by Leah Hope
“But it’s a lethal machine, in the wrong hands. I mean, less experienced hands” Gil said, correcting himself in the nick of time.
“But how will I gain any experience unless I get behind the wheel?”
As Gil was about to counter-argue, he was relieved to see Gordon Collingwood fast approaching out of the corner of his eye.
“Gil, good to meet you” the salesman said, holding out his hand, “and you too, er..”
“Bridget. I’m the person buying, not my brother. Now if you’d like to run through the specifications of the little red number here please.”
Bridget listened intently as Gordon “sold” the car. But sharing Gil’s concern over his customer’s inexperience he asked her how long she had actually been driving.
Bridget looked at her watch. “About eighteen hours I think” she replied straight-faced.
“Far be it from me to do myself out of a sale but don’t you think that’s….”
“I think that what I would like you to do is arrange a test-drive for me” Bridget snapped, clearly annoyed.
“Of course, er Bridget. Just wait a moment and I’ll fetch the keys.”
As Gordon headed for his office, Gil lost no time in telling her that she was stark-staring bonkers. Bridget ignored him and continued to drool over her new love.
“Sorry to keep you” said Gordon as he returned with the keys and threw them to a junior salesman, “the phone hasn’t stopped ringing this morning. Now Bridget, I suggest we head for a quiet little spot and then….”
“Yes, yes that’s fine” Bridget said waving her hand dismissively in the salesman’s direction. “But after that I want to take her out on the ring road. Open her up. See what she can do.”
Gil was again lost for words. Why was Bridget suddenly talking like this? Had she banged her head? Was she ill, or maybe taking some sort of medication she hadn’t told him about? Whatever it was, he was seriously worried.
“See you later” Bridget said to Gil with a little wave as she and Gordon headed outside to where the car was now ominously parked. The engine throbbed into life as Gordon switched on the ignition and the pair zoomed off into the distance. Gil felt as if he was in the pits at a grand-prix. He gulped hard.
Half an hour later Gil heard the car roar onto the forecourt in a cloud of dust and flying gravel. Bridget was at the wheel. Despite the fact that her hair was standing on end in every direction, Gil couldn’t recall when he’d last seen his sister look so happy. He didn’t even think she would mind the wild hair, for once.
“Oh Gil, it was wonderful. It was the most exhilarating thing I’ve ever done! Come on, let’s get the paperwork over with.”
“You’re buying it? But have you thought this through? I mean, where will you put the shopping, the boot’s tiny.”
“I don’t care about the size of the boot. Besides I’ll carry on doing the shopping in exactly the same places as I’ve always done. Nothing’s going to change that.”
“I know that Bridge, but once you get your independence, you may want to venture a bit further afield. You know, to one of the big supermarkets out of town. You always said that…”
Fed up with all the negativity, Bridget finally snapped. “Gil” she said tersely. “Do shut up.”
Stunned at his sister’s response, Gil shut up and followed her into Gordon Collingwood’s rather plush little office.
“Ok Bridget, so from what you said, you’re going to take her.”
“Yes but only if the price is right. What about twenty?”
Gil was puzzled. Gordon was equally puzzled. “Er twenty? Sorry I don’t understand” he stammered.
“Oh come now, you know exactly what I mean. I want a twenty per cent discount on the asking price.”
“Well I think that’s out of the question. I was thinking …”
Bridget leaned forward in her chair, narrowed her eyes and placed both forearms on the desk. “Mr Collingwood. Gordon. Here’s the deal. While you’re “thinking”, my brother and I will be in the very smart showroom next door. We had a quick look as we were passing before we came in here. They’ve got a couple of beauties on the forecourt, haven’t they Gil?”
Gil hadn’t noticed, and he didn’t think Bridget had either but he took his cue from her and nodded in agreement.
“Ok, ok twenty it is” Gordon Collingwood replied holding his hands up, clearly recognising when he was beaten.
