I woke early. At this time of the year it is getting bright around 4:30 and I had not slept well. What had started out as a good day two days ago had developed into a bit of a nightmare all due to an impulsive act involving me in something that wasn’t really my business. On top of that, I had possibly endangered Janet, and maybe my family. I hadn’t called home yet and was a little surprised that they hadn’t made contact with me. I would do it later; first things first. Keeping the lights off, I looked out through my venetian blinds at the roads that were visible from my windows but saw no lurking hitmen or surveillance cars. There was no surface carparking in my field of vision so anyone trying to keep my apartment under surveillance would have been readily obvious. I could not see the underground carpark entrance which was at the back of the apartment block, but would not be exiting that way in any event.

I felt that I had complied with the Detective Inspectors request in that I had remained home for the rest of the day yesterday. I suspected that the DI would rather that I’d checked in with her before leaving my apartment, but reckoned that I’d be back there before she had her first cup of coffee in the Police Station. I quickly packed my small laptop rucksack with my iPad, Janets pistol along with her two ten round magazines and a box of 50 rounds. I put my own pistol into the inside pocket of a light summer jacket, loaded but not racked, with my spare magazine in the left outside pocket. The first inbound train was passing my nearest station at 05:40 so I slipped out the front door of my apartment block at 05:25 and walked quickly to the station; nothing unusual about this, just another commuter heading for an early start in the big smoke. Reaching the station I backed into a corner, pretending to be half-asleep leaning back against the wall, and scanning the platform, my neck and face wrapped up in a scarf, as if against the morning chill. There were very few commuters, none looking suspicious, at least to me. Just to be sure, I got off the train after two stops; no one else got off this inbound train. I got on the next one and texted Janet.

“Chez vous 30 mnts”.

Her thumbs up reply came almost instantly; she wasn’t sleeping either.

I took a tram from the station to a stop near her apartment, got off, stopped to see if I recognised anyone following me, then walked to her apartment block taking a circuitous route. I let myself in, took the elevator to her floor and knocked gently on her door. She let me in: Black rimmed eyes testified to a bad night. She locked the door after me, fastening the security chain as well. I pulled her into a long hug, then sent her to have her shower while I got breakfast. I knocked on her bedroom door when I heard the shower stop and brought her a mug of freshly brewed coffee as she dried herself off.

“Why’d you knock? It’s not like we’re strangers.”

“Just didn’t want to give you a fright, not this morning… breakfast ready in five, ok?”

She took the coffee, sipped it, and nodded. I gave her a kiss on the forehead and headed back to the kitchen to finish the two omelettes that I’d prepared. She came into the living area just as they were being plated and about to be placed into the oven to keep warm. We ate together in relative silence, not even bothering to turn on the radio for the morning news. Eventually I spoke:

“I’ve brought your pistol, some mags, and a box of ammo.”

“Do you think I’m going to need it?”

“No; just nice to have around for a few days. The mags are expanded to ten rounds.”

“Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.”

She got up, went to the bedroom and returned in a few minutes with a shoulder bag. She tried the pistol in it. It fitted, just about; the Victory is a range pistol, not really suited as a concealed carry gun, but it was the best we had.

“You going back to yours?”

I nodded.

“At least until that DI contacts me again; she’s supposed to be checking if there’s a contract, or whatever they call it here, on me.”

Janet gave an involuntary shudder.

“It doesn’t seem real; more like we’ve just been dropped into a movie.”

“I’m sorry, really sorry, I’ve dropped you in this.”

“Not your fault, and nothing we can do about it now.”

“Suppose not; will you be OK here?”

She hesitated for a minute.

“Yes; but don’t you think that you should move out of yours? They probably know your name, and it’s not hard to find out where someone lives now. You could move in here.”

“Thanks, but that would put you right in the frame. I’ll stay in my place for a while and see how the police call it”.

“You said it yourself, you’re just waiting for someone to take a shot at you and hoping that they’ll miss.”

“I’ll stay put for a while. I’m more protected than they think; they won’t expect me to have a pistol.”

“They might if they follow you to the range.”

“They’d stand out like a blue rhinoceros.”

That I was very sure of. The range was down a country lane, with nothing else around. Anyone following me there would be more than obvious.

