27. A Car and Cameras

A Chapter by Peter Rogerson

A SUMMER UNDER THE SUN Part 27

The weekend arrived, and with it freedom from trailing the wife of bank manager Edward Girdler on behalf of Mr Spooks, who never seemed to want to leave his office if there was someone else available to go forth on his behalf.

The first thing that struck Darren and his unpaid co-spy was that Marion Girdler seemed to live an extremely odd double life because she seemed to leave her home as the grumpy wife of a bank manager, walk to an apparently unoccupied house to which she had a key, and change into a very different and considerably less modest outfit, to be picked up by someone in an expensive car, the number plate of which was subsequently found to indicate that it belonged to their Member of Parliament, Harry Grouch.

And Mr Spooks didn’t take long discovering that every time this happened there was evidence that the Member of Parliament was nowhere near Brumpton, but was clearly visible on television broadcasts from the House of Commons engaged in debates concerning vital national issues, particularly the morality of the population, which he was convinced needed restoring to the Victorian high of a century and a half earlier.

Yet his car was picking up the less than divine Miriam Girdler in her less severe form wearing skirts that a teenage prostitute would blush to be seen in and low-cut tops indicating she had no love of support garments of any description. She did, in all truth, look either like a matriarchal rather severe school-ma’am or a lady of the night caught on the streets in daylight depending on which side of the gate leading to a seemingly deserted house she was seen on.

“What you must do,” Mr Spooks had said before they packed up spying for him on that Friday for the weekend, “is next week see if you can take a picture of the driver of that car. Whoever it is needs to be identified so that I can report to Mr Girdler who his wife is seeing. And if he’s going to pay handsomely he’ll want to know considerable details of the assignations you witness. You might see if you can catch a picture of her kissing the driver, or up to some hanky panky-type tricks! Do you think you can handle it?”

Darren was quite certain that he could handle that sort of thing. “Child’s play,” he said, knowing that it most probably wasn’t.

Saturday was spent sitting out on the Sagebrush back garden, enjoying the sun (it was one of the better years, weather-wise) with him keeping an eye on the hem of her skirt and she teasing him by edging it up slightly every time she moved. It wasn’t a game to Darren who found his shorts misbehaving in response to her subtleties, but it was to Jennifer, who noticed. But in addition to such frivolities, they had serious matters to discuss.

“What do you think she’s up to?” asked Darren.

“I’ve read about women like that,” replied Jennifer after a moment’s deep thought, “they live double lives, and the more restrictive one life becomes the less controlled the other ends up becoming.”

“So when she’s at home with her husband she’s a frumpy tartar and when she’s out with whoever drives the car she’s a tart,” said Darren. “I can see that, but why?”

“And if her husband’s debating the nation’s morality in London, who’s driving his car in Brumpton?” asked Jennifer.

“We need to find out,” declared Darren.

“Yes, but how? The car’s got those windows that look to be blacked out. You can’t see through them.”

“But if we managed to take a picture from in front rather than behind or sideways on, we might stand a chance of seeing who’s behind the wheel,” he said, “windscreens aren’t so blacked out, and it’s always parked in the same place, a few houses down from where she morphs into a tart in what looks like an empty house.”

“There’s an old and rather large tree growing on the grass verge,” reminded Jennifer, “we could hide behind that and sneak pictures without being seen. And when we’ve done that, I could borrow dad’s car and we could follow them. I passed my test months ago, and dad won’t mind if I think of a sufficiently important reason why I need it. To do with school work, I’ll say. To do with one of the poets, because I’m studying the romantics of the nineteenth century. To do with Byron, that’s who, because he was here, there and everywhere half his life, when he wasn’t dying in Greece. I’ll think of a really important reason for me to investigate a hitherto unknown feature of his life! Maybe s forgotten portrait or something like that. Not too far away, or dad would use the word trains, and not close enough to walk there. I can talk him into it, just you wait and see.”

Darren grinned at her, which provoked at least another inch of thigh to materialise below the hem of a skirt that had almost vanished from sight. “If it works,” he said, “it’s the best idea ever. I’d forgotten you could drive. I’m going to take lessons when I can afford it.”

So plans were hatched and Jennifer took her father’s car on a test drive (with him in the passenger seat) so he could be quite sure that even though she had passed her driving test and her driving was recorded as being up to Her Majesty’s standard, she wasn’t likely to cause any scratches to appear on his car’s paintwork. And he was happy. He said so. He even suggested that she had a very grown-up touch, which was his way of saying she wasn’t like one of the ditzy teenagers that roared everywhere in stolen cars on Friday nights. Brumpton was a peaceful little town, but it did have a silly and even criminal young element that was lubricated into action by alcohol, usually on Friday nights.

“We’re all set,” Jennifer told him on Sunday afternoon, “dad’s not using his car tomorrow and I can borrow it to go on a search for a rare portrait of Byron on display in Swanspottle Museum!”

“You’re magic,” sighed Darren.

“Come up to my room, love, and I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” she giggled.

“Yours and my what?” he stammered.

“Cameras,” she said, “you fetch your camera and we’ll see which takes the best pictures. We’ll need something a bit better than a phone, not matter how smart it is. What did you think I meant?”

“Oh, I wasn’t sure,” he murmured.

“Then that’s sorted. You get your camera and we’ll go up to my room and see who can take the best pictures. We might use both, actually. Let’s make this a really effective plan and catch the woman actually doing whatever it is she does. It might give you some ideas! I’m feeling excited already.”