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CHAPTER 3
 
“A man is following you. He’s armed, and he may be under orders to kill you.”

I feel my whole body go rigid. I’ve heard that voice before, and not so very long ago...

“Twenty Marlboro and a box of Swan Vestas, please.”

Much too posh. And they’re just ‘Swans’, for goodness sake.

“Have you such a thing as a pocket comb?”

Still sounds like I usually send the maid out for stuff like that. Try again.

“D’you stop anywhere near Fratton station?”

Better. Only just, though.

“How long do I have to wait at Southampton before the Newcastle train is due to leave?”

New-carsul? I don’t think so somehow.

The lift arrives at the ground floor, bringing my impromptu rehearsal to an end. The next time I use the lilting contralto and the middle-class suburban southern accent I seem to have inherited along with Ruth’s vocal cords I’ll be talking to a real person. The masquerade will have begun in earnest.

As the door opens I keep tight hold of my shoulder bag to stop it swinging into my hip when I move. This is the kind of habit girls pick up when they’re still children, and here I am having to learn the tricks of the trade one by one.

I should have told Derek where to stick that package. I really should.

I’m a girl…

Come on, concentrate.

The clock above the entrance to the concierge’s office reads a few minutes to five. If the trains aren’t going to be running again until six — and it may be another hour on top of that before they’re back to normal — that means I can take things at a steady pace and avoid making any more stupid mistakes like the scene I created at The Hard. I’ve got enough on my plate as it is without attracting unwanted attention.

I negotiate the steps leading down to the pavement carefully, treating each one as a potential plaster cast. The rain has eased, though that doesn’t lessen the sheer magnitude of the task upon which I’m about to embark.

Or the sneaking suspicion that Ruth’s made it a little bit too easy for me to follow her…

Focus!

You only have to walk a couple of hundred yards, then you’ll have reached the newsagent’s. The bus stop is right next to it. What could be more straightforward?

It’s going to be a disaster. I fucking know it is.

After a few deep breaths I turn on my heels and begin the first stage of my journey. Clarendon Road being one of the busier thoroughfares that criss-cross Southsea’s residential sector, the stream of headlights from passing cars and vans is more or less constant. Each one of them seems to be deflected right at me, as though the studs on my jacket spelled out the phrase ‘NOT REALLY A GIRL’ for everyone to laugh at. Just as disconcerting, I’ve lost seven or eight inches in height; everything looks that much bigger and therefore that much more intimidating. Only the thought of that first glorious injection of nicotine keeps me plodding on.

A woman overtakes me. Until earlier today it would have been the other way around. What was once a rarity will now become the norm. Then I encounter a young couple; my instinct is to step aside and let the girl pass, but her boyfriend has already paid me that compliment. I sense their unconscious reactions to my momentary intrusion: he wonders what it would be like to have sex with me; she warns me off. Something else I’ll have to get used to.

But suppose a bloke makes a pass at me? I can’t tell everyone who comes out with a chat-up line to piss off and leave me alone. How do I defuse the situation rather than make it worse? What experience can I draw on?

The tally’s getting longer, Ruth. One way or another, I’m going to see that you pay it in full.

At last I’m in sight of the Strand roundabout, from where avenues lined with guest houses and student flats diverge with varying degrees of haste to the sea front. The exception is Waverley Road, which heads north towards Fratton; at the corner begins the small row of shops I’m aiming for.

Stop at the kerb. Look right, look left, look right again. Don’t forget you’re taking shorter steps, so it’s going to take you half as long again to reach the other side.

Made it!

Not far now.

Twenty Marlboro and a box of Swans, please.

Twenty Marlboro and a box of Swans, please.

Twenty Marlboro and a box of Swans, please.

Have a bit of faith in yourself, Rich. It’s not as if you’ll be delivering a soliloquy from King Lear in front of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Trying hard to ignore the relentless rise and fall of my bust, I push the newsagent’s door open. To my unbounded relief there are no other customers. The proprietor, a stocky figure close to retirement age with thinning white hair Brylcreemed back from his forehead, gives me a look of less than wholehearted approval. This may be due to the fact that my wet jeans and stringy locks suggest I’ve spent most of the afternoon lying in a ditch.

“What can I do for you, miss?”

Miss?

No one came in behind me, did they?

Ah...

“Oh, right...yeah, uh...twenty, um, twenty Marlboro...and a box of uh...that’s it, a box of Swans. Please.”

