can make us all a nice cup of tea and a slice of that chocolate cake and before you go, what do you say to Tina?" Cheryl! whispered Martharine "Say something nice to Tina she has just cremated her husband". Cheryl looked at Tina, smiled and in a drone like voice said "Hello Auntie Tina, do you want to see my knickers?" Tina wondered why Cheryl always acted so weird, she never knew what she was going to do or come out with next, it's not as if she is still a child, she 28 for fucks sake.

Aubrey lifted up his brewer's goiter with one hand and scratched the purple hued skin underneath with his other hand and casually sniffed his fingers. He was a short, fat man with oily looking lips, black hair combed back and held in place with Brylcreem, he wore segs on the soles of his shoes. Tina stared intently at him, her eyes bored into his like tungsten carbide cylinder drill bits and he looked genuinely surprised when she broke into a seductive mien. Was it Martharine's imagination did her husband's usually dormant bulge just give a slight twitch?

Five days ago.

Aubrey was out in his front garden taking cuttings from his unruly bush, his intention was to give everyone in Frigwell Crescent a Fallopia Japonica of their very own, an ear piercing scream coming from The Cruet's house broke Aubrey free from his day dream, he dashed immediately to Tina's assistance and was met with a teary eyed Tina "My Percy.. he's dead" was all she said before she slumped in Aubrey's arms. It was Aubrey who helped Tina cope with the isolation and despair the complex feelings that grief brings, after a while they found themselves being drawn together and by the time the police and forensics had been to take away the body he had already given her one over the arm of the chair.

Did forensics find out what killed him? Martharine asked proffering a slice of chocolate cake under Tina's nose. "It was an underlying illness, his heart, it couldn't have been predicted or prevented" said Tina biting into her chocolate cake and licking her lips in Aubrey's direction. Tina stayed another 10 minutes then said her goodbye and thanked everyone especially Aubrey for everything he had done during her difficult time, Martharine beamed with pride at her husband and noticed yet again another twitch in Aubrey's trouser department. It was Cheryl who showed Tina out and gave her some sound advice en route "A cat can have kittens in an oven, but it doesn't make them biscuits" and slammed the door in Tina's face.

Tina burst out laughing.

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Cheryl cut some half-hearted shapes on the patio as she listened to "Smooth Criminal" for the umpteenth time on her ancient Walkman. Michael Jackson she most definitely was not. Neil Armstrong could have done better on the actual Moon in his full astronaut get-up! But after squeezing Scarlet's glands, she wasn't convinced she could execute a proper Moonwalk without throwing up. Besides, the tape was crinkled and distorted after having to be painstakingly unravelled from the Walkman's innards on more than one occasion, and the resulting sound distortion played havok with her inner ear which only made things worse.
So intent was she on not vomming as she awkwardly stumbled around on the faux Yorkstone slabs, all the while trying to avoid the stinkeye from Scarlet at the far end of the garden, that she didn't notice the figure sidling up to her from behind the laurel...

Iris took off her glasses with one hand, unpinned her severe bun with the other, then shook her head to release her long, dark hair. It tumbled in waves around her shoulders and halfway down her back as, almost in slow motion, she stepped forward towards the lurching, zombie-like figure.
"Oof!" she grunted as she recoiled from the impact with the whirligig washing line. Iris put her glasses back on and flinched.
"Hullo, Iris." Cheryl had turned around and was facing Iris with a look on her face that, despite her slightly narrowed eyes, could only be described as gormless. "Why are there two of you?"
"What?" Iris was momentarily flummoxed. Had Cheryl been at Martharine's cooking sherry again? The girl was so weird.
"You're so weird, Iris" Cheryl said matter-of-factly. "Are you the robot one?"
"I... Well... You see..." How did she know about the Irisbot? No one knew about the Irisbot. Well, except for all the people who knew about it, that is. And Cheryl was most definitely not people! Although, the fact that she did know made what Iris was about to say next easier. "Cheryl, I need your help."
"Um, no."
"No? What?" The flummox came back to taunt Iris.
"I've got to show Auntie Tina out. Bye" Cheryl said, then turned and lumbered across the patio and back into the house.
"But..." Iris stood in the middle of the patio for a while before realising that she was on full view should Aubrey or Martharine look out of their dining room window. Or if Douglas Manning decided to stop doing whatever it was he was doing with the Irisbot and look out of her bedroom window which overlooked the Stoads back garden. She moved to the side of the house and lurked near the rubbish bins while she pondered her next move. Who else could she get to help her who was weird enough not to be believed if they blabbed about it? Her train of thought was derailed by Cheryl's voice coming from the front. She was saying something about cat biscuits before the front door was slammed and Tina Cruet's distinctive harsh laugh rang out.
"Hullo, Iris."
"Eeep!" Iris jumped, her heart in her mouth, along with a kidney and part of her small intestines. How had Cheryl managed to sneak up on her?
"I can help you now."

