“She hasn’t said anything interesting on her mobile since we started listening in. Why would she try to use it at the most critical juncture in the operation?”

The Technical Sergeant had a point. Either Nadya was totally innocent of being involved in nefarious activity, or she and her compatriots were real professionals.

“Well, if I can give her sufficient reason to need to contact her friends, she might just be tempted to break the rules. And we don’t want that; we need her to bring your guys to them.”

“OK, we can block her mobile.”

Supt. Smyth leaned back in his chair.

“And just what reason are you going to give to make her need to contact the shooters?”

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

“Tom is going to fall over when you turn up like that.”

“As long as he doesn’t fall for me.”

“Not likely with Nadya around.”

Jacinta and I were getting ready in the safe house for our night out with Tom and Nadya. We had turned down his suggestion that we take a taxi from the apartment block with him on the basis that we would be coming from a friend’s house. Unsurprisingly, to us at least, Nadya was also travelling directly there.

Jacinta was wearing a blue dress which went really well with her blond hair. I had an almost-to-the-knee A-line green dress and a dark green jacket. As a compromise between style and functionality, we were both wearing kitten heels and our Walters were hidden in our clutch bags. Dangler earrings and discreet makeup completed the look. It was nice to be going out as Jesse again. Jacinta slipped her hand under my skirt and up along my thigh; I playfully slapped it away.

“All that’s for the celebration after.”

She did a pretend pout:

“I wonder what Nadya will wear?”

“I’d say she’ll be toned down; she won’t want to be noticed.”

The taxi driver was almost too dishevelled to be believable. About thirty, stubbled, wearing a casual jacket over torn jeans, I wouldn’t have gotten into his cab had I not known that he was one of Supt. Smyth’s team.

“Where to?” he joked in a broad Fordtown accent.

“Piss off.”

Jacinta’s nerves were showing; he changed tone immediately.

“Look, we’ll be all over the place. You’ll be OK.”

“Sorry; pre-show nerves; thanks.”

I reached over and took her hand. I was probably even more nervous, just better at hiding it.

We arrived early in order to get the best seats around the table where we could watch the room and the doors. The booking was in Jacinta’s name; had Jos made the booking we would be doing Hamlet without the prince. The place was already reasonably full of couples and foursomes; this was costing the police department a fortune as we knew that eight of the diners were Jacinta’s colleagues. They even had bottles of wine on the tables; a room full of abstainers would not look right.

We were shown to the table, deliberately chosen to allow us both to sit with our backs half against the wall and with a view of both the entrance and the kitchen door. The corridor leading to the toilets was out of our field of vision, but was covered by one of the other tables. We ordered Erdinger Zeros; pretend to get tipsy, stay real sober.

Tom arrived before Nadya and was shown to the table. Jacinta stood up and introduced herself as Jos’ girlfriend. He shook her hand and looked uncomprehendingly at me. I stood up, extended my hand;

“Hi Tom, I’m your neighbour, Jesse.”

He shook my hand and stayed standing, staring. I gestured to him to sit down; he just sat, tried to speak, failed, tried again, failed again.

“I’ll explain when Nadya gets here, otherwise I’ll have to go over it all again. Great idea to meet like this; yours or hers?”

I needed to get him talking; the poor man was still in shock.

“Her’s.”

We needed to get beyond monosyllabic.

“Where did you guys meet?”

He explained that they’d met at a club; they’d started chatting at the bar when her date had stood her up. Apparently she had had to leave Russia when some of her friends had been arrested for anti-war agitation and was looking for a role in marketing. He became animated when he talked about her; poor guy was going to get some surprise.

Nadya arrived and was shown to the table. As expected, she was toned down, in a simple black calve-length dress. Tom stood up and kissed her before introducing first Jacinta, then me…

“… and this is our neighbour…”

“For tonight, Jesse.”

I stood up and shook her proffered hand. I looked straight into her eyes and smiled; her mouth smiled in return, her eyes did not. We sat down.

“Now you’re both here, time for an explanation. Nadya, I don’t know if Tom told you that I had a run in with some bad guys? (she nodded). Well, we think that that’s all over now, but I do this as a disguise when we’re letting our hair down, just in case.”

“Why you think it all over now?”

“It’s like this Nadya, the bad guys (I lowered my voice), the Kingstons, (back to normal tone) are too broke to pay for a hit and most of their heavies are locked up.”

