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Unexpected Ch. 01

By: The Wanderer



As usual my thanks go to LadyC and Techsan for their assistance in bringing this tale of woe to you.

I've been somewhat delayed in posting this one because as I was writing it, I realised that I could take some of characters in this tale from "The Fall Guy". Once that idea came into my head, I also realised that there were other characters I could use from, another story of mine that is still on the drawing board. There is no need to read the three stories in any specific order, but do I think that it probably would be better if you read "The Fall Guy" first or that tale could lose some of its mystery.

But before you read any further, I'll point out that one particular character in this tale uses different aliases. Because of that, other characters in the story will refer to them by the name that they are accustomed to using. And the poor bugger of a narrator changes the name he uses for the character, depending on who he's talking to. It might not make much sense when I try to explain it here, but I thought that I'd mention it now so that you will understand what's going on, as the story progresses. My apologies to those of you who find that you get confused that the name keeps changing. I wanted to explain that the name changing is not an edit or proof reading oversight. Anna and Sarah are the same person.

Oh, and if you're one of those people who prefer to skim through a story, close this one down now! I doubt you will have any idea what's going on.

This story is dedicated to my fond memories of Marie-Lise Volpeliere-Pierrot.

Unexpected, Part One of Three

It was really something that I didn't expect. Anna had been fine, her normal self, when I'd left for work that morning. I worked much further away from the house than she did, so I left about an hour before she needed to. The day was pretty normal for me, just an average Friday; we did get to knock off an hour earlier on Fridays and I'd usually meet Anna at the local superstore to help carry the main week's shopping out to the car.

However this Friday she was nowhere in sight when I pulled into the supermarket car park. I couldn't get her on her mobile either; for some reason, it was switched off, definitely unusual for Anna. I strolled around the store hoping to spot her amongst the aisle somewhere, but to no avail. Then I asked a couple of the staff that I knew quite well if they seen Anna that day, they told me that they hadn't.

Giving up I made for home, where I got the biggest shock of my life. Entering the house I immediately knew something wasn't kosher. The house was cold so Anna hadn't turned the heating on that afternoon; Anna only worked half days on Fridays and usually switched the heating the moment she got home. Anna was a cold stick, as they say.

I called her name from the hall and received no reply. I'm not sure if it was a premonition or what that made me head straight to our bedroom. But when I got there, the sight before me was horrifying to my eyes.

-----------------------

I'd first met Anna Thomas, as she was then, just over two years before when she took a job as a waitress serving in one of the local cafés, which I used to drop in for breakfast because I'm a bit lazy about cooking.

It was one of those love at first sight things. Well, on my account anyway, if not necessarily on Anna's. It took me over a week to get her to so much as pass the time of day with me and nigh on a month or six weeks to persuade her to come out on a date with me.

That first date she behaved very strangely. You know, if I hadn't been head over heels in love with the woman, I doubt I would have asked her out again. The whole evening I never touched her in any way whatsoever. Hey, I know what you're thinking, but that's not what I mean. When I say I never touched her, I mean she never held my arm, and we didn't hold hands or anything. Literally we didn't get closer to each other than about two feet. And as for a kiss goodnight, forget it! 

Through the whole evening, she behaved as if she was terrified of me. A very strange date, I can assure you. Anyway, since I was in love with the woman, I asked her out again. Although all my friends told me not to bother, they all appeared to be convinced that Anna was a schizo or something.

I don't think it was until the forth or fifth date that there was an actual physical contact between Anna and myself, and even then she just allowed me to hold her hand. After another three weeks she was holding my arm and I was permitted to put my arm around her, sometimes! Even then she would suddenly stiffen as I did so.

Four weeks into the courtship, we kissed for the first time. And oh, boy, was it worth waiting for! You've all heard those myths about hearing music and bells ringing. Well, bugger-me mate, they aren't myths. Well, they weren't that night for me.

After that Anna slowly seemed to relax when she was around me, although she would still appear to be a little apprehensive, when my buddies were around. Some of my female friends tried to get her to open up a bit, but they all said she appeared reticent to talk very much, unless it was about the music she liked and that kind of thing.

Marie-Lise, my best friend Barry's wife, said that she thought that Anna had issues. "Issues! What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" I thought to myself. "Why can't these ex-university types talk in English? What are all these metaphors in aid of? And what the hell was she trying to imply with this issues lark?"

Oh, I never said that to Marie-Lise. I doubt I would ever understand her description anyway. I really like Marie-Lise but she appeared to have lived her life - until she hooked up with Barry - on a completely different planet to me; or Barry come to that. I'd often seen Barry do a double take in Mare's direction when she was spouting off. I'm damned sure that Barry didn't understand what Marie-Lise was talking about half the time either.

With me, Anna sometimes alluded to her school days, and actually kind of mentioned a sister once without being very specific or going into any detail. I somehow got the feeling that her family were all-dead (at least in her mind) and that she didn't really want to talk about them. When she did mention her parents, she talked in the past tense, and was always rather vague.

As the weeks went by, Anna and I got closer emotionally, although in the back of my mind there were lots of questions that I felt I couldn't ask her. Somehow I knew that she was hiding something from me, something it was too painful for her to talk about. Probably a failed relationship I suspected or even maybe the demise of her family. I feared that if I pressed her, I might possibly lose her, so I'd kept my curiosity to myself.

It was nearly three months before we became lovers in the biblical sense. Only a month after the first time she'd joined me in bed, Anna moved into my house with me. Two months after that I bought a ring and asked her to marry me. 

I'll remember that evening for the rest of my life. It should have given forewarning of what I was to find that day eighteen months later when I came home from work that Friday evening.

I got down on one knee and showed Anna the ring. Her reaction was quite surprising to me.

"Oh, Peter, I can't, I really can't!" she sobbed.

"Why not, Anna? I love you and I'm dammed sure that you love me!"

"I do, Peter, more than you will ever know. I've never loved anyone as much as I love you. But, Peter, I'm not what you think I am. I've done things, horrible disgusting things. Things that I can't ever tell you or anyone else about."

"Anna, have you ever murdered anyone?"

"No." 

"Have you got a husband and children somewhere that you've deserted?"

"No!"

"Then I can see no reason for you not marrying me. I'm lonely and in love with you. You're the one person I've been looking for all my life. Marry me and be my loving wife. Whatever you've done in the past is in the past. It can stay there. I'll never ask you questions about it, if you don't want me to." 

Anna sat there crying and I put my arms around her and hugged her close. After a while her tears stopped. I disentangled myself from her and taking her hand placed the ring on her finger. She tentatively smiled back at me, then I lifted her up in my arms and carried her to the bedroom.

Anna was a Roman Catholic, but we didn't get married in church; we had a civil ceremony. But before she would marry me, Anna insisted that she had to go to the local Catholic Church and confess. She was nervous about doing it but, as it was something she felt she had to do, I went with her for moral support. 

Actually I'm an agnostic, but I'm of the opinion that everyone has the right to believe in what they wish. I don't push my views or opinions on others and I expect everyone else to respect mine. I only wish more people had the same philosophy. The priest at that church tried to convert me; they always seem to see agnostics as a challenge and he came down heavy on Anna for not being a regular attendee.

The day that Anna chose to repent her sins in the confessional though is another occasion that will always be burnt into my memory. Priests, I always thought, were meant to be non-judgmental, but after that day I noted the looks he gave Anna (and me); there was something about them that told me they were not those of a non-judgemental person.

As I said, Anna and I were married in the registry office. I believe Anna would have preferred to have been married in the church. But my beliefs ruled that out; I'm damned sure a C of E vicar would have married us. But the local RC priest had me (and quite possibly Anna) down as being on my(/our) way to hell.

Married life was fantastic for the next year or so. Anna soon got herself a job in the office of a local insurance broker, although it was only part time to start with; from what I gathered she was bloody good at what she did and they soon increased her hours to almost full time.

I'm not sure if it was exactly unusual but whilst making love - or having sex to be more precise - Anna would say some strange things. Well, I'd never experienced a woman who said things like Anna did in the heat of passion. There was the odd "Oh yes!" and things like that; but the line she used so often and that really got me was "Love me, Pete, please love me!" I could never understand that line. It wasn't "Make love to me, Pete?" It always sounded like a request for me to love her, which I certainly did anyway.

-----------------------

That evening I stood there staring at the dresser draws hanging half-open. Some - but not anywhere near all - of Anna's clothes were missing. From the look of it, she'd packed in a hurry. I'm not sure how long I sat there on the bed staring at the devastation before me. Devastation it certainly was, the devastation of my life!

It was dark before I came to my senses. Slowly I left that room and went back downstairs into the kitchen. On the kitchen table I discovered a piece of paper obviously hastily torn from the notepad we leave beside the telephone. There were two conflicting lines written on it.

"I'm sorry!" and, "I love you!"

"How could she walk out and leave me, if she loved me?" I thought to myself. "If she loved me, she wouldn't have left me, so therefore she can't be sorry for what she has done. You can say sorry when you do something accidentally. You can't say sorry for something you do in cold blood." 

I can't be sure how long I sat in the kitchen either, staring at that scrap of paper. Sometime later someone knocking on the door roused me from my stupor. I opened it and found myself confronted by four of my friends and their wives.

"What the hell happened to you two? We got fed-up with waiting and came to find you ... Oh, my god, Pete, what's happened? You look like shit." Barry, probably my best friend, asked.

I'd forgotten that Anna and I were supposed to meet the bunch down at the local pub hours before. It was our turn for everyone to come back to the house later for an impromptu party after having a few drinks in the bar.

"Anna's gone!" I think that was all I could manage to say.

It only took those two words to send the whole bunch of them into concerned friend mode. Within seconds I was whisked into my lounge, where I found myself sitting on the sofa with two of my friends' wives sitting either side of me. The clattering of feet on the stairs told me that the house was being checked out, to make sure that what I had said was correct.

I vaguely heard hushed discussions about the note someone had obviously discovered; I'd left it lying on the kitchen table. Weak sweet tea was poured down my throat to start with; I recall remembering that it was supposed to be good for shock. Then I remember somebody leaving the house and the sound of cars being driving away.

Personally I didn't think the weak tea did anything for me and I asked Marie-Lise to pass me the bottle of brandy out of the drinks cabinet. I didn't get the bottle but I did get a reasonably sized glass. Over the next few hours I heard several mobile phones ring at different times, their owners leaving the room to answer them. 

From the snippets of conversations that I overheard, it was obvious to me that a thorough search was being made for any information as to where Anna had gone. I will say that I didn't hear one of my friends mention the question that was going around in my head. None of them speculated on why Anna had left me. I began to think they didn't ask that question because they knew the answer, and that frightened me. What could I have possibly done to drive Anna away?

-----------------------

I awoke the following morning to find myself in my bed alone. For a few seconds I wondered where Anna was and then the memory of the previous day came flooding back to me. I had no recollection of how I got to bed the night before; to be honest; I had little recollection of the previous evening at all. 

That damned tightness and lump in the throat hit me almost as soon as I opened my eyes though; I knew that Anna was gone.

As I staggered out of bed and began to pull some clothes on, Charley - another of my friends - appeared at the bedroom door.

"You want any coffee?" he asked, almost casually as if it was a normal everyday occurrence for him to have spent the night at my house.

"Please," I replied. "Did you all stay the night?"

"No, just Jean and me. I hope you don't mind. We've got a rota worked out for the next few days. Barry and Marie-Lise didn't think you should be alone for a while." 

"Why? Do they think I'll try to top myself?" I asked, somewhat sarcastically.

Charley looked slightly embarrassed for a moment. "No, don't be silly; it wasn't anything like that. We all thought that you needed someone to be with you for a few days, that's all. Barry and Marie-Lise should be here any time now. Barry reckons there's some things you need to take care of this morning."

"What things?"

"Dunno, mate. You know Barry, he's the brains in this outfit," Charley replied, looking embarrassed again.

I didn't believe that he didn't know. I thought that Charley just didn't want to discuss what Barry had on his mind. Barry was the level-headed member of our group; probably the only reason Marie-Lise had married him. I couldn't see her putting up with any of the rest of us. 

I was sitting in the kitchen pushing the breakfast that Jean had cooked me around the plate when Barry and Marie-Lise arrived. Jean, after quickly serving the new arrivals up with coffee, grabbed Charley and they hurriedly left.

"Right, Pete, I realise you're upset, but there's some things you got to get organised today, whether you like the idea or not," Barry said as he took a seat opposite me.

"Like what?" I asked.

"Look, mate, you got to face it. Anna's walked out on you. You've got to protect your back now. You know, close any joint bank accounts and put a stop on any credit cards that she's got and that you're responsible for. You know she could run up one hell of a line of credit on you if you don't act quickly and clear the bloody bank account out."

"If she wants to clear the bank account out, she's every right. What's in the joint account is ours, her as well as mine. And her credit cards are all in her own name; we never did get around to having joint ones," I explained.

"Oh, I see. Well, we've still got to go down the Nick and report her as a missing person. They won't do much for a few days, but the sooner you make a report the better; it isn't like you were expecting her to move out on you. You haven't been arguing or anything, have you?

"Don't talk daft I told you last night. If anything in the last few months she's been more loving than ever." 

"What do you mean by that?" Marie-Lise suddenly asked, with what I took as a little urgency in her tone. 

"Just what I said. In the last few months Ann's been ... oh, I don't know ... happier, more relaxed. I'm not really sure, just more loving than she's ever been."

There was a very strange look on Marie-Lise's face.

"Um, I know this is an embarrassing question for me to ask, Pete, but has her, er, preferences in bed changed lately."

"I'm not with you, Marie-Lise?" I said.

"Has Anna been more prepared to experiment sexually, Pete?" Marie-Lise had turned bright red and Barry was now giving her a very strange look.

"I wouldn't say so. Why do you ask?"

"I'm sorry, Pete, but I had to ask you that. It's commonly reputed that a cheating spouse often tries to please their partner in bed more, out of guilt."

"How would you know that?" Barry asked her, with a kind of shocked look on his face.

"Don't ask but it's one of the two most common scenarios when a partner is cheating. Trust me, I know," Marie assured him.

"I don't intend to ask you how you know that, Marie. But what's the other scenario?" Barry asked, for once daring to drop the Lise part of her name. At first Marie-Lise didn't appear to react to Barry's transgression; normally she would berate anyone who didn't use her full name.

Strangely if there was just Marie-Lise and yourself present, it never appeared to worry her, but when a third person was there, she would get upset if her full Christian name wasn't used. 

"Sexual neglect, and that's what you'll be getting if you don't use my proper name in company," Marie-Lise replied, with a smirk on her face.

