Unexpected Ch. 03

"She knows what you used to do?"

"No sense in her finding out by accident sometime in the future, Pete. Just think how different it would have been if everyone had known about Sarah's past," Crystal replied.

"I suppose you've got a point there, Crystal. But I should imagine you're going to get some funny reactions if you tell everybody."

"Oh, we don't intend to tell everyone; just folks who need to know and that we can trust," Marie-Lise assured me.

"That's fine. I'm cool with that. You girls do what you think best," I replied, trying not to sound sceptical.

Well, Crystal passed her CRB check with no problems and she settled down to her job at the nursery; within weeks she had started night school classes at the local college as well.

I think some folks wondered what was going on a bit; what with Anna disappearing and then Crystal moving in a couple of months later. There were a few funny looks to start with, from some of the neighbours, but no one actually said anything.

Although Crystal did catch the eye of some of my friends, who I'm pretty convinced were under the impression that Crystal was a little more than a lodger to me. Strangely she was; Crystal soon became like a sister to me. But I could read the lecherous thoughts in some of the guys' minds, from the look in their eyes when she was about.

I'd hear from John and Helen every now and again, but they had no news of Anna; I think they called to reassure me that they were still actively looking, but I had no idea what they were doing.

I think about six months had passed since Anna's disappearance when I found Frank Stevens knocking on my door one Sunday morning.

"Pete, I've got something I want you and Crystal to look at here." he said, waving the folder he was carrying in front of my eyes.

I led him into the kitchen where Crystal was cooking breakfast. To my surprise he gave Crystal a hug and she asked him if he'd eaten yet.

"No, I've been up all bloody night going through CCTV recordings; you know that there was some trouble in town Friday. Well, we've pulled all the surveillance videos in town and I'm one of the poor buggers who's been trawling through them all bleeding night. Anyway you wouldn't believe who I think I might have spotted. I want you two to see if you agree with me.

Sitting down at the table Frank opened the file and pushed a rather poor quality photo towards me.

"Could that possibly be who I suspect it is?" he asked.

I stared at the fuzzy picture; Crystal came around the table to look over my shoulder.

"Oh, my god!" Crystal exclaimed. "I think it is, Frank. Have you got any more?"

Frank shoved a couple more rather iffy pictures towards us, obviously stills taken from the surveillance tapes and all of extremely poor quality.

To my mind the woman in the fuzzy pictures could have been anyone, but Crystal swore that it was Anna or Sarah as she still called her.

"It could be her," I agreed, "but these pictures are so blurred, it could be anyone."

"They are clearer on the tapes, although even they aren't too clever; the damned tapes have been reused so many times. I didn't have time to make any copies; I wanted to see what you two thought. But if you and Crystal want to come down the station and look at them, we can go as soon as you're ready."

Frank called his wife and told her that he still wasn't coming home, because he was gong back to the police station to show Crystal and me the tapes. A very patient and understanding woman, Margery Stevens

Then the three of us set off for the Nick. I followed Frank into the car park and as we walked to the building he spoke to me.

"From the time-codes on the tapes at the railway station, it looks like Anna turned up on the two o'clock train. I spotted her on a couple of other tapes as she walked into town, trying to stay off the main road as much as she could, by the way. Then she hung around in the High Road for a couple of hours, mostly pretending to look in shop windows and the like, but I'd say she was watching the entrance to your office. Pete, I'm damned sure that she was waiting for you to come out from work, probably to make sure you were all right. What time did you leave work on Friday?"

"I knocked off early, so that I could be nosy and wander up to see what was going on at the bank. Couldn't get near the place because your boys had it cordoned off after the robbery. I think it must have been about four o'clock," I replied.

"Yeah, well, that fits perfectly. The woman on those tapes returned to the railway station just after five P.M. Pete, I think that she was checking to see if you were all right and I'm convinced that it was Anna or to be precise Sarah Sharp."

"So she's alive and moving about of her own free will. Assuming that it is her, that is; I want to see those tapes before I'm convinced," I replied.

"It's Sarah, believe me!" Crystal chipped in.

Frank led us through the security door and up into one of the offices, where several officers were sitting around staring at video screens, whilst surrounded by piles of videotapes. It looked to me like the poor buggers were going through each tape one individual frame at a time. Frank saw me staring at them.

"There's a couple of guys that we're interested in. We spotted them hanging around town on tapes taken Friday morning. Now we're trawling the rest of the tapes to see where they went and what they were doing. With luck we'll find a couple of good pictures of them somewhere. It was a fluke that one of the guys spotted Sarah coming out of the station, then he tracked her from there," Frank said, as he removed several tapes from the apparently chaotic piles.

The three of us sat in front of one of the spare monitors and Frank put one of the tapes in the machine. He fast-forwarded the tape to a time that he read from the one of the pictures he'd shown Crystal and myself earlier.