“How you know they no money?”

I loved her accent and slightly imperfect English; in another world Jacinta and I could have had fun with her.

“Apparently a Balkan gang offered to do the job but wanted money up front. They couldn’t deliver.”

A complete lie, of course, but she wouldn’t know that.

“You very brave. You like dress as girl?”

“Except when guys try to pick me up; Jesse is strictly lesbian.”

She looked at Jacinta.

“And you no mind?”

Jacinta smiled:

“Oh, I can be lesbian as well.”

Tom was getting red. He was rescued by the waiter arriving with menus and the usual spiel about tonight’s specials. We listened and spent a few minutes perusing the menu before resuming our conversation. This time we stayed away from our sexual preferences and quizzed Nadya a bit about her anti-war activities. She was vague, explaining that it would be dangerous for her to say too much as some of her friends had not gotten out yet.

The waiter returned and we put in our orders, both Jacinta and I opting for fish, Tom for steak and Nadya for slow-cooked lamb shank. Tom ordered a bottle of red; we explained that, as we’d been drinking already in our friends’ house, we would just have a glass of white wine each. It would be too risky to abstain fully; Tom was aware of my partiality to a good bottle and we wanted everything to look as normal as possible.

Orders in, Nadya excused herself and went to the ladies. A female diner from one of the other tables followed her in. We chatted with Tom, mainly about his work as an on-site engineer for a housing construction company. Not great at small talk, he needed to be focussed on something that genuinely interested him in order to become animated. Nadya returned from the ladies’ room, sat down and casually asked Tom:

“You have phone signal?”

He looked at his phone, shook his head. We checked ours; no signal either.

The waiter returned with the wine: I asked him about the signal.

“Apparently a network problem Ma’am, the whole locality is down.”

Unfortunately, it had been necessary to block all ‘phones: To just block Nadya would have been too obvious. I turned to Jacinta:

“How will we get our taxi back?”

“The restaurant will have a landline.”

“Yeah, but if he’s in this area, he won’t have a mobile signal either.”

“Hopefully they’ll fix it before we finish.”

Our chatter had two purposes; to appear mildly concerned about the outage and to let Nadya know, if she hadn’t already realised it, that her accomplices were also incommunicado if they were in the area. Our meals arrived and conversation slowed for a minute as we savoured the food, then Tom, more at ease now with some wine taken, broke the silence.

“Still shooting, Jos, I mean Jesse?”

“Don’t worry about the name Tom, and yes, I still shoot a bit.”

“What you shoot?”

I hadn’t expected Nadya to display an obvious interest in firearms.

“Smith & Wesson Victory mostly, I’ve tried others and might change it later this year?”

“No, I mean you shoot animals?”

Either I had genuinely misunderstood her or she had reconsidered and decided not to display any knowledge of guns.

“No, not animals, targets only. I like animals alive.”

The conversation moved on and by the time our main courses were finished Jacinta and Nadya were talking about the best hairdressers and beauty salons in Fordtown. Then Nadya caught Tom’s arm.

“Sorry Tom, must go. Expecting call, need signal. You stay. See you later in apartment?”

Tom looked surprised, but nodded. She kissed him and left quickly. Behind her back, one of the female diners reached into her handbag, fiddled around for a minute, then put it back on the floor.

We stayed for another half an hour as the place slowly emptied then, deserts finished, I looked over at our sole remaining guardian table and noticed a brown leather handbag left on the table itself. It looked incongruous, a clutch bag maybe, not a big bag like that. Time to go. We paid, Tom insisted on sharing the cost, and stood up to leave. I checked my ‘phone; signal back, so I called our driver. As we were going to the same apartment block, naturally Tom was invited to share the ride. As we were walking to the door, the male diner got up from the guardian table and approached Tom.

“Tom, isn’t it?”

Tom, taken unawares, nodded. Jacinta interjected.

“Tom, we’ll get the taxi and hold it until you come out.”

Before Tom had time to demur, the man caught his arm.

“You’re the engineer on the South Bank project? I’m with the QS team…”

We disappeared out of earshot leaving Tom to be temporarily detained by the undercover policeman, stepped out the door, turned right and walked about ten paces. There were very few people in view. A car door opened, a man stepped out and faced us, raised a revolver and fired twice. Jacinta gave a very realistic scream as I fell to the ground, then she dropped down beside me and broke a sachet of fake blood against the front of my dress. Tom and the “QS” came running out; the “QS” pulled Tom back while his “wife” said “I’m a doctor” and knelt beside me.