"Okay, Princess, I'm sorry. I won't do it again," Barry replied. Princess had always been his pet name for her; she smiled back at him knowing she'd been out-manoeuvred somewhat.

"Well, you're on the wrong track there," I said to them. "If anything Anna's been more relaxed lately, better than she's ever been. And as far as sex goes, well, that's always been her favourite pastime."

"I don't like this. I don't like it at all. Damn, I wish she'd let me get to know her better," Marie-Lise said. "You know, there was always something that I felt she didn't want to talk about!"

I didn't reply as I felt the same way, but felt I couldn't discuss it even with my closest friends. Barry dragged me off to the police station, where I went through the procedure of officially reporting Anna missing. The policeman that we saw filled out his paperwork with an air of boredom; I could only assume wives leaving husbands was not uncommon.

For the next few days nothing much happened. I couldn't do much of anything and, on the Monday, called into work and organised a few days off. Shit, I told them to stick their job up their arse. It was evident later that Barry or Marie-Lise had already called my boss and he was expecting a very pissed-off-with-the-world Peter Garland to call that morning. Whatever I said to him that day, he ignored it and placed me on compassionate leave (without pay).


Unexpected Ch. 01



It was on the Wednesday morning that Sergeant Frank Stevens knocked on my door. He told me that Anna's file had finished up on his desk. He went through everything, all the questions I'd been asking myself. Was she unhappy, was there any chance she had been having an affair. You know all the questions you would expect. Then he left, not giving me much hope, by the way.

Friday morning Sergeant Stevens was back, this time with a couple of police constables for company. He asked would I mind if they searched the house. I told him go ahead and then he told me they were going to search it anyway as they had a warrant. I gathered later that he'd asked for permission just to see what my reaction would be. 

After they turned the house upside-down and then made a very poor job of straightening it up after them, the sergeant asked me to accompany him to the station, where he'd like to ask me some questions. I could see no harm in that; at least it showed they were showing some interest in where Anna had gone. I figured the police were more likely to find her than I was.

Jean, who'd been Peter-sitting that day, had not been as relaxed about the police visit as I had. Shortly after I arrived at the police station, a solicitor whom Barry had hired turned up to sit in on the interviews. Jean had apparently been on to Barry the moment we'd left the house.

In the interview room I met Inspector Gary Harris for the first time. I'll admit that I didn't like the guy to start with, but I later changed my opinion as it was him who unofficially introduced me to the people to whom I think I owe my life.

From the start it was obvious the inspector wasn't happy about Anna's disappearance. Mind you, I wasn't either so I assumed we were on the same team. But that apparently isn't how policemen's minds work. "Hey fella, she's your wife; what have you done with or to her?" appeared to be the attitude they took with me. Christ, they gave me one hell of a grilling.

My brief told me later that most of the time it's the person who last claimed to have seen the person or who reports or doesn't report them missing early enough who's responsible for their disappearance. Yeah, don't ask me to explain here, or this bloody tale will go on forever. Take it from me, there's a window for reporting any adult missing. Do so too early or too late and the police suspect you of doing something. In my case it was too early, Anna might have gone off to see a friend or something. Yeah, bollocks; to my knowledge there was no one for her to go and visit.

The police let me go home again later that evening. Note the go home bit. They'd taken me to the police station in a car. I had to find my own bloody way home again.

I heard nothing more from the police over the weekend. I attempted to get the press interested but to no avail. Because she'd taken some clothes with her they said she'd probably left home by choice and asked me what I'd done to upset her.

The Tuesday of the second week I was still a real mess mentally. I'm not sure what made me call Inspector Harris and demand to know what progress had been made but I did so. It was quite a shock to me when he invited - yeah, I said invited - me to call into the police station for a chat and he'd give me an update.

I arrived about ten in the morning and was shown into the inspector's office where I found Harris and Sergeant Stevens waiting for me.

"Now there's just a couple of things I'd like to check out with you before I say anything, Mr Garland. Is that alright?" Harris asked.

"Yeah, fine with me. Anything that I can do to help you find her I will," I replied.

"Good, now lets see. You told my sergeant here that your wife's maiden name was Thomas and that she was born in Walford East London," Inspector Harris said.

"As I understand it, yes. Well, that's what it says on the birth certificate I showed Sergeant Stevens the other day," I replied.

"And as far as you are aware she grew up in the town of Bedford."

"As I understand things, yes. Anna didn't talk about her past much. I think her family is dead from the way she talked about them, not that she did very much."

"Tell me have you ever heard of a man called Ian Murray? Did she ever mention the name at all?" the inspector asked.

"Murray? No, I'm pretty sure she never mentioned the name. Inspector, Anna was - how can I put it? - reticent about talking about her past," I informed him.

"Hmm, I see," the inspector said as he extracted a piece of paper from a file lying on his desk. "Now then, there we have a real problem. There was an Anna Thompson who was born in Walford on the right date. The National Health and Insurance reference numbers that your wife was using are the ones issued to her. Anna Thompson's family moved out of the Greater London Area about a year or so after she was born and she grew up until the age of fifteen in Bedford.

"But then we run into problems. You see, the Thompson family emigrated to New Zealand and she went with them. We've been able to ascertain that she's apparently happily married to a guy called Ian Murray and now lives in Sydney, Australia with her husband and three children. 

"My sergeant here has spoken to the Sydney Police, Anna Thompson's parents, Ian Murray and Anna Murray nee Thompson herself. I'm afraid to say, Mr Garland, that whoever you were married to, it was not Anna Thompson. It was someone using her identity.

"You've got to be wrong."

"I'm sorry, sir, but the National Health and Insurance numbers are the same. Your Anna Thompson was not the real Anna Thompson."

"Oh, Christ, where do we go from here?"

"Well, sir, where can we go? Who ever the woman calling herself Anna Thomas was, she must have been hiding from something or someone. She could be wanted for a crime by another police force or running away from ... well, just about anything - a previous marriage that went wrong even. Or, and it is a possibility that we have to take into account, she could a con artist who was setting you up, but I somehow don't believe that. No disrespect, sir, but you're not exceptionally rich or anything, are you?"

"No, I suppose I'm mister average. I've got a few grand stashed in the bank, but nothing to write home about," I replied.

"Tell me, sir, did your wife ... um ... I know she didn't she take any large amounts of money out of your bank accounts before she left because we've got a trace running on them for any movement. But did you buy her any expensive jewellery or anything like that whilst she was with you?"

"No ... well, yes, I brought her a few things, but nothing ostentatious. Anna wasn't into that kind of thing."

"And we know she hasn't maxed out on the credit cards or anything, from the watch we've got running on them. She hasn't apparently used any money at all from accounts that we know about. But that doesn't mean that she hasn't got other bank accounts in different names. She's obviously a very resourceful woman."

"I'm pretty sure she wasn't trying to steal from you. I suspect she was running away from something. I'm afraid that it could possibly be us. It's unusual not to find a single fingerprint if the woman in the house has lived in it for so long. That says to me that she purposely removed them."

"Now you come to mention that, Anna insisted that our car needed washing on the night before she disappeared. I washed the outside and she cleaned and polished inside ... that's strange," I observed. "I remember now she was wearing rubber gloves when she did it. But later I noted that she still had them on well after we went back inside the house. One of those things I thought odd, but not odd enough to bother to mention to her."

"I see. She could have been planning her disappearance for some time then. Well, she must have removed nearly all trace of herself from not only your house and car but from her office desk as well. Someone noticed her cleaning her telephone and computer on the Thursday afternoon. I suppose I'd better tell you that we've had to check that she hasn't stolen any money from her employers as well."

"And has she?"

"Not that they can find. She had no dealings with the cash side of things there and all the cheques that have been paid in or out are accounted for. No, whatever your wife has run away from it's in her past, not the last year or so. And, sir, I think we are going to have one hell of a job tracking her down. That's assuming we ever do."

"Can people disappear like that? Just walk out the door and then nothing?"

"All too often, Mr Garland. We've got filing cabinets full of them down in the record department. Most are not as experienced as your wife at hiding themselves either. It strikes me that if she doesn't want to be found, then we aren't going to find her."

That was really the end of the interview. The inspector told me that there were just a couple of human hairs found in my house that could belong to Anna, pubic hairs found caught on the washing machine filter. They had been sent off to the laboratory in an attempt to get a DNA match with anyone on the police DNA register.

That was it. We said our goodbyes and he assured me that Anna would remain listed as a missing person, but unless there was a DNA match that proved she was a wanted felon he very much doubted that her disappearance would be treated with a high priority.

End of Part one



Unexpected Ch. 02



As usual my thanks go to LadyC and Techsan for their assistance in bringing this tale of woe to you.

Clarification: Dough = cash. A monkey = £500. Bird/s = young woman/women. Gobsmacked = utterly astonished. Clock = look at closely. Eurostar = high-speed rail link between London and several European cities.

Unexpected Part Two

I really fell apart a bit after that meeting with Inspector Harris. It was nice to know that the police didn't think that I'd done my wife in and buried her in the garden or something. But I was still desperately missing the love of my life. 

You know, in the past I've heard people say that it's the not knowing what has happened to your missing loved ones that is the worst thing to bear. If you know that they are dead, at least you can bury them in your mind, even if you haven't got a body to grieve over. Even if you at least had some idea as to why they had walked out on you, probably you'd feel better than just not knowing.

But if they've just disappeared, as Anna had, you can't stop wondering why they went and what has happened to them. 

Me, I actually attempted to take the coward's way out of the worry. I tried to take to the bottle!

But fortunately or unfortunately - it depends on your perspective which way you look at it - I had a group of friends around me that weren't going to let that happen. There always seemed to be a mate or a mate's wife kicking around, who would - if necessary - physically remove my bottle after I'd had a couple of drinks.

I couldn't even get a skin-full in one of the local pubs, because my crowd was known too well in town. I'll admit that one night I got a little violent in the Queens Arms and tried to hit Barry. I think the police were called; well, they turned up anyway. But they made no comment as I was kidnapped from the pub by my friends and manhandled around to Barry and Marie-Lise's house, where I was all but incarcerated until I came to my senses again.

Well, even that isn't quite true. What brought me to my senses actually was the arrival of Sergeant Frank Stevens at their house. How he knew that I was there, I don't know; perhaps he decided to track me down and find out what had happened to me when my daily phone calls to him asking if there was any news suddenly stopped.

"Look, Peter," he said to me, "I know what you're going through, believe me. I've seen things like this happen all too many times in the past and I know what kind of effect this sort of thing can have on people.

"I've come to tell you that the DNA on those hairs from your washing machine didn't show up any matches on our computer system. Anyway now Anna's DNA is on the system so if...." The sergeant's voice trailed off; then when he composed his thoughts. "Well, you know, if anything turns up in the future, we'll be able to contact you. 

"Thanks," I said to him, feeling somewhat dejected. I assumed he was telling me that the police were pushing the case onto the back burner, unless and until Anna's body turned up somewhere.

Frank Stevens got up to leave, but when he got to the door he stopped and turned to look back at me. I must have looked like a broken man sitting there; I could almost feel his pity for me. I can't say that policemen are my favourite people, but they have a job to do and under that hard shell they put on in public they are just human beings like the rest of us. 

"Peter, there really isn't anything more that I can do for you at the moment. But there is a man who might be prepared to try to help you find your Anna."

I looked up at him expectantly. 

"Who?" I demanded.

"Look, Peter, I'm not sure if he will help you or not! But if Anna's disappearance piques his or his wife's interest, they just might take up the investigation; he's got the resources and all the right contacts." 

I looked at the sergeant with renewed interest.

"Do you remember, a few years back, a man called John Carpenter was convicted of a murder that his wife had committed?" the sergeant asked.

The name rang a bell somewhere in my brain. I seemed to remember he'd been inside for a while and there'd been a gunfight or something a little while after he was released. Then there was a lot of publicity in the newspapers about him being innocent of the crime in the first place.

"Yeah, I think I do. Didn't he serve time and then when he got out his wife tried to kill him...? Hold on, it wasn't your boss who shot her was it? I thought his name was familiar when I met him the other week," I said.

"Yes, that's the guy. Well, he and his new wife run a kind of detective agency."

"Hey, look, I've got a few grand in the bank but, from what I've heard, those guys cost a lot more money than I can afford."

"Take it easy. John and Helen are good friends of mine; they and their team normally only do insurance work. But John's a strange sort of guy and you could find that your case interests him. I'm pretty sure that if we can spike his curiosity, he'll look into Anna's disappearance for nothing. Well, almost nothing, next to what you'd normally pay the sharks in his profession." 

"Do you think he might be interested enough?" Barry asked.

I hadn't realised that Barry had come into the room.

"I'm not a hundred percent sure, but his wife Helen is an angel. If she feels compassion for Peter, John will follow her lead. I'll take a drive down and see Helen as soon as I can arrange it and test the water. Don't expect to hear from them too soon though; they are all over the place, those two, and you're never sure when they are even going to be in the country."

After reminding me to keep my mobile charged and switched on, Frank Stevens left. Barry and Marie-Lise seemed to be a lot more optimistic than I was that these Carpenter people would agree to help me in my search for Anna. Barry even offered to throw in a few hundred pounds to help with the costs. I had to wonder what Marie-Lise thought about that idea, but she didn't say anything.

The call came on the following Friday evening. It was from Helen Carpenter and she asked me if I could come down to her cottage on Saturday at two p.m. to talk about my "problem", as she referred to it. Barry said he'd drive me; they still weren't letting me out of their sight.

The Cottage - if they call that a cottage, what the hell do they call a mansion? - was set well back from the road just outside a village. It had one of those sweeping drives that ran in a big circle in front of it, with several cars parked in front of the large garage set off to one side.

As we got out of Barry's car, we could see a group of children playing in the rear garden, being watched over by a woman of about forty-five. She smiled at us and gestured towards the house. Barry made off towards the front door and rang the bell.

"Do you think that's her?" Marie-Lise asked me. Looking at the woman in the rear garden.

"Doesn't look the secret agent part to me. More like a younger Miss Marple," I replied.

"Well, Miss Marple is a brilliant detective.... Christ, its Mrs Peel!" Marie-Lise exclaimed.

I looked at where Marie-Lise was now looking, towards the front door of the house and sure enough there stood a woman who had a remarkable resemblance to Diana Rigg who played Mrs Peel in the Avengers TV series. Although on closer inspection she was slightly shorter and her hair was a much lighter colour.

We introduced ourselves and she invited us into her lounge to sit down. The woman we'd seen in the rear garden quickly appeared carrying a tray with tea and coffee pots on it and then withdrew again. I noted she clocked all three of us very intently before she did so.