“That’s very generous of you Gordon” Bridget replied, smiling sweetly. Except her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Now while you’re sorting out the paperwork, my brother and I want to have a look at the accessories. I noticed that the mat on the driver’s side is looking a bit worn. I’m sure you could throw in a new set.”
“Why not” Gordon replied with a sigh. Anything to get this woman out of my office, he thought.
As Gil and Bridget browsed through the accessories, Gil picked up a set of pink furry dice and raised his eyebrows questioningly in his sister’s direction.
“Who do you think I am? A girl racer?” Bridget replied with disgust.
Gil hastily replaced them.
“I’ve been thinking that a name for the car would be a good idea” Bridget said, idly spinning round a carousel of driving gloves. “Ever since I passed my test, I’ve had that song going round and round in my head. You know the one about girls wanting to have fun. Now what’s the name of the woman who sang it? It’s on the tip of my tongue.”
“Cyndi Lauper” Gil replied wondering where on earth Bridget was going with this.
“Yes that’s it! Cindy it is.”
“Look Bridge, you could always borrow my car, you don’t need to go to the expense of getting your own” Gil said in a last ditch attempt to get his sister to see sense. But picturing Bridget behind the wheel of his beloved Merc, he decided to backtrack. “Or you could get something a little cheaper. As you pointed out, there’s another big showroom next door.”
“Gil, Gil, Gil. I understand that you’re worried. I know I’ve only just passed my test but I took to driving like a duck to water. The instructor said I was one of the most naturally gifted drivers he’s seen in a long while. But I’m buying the sports car. End of. I will of course be careful. I don’t want to scratch Cindy’s paintwork any more than you want to damage the Merc. So please have some faith in me. Ok?”
Gil conceded he couldn’t push Bridget any more. Her mind was made up. She was buying the beast. It wouldn’t stop his heart from leaping into his mouth though every time she took to the road. But for some reason he couldn’t explain, what irked him almost as much was the rather disparaging way Bridget referred to his pride and joy as “the Merc”. Maybe there was something in this car-naming lark after all, he thought to himself. Yes, he would definitely give it some thought. As he casually browsed through a range of sat-navs, Janis Joplin’s “Mercedes Benz” suddenly began to play in his head. Hmm, “Janis” has a nice ring to it he thought.
“Ok that’s everything printed off Bridget, so if you could just pop back to the desk and give me your signature, we can wrap everything up” Gordon called from his office.
“Thank you Gordon. Will I be able to take her home with me today?”
“I need to sort out the insurance first Bridge so I think it will be Monday now at the earliest” Gil interjected.
“That’s right, beside it will allow us time to get er, Cindy, valeted for you” Gordon added.
“Ok, well in that case, perhaps you’d let me drive home Gil. I think you added me to your insurance a while ago.”
“Sorry Bridge, that expired a while ago. I didn’t renew it as I didn’t think there was any point as you couldn’t drive” Gil replied, trying to look disappointed. The fingers of both hands were crossed tightly behind his back, safely out of Bridget’s sight of course.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Even after four days, Bridget never tired of the thrill of seeing her own car parked in the driveway. She had lost no-time in taking to the roads, apparently
fearless, much to Gil’s amazement and, if he were honest, not without a twinge of jealousy. He recalled the first time he drove on his own at aged eighteen when his mother asked if he would take her to the post-office in the centre of town. He was terrified, not so much of the traffic but of the multi-story car-park with its narrow parking bays. His father had begrudgingly agreed to let him drive his beloved Rover but as it was such a big car, Gil had bottled it and parked in the open space behind the town hall instead. His mother ended up with almost as long a walk to buy stamps as if she’d walked from home.
There was still no news about Malcolm Cresswell. The papers had been full of it when he first went missing but the story had now been consigned to the middle pages or dropped altogether. It was the same with the TV news, where his disappearance and the subsequent police hunt had been replaced with the usual tales of doom and gloom or the antics of “celebrities”. Bridget had been tempted on more than one occasion to ring Mark Addison for an update, but as Gil had reminded her, they had done their bit and couldn’t expect to be kept in the loop about every development. It was something of a surprise therefore one afternoon when, out of the blue, the Chief Inspector rang while Bridget was out for a spin in Cindy.
