It Started with a Key

He decided that he would go past the flat every time he took a car on road test. As he tested all the cars that went through the garage, it would mean he would check to see if Ronnie's car was parked at the flat, anything up to ten times a day.

I didn't hear from Johnny all week, and Ronnie appeared to be her normal loving self. Then on the Friday John called me at my work and asked me to meet him in the pub on the way home.

"Right she met him at the flat on Tuesday and Thursday lunch times and she stayed for about an hour and a half. Monday, Wednesday and today some other bird showed up. Your gonna have to get some time off work and find out who she is."

"What the fuck do I care, who she is?" I asked.

"Well you should! Look Malcolm this thing can go two ways."

"One, the shit hits the fan and you divorce your misses; then start again. I can tell you that ain't as easy as it sounds. It hurts when they cheat on you. But it fucking hurts a dam sight more when they ain't around anymore! I know from experience."

"Two, you can try to keep her."

"Now if you decide that you want to keep Veronica. All we've got to do is dob this guy in to his wife by giving her the details of his liaisons with this other bird. Then when the shit hits the fan, I've got the contacts; it'll be all over the local paper. All you've got to do is make sure Ronnie sees it. When she finds out the guy is taking her for a ride, she should be back in the fold before you know it."

"All sounds a bit speculative to me."

"Shit man, if you don't try you don't win. Now we hide the gear in the flat Sunday morning 11 o'clock sharp."

"Pardon"

"I've done a little checking on Passmore, At 11 o'clock Passmore will be in church. He goes there with the family every Sunday. So we can get in the flat without him being around."

"But, are you sure?"

"Trust me, I'm a mechanic aren't I, have you ever known a mechanic lie? No, don't answer that. But I've got it all fixed up for Sunday morning. Meet us at the garage at ten."

"Who's the us?"

"Don't worry, you'll see."

At ten on Sunday I arrived at the garage to find John with another man and a Gas Board van. He handed me some Gas Board overalls and told me to put them on.

"Meet Mo, he's a Gas Board inspector and spends his time looking for gas leaks. We just walk up to the flat and knock on the door. If anyone answers we say there's been a report of a leak and ask if they smelled anything. Then Mo wave's his gas detector what's-it about and says it's all clear. If no one answers, we open the door and go in. Should a neighbour challenge us, Mo will keep them out of the way with gas leak story. But I don't think anyone will, they're mostly students and asylum seekers in those flats."

You've got to give it to him; Johnny appeared to know what he was doing.

Mo didn't came into the flat. He walked up and down the lane waving his sniffer thing around. But he had allowed Johnny and I to get into the flat without having to sneak around.

The place was a bit of a mess, only the kitchen and the largest room were usable. The rest appeared to be being used for some sort of storage, as they were jammed full of cardboard boxes.

In the large kitchen that had a table and eight chairs, a cooker, a fridge that besides milk, had several bottles of cheap wine in it and there was a locked filing cabinet.

The one usable room had a large table covered by a sheet. Round the walls were stacked lots more cardboard boxes. On one wall was a board or rack or something; also covered by a sheet.

"Coo this looks interesting." John commented, as we searched around for somewhere to hide the camera and microphone. "Christ! Is Veronica into the kinky stuff then?"

I turned to look at him. He had lifted the corner of the sheet covering the board on the wall.

"Not to my knowledge. Why?"

"Take a gander at this lot. Here, do you think they do it by numbers."

Attached to the board were all manner of toys and Dominance gear. You know what I mean, dildos, handcuffs, straps, whips and all kinds of things. All of them appeared to have a reference number bellow them.

"Just how long have you been married?"

"Fiftee er sixteen years, why?

"You've been married to her for sixteen years and you didn't know Veronica's into kink?"

"We don't know she's into anything yet! That's why were here, to find out what she's up to."

"Well with all this lot. I think we can guess can't we?"

I gave Johnny a look; he shrugged his shoulders and began fitting the pinhole camera inside a damaged cardboard box.

"This will do fine and we can put the gubbins inside the box; with the amount of dust on this one, no ones looked in it for months." He said, "Look if you stand on that chair you can put the radio mic in that air vent."

