Husband "Cinnamon and the Husband"

CINNAMON AND THE WAYWARD HUSBAND

Gail Patterson had become exceedingly troubled by her husband's
behaviour of late. Throughout the marriage, it had been his habit to
wake as late as possible and head out of the door to work, generally
with a piece of warm buttered toast still in his mouth and chin still
damp and sponged with flecks of white shaving foam.

Over the last month or so, this had changed alarmingly to Howard
springing out of bed the moment the alarm sounded and taking a shower
minutes before the postman arrived, leaving instantly thereafter. Also,
it had been six weeks since Gail had seen any mail addressed to
him.

In Gail's view it was obvious that there were items on his Visa bill
and phone bill that he didn't want Gail to see.

She confided her suspicions to her brother, Justin. Justin had been the
black sheep of the family for a long time, their parents believing that
he was a waster, signing on the dole and maybe selling a little dope to
supplement his income. If they had seen the rather splendid loft he was
renting in Clerkenwell, complete with wooden floorboards, some rather
natty original artwork and Charles Eames leather chair, they would have
had to question this belief.

If their parents had any idea that these days he was really Justin
Credible, the star of some thirty-two hardcore gay porn movies and in
the midst of shooting film thirty-three, they probably would have
closed the garage door and rigged up a hose to the Rover. Hemel
Hempstead just wasn't ready to embrace acting in adult movies as a
healthy career.

Gail knew and she still faintly disapproved of Justin, but took the
view that as long as she didn't have to watch the bloody things and he
kept himself clean, he was still her brother, embarassing as he
was.

She hadn't wanted to confess her suspicions to any of her female
friends, any of whom would have circulated that the Patterson marriage
was on the rocks with indecent speed. And besides, it was possible that
one of them was the mystery woman.

It was pretty tragic at thirty-two not to be able to trust a single one
of your friends, but that was the position in which Gail Patterson
found herself.

Gail had very little money of her own, just what Howard gave her to get
the shopping and an allowance to spend on herself. She couldn't afford
to hire a private investigator. She took Justin out to lunch at a
rather upmarket cafe she favoured instead, to ask his views.

Justin was wearing jeans and a very battered red corduroy jacket,
together with some training shoes that had seen better months. His hair
had been bleached blonde, to an extent that it was almost white and
curls fell about his eyes.

Gail had to supress a shudder when she first saw him sitting at a
stool, talking to the Italian behind the counter who was busying
himself with the espresso machine's levers. They were definitely making
quite a bit of eye-contact. What was worse, was that in the past, Gail
had thought that the Italian boy had quite liked her.

Not for the first time, Gail in her smart navy blue suit and lilac
blouse felt that there must have been an adoption in the family that
she had never been told about. She ordered coffee and a ham salad
sandwich, Justin ordering a double-chocolate muffin, a knife and fork
and a glass of milk, "cold as you can get it."

She explained the situation to him as he began to eat the muffin with a
knife and fork, honestly, he was so embarrassing.

"I dunno, " he said, "There could be loads of different reasons for it.
"

"For example ? "

"I dunno. It could be anything. Why don't you ask him ?"

Gail sighed, heavily. This was all you could expect when you sought
advice from someone whose employment depended solely on his ability to
conjure an erection. Really, when she thought of the money her parents
had spent on tuition fees for him.

"If I ask him, " she said in a voice that chilled and snapped in equal
measures, "He will just deny it, and I'll be no further forward.
"

"Well, has he gone off it lately ? That can be a sign."

Gail let out a long sigh, her brother could be so sordid at times,
"It's not a question of that at all, " she said, concealing from him
the fact that she and her husband hadn't done anything of that nature
for a very long time, and only then because she had been giddy on
Baileys and trying to persuade Howard to invest in the very latest
Dyson model.

Justin took a long sip of his milk, which was good and cold, the way he
liked it. He wasn't due on set today and had been hoping to spend the
day sleeping and watching violent and quirky Japanese cartoons on
satellite television, until he had got a panicked call from his
sister.

This was really putting a dent in his day, just as he needed to be
relaxing. He had found it pretty draining just reading the script for
the next scenes. It was going to take quite some choreography just to
get everyone's bits and pieces arranged in the right place. Really,
sometimes it was more like a Broadway musical than a skin-flick.

" I know, " he said, " Why don't you get a private detective ? "

This was at least a step in the right direction, with Justin showing
some thought about the agony she was going through. Gail didn't have
enough money for that though, as she had previously asked for some
quotes, ringing the more respectable-looking adverts in the Yellow
Pages.