"Right, Peter, I think Frank's filled me in as much as he can. Now I really need to talk to you, alone if I may. If you two," she gestured to Barry and Marie-Lise. "wouldn't mind popping out into the garden, Jenny will sort you out with tea or coffee on the lawn; she can keep her eye on the children better that way," Helen Carpenter said.

Barry and Marie-Lise stood up and left by the patio door.

"Right, Peter, is there anything that you didn't tell Frank and Garry?"

"I don't think so," I replied.

"Okay, now I want you to think very carefully, I gather from what I've read here in the police report that you haven't known your Anna for very long. I want you to go back in your mind and tell everything that you can remember about her, right from the day that you first met her."

I did my best. I told her about how I'd first seen Anna in the café and how it had been love at first sight, for me. How I'd had to chase after her, just to get that first date with her. And how remote and maybe distrusting of me she appeared to be for the first few months. I probably wondered off into what some of the girls had said about Anna as well, I honestly can't remember now.

"And you had no idea at all that she was going to walk out on you?" Helen asked.

"No, none whatsoever. In fact we...." I stopped talking as in remembered something I'd almost forgotten.

"You what?" Helen prompted.

"We made love on that Friday morning and, and when we, er, finished. She said that she loved me. I've just realised she said something that I didn't quite hear. You know, I'm thinking now, that she must have said 'forgive me!' I told you, she said some funny things in the height of passion. Not the sort of things that women usually say."

"What kind of things?" her interest obviously piqued.

"I'm not sure but she always seemed to be asking me to love her, not to make love to her."

"And did you? Love her, I mean?"

"Well, I wouldn't be here now if I didn't, would I?"

"I don't know Peter. You married a woman who you knew almost nothing about, that you'd met only a few months previous. Then, less than two years later, she walks out on you. Do you really love her, or are you just angry that she's gone?"

"I'm damned angry that she's gone, but to tell you the truth I don't know how I'm going to go on living without her. Helen, Anna's the only woman that I've really loved."

"Oh, you've got it bad," Helen said smiling at me.

"Yeah, I think I have. I don't think I want to go on living without her," I replied.

"Oh, you will, of that I can assure you. But now leave it with me for a while. I'll talk to my husband when he calls later. He's in Singapore at the moment. That's not too far for him to pop down to Sydney and check out this other Anna Thompson or Murray as she's called now." 

"But what help will that be? She isn't my Anna!" I said somewhat confused by the suggestion.

"Of course she's not. But your Anna had to know a lot about her to get hold of a copy of her birth certificate. There is a possibility that they actually knew each other sometime in the past. Whether Anna Murray actually knows that your Anna had stolen her identity in the UK or not is anyone's guess. There is a possibility that she could have helped your Anna; just think what would have happened if Anna Murray had come back to the UK just for a holiday or something.

"Now go home and try not to worry too much. We'll be in touch in a few days."

Back in the car, Barry and Marie-Lise told me they'd been fairly well grilled about Anna by Jenny and some guy called Bert who'd appeared from somewhere. Barry said he looked and acted like a cop, most likely a retired one, Barry thought.

It was the following Friday before I got another call from Helen Carpenter. She asked me to come to her house again on the following day. Barry drove me again, but Marie-Lise couldn't come.

John Carpenter was a man who oozed confidence. I was surprised that he only stood about five foot six or seven, but he had an air about him that made him stand out in a crowd. Although Helen was in the room with us she said very little at the beginning of this meeting.

"Well, Peter," John said after we'd been introduced. "I nipped down to Sydney and had a word with the real Anna Thompson. She had no idea who your Anna really was and was annoyed that her identity had been stolen. But she was most helpful in telling me about her life in the UK before she went to New Zealand and that allowed Helen to make some inquires over here. Helen's been up to Bedford for a couple of days this week on your behalf. 

"It was really just a matter of finding out which of Anna Thompson's old school friends had disappeared over the years. We think we've got it down to one of two women. We've got some pictures here that we'd like you to look at; they are old school photographs but one of them we believe will be the woman you married."

The second one he showed me was Anna.

"Sarah Sharp," he said after I'd pointed her out. "She ran away from home when she was sixteen and from what I've been able to get from the police, I'm afraid she got herself mixed up with the wrong type of people. 

"Look, Peter, you're probably not going to like this very much, but we'd better get it over with as quickly as possible, then you can decide if you want us to look further. Sarah Sharp had a few run-ins with the law. She has a few minor convictions for drug possession and a couple of cautions for soliciting some years ago. The name of some guy who called himself Paul Nielson AKA Paul Knowles cropped up at the same time; well, she's listed as being one of his known associates in the police files. He's been charged with drug dealing and living off of immoral earnings a couple of times."

"Peter, you realise what I'm saying here. Your Anna, or Sarah to give her her real name, has most likely been a prostitute in her past life! Does that make any difference to your feelings towards her and do you still want to find her?" John asked.

"None whatsoever!" I replied.

"Good man. Helen said it wouldn't and she's the best judge of character that I know."

"But, Mr Carpenter, if Anna was arrested for drug possession and prostitution, surely then her DNA would be on the police data base."

"It's John, Peter. Anyway not necessarily, she was only seventeen or eighteen at the time. She probably wised up and didn't get picked up again after she learned the ropes. And they didn't always take DNA samples back then. The national database hasn't been going all that long, you know. And some of the earlier samples they took I don't believe were compatible with the system now.

"Anyway I've got some contacts trying to find out a bit more about this Nielson guy. From what I can gather so far, he's a small time pimp. The big boys in the area he operates in are the Hennessey Brothers. They are kind of loose associates of another friend of mine - same business, different part of London - so I should be able to get some more info on him soon. You know, it could be your Anna was running away from this guy Nielson when she bumped into you.

"I'm going to have someone asking questions around near your place. It could be that this Nielson guy or someone he knew showed up in town, but Sarah saw him first and ran." 

"But why did she run away? Why not tell me or the police?"

"Fear most likely. Look, Peter, quite a few of those pimps keep their women in line by using violence. Once a woman's been treated like that for a while, for some reason they get used to it, their spirit is broken and they are almost completely under their abuser's mental, as well as physical, control. They could go to the police, but they are too scared to. They think that the pimp will get them or anyone they care about, no matter what happens. 

"Sarah changed her name and moved to your town. That leads us to suspect that she most likely found the gumption to run away from this guy and hide. She met up with you, fell in love and married you. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Sarah didn't run because she was worried about what could possibly happen to you." 

"You don't think he could have snatched her back, do you?"

"Doubtful. She packed some clothes and left a note, didn't she? If that little shit had grabbed her, I doubt she would have had time to do that. Besides he would have forced her to empty your bank accounts by now; you did say she hadn't taken any money out of the bank since she left."

"No, not a penny. Look, Mr Carpenter, you don't think he could have discovered that she was with me and killed her for running away from him in the first place, do you?"

"I got to admit that that's a slight possibility, but a very small one, Peter. Little shits like that guy use violence to frighten and control their women. I'm pretty sure that, if he'd found Sarah, he'd have either knocked her about a bit and put her back to work on the streets, or as you say, possibly killed her. 

"But killing her would not do him any good unless his other girls knew about it. Knowing that he found and killed a girl who managed to escape his clutches would surely scare the backsides off them and help keep them under control. But for that to work a body would have probably turned up somewhere by now. That hasn't happened, so I tend to believe something frightened Sarah and she just ran away again."

"But what would frighten her that much?"

"Just about anything really. Maybe she saw an associate of Nielson's or even a punter who'd used her in the past and might recognise her. You've got to think of it from Sarah's point of view. A regular customer might just say something to Nielson about seeing her the next time he used his services. That probably could have been a risk that she wasn't prepared to take."

"She could have told me. I would have protected her!"

"Tell me, Peter," Helen Carpenter, who had remained silent up until then, suddenly joined the conversation. "How would you go about telling someone that you love that you've been working as a prostitute for years? And that you've probably had sex with several men at the same time on many occasions? How do you tell someone you believe loves you about that?"

"You know, Anna.... Sorry, Sarah said something to me once about having done terrible things in the past. I could tell that she didn't want to enlarge, so I told her that I didn't care," I told them.

"Saying that is easy, Peter. The truth can be a hard to swallow," Helen replied.

"She didn't trust me then?"

"That's a difficult one," Helen said. "She might have been too ashamed to tell you the whole story of her life. Try to think of it from her point of view." 

Helen and John informed me that Helen was going up to Bedford again to nose around a bit more. And John was going to get his friend who knows the Hennessey Brothers to ask them more about the Nielson guy. They told me they'd be in touch in a few days.

I was worried about what all this was going to cost me, but John Carpenter told me not to be.

"I had a bad experience with my first wife," he said. "I was surprised at how many people believed in me and helped me. The insurance companies pay us handsomely for what we do for them, and my wife and I try to help as many people as we can. Your story intrigued us to start with. Now we think it's Sarah who needs our help."

-----------------------

During the next week I'd moved back home and was trying to get back to work. Fortunately my boss and fellow workers were being very tolerant of the poor quality of my performance in the office. 

Barry told me that he thought he had caught sight of John Carpenter's man Bert, around the town a couple of times. And one of my neighbours told me that some man knocked at her house and was asking questions about Anna. I didn't tell anyone but Barry and Marie-Lise that Anna's real name was Sarah.

I suppose another couple of weeks must have gone by before I heard from John Carpenter again. He called to tell me he'd arranged a meeting with the Hennessey Brothers and asked if I wanted to tag along. I said I would.

"Pete, you've got to understand these Hennesseys' are hoods, gang leaders who run their part of town. They're not the sort of people your mother would want you mixing with, if you know what I mean?" John said to me.




Unexpected Ch. 02



This is my second Chapter to this story on the lovely Yvonne Strahovski, it would be a good idea to read the previous entry as this story begins straight after. Hope you enjoy it. 

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

We got back to my car; Yvonne decided to return with me. I opened the door for her and ushered her in to my car.

"Ah a gentleman too, you are just full of surprises."

"Why thank you."

I then closed the door and moved around to the driver's side and hoped in and started to drive off as the distant lights gleaming as I drove toward it with the vehicles lights piercing the surrounding night I felt glad, we occasionally glanced over each other still saying so much without saying anything. We had done something beautiful, connected with one another in the most intimate way possible.

I'd seen her in movies, on TV, emulated in sci-fi video games and yet here I am, driving toward the bright lights of Buenos Aires with this woman sitting alongside me. It was unforgettable to say the very least.

It was an unforgettable time in Argentina, parting ways with Yvonne was bitter sweet; on one hand I was comfortable in the knowledge that I had just fucked Yvonne Strahovski, while on the other hand I was a little sad knowing I will likely never see her again. However, I remained positive and took all the good things from that day with me, to the grave

(Later)

The bustling city streets were filled with people hustling about but in a rather leisurely manner considering it was a late Saturday afternoon. Hong Kong was a bustling city and something I wanted to see ever since watching the film the Dark Knight and in fact before that.

I continued through the city streets, elevated walk ways and iconic buildings life seemed to flash through so much of turmoil, pain, hurt and struggle I had overcome it and fucking Ms Yvonne Strahovski was just an incredible experience to top all that I had accomplished.

I was making my way through a hotel lobby when just as I step into the elevator I paid attention to the woman already inside the elevator. I then looked up observing her red dress as it began above the thigh and slowly adorning her amazing body which made the dress. Yet again I found myself in front of Yvonne Strahovski. It left my jaw open, gasping as to who was in front of me for the second time.

"Fancy meeting you here."

"Fancy meeting you here, Yvonne."

"It seem we share a similar love for cities."

"It would indeed seem that way."

"Well, I'm glad, you are a good man, Argentina, certainly told me that much."

"Why thank you, I'm pleased to have met you, I always saw you as an amazing woman and now, I know that to be more than fact."

"Why aren't you the charmer."

"I try."

"You succeed."

Just then the lift doors open and Yvonne stepped out to a deserted hallway; she then turned to me and said "Care to join me?"

I did not need to be asked twice; I stepped out the elevator and walked with Yvonne arm in arm down the hall to her hotel room. She swiped her card and lights flashed green and beeped indicating access had been granted.

The large double door swung open to the suite and it was awash with all the furnishings one would expect from one of the world's premier cities. A fire was going in the fireplace and the mood lighting bathed the entire room in a gentle luminescence which heightened the mood and had the both of us alert and aware of more than just what our eyes could see and bodies could see.

We sat ourselves down and continued to converse and felt more comfortable with each other.

"Well it seems chance has saw it to grant me another audience with you."

"I am glad to see you again Bill."

"The feeling is mutual Yvonne, it is a little hard to wrap my head around it seeing you in TV, films, and videogames, and to be sat in front of you now is amazing."

"Thank you, do you have a favourite?"

"Well, all your work is enjoyable, especially you playing Miranda Lawson, which was very memorable."

"Thank you, I'm not much of a gamer, but that was an enjoyable experience."

"It also highlighted your delicious body."

"You say the loveliest things."

"I'm just telling it like it is, Yvonne, you are one of the most beautiful things on this planet and beyond."

Yvonne did not reply instead she grabbed me and we shared a deep passionate and very lengthy kiss which told me exactly how she felt, not just about my compliments but about us. The thought of whether that would go further did not cross my mind, I was just happy I was in her company.

Yvonne pulled back and locked eyes with me, her deep and intense stare left me captivated and simply putty in her hands. She then gripped my belt buckle and tugged it open and began to undo my pants and slowly slide then down to reveal my cock standing at attention, ready to do her bidding.

Yvonne returned the gesture and lifted her dress up over her head t6o reveal her red lingerie which encapsulated her gorgeous breasts and beautiful pussy. It would prove even more enticing a second time around. I stood up and found myself face to face with her and I knelt down and slowly slid off her red panties and revealed her pristine pussy. 

I placed my hand on either side of Yvonne's gorgeous thighs or slid them upwards slowly and gently moving up past her waist and to the straps of her red bra. I then proceeded to remove them and free Yvonne's gorgeous breasts for me to feel their tenderness and softness. I noticed her smile appear on her face before her lips parted.

"You like this don't you?" Yvonne replied in the sexiest tone imaginable.

"Yes," was what I whispered out.

Yvonne then slipped her hands downwards and grasped my rock hard cock."You like this, don't you?" Yvonne enquired.

I nodded in agreement as Yvonne fondled my balls and then slid herself downwards. Yvonne placed a soft kiss on the tip of my shaft before she let her tongue do the talking by licking my shaft from base to tip which caused my sensations to go into overdrive as the fantastical nature of this event clashed with its inescapable reality.

