Harry, Thelma, and Harry

Friday evening I arrived at her house to pick her up at about seven o'clock. She came out of the house carrying an overnight bag.

"Um, what's the bag for Thelma?" I asked nervously.

"Well, I thought you wanted to go to your local pub. It's got to be thirty-five miles away from here at least. I thought if you wanted I could maybe stay over at your place; that would save you driving backwards and forwards picking me up and dropping me off all weekend."

So Thelma stayed over at my parents house that weekend. No, not in my bed but my sisters' - they were both married and gone by then. Thelma slept in their old room.

The following weekend I stayed at her parent's house and we visited pubs around where she lived. Her parents were very nice; I got on really well with her father and her younger brother. I'm not sure how keen her mother was to start with but she came around in the end.

Yeah, you've guessed it Thelma had me wound around her little finger from that first weekend. From that date she never wore anything you could call provocative at work or any other time, that I knew about except when she was out with me, that is. Then blow me if she didn't dress herself up like a million dollars.

I quickly discovered that Thelma wasn't a virgin. Well, I was never under the impression she was actually. However I found out that she couldn't use the birth control pill; she reacted badly to it apparently. So we didn't have sex very often and we always used protection.

Three months later we were engaged and before I knew it we had put down a deposit on a tatty old house almost exactly half way between our parents two homes. We spent all our spare time for the next year practically rebuilding the place. Well, at least we brought it into the twentieth century.

Once the house was finished, the logical next step was to get married. So that's what we did. The reception, of course, was held in Marshall's canteen with the canteen staff doing the catering. Old man Marshal was there and he came up and told me how pleased he was to see us together. Exactly how much he was involved in Thelma's plan to capture me I never have been sure of. Perhaps Thelma just used him, as I was to find out she used so many people.

Life for the next few years was sweet. Thelma fell pregnant quite quickly after we were married. Hey, well, we used condoms on most occasions, but we were just married and sometimes things got a little hectic, you know what it's like.

Having had one child, Tracy, we decided to have our second child, Helen, as soon as we could. Two, we decided was going to be enough for us and Thelma arranged a permanent solution to the birth control problem. Well, she had had some problems when she was carrying Helen and the doctors were quite worried. They had her in hospital early and kept a close eye on her.

Whilst Thelma was still carrying Tracy, I got a call one day from old man Marshal. The upshot of it was that his transport manager was retiring. With Thelma on maternity leave, he was, to put it bluntly in Shit Street. He had already spoken to Bill Wilkins and he asked me whether I would take over as his transport manager, at least until Thelma returned to work.

It would be handy for me as I would be close at hand when Thelma gave birth and I wouldn't be chasing off all over the country whilst Thelma was nursing.

So somewhat reluctantly I agreed. The only problem was that when Thelma and I decided to go for the second child my position with Marshal's became permanent.

The work wasn't hard; it just called for knowledge of vehicles, and a good idea of how to plan routes the trucks should take. After a while I found I quite enjoyed it. Not as much as being on the road, but the money was better and there was no overtime to do.

In a way I was glad I could spend the time with our two little angels. I was quite sure they were going to become a pair of man-eaters like their mother when they grew up. I must admit I saw some worrying times ahead but figured I'd cross that bridge when I came to it.

So, life carried on as I suppose it does for most couples with young children. I genuinely thought I had made it in life. Good job, nice house, loving wife and a wonderful couple of daughters. But things can go pear shaped just when you're not expecting them to.

If I want to put a time stamp on it, I'd say my earliest clue that something was not as it should be was when Tracy had just turned six. I was driving to work one morning and I noticed the car behind me. Okay, you say the roads are public so you should expect to have a car behind you sometimes. But did you noticed that what I said was "the car behind me".

Now remember I'd been a truck driver for a few years. When you're driving trucks all day long and if you're any good at your job, you keep a very good eye on what's going on around you. It could be, if you're carrying a valuable cargo, that car behind you could be loaded with some little toe-rags who would like to relieve you of the job of actually delivering it. Or it could be one of the other big headaches for a driver with a tight schedule to keep to; the unmarked police patrol car.