“Any client meetings?”

I was hoping that Janet would have some reason to leave her apartment during the day. Staying in too long is not good for either mind or body.

“Not until tomorrow.”

“OK, we’ll talk tonight so?”

She nodded. Another long hug and I was gone. I stopped in the hall outside her apartment door for a minute and could hear her locking the door, fitting the security chain and a thump as something was pushed against the door. I was starting to get more worried about her wellbeing than the Kingstons following me.

The morning rush hour was over by the time I was back on the streets. I walked around a bit checking for a “tail” before eventually getting the tram to the train station and heading for home. Again, nobody appeared to be following me from the train station or around my apartment block so I decided that it was safe to get my car, drive to the local supermarket and buy some food. Just as I was heading back to my apartment the DI rang. I answered on hands-free.

“Hi, Jos here.”

“Jos, DI Jones here. Can you talk? Are you driving?”

“Yeah, hands-free.”

“I thought you were staying at home?”

She sounded a bit like a teacher talking to her pupil.

“That was yesterday; today I needed some food.”

She obviously decided not to have an argument with me so got straight to business.

“Well, the good news is that there’s no word yet that there’s a contract out on you. The bad news on the street is that it’s only a matter of time before there is one. The Kingstons will be furious that their man was caught and will want to make a point.”

“So, what do I do?”

“Nothing yet; we’re looking at options. In the meantime, we’re asking the local police to step up both uniformed and under-cover patrolling around your apartment area.”

“How’ll I know that your undercover people aren’t the bad guys?”

“I’ll get you a number so you can call the local police station if you see anything suspicious. If it’s one of theirs, they can tell you.”

“Thanks; one other thing. My building has security cameras on each landing, the perimeter, front door, garage and garage door. It’s monitored by Active Watch. Could I get access to this so I can check around before leaving or coming to the block?”

Our condominium management company had installed this security monitoring system almost as soon as the building was occupied and had outsourced the surveillance to Active Watch as we had no permanent concierge on site.

“I can try; there’s GDPR and all that stuff to consider.”

GDPR, the General Data Protection Regulation, had become the goto excuse for anyone trying to be uncooperative.

“HMLL trumps GDPR.”

“HMLL; what’s that?”

“Help Me Live Longer.”

“Look, I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, just be cautious. It’s probably too soon for anything to happen.”

I hoped she was right. I wondered about Janet.

“Have you heard anything about Ms Rabbit?”

“Sorry about that; it was a slip of the tongue. No; I think she’s in the clear.”

“Don’t worry about the name; after all she started it. Are you going to ring her? She needs to hear it from you.”

I felt that any messages passed to Janet through me might just seem like friendly reassurance.

“I’ll do that. Speaking of Ms Murphy, and your disguise… am I correct in assuming that that wasn’t your first time? I don’t want to be nosey, but you carried it off very well.”

Of course I did; I’d had five months of intermittent practice.

“You’re not nosey, and you’re right. Jesse is my alter ego. Why do you ask?”

“It just might work to your advantage, but right now I’m not sure how.”

“OK. You won’t forget to ring Janet?”

“No; I’ll call her now.”

“Thanks.”

I rang off; I was almost back at my apartment. I looped around the block, saw nothing, and drove into the underground garage and parked. As I was getting my shopping out of the car, my neighbour from across the hall came out the door heading off to work. An on-site engineer, he normally did his emails and admin in the morning before heading off on site, thus missing the rush hour.

“Hi Jos; did you get my note? Nice job on that guy.”

“Thanks Tom, I got the note. Please, say nothing to anyone; it’s very important.”

His bonhomie disappeared in an instance. Being a smart chap, he got the point immediately.

“Oh, shit! I never though. Are you OK?”

I gathered from his reaction that he’d probably already been telling his friends that I was his neighbour.

“Yes, and I’d like to keep it that way. We don’t want any visitors. Speaking of which, if you see anyone strange, can you call me?”

“Sure, I will. Stay safe!”

He climbed into his truck and pulled off. I gathered up my shopping and rode the elevator to my apartment. Once in, a quick check out the windows, nothing to see. My phone rang; Janet.

“Hi Ms Rabbit.”