She explained to Justin that she could afford two hundred and fifty
pounds, that she had been saving from her clothes allowance, with the
intention of buying something devastating for Cynthia Basset's garden
party.

The Bassett had been insufferable since last year, when she had got the
man who used to be Charlie Hungerford in Bergerac to give a speech at
the party. Gail was pained as she explained to Justin that she would
have to cry off with some weak excuse from the function, in order to
save her marriage.

Justin drummed his fork on the side of the glass of milk,triumphantly,
" I've got just the person, " he said, "Girl working on my movie. She's
ever so bright and a real one for adventure. This would be just the
sort of thing she'd like to do. "

"I don't want some slut following my husband around, " sniffed Gail. If
he wasn't already having an affair, she didn't want some tart pushing
him further towards it.

Justin rolled his eyes upwards, "Cinnamon isn't a slut, she's an
actress. She plays the receptionist at my dental surgery, she's the one
who sends in all the patients. "

"I know what sort of acting you mean. "

Justin laughed, shaking his curly hair, " Sis, I work in gay porn. The
people who watch my movies aren't interested in seeing girls doing
it."

Gail went very scarlet and began frantically looking for something in
her handbag, to conceal her embarrassment. She hissed at Justin to keep
his voice down, that this wasn't that sort of place and why did he
always feel the need to show her up.

Ever since they had been children, her younger brother had taken
delight in drawing attention to himself, usually at her expense.

"I'll have a word with Cinnamon, I'm sure she'll be up for it. "

The next day, during a break in filming, Justin took himself off to
find Cinnamon, who had her hair pinned up neatly and was wearing
spectacles with clear lenses, that showed off her green eyes ever so
well. Justin had just filmed quite a long sequence and was presently
wearing a fluffy white towel and a thin sheen of baby oil.

"Hiya, " he said, "I've been wanting a word with you. "

The film they were working on was "Open Wide 4", the return of Nick
Gleam, a dentist who was also somehow a gangster. It was being shot in
an old warehouse and they were filming two versions, one hardcore and
one soft, for the official British market.

Cinnamon had ascertained on day One of the shoot that Justin tragically
really was gay in real life and not just a straight guy who was
prepared to do what was required of him in order to be in films.

This was a real shame, because Cinnamon had a bit of a thing for size
and in that department, Justin Credible certainly lived up to his name.
Plus, he always smelt slightly of Johnson's baby oil, which was a smell
that just sent Cinnamon absolutely wobbly. But, it was not to be.

With the whole sex thing out of the way, they had become quite good
friends and had quite a good laugh together on the set. Cinnamon would
never have taken a role in a film which required any nudity on her
part, but gay porn was ideal, because she didn't have to take even the
slightest involvement in the sex. Also, nobody on the crew was slightly
interested in hitting on her, which was something of a break from her
normal routine - she had never had so much eye-contact when talking to
men and they actually seemed to be listening to her rather than
planning their next move.

Her part in the film was just showing patients through to Justin's
cavity-filling dentist and then pieces of comedy between her and Justin
in between the sex scenes. There was some sort of plot as well, but
Cinnamon had taken no interest in that, because she didn't feature in
it.

The great thing about it, other than the money, was that nobody was
even slightly phased by her name.She supposed that when the co-star of
a film is called "Tony DaPony", it takes a lot to surprise the
crew.

Justin and Cinnamon had been out clubbing a few times,after filming
which was an experience. Every time they came off the dance floor to
hit the bar, there would be a drink waiting for Justin.

Men were constantly rubbing against him as he danced, touching his
chest and shoulders and slipping their phone numbers into the waistband
of his jeans.

Justin would always just pass this number back to the next man who gave
him a phone number - that way he could at least pair off two men
looking for some excitement, he liked to think that they might just hit
it off.

The irony was that all these men who hoped to have sex with him had no
chance at all, since Justin had spent the whole day shagging on set and
had no libido left whatsoever.

He always told Cinnamon that they weren't his type anyway. Justin was
more one for the older man.

Cinnamon had stopped watching the sex scenes now, not because she was
squeamish, but because it got a bit boring in the second week. The
first day had been odd, where she'd had to walk into to remind Justin
(as Nick Gleam) to make sure he gave Mr Marlowe's root a close
inspection. It had been a new experience for Cinnamon to see two men
naked and very much ready for action, but with neither of them faintly
interested in her. She had needed a double gin shortly afterwards to
settle her ego.

" You said the other day that you turned your hand to all sorts of
things, " he said to Cinnamon.

"Oh, you name it, " she said.

"My sister thinks her husband is fooling around, " said Justin, "She
wants to know for definite. She's on a limited budget, but she'll pay
two hundred and fifty to find out. Do you fancy it ? "

This sounded like a good idea to Cinnamon. The film would be over after
the next sex scene and she didn't really have anything else on the
horizon.