As I said, Johnny appeared to know what he was doing, so I did as I was told.

"Ok now there's just the mic in the kitchen left, we can put that on top of the cupboards. By the look of this place I doubt anybody ever cleans up there so it shouldn't get spotted."

"Were the hell did you learn how to do all this spying stuff, Johnny?"

"That would be telling. But it was for Queen and Country and it beat all that square bashing nonsense."

"You were in the army then?"

"Kind of, but you're asking too many questions mate."

I left it at that. Johnny obviously didn't want to tell me and he's a big lad, there's no sense in upsetting him.

He sent me back out to the van where he had set up the receivers. It all appeared to be working as far as I could see. But when Johnny came down he wasn't happy with the camera angle so he went back and adjusted it.

Then we went back to the garage where Johnny transferred the receivers into a small white van. Then he had me following him back to flat and he positioned the van as close as he could. He told me that to make things easy for us he connected the gear up to time switches. Everything would be on from twelve until two everyday, as they were the times that Passmore was at the flat.

Johnny told me I should get some time off work and see if I can find out who this other woman was. So on the Monday I made out I was sick, left work at eleven and parked up on the main road, to watch the flat. At dead on twelve Passmore arrived and went into the flat. Twelve fifteen a Shogun pulled into the lane and a tall blond woman got out, and went in as well. Once again, I thought there was something familiar about her. But again I couldn't put my finger on it.

I tried to pick up the mic's on the receiver that I had with me, but I was too far away and it wouldn't lock-on, let alone decode. That's the trouble with all this digital stuff you've got to have a bloody good signal.

1.45 on the dot, the blond came out and got into her Shogun. I followed her and spent the rest of the afternoon sitting outside a school, then hairdressers then back to the bloody school again and then I bloody well lost her.

Back at home everything appeared normal. Except for the fact that I was going crackers! Johnny said we should leave the van alone until Friday then we could pick it up and go through the weeks tapes, on Friday night when Ronnie thought I was down the pub. But the suspense was killing me.

Wednesday I was waiting for the blond again. She followed the same routine school, hairdresser, school. But that day when the school closed, the Shogun was still there. It was five o'clock before she came out. She stood talking to another woman for a while and it was then I realised who she was. She was a teacher at the school. My children's school!

Mrs Gurney or something. Yea, that was her name. One of my kid's Teachers, was playing pat-a-cake with this Passmore creep. Now that's definitely not on. You expect teachers to have high moral standards. Well you do when they're teaching your kid's.

You know, I think I was more wound up over that, than I was about Ronnie playing around. Shit, I was bloody angry.

Anyway I followed Mrs Gurney home and got her address. Ronnie gave me some stick for being late for my dinner, and then she gave me a big cuddle and a kiss.

"If I find you've been sneaking down the pub instead of coming home to your dinner there'll be hell to pay." She said.

Ah, that was what the kiss was all about, she was checking my breath. Not showing how much she loved me.

Strangely we went to bed that night and had the best sex we'd had on a weeknight in years. Ronnie was all over me. It was just like our honeymoon. I think she sensed that I wasn't as enthusiastic as I should be. But I was acting my bleeding heart out.

Friday night I met Johnny down the pub and we went over and replaced the tapes in the van, then it was over to the garage. Where we put the kitchen tape in a player and sat back with baited breath.

Nothing! Not a bloody sound! We looked at each other confused, and then Johnny put the tape from the other room in. Nothing again.

"Right try that bloody time lapse tape in the video." John said.

Nothing once again! We couldn't understand it; all the tapes were blank. But every-thing had worked fine on Sunday. The tapes had run, as we had to rewind them, but there was nothing on them.

In desperation we called Kevin. Who, after I had done my nut at him, agreed he would come over.

When he arrived he listened to the tapes and looked at the video.

"No signal!" he declared, then queried that we had set it up correctly and tested it all. We assured him we had and showed him the tape of the room that we had made the Sunday before.

"Doesn't make sense." He said, "We'll have to go over and check it out."

We went over to the flat and Kevin threw the back doors of the van open for everyone to see, as he checked the equipment.