“Oh yeah; she apologised for that. She just rang; I’m still in the clear.”

“Great; she told me that. Will you go out tonight with the girls?”

I wanted to get her to leave the apartment; she needed to get out.

“Yes; I’ll send them a mail. Would Jesse like to join us?”

I’d never thought of that. It would probably be a good idea to get some fun time in before things moved on to a more serious threat level.

“Hmmm, not a bad idea; what you have in mind?”

“Just a few drinks; I’ve a client meeting tomorrow. Probably the Palace Bar around 9pm.”

“OK; I’ve just bought some lamb shanks which I was going to freeze. I’ll cook them in the slow cooker and bring them over to yours around 6pm if that suits.”

“Great; see you then.”

Given that she was bringing me out for the night, and I’d be staying over, I thought I could do dinner. I like to cook, but first things first; I rang my parents. My mother answered:

“Are you all right? We didn’t want to ring in case you were hiding somewhere!”

I had briefly worked in Africa and had been given a security course. One of the things not to do is to call someone who might be hiding from an active shooter and I’d warned my parents not to call me if they heard of any security situation on the news, I would call them. They had obviously erroneously transposed this advice to the current situation which explained why I hadn’t heard from them.

“Sorry, I should have called you. I was just busy with the fallout. When did you hear?”

“Well, your Aunt Mary called this morning. We hadn’t heard about all the fuss until she told us.”

That made sense. Neither of my parents bothered much with social media although they were around the Facebook generation. The farm would be very busy at this time of the year with milking getting into full swing.

“Look, I’m safe, but I have to be careful for a while….”

We chatted, and my father came in on the call for a few minutes. They were concerned, although they tried to hide it. They wanted me to come back to the farm for a few weeks where the remote location, the dogs and the shotguns would provide a significant level of security but the very remoteness would mean that I couldn’t work as the broadband reception was inadequate. Besides, it would put them in harm’s way as well. I declined on the basis that the threat was minimal; I wasn’t sure that they believed me. Eventually I got off the call by promising a daily text or call, and that I’d come back to the farm if the threat escalated.

I seared and sealed the lamb shanks on a hot pan and put them in the slow-cooker with shallots, garlic and red wine, I would add carrots later, and finally got down to work.

My solicitor client had emailed: In view of the circumstances, he did not consider it appropriate that I continue to provide services to his firm. Scumbag! I computed my hours, added €1,000 for the inconvenience and breach of our non-existant verbal contract and sent him an invoice. I was sure he’d pay just to keep everything quiet. It also suited me not to have any further work in the criminal legal system; too big a chance of being seen by the bad guys. I worked until 5pm, stopping only at 2pm to add the carrots to the slow-cooker and have a snack of corn and sardine with a small glass of (boxed) dry white wine. Then, a check out the window, nothing there, so I got my overnight bag, put the slow-cooker into a cardboard box in the boot of my car, and drove off towards town. At this time, I would be going against the traffic, and a hot slow-cooker with lamb shanks is hard to manage on a train and tram!

I drove sedately out of the mixed estate of houses and apartment blocks and turned onto the inbound motorway. I would only take this for a few kilometres before turning off towards town. I kept a careful eye in the mirror going onto the motorway. There I put the boot down until I got to the exit, weaving through the lanes of traffic, and then turning off. A grey Ford Mondeo had been with me, at some distance, all the way. Heading towards town, I went right around a roundabout, acting as if lost by indicating to go off and then correcting myself, ending up behind the Mondeo and getting its number, before continuing on my way. It also looped around the roundabout and continued after me. I used the speed dial to call DS White; he answered almost immediately.

“Hi, DS White, Jos McNamara here. I’m on the N32 inbound and being followed by a grey Mondeo, Reg ABC123D.”

“OK; how’d you spot him?”

“Stood out like a parson in a brothel; not one of their smartest thugs.”

He sighed, sounding really pissed off.

“You’re OK; it’s Detective Byrne. We sent him out until the local police took over tonight.”

Shit! Clouseau. I had definitely trodden on their toes now… time to try to make amends…

“Ah, he probably wasn’t trying to stay covert so. Thanks for the escort; I’m heading to Janet’s place for the night.”