In retrospect she probably shouldn't have spent so much of the money
the book people had given her on a Triumph Spitfire, but it was a doll
of a car. Convertible and sprayed duck-egg blue. The seats made a
delicious creaking sigh when she got in or out.

It was her car from the moment she'd seen it - not to have bought it
would have been positively sinful (not that that usually stopped
Cinnamon from doing exactly what she wanted).

Other than the financial attraction of detective work, Tom Magnum had
been her first ever crush as a girl. (She had liked the idea of being
tickled by his moustache.) Being a private investigator, even for a few
days sounded like it could be a giggle.

She talked to Justin, to get the low-down on Gail and Howard. Gail was,
in Justin's words, "very uptight, she never finds Margot from the Good
Life amusing, more like a role model." Gail, according to Justin, was
the sort of person who wouldn't be able to rest until she knew the
truth about Howard, but would probably then forgive him and stay with
him, as long as he was discreet.

Howard was a creature of habit, the sort of chap who enjoyed washing
his car every Sunday, opening the tin of polish and smoothing it over
the bonnet to make it sparkle. He'd watch golf on television while Gail
cooked a joint and peeled potatoes. Cinnamon couldn't imagine that
people like that still existed. She couldn't think of anyone "ordinary"
like that in her social circle.

"I should have had a notepad for this, " said Cinnamon, imagining
herself licking the end of a pencil before writing in an authoritative
manner. She was already beginning to get into her new character.
World-weary, possibly a drinker. Maybe she would do some wise-cracking
too. She would be able to sit in her car and eat hamburgers and drink
thick shakes, like Popeye Doyle. Excellent.

Truth be known, Cinnamon often ate fast-food in her car. It was just
that usually, she pretended to be Fred Flintstone, with a huge rack of
barbeque ribs about to topple the Spitfire over to one side.

"Gail wouldn't ever accept any money from me,she shudders if I hand her
a fiver for a taxi," said Justin, "But I'll give you an extra three
hundred, see how you get on. "

This was getting even better. Justin later came to her, after the final
sex scene of the day and peeled off six fifty pound notes from a large
roll, held together with an elastic band. Coupled with the money from
the film, that put Cinnamon in quite a healthy financial position, for
a short time at least. Justin was sucking at a mint, rolling it round
and round his mouth. Cinnamon knew why he sucked mints after a scene,
but politely made no reference to it.

The next morning, Cinnamon huddled down low into her coat in the car
seat and put her heating on full blast. Her legs were cold and she
wished that she had worn her opaque tights today, that were a bit
thicker than the skin-coloured ones she had put on for glamour
effect.

This private investigation was fine on paper, but she
hadn't appreciated just how early she would have to get up to be at the
Patterson's house before Howard left for work. She would have to knock
the clubbing on the head until she had solved the case.

She had on a trenchcoat, and underneath that, a merchandising T-shirt
from the Open Wide 4 film, the American producer having given one out
to everyone who had worked on the film. (The tagline on the T-shirt
was, "FILLING, DRILLING AND THRILLING"). She had slept in it the night
before, after the last day party (which had been a damn fine one) and
when the alarm had gone off at the ungodly hour of six am, she hadn't
had the energy to iron anything. She would go home later and get
something else to wear.

The postman walked down the path, dropped some letters through the
letterbox and left. A minute later, Howard came out of the front door,
with the letters in his hand. Cinnamon was hoping that he might throw
them in the hedge or something, to make life very simple, but he kept
them with him when he got into the car.

Cinnamon followed him to his office, to see if he was going to stop for
some extra-marital brunch before work, but no luck. Her plan the night
before had been to lie her way into his office, to see if she could
overhear any office gossip, but the Open Wide T-shirt was going to be a
hindrance with regard to that. She would have to trail all the way home
to get changed.

Or, use some of her five hundred and fifty pounds to buy a nice
blouse...

An hour later, she parked up near Howard Patterson's office, wearing
her trenchcoat, a beige skirt and a sage green blouse, having just
bitten off the little plastic tag and spat it somewhere near the
passenger seat.

She was wearing her clear lens spectacles and was putting herself into
character as a girl four years younger than her, nervous and timid. She
was trying to summon up gawkiness, that feeling that her arms and legs
were too big and too long, that they weren't really connected at all to
any functions of the brain.

Cinnamon reapplied her make-up in the mirror, making it much less
sophisticated and slightly artless. She even used a nail-file to put a
run in her tights, feeling that this was right for her character. She
was prepared to suffer for her acting.