“Call an ambulance, quick!”

Jacinta was very convincing. The “Doctor” responded:

“No time, we’ll use that taxi.”

It’s very hard to play almost dead when being lifted into the back of the taxi; there’s a tendency to try to help but I managed to pull it off. Jacinta, apparently with blood all over her hands, was in the front while the “Doctor” was in the back with me.

“You go home; I’ll see you there”,

she shouted to her “husband” as the taxi screeched off…

Of course, as witnesses, nobody could go home.

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

“One person has died following what police believe to have been a gangland shooting in Fordtown last night. The victim was rushed to Fordtown General Hospital but was pronounced dead on arrival. Police have not released the victim’s name for operational reasons but relatives have been informed.”

The hospital part had been the most difficult to organise as I had to lie still while I was rushed in, seen by a doctor, pronounced dead, covered over and removed immediately to the state forensic lab. Only the doctor was officially in on the ruse but I suspected that the senior casualty nurse and maybe others had also been briefed by him.

Jacinta, as would be expected, was driven immediately to my parents’ house (after she had cleaned off the blood!), to tell them that I was OK, but they were not to tell anyone as an operation was ongoing. This would look like her calling to announce my demise in the unlikely event that the house was being watched. We met up in the safe house when she returned.

“How’d it go?”

“They’ll kill you for real when they see you again.”

“Yeah, it must be a shock for them to find out that the hunt was still going on.”

“That, but more importantly, you brought a real, serving, policewoman into their house.”

“But you never found the still.”

“They were curious though.”

“About what?”

“That we were sleeping together; was that more than just work. Of course I said “yes”.

I went to give her a hug; she pushed me back.

“Not with that bloody dress on!”

As the blood had dried, and I was thinking of going to bed to catch some sleep, I hadn’t changed.

“Any word from the Superintendent?”

“Nadya’s playing ball, or should I say Katerina. She doesn’t fancy doing ten years here for conspiracy, then being extradited to whoever looks for her next. Funny, when she does her time, she’ll have to go into witness protection.”

“And the hit squad?”

“Two. Staring at the wall, not a word.”

“Ex-military or intelligence so?”

“Probably, we don’t even know who they are yet. It doesn’t matter; Katerina is the contact with the Kingstons. She has already confessed to that, and will cooperate with getting them to meet her to handover the cash.”

“Cash? Not Crypto?”

“They said that they were best able to provide Euro. Probably because they can’t provide either; they’re lucky that we’ve got the Away Team locked up.”

“When? Are you in on that part of the operation?”

“Soon, a day or two, and no, I’m out other than babysitting you.”

It was now almost midday and we hadn’t slept in over thirty hours. We fell into bed, and were quickly asleep.

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

The next two days were an anti-climax. Adrenaline is a potent drug and I’d definitely OD’ed over the past year, and especially the last three days. I woke on the first day at about 6pm after around 6 hours sleep; Jacinta was still asleep and I just wrapped myself around her and lay there until she was awake. Eventually we got up, dressed and wandered downstairs to look for some food. The housekeeper had finished for the day so one of the security team headed off to the local Indian takeaway. He returned with the food and some cans of beer; normally alcohol was not a feature of the establishment but he figured we needed a few. We stayed up and chatted with the guys on duty until about 12 midnight, went back to bed and slept again until morning. We woke early, feeling much better and much more attentive to each other before eventually joining the team for breakfast. They had already changed over and Annette was on the incoming team. As Jacinta and I were now openly together she gave us a coquettish little smile and asked how we’d slept.

Time was dragging. I didn’t have either my mobile or my iPad so I couldn’t do any work or even idle browsing. To have used either could have betrayed the fact that Katerina’s assertion that it was me who was dead was not exactly true. Not having the money, the Kingstons refused to pay, saying that they wanted to see me buried first. Me not being partial to this, the police decided to proceed on the evidence they had to hand, which was substantial.

