Barretthunter

story continued from Breaking & Entering Malcolm Pettigrew thanked the driver, nodded the ghost of a bow to the Emir’s guard and strode down the path to the great man’s tent, the silent, light-stepping Henrietta Courtauld just behind him, her hair duly covered. He had been three months in the United Arab Emirates since his arrival as British Commercial Attache, and this was his first visit to the most obscure and traditional of the emirates, Bhagarem. Henrietta, his assistant, was not quite so new to the job, but she had not set foot here before either. ...

Part 1 The accountant, business consultant and spanker Geoffrey Parslow was not a great gardener. Although his house in the Hertfordshire stockbroker belt came with quite a bit of land, he had rented out a field commercially for the feeding and exercising of horses and the rest was dominated by lawn and big bushes, which needed little attention. Moreover, he employed old Mr Banks to come in and do what was needed. ...

Breaking & Entering – A Sally West Misadventure Police officers are often bored, waiting for something to happen. Intelligent and conscientious ones get bored quite frequently. This was precisely the condition of PCs Sally West and Yasmin Khan on a fateful, rainy, quiet late September night in the more prosperous end of Queen’s Bush. The two young women had driven their patrol car around aimlessly, had followed and stopped a car being driven inconsistently only to find the driver was an ancient vicar with no hint of alcohol on his breath at all, had hung around the most troublesome pub till closing time hoping for trouble but getting only a well-dressed businessman with spectacles who had approached the car, asked “Are you two working girls? How much, then?” and been lectured on female emancipation and sexual exploitation till he cried for mercy. ...

(story continues from In Wicklow Wood there is a Tree) A Sally West Misadventure Part 2 The steps got nearer. It sounded like a man or at least a fairly big woman. Sally was doing her best to peer round the tree and Yasmin was twisting her neck round to see. They saw the man at the same time. It was the bearded birdwatcher they had passed earlier, a youngish man, ginger-haired, quite short but fit-looking, bespectacled and dressed in plain khaki. He saw them in the same instant. ...

Vanessa finally managed to wrench the long conversation with the man in the brown fleece to a conclusion, and before he thought of another stupid question to ask, said: “Fine! Great! Have a nice time!” and turned away as if very busy. She was discomfited to encounter the eyes of a plump, fiftyish balding man who had clearly been staring very hard at her bum. “Can I help you?” she asked quickly. ...

You can read about Sally’s other Misadventure in Sally West & the Fallen Accountant The Misadventures Of Sally West 2: East Meets West – A Sally West Misadventure PC Sally West walked briskly out of her regular de-briefing with Superintendant Carver (minus her briefs, of course), absent-mindedly sat down on a cushionless chair and got up very quickly. She no longer regarded the Superintendent’s personal attentions as unusual, but as a part of the job. She even felt more than a little contempt for PC Yasmin Khan, who often came out of her regular sessions with her superior officer crying floods of tears. A police officer needed to show strength of character and resilience. ...

Sally West & the fallen Accountant – A Sally West Misadventure PC Sally West was back on her trusty bicycle, and very pleased she was too. Cycling round fitted her idea of responsive, accessible, democratic policing, though on occasion Sally had been too accessible to the wrong people. Superintendant Carver, missing those views of Sally’s magnificent bottom stuck out and straining away as she pedalled off, had reconsidered his decision to withdraw her from bicycle duty taken after that embarrassing business when Sally’s trousers had become entangled in her spokes, leading to the official car of the Cardinal of Westminster crashing into the front of a sex shop. Now Sally wore cycle clips. ...

A Sally West Misadventure Part 1 Queen’s Bush was quite close to semi-rural Surrey, to farms and riding stables, to big golf courses and pubs called “The Haywain” and “The Cunning Poacher”, but the district itself was highly built-up with only a couple of decidedly small parks and Wicklow Wood for green lungs. Wicklow Wood had once been Wicklow’s Wood (the connection to Ireland being limited to the surname of the wealthy farmer who owned it) within the larger expanse of Leggeworth Common, but the common was long gone and it was widely supposed that Wicklow Wood had survived only because it divided the genteel community of The Village from the tower blocks and grimy yellow brick of the main part of Queen’s Bush. ...