With this in mind, the first thing she did when she got to the
reception desk was drop the A4 pad and six biros that she was carrying.
She made a play of bumping her head on the desk as she bent down to
pick them up.

The receptionist had just peeled off the lid of a Muller yoghurt and
was holding it gingerly between thumb and forefinger, waiting to drop
it into the rubbish bin. She scrutinised Cinnamon with a blend of
disinterest and contempt.

Cinnamon stood up and blinked at the receptionist, whose name badge
read "Theresa". Cinnamon appeared terrified, pushing her spectacles
back on her nose as they slipped down.

"Hello, I'm Daphne Hannah," she said, mock-nervously, "I'm supposed to
be here on work experience. I'm a bit late - I couldn't find the place.
"

Cinnamon could see the receptionist make a great effort not to roll her
eyes up in horror, obviously thinking, we've got a right idiot here.
She had done this herself in her time as a temp, enjoying one of the
few times when someone lower in the food chain comes into your power.
Work experience students were the lowest form of life in an
office.

"Who are you supposed to be with ? "

" Oh gosh, " said Cinnamon, "I really can't remember. I had a letter,
but I think I left it at home. Is it important ? "

Cinnamon waited while Theresa the receptionist made a few telephone
calls, drawing a blank on each occasion. Unsurprisingly, nobody had
ever heard of Daphne Hannah or had agreed to take her on work
experience.

The receptionist looked at a diary that showed everyone's movements,
looking for someone who wasn't in the office that day, " Could it have
been Jim McIntyre ? "

"That's it, " said Cinnamon, her past experience as a temp having
alerted her to what the receptionist had been doing.

The receptionist looked at her more kindly, shaking her head sadly at
the incompetence of managers who would agree to take on a work
experience girl and not let anyone know and then stupidly be out of the
office all day. Poor girl, wasn't her fault.

While Cinnamon waited, dropping her pens again for good measure, the
receptionist made another telephone call and found someone prepared to
take Cinnamon for the day, in the general office, where all the typing,
photocopying and post was managed.

Cinnamon had judged the situation to perfection. She had guessed that
faced with a girl nobody was expecting, the organisation would just
assume someone had made an error and just stick her in the general
office for the day, where she was in a prime position to find out
gossip.

Using her acting training, Cinnamon kept well in character all day,
making careful notes on her A4 pad and saying things like, "I was told
to find out about your grievance procedure for my college project..."
She even managed to put the pages in the fax machine the wrong way up
and look as though she might burst into tears when she realised.

She was very subtle in her questioning, asking about a number of
people. Going on a post round had helped, since she got to meet most of
the executives and smile blandly at them, while the boy with the odd
fringe who usually did the post gave her a short pen-portrait of which
of the executives were kind and which had bad tempers.

By the end of the day, her investigations had concluded that if Howard
Patterson was having an affair, not only was it not with someone in his
firm, but that he was very discreet about the whole thing.

Nobody had a bad word to say about him and although there was some talk
of people having clinches out by the fire escape, he was not one of
them. He also had a picture of his wife prominently displayed on his
desk, which would have been the first thing to go, had he been knocking
someone off at work.

Cinnamon was in no way a stranger to office romance, she knew what to
look for.

Having said that, Howard did seem to have been interested in her. When
she had gone in with a pale blue folder of post for him and emptied his
basket, she noted that he had looked her up and down very carefully and
even smiled to himself. There was clearly potential there.

Very interesting, thought Cinnamon. She described her day's discoveries
into a handheld dictating machine stolen from a previous temping job.
Although she had no secretary and would have to type it up herself, it
still made her feel important to do the dictating, as if she might
possibly have staff to whom she could say, "just one tape Jenny, first
thing tomorrow please".

If this took off, perhaps a detective agency was on the cards, she
could get an answering maching, hire a temp for a few hours a week. It
would be fun having someone she was properly in charge of.

She drove off after work to see Gail Patterson, to give her a brief
report. Gail ushered her into the house quickly, obviously not wanting
neighbours to see some common girl on the doorstep.

Initially, Gail was frosty about meeting Cinnamon for the first time,
worried that her husband would be tempted away by Cinnamon, and then
decided that Cinnamon would in no way be tempted by Howard. She then
made what she felt was a concerted effort to be friendly.

She spoke to Cinnamon as though she were the hired help, which in a
way, Cinnamon supposed she was. Although Gail had been making what she
felt was an effort to be warm and friendly, the difference in her tone
was imperceptible. Cinnamon had the distinct impression that if they
had shaken hands, that Gail would have been in the bathroom busy with
the soap as soon as Cinnamon had gone. She was probably spraying
air-freshener in the hall at that very moment.