As cock was enticed by the warmth of Yvonne's mouth I found myself and eyes fixated by the sight in front of me as I turned my gaze downwards. Her bright blonde locked cascaded down as I felt her gentle sucking continuing to edge my cock ever harder. I then hear a soft pop as her mouth leaves my cock.

Yvonne elevates herself to her feet and looks me down. I have a smirk on my face as I sit back down on the couch and pull Yvonne toward me and began to work my mouth on her gorgeous pussy. My tongue darts and flicks in all sorts of directions which entices Yvonne and encourages vocal approvals of my action.

My hands wandered behind and found Yvonne's ass and began to stroke and massage with my hands as I continued to use my mouth to great effect on Yvonne's heavenly pussy. I could feel her hands upon my shoulder blades as my mouth continued its work. Her touch was electrifying and so subtle which proved to be incredibly erotic.

I then lifted my head from Yvonne's heavenly pussy and she then climbed on to me and lowered herself sexily downwards to my awaiting cock. It felt even more amazing than it did before. Yvonne Strahovski was sliding her pussy down my cock, fucking me, and fucking me good. Yvonne looked me in the eyes, never breaking eye contact all the while her body was pleasuring mine in ways I have never felt before.

"Oh Yvonne," I whisper out.

"There's a good boy," Yvonne responds.

Our lustful smut talk ceased as the lust had fully encapsulated us and we did not need any more words. I grabbed Yvonne and stood up lifting her with me whilst my cock still remained deep inside of her. She rode me as I stood with our bodies pressed against one another, heavy breathing and fast heart beating was all to be heard. The smell of fresh sweat from us both all shrouded the over by the overpowering aroma of sex set heavy in the room.

I stood for some time, but felt a move to the bed was in order. So I moved over, while my cock still remained inside her. We moved toward the bedroom and I gently placed her upon the bed as my cock slide out of her gorgeous pussy and Yvonne's pussy juices then sprayed out a little. Yvonne slowly lifted up her legs and casually spread them exposing both her gorgeous pussy and asshole. She gently tapped a finger next to her asshole.

I did not need any further gesturing from her; I moved in between her outstretched legs and slowly primed my cock to for her asshole. Yvonne's oral skills and otherworldly vagina had my cock moist and as such it slide in with relative ease, going in further and further. Yvonne had her head back, eyes shut moaning in sheer delight as inch after inch of my cock slid gracefully inside her beautiful ass. Eventually my cock got all the way inside and began to slowly fuck her, building momentum rather slowly as to savour every second of what I was experiencing at that moment.

Yvonne's amazing ass soon became accustomed to my cock stretching it out and I was fucking Yvonne and she loved every bit of it. She seemed to moan even louder than before signifying to me her levels of satisfaction had increased. Our fucking seemed to have gone on for what seemed like an eternity. I felt myself coming and Yvonne did as well.

"Inside me, just like this," Yvonne called out. I obliged and began to increase my tempo as I drove myself to orgasm. I felt her body starting to tingle indicating that she was coming and she did. Her voice increased its volume and she voiced her pleasure I was certain the entire hotel must have heard it regardless of how well the walls may have been sound proofed. 

I then let loose and came shooting my semen deep inside Yvonne's gorgeous asshole. I let the last bit of cum drip out and removed my cock from her asshole. The cum had gone in deep and did not seem like it was coming out anytime soon. Yvonne lowered her legs back onto the bed and gestured me toward her. I moved toward her and lay down beside her.

"Did you enjoy it?" I tentatively asked.

Without saying a word Yvonne leaned in and we shared a deep passionate and intimate kiss. That told me everything that I needed to know. Yvonne then stood up and headed to the bathroom, I heard the door close and the shower start flowing. I stood up and walked to the window looking out noticing it was now dark and Hong Kong's characteristic lights had now filled the night.

I continued to contemplate, life, my life and how I got to this point. An amazing and unbelievable series of events had lead me here.Whilst I was contemplating Yvonne had snuck up behind me and reached around and began to fondle my cock which responded immediately and rose to attention. Yvonne was wet, her whole body still wet from the shower. I turned around to see Yvonne soaked as she herself turned and slowly walked toward the bathroom door.

A smile appeared on my face as I moved forward to the bathroom to join Yvonne. We both then stepped in and let the water fall down upon the both of us. A simple shower, our sex session had tired us out immensely, although my cock was more than ready to go again.

Yvonne kneeled down and proceeded to suck on my cock as the water fell down both our bodies. Yvonne was methodical, gentle, and erotic. All of this at the same time, her tongue flicked occasionally sent sexual bolts of energy racing up my spine.

Yvonne's fingers delicately fondled my balls and increased all the sensations Yvonne's mouth was giving me. This went on for some time how I did not collapse from a sensory overload is beyond me. However, eventually I let loose and my load had come and Yvonne took it all, she swallowed every last drop and finished off with a great smile on her beautiful face.

"Thank you," I said to her as she stood up.

"You're welcome," Yvonne playfully replied.

"Let me return the favour," I instructed.

"Sir, yes Sir," Yvonne replied giving me a salute with her right hand and placing her left hand on her hip.

I give a cheeky grin and got onto my knees to give some TLC to Yvonne's beautiful pussy. I lick and dip my tongue into her pussy, keeping my movements erratic and unpredictable. Yvonne replied simple moans of lust which told me everything I needed to know. All that could be heard was the shower running, and Yvonne's lust running out of control as her moans began to fill the air inside the bathroom.

I brought her toward an orgasm quickly and she shook all over as it took hold of every fibre of her being and lets the lust vocalise from her gorgeous lips. I give her lovely pussy one final lick as I once again stood up and the water continued to fall all over us.

We stood there for some time admiring one another whilst the water continued to fall down upon our already drenched bodies. Not a word was said, however what told us, about each other, was everything we could possibly need or want to know. 

At that point nothing else mattered we were two sexual beings drenched and not just water but wanton lust with no inhibition to stop us from coming in the manner which we had done to one another.

After sometime we eventually left the shower and headed to the bedroom, we had no clue what time it was or whether it was day or night. We went to the bed and then laid ourselves upon it and simply slept away, perfectly contented in each other's arms.

We awoke sometime after there was sun shining and it reflected gently of Yvonne's golden blonde locks of hair.

"Morning," I said to her.

"Morning," came Yvonne's reply.

"You had a good evening?"

"I most certainly did Bill, I most certainly did."

"Well, I'm glad you did Yvonne."

Our banter continued for a little while longer, and we then decided to enjoy a little breakfast still inside the room and watch the Hong Kong streets bustle once again.

We had come together once more this time on the other side of the world. It is even more magical than the last time we found ourselves together. Sometime later it was time for me to leave.

"Well Bill, I have a feeling our paths will cross once again."

Ï hope so too Yvonne, I would like to see you again, maybe we could go dancing."

"Hmm, I like that idea." 



Unexpected Ch. 02



"I understand, John, but if they can in anyway help me find Anna then I would like to be there." 

John picked me up in his car that evening. Barry wanted to come along but John said it was not clever to take too many people.

Confusingly for me we went to a pub in East London where John, leaving me in the bar, went behind the scenes to meet with a man he (and everyone else it appeared) called The Boss. I didn't ask any questions about him, especially when John returned with two Neanderthals who he introduced to me as Marko and Bernie. Jesus, you wouldn't want to meet those two on a dark night although when they spoke they appeared very pleasant.

All four of us got into a big Mercedes and we drove over to West London where the car stopped outside a not very salubrious looking snooker club. On the drive across town Marko and Bernie were talking to John like they were old friends. This did go some way to calm the unease that I felt in my stomach. Later I realised that Marko and Bernie were our bodyguards or minders for the evening.

Marko went up to the door of the club and spoke to the old man who was sitting just inside, a kind of doorman I suppose. The old guy disappeared for a couple of minutes, then when he reappeared, Marko signalled us to join him.

I must say the club wasn't as seedy looking inside. Although it was mainly lit by the lights over the snooker tables of which there must have been at least ten. I noted that there were no pool tables in the club, although I think that a couple of people we walked past were playing billiards. The general darkness in the place I did find disconcerting.

I saw both Marko and Bernie shake hands with several people as we passed them heading towards the back of the club where we finally were introduced to the Hennessey Brothers. Well, Jerry Hennessey anyway. Bobby, his brother - who Jerry informed us that we needed to speak too because he was handling "the problem", which I took to mean Paul Nielson - was in the middle of a frame of snooker. Jerry told us he would be with us as soon as he finished.

In the meantime the four of us sat in the next booth; two quite striking looking young women appeared from somewhere and served us drinks, apparently on the Hennesseys' because I didn't see a bill.

"Arsehole threw the bloody frame," Bobby Hennessey said when he finally joined us. "What is it with these bleeding wimps? It ain't like I'm a bad loser or nothing. Damn, I miss Johnny Callen. He always gave me a run for my money."

Apparently Marko and Bernie knew who Bobby was talking about, as there followed a discussion about him that neither John Carpenter nor I could follow.

"Right, your man Nielson." Bobby said turning his attention to John and me. I've got him and his girls out the back for you to talk to. He's been a pain in our arse for sometime now, so when you're done with the little bugger, we'll probably see him off," Bobby said, downing his pint in one; I think it was to say to us that he was ready to take us to Nielson.

We followed Bobby out of the back door of the club and into a warehouse the other side of the narrow service road that ran behind. Inside we found a couple of gorillas apparently guarding some guy who I was soon to learn was Nielson and three very frightened looking young women. All four of them were sitting on the floor with their backs against a wall.

"You, shit-face, on your feet and come with us!" Bobby said in a very quiet, but threatening tone of voice.

Neilson hesitantly got to his feet and followed Bobby into a room that led off of the main warehouse. The four of us followed.

"We're looking for someone and my friends here think that you might know something about why we can't find her," Bobby said. 

Then he turned and looked at John Carpenter, obviously inviting him to continue the questioning.

"Sarah Sharp!" John said, "What can you tell us about her?"

"Sarah? I haven't seen the slut for a couple of years. The little bitch ran off with my money!" Neilson replied.

"Tell me more." John demanded when Nielson didn't enlarge.

"Ah, the little bitch worked for me for a while, then she got sick and went into hospital; when she came out she did a runner. I found out later the bitch had been holding out on me and stashing away some of my money," Neilson replied, in what I took to be an arrogant tone.

Bobby obviously took exception to Nielson's tone of voice and landed a punch in his stomach. Nielson doubled up and fell to the floor.

Wha'd-ya do that for?" Nielson gasped out.

"Because I don't like you or your kind!" Bobby replied. "It's arseholes like you who give the business a bad name. Now what else do you know about this girl?"

"Noffink. I told you, she done a runner on me and I ain't seen or 'eard of her since."

"Tell us about her," I asked. "How long have you known her?" 

"Ah, I picked her up in Luton, some years back. She weren't a bad looker for her age and as green as grass so, well, I put her to work. She was an earner for a while, but nothing spectacular. I had her do some running for me on the side. Real innocent looking bitch, the Bill left her alone most of the time. Then she gets all stroppy on me and I had to teach her a lesson or two. The next thing I know she's disappeared and I ain't seen the bitch since."

"So was it you who put her in hospital?" Bobby asked.

"Well, yeah, you got to show them who's the boss, ain't ya!" Neilson replied somewhat hesitantly again.

He was right to have been hesitant. Bobby Hennessey landed several kicks into his stomach and ribs in quick succession.

"Now look, arsehole, we need to know where the bitch is. It's kind of important. We don't want her talking to the cops, unless we've talked to her first. Do you understand me? So if you know where we can lay our hands on her.... Or her body come to that, you'd be doing yourself a big favour by telling in the long term," Bobby said to him.

At first I was a bit confused when Bobby Hennessey said that. But then I realised that if Neilson had by any chance been responsible for Anna/Sarah's disappearance the way Bobby put the question was more likely to get the desired response from Nielson. Let's face it; Nielson wasn't going to admit he'd done her some harm, if he thought we were looking for her out of friendship.

"I told yah, I ain't seen her since she ran out on me. Honest, Mr Hennessey!" Nielson pleaded.

"You fucking arsehole, I never could stomach a man who'd strike a woman!" Bobby said. "You heard enough?" He directed at John carpenter and myself.

"I think so. The girls might know something," John replied to him. 

Then Bobby walked over to a door on the other side of the room; opening it so we could all see the canal outside.

"Hey, shit-face, get the fuck out of town, today. If I or any of my boys ever see you again after midnight tonight, I'll fucking bury you in the mud at the bottom of that effing canal, you got that?" Bobby ordered.

Nielson nodded. 

"And if I hear that you're running girls anywhere else in the fucking country, I'll come fucking looking for you! You get me?"

I don't think I've ever seen anyone look as frightened as Neilson did at that moment. He just nodded his head again.

"Get the fuck out of here before I change my mind!" Bobby bellowed at him. "No, better than that, get your fucking arse on the Eurostar tonight and never come back, or you're a goner.

Neilson slowly got up from the floor. 

"Hang on, just a minute?" Bobby ordered. Then he grabbed Nielson and went through his pockets, throwing the switchblade knife that he found in one of them out the door into the canal. In another pocket he found Nielson's wallet, which he took all the cash out of. He found another roll of notes in the same pocket as the knife had been in. Bobby pocketed all of the cash. "Go!" he boomed. 

With some difficulty Nielson staggered towards the door that led into the warehouse.

"Not that way arsehole, by the bleeding towpath. You ain't making any of those birds go with you!" Bobby said.

Neilson disappeared out into the darkness of the canals towpath.

"Scum of the fucking earth, I'd drown all of the little shits if I had my way," Bobby said as he led us back into the main warehouse, where we found the three women - still looking very frightened - but sitting on packing cases by then, drinking coffee from steaming mugs.

"Don't panic, girls, no one here is going to harm you," Bobby said to them.

"Where's Paul?" one of them asked tentatively.

"Don't worry about him, babe, he's decided to leave town, permanently," Bobby replied. "Now we need to know, what can any of you girls tell us about Sarah Sharp?" 

The girls obviously recognised the name, but did not reply.

Apparently Bobby didn't expect them to. I noted that he was counting through the money he'd taken from Nielson. Having counted it, I watched him as he added some more cash from his own wallet and divided it into three bundles.

"Here, girls, there's monkey each for you. You probably gave him the bloody dough in the first place, anyway. That should help to get by until you can sort yourselves out. But if you like I'll make you an offer, that's if you want to stay in the business. What you do in the future is your choice now. If any of you fancy working for the firm, we've got a couple of nice houses that you can work in. We've got good security, so the punters won't dare get cheeky with you and we aren't greedy about our cut of your take, either," Bobby told them. "Oh, and if you're wondering, no one, and I do mean no one knocks any of my girls around, and that includes me. A man ain't a man if he raises his hand to a lady. What do you say?"