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

“Police have arrested the Kingston Brothers, George and David, on serious charges including attempted murder. It is believed that they were involved in an attempted assassination of a witness last Thursday but that this assassination was foiled and an elaborate sting operation subsequently netted the two notorious crime lords. Police sources have refused to confirm or deny these reports saying only that they have arrested two men in their forties on serious charges and they are expected to appear in the Fordtown Criminal Courts later today.”

“Will we go?”

I wanted to look at these two scumbags who had caused me so much trouble for nearly a year. Jacinta shook her head.

“Too provocative; anyway, the press would have a field day. And Katrina would definitely recognise Jesse and maybe try to say something to us.”

“Let’s go home so.”

We got into Jacinta’s car and she drove back to my apartment. We were silent for a while, both conscious that this was the end of an era. Eventually, she remarked;

“I reckon they’ll be taking this car back soon. It’s too grand for a mere Detective Constable.”

“And I suppose they’ll be taking my Detective Constable away soon as well, given that I’m no longer the quarry in the Kingstons’ hunt.”

“’Suppose so; I’ll probably hear tomorrow.”

“Jacinta?”

“Yes?”

“Would you like to stay?”

She turned the car off the main throughfare into a small housing estate and pulled over. She reached over and enveloped me in a hug.

“Yes.”

We held on to each other for a few minutes until a car beeped its horn; we were blocking the relatively narrow laneway. She extricated herself and drove away.

We eventually arrived at our apartment block and drove into the garage. Tom’s truck was parked in its usual space, right beside my own space. We took our bags and pressed the lift button. Eventually the doors opened and Tom walked out; he looked at me, blanched, rolled his eyes and I just dropped my bag in time to catch him before he fell.

“He’s fallen for me; I have that effect on men.”

“Shit; no one’s told him you’re still alive!”

We lowered him to the ground and he slowly came around. It was like when he’d first met Jesse, trying to speak, but words failing him.

“Sorry Tom, it was all a ruse. The Kingstons had to believe I was dead.”

“You knew about Nadya?”

I nodded.

“Her name’s Katerina. She’ll be appearing in court today with the Kingstons. She’ll get off light; turned state’s evidence.”

This would come out in court today anyway so no point in not telling him. He made to get up so we helped him to his feet.

“Some bitch; she really fooled me!”

“Come on, we’ll bring you back up to your apartment; you’re not safe to drive now for an hour or so.”

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

I texted Janet:

Fox, 2; Hounds, 0. Hunt terminated on basis of abandonment of traditional outcome.

She texted back:

Can I call over this evening, catch up?

I showed this to Jacinta; she nodded. I texted back:

We’d love that; we’ll get dinner. See you then.

I thought it a diplomatic way to let her know that Jacinta was still there; she probably knew that anyway from a previous conversation.

I called home. My father was on the tractor; I could hear the loud ticking over of the engine when he answered.

“Are you OK? Was that piece in the news this morning about you?”

“I’m OK and yes, it was about me. Where are you?”

“I’m at the bottom end; one of the cows calved early and I’m bringing the calf back with me in the transport box. The mother is following on. Here, can’t you hear her?”

He knocked off the tractor and yes, the cow was mooing urgently and the calf was bleating back.

“You best get going; call me when you’re in the house.”

He called back in about half an hour; cows and calves cannot be rushed. I had just taken a large lasagne that I’d cooked the previous week from the freezer and was defrosting it in the microwave; not ideal but it would work. Jacinta was squashing some garlic to prepare some garlic bread. She had already opened a nice Italian red.

My mother was with him.

“Are you sure all this is over now? You thought that before when you came back.”

“Yes, I’m sure. They’ve caught the ringleaders so the whole gang will fall apart now. We’ll call down this coming weekend if that’s OK?”

“Of course it’s OK; any time.”

“I’ll need to catch up on some work for the next few days so I’ll leave it until then. We’ll be there around 12 mid-day.”

“You’re not going shooting first so?”

“No, we’ll come directly down. We’ll show you some of how I stayed hidden when I was away; wouldn’t be suitable for the range.”

“Grand so; we’ll see you then.”

I rang off; Jacinta looked at me:

“You’re not?”

I nodded.

“Best start to let them know now. It’s going to come out in court anyway.”

She leaned her head against me.

“Let’s hope it goes well. There’s the dogs, and the shotguns…”

“Just don’t let slip that you’re mainly lesbian, or they’ll think that you’re the cause!”