“Try to get some sleep!”

He must be remembering Janet’s description of our last night in her apartment.

“Janet and Jesse are going to meet some girls in the Palace Bar for a drink around 9pm. It won’t be a late night so if Detective Byrne is happy that I’m not being tailed by someone else we’re OK for the night.”

“Ah yes, Jesse. DI Jones told me about her. Have fun.”

“Thanks; we’ll try.”

I continued into town and towards Janet’s apartment block. I had some time to spare so I drove around a few loops to check if I had a second tail; I wasn’t confident of Clouseau’s ability to detect one. Not seeing anything, I drove into her block and parked in her underground space. As usual, she’d already moved her car into a visitor’s space to ensure that I’d somewhere to park. I looped the handles of my overnight bag over my arm, picked up the cardboard box with the slow-cooker, rode the elevator to her floor and rang her doorbell; with arms full I couldn’t manage the keys. The chain came off and the door opened; good, no couch blocking the door this time. Janet looked a lot better; she had just showered and her hair was drying naturally in a tousle of curls and waves falling down onto her shoulders. I put the slow-cooker down on the kitchen worktop and pulled her into a long hug and kiss.

“You’re looking great!”

“You’ll be looking good soon, once I’ve finished with you!”

I plugged in the slow-cooker to ensure the lamb was hot while Janet prepared some cous-cous. As it was mid-week, and we were going out later, we restricted ourselves to a small glass of arak, our preferred drink with lamb. Then we got to work. I showered and shaved, face, legs, underarms. This was easy as it was just a top-up. I had long since learned to ignore the sometimes curious stares of some guys in the gym at my lack of body hair. Over my knickers I carefully slipped my legs into a pair of M&S Rose Quartz 10 Denier tights which Janet had left on the bed and a lace, underwired long line bra. I popped in my breast forms, pulled on a robe and sat at the vanity to wait for Janet to dry my hair. This time it was more like a tutorial. She showed me how to towel-dry my hair and add product to give it volume and a natural appearance as it fell in curls onto my shoulders. She was doing us up as a matching pair. As my hair was drying naturally she started on a make-up tutorial; moisturiser, foundation, under eye concealer, eye shadow, mascara, eyebrow pencil and lipstick.

“And now for the pièce de resistance. I was keeping this for your birthday.”

She reached her hand into the wardrobe and pulled out a short, shift dress which was, in effect, a mass of gold sequins. She helped me into the dress and zipped it up. I looked at myself in the mirror; I was delighted at the effect. The dress hung perfectly, coming down to mid-thigh, shimmering as I moved.

“You’ll have no problem picking up a man tonight!”

Janet was looking over my shoulder, leaning in against me. I turned and went to kiss her; she put a finger on my nose.

“Lipstick, remember.”

“What’s my chances of picking up a lovely, sexy woman?”

“Great if she’s a lesbian.”

“Well, that moron on the street yesterday thought we were even though he didn’t appear to approve of us!”

“Come on, watch me doing my makeup… keep learning…”

I sat on the bed and watched Janet intently. We hadn’t discussed this yet, but instinctively we both knew that Jesse was going to have to learn to stand on her own two high heels and that she was going to become a very important part of my, hopefully long, future. Janet talked me through her makeup application, explaining what she was doing and where I would need to do it differently. Eventually, about 8:30pm, both ready, we decided to get a taxi to the Palace Bar. I carried my pistol in a totally unmatching bag; Janet had bought me one to match the dress, but fashion sometimes has to take second place.

The taxi dropped us three minutes away from the bar so we walked the rest of the way, slowly, in our heels. I found that I was enjoying the looks we were getting from passing men, some open, some surreptitious, all admiring. Funny, I’d never envisioned myself with a man, always seeing myself as a man playing a role, so why was I enjoying their attention? Janet’s friends hadn’t arrived so we grabbed one of the booths surrounding a large open floor used sometimes for dancing, other times just as a circulation space, ordered drinks and waited. Tonight I was on mocktails; drinking a lot of alcohol while carrying a gun is simply stupid. I did feel that Janet needed to have a few and, within the limitations of her meeting schedule tomorrow, let her hair down. Her two friends arrived soon afterwards; air kisses all ‘round.