It’s a good job I’m not in a general dealer’s ordering next week’s groceries. He’d be dead and buried before I got to the end of the list.

The shopkeeper turns to the display cabinet, shaking his head.

“Sorry, I don’t think I’ve got any left.”

Shit! What now?

“Okay, let’s see...uh, Winstons?”

Down there on the right. You’ve gone past them, you stupid old git!

Finally he places my cigarettes and matches on his pile of unsold copies of the Portsmouth News.

“Sixty-seven, please.”

I fiddle inside my bag for my purse. Just as I’m picking out the first of the two 50p pieces I’ve decided to hand over, the strap slides down my arm. Within moments I’m presented with irrefutable empirical proof that when coins fall to the floor they will roll as far from their point of impact as the available space allows.

At this juncture any normal girl might be expected to apologise for her clumsiness with the assistance of a tried and trusted phrase such as ‘all fingers and thumbs’. It’s a fair bet that the words ‘fucking’, ‘bastard’ and ‘nuisance’ wouldn’t be the first and only ones to escape from her lips.

How many times must I have watched a woman rest her bag on the counter while she pays for her purchases? There are reasons why they do these things.

The transaction at an end — which is more than can be said for my embarrassment — I lurch outside, almost ripping the packet to pieces in my haste to tear off the cellophane wrapping and the silver foil separating me from my first drag for more than three hours. I pull one of the Winstons free, pop it in my mouth, strike a match, hold it to the tightly rolled tobacco, inhale and...

“Oh my God.”

The blood drains from my face as the bus shelter reels at an insane angle, carrying the rest of the world with it. I totter into the reinforced glass, coughing so fiercely it would come as no surprise to see my lungs fly through the air and splatter onto the wet flagstones.

Ruth doesn’t smoke. The craving must only be in my mind.

A disheveled individual wearing an old brown raincoat leers at me as he walks by.

“You might want to think about giving those up, love,” he grins.

“Fuck off,” I wheeze, sounding as healthy as an aged miner struggling to climb a steep hill with a sack of potatoes on his back.

“Charming,” the cheeky bastard chortles as he disappears around the corner.

I toss the cigarette into the gutter, but put the rest of the pack in my pocket. I’m determined to persevere with them, if only to make fun of Ruth after I’ve talked her into swapping back and she discovers she’s addicted to the dreaded weed. When she complains I’ll tell her she’s lucky I didn’t have a giant penis tattooed on her chest.

After the nausea has subsided I remember that I still haven’t bought a comb. I wander up to the chemist’s at the far end of the shopping parade, and freeze as my eyes alight on the poster in the window. It shows a dark-skinned young woman in a spotless white T-shirt and shorts heading a football into a conveniently empty net; the legend at the bottom reads SANITEX — BECAUSE LIFE DOESN’T STOP ONCE A MONTH.

Didn’t see that one coming, did you? There’s more to being female than sitting down to piss.

How long do periods last? What are the symptoms? And what the fuck do you actually do with a tampon?

I’m so caught up in the vision I’ve created of people staring and pointing at the blood seeping through the crotch of my jeans that I fail to notice the long, brightly lit vehicle with a destination panel on the front until it’s sped right past the bus stop.

All things taken into account, it hasn’t really been my day.

I elect to walk the mile and a half to Fratton station. The rain has stopped altogether, and the atmosphere is starting to feel less oppressive. I’m also a lot more comfortable with these boots than I’d have believed was possible — I’ve had to adopt a more inefficient gait with a pronounced sideways element due to the motion of my hips, but I no longer fear I’m about to topple into the gutter every time I step off the pavement.

Which won’t prevent me raiding the first shop I find tomorrow that’s open for the sale of training shoes.

The metrical click of my heels competes with the ever-present swish of traffic as I press on into a district I recall so well from my days as an undergraduate. To my right the building known as the Pink Pit, and the balcony just under the roof where Nicky Benson sunbathed nude throughout the scorching hot summer of ’76, her lovely auburn tresses cropped above her ears and combed into a boyish side parting. Further on, the square known as Wimbledon Park, scene of my reported death after I was found lying in a rose bush with no discernible pulse, my corpselike condition the outcome of an ill-advised wager concerning the Empress of India and its monthly supply of Prize Old Ale. On the other side of the road stands the vermin-infested cesspit I inhabited once I’d broken free from the confines of the Bembridge, subsisting for two full terms on ham and tinned tomato sandwiches, Scotch eggs, toast toppers and Robinson’s barley water.