All three girls looked gob-smacked at Bobby's suggestion. I found myself feeling uncomfortable at Bobby Hennessey recruiting the girls as prostitutes to work in his brothels in my presence, as well.

"Think on it, girls, but you'll need to see our doc first just to make sure that you're clean; we can sort all that shit out later. Oh, yeah, if you want off the game we got a couple of legit companies that we might be able to find a place for you in. But anyway, now my associates here are friends of Sarah's. This man here is actually her husband and she's disappeared on him. Can any of you come up with any idea where she might have gone and why?"

If the three girls were surprised at Bobby giving them the money and his offer to take them under his wing, they were even more surprised at hearing that Sarah was my wife.

"I don't believe you!" Crystal - the girl who asked what had happened to Nielson and obviously the bravest and most vocal of the three -- said.

John Carpenter was obviously one step ahead by then, I suppose he expected that the girls would be suspicious and might not believe why we were looking to Sarah. He'd produced some pictures I'd given to Helen from his inside pocket.

"Here, look, the blushing bride with her handsome husband here," John said handing the pictures to Crystal.

The girls passed the photos between each other and even Bobby had a look at them as well.

"She's a fine looking lass. No wonder you're so set on tracking her down," Bobby commented.

"Why did she go?" Crystal asked. 

"I don't know. I thought that maybe Neilson had shown up and scared her away," I replied.

I noticed that one of the other girls -- I was later to find out that her name was Saffie - had a thoughtful look on her face. She finally got up the courage to speak "I don't now whether there's any connection, but there is this regular customer of Paul's. You know him, Chrissie - Little big man!" 

"What? The creep who knocked Michelle about?" Crystal asked.

"Yeah, that's him. Anyway...." The girl stopped speaking and looked right into my eyes. "Can I ask you, did you know that Sarah had been on the game, when you married her?"

"No, I didn't, I knew she had something in her past that she didn't want to talk about. Not that it would have made any difference to the way I felt about her. That must be obvious or I wouldn't be here looking for her now, would I?"

"I think Sarah couldn't have known how lucky she was!" Saffie commented and then went on. "Anyway this guy said something strange when I did him a few months ago. I can't remember exactly, but it's something that's been going around in my head ever since. He said something like it not being long before he wouldn't need Paul anymore, as he'd found himself his own private whore. She'd have to do whatever he wanted or her new hubby would find out what kind of woman he'd married. Well, he didn't use those exact words, but that was the gist of what he said.

"I was wondering whether he'd run into Sarah somewhere and recognised her. He's the kind of arsehole who would stoop to just about anything to get laid. I doubt any woman would want his little prick in her if she wasn't being paid for it." The girl stood watching me with a questioning look on her face.

"Any idea whereabouts this guy lives?" John Carpenter asked.

"Not the foggiest," Crystal replied. "The punters are just faces and cocks to us. But Paul might have some information on him back at his flat. He's got his little black book he keeps there, with info about some of his regulars or people he might be able to put the screws on."

Bobby had a mobile phone in his hand before Crystal had finished speaking and started pushing buttons.

"Where is he now?" Bobby almost shouted into it. "Right. When he gets in there, don't let him touch anything. Keep him there; I've got someone coming over to pick up a book of his. Once they have got it, then you put him on the bloody Eurostar yourself and tell him never to come back."

Bobby closed the connection then turned back to Crystal. "Do you know where he keeps that book?"

"I do!" The third girl replied. Her name turned out to be Debra, but everyone called her Debbie.

Bobby looked at one of his henchmen. "Take Debbie with you and bring that book back here. Marko, do you want to go with them?"

Marko didn't reply, he just nodded and followed Debbie and the Hennessey guy out of the warehouse. Bobby led the rest of us back into the snooker club where we ensconced ourselves into the empty booth next to Jerry Hennessey's. The two waitresses -- if that's what they were - arrived and served all of us with another drink.

"Do you play?" Bobby asked me, having obviously seen me looking at the tables.

"Not for a long time and I'm not very clever either," I replied.

"Come on then, let's have a knock about. At least you won't be pulling your punches. Most of these wankers are too frightened of me to make it worth my time." Bobby said standing up and handing me a cue.

I noted that Bobby led us to a table away from where the others were sitting. Having set up, he took the break.

"I saw that look on your face when I offered the girls a job, Peter," he said. "What you've got to realise is that some of these girls, once they get into the business for a while, haven't got any idea of any other way to earn a living. We just took their pimp away from them and if they don't come work for me, then some other sick little shit will be knocking them around and taking their money off of them by next week.

"Look, my brother and I aren't proud of what we do; we were bastards ourselves in the past. But nowadays, any girl who works for us does so because she chooses too. She don't get knocked about and no bugger takes her earnings off of her either, after she's paid our commission, of course. It costs money to run a nice safe clean house. And the other point is that if and when a girl wants out, Jerry and me will do all we can to help her. We'll even give them jobs in one of our legit businesses if we can."

"Bobby, I didn't...."

"I didn't say you were criticising. You live in a different world to these girls, Pete. I've got two sisters and a daughter of my own. I wouldn't like to see any of them working on the streets. Nowadays Jerry and I will help any girl who wants out of the business if we can. But for the ones who want to keep working, we'll watch their backs as well as we can. Yeah, we make money out of it, but if you ain't got any dough, well...." His voice trailed off again. "Anyway let's hope we can find your woman for you and soon. I'd hate to see anyone who's got out of the game fall back in."

I'm not sure whether Bobby was trying to make out that he was some kind of Robin Hood character or not. But he sounded quite sincere to me.

I knocked balls around the table, whilst Bobby potted them for the next half hour or so, until Marko and Debbie returned. The Hennessey muscle man didn't return with them. Crystal flipped through the book until she came to an entry labelled "Little big man."

"There, that's him," Crystal said, "little dick, big head. He beat up Michelle because she unfortunately laughed at him when she saw the size of his pecker. Cut her up so bad she couldn't get any clients anymore."

John Carpenter studied the name and address in the book and then he turned it so that I could read it. "Calvin Talbot" the name instantly rang a bell in my mind. I was damned sure that I'd heard it somewhere before and the address wasn't all that far from my home either.

"Recognise the name?" John asked.

"Looks familiar to me, but I can't place him," I replied.

"Me too," John said. "I've got a list of names that Frank Stevens thought could be of interest. Pardon the pun but Frank thought this Talbot guy wasn't being as frank as he could be with him. He's a manager in that place where Sarah worked! He's refused to talk to Bert as well; I guess we know why now. I suppose that he must have recognised her.

"The strange thing is, Crystal, I'm assuming that these initials are the girls and dates are when he availed himself of their services?" John asked.

"Yeah, if you don't mind, we won't go into what the other letters after that are; they're his sexual preferences. He's a bit of a weirdo, that one!" Crystal replied.

"I've been around, Crystal, I can hazard a guess. But the point is, Sarah's initials aren't on the list," John pointed out.

"No way. Paul was sweet on Sarah, no matter how he treated her or what he said. He wouldn't let that weirdo anywhere near her. But the guy would have seen her with Paul plenty of times, and I know he asked Paul if he could have her more than once."

"So that's why she ran. He must have approached her," I said. "He must have approached her at the office. But surely she must have recognised him when she went to work there?"

"Maybe not," John said. "Different surroundings and if he dressed up smart for work, she might not have recognised him until it was too late. I think we'd better have a word with our Mr Talbot!"

"Do you need any muscle?" Bobby asked.

"Thanks, Bobby, you and Jerry have done enough. We've got Marko and Bernie here if I need any expertise," John replied.

"Well, when you've found Sarah, give us a call and I'll send a couple of guys up to make sure the tosspot doesn't lean on anyone else, permanently. No one will ever tie it to you guys," Bobby offered.

We thanked Bobby and Jerry for their help then and left the club. 

"Just one thing to bear in mind, fellas," Bernie said, as we drove away. "When the Hennesseys' say permanent, they mean forever. We were in a situation with them about a year or so ago. Two guys who the Hennesseys' got upset with finished up in the bottom of a fen in East Anglia somewhere. It went down as a car accident, but the last anyone saw of those two they were with some of Hennessey's team."

Neither John I replied to Bernie's statement.

As we drove home that night I thought to myself, "Yeah, we had probably discovered why Sarah had left, but we were no closer to discovering where she has actually gone."

End of part Two 



Unexpected Ch. 03



 As usual my thanks go to LadyC and Techsan for their assistance in bringing this tale of woe to you. 

As we drove home that night I thought to myself, "Yeah, we probably have discovered why Anna had left, but we were no closer to discovering where she had actually gone." So you can understand that I wasn't as elated as some folks in the car appeared to think I should be.

John Carpenter warned me not to go anywhere near the Talbot guy until he was ready. "We want to put a little pressure on before we approach him. It's all right for the likes of the Hennessey's to come down hard on little hoods like that Nielson guy, but we can't go treating an apparently upstanding member of the public that way. I had a word with the girls while you were playing snooker and they are willing to help us. By the way, if you happen to see any of them or my people around town, don't approach them. Okay?"

When John said that I had no idea what he was up to, but in the following few days I soon found out. I caught sight of all three of the girls and John's man Bert in the high road on a couple of occasions. It appeared to me that everywhere I looked, one of the girls was about, and Bert seemed to be everywhere as well. Well, to be honest our High Road isn't that big so I assumed the plan was that the Talbot guy would see one of them whenever he came out of or went into the insurance office.

Mind, the girls didn't look anything like the three little tarts that we'd met at the Hennessey's'; those girls had obviously been cheep prostitutes. Now they were dressed like respectable young ladies; whether that was Bobby Hennessey's influence or Helen Carpenter's I didn't know, but I saw Helen a couple of times over those few days.

Apparently Talbot recognised the girls though; I was to learn later that he went to approach all three of them on different occasions. But every time he got close to any of them, Bert would step in between. Bert was one guy Talbot had been trying to avoid talking to.

I was sorry that I missed the best bit though. From what Crystal told me later, I gather that Talbot with his wife and his or her parents went for a meal on the Friday evening at one of the best restaurants in town. The three girls and Bert let Talbot's party get into eating their meal before they sat themselves down at the next table. Crystal told me that she thought that Talbot was going to choke on his soup when he spotted them. Crystal said she thought that Talbot's wife suspected that something odd was going on, because she kept looking between the girls who were smiling in Talbot's general direction all the time and Talbot himself.

By the following Monday morning, John Carpenter decided they'd lent on Talbot enough. Sometime during the previous week, Helen Carpenter had been into the office and made arrangements for Talbot to show her and her husband over an empty property. Apparently Talbot had no idea who Helen and John Carpenter were, or that they had any interest in Anna's disappearance.

The five of us - the three girls, Bert and myself - were sitting in a people carrier with blacked out windows further along the road when John, Helen and Talbot arrived at the vacant property. After a cursory look at the outside of the house they went inside. We five followed them in as soon as they were out of sight.

"What the hell are you doing here?" I heard Talbot demand when he noticed Crystal enter the room.

By the time I got into the room as well, Talbot was looking from one face to another trying to figure out what was going on.

"We just want a word with you about what you know about Anna's disappearance," John Carpenter said. "You have a choice. You can talk to us now or we'll take the girls straight round to tell your wife what kinds of games you've been getting up to with them over the last few years."

"She'd never believe you!" Talbot tried to brazen it out.

"Oh, after Friday night, I pretty much think she will. From what the girls tell me, your wife was itching with curiosity," John replied in a very calm voice.

Some of the false confidence in Talbot's voice began to waver. Reading between the lines I assume his wife had been asking some very pertinent questions over the weekend.

"I don't know anything about Anna's disappearance! She just never turned in to work one day, that's all I know," he declared.

"No, I don't think so," John said. "From what I've heard about the week before she disappeared, there was an afternoon when only you and her were in the office for a while. When the other staff members got back to the office, more than one of them said that Anna appeared distant and upset about something. So just what passed between you that afternoon?"

"Nothing. I hardly spoke to the woman!"

"Okay, Calvin, if that's the way you want to play things," John replied. "Right, Bert, run the girls round to the gym so that they can have a chat with Mrs Talbot, who should be just about to finish her workout. And we'll go down to the police station and let them in on the fact that our friend here had some kind of a disagreement with Anna a few days before she disappeared. You never mentioned to the police that you'd known Anna in the past either, did you, Calvin? Or that you had been alone with Anna in the office that afternoon. I'm willing to bet the police will be very interested in those little omissions. 

"And, of course, if your wife is as jealous as she's reputed to be, I'll bet she has you out of the house before nightfall. The police might be interested in her reactions to your infidelity as well."

"How do you know what I told the police?" Talbot demanded.

"Calvin, we've been looking at you very closely for some time now, and you'd be surprised what we've found out. We know about those kerb crawling cautions as well. Does your wife know about them by any chance?

"And!" John said, quietly, pausing for effect. "Of course there's your other son, the one you pay maintenance for every month. Are your wife and family aware of his existence?" 

Talbot hadn't had much colour in the first place. He lost all colour in his face completely when John mentioned this other child, whom I'd never heard of before either. 

Talbot suddenly got physically shorter. I'd never seem a man shrink in front of my eyes before.

"I just asked her if she was still looking to turn a few tricks on the side, that's all."

"Bollocks!" Crystal exclaimed. "Sarah would have told you to piss-off, she was married and out of the business!"

"Oh, she did. So I left it at that," Talbot replied.

"Then what scared the shit out her so much that she ran away…?" Crystal demanded; she was angry and for a moment I thought she was going to lay into Talbot.

"All right, Crystal, calm down," John interrupted. "No, Calvin, we can't believe you just asked Anna if she would turn a few tricks for you. I very much suspect that you told her that she would, otherwise you threatened to tell her husband here that she'd been on the game. 

"Now it really isn't worth lying to us, Calvin, because your marriage and life as you know it is on the line here. Besides all that, do you know there are some rather violent people in London who are very angry about Anna's disappearance? They've only got to suspect that you had something to do with it, and well… You'll tell them the truth, of that I can assure you! 

"Calvin, did you know that Paul Nielson has left the country, because those guys became upset with him? Now you tell us exactly what went on between you and Anna and no one needs be any the wiser, okay?" 

I had to marvel at the calm quiet voice that John was using. I had to admit it did sound very menacing.

"Look, I just asked her if she would go with me now and again," Talbot finally exclaimed.

"And?" John asked in that calm tone of his.

"Yeah, well, I might have hinted that I would tell her husband about her being on the game. But as the girl said, she just told me to piss-off. I don't think she'd recognised me until I spoke to her about it…."