Ten minutes later Iris and Cheryl stood in Douglas and Annie Manning's small but spotless study. Well, it was spotless before Cheryl had walked flakes of dried mud - and possibly dog shit - from her green, frog-eyed Wellington boots into the pale carpet.
"She's not here" Cheryl pointed out.
"She must have rescued herself" Iris muttered, mainly to herself. Annie Manning had always struck her as a resourceful, if brassy, woman. "She's not long gone though, as her computer is still warm to the touch."
"Is it?" Cheryl reached out impulsively for the computer and knocked over a small vase of past-their-prime flowers with her inelegant sausage-fingers instead. "Oops."
"Come on. Let's go" urged Iris. "I need to get something from my house before we can move to stage two."
"Okay."
Cheryl slammed the door shut after them as they left the Mannings' house. Neither of them heard the Geordie-accented male voice pleading for HP sauce and a new red felt-tip pen floating down from the attic...

Five minutes after that in Iris's spacious but dark living room, made darker and more oppressive by the heavy wood beams that crossed the ceiling, Cheryl picked her nose as she slowly turned on the spot as if in a trance.
"He's still upstairs!" Iris hissed appearing from the hall.
"Huh?" Cheryl continued to turn with her finger up her lightly freckled, round nose.
"I can't get to my boxes - Douglas Manning is still in my bedroom with the Irisbot!"
"Huh?" Cheryl finally withdrew her finger and, after examining the blob on the end, rolled it between her finger and thumb then flicked it off into the darkness. Iris winced.
Suddenly, the sound of car tyres aggressively driven on gravel cut through their whispering. Iris narrowed her eyes in annoyance - Whoever they were had better not be churning up her driveway! Then rapid footsteps filtered down from above their heads. Douglas Manning was on the move. And he was coming down the stairs!
"Cheryl! We've got to go!" Iris bundled Cheryl towards the inglenook fireplace at the far end of the room. A dull glint of gold amongst the dust on the wine-red carpet in the corner caught Iris's eye as she made a complicated gesture with her right hand. At the side of the inglenook, an opening appeared.
"Huh?" said Cheryl.
"Go!" Iris pushed Cheryl into the door-sized hole and followed her through, the hole closing behind them. "And wipe your feet."
Inside, a long corridor stretched off into the distance - far too long to fit within the confines of the mansion, even though it was the largest house on Frigwell Crescent. Iris began to walk briskly down it.
Cheryl absentmindedly wiped her wellies on the roughly bristled doormat that lay beneath her as she looked at her surroundings. The low-lit corridor was lined with ornately carved wooden chairs - a row on either side facing inwards, with a gap of about three metres between each chair. As Cheryl slowly followed Iris, she noticed that every chair had something on it. Most contained books of various descriptions: The Visitors by Sally Beauman, neue möbel 6 by Hatje, The Days Are Just Packed by Bill Watterson, Fucked-up Fondues by Delilah Smythe, to name but a few. However, as she progessed, she also saw things other than books: a neatly folded towel, a small collection of sea glass, an impossibly balancing vial of irridescent blue liquid, a pink fondant fancy, an old clay pot with mold growing inside it, a universe, a bottle of greed, and the most perfect, golden Ferrero Rocher she had ever seen. Cheryl stopped to gawp at it. It glimmered and sparkled with every slight turn of her head. In fact, it almost glowed.
"Come on, Cheryl!" Iris sounded quite stern.
The Rocher spell broken, Cheryl trudged after Iris.