So if you know what you're doing you keep tabs on the cars behind. All drivers should do that anyway; what I'm talking about is the car and its occupants. Oh, you can spot them a mile away if you've got your head screwed on right, trust me.

No, the car I'd spotted behind me was staying just there. When we hit a junction, if he got left behind, he was overtaking anything and everything until he was back on my tail. He definitely wasn't a copper – they drive far better than this Pratt did – but it was obvious he was following me.

That evening when I left work another car picked up my tail. A different car with a lady behind the wheel this time, but she stayed with me all the way home. Next morning the guy was there again and in the evening the woman followed me to the pub. Thursday nights I have a drink – just one since I'm driving – and a game of snooker with some of my staff.

We hadn't been in the pub long when I noticed her come in, followed shortly after by the guy. They went to the bar separately and brought their own drinks. Then things got what I can only term as farcical. Look, I'm playing snooker with one of the boys and this tart is sitting at the bar showing off as much of her anatomy as she can get away with and staring at me so hard I could feel eyes drilling holes in my back.

A couple of times during my game the woman's eyes met mine and when they did, she smiled at me. The only thing I couldn't work out was who and why was someone trying to set me up. But there was no chance I was going to bite. I'm not sure what kind of an idiot they took me for, but I had no intention of playing the game they intended.

The why question I thought I had the answer for. Old man Marshal was a very family oriented character and placed a high value on the family, Christ, he ran his company like it was one big family. Now, I was an outsider who had been invited into the firm after I had married one of Marshal's favourite employees. I had rapidly become a favourite of his as well and the word around the firm was that I was going places at Marshal's

I figured someone had gotten jealous or thought that in the long term I was a rival to them in the promotion stakes. Whoever it was I assumed was trying to entice me into doing something that would ultimately destroy my marriage and most likely change old man Marshal's opinion of me.

Having finished my drink I bought another so as to hide my true intentions. Then having taken a swig from it, set off to the gents from where I slipped out the back door without anyone noticing. I would have liked to have turned the tables on the two of them, but not having the slightest idea of who was trying to set me up I didn't know whom I could trust. So I just drove myself home. I did wonder how long they waited for me to return from the gents.

The following morning the guy was there again but this time I lost him pretty easily. As I drove out of Marshal's yard that evening the woman fell in behind me immediately. I took her on a little mystery tour that finished up in a small factory estate I knew quite well from driving the trucks; it ended in a cul-de-sac.

Having parked my car I made my way between the buildings where the woman couldn't see me and crept around until I was behind her car. Then she suddenly found me standing by her car door. She realised immediately that I was on to her and taking me completely by surprise took off in the car backwards at high speed. She did a skid turn that would have put Rockford to shame and within moments she was gone.

Cursing myself for letting her get away, I went back to my car and drove home. To be honest for a while I thought that was the end of the episode. They didn't appear to follow me anymore. I figured that once I was aware of them, they had given up.

But two weeks later there was a different woman sitting are the bar in the pub when I arrived on the Thursday night. As I purchased my drink from the barman, she made some comment. To be honest at first I didn't connect her with the other two. It was only after she joined me at the jukebox as I was picking out a couple of tunes that the penny dropped.

"Piss off, lady, and tell your friends I'm not as dumb as I look," I said to her. "And you can tell that Pratt with the Granada if I even see him again I'll kick his fucking head in."

The woman was completely caught off guard; she looked quite shocked and left the pub almost immediately. Oh, I had noticed the Ford Granada in the car park when I arrived, but not its driver.

I suppose it was about a month after that, when Thelma stumbled one day in those bloody high heals that she was back to wearing, breaking a bone in her ankle. I got a frantic call from her when she was at the hospital asking me to come and collect the girls.

When I arrived the doctor told me the break, although not serious, needed to be set in plaster. But there was a problem. Thelma's ankle had swollen up and they would have to wait until the swelling had gone down before the plaster could be put on. Thelma would have to stay in hospital until it was applied.