Nicky Benson...

Three years at Portsmouth Polytechnic, and one lousy shag on a weekend field trip to Torquay was all I could notch on the bedpost. I only got that because the staff at the hotel, who’d thought to save money by putting us all in double rooms, had assumed Nicky was a boy’s name and saw nothing amiss in having Benson snuggle up beneath the same set of sheets as Brookbank. Nicky didn’t mind either, not when she found out that the alternative was sharing with Pam Wright, who according to her flatmates farted all night like an elephant force-fed on curried sprouts if she drank more than two halves of lager.

Naturally the other students weren’t slow to take full advantage of a situation the writers of a Brian Rix farce would have rejected as too far-fetched, hurriedly organising a stag do and a hen party in two separate pubs, then holding a mock ceremony back at the hotel culminating in a very much the worse for wear Richard Arthur Brookbank exchanging slurred vows with a similarly inebriated Nicolette Jane Benson, the latter sporting a bath towel as a bridal veil and leaning heavily on the best man’s arm while the groom made heroic efforts to slide a curtain ring onto one of the extra set of fingers his intended had suddenly grown.

Did our attendants overstep the mark by ensuring we collapsed on the bed in suitable states of undress and juxtaposition to consummate our not so holy union? In mitigation it could be argued that as they turned off the light and crept from the room not one of them foresaw that Nicky would guide her new ‘husband’ inside her and keep him there until his nuptial duties were fulfilled — a job I’m pleased to say I carried out to our mutual enjoyment, even though the following morning she insisted we tell everyone we’d gone straight to sleep. Yet if I continue to look back with some pride on the escapade that led to the loss of my virginity, it gives me less satisfaction to acknowledge that my one and only sexual conquest to date came about as the result of a clerical error.

Thank God and all the Saints in Heaven she can’t see me now.

At Albert Road traffic lights I look straight ahead as I wait for the signal to change. I do not permit my eyes to stray left, past the school playground to the Volunteer Arms, where on any other Friday evening I’d be downing a pint or six of HSB, playing a few games of darts or maybe a round of crib, then joining in the sing-song that usually breaks out if Gladys goes upstairs early enough. What was it last week, Pink Floyd’s ‘Bike’, complete with duck noises? Tonight we could try–

Leave it, Rich. No one in there can help you.

I trudge on, past a characterless succession of dull red-brick houses with rectangular bay windows fronted by concrete palisades, unkempt hedges and old wooden gates. It comes to an end at the corner of Campbell Road, which pulls me up with a start as I’d forgotten all about my flat. The landlord will be calling round on Monday for the rent, and if he doesn’t leave with some promises from the Bank of England’s Chief Cashier to add to his collection there’s every chance I’ll be returning from my confrontation with Ruth to find the lock changed and my possessions stuffed inside a bin bag on the landing. If one of the other tenants lets me into the building I can push a few fivers under the door — and while I’m there it might not hurt to ask whether they’ve seen the lad from the top floor since he left for work this morning.

“A man is following you. He’s armed, and he may be under orders to kill you.”

I feel my whole body go rigid. I’ve heard that voice before, and not so very long ago. I don’t need to turn my head to know that it belongs to the sentry who stopped me at Marlborough Gate.

Though it’s what he said that should give me greater cause for concern. I’ve been so preoccupied with not making a fool of myself I’d banished from my mind the idea that people might be looking for me — with a view to taking more drastic action than merely having a quiet word or two regarding the whereabouts of their device.

Push has most definitely come to shove, Rich. Let’s see exactly how good an actor you are.

“What d’you want me to do?” I ask with as much self-control as I can muster.

“There’s a Rover outside the Lawrence pub. Nice motor, very reliable too. Nothing wrong with the big end — if you get my drift.”

A hand in the small of my back prods me forward. Without its help I couldn’t have moved from that spot if molten lava had erupted through the pavement.

He knows who I am. He knows what happened to me.

For the second time in just four hours, everything has changed.
 
 

 
 
The car is parked on Clarence Esplanade facing west, about half-way between Southsea Castle and the war memorial. Out of the left-hand window, across four miles of black water, I can make out the cluster of lights indicating the town of Ryde on the Isle of Wight. Ahead of me, closer at hand but just as inaccessible, the gaudy illuminations of Clarence Pier amusement park perform their endless choreography. On the other side of the road lies Southsea Common, acre upon acre of unrelieved darkness.