Cinnamon got what she wanted, which was a duplicate key.

She would need to go to bed early, get a good night's sleep to be fresh
for the morning.

Or, alternatively go out to Chutney Mary's on the Kings Road for a
bloody splendid curry with her friends Ritchie Massive and The Crab.
That would do just as well...

This time, Cinnamon had a flask of hot coffee while she waited for the
postman outside the Patterson's. While she waited, she was reading a
book on Home Brewing. She had a keen interest in learning how to
manufacture alcohol. She had a feeling that her skills might be
marketable some day.

She had on her running shoes, because this was going to be an operation
involving great timing. She saw the postman walk up the street and got
out of the car, wearing some black leggings, a fleece and her trainers
and began to jog slowly up the street. She had the doorkey pressed
tightly into her fist.

As she got near the Patterson's she faked a twisted ankle and pulled up
sharply, starting to perform some stretches and rotating the ankle. The
postman pushed some letters through the Patterson's door and said
"morning love" to her as he passed, checking out her bum as he passed.
She waited for him to pass by the next house, where the hedges would
obscure his view and smartly nipped over the low wall into the
Patterson's garden.

Cinnamon knew that she would not have much time, she skipped over to
the front door, stuck the key in the lock and turned it briskly. She
could hear the taps running in the bathroom and a noise that could have
been Howard brushing his teeth.

She opened the door, leaned in and grabbed the post. Mission
accomplished, she stuck the letters into a pocket of her fleece and
zipped it up.

Her heart was pounding, this was like burglary only without the effort
of untangling the cables to get the video free of encumberance, and
burglary had always made her nervous. She then shut the door, just as
the noise in the bathroom stopped and she could hear footsteps. She
hurdled the wall and made off down the street, having to stop about
twenty yards down the road due to a stitch.

She was absolutely sure that stealing mail from people's houses was
some kind of criminal offence, she had read about postmen who lost the
will to live getting sent down for two years when vast mounds of
undelivered post were discovered in their garden sheds.

A minute later, Howard passed her in his car. She quickly bent over
double and started breathing heavily, as if she was worn out. Even with
this, she still felt as if he was looking right at her when he drove
past. She risked a quick glance and saw that he was frowning.

Now for the letters, she thought. Annoyingly, of the four letters,
three were for Gail anyway. She opened them in any event, she felt it
was best to be thorough. One was a new Barclaycard - unsigned. She felt
a ripple of anticipation, but for possibly the first time in her young
life resisted temptation.

It couldn't possibly be acceptable to rip off your own client. Thomas
Magnum wouldn't have done it. He would have twinkled, stroked his
moustache and given it back to his client. Cinnamon brushed her fingers
lightly over her top lip, wishing for a moment that she had a thick
moustache that would inspire her.

Given her flimsy morals, she knew that temptation couldn't be resisted
for very long. She would have to post this letter back through Gail's
door as soon as possible.

She made her way back to the car, half-limping until she remembered
that he twisted ankle was just an act rather than reality. She
immediately put an old Curve tape in the radio and turned the volume up
full blast, before pulling on her very warmest coat and opening the one
letter that had been addressed to Howard Patterson.

Visa bill. She scanned through it. Low balance, looked as though he
cleared it every month. She looked for florists,jewellers, gift shops,
restaurants, theatres, hotels. Nothing.

The only thing which jarred amongst all the petrol stations and
supermarkets was an entry for Chelsea football club - what looked like
the price of two tickets, for a match that probably would have been one
of the Saturday's when he had told his wife he was working away, at a
conference in Aberdeen.

Cinnamon grabbed her dictating machine and recorded her views. It was
odd, an anomaly, but was it indicative of a passionate affair ? Does a
man take his mistress to Stamford Bridge to see a match ?

She thought hard about this, biting gently at her lip to aid the
process. Cinnamon could think of a few players that were definitely on
her List - she would certainly give David Beckham a hard time if she
ever got the opportunity; but it wasn't her idea of a great date. She
decided to tear up the bill and drop it into the next dustbin that she
passed.

The next step then, would be to follow Howard when he went out for
lunch, see if he was meeting up with someone.

Cinnamon went home to change, putting the kettle on as soon as she got
in. She realised that she had not posted Gail Patterson's pristine
Barclaycard back through the door. She looked at it for a second and
thought that it couldn't harm anyone to see if she had any clothes that
might suit Gail's personality. Could she pass for the sort of person
who might be a Mrs Gail Patterson ?

Thomas Magnum wouldn't do this, her conscience said weakly, but her
conscience was well-accustomed to losing out in battles with Cinnamon.
It barely put up a fight at all these days. Even the powerful image of
the thick moustache and manly physical frame of Tom Selleck was of no
real assistance.