Janet arrived at the station just before 6:45pm. I had walked to meet her train, just 4 minutes away on foot. This was my first time walking anywhere unescorted since I’d arrived back from Lisbon; it felt strange and I instinctively kept my hand on my SIG buried in my coat pocket. I did remember to let go of it to receive the hug and kiss I received when she saw me at the station. She held on to my left arm as we strolled back to the apartment.

“You sure Jacinta’s OK with me calling around?”

“Of course; we’ve all got pasts and sometimes presents as well.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t mind me; Jacinta is not likely to get jealous of you if that’s what you mean. She may even be attracted to you.”

“Oh!”

“Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”

We arrived at the apartment and Jacinta greeted Janet with a hug, so the evening started off on a positive note. Janet did notice me taking the SIG from my coat and slipping it into the holster attached to the underside of the table.

“Still not over?”

“Habit at this stage. I suppose we’ll wind down slowly. Anyway, Jacinta’s still in the business of catching crooks so she’ll stay armed. You still shooting the S&W?”

“Yeah, I mostly keep it at the range now.”

When I was holding onto Janet’s pistol for her, she had a key to my apartment. That arrangement would not work now and she didn’t expect it to be continued.

We enjoyed the meal and shared some of the facts around what I was beginning to call the Fordtown Hunt. Janet knew that I’d lived as Jesse when away; I had facetimed her occasionally. We told her that we knew that the hunt was still on when I’d returned.

“So that’s why you told me to stay away?”

“Yes; it would have been too dangerous.”

With the court case months away, we could not tell her much about my apparent death and the denouement of the operation but promised to give her chapter and verse once the case was over. The last train was at 11.10pm and this time we both walked her to the station; she kissed us both goodbye.

“She is nice”, Jacinta remarked as we strolled back. “You’ve a good eye for women.”

I gave her a slap on the backside.

“Definitely!”

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

The rest of the week was hectic as I tried frantically to catch up with work and Jacinta prepared to revert to normal work with the Witness Protection team. Although not as convenient as her former home station, that work was generally routine and predictable with only occasional future travel to set up a refuge or visit a protectee to be anticipated. She had to give back her Audi and revert to a standard unmarked car. It mightn’t be for long; she was considering leaving the police and retraining in Cyber Security.

Saturday morning arrived and I was almost floated from the bed by the butterflies in my stomach. After our standard light breakfast we showered and I shaved my legs particularly carefully. My face was not too bad; a few more electrolysis sessions would see my beard gone completely, if painfully. Jacinta towel dried my hair and worked some Moroccan Curl through it to leave a cascade of curls falling over my shoulders. I carefully did my eyes, eyeliner, eye shadow, some concealer underneath the eyes to hide the dark circles which had not yet faded. Day cream, foundation, lip pencil and lipstick finished what was supposed to be an understated but sophisticated look. I wore my dangler earrings; they made me feel more feminine as I felt them move around. Time to get dressed. Jacinta fastened up my longline bra and tweaked my nipples before popping in two breast forms. I donned cotton gloves to pull up my heavy blue tights; I had put on my nails last night and wanted to protect them as much as the tights. I put on my brown, kitten-heeled ankle boots before standing up and slipping on a cream blouse, relatively plain except for a long, pointed collar and three-button cuffs. Finally I buttoned up a sleeveless denim dress, length between mid-thigh and the knee, made sure the blouse collar came out over its plain V-neck, put on my necklace, and looked in the mirror. It took a bit of work, but Jesse was looking well today.

Jacinta was in her farm uniform, long boots, tight jeans, a cream polo-neck and a suede waistcoat matching her boots. Our colour schemes were very close, almost a matching pair. We even both had over-the-shoulder bags, fortunately not too similar; we didn’t feel safe without our SIGs yet. We looked at each other; I took a deep breath:

“OK, time to go.”

We picked up our overnight bags and coats; Jacinta would drive as I hadn’t gotten around to buying a car yet. Out of habit, or caution, she did some anti-pursuit manoeuvres but we spotted nothing of concern and were pulling into the farmyard by 11:45. The dogs formed up to receive us; they didn’t know this car.

“Will I chance it? Will they remember me?”

Jacinta was rightly nervous.

“Open the door slightly and call them.”

She partially opened the door:

“Satan, Lucifier, Macki, good dogs, I hope.”