That called for me to take a couple of days off to look after the girls as it was during the school summer holidays. It was a pleasant change for me to play Mum and Dad. I know they had great fun taking the Mickey out of me when it came to cooking. I'm not a good cook; I found it hard to get the timing right. How the hell do you get all the different elements to finish cooking at the same time?

Anyway it was while I was juggling things in the kitchen that evening that the phone rang. Because I had my hands full I asked Tracy to answer it. At six I thought she could handle it, we had taught her what to do and say.

"Oh, sorry, Uncle Frank, mummy's in hospital. She's hurt her leg." --- "No daddies looking after us" --- "Bye bye." Then Tracy put the phone down.

"Who was that, Tracy?" I asked.

"Oh, just Uncle Frank," she replied.

There was only one problem to that answer, as far as I was concerned. Who the fuck was Uncle Frank? I'd never heard of him before. I was just about to enquire further when I heard Helen call her sister from the other room and Tracy ran to see what she wanted. Curious, I followed Tracy but for some reason I did not enter the playroom.

"You're going to get in trouble from mummy. You broke your promise to mummy that you would never tell daddy about Uncle Frank."

"What the fuck did I just hear my daughter say?" I thought, then I heard Tracy's reply. A typical child's answer.

"I didn't tell daddy about Uncle Frank."

Then followed the usual "You did's" and "I didn't's". I chose to not enter into the argument. Both girls apparently were aware that I wasn't supposed to know about this Uncle Frank character and to intervene in this current conversation-cum-argument would mean they were both on their guard. I thought it better to leave it and wait until they were relaxed about it again.

But I was surely troubled. I couldn't understand why Thelma would want to keep some guy secret from me. Unless ... that is? Now that was a question I really didn't want to ask myself. Denial, I think, wouldn't let me think that way.

The swelling in Thelma's ankle didn't go down overnight as the doctor had hoped. To me it looked like it was swollen much more than it had been the previous day. When the nurse told me that it could take as much as a week to go down, I thought I'd better import some assistance at home, before the girls went down with food poisoning or started to show signs of malnutrition from refusing to eat my cooking.

My sister volunteered to stay over and help with girls, which allowed me to get some time in at the office as well. Sara brought her nine-year-old daughter Marcy with her. I can't say I was very taken with Marcy. I think she took after her mother who, even if she was my sister, had never been one of my favourite people when we were young. We had bonded a lot better now that we were older.

I'm not sure why I did it. Maybe I needed someone to confide in but I told Sara about this Uncle Frank character. It could be my girls had been sworn to keep the secret from me, but Thelma might not of stipulated other people.

When I told Sara, she sat and thought for a while. Then she said, "Do you think that Thelma's...?"

"I don't know what to think, Sara. But I don't like my family keeping secrets from me."

"Is that why you hated Ginny and me when we were little? We never let on to you about anything."

"It could be. But I'm definitely not standing for my wife keeping secrets from me. Especially where men are concerned."

"I don't blame you, Thelma is a beautiful woman. I never could understand how you captured her."

"Well, the point is, Sara, I didn't capture Thelma; it was her who chased after me."

"Well, she had good taste, I'll give her that. Anyway what are you after? Do you want me to ask the girls about this Frank for you?"

"I thought they might open up to you. I definitely heard Helen say that their mother had made them promise not to tell me about him. Now they might think their not breaking her trust if they tell you."

"Leave it with me and I'll see what I can find out."

"Thanks, Sis, but try not to make a big thing about it and put them on their guard."

The following morning I left Sara with the children and went into work. In the afternoon I visited Thelma in the hospital and she told me that Sara had been in with the girls for about an hour earlier in the day.

I don't know what made me do it, but I asked Thelma if there was anything she wanted to tell me. I think I confused her; at least she didn't understand what I was asking her, because all she came up with was a list of unpaid bills and things that needed doing at home.