She tried on a few outfits, settling finally on the business suit that
she used to wear on her first day of a new temping job, in the old days
when she hoped to impress her bosses. Even then, with sober make-up and
her most old-fashioned jewellery, she still didn't look half as stuffy
as Gail Patterson, (the suit being far too flattering around Cinnamon's
hips) but with a gold band on her left hand, she would probably pass
for a well-to-do married lady.

Using a slim pen that she had stolen from an old boss, she spent five
minutes practising what her "Gail Patterson" signature might look like,
but with a great effort of will, she managed to flip the back of the
card back over before the tip of her pen began to write on it. She
would have to post that back to Gail that afternoon, before the urge to
shop with it became impossible to resist.

This had all been a distraction, albeit an enjoyable one for Cinnamon,
who had got the accent and the walk down to a tee. She even knew in her
head, exactly how Mrs Gail Patterson would take the card out of her
purse and hand it to the shop assistant to be swiped. She could imagine
that there would be very little eye contact, anyone who worked in a
shop would be beneath Mrs Gail Patterson's attention.

"Remember, " she said to herself, in steely tones, "You are Thomas
Magnum. P.I "

She took off the suit and hung it up in the wardrobe. She went into the
bathroom and held a cotton pad under the neck of a bottle of cleanser,
wiping all of the "older woman" makeup off, before reapplying her more
usual style.

After sorting through her extensive wardrobe, she finally selected some
clothes that were inconspicuous, yet fairly clubby, wanting to look as
little like Daphne Hannah as possible. She decided to wear her hair
down, because she had worn it up the day before as Daphne.

Cinnamon got the tube into the centre of London. It was 11.15, and she
knew that she would have to wait for possibly two hours to shadow
Howard on his lunchbreak. She decided to grab something to eat at Ed's
Diner first, chilli fries, an old-fashioned burger with plenty of
ketchup and fried onions and a peanut-butter shake in a cold metal cup.
She had half an eye on the Belgian waffles, but had to concede
defeat.

After lunch, she wished that she had worn the size twelve trousers
rather than the ten, but told herself that she would feel better after
a long walk, following Howard.

Howard came out of his office, Cinnamon keeping as far away as she
could. Although she didn't look an awful lot like Daphne anymore and
had a different way of walking and holding herself, there were plenty
of people in that office besides Howard who might have recognised
her.

The odd thing was, when Howard came out, he seemed to be looking around
more than would be usual, the way Cinnamon would scan the crowd at a
gig to see where her mates were gathered, also noting how much beer
they had to time her approach to get there just as someone was on the
way to the bar.

She was sure she was just being paranoid, but it did seem as though he
looked right at her and frowned again.

He went all of ten yards to Marks and Spencers, bought himself a
sandwich and a carton of fresh orange and then went back to the office.
Cinnamon had been very wary in M&;S and twice had to pretend to be
extremely interested in the exact ingredients of their Cumberland Pie,
holding the packet up to obscure her face from Howard.

This day was turning out to be a complete blank. She realised that
about every four minutes she was thinking about abusing Gail
Patterson's Barclaycard. It was still in her pocket.

She went into a newsagents and bought a roll of sellotape and a biro.
She stuck down the flap of the envelope, wrote in a masculine hand,
"Not known at this address" and slotted it into the mouth of a
post-box, with a heady mixture of regret and relief sloshing round in
her brain.

As if it wasn't sufficient that she was gathering no evidence at all,
she had been quite actively thinking about defrauding her own client.
This private detective business was obviously going to provide Cinnamon
with far too many temptations.

She had pretty much decided that one case was about all she was willing
to take on. And indeed, the sooner she got out of this case, the
better.

Two days more tailing were equally inconclusive. Howard maintained that
same habit of looking about in the street, as though he was expecting
to see somebody, but never did anything exhilarating with his lunch
hour.After work he went straight home, while other people in his office
went for a drink or a pizza.

Cinnamon was starting to feel that he was far too dull to ever sustain
an affair with anyone. Yet, he still seemed a little more shifty than
her conversation with Justin and Gail had led her to believe.

It wasn't often that Cinnamon felt despair, she was far too optimistic
in her nature for that, but she did feel more than a little
down-hearted. She felt that she had been pretty clever so far in the
investigation, but had just gathered no real evidence at all.

Of course, if Howard wasn't having an affair, then she would never find
any evidence, even if she were the greatest detective in the world.
This thought cheered her up a little, but it didn't really square with
her instincts. Something in the way Howard was presenting suggested to
her that he was seeing someone else.

