Contents

       Title Page

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       Chapter Ten

       Chapter Eleven

       Chapter Twelve

       Chapter Thirteen

       Chapter Fourteen

       About the Author

       Also by Timothy Lea and Rosie Dixon

       Copyright

       About the Publisher

       CHAPTER ONE

      If I am going to be honest with myself – and I do try to be, most of the time – I must confess that the idea of joining the Women’s Royal Army Corps only seriously occurs to me when the police arrest Reginald Parkinson – alias Nicholas Bendon, Justin Cartwright, Benedict Jollybags and Jeremy Rafelsen-Bigg – I never do find out what his real name is.

      Regular readers will recall that he is the boss of Climax Tours and that my friend Penny Green and myself have been at full stretch all over the Continent – and the incontinent, sometimes – wrestling with the many problems that arise when you are in charge of a package tour party.

      Penny says that she is not surprised to find the police waiting at the bottom of the fire escape when we flee from the Climax London office which is being besieged by angry clients wanting their money back (see Confessions from a Package Tour for enthralling details) and I suppose, of late, I have begun to entertain suspicions that all is not well with the running of the Climax operation. When a company has so many different headings on its notepaper and is run from a suitcase packed with wads of banknotes and deposited in new accommodation every week it is difficult to think of it as having quite that permanence and dependability which are the hallmarks of great British commercial institutions.

      What does surprise me is the violence that is resorted to at the bottom of the fire escape. No sooner have Reggy and his colleague, William Nostromo ‘Nosher’ Bustard – alias Count Sergio di Ponsi – thrown the bulging suitcase into the Jag and started to scramble after it – very bad manners not to have waited for Penny and myself – than a policeman steps out of the shadows.

      ‘Leonard Arthur Brown,’ he says, ‘I have a warrant for your arrest. Anything you say will be taken down –’

      ‘Knickers!’ snarls my employer.

      I don’t know if that is what gives the constable who grabs me the idea, but his hand goes up underneath my skirt in a very arresting fashion. Perhaps he is attached to the squad that breaks up pop festivals. Anyway, it is a most disquieting experience. Especially as I haven’t done anything.

      ‘Let me go!’ I say, struggling to remove the man’s hand from the rim of my panties. ‘This is an outrage! I’ll write to my MP!’

      ‘You can write to Jimmy Young about it for all I care,’ says the coarse copper man handling me – and how – towards a police car.

      One thing that the awful experience does reveal to me is that policemen carry two truncheons. I can feel both of them pressing against me at various stages of my ordeal. Interesting, isn’t it? I suppose they carry a spare one for emergencies or for serious riots when they have to whip them both out and wade in swinging. I would like to ask about it but I am so angry with the beast who has interfered with my underwear that I preserve a stony silence all the way to the station. Penny is travelling with me and Reggy and Nosher are in a second car with six policemen – about half the number it took to overcome them. Honestly, I have not seen such violent goings on since Dad came back unexpectedly and found my younger sister Natalie and one of her disgusting boyfriends practising limbo dancing – well, that is what they said they were doing. I have my own view of why they were half naked and underneath the dining-room table.

      ‘What’s going to happen to us?’ says Penny. ‘We’re just employees, you know.’

      The policeman shrugs. ‘I don’t know. You’ll have to ask the Super. He’s the one who’ll decide whether you’re going to be charged.’

      ‘Is that the distinguished looking man with an air of the young Gary Cooper?’ says Penny. ‘The one with the dinky little silver clasps on his shoulders?’

      The policeman looks as surprised as I am. The man I recall as being in charge of the operation was overweight and had an air of the young Martin Borman. ‘Er – I don’t know,’ says the constable. ‘You’ll find out soon enough, I expect.’

      No more is said before we get to the station but Penny turns and gives me a big wink. I wonder what she is up to?

      When we arrive at what Penny persists in calling ‘fuzzville’ we are separated and put in cells. At least it is not one big cage full of junkies and tarts like you see in American films but it is still pretty awful. The thought of what the neighbours would think if they could see me fills me with horror. And as for Mum and Dad –! The shock might kill them. I am still trembling when I hear the sound of a key turning and the cell door opens. It is the Superintendent who made the arrest. He is carrying his hat under his arm and it looks as if he has just combed his fast receding hair. He peers behind him carefully and comes into the cell, closing the hatch over the peephole before he does so. It may be my imagination but his state of discomfiture seems to match my own.

      ‘Hum,’ he says, ‘It’s funny but my name is Gary.’

      For a moment I can’t think what he means. Why should he think it necessary to visit my cell and impart this information?

      ‘Gary Nuttley.’

      I am on the point of saying that from the look of his hairline I thought it might be Gary Baldy but I control myself. I seldom think of the police as having a highly developed sense of humour. Especially these days when they have so much on their minds.

      The man clearly senses my bewilderment. ‘Not Gary Cooper,’ he says with an uncomfortable laugh that breaks in the middle.

      Then it comes to me. Someone must have told him what Penny said and he has got the two of us confused. ‘Oh no,’ I say. ‘It wasn’t –’, I am about to say that it was not me who thought that he looked like Gary Cooper and then I decide against it. There is no point in risking antagonising the man. Quite the reverse, in fact. ‘It wasn’t that which made me hesitate,’ I say. ‘It was – er your uniform. It’s very becoming, isn’t it?’

      Superintendent Nuttley looks down at the stained worsted as if seeing it for the first time. ‘Yes,’ he says after a pause. ‘I suppose it is really. Quite manly.’ There is a moment’s uncomfortable silence and then he clears his throat and rubs his hands together briskly. ‘This is a bad business,’ he says.

      ‘You mean, the Police Force?’ I say. ‘Oh, I am sorry. The advertisements speak very highly of it. Rewarding and –’