The man behind the wheel is square-jawed and clean shaven. His heavy yet athletic frame is clothed in a denim jacket, a red-and-black hooped rugby shirt and brown corduroy trousers. His grey eyes are shrewd and worldly, his mouth perpetually caught in the beginning of a sardonic grin. He has me in his power, and he knows it; even if I managed to kick off my boots, with this physique I wouldn’t get more than a few yards before he caught up with me.

I am trapped, I am in danger and I am helpless.

I’m a girl, and I’m just beginning to realise what that can mean.

I open my mouth to speak, but think better of it. He has asked that I remain silent, and I have given him no reason to reiterate his request. Until he tells me who he really is, and what he wants from me, my questions must wait.

He finishes rifling through my purse, grunts and tosses it onto the back seat to join my shoulder bag. I note that he hasn’t pocketed any of the money.

“I need to search you,” he says. “Don’t worry, I won’t try and cop a feel. I know who’s in there, and it’s a real turn-off.”

I stiffen as his hands invade the pockets of my jeans, then explore the inside of my jacket. When I feel them brush the sides of my breasts I have to suppress the urge to lash out.

Things cannot get any worse.

“Not very good at this, are you?” he laughs, leaning back with only the key to Ruth’s flat to show for his efforts. “There isn’t a woman alive who’d go out and forget to take a comb. I thought she’d have trained you better than that, to be honest.”

Outrage battles my trepidation and wins a crushing victory.

“What? You think we were in it together? That I wanted to be turned into...into a...?”

“Two thousand quid, a nice gaff and a fresh start as a juicy bit of crumpet. Seems fairly conclusive from where I’m sitting.”

“Whoa! I’m not gay!”

“I didn’t say you were. Desperate, maybe. Enough to consider chancing your arm as a lesbo. Plenty of them around, if you know where to look. Course it wouldn’t appeal to me, I don’t care how much dosh she was willing to put on the table. Then again I’m not three months behind with the rent, and my bank manager isn’t writing to me every fortnight promising he’ll take legal action if I don’t pay off my overdraft by the end of the year.”

“You’ve been reading my fucking mail?”

“There’s a lot at stake. Sorry, but your privacy came very low on our list of priorities.”

I close my eyes, trying hard to collect my thoughts. Nothing about this business adds up. What am I missing? What connections has the stress of having been thrust into someone else’s body stopped me from making?

I’ve been on the blower to 20 Store, Mr Brookbank, and you’re free to proceed.

“You knew I was carrying that thing,” I spit at him. “You let me pick it up and walk out with it. Why take such a risk? If you suspected I was in league with Ruth, why didn’t you switch it for a couple of burned-out circuit boards or a few old valves? I’d still have led you to her.”

“Assuming that was the object of the exercise.”

The sound of pieces falling into place is loud enough to drown out the headline act at the Reading festival.

“You wanted her to have it, didn’t you? Jesus, it’s so bloody obvious now I think about it. Her real target is whoever she tries to swap with next. That’s why you allowed her to get away. Yeah, I bet you watched the whole fucking show. So come on, who is she? Where did she steal that device from? Who taught her how to operate it? What was it originally supposed to be for? Infiltrate the Red Army or what?”

He chuckles softly to himself.

“You seriously think I’m going to tell you? Richard Brookbank, master box opener of 20 Store? Do me a favour.”

“Listen, it’s me this has happened to, not you!” I protest. “I’m the one who’s suddenly got tits the size of melons. Don’t I have the right to know why?”

“You have the right to know precisely what I decide you need to know — and at this particular moment in time what you need to know is that for the last three minutes and forty-five seconds there’s been a stationary S-reg Cortina a hundred and twenty yards behind us. The driver is the man who was tailing you. If you look round I’ll break your arm.”

The pressure exerted by the hand gripping my wrist leaves me in no doubt that he means what he says.

“Okay,” I sigh. “You’re the boss.”

“Penny’s dropped, has it?” He starts the engine. “Right, let’s set about saving your worthless skin. Fasten your seat belt, ‘cause this might not be the smoothest ride you’ve ever had.”

“Where are we going?”

“I’m taking you to a facility about fifteen miles from here. After that you’ll be someone else’s problem, thank Christ.”