She had done four days and had incurred a bit of expenditure (to be
fair most of it had been on lunch and shopping for additional outfits,
strictly for the purposes of avoiding detection). She was starting to
wonder if she could justify just writing this off as a failure.

To be fair, she had provided Gail with quite detailed reports, she had
worked up her dictation into a fairly substantial document, describing
in minute detail her observations. She had padded out a lot of it and
even made one or two things up, such as observing Howard in the car
park after work.

Gail had not been happy, but she didn't seem to have been positively
unhappy. Anyway, she had been bloody snotty with Cinnamon and didn't
really deserve the
top-class detective work that Cinnamon had provided.

And, thought Cinnamon indignantly, she had missed two sessions of her
rock-climbing class for this assignment. Her climbing skills were very
important to her. It was all part of planning for the future.

Although Cinnamon felt there was something behind Howard's behaviour,
it seemed likely that someone reading his post, snooping around in his
office and following him at lunchtimes would have had an inkling that
he was having an affair if he was actually doing such a thing.

Cinnamon rang Justin, feeling slightly sorry for herself and explained
the position. Justin made her feel a bit more cheery, explaining that
his sister was always just a bit neurotic and had probably imagined the
whole thing.

"I'm sure if Howard had another woman, you'd have caught him, " Justin
had said, and this had perked her up. They agreed that the surveillance
would stop.

After all, it was Justin who was paying most of the money. If he was
happy to call it a day, then that should be sufficient. Cinnamon put
her dictating machine away and started planning what she would spend
the last of the money on.

Gail had been given enough information to conclude that she had been
wrong about her husband and that would no doubt make her happy - it had
probably just been that he had a lot on at work and was going in a
little earlier.
And really, Gail Patterson should just be grateful that Cinnamon hadn't
been maxing out her Barclaycard.

Actually, all things considered, Cinnamon felt pretty proud of herself
for mailing off that card. If Gail only knew of the mental anguish it
had caused her.

That night, Cinnamon had a fitful night's sleep. Although she was
flighty and had a very short attention-span, she did like to see things
through to the best of her ability. She could easily have just taken
the money and done barely any investigation at all, but she hadn't done
that.

She had spent quite a bit of time trying to do a good job for Gail, but
hadn't got the result that her instincts told her was out there to be
found. She thumped her pillow a few times and even tried to sleep at
the other end of the bed, but it was no use.

In the end she got out of bed to walk around the flat, thinking. It
really wasn't a good state of affairs when her sleep was getting
interrupted. She had a real urge to listen to her Kid Creole and The
Coconuts album, her most treasured possession, so she sorted through
her old vinyl until she found it. It was the oldest original there, the
others she had bought from record shops later to replace what she could
remember of the collection.

She put the needle onto the record, watching the grooves slowly rotate.
This record was the only thing she had that related to her old life,
when she still had a surname.

For a long time now, she had had a very strict rule that she could only
feel really sorry for herself for thirty minutes a month and it was
this album that she pulled out and listened to when she felt that
way.

She wiped her tears away and put the record back into the sleeve and
away in the cupboard.

The best course of action was to prepare a list evaluating the whole
investigation, with "feathers in my cap" and "black eyes" - a strategy
borrowed from a book she had once read.

Feathers in her cap - successful infiltration of Howard Patterson's
office, successful interception of post, avoiding detection whilst
following Howard, not all of the money spent yet, the return of the
Barclaycard.

Black eyes - not really getting any conclusive evidence, the feeling
that all was not right still unanswered.

The difficulty, she decided, was that she wasn't being honest with
herself. She had closed the file, told the client there was nothing to
be found, but that wasn't what she believed. She had no hard evidence
at all, but surely a detective should trust her instincts ?

Cinnamon's conscience was pretty tired after this workout, having had
nothing to do in the previous four years and she was able to wrestle it
to a submission by making a concession that she would make one final
observation visit to Howard's office. No evidence and the case would be
closed.

After this decision, it was fairly easy for her to get off to sleep.
She dreamed of award ceremonies, her very favourite type of dream.
Other celebrities wept and crushed champagne glasses into tiny
fragments in rage as Cinnamon swept the board. Time and again, she was
called to the stage, tiny hand flying to her lips in disbelief, as she
was named Sexiest Female, Best Newcomer, Best Dramatic Performance,
Strongest Soap Performance, Best Blue Peter Presenter, Best Actress in
a Medical Drama, Best Legs...