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Meanwhile, on a back road near Harwich...

The man formerly known as "Douglas Manning," husband of Annie, pulled his car off the road and took out his Swiss Army knife.

Using the thing-for -taking-stones-out-of-horses'- hooves, he prised the bulldog clips from his car's UK licence plates, revealing NL plates. (He wondered, briefly, if he should keep them...then decided that it was unlikely he would ever be sent back to England so he frisbee'd both plates over a hedge into a scruffy copse.)

He glanced at his watch.So far, so good. He'd make his 9am ferry and be in Holland mid-afternoon. Ish. He always allowed for an "ish" eventuality. Being caught up in a particularly nasty football crowd once that involved police from three countries had taught him to plan for such exigencies. But with no matches scheduled for today, he should be fine...

He drove onto the ferry, parked his car on the car deck and went up to the lounge for some breakfast.

Like all others in his "trade" he was a people-watcher. An essential in the craft, his trainers had always impressed upon him the importance of noticing and noting the small, silly details.

And what he was noticing today was the mother with two unruly children, stuffing sugary cakes into their fat faces. Manning's eyes searched the room for a First Aid station. Someone might need that today...

He finished his coffee and walked across to the book stall. Six hours to fill and he didn't want to appear too different from other passengers so he idly browsed the titles on the book stand. A strange volume about the origins of Tarot cards caught his eye. Its cover was bordered with a triangular device that reminded him of that Swiss confectionary ...he flicked through the pages and was tempted to buy it, but his training had taught him never to carry something that might attract unwanted attention. The last thing he needed was some daffy old woman engaging him in a lengthy discussion of horoscopic predictions. He bought a Telegraph and settled with the crossword.

The crossing uneventful, they docked at Hoek on time and cleared customs and Manning drove away from the dock, heading for a small, nondescript shop on a back street. Parking around a corner, he donned a pair of dark-framed glasses and a worn, dark blue beret and a gaberdine coat.

The man at the counter was reading a newspaper and barely looked up when the shop bell rang.

Manning said, glancing left and right, and leaning across the counter," I'd like some sticky-backed dildo, please."

The shop man sighed, put his paper aside and reached under the counter for a tray of items...

"No! Sorry! I mean, um, Velcro."

***************************************************************************************************************

Douglas flew out of the front door nearly knocking Rennie off his feet.

"RUDE." Said Rennie, trying to regain his poise in the unfamiliar kitten heels that were pinching his toes; he then looked on in horror as Douglas stole his car, which had been idling on Iris's gravel driveway.

"STOP!!" Shouted Rennie, but Douglas was already speeding out of Frigwell Crescent.

Rennie slumped down on Iris's doorstep, put his head in his hands, and then slowly pulled off the Dolly Parton wig. Why oh why had he decided to come to England disguised as Nina Mishsochlopovkovni? Why hadn't he checked the passport before blindly selecting it from his collection? He could have been anyone. He could have been John Brown - business man and candle maker, or Chuck Hudson - a salesman with a penchant for liquorice allsorts, but no, he was now saddled with being Nina Mishsochlopovkovni.

Rennie had never been to England before, and he was finding it all rather grey and squashed. How did the Brits live in these tiny little houses built so close together? He was used to wide open spaces; mountains; big trees; volcanic activity; a large bed; and driving on the right side of the road. Rennie wished he'd stayed home and felt very sorry for himself. Douglas had driven off with all his documents; his jacket; his phone; and most importantly, his connection to SpodeChode. And where was Iris? Either Iris would do right now, even the Iris-bot would be useful.

Rennie kicked off the kitten heels, and without the wig he simply looked like a man in a dress who was rather upset and lost.

"PPSSSSSSTTTTTT, over here....... are you deaf or what??"

Rennie looked up and saw a blonde woman holding a large gun beckoning him towards her house.....