"Yeah, we never take much notice of little pricks like you!" Crystal butted in. She still sounded extremely angry. Possibly more angry than I was at that moment.

John raised his hand to silence Crystal and nodded to Talbot, telling him to carry on. 

"Look, I didn't recognise her when she first came to work in the office, although her face was familiar. Then I remembered I'd seen her with Paul Neilson so I figured I'd take a chance and see whether she'd play ball. Well, she told me to sling my hook!"

"Did you mention Paul to her?"

"Yeah, well, sure I did."

"And did you by any chance tell Anna you'd tell Paul where she was?" 

"Now look, I wouldn't have actually told him!"

"But you mentioned him and you no doubt knew that Paul was looking for Anna?"

"Yeah, well, so what, that doesn't mean I would have told him where to find the girl. To be honest, she was a nice girl, not the sort you'd expect to find on the game." 

"They are all nice girls, Calvin. It's just that some of them don't make the right choices on who to be friends with when they are young," John commented. "So after that day you never brought up the subject again, or threatened to let on to anyone that Anna wasn't her real name or that she'd worked as a prostitute?"

"No, look, the moment I said it to her, I wished I hadn't. I tried to apologise to her a couple of times over the following days, but she blanked me. And then suddenly she was gone! I thought that Neilson guy had tracked her down or something."

"You didn't think it would have been prudent to tell the police about Neilson then?" 

"Well, how could I without telling them how I knew him? Look, if my wife finds out that I've been visiting…. Well, you're a married man; you understand…. If Karen finds out, she'll divorce me." 

Talbot didn't look a happy man standing there.

"Then you'll just have to hope that we find Anna in the long term, won't you? I'm sure if her husband here doesn't find Anna before too long, he's liable to lash out at the man who gave her cause to run."

"But I didn't…!"

"Oh, you sure did, Calvin! Anna was happy living a new life and you set about smashing that safe little world she'd built for herself. You had the choice to say nothing to her and let sleeping dogs lie, but you thought you could turn the situation to your own advantage. You know, you're one hell of a man," John said with a sarcastic tone to his voice. "I'm afraid that what happens next is up to Anna's husband here."

Talbot turned and looked at me with pleading eyes. 

"Please don't tell my wife."

I didn't answer him; I turned and walked out of the room. Two wrongs don't make a right and I could see no sense in smashing two marriages. But I held any revenge that I might take in abeyance; Talbot would have to pray that I found Anna in the end.

-----------------------

"Are you going to tell his wife?" Crystal asked me, when she climbed into the people carrier.

"I doubt it, but it won't hurt the bugger any to worry about whether I will or not for a while. What's the point in upsetting his wife and family? Where are you girls going now, by the way?" I asked her.

"Saffie has got to got back to the rehab clinic; Bobby Hennessy set it up for her. You know, we were terrified of the Hennessey's, but they are being so kind to us."

"Perhaps they want you to work for them?" Bert suggested.

"Oh, they do, but none of us are going on the game for them. Once Saffie gets herself clean Jerry's promised her that if she stays off the drugs, she can go work as a croupier in one of their gambling clubs. Jerry Hennessey reckons that with her looks, the customers won't mind losing their cash so much. And Debbie here is going home to her folks; Helen Carpenter went up to see them the other day and they are keen on having her go back home."

"And you, Crystal?" I asked. "What are you going to do? Go home to your folks or work for the Hennessey's?"

"I don't know that I've got much choice. I can't go back to my family and I'm not as good looking as Saffie or anywhere near as clever." 

"Why can't you go back home? Your folks aren't dead or anything, are they?" I couldn't understand why Crystal wasn't even contemplating trying to reconcile with her family. But then Debbie, who obviously knew Crystal very well, broke her usual silence to answer that question for her.

"Because her stepfather raped her when she was little and when she told her mother she was accused of seducing the bastard. Her stepfather was put in jail and Crystal finished up in care. Is that a good enough reason, for you?" Debbie sounded pretty pissed that I'd even suggest that Crystal went home. I believe I understood her anger, but I didn't know the details of Crystal's early life or how she'd finished up on the game.

"I ran away from that council home when I was twelve. It was like they'd put me in prison for what happened." Crystal didn't sound as angry as Debbie, just maybe a little sad. "I didn't finish school or anything. The Hennessey's said I could be a waitress at one of their places if I wanted to. But, oh shit, lying on my back isn't as hard work as being a bloody waitress." 

"So you'd prefer to stay on the game?" I asked.

"No, I'm just too thick to do anything else," Crystal replied.

"Balls!" Bert said, joining the conversation. "Get yourself back to school girl and get some education behind you. You aren't dumb, girl. I'd say you're pretty clever to have lived on the street from the age of twelve!"

Crystal seemed to think for a little while before she replied.

"Easier said than done, Bert, I got to have money to live on. Perhaps I could study part time and pay for that by turning a few tricks."

"Do you really think that you'd be able to do that, Crystal?" I asked. "After all, you've been on the game for how long now, and you've never taken time out to study in the past, have you?" 

"I don't have much choice really, do I? That's the trouble: I'm fucked, whatever I try to do."

I'm not sure why I said what I did next. It could be that I was feeling sorry for the girl or I could have been that I felt Crystal really did want out of the business, like her two friends were obviously going to get. But Crystal needed a little help.

"Well, you could come to live at Anna and my house and study from there. You know yourself how dangerous being on the game is, Crystal," I suggested.

"Are you nuts? Why would you want a hooker living in your house for?"

"I don't want a hooker or an ex-hooker. But I'm happy to have another reformed one, living in my house. And I've got a friend who I'm pretty sure will help you with your studies."

"I do believe that you mean that!" Crystal said turning to look me in the eye. "But what's Anna going to say when she comes back?"

"Well, if we ever find her, I should imagine that she'll be pleased to see her friend again. I'm assuming you were her friend," I said.

"I always thought she was my friend and she did ask me to go with her when she ran away from Paul. But I told her that she'd have a better chance of disappearing if she was on her own."

"Well, there you are then. When we find her, you just being around will hopefully tell her that I don't care what she has done in the past. Crystal, it's what all of you do in the future that counts."

"Peter, if you weren't Sarah's husband I would kiss you," Crystal said with a big smile on her face.

"Just you keep remembering that I am Anna's husband and we can't go too far wrong, Crystal," I replied.

"You mean it! You really do mean it!" Crystal exclaimed. "Yes, please, Peter, I'll keep house for you and find a proper job so that I can pay my way. And I'll study as best I know how!"

Crystal lent over and kissed me on the cheek, then I noticed that all three girls were hugging each other. 

When we arrived back at my house, we told John and Helen of the plan for Crystal to move in with me for the time being at least. Helen did take me to one side and asked me if I was sure I was doing the right thing.

"I don't know, Helen. But I can only hope that someone is looking after Anna as well as I am going to look after Crystal. She seems like a nice kid who got a rotten start in life. I'd like to make sure that she doesn't spend the rest of her life as somebody's plaything," I replied. "I'm not convinced that we're ever going to find Anna again."

"Hang in there, Peter. You know we've got people looking all over the country for her." Helen told me.

"Thank you, Helen. I know that you and John are doing everything you can. But I'm beginning to get the suspicion that if Anna doesn't want to be found, she won't be. She made a mistake and settled too close to her old stomping ground when she ran from Neilson. I wouldn't be surprised if she hasn't left the country completely," I replied.

-----------------------

Crystal moved into my spare room a couple of days later. As I thought she would, Marie-Lise took Crystal under her wing and became her personal tutor. There are minimum standards of literacy required to get anywhere in further education and Marie-Lise was adamant that Crystal would make the grade.

For a while Crystal did little but spend her time studying and looking after the house. Although once Marie-Lise persuaded her that all work and no play makes for a dull life, she started to join my friends and myself when we went out in the evenings. I think she'd been living at my house for about a month when one evening as we left a club to walk home she took hold of my arm. Once we were alone and couldn't be seen by any of the others, she lent towards me and kissed me on the cheek.

"What was that for?" I asked

"For being a nice man and a faithful husband to Anna," she replied.

I stopped walking and looked at her. I think the look on my face must have been asking the question.

"Peter, I'm sorry for not trusting you, but I'm going to unpack tonight!" Crystal said with a big smile on her face.

I'd never been into Crystal's room since the day she'd moved in. But Marie-Lise had told me that most of her meagre gear was still in the two suitcases she'd arrived with.

I still said nothing, so she went on.

"Peter, the last few years have taught me to be weary of all men. So when you invited me to move in, I wasn't sure what to make of it. At first I rejected the idea, but when you said I should remember that you were Anna's husband I thought I'd take the chance. You know I've been jamming a chair under the door handle every night, don't you?" 

"No, am I that untrustworthy looking?"

"No, you're not. It's me. I'm paranoid about peoples - mainly men's - true intentions. Now I'm feeling very silly and I want you to forgive me for not trusting you."

"You're forgiven, Crystal. I think I can understand the sort of fear that you've lived in for the last few years. And to be honest I really don't blame you for being reticent to trust anyone. So you haven't unpacked so that you could make a quick run for it."

"I'm sorry, yes!"

"Crystal, if you ever want to leave, you don't have to run. I'll drive you wherever you wish to go." 

"Thank you, Peter. I know that now." Crystal lent forward and kissed me on the cheek again. "Please, god, that we find Sarah before too long. She doesn't know how lucky she was when she found you."

It was week or so later that I came home from work one day to find Crystal sitting at the kitchen table filling in a form with Marie-Lise's help.

"What you got there, girls?" I asked, just out of interest.

"A Criminal Records Check. I need it for my new job," Crystal replied.

"Er, have you got a record?" I asked, trying to sound casual. "And what job is this, anyway?"

"I'm going to work part time in a children's nursery for a while to see how I get on. It's a friend of Marie-Lise's, and she says that my Police Cautions for soliciting won't be taken into account because I was under sixteen at the time."




Unexpected Ch. 03



This is my 3rd and final chapter in this series on the lovely Yvonne Strahovski. Hope you enjoy it. 

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

It had been some time, six weeks to be exact, since that night with Yvonne in the hotel room in Hong Kong. I thought about her constantly all that time. One night around about 2:30 in the morning, my phone illuminates and begins to ring. I was still a bit groggy but I composed myself somewhat and answered the call.

"Hello."

"Hi Bill, it's me Yvonne."

"Hey Yvonne, it has been some time, how are you keeping?"

"I am great, Bill, how are you?"

"Better now that I am talking to you."

"Well the reason I called is that I want to see you again, and this time I want to find you."

"Ï would love to see you again Yvonne"

"Well where you now Bill?"

"I'm in Mauritius, enjoying the island life."

"That sounds wonderful, how much longer will you be there?"

"Well I have just arrived, I'll be here for another three weeks."

"That's good timing it would seem, I am in your home town."

"That is good timing, how are you finding it?"

"An interesting place, quite colourful and certainly unique and unlike any other country I have been to. Although the prevailing love of Rugby reminds me of home."

"South Africans are certainly crazy about that."

"Well I realise I may have woke you up but, I'll make it up to you when we see each other again."

"It's a wonderful thing to be woken by you Yvonne."

"Ah Bill you know just how to charm a girl."

"Well Yvonne, you mean a great deal to me."

"I am certainly flattered Bill, I suppose we will pick this up when we cross paths once again."

"We certainly will Yvonne."

After the call ended I really could not get myself to sleep, knowing Yvonne was coming to me was tantalising. I had sat with my phone in my hand for at least another half hour before setting it down. I felt calm on the phone but afterwards I was a nervous wreck thinking about her. I had been in her company twice now and both times we had amazing sex which sent both of us into lust fuelled frenzies.

I stood up and opened the windows looking up into the sky which was filled with stars as the scarcity of other buildings or land meant that the stars shone brightly on this tiny island. Questions were filling my head even though I had been with her before, knowing now that she was coming started to drive me wild.

I stepped outside to calm my nerves and take in some of that fresh sea air. I looked around and up at the full moon as it dominated the skyline all around.

The secluded part of the island was home to the resort I was staying it, it was quiet and secluded a bit away from the bright lights of Mauritius' capital Port Louis. I looked around taking in all the stars above thinking, knowing what was to come.

Eventually I headed back to bed and slept away until the morning I awoke to find a message pop up on my phone. I looked at and saw that it was from Yvonne and it was informing me of her imminent arrival. 

I decided to scrub up a bit before she arrived. I hit the shower and cleaned up nicely. Showered, shaved and slightly horny I awaited Yvonne's arrival. She knew where I was and how to find me. 

A knock on the door then came and I headed to the door, I looked through the peephole and saw her standing there looking as beautiful as one would expect. I drew in a sharp, deep breath, collected myself and opened the door. Yvonne looked to me and gave me the most beautiful smile a man could get from a woman. 

Without a word Yvonne, threw her arms around me and we embraced holding each other tightly, closely and seemingly not wanting to let go.

After we let go Yvonne said to me, "Bill, I'm happy to see you again."

"Yvonne, I'm over the moon to be seeing you again, holding you in my arms."

"Well we will be doing more than holding each other," Yvonne said to me with a sly wink.

Yvonne moved past me as I closed the door she moved sexily toward the pool outside the suite. Yvonne slipped her short yellow sundress off her shoulders and let it slip to the floor revealing her amazing naked body. 

She slowly moved into the water and turned to face me revealing her gorgeous breasts down to her beautiful pussy which was clearly visible through the crystal clear blue water.

"Come on in, the water is fine." Yvonne called out to me whilst gesturing me toward her with a wave of her finger.

I pulled off my shirt and dropped my trousers, my shaft stood at attention ready for action. I moved toward Yvonne, stepping outside and into the sunshine. 

I moved toward the pool and began to step inside the water. I then moved toward Yvonne, and she pressed her body against mine I could feel her breasts as tender as one could imagine and her nipples aroused. She was as horny as me and I was not about to deny her what she wanted. 

We locked lips and found ourselves snogging, as if our lives depended on it. We ran our hands up and down one another's bodies as if it was the first or the first time in an eternity. Yvonne's curves had become familiar to me and my hands were not wondering but returning to places much loved. We had become familiar, lovers with knowledge of each other and what we wanted.

Yvonne floated to the edge of the pool and I followed. I lifted her up onto the ledge of the pool and she spread her legs slowly and revealed to me her slice of heaven. I moved toward her pussy and began to use my mouth and tongue on it. Yvonne responded softly at first but louder as I continued flicking, darting, and swirling my tongue in and out of her amazing pussy.

Yvonne had her head tilted back and moaned loudly for all to hear, even though no one was around to listen. I had my hands placed gently and Yvonne's body gripping her ever so slightly while she gyrated around my tongue as it continued to pleasure her and fondle her in every way possible. 