That night after Sara had put the children to bed, she sat me down at the kitchen table and fixed me with a stern look.

"Well, I don't know who the hell this Frank guy is, but I think you need to find out what the bloody hell is going on."

"You asked the girls about him then. What did they say?"

"Don't be daft. I set Marcel on the problem. I thought the girls wouldn't identify her as an adult and - oh, well, you know how kids think. Anyway about this man Frank. Apparently Thelma and him used to talk to each other outside the school whilst Thelma was waiting for the girls to come out.

"From what the girl's understand, he's divorced and his children supposed to go to their school. They say it's the only chance he gets to see them, as he doesn't live with his wife. From what I could make of it she's supposed to have custody and he claims she makes it difficult for him to see them, so he's supposed to be watching them in the school playground."

"But why hide that from me?"

"Marcy is no fool; she tackled that question as well. According to the girls, this Frank's wife is supposed to work at your firm and the story is that you might tell her he's watching the children at the school."

"Oh, I see. Well, I suppose that does explain it. But surely Thelma doesn't think I would grass the guy up to his wife."

"Bullshit, that stupid story doesn't hold water at all. Think about it. If this Frank was at the school when the kids came out, then why wouldn't his so-called ex-wife see him there? And when I sent Marcy back with a few more questions, I really got worried. Neither of your girls has any idea who this Frank's blokes children are. Come on, it's a small school. That doesn't make sense.

"On top of that, apparently sometimes when Thelma takes the girls to the playground in the park after school, Frank is there as well. And what really tops things off, he has been at the park during the school holidays and he has been with Thelma and the girls in the shopping centre on more than one occasion. He buys the children ice cream, sweets and hamburgers.

"Little brother, you've got a serious problem and you've got to get to the bottom of it pretty quick. It could be that Thelma was planing on meeting this Frank the other day when she had her fall. Perhaps that's why he called here that day to ask her why she had never showed."

"Do you think that they are having an affair then?"

"How the hell do I know what to think? But I'll tell you, something very fishy is going on and we've got to find out what it is."

"I'm glad you said we, because I'm beginning to lose the plot here."

"Well, don't go going half cocked. There might be an innocent explanation for it that we can't see yet. But to be honest I doubt it. Now think back, brother. Can you think of anything that Thelma has said or done in the last few months that might be significant? Anything out of place or different than usual?"

"Well, not anything that Thelma has done but a strange thing happened the other week." I went on to tell Sara about being followed and the two girls, what I can only describe as trying to pick me up in the pub. Sara couldn't make head nor tail of that either.

The next day went the same as the day before. Thelma's ankle was beginning to show signs that the swelling was going down and the nurses told me that all was going well, and she should be home by the weekend.

That night after the children were in bed again, Sara, who had been showing signs of being on tenterhooks since I arrived in the house, couldn't wait to get me alone.

"What colour was the car that followed you?" she asked the moment the kitchen door was closed.

"It was a maroon Ford Granada. Why?"

"Close enough, the girls called it dark red. I think it was this Frank who followed you. And I've got some bad news. Marcy says she thinks the girls have been inside it. They describe the inside of it in detail to her. You know they said how big it was and how soft the seats were. Oh and the child locks were on so they couldn't open the doors from the inside. Kids would only notice a thing like that if they've been inside the car."

"I agree with you there. Look, I called in a favour today and rang Bill Wilkins. He's got some friends in the police and he's trying to get the names and addresses from the numbers of those cars that followed me."

"Good idea, bro. I think you owe Marcy a big favour for all the pumping she's been doing on the girls."

"Yes, I know. I'm lucky she's as devious as her mother."

"I'm not sure whether I should take that as a compliment or not?" Sara replied with a smile on her face.

++++++++++

Friday morning Bill Wilkins called me at the office quite early. He told me that the Granada belonged to a one Frank Williams who was well known to the police. The other two cars had been hired from a cheap car hire company. Strangely one of them hadn't been returned and the hirer, a man had used false documents to hire both vehicles.