Men and women seem to hunt in pairs so, as a group of four girls, we weren’t approached in our booth by any aspiring Lotharios. Anyway, it was mid-week and most of the patrons were, like us, probably working the next morning so the hunting season was deferred to the weekend. Janet’s friends, Louise and Grainne, knew me only as Jesse and were not fully sure of exactly what Jesse was all about, knowing only that she and Janet were FWB. For that matter, I was equally unsure about Jesse, although I liked having her around, and so did Janet. Leaving all that uncertainty aside, we were just out for a few drinks. We chatted for a while; Louise was sitting on the inside of the booth, opposite me, and looking outwards.

“Don’t look now, but I think there’s two guys eying us up.”

“What?”

Janet and I both had a brief moment of panic and the same reaction.

“Only two? That’s disappointing after spending all that time getting ready. What do they look like?”

Grainne, thankfully hadn’t noticed our discomfort.

“A bit nerdy, one tall, gangly, looks like his mother just let him out for the night, the other a bit older, eying up every woman in the place.”

I looked at Janet:

“Maybe Clouseau and a friend? I’ll check. If I walk away it’s him”

I slid out of the booth, collected my bag as if going to the Ladies’ room, turned around and saw Clouseau and a friend both looking at me. I ignored them and walked off to the Ladies’. As I rounded the bar I saw Clouseau’s friend slide out of his booth and start after me. I continued on, visited the Ladies’, came back out and there he was, loitering in the vicinity of the door. I moved quite close to him and whispered:

“Our friends have spotted you. Don’t follow me back too closely or they might ask too many questions.”

I walked back to our booth, swaying a little provocatively, and sat back in.

“I was just telling the girls how we met Clouseau on a client video call; bit of a coincidence he turns up here!”

Janet had invented a cover story in my absence. I nodded and sat down.

“Why’d you call him Clouseau?”

Louise’s question was reasonable in the circumstances; he didn’t remotely resemble Peter Sellers. I looked over at Janet and winked with my hidden eye.

“We figured after the call that he made as much sense as Clouseau did when he was talking to the accordion player and the monkey.”

Thankfully we moved on. The girls were planning their trip to Algarve and seemed to forget that I was an imposter and Janet’s sometime sex-partner. I didn’t mind; I was enthralled by their conversation about what they would wear going out at night, who was bringing what sexy dress, how to avoid sunburned boobs when sunbathing topless, whether to go the nudist section of the beach this year. I would have loved to be going, but as one of them, not just pretending to be.

We broke up around 11:30pm, more air kiss goodbyes with Louise and Grainne, and we walked along the street to the taxi rank. I noticed Clouseau and his friend following us at a discreet distance. Again, I decided to take the maximum enjoyment from being out on the street, all dressed up, and still being noticed. I was linking Janet; she was marginally tipsy as indeed was everyone on the street at that time, me and hopefully the following policemen excluded. We were almost at the cab rank when I felt my rear being fondled by a guy who passed close from behind and made off down a side alley just as quickly.

“That f***er just felt my ass!”

Janet sniggered.

“Get used to it, it happens! Good job he didn’t go for anywhere else.”

“Yeah; he’d have gotten some surprise. What do those creeps get out of it anyway?”

It was a rhetorical question. We got our cab after a short wait and were soon back at Janet’s. Once inside, I declined her offer of a G&T and persuaded her instead to have a glass of water and two paracetamol. She’d thank me in the morning.

“You enjoyed yourself tonight!?”

I wasn’t sure if it was a question or a statement.

“Yeah, I did. I like just being out with the girls.”

“As a girl?”

“Yes; do you find that strange?”

She paused for a minute to compose her answer. Definitely the water had been a good idea; I refilled her glass and handed it to her.

“No; I think I like it. I mean you just blend in… a bit of work on the voice and…”

I was sitting on her two-seater. She put a knee either side of me and sat on my lap. I reached my hands behind her, unzipped her dress and opened her bra. She lifted her hands into the air to let me take both off over her head, then leaned in and rubbed a boob across my face.

“Maybe Girlfriends With Benefits?”

I couldn’t reply; it is rude to talk with your mouth full!