My movements were quick fluid and so unpredictable. I was bringing her to orgasm, I could just feel it. Her body began to tingle and soon she was cumming, her fluids shot out, dripping and seeping into the pool below. Yvonne cast her gaze back toward me, she was warmed up and yearning for more. She hopped back into the pool and reached down and began to fondle my already rock hard cock

"Hmm, one of the things I love about you," Yvonne said to me in an irresistible tone of voice.

"What might that be?" I enquired.

"You know just how to pleasure a girl."

"Thank you, Yvonne."

Yvonne flashed her amazing smile and led me up the steps and out of the pool. We moved toward a chaise lounge and Yvonne gestured me to lay back and she got onto it as well and began to fondle and slowly stroke my cock. Yvonne then slid her tongue along the length of my shaft coating it and sending a shiver up my spine.

Yvonne put my shaft inside her mouth sucking and still licking with her tongue, her movements were slow, deliberate, and undeniably sexy. As I looked upon Yvonne, pleasuring me, with my cock inside her warm mouth. I felt delirious, even after all that time, at the sight before me. Yvonne continued her sucking and continued to give me amazing pleasure. 

Yvonne then lifted herself from my cock and straddled me and lowered herself over my cock and guided it slowly into her gorgeous pussy. Yvonne slid herself ever so slowly down the length of my cock until she got it all inside her. She gasped her little as she reached the end of my shaft we became connected.

Yvonne began to slide slowly up and then down my cock, fucking me like only she knew how, up, down, and side to side. She continued to fuck, with the sun beaming down on us both, however Yvonne, was illuminated as if the brightness came from her body. It was at that point, that I felt love in its truest, rawest, and rarest form. Sex never felt so right until Yvonne came, in more ways than one, into my life and changed it forever.

Our fucking continued, and so did our isolation from all the other residents of this island nation. It felt as though we were the two remaining members of the human race. Yvonne let her approval out, she voiced with all the power of her voice. It gave me great joy, feeling and need to live, for me and for her. Yvonne continued to fuck, to gyrate, and make my cock move like a snake deep inside her soaked pussy.

Yvonne then stood up gesturing me to do so as well. She then lay down on the chaise lounge facing me, and spread her legs and invited me in with a curl of her finger. I moved in slowly over Yvonne, as I positioned my cock in front of her pussy in started to slide it inside. I slid it in slowly at first and then began to move, to fuck Yvonne, with more momentum and she responded with approval, engulfed deep in lust and yearning for more.

I felt her body tingle, which signalled to me that she was to be engulfed with another orgasm. It came, Yvonne tingled and her body trembled at first and then she came, screaming with pleasure with her pussy juices coating my cock and the out of her pussy. Yvonne kept her eyes fixed on mine as she had done since walking through that door. I was over and she and I remained connected still wanting more and Yvonne voice her urges.

"Now it is time for you for pink asshole and you cock to become reacquainted."

I obliged and removed my cock from Yvonne's pussy and gestured her to turn around. Yvonne did so and positioned herself on all fours on the chaise lounge and turned to me and gave me that 'come fuck me' look and I did not need another hint. I got onto to the chaise lounge behind her and positioned my cock in front of her pink asshole. I then slipped the tip inside and slowly slid more of my cock inside her pussy. 

Yvonne let it be known her approval as more of my cock found its way inside her ass. It felt good, like it did the first time, other worldly. I had my cock slipped inside and I began to fuck her, in her amazing ass and slid my hands ever so gently down Yvonne's back. Yvonne loved it and so did I, fucking like there was no tomorrow and no one else left in the world. 

All the while Yvonne, slowly massaged and fingered her pussy as my cock catered to her ass and she was sending herself into delirium. After some time, I felt my balls begin to swell and just before, I came I pulled my cock out until just the tip was inside. I then came and shot my cum inside Yvonne's asshole and pumped until the last bit had left my cock.

I pulled out and watched as cum slid slowly out of Yvonne's asshole. It dripped onto the Chaise lounge it, Yvonne then turned around and blew me a kiss. She then looked down admiring the scene and glowing from what we had just done. 

"Thank you," I said to her.

"Thank you, that was amazing," Yvonne replied. We then took a dip in the pool to cool off and the water was fine, reenergising us for the evening ahead as we noted the sun had dipped somewhat since we began.

Afterwards we had left the pool and dried off and found ourselves inside sipping on something cold.

"Yvonne do you fancy a night out dinner, dancing?" I asked Yvonne.

"Hmm, looks like you have been reading Maxim." Yvonne replied.

"Guilty as charged," I replied.

"Well that sounds like a fantastic idea Bill, I would love to have a night out on the town, with you."

That was an amazing thing to hear, all the pain of the past had disappeared and was wiped out in an instant. We finished our drinks and began to get ourselves ready.

(A little later)

Yvonne stepped out of the bedroom looking absolutely amazing, wearing a white dress, which clung tightly to her amazing body, it was short and showed off just enough, she had on matching white heels, which accentuated her legs even more. Yvonne looked absolutely stunning her hair flowed down her shoulders, her eye seeming sparkled. She was just amazing and there was not enough words to describe just how much.

I had on a shirt dark in colours, along with jeans, dark as well. We left the room and exited the hotel and into an awaiting chauffeured car which whisked us off. Our destination lay within the city, the restaurant was Italian and the night was just about to begin as was our journey that evening.

Whilst sat on the back seat of a BMW 5-series, which was black inside and out. Yvonne sat beside me once more and it brought back memories.

"This certainly brings back memories Yvonne," I said to her.

"Hmm Buenos Aires, where we first met," Yvonne, replied.

"The one in the same," I replied.

"Well, I'm not here, from some strange coincidence, Bill, you have qualities, an appeal that resonates with me, and it is not something a lot of men possess," Yvonne spoke to me.

"Thank you, Yvonne, I am still in a bit of disbelief as to how all of this happened," I replied.

"There is no need for that Bill, I am here because I want to be, because you are able to compel me, like you compelled me to come here, it seems we will always find one another."

Yvonne placed her hand upon my shoulder and looked toward giving me a comforting look, a look that told me that everything was going to be alright. After some time we made to the restaurant and found ourselves a secluded table in the corner of the restaurant. We sat ourselves down and continued to converse, to laugh, to enjoy the night.

"Well it would seem you know how to treat a lady," Yvonne said to me.

"Well a lady deserves to be treated as such," I replied.

"I see you're quite the gentleman Bill."

"Why thank you, I believe in common courtesy."

"What we did in that pool was anything but common."

"Well, I tend to be open to try new things, do things a little different."

"Then don't you ever stop."

"I will keep going, especially for you Yvonne."

"I know you will Bill, I know you will."

Our evening continued as did our banter, it was a wonderful evening thus far. However, we had become keen to inject some energy and fire into the night. So after we left the restaurant, we were whisked off a night club of sorts and went inside. We moved through the door, into the thumping sounds and swirling lights. The place was alive with more than just people, bodies writhed around on the dance floor, and the DJ in his booth pushed out the sounds that had the people truly alive.

Lights flashed, swirled, darted and moved in tune to the music. The power of the sounds the speakers put out had people mesmerised, intoxicated, and under a spell. Yvonne and I found ourselves a table first and sat ourselves down. We first enjoyed a couple of drinks and then Yvonne, had the urge to go dancing, and naturally I obliged her, and we hit the dance floor.

Yvonne moved her body so seductively, it was mesmerising. We moved about, feeling the music and letting the beats move through us. The night was still young, and were certainly making the most of it. Time began to pass, and we had no care in the world, as if that dance floor was the only thing in the world. As the night progressed it felt as though the only people present was us. We saw only each other, and no one else. The music continued to flow, as did the drinks and our bodies took it all in, we were certainly having the evening we were unlikely to forget.

When we left the sun was just beginning it ascent into the skies over Mauritius we had danced the night away and still felt energy in abundance. Our car dropped us off the hotel and we found our way back to our room. I opened the door and ushered Yvonne, inside before me. I then followed as she walked inside, all the while I was admiring her amazing form in her tight dress.

It was clear after the previous night's dinner and dancing, a few things were still clear to us, even in our state at the time. We were sweaty drunk and very horny, so without saying a word we headed straight for the bedroom. I pushed opened the double doors of the bedroom and Yvonne stepped inside once again ahead of me. She kicked off her shoes turned her head to face me.

I moved in behind and placed kisses upon her neck. Yvonne enjoyed that and then proceeded to turn around and we shared a deep, passionate kiss. Our lips and tongues connected and it was an amazing feeling as we snogged one another and rand our hands down, feeling one another's most intimate parts over the fabric of our clothing. 

My hands wondered starting with her hair, her flowing blonde locks which glistened in the early morning sun as it peeked through the slits of the window blinds. Down the back of her neck and to her front around and over her gorgeous and tender breasts. I moved further down, past her flat chest then circling around to her pert and wonderful ass. I grabbed, fondled it and Yvonne voiced her utmost approval of my actions.

I slowly lifted up Yvonne's dress to find she had on nothing else but that dress. Yvonne smiled at that and then said to me, "Like what you see?"

"Oh absolutely," was my response.

I slid my index finger over the slit of her pussy and the rosebud of her asshole. Yvonne's body tingled after I had done that as she stood up on the tips of her toes and slowly set herself firmly back onto the ground

We moved to the bed and Yvonne sat me down and stepped back and began to slowly slide off her dress, it slipped to the floor, and revealed her nude body immediately. Yvonne then moved up to me and proceeded to rip my shirt open and began to tug and unbuckle my belt. Yvonne continued and soon had my erect member standing at attention and ready for action.

I moved back on the bed and Yvonne, moved between two of the four posts on the bed. Yvonne, swiftly turned around and offered up her pussy and gorgeous asshole to me as she began to once again, work her magic on my cock. Yvonne stroked slowly feeling every bit of my cock in her hands. While I began to grab and message Yvonne ass as I moved in with my tongue to enjoy her pussy as she was enjoying my cock.

I licked and swirled my tongue hitting every spot just the way she was liking it. All the while Yvonne had licked and lubricated my cock and by then had inside her mouth and was tending to it, like only she could. It began to blow my mind and simply leave me in awe.

How I was still able continued working her pussy was beyond my understanding. We simply kept going, we literally danced the entire night away and saw the sun when we left the night club and at that point we were fucking each other senseless.

Our activities continued as our connected bodies in our entangled position had us pleasuring one another equally. We continued this way for some time, loving all of what we were doing to one another.

Yvonne soon lifted herself of my cock and began to inch herself forward, which indicated to me she wanted my cock inside her pussy. However, once she turned around and straddled me she then positioned my cock in front of her asshole and slowly slide it inside. 

Yvonne began to fuck me, she moved slowly at first and increased her tempo. It simply mesmerised me, she could do the same thing over and over, and still it would feel different each time, with the only constant being the amazing nature of how she would do it.

The bed made no sound as we fucked away on it, and we were certainly not being subtle. Once again it felt as though, all of humanity was gone but us, and the world in its entirety was our domain. Yvonne began to get a little louder and screamed with pleasure and lust as it filled up in both her body and mine. All the while my cock was inside Yvonne's ass I proceeded to finger fuck her pussy and work every angle that I could. I slide a finger inside, then two, and then three.

Yvonne began to gyrate body around my cock, which simply increased both the sensations we were feeling. We continued for a while longer, with my cock in her ass and my fingers tending to her gorgeous pussy. My handy work soon brought her to orgasm and her juices began to l spray out. She continued fuck me with my cock in her ass all the way through the orgasmic climax.




Unexpected Ch. 03



Yvonne then slowly slid her ass off my cock and grasped one of the sturdy horizontal bars above the bed and lifted herself off my cock.

Yvonne looked upon me and said, "Now it's time for my pussy."

I agreed and lifted myself up and grasped on of the bars myself and lifted myself up. Yvonne moved gracefully as she slid her pussy over my cock and wrapped her legs around me and we fucked, semi suspended and testing our strength.

We were vigorous and still the bed did not shake, it seemed as though it was made for this, what we were doing. The fucking continued and we remained steadfast, as if we continued to hold on, powered only be lust. We continued, to hold on, to fuck on, it simply was nothing we could not handle. Our fucking continued, as did the strength in our arms. 

Eventually after building up we reached a climax together our voices spoke no words, but there was no denying what we both meant. Yvonne unwrapped her legs and brought herself to stand onto the bed. I moved myself backward and let go of the bar and brought myself downward.

We then laid down on the bed, exhausted but contently, perfectly. Our urges had been satisfied, and now another, that of sleep was in need of satisfying. We were still lying there in the afterglow of sex with sweat still glistening off our naked bodies we drifted away into deep sleep.

We both slept for some time, until my eyes slowly opened and I was awake. I sat up and look toward Yvonne, still beside me, looking as gorgeous as ever still fast asleep. I looked upon feeling content and truly happy for the first time. I slowly and quietly got off the bed and made my way outside just as I was earlier that day.

I walked outside, clutching a cigar and lit up going through all the notions. I took a puff and exhaled the smoke. I sat myself down on a chair outside and looked out upon the beach and ocean just ahead. I looked around me, at the sky above, toward the pool, the chaise lounge and beyond. All that had happened in Mauritius, first meeting Yvonne in Buenos Aires, then again in Hong Kong. I still felt the need to pinch myself, it was unbelievable.

I saw her first on TV, then movies, then videogames, and I have seen her in bed. I felt something, for her, something more than lust. I was in love, I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her by my side. Whether she would want to do the same, I do not know. 

I continued to puff on a cigar contemplating all that happened and what to do, what to say. I felt that if there was a time to say something, it would certainly be right now. The time had arrived, Yvonne made her presence known.

"Hey you, how are you doing?" Yvonne asked me.

"I'm doing great, Yvonne, did you enjoy last night?" I replied as Yvonne, still naked, sat down beside me. 

"Oh yes, I enjoyed last night and to forget about this morning," Yvonne answered with a kiss.

"I'm glad, Yvonne, there is something I need to ask you?" I tentatively enquired.

"Bill, I think I know what it is you would like to ask," Yvonne responded.

"After all that has happened, I fell hard in love, with you. Simply put would . . . you . . . marry me?" I asked.

Yvonne leaned in and we shared a deep kiss, passionate slow and long.

Yvonne then responded, "Yes, of course, I will marry you, I've fallen for you as well and I love you."

"I love you too Yvonne," I replied.

(After the wedding.)

Once we found ourselves husband and wife, we found ourselves, happy contented and in love just a little more every day.

We returned to each location, where we first met, all the way to where we declared our love for one another.

As we stood on the beach in Mauritius, in front of the same hotel and same room.

