Nina

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.....

The Mystery of the Sticky-back Dildo.

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."

Things on Chairs

 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 Gerd 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, a spindle-shaped vial of irridescent blue liquid impossibly balanced on its tip, a pink fondant fancy, an old clay pot with mould 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 practically glowed.
 "Come on, Cheryl!" Iris sounded quite stern.
 The Rocher spell broken, Cheryl trudged after Iris.

Whatever Happened To Annie Manning?

"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.

Beauty (and Bananas) are only Skin Deep...

 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

Magical Mystery Tour.... [Chapter two-ish]

"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...

Chapter One, continued, part 2.14

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...

Chapter One....

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.