"That's definitely Sarah!" Crystal said the moment that the woman appeared on the screen. "And I'll bet that's her red wig. I'm surprised she's still got it."

"Damn, that's why the railway people didn't remember her. We were asking about a brunette," Frank said.

"The ticket collector mentioned a redhead woman," one of the other officers said obviously overhearing what Crystal had said.

"I wonder whether he remembers where her ticket was from," Frank mused.

"Only one way to find out," the other officer said, "ask him!" Then he threw a notepad in Frank's direction. "Use his home number; he's off today."

Whilst all this discussion was going on Crystal and I were watching Anna slowly walk out of the station. I could see what had attracted Frank or whomever it was who first noticed her attention; she was looking around obviously trying to spot anyone who might know her before they recognised her. I doubt she thought that the police would be trawling through these tapes.

Frank showed us several other sections of tape with Anna on them; in one she promptly did a u-turn and dived into a shop doorway when Marie-Lise walked passed by. Just for a second as she turned, she looked directly at the camera and I got a really good look at her face

"Well, that clinches it," I said to Frank, "that's definitely Anna. But how you spotted her with that hairdo, I'll never know."

I had found it surprising, because except for that one shot where Anna looked at the camera, the pictures weren't that good and Frank Stevens had never met Anna in the flesh; he'd only seen pictures of her.

"I'll be honest with you, Pete, I didn't." Frank admitted. "One of the guys spotted the strange way she was behaving. Even if it was well after the robbery, it drew his interest. I only caught sight of that bit of tape there, where your friend, Marie-Lise, came along the road and I had a hunch. Now let's see if this railway bloke remembers where she came from."

Frank picked up a telephone and called the ticket collector. There followed a long conversation, with Frank saying things like, "Are you sure?" "There's no chance that you kept the ticket, is there?" and finally "Thanks, we'll do that."

"Damn, he can't remember," Frank said as he put the telephone down. "But he suggested we talk to the people at Paddington. He said with red hair like that, someone is bound to have seen her if she got on the train there. Look, Pete, I'll have to ask the railway police to ask about her up there. Leave it with me for the time being. Oh and I'll let the Carpenters have copies of this lot as soon as I can; perhaps John can work some of his magic."

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Later that same afternoon, John Carpenter called to inform me that he'd heard from Frank. John told me that he was intending to send Bert up to Paddington Station on the Monday to nose about a bit. Apparently Bert had a friend (an ex-colleague) in the Transport Police who spent a lot of his time at Paddington.

It was the middle of the week before I heard from John Carpenter again. Bert had learnt that one of the station staff at Paddington had spotted Anna. Apparently because she'd gone into the Ladies toilets a striking blond, and then came out again, a raving redhead. It sounded like Anna had caught the guy's eye and he had probably been watching her - perving her most likely I thought – when Anna had done her swift change act so the guy had gotten really curious and followed her until she got onto the train that brought her down to our town.

The guy spotted Anna doing the reverse transformation later in the day and that time he followed her again until she left the station in a taxi. The guy was pretty well convinced that he'd heard Anna ask the taxi driver to take her to Victoria Coach Station. Unfortunately there the trail ran cold. No one at Victoria Coach Station remembered seeing her and from there, of course, Anna could have boarded a bus to anywhere in the country.

A couple of days later John called me again to tell me that Bert had tracked down the taxi driver who had driven Anna from Paddington to Victoria. She had apparently discarded the blond wig in the cab, but only after she was well away from the Paddington area. The driver had talked to her, as London cabbies are prone to doing. He had gathered that Anna had been very worried about being seen in the Paddington area. Not surprising really, as it wasn't far from Nielson's old stomping ground.

Once clear of Paddington Anna apparently got quite chatty with the taxi driver and told him she'd just been to see her husband, but apparently didn't enlarge any further. Although the driver asked her, she didn't tell him where she was headed, or why.

The trail had gone cold after that and, after my initial excitement that we might be getting somewhere in the hunt for Anna, I began to get depressed again. Although I was pretty sure that she was safe now and was hiding out of the fear that Nielson would find her. There was no way for us to tell her that Nielson was no longer around.

Over the next couple of weeks, Crystal, Marie-Lise and Barry took to disappearing on Sunday mornings for a few hours. I found out later that they were prowling around Crystal's old stamping ground looking for any old friends of Anna's that they could find, just generally putting the message about that Nielson was out of the picture. But they said from what they heard, someone - probably the Hennessys' people - had beaten them to it. They also heard that all of the Hennessys' people had been asked to keep their eyes open for Anna. And apparently that's where the break came from.

Helen Carpenter turned up at the house one day and said that she thought they had found Anna. Or at least had a good idea of where she could be working. It was one of Hennessys' guys who'd suddenly realised that it could have been Anna he saw get off the National Express Coach he'd been travelling on. There was no explanation for the month or so delay in him telling anyone.