"Looks to be all connected fine" he declared. "Should pick it up all right."

Then he stood there and studied the back of the shops. Apparently satisfied he began walking up and down the lane.

"What's behind that wall? He asked, pointing to the high wall that formed the opposite side of the lane to the shops."

I shrugged, but Johnny said it was one of the university's buildings.

"Oh, I wonder" Kevin said as he retrieved an instrument that looked like a hand held CB radio from his toolbox. He fiddled with the controls for a little while then.

"Well that's fucked it, then! I wonder what those Toss-Pots are up to?"

Seeing the look of confusion on our faces he went on.

"There's enough stray radio signals coming out of there, to silence the bloody BBC. My gear will never get through all that rubbish. They'd better be careful they're on illegal frequencies."

"So this gear isn't going to work then?"

"Not unless we can silence those Wankers, and the only people that can do that is the Post Office."

"Can't we report them then." I suggested.

Oh yea, I can see that. Excuse me Mr Post Office man. They're illegal radio signals are jamming our illegal radio signals. And besides, they could have a licence to use those frequencies. I not sure, but I think they may come within the zone that's reserved for research."

Kevin began to unplug the equipment in the van.

"Sorry fella's, you're out of luck. I might as well take this lot back with me now."

"What the hell are we going to do then?" I asked.

"The only thing you can do. Sneak in there and catch her in the act on a hand held camera. That's what you're gonna have to do in the end anyway. I told you can't use any of this illegal stuff in court."

Kevin packed his gear, and then Johnny and I went down the Kings Arms to drown our sorrows. We made plans to retrieve the gear from inside the flat on Sunday morning. That was going to cost me another £50 for Mo again.

So what had we achieved? Absolutely bloody nothing. I was £200 pounds down plus what I was going to have to play Kevin and I knew no more than I did when it started. I went home very depressed and Ronnie noticed. I think she even noticed that I hadn't had my usual skilful. Because she was very 'nice' to me in bed that night.

Saturday went as usual. I checked and Ronnie never went to the flat. In the evening we went to a show and should have had a really good time, but I think I put a damper on things. Saturday nights Gymnastics didn't go with its usual swing and we fell asleep quiet early for us. For a Saturday night that is.

Sunday I told Ronnie I was going fishing again. She said she was worried about me because I appeared so depressed and didn't want me to go. But when Johnny pulled up outside she kissed me and told me to enjoy myself.

John was full of enthusiasm when I got into his car. He had received some more information on Passmore. It appeared he was not English but and immigrant from Eastern Europe. He had jumped ship from a Polish freighter some years back. They'd given him asylum and he'd changed his name when he became naturalised. He was supposed to be an entrepreneur, but Johnny's information was that he was into the seedier side of life. Apparently the police weren't convinced he was kosher. But the only information they had pointed towards the sex industry.

Now, this was news I really could have done without. To say the least it did nothing for my depression. Which got worse over the next few days.

We got the gear from the flat and then retired to the Kings Arms. I think I got home about three, but I was in no condition to remember.

Tuesday afternoon Johnny a called and told me no one had turned up at the flat on Monday or that day. On the Friday in the pub he told me that no one had apparently been to the flat all week. One afternoon there had been a van parked by the door; so Johnny had driven down the lane and seen a guy putting some boxes in the van, but that had been about four o'clock. Johnny thought he remembered seeing the same van parked in the lane before, normally late in the day.

So it looked like it was over. For the next few weeks Ronnie went nowhere near the flat. I was terribly relieved, The suspicion that my beautiful wife had been cheating on my, was a hard cross to bear. I loved her and didn't want to loose her.

As always, Ronnie acted like the devoted wife. Some evenings out of the corner of my eye I would see her watching me. I wondered if she was wondering if I knew about her liaisons. She would stare at me for a while, then shrug her shoulders and go back to her book.

Three weeks later on the Wednesday just after Lunch. I got an excited call from Johnny. He told me that he had seen Ronnie and the Gurney woman at the flat. There had been another woman with them, then Passmore came out he went up to the other woman and kissed her then kissed Ronnie and the Gurney woman. Then Ronnie and Gurney got into they're cars and Passmore and the third woman got into his Merc. John couldn't follow them, as he had to take the car he was testing back.