“Hello Gil, sorry I’ve not been in touch for a while but things have been pretty hectic here. Not just the Cresswell case but the burglaries over at the Elms show no sign of letting up. Unbelievably we think it’s just a local teenager, not much more than a kid really, who’s behind it all. He’s giving us the runaround I can tell you. What I wouldn’t do to get my hands on the little blighter. But that’s enough about my troubles, how are things with you two?”
Gil relayed the tale of Bridget’s almost overnight transformation from someone who had been terrified at the thought of even learning to drive into a female Lewis Hamilton. Mark couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing but looked forward to seeing Bridget’s “hot rod” one day.
“We’ve not exactly been dragging our heels with the Cresswell case either but despite a huge man-hunt, we’re still no near apprehending the guy. But it’s something else I would like you and Bridget to help me out with, if you’re up for it of course.”
The Chief Inspector filled Gil in with the details of their next “mission” which he had taken great pains to explain wasn’t without an element of danger. Gil wished that Bridget had been there to speak to Mark as he knew she would have had some pertinent questions. He hadn’t made the fateful error through of committing them to Mark’s plan until he spoke to “the boss”. Mark understood the dangers of doing so as much as Gil. Bridget would have laughed until the tears ran down her face if she had even the slightest inclination of how much Mark Addison was in awe of her.
Bridget arrived home half an hour later. She had clearly been driving with the car’s top down, if her hair was anything to go by. She was of course disappointed to have missed Mark so, somehow blaming Gil for this, she ordered him to the kitchen to make amends by making tea and slicing up the last of the lemon drizzle cake.
Comfortably settled in the living room, Gil explained what Mark had in mind for them.
“So apparently, their attention has now switched to a Jeremy Marshall-Dobbs, a prime candidate for owning the teddy bear that Sheila Cresswell was holding in that magazine. They’ve done quite a bit of digging and despite his apparently being squeaky clean, on paper at any rate, Mark said his empire smells worse than a fish stall in a heatwave. He seems to be one of these untouchable sorts, friends in high places, including the Chief Constable and a couple of the local magistrates. Oh and surprise, surprise, he’s one of the grandees at the local golf club too.”
“What’s his background?”
“On the face of it, he’s a respectable businessman and a pillar of the community. He’s got his fingers in a lot of pies but his main focus is health clubs, spas, that sort of thing.”
“What about his personal life?”
“Well despite his posh-sounding name, he grew up in the East End of London, the son of a market trader. Oh, the hyphenated name is a recent affectation according to Mark, he just added his mother’s name to his father’s. His first name’s made up too, he was christened plain old Jerry. Huh, makes you laugh doesn’t it, who does he think he’s fooling? He’s forty-eight and on his third wife. He’s got a kid from each of his earlier marriages, both live with their mothers, and two with the current Mrs Marshall. Tania, ex-model, thirteen years his junior.”
“Ok, so tell me about this do that Mark wants us to go to.”
“Well they’re holding a fundraiser at their place, in aid of a number of local charities. Tickets are £200 each and for that you get a five course gourmet dinner cooked by a celebrity chef, who I’ve never heard of by the way. Local businesses have donated prizes and they’ll be auctioned off to the highest bidders at the end of the evening. Can you imagine the scramble to outbid your business rival just so you can puff your chest out in the photos and pretend you really care. Not my sort of thing at all but Mark wants us to attend and rub shoulders with the local glitterati, local crooks more like. He wants us to mingle and listen out for any snippets that might be useful, thought how we’ll know that I’m not sure. So what do you think, should we agree to do it?”
“I don’t see why not, it might be fun. But the tickets are a bit steep though, I hope we’re not expected to pay for them.”
“No, the Chief Constable got his hand on a few and they filtered down to Mark’s division. No-one wanted them apparently as half the villains in the county will probably be there. Mr Plod would stick out like a sore thumb. Mark also said we could stay at their place, rather than drive home or go to the expense of a hotel.”