***************************************************************************************************************

Meanwhile, in the mid-sized city in the Pacific Northwest, Detective Lieutenant Milton Frobisher studied the autopsy report of an Uber driver who had been run over by a light rail vehicle. The cause of death was about what you would expect: run over by a train. The ME had, however, found one curious fact that didn’t fit with the other injuries - a small indentation behind the vic’s left ear, containing trace amounts of a blackish substance. The incongruously attractive science nerds of the Mid-Size City crime lab were currently trying to identify the substance.
Frobisher had checked with Uber to see who the driver’s last passenger had been - the one who had apparently shoved him out of his car and sped away. That’s when things got weird. The last trip the driver had logged was a routine trip - a regular customer had been taken from her home to her place of work. Then...nothing. All records of his work after that moment had simply vanished, along with the OnStar data for the car.


The phone on Frobisher’s desk rang. The patrolman on the switchboard said, “Lieutenant, I have a missing person’s report. I think it might be related to your Uber case.” Frobisher took the address of the reporting party. It was near the scene of the “accident”.


When he arrived at the address - a cheap apartment building - he was greeted at the door by a dowdy middle-aged woman with a thick, unidentifiable eastern European accent. She was decked out in a frowsy bathrobe of indeterminate color, and pink bunny slippers. She had curlers on her head, but her flaming red “hair” was obviously a wig. Frobisher could see her wispy, grey real hair sticking out from under the edges of the scarlet nightmare.


The woman identified herself as Svetlana...something. He asked her several times to repeat it, but couldn’t understand her. Finally he handed her his notepad and pen and asked her to write it herself. When she handed back the pad (but not his pen, he realized later), she had written it in Cyrillic letters. Oh, well, he thought. I’ll just get it translated later.


After considerable difficulty, Frobisher was able to gather that Ms. Whatever had called because one of her tenants - known to her as Rennington Hightower - had vanished without a trace, owing rent money. When she showed him the apartment, it was completely bare. Frobisher said, “You say he was here just this morning? How could he move all his stuff out so quickly? He must have had stuff, right?” Ms. Whatever replied indignantly, “Of course he was having stuffs! You are the police man - you figure it out!”


Frobisher was about to call for a lab team to come go over the unit, when the lab called him. The head lab technician said, “Frobisher, we identified the substance in the Uber driver’s indentation. It’s from a banana.”


Frobisher felt his stomach churn. “Oh, no...not again”, he thought.

***************************************************************************************************************

Rennie tried to understand, were his dreams just shit hitting the fan. He staggered toward the doorway. The tight skirt resisting his movement.

As he reached the door, the buxom blonde’s long nails violently seized his arm and thrusted him against the wall. The cold metal gun barrel pushed on the back of his ear.

“Hand over your passport Nina” demanded Annie.

Momentarily confused Rennie thought, who the fuck is Nina. The pressure of the gun quickly cleared his thoughts. “Back off, it’s in the travel pouch tucked in the skirt.”

As Annie released her hold, Rennie kicked out her legs and lunged for the gun.

Rennie’s quick action failed much like his whole day.

A round exploded as he tumbled on top of Annie.

A burning flash across his chest stunned him. He was shocked but ok. The Dolly Parton bra and padding lie shredded across the floor. He looked up. Annie stood with the gun pointing down at him. “Now you know it’s loaded,” she shouted.

Iris ran to Rennie and pulled him to his feet. “Don’t shoot,” she pleaded.

“Yes Iris this will go easier without a dead body to dump. Just open his passport. It has information in it to decipher the code.”

Another odd thought floated in Rennie mind. Why do I smell dog shit?

***************************************************************************************************************
Hazel finally reached her destination, stepping off the number 69 bus into Poobury Station on the outskirts of London, still wearing the black ensemble she bought from the Sue Ryder shop over a week ago in Blackpool, her amazing haggling skills meant she bought the ensemble for next to nothing and the sales assistant even threw in a half bottle of Timeless by Avon.

Hazel used her late mother's bus pass to travel for free on a journey that took 8 days and 7 hours, she boarded 26 buses, used 20 bus companies, crossed 11 counties and cruised through 12 cities, she also saved money by offering herself to men at the back of the bus depot in exchange for free accommodation and for something hot inside her of a morning.

Cuts to music ♫
Hazel plying her trade, back of bus depot.

The summer season had just ended and Hazel was happy to accept her sister Tina's invite to stay for a couple of months, that is until Mother Goose at the Winter Gardens beckoned her return to the bright lights of Blackpool.