A quick check of the dates showed it had been on the evening that Anna had been dropped off at Victoria Coach Station; so the odds were that it could well be her! The most important point was that she got off the Coach near a large country club; there was nowhere else near by that she could have been going to.

Helen wanted Crystal to go with her to talk to Anna.

"I'm coming as well!" I said a little surprised that Helen hadn't come to collect me.

"No, I'm afraid you're not, Peter!" Helen said. "Look, we are assuming that Anna ran away because she thought Nielson was on her trail. But I'm sorry we have to think of all the scenarios. Could it be that Anna ran away from you?"

"You've got to be kidding…" I replied angrily.

"No, don't get me wrong, Peter. I don't mean that Anna ran away from you in the sense that she was frightened of you. What I'm trying to say is, did Anna run away because she couldn't face having you find out about her past! It could be that she is very embarrassed about what she has done in the past and just couldn't face the idea of you knowing about it. She obviously loves you because she came here the other week just to look at you from a distance."

"Then I can tell her that I don't care what she's…."

"It's not that easy, Peter. It has to be Anna's choice. Please you must let Crystal and me go to see her alone. We'll talk to her and tell her that she's safe from Nielson; that you love her and are waiting patiently for her to come home. It's for the best, Peter, believe me!"

At this point Barry and Marie-Lise turned up; whether they'd been called by Helen earlier or not, I don't know. Whatever, they persuaded me to let the girls go to find Anna without me. Marie-Lise joined Helen and Crystal for the trip, while Barry stayed with me at the house.

The girls had only been gone about five minutes when Barry turned to me.

"Well, what are you going to do - sit here or go after them?" he asked.

"We'd never catch them now if we tried. They're long gone," I replied.

"Yeah, but I think know where they're going. What d'ya say?"

I looked at Barry quizzically.

"Ah well, Helen Carpenter left her road atlas open on the seat of her car and I just happened to look in the window. There was a pencil mark around a certain place, I think I've a pretty good idea where she's going, I went to a golf tournament there once."

I grabbed my jacket and we both raced out of the house. There's one thing about Barry that I‘ve never been too enamoured with. When Marie isn't in the car he drives like a bleeding nutcase, but that day I wasn't complaining; although I did wonder if I was going to be alive to see the next morning.

It took us just over an hour to catch the girls up. Barry slowed down and held right back once we saw Helen Carpenter's BMW in the distance. A couple of times we slowed right down until they were out of sight.

"You know maybe this wasn't such a good idea," Barry suddenly said. "Marie-Lise is going to kill me when she finds out we've followed them."

"You could be right but what's done is done. Anyway they're turning off so we must be there." I replied, seeing Helen's indicator coming on.

"We are, that's why I'm getting worried. Look, if I remember correctly, there's a pub about a mile further on. I think we should go there and wait a while, then I'll call Marie-Lise on her mobile and ask her what's going on."

"You're driving, Barry, but I think it's a good idea to wait a little while and give the girls time to break the ice. Head for the pub."

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"Take it easy, Pete. That's your third bloody pint," Barry said as he returned to the bar after calling Marie-Lise. He couldn't get a signal on his mobile inside the old pub's stone building.

"What did she say?" I demanded, taking no notice of Barry's comment about the beer.

"Well, I'm in deep shit with Marie and they are on there way here."

"But what did they say about Anna?"

"Nothing. Marie just tore me a new arsehole and told me to wait for them here. She said they would be here in a few minutes," Barry replied.

"But surely they said something. Did they find Anna at the Country Club?"

"I'm sorry, Pete. Marie wouldn't tell me anything. She just said we were to wait here until they got here. Oh and we'd better go into the other bar, Marie made a point of asking me to find somewhere quiet."

Barry and I moved into the deserted lounge bar. I can't say I was particularly happy with the move because I couldn't see the car park from there. I'd almost finished my third pint when Helen and Marie-Lise walked into the bar.

"I thought you were supposed to stay back at the house?" Helen commented.

"Yeah, well, I got impatient so there was a change of plan. Did you find her? Is she at the Country Club?"

Helen shook her head. "Not anymore. She's in the garden through that door over there waiting to talk to you."

I left the rest of my pint on the bar and headed for the French doors that led into the pub garden. I saw Crystal and Anna sitting on a bench at the end of the garden. As I got close both of them stood up, Anna just stood there with a worried look on her face, whilst Crystal walked towards me.

"Just remember that she loves you!" Crystal said as she gave me a quick kiss on the cheek in passing, then she made her way into the bar.

I walked up to Anna and stopped a couple of feet from her. I wanted to take her in my arms and hold her but for some reason I didn't.

She raised her eyes to look into mine. "I'm sorry!" Anna said.

"I'm not. I've found you again and that's all that matters. Now tell me does my wife still love me and is she coming home with me?"

"You really don't care what I am!"

"Anna, if I cared about what you once were, do you really think I'd be here? Yesterday's gone Anna, and tomorrow is another day."

We kind-of fell into each other's arms and then….

Life goes on.