Like soldiers dropping their rifles from the challenge position, the three dogs relaxed and came to her door, tails wagging. She opened the door fully to give each a rub.

“Who’s Macki?”

“Machiavelli, but that was too long for calling him.”

I had climbed out to be greeted in turn by three slobbery jaws and tongues before the dogs turned to do what dogs generally do, sniff the car, pee on the wheels, come back for another rub, the usual dog stuff. My parents appeared at the door; they must have been looking out the window and wondering where I was. Leaving our stuff in the car, except for our shoulder- bags, we both walked towards the house. Jacinta spoke first:

“Hi, we’re just spending some time with the reception committee.”

My turn.

“Hi Ma, Hi Da.”

They both looked very confused.

“Remember, I did say that I’d show you how I managed to hide away….”

“Jesus Jos, is that you?”

My father sounded incredulous.

“Yep, me, though I don’t use the Jesus part normally.”

“Come in, come in, quick.”

My mother couldn’t get me into the house fast enough.

“It’s OK, the dogs recognised me immediately. They’re not bothered.”

My mother disappeared into the house, my father stepped aside to let us in. Out of habit I stepped back to let Jacinta in before me.

“Don’t do that, it blows your cover…. a man thing.”

I went in first and she followed.

My mother was very obviously busying herself in the kitchen; Jacinta sat down to chat with my father and I went to help my mother. She was cooking beef sirloin with roast potatoes and vegetables. The meat was resting so I poured some juices from the roasting tray into a separator jug and put it standing on an ice block while I measured out some Bisto and opened a bottle of red wine, a nice Spanish Rioja. I noticed that Jacinta and my father were pouring cans of draught Guinness into pint glasses; she wasn’t normally a Guiness drinker, but had figured that this was the only beer in the house.

“Hi, Jacinta, can you pour one for me and a sweet sherry?”

My mother didn’t object so I thought she was persuadable. I poured out four glasses of wine, from a height to aerate it as the bottle was being opened late, and kept some for the gravy. The fat was now separating from the meat juices so I could pour off the juices, mix the Bisto, add the wine and start to slowly heat the mix to make the gravy. Eventually my mother spoke:

“Did you really dress like that when you were away?”

“Yes, I lived as a girl for the whole time. And it was an important part of how we trapped the Kingstons.”

“I don’t know how you ever got involved with that lot: There’s been nothing but trouble since.”

“Well, if I’d known what would happen, I’d probably never have tripped the gunman when he shot that witness. I didn’t even know that someone had been shot.”

“Well, now that we’ve seen you, are you going to change before dinner?”

“Well, other than this dress, I’ve only my work clothes for feeding the cattle tomorrow.”

I was mimicking her speech pattern, not out of malice; I was trying to establish some rapport. We had a strict rule that work clothes could not be worn into the kitchen: Farming is a healthy life, but bugs and bacteria abound in the farm environment.

“Huh, stir a bit faster; that gravy will go lumpy.”

Progress; she was talking about something else. Jacinta brought the sherry into the cooking area; my mother took it from her and took a sip. Another good sign; she would not have accepted the sherry if she wasn’t mellowing.

Everything was ready and she started to carve the meat and put it on a well-warmed platter. I poured hot gravy over this and put it on the table. While I was pouring the rest of the gravy into a sauce boat my mother had the roast potatoes and vegetables tipped into a warm bowl and on the table. I took the four plates from the oven and we were ready to go. It was a meal we could serve up in seconds in our sleep.

We all sat at the table and tucked in; saying grace was not in out tradition, even though my parents were churchgoing folk. My father was already relaxed; he liked Jacinta and she knew how to manage him. My mother was thawing, though dinner did have its moments.

“And Jacinta, what did you think when you met him all dressed up?”

This wasn’t the time to stand on ceremony about pronouns!

“It was good to have a girlfriend to wander around town with. Jesse and I had a great time.”

“Jesse?”

“I couldn’t use Jos now, could I?”

My mother hadn’t expected that answer and Jacinta had very skilfully introduced my girl-name.

My father hadn’t spoken for a few minutes and I looked over at him. He was looking at me, not staring, almost in a daze.

“Hi Da, you OK?”

He shook his head, waking from his reverie.

“Sorry; I was just thinking that you look like your mother when we met. Over thirty years ago now, you know.”

My mother looked at me, at him, reached over and took his hand:

“She does, you know.”