Hazel was met at Poobury station by a thickset man with mutton-chops and greasy lips, "I've no money for a taxi" said Hazel with twitching lips (facial) "but I can pay with nature's credit card, if need be," the man quickly and eagerly ushered Hazel into his green Citroen Dyane. "I'm afraid it's my unclean week, it'll have to be backdoors" continued Hazel. "Even better, said the man and added "I hope you're not a vegetarian cause I've got 4 inches of prime in my trousers for starters" growled Aubrey. Hazel's nipples hardened. "Good, I haven't eaten all day!"

Hazel arrived at Frigwell Crescent and was greeted at the door by Tina. "Eh Hazel! lovely to see you again, said Tina reverting back to her old Lancashire accent, her eyes brimmed with tears. "Aye it is, our lass" said Hazel wiping her nose on the back of her hand. The two sisters embraced on the doorstep "Come in! I'm sorry I couldn't pick you up from the station, I was expecting a delivery, go on through to the kitchen I'll make us some tea or would you prefer coffee? Hazel went through and gasped at the opulence of Tina's kitchen, there on the kitchen window sill stood a Robert's radio, it was playing a long forgotten tune from the 80s "ehh she's got it all," thought Hazel "Swan kettle and matching toaster and I bet she didn't get much change from 30 notes for that peddle bin in the corner and she's offering me a choice of tea or coffee, oh, how the other half live".

"How's mam?" asked Tina
"Still spry as a sparrer" lied Hazel, looking up from her cup, she spied on the wall an Audrey Dallas Simpson print of a street urchin and inhaled her tea, causing her to cough and splutter, she didn't have the nerve to tell her eldest sister that their mother is dead and unreported to the authorities and rolled up in an old carpet in the loft and that Hazel had been collecting their mother's pension for the last 5 years.