"This is where it was."

"Yes, Bill, where our love blossomed, my husband."

"This where, I asked you to be my wife."

"To that question there was only once answer I could give to you."

We then turned our attention to the ocean with our hands held together and our love strong.



Unexpected Ch. 03



"She knows what you used to do?"

"No sense in her finding out by accident sometime in the future, Pete. Just think how different it would have been if everyone had known about Sarah's past," Crystal replied.

"I suppose you've got a point there, Crystal. But I should imagine you're going to get some funny reactions if you tell everybody."

"Oh, we don't intend to tell everyone; just folks who need to know and that we can trust," Marie-Lise assured me.

"That's fine. I'm cool with that. You girls do what you think best," I replied, trying not to sound sceptical.

Well, Crystal passed her CRB check with no problems and she settled down to her job at the nursery; within weeks she had started night school classes at the local college as well. 

I think some folks wondered what was going on a bit; what with Anna disappearing and then Crystal moving in a couple of months later. There were a few funny looks to start with, from some of the neighbours, but no one actually said anything.

Although Crystal did catch the eye of some of my friends, who I'm pretty convinced were under the impression that Crystal was a little more than a lodger to me. Strangely she was; Crystal soon became like a sister to me. But I could read the lecherous thoughts in some of the guys' minds, from the look in their eyes when she was about.

I'd hear from John and Helen every now and again, but they had no news of Anna; I think they called to reassure me that they were still actively looking, but I had no idea what they were doing. 

I think about six months had passed since Anna's disappearance when I found Frank Stevens knocking on my door one Sunday morning.

"Pete, I've got something I want you and Crystal to look at here." he said, waving the folder he was carrying in front of my eyes.

I led him into the kitchen where Crystal was cooking breakfast. To my surprise he gave Crystal a hug and she asked him if he'd eaten yet.

"No, I've been up all bloody night going through CCTV recordings; you know that there was some trouble in town Friday. Well, we've pulled all the surveillance videos in town and I'm one of the poor buggers who's been trawling through them all bleeding night. Anyway you wouldn't believe who I think I might have spotted. I want you two to see if you agree with me.

Sitting down at the table Frank opened the file and pushed a rather poor quality photo towards me.

"Could that possibly be who I suspect it is?" he asked.

I stared at the fuzzy picture; Crystal came around the table to look over my shoulder.

"Oh, my god!" Crystal exclaimed. "I think it is, Frank. Have you got any more?"

Frank shoved a couple more rather iffy pictures towards us, obviously stills taken from the surveillance tapes and all of extremely poor quality.

To my mind the woman in the fuzzy pictures could have been anyone, but Crystal swore that it was Anna or Sarah as she still called her.

"It could be her," I agreed, "but these pictures are so blurred, it could be anyone."

"They are clearer on the tapes, although even they aren't too clever; the damned tapes have been reused so many times. I didn't have time to make any copies; I wanted to see what you two thought. But if you and Crystal want to come down the station and look at them, we can go as soon as you're ready."

Frank called his wife and told her that he still wasn't coming home, because he was gong back to the police station to show Crystal and me the tapes. A very patient and understanding woman, Margery Stevens 

Then the three of us set off for the Nick. I followed Frank into the car park and as we walked to the building he spoke to me.

"From the time-codes on the tapes at the railway station, it looks like Anna turned up on the two o'clock train. I spotted her on a couple of other tapes as she walked into town, trying to stay off the main road as much as she could, by the way. Then she hung around in the High Road for a couple of hours, mostly pretending to look in shop windows and the like, but I'd say she was watching the entrance to your office. Pete, I'm damned sure that she was waiting for you to come out from work, probably to make sure you were all right. What time did you leave work on Friday?"

"I knocked off early, so that I could be nosy and wander up to see what was going on at the bank. Couldn't get near the place because your boys had it cordoned off after the robbery. I think it must have been about four o'clock," I replied.

"Yeah, well, that fits perfectly. The woman on those tapes returned to the railway station just after five P.M. Pete, I think that she was checking to see if you were all right and I'm convinced that it was Anna or to be precise Sarah Sharp."

"So she's alive and moving about of her own free will. Assuming that it is her, that is; I want to see those tapes before I'm convinced," I replied.

"It's Sarah, believe me!" Crystal chipped in.

Frank led us through the security door and up into one of the offices, where several officers were sitting around staring at video screens, whilst surrounded by piles of videotapes. It looked to me like the poor buggers were going through each tape one individual frame at a time. Frank saw me staring at them.

"There's a couple of guys that we're interested in. We spotted them hanging around town on tapes taken Friday morning. Now we're trawling the rest of the tapes to see where they went and what they were doing. With luck we'll find a couple of good pictures of them somewhere. It was a fluke that one of the guys spotted Sarah coming out of the station, then he tracked her from there," Frank said, as he removed several tapes from the apparently chaotic piles.

The three of us sat in front of one of the spare monitors and Frank put one of the tapes in the machine. He fast-forwarded the tape to a time that he read from the one of the pictures he'd shown Crystal and myself earlier.

"That's definitely Sarah!" Crystal said the moment that the woman appeared on the screen. "And I'll bet that's her red wig. I'm surprised she's still got it."

"Damn, that's why the railway people didn't remember her. We were asking about a brunette," Frank said.

"The ticket collector mentioned a redhead woman," one of the other officers said obviously overhearing what Crystal had said.

"I wonder whether he remembers where her ticket was from," Frank mused.

"Only one way to find out," the other officer said, "ask him!" Then he threw a notepad in Frank's direction. "Use his home number; he's off today."

Whilst all this discussion was going on Crystal and I were watching Anna slowly walk out of the station. I could see what had attracted Frank or whomever it was who first noticed her attention; she was looking around obviously trying to spot anyone who might know her before they recognised her. I doubt she thought that the police would be trawling through these tapes.

Frank showed us several other sections of tape with Anna on them; in one she promptly did a u-turn and dived into a shop doorway when Marie-Lise walked passed by. Just for a second as she turned, she looked directly at the camera and I got a really good look at her face

"Well, that clinches it," I said to Frank, "that's definitely Anna. But how you spotted her with that hairdo, I'll never know."

I had found it surprising, because except for that one shot where Anna looked at the camera, the pictures weren't that good and Frank Stevens had never met Anna in the flesh; he'd only seen pictures of her.

"I'll be honest with you, Pete, I didn't." Frank admitted. "One of the guys spotted the strange way she was behaving. Even if it was well after the robbery, it drew his interest. I only caught sight of that bit of tape there, where your friend, Marie-Lise, came along the road and I had a hunch. Now let's see if this railway bloke remembers where she came from."

Frank picked up a telephone and called the ticket collector. There followed a long conversation, with Frank saying things like, "Are you sure?" "There's no chance that you kept the ticket, is there?" and finally "Thanks, we'll do that."

"Damn, he can't remember," Frank said as he put the telephone down. "But he suggested we talk to the people at Paddington. He said with red hair like that, someone is bound to have seen her if she got on the train there. Look, Pete, I'll have to ask the railway police to ask about her up there. Leave it with me for the time being. Oh and I'll let the Carpenters have copies of this lot as soon as I can; perhaps John can work some of his magic."

-----------------------

Later that same afternoon, John Carpenter called to inform me that he'd heard from Frank. John told me that he was intending to send Bert up to Paddington Station on the Monday to nose about a bit. Apparently Bert had a friend (an ex-colleague) in the Transport Police who spent a lot of his time at Paddington.

It was the middle of the week before I heard from John Carpenter again. Bert had learnt that one of the station staff at Paddington had spotted Anna. Apparently because she'd gone into the Ladies toilets a striking blond, and then came out again, a raving redhead. It sounded like Anna had caught the guy's eye and he had probably been watching her - perving her most likely I thought – when Anna had done her swift change act so the guy had gotten really curious and followed her until she got onto the train that brought her down to our town. 

The guy spotted Anna doing the reverse transformation later in the day and that time he followed her again until she left the station in a taxi. The guy was pretty well convinced that he'd heard Anna ask the taxi driver to take her to Victoria Coach Station. Unfortunately there the trail ran cold. No one at Victoria Coach Station remembered seeing her and from there, of course, Anna could have boarded a bus to anywhere in the country.

A couple of days later John called me again to tell me that Bert had tracked down the taxi driver who had driven Anna from Paddington to Victoria. She had apparently discarded the blond wig in the cab, but only after she was well away from the Paddington area. The driver had talked to her, as London cabbies are prone to doing. He had gathered that Anna had been very worried about being seen in the Paddington area. Not surprising really, as it wasn't far from Nielson's old stomping ground.

Once clear of Paddington Anna apparently got quite chatty with the taxi driver and told him she'd just been to see her husband, but apparently didn't enlarge any further. Although the driver asked her, she didn't tell him where she was headed, or why.

The trail had gone cold after that and, after my initial excitement that we might be getting somewhere in the hunt for Anna, I began to get depressed again. Although I was pretty sure that she was safe now and was hiding out of the fear that Nielson would find her. There was no way for us to tell her that Nielson was no longer around.

Over the next couple of weeks, Crystal, Marie-Lise and Barry took to disappearing on Sunday mornings for a few hours. I found out later that they were prowling around Crystal's old stamping ground looking for any old friends of Anna's that they could find, just generally putting the message about that Nielson was out of the picture. But they said from what they heard, someone - probably the Hennessys' people - had beaten them to it. They also heard that all of the Hennessys' people had been asked to keep their eyes open for Anna. And apparently that's where the break came from. 

Helen Carpenter turned up at the house one day and said that she thought they had found Anna. Or at least had a good idea of where she could be working. It was one of Hennessys' guys who'd suddenly realised that it could have been Anna he saw get off the National Express Coach he'd been travelling on. There was no explanation for the month or so delay in him telling anyone.

A quick check of the dates showed it had been on the evening that Anna had been dropped off at Victoria Coach Station; so the odds were that it could well be her! The most important point was that she got off the Coach near a large country club; there was nowhere else near by that she could have been going to.

Helen wanted Crystal to go with her to talk to Anna.

"I'm coming as well!" I said a little surprised that Helen hadn't come to collect me.

"No, I'm afraid you're not, Peter!" Helen said. "Look, we are assuming that Anna ran away because she thought Nielson was on her trail. But I'm sorry we have to think of all the scenarios. Could it be that Anna ran away from you?"

"You've got to be kidding…" I replied angrily.

"No, don't get me wrong, Peter. I don't mean that Anna ran away from you in the sense that she was frightened of you. What I'm trying to say is, did Anna run away because she couldn't face having you find out about her past! It could be that she is very embarrassed about what she has done in the past and just couldn't face the idea of you knowing about it. She obviously loves you because she came here the other week just to look at you from a distance."

"Then I can tell her that I don't care what she's…."

"It's not that easy, Peter. It has to be Anna's choice. Please you must let Crystal and me go to see her alone. We'll talk to her and tell her that she's safe from Nielson; that you love her and are waiting patiently for her to come home. It's for the best, Peter, believe me!"

At this point Barry and Marie-Lise turned up; whether they'd been called by Helen earlier or not, I don't know. Whatever, they persuaded me to let the girls go to find Anna without me. Marie-Lise joined Helen and Crystal for the trip, while Barry stayed with me at the house.

The girls had only been gone about five minutes when Barry turned to me.

"Well, what are you going to do - sit here or go after them?" he asked.

"We'd never catch them now if we tried. They're long gone," I replied.

"Yeah, but I think know where they're going. What d'ya say?"

I looked at Barry quizzically.

"Ah well, Helen Carpenter left her road atlas open on the seat of her car and I just happened to look in the window. There was a pencil mark around a certain place, I think I've a pretty good idea where she's going, I went to a golf tournament there once."

I grabbed my jacket and we both raced out of the house. There's one thing about Barry that I‘ve never been too enamoured with. When Marie isn't in the car he drives like a bleeding nutcase, but that day I wasn't complaining; although I did wonder if I was going to be alive to see the next morning.

It took us just over an hour to catch the girls up. Barry slowed down and held right back once we saw Helen Carpenter's BMW in the distance. A couple of times we slowed right down until they were out of sight.

"You know maybe this wasn't such a good idea," Barry suddenly said. "Marie-Lise is going to kill me when she finds out we've followed them."

"You could be right but what's done is done. Anyway they're turning off so we must be there." I replied, seeing Helen's indicator coming on.

"We are, that's why I'm getting worried. Look, if I remember correctly, there's a pub about a mile further on. I think we should go there and wait a while, then I'll call Marie-Lise on her mobile and ask her what's going on."

"You're driving, Barry, but I think it's a good idea to wait a little while and give the girls time to break the ice. Head for the pub."

-----------------------

"Take it easy, Pete. That's your third bloody pint," Barry said as he returned to the bar after calling Marie-Lise. He couldn't get a signal on his mobile inside the old pub's stone building.

"What did she say?" I demanded, taking no notice of Barry's comment about the beer.

"Well, I'm in deep shit with Marie and they are on there way here."

"But what did they say about Anna?"

"Nothing. Marie just tore me a new arsehole and told me to wait for them here. She said they would be here in a few minutes," Barry replied.

"But surely they said something. Did they find Anna at the Country Club?"

"I'm sorry, Pete. Marie wouldn't tell me anything. She just said we were to wait here until they got here. Oh and we'd better go into the other bar, Marie made a point of asking me to find somewhere quiet."

Barry and I moved into the deserted lounge bar. I can't say I was particularly happy with the move because I couldn't see the car park from there. I'd almost finished my third pint when Helen and Marie-Lise walked into the bar.

"I thought you were supposed to stay back at the house?" Helen commented.

"Yeah, well, I got impatient so there was a change of plan. Did you find her? Is she at the Country Club?" 

Helen shook her head. "Not anymore. She's in the garden through that door over there waiting to talk to you."

I left the rest of my pint on the bar and headed for the French doors that led into the pub garden. I saw Crystal and Anna sitting on a bench at the end of the garden. As I got close both of them stood up, Anna just stood there with a worried look on her face, whilst Crystal walked towards me.

"Just remember that she loves you!" Crystal said as she gave me a quick kiss on the cheek in passing, then she made her way into the bar.

I walked up to Anna and stopped a couple of feet from her. I wanted to take her in my arms and hold her but for some reason I didn't.

She raised her eyes to look into mine. "I'm sorry!" Anna said.

"I'm not. I've found you again and that's all that matters. Now tell me does my wife still love me and is she coming home with me?"

"You really don't care what I am!"

"Anna, if I cared about what you once were, do you really think I'd be here? Yesterday's gone Anna, and tomorrow is another day."

We kind-of fell into each other's arms and then….

Life goes on.