I didn't like the sound of this. What were they into three or four way now? I'll be honest with you; I was going bloody mental.

The rest of Wednesday, I was so bad at work that they told me not to come in on Thursday. So I spent the day moping around at home. To be honest I did hit the source a little.

Ronnie came home from work and fussed around me for a while. Them a little after six, she dropped the bomb-shell. She said she had Woman's institute meeting that she had to go to.

Once again I knew this to be untrue. I had been keeping a beady eye on her diary, and appointment calendar. There was no meeting scheduled for that day when I looked in that morning. But there it was on the calendar. I know I hadn't missed it. Ronnie must have written it in after she came home from work.

Ronnie got dressed up as she usually did for the woman's institute. Quite conservative clothing, not what one would normally expect a woman to wear when she was going for a romantic encounter. But by this time I was positive that she wouldn't be wearing any clothes for long. After she had left I had tears in my eyes as I told the children I was taking them around to they're grand parent's because I had to go out.

Once I had dropped the kids off. I called Kevin and Johnny and asked them to meet me near the flat.

It was eight-thirty by the time we silently opened the door to the flat and crept up the stairs.

The kitchen door was open and the room was empty. The door to the other room was shut and we could here voices. We couldn't make out what they were saying, but I got the impression they were foreign.

Kevin got the camera ready and we nodded to each other to say we were all set to go. We had the plan worked out and we intended to carry it out with military precision. I would rush into the room too confront Ronnie. Kevin would be right behind me filming everything he could before they could recover from the shock of our sudden appearance. John was the muscle he would make sure Passmore or anyone else didn't get heavy on us. At Kevin's signal we went for it.

I threw the door so fast; I almost fell flat on my face. As it does on these occasions everything appeared to go into slow motion. My eyes flashed around the room and I saw Ronnie standing there with a three-foot long cane in her hand.

But no it was a pointer and she was using it to point at a flip chart hanging on the wall, that had writing scrawled all over it. Six or seven terrified looking people whom had been sat in chairs when we entered, were now diving under the table. For a moment the room was silent, then.

"Malcolm Andrews! Just what the bloody hell do you think you're playing at!" Veronica demanded.

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Well here I am, sleeping in the spare bedroom; Veronica hardly speaks to me. God knows how long it will take her to calm down.

It turned out that, an old school friend of Veronica's, who was now Passmore's wife; had asked Ronnie and Jenny Gurney to teach some of his employees English. They were familiar to me because they had been at Ronnie's school reunion the year before.

Passmore ran a mail order sex toy business. Apparently he liked to employ people from his native country. Recently the immigration department had rounded up all his workers, as they didn't have any work permits. Cheep labour for Passmore, and his countrymen treat him as a bloody hero. Passmore had been forced to import a new crew. They couldn't speak a word of English and that's why Ronnie was there on a Thursday night trying to run a crash course for them.

Why had Veronica kept it a secret from me and told me lies? Well, that's the bloody silliest part of all. It was because of the money that Passmore was paying her. You see it has always been a dream of mine to stand on the side of the Grand Canyon in the States. Veronica had been planing to surprise me with the trip there for my birthday. She reckons that if she had told me about the extra money she was earning, I would have insisted that it be spent on the Children and herself.

Well that's exactly where it did get spent in the end. Veronica and the children are over visiting Disney World in Florida. When they get back on Saturday I am hoping that Veronica will allow me to move back into the master bedroom again.

Why didn't I go with them to Florida? Well there was £100 for the Sierra. £100 for Mo, £200 for Kevin, need I go on?

I really don't know when Ronnie will forgive me for not trusting her.

I suppose I will just have to wait and see.

The End

Sorry, second alternative tittle, Much To Do about Nothing.

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Author's note:

I hope you liked this one. Once again it is a lot about nothing and it was written whilst I was getting all that stick over Sex, Lies and Confusion.

Now, do I dare chop this one up into small chapters to add some tension? No they will bloody well lynch me. But I bet I won't get as many comments or readers.