***************************************************************************************************************

Cheryl was bored. They'd been trudging through the chair-lined tunnel for what seemed like eternity, or at the very least fifteen minutes. She was bored of walking, bored of all the songs on her Walkman, bored of Iris's back and bum, bored of non-chocolate Easter eggs masquerading as exquisite objets d'art on chairs. Bored, bored, BORED! As the third ladder appeared out of the gloom ahead of her, Cheryl stopped her trudging and looked up to see where it went. The rusty old metal ladder disappeared into a dark tube in the curved ceiling of the tunnel. "What's up there?" she asked. "Nothing" Iris called back. "Come along, Cheryl." "There must be something" Cheryl mumbled and started to climb the ladder. "No good will come of it!" Iris called to Cheryl's sturdy legs as they disappeared above her. After a minute of climbing, a metal manhole cover blocked any further progress. Cheryl pushed on it and the cover creaked open, daylight almost blinding her. With a grunt, Cheryl pushed it all the way back and crawled halfway out into what appeared to be a scruffy copse surrounded by an even scruffier hedge. Just as she was about to hawl herself all the way out, something came flying over the hedge and clonked her right in the head, cushioned slightly by her thick, bowl-cut hair. "Oof!" said Cheryl, her grip loosening. And then a second object hurtled after it. "Ow!" she said as it too made painful contact with her skull. Cheryl half slid, half tumbled down the ladder, the manhole cover clanging shut above her. "Owch" she grumbled as she landed heavily on the tunnel floor. Then, not getting any sympathy from Iris, she struggled to her feet and lumbered after her. The fourth ladder appeared after another five minutes or so. Cheryl climbed it as Iris tutted and shook her head. At the top of the tube, Cheryl pushed open another manhole cover and was summarily hit in the head by a half-eaten banana. Cheryl sighed and made her way back down again. "I told you no good would come of it" Iris said matter-of-factly with her hands on her hips, and then she turned and strode off down the tunnel. "Not far now." "Hummph" said Cheryl. ******************************************************************************************************************************* Frigwell Crescent star Martharine Stoad tells us her likes, her dislikes and what makes her tick. Name: Martharine Stoad nee Thripp Age: 64 Height: 5'2" Hair: Burnt Champagne Style: pudding bowl. Job: Housewife and charity shop worker. Favourite Colour: Puce Favourite Holiday Destination: Bognor Likes: Jam making, jigsaws, pub skittles, amigurumi and playing the ukulele. Dislikes: Kidney beans Favourite Film: Holiday on the Buses Favourite Song: Chanson D'Amour by The Manhattan Transfer Favourite painting: Wings of Love by Stephen Pearson My children are my pride and joy, you never stop worrying about them do you? No matter how old they are. My daughter Cheryl is a great worry to me, she has made two appearances on The Undateables and on both dates they had been awkward silences, one young man during filming excused himself to go to the toilet and he never returned, filming continued and we saw Cheryl sitting alone in a cafe against a back drop of the Taj Mahal, wearing my old wedding dress and veil, it was quite moving, the other young man she met committed suicide soon after the programme aired, she's not fazed by it, in fact she's hopeful that Lydia will ring again soon to say another date has been found. Fingers crossed! My oldest, Allardyce lives in Cleveleys, he collects ornamental thimbles and mints his peas, I'll put it no stronger than that. First Job I worked as a waitress at a very posh hotel for £2 an hour, until I heard the cafe down the road was paying £2.10 plus tips and you get to take home yesterdays pastries, I left the hotel in a flash! Do you have any pets? Yes, I have a 7 year old Golden Retriever called Scarlet, she brings a lot of colour into our lives and to our living room carpet. Have you ever been on television? Yes, I have performed on Top of the Pops in 1971 as a member of a quartet for the band The Congregation, you can see me on Youtube I'm the one wearing the green dress, NOT her with the ugly wart on her top lip... ugh! Why the camera was focused more on her when I'm so much prettier, I'll never know. How attractive do you think you are on a scale of 1-10? Definitely a 9, modesty forbids a 10. I remember asking my husband Aubrey the same question on our wedding night and he said he'll like to give me one, I thought he would have rated me higher than that, but I was 9 month pregnant with my first at the time, it didn't stop him from wetting the baby's head that night either, if you know what I mean! ******************************************************************************************************************************* In 1990, a series of murders held Mid-Sized City in a grip of fear. Several victims had been found, with no outward clue as to cause of death, save for one minor detail: a small indentation behind their right ears, often with trace amounts of a substance that the forensics lab had determined came from the tip of an unpeeled banana. First-year patrolman Milton Frobisher had graduated top of his class in the academy. He was smart and hardworking, and people in the right positions were already fast-tracking him for the coveted gold detective shield. He had been partnered with a senior detective named Torvick, who was in his last year before retirement. Torvick and Frobisher were leaving the scene of the latest victim of the killer, when Frobisher noticed a dark figure lurking in a nearby alley. Frobisher jumped from the moving car and sprinted toward the character. Grumbling, Torvick turned the wheel and sped down the alley. When Frobisher reached the dead end of the alley he could see no sign of the perp. Torvick pulled up and hefted his bulk out of the unmarked car. As Frobisher turned to his partner, a shadow separated itself from the darkness behind Torvick and moved with inhuman speed. An appendage holding a curved object lashed out, and Torvick went down without a sound. Before Frobisher could react, he was struck from behind, and fell into blackness. The next thing Frobisher knew, he was tied to a chair with a hood over his head. An electronically modified voice told him that if he wanted to make detective, he would forget what he had seen that night, and he shouldn’t pursue this case any more. Frobisher tried to protest, but the voice said, “You’re going to sleep now, and when you awaken you’ll have forgotten all about this. I promise.” Frobisher felt a poke in the side of his neck and knew no more. When he awoke in his bed, he had a vague sense of having forgotten something. When he reported for duty, there was no mention of a series of unsolved murders, but he hadn’t really thought there would be. He had a new partner. When he asked where Torvick was, he was told that he had gotten an early jump on his retirement, and that was that. Now, 30 years later, seated at his desk, a flood of memories were washing over Frobisher as he looked at the lab report of the substance found on the Uber driver. His musings were interrupted by the appearance of an investigator from Internal Affairs, accompanied by two beefy patrolmen. The IA dick said, “Milton Frobisher, you’re under arrest for the murder of…”, he paused to consult the warrant in his hand, “...a Mrs. Svetlana...Pre-oh-brah-zensky?” Frobisher said, “What the hell are you talking about? I just saw her an hour ago!” The IA man said, “We know. Your pen was sticking out of her neck! Take him away boys!” *******************************************************************************************************************************