For the next few minutes the Highway Code might never have existed: taking Pier Road roundabout the wrong way; screeching into Kings Road against a red light; doubling back through a maze of side streets with as much regard for the one-way system as he has for the pedestrians shaking their fists at the reckless young lout who thinks he’s Portsmouth’s answer to James Hunt; swerving and splashing along St Andrews Road; tearing down another street, the speedometer touching fifty...

He can handle a car, I’ll give him that much.

We cross Lake Road and find ourselves in the high-rise wasteland to the north of the city centre.

“You must have shaken him off by now,” I say hopefully.

“Him, yes. But he’ll have radioed ahead.”

“There’s only two roads off Portsea Island. Suppose they’re watching them both?”

“Only two? Are you sure about that?”

Ninety seconds and one smashed barricade later we’re on the northbound carriageway of the as yet unfinished M275. For much of its length the road is raised above the shore of the harbour on stilts, so it feels like crossing a very long bridge. We’re cruising at a uniform speed with no sign of pursuit, and at last I start to relax — until the Rover hits the section still to be properly surfaced, enabling me to grasp the full meaning of the verb ‘to judder’.

The barrier on the slip road leading onto the M27 goes the way of its counterpart. A raucous fanfare of horns and hooters greets our unexpected entrance as we weave through the flow of vehicles rushing west towards Fareham and Southampton.

“I hope for your sake no one took your number back there,” I remark.

“It’s easily changed.”

The cunt’s got an answer for fucking everything.

He takes the first exit we come to, turning right to head away from the coast into what for me is uncharted territory. The darkness closes in after the first bend, broken only by tiny pinpricks of light shining from isolated farms and homesteads. My eyelids begin to droop as fatigue and anxiety take their toll; I try to read the signposts we pass, but they flash by too quickly.

“So where were you making for?” he asks me.

“Mmm...?”

“If you weren’t planning to meet Ruth.”

“Does that mean you believe me?”

“Look at the state you’re in. Then there was your car. Nobbled, without a shadow.”

I ought to feel encouraged by this. Instead I hate his guts even more for winding me up.

But I don’t rant and rave about it. The people at the ‘facility’ he spoke of might be more inclined to help me get my body back if he reports that I was willing to co-operate with him.

“Northcroft. That’s where I was going. We were both born and raised there, otherwise we’ve got nothing in common at all. I know it was probably a wild goose chase, but it was better than sitting in an empty flat waiting for the door to burst off its hinges. Funny she should have...”

“She should have what?”

Snapper Brookbank! It is you! Don’t you remember me?

“I didn’t recognise her at first. She went out of her way to tell me who she was. Why would she do that? It’s almost as if she was dropping hints on purpose so I’d go after her.”

“Which it seems you did.”

I don’t say anything because all that will come out is the sound of a braying donkey. A simple trick like that, and I fell for it.

We trundle through a small village, then ascend a steep hill that takes us back into the velvet veil enshrouding the countryside.

“How much further?” I mumble.

“Not long. A mile or two at the most.”

“What do I call you?”

“Cunningham. It’s an alias, of course.”

“Of course.”

Wanker.

A crossroads. A pub with a silly name, something to do with cricket. A narrow lane that climbs between thickly wooded slopes, their trackless fringes picked out by the headlights. We must be approaching the summit of the South Downs; what kind of establishment is he aiming for in such an out-of-the-way spot as this?

Don’t panic. If he was going to stove your head in and leave you by the side of the road he’d have done it well before now.

An abrupt turn to the left. A high chain-link fence topped with rolls of barbed wire. A gate and a sentry box. A hoarding.
 
                            HMS NEREID

               MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

UNAUTHORISED ENTRY PROHIBITED
 
A naval institution. Talk about coming full circle.

At least I seem to have fallen in with the good guys. After all, the MoD is a government department, run by officials accountable to elected politicians.

Yet I’ve been through too much today to take anything at face value.

Cunningham pulls the Rover to a halt in front of the gate. Although it can’t be long after six, there are no signs of activity in or around the low buildings beyond.

“Sorry about this,” he says. “Has to be done, I’m afraid. We don’t want you getting all hysterical once the GABA inhibitors start to wear off.”

“The gabba what?”

A sharp pain in the underside of my right wrist. The glint of a syringe.

“Oh, you fucking bastard,” I cry out, but the universe is already receding from my mind at the speed of light.

A slab of inanimate organic matter, I slump into Cunningham’s arms.

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To Be Continued...