“That’s very kind of him. It will be nice to meet his family.”
“It’ll just be Mark and his wife. Jenny isn’t it? He’s going to ask her to arrange for a sleepover for the girls with a friend that night as he’ll be keen to debrief us afterwards and doesn’t want to disturb them.”
“Debriefing! How exciting, I feel like some sort of a spy from the cold war. There’s one thing you haven’t mentioned Gil. Is there a dress code?”
“Oh sorry Mata Hari, I forgot. Yes there is, black tie unfortunately. So that’s a tux for me and some sort of gown for you I guess.”
Bridget groaned. “I had a feeling you were going to say that. I think a visit to Ginnie’s in Brighton is called for, don’t you?”
Bridget had always hated shopping for clothes for a special occasion, mainly because she never had the slightest idea what she should be looking for. Ginnie had always come up trumps though and although she was far too modest to ever admit it, Bridget thought she had never looked better than when she was wearing her clothes.
“I haven’t got anything on tomorrow, well nothing I can’t put off anyway, so we could go then and get it over with. I’ll try and get myself kitted out with a tux too. I’m going to look like a scrawny penguin, I just know I am.”
“Don’t be silly, you’re still quite trim, for your age, so you should look good.”
“Hmm, I think there was a compliment in there somewhere.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
One week later, Gil and Bridget set off for Mark Addison’s home in Dover. Bridget was thrilled with the outfit she’d been able to hire, rather than buy, from Ginnie’s. Ginnie had told her that a full length gown wasn’t essential and a mid-length cocktail dress would be perfectly acceptable if she preferred. Bridget definitely preferred. She knew she would have to wear heels, which she hated, with a full-length gown and had visions of catching her toe on the hem and sprawling full-length in front of the assembled guests. The midnight blue cocktail dress with lace sleeves, teamed with a silver wrap and matching kitten heels that Ginnie selected for her were perfect. She had done it again. Gil too had been pleasantly surprised with how comfortable his tux was. Bridget had been in hysterics though when she caught him looking in his bedroom mirror trying out the James Bond stance, an imaginary pistol pointing stra
ight ahead. She had to admit he looked good though.
Mark had asked if Gil and Bridget if they could arrive by four in the afternoon. That would give them time to get settled in their room, meet his wife and allow time for Mark to drive them to the venue for six. Gil pulled up at number twenty-seven, Highfield Drive bang on time. The house was a large “executive style” detached on a newish estate in one of Dover’s leafy suburbs.
Gil had hardly had chance to get their things out of the car, when Mark appeared to give him a hand.
“You found us ok then?”
“Yes no problem. Nice place you’ve got here. I expect the kids love the big garden” Gil said looking around.
“They do indeed, it’s partly why we chose the corner plot so they can run off steam.”
“Hello Mark” Bridget said as she greeted her host for the night. “So who’s the keen gardener then?” she asked as she cast her eyes over the neat flower beds.
“That’s down to Jenny. I can’t claim to have green fingers so my job is cutting the grass and weeding.”
“Mine too” Gil replied with a laugh.
“Come on in” Mark said as he led his guests towards the house. “Jenny won’t be long, she’s just dropping the girls off at their friends. I’ll put the kettle on while we’re waiting. Tea ok for you both? I can’t compete with your home baking Bridget but there are some very nice chocolate cookies in the jar from the deli in town.”
“I’d better not, thank you Mark, we’ve got that five course gourmet dinner ahead don’t forget.”
“Don’t remind me, my stomach’s grumbling at the thought. Oh, here’s Jenny now” Mark said, glancing out of the window.
Jenny Addison was not what Bridget had been expecting at all. She had imagined her as blonde and pretty, which she was, but had not expected her to be quite so tall and elegant. The Addisons certainly made a handsome couple.
“So you must be the famous Gil and Bridget” Jenny said warmly as she held out her hand first to Bridget and then to Gil.”