At eleven the next day, she bought herself a long coat from a charity
shop and a woolly hat that she could pull half over her face. She put
this on and got into character as a woman sleeping rough, living on her
wits. She decided to dispense with the Gauloise Blonds for the day and
smoke roll-ups, to better fit her character. She passed a Big Issue
seller and made his day by buying twenty copies from her expenses
budget.

She settled herself down on the floor near to Howard's office, leaning
against a wall and shouting out to people to "help the homeless, buy
this week's Big Issue".

Cinnamon was particularly pleased with this disguise, which was surely
another feather in her cap. Nobody really looks closely at the person
selling the Big Issue. To businessmen like Howard Patterson, she was
effectively invisible.

It also had an added bonus that she was recouping her expense budget by
selling a few of the copies to kindly passers-by.

She engaged a few of them in conversation, keeping in character and
talking about places she'd been sleeping and that at least the weather
seemed to be easing up. She was giving quite a performance. Some of the
people she talked to gave her a bit more than a pound for a copy of the
Big Issue.

Cinnamon didn't feel the least bit guilty about lying to people and
reducing the likelihood of an actual homeless person receiving this
money. It was not that she was callous, or didn't care, merely that
this would never have occurred to her. Cinnamon's morals, such as they
were, existed very much in the moment. She tended not to think very
much about the past or the future. If something seemed the right thing
for her at a precise moment in time, she would do it and have no
thought as to the possible consequences.

Finally, Howard Patterson came out from the office. He didn't look
around furtively and walked in the opposite direction to Marks and
Spencers. Perhaps this was going to get somewhere, thought Cinnamon,
who pulled the hat further down to fully obscure her hair.

Howard walked past her patch and she noticed that he was talking into a
slim mobile. She made a real effort to listen, fortunately Howard was
not coordinated enough to walk quickly and speak on a phone at the same
time.

"No, I'm bloody desperate to see you. Can't believe how devious she
was. I thought Gail had suspected, but I didn't think she'd go to such
lengths. "

This was definitely interesting, thought Cinnamon, who gathered up her
few remaining Big Issues and stood up to follow Howard at a discreet
distance.

"She wasn't anything like as thick as you said... Yes, I'll meet you
after work - I've booked a room..."

Gotcha, thought Cinnamon.

She made some purchases from Boots and then took herself off to a
nearby pub to keep warm, where she drank two pints of lager very slowly
and leafed through the Big Issue, which was not at all bad. She even
ate a microwaved Shepherds Pie, tearing open three sachets of tomato
ketchup, dumping their contents over the potato topping to make it more
palatable.

At quarter to five, she resumed her position, slumped on the floor with
her Big Issues gripped in her hand, and her oversized coat drawn around
her like a quilt on a Sunday morning. She waited and watched for Howard
to leave, and when he did, followed him discreetly. Once again, he
seemed to have lost the cautiousness that he had previously had,
striding down the road without even a sideways look.

Cinnamon was beginning to think that he had spotted her earlier in the
week, maybe he had recognised her that morning in his street, the day
after being Daphne the work experience girl. After all, he'd given her
a pretty lingering look that day in the office when she'd delivered his
reports and emptied his tray.

It would have been stretching coincidence a bit far for Daphne to have
been out running exactly down his street. He may even have heard the
letterbox rattle and been flummoxed that there was no post on the
mat.

He walked into the hotel and Cinnamon lagged behind, not ready yet to
go in. She thought that she would give him ten minutes, to catch him in
a compromising position and get the evidence.

It was a triumphant moment for Cinnamon, she felt that Thomas Magnum
would have been proud. After all, he generally didn't do too well in
the first twenty minutes of the show, being largely baffled and
confused, but then pulling it all together in the last segment. That
was the way detective work went, obviously.

She had no concerns about Gail Patterson - she had wanted to know if
her husband was screwing around, if she couldn't face the truth, she
should never have asked someone to find it.

Cinnamon nipped into a cafe, hung her coat and hat on a stand near the
door and then immediately left. She had bought a fun-camera from Boots
- the quality might not be brilliant, but it would be enough to get a
couple of shots which would convince Gail.

She walked into the hotel, which was cheap but not grim. A quick glance
at the register behind the deserted counter was enough to tell her
which room Howard and his mystery lover were in, and she made her way
towards the stairs.

A hotel like this would have a transient population, no member of staff
would see her and think she was anything other than a guest - the trick
was just to walk confidently past them. If in doubt, she would be a
Dutch exchange student called Magda, wandered into the wrong hotel,
they all look alike, yes ?

There was the distant sound of hoovering in a corridor above her head
as she got to the room, 206. She paused, debating whether to rap on the
door and pretend to be room service, but noticed that the door had not
been firmly shut. She listened and heard the slapping of flesh against
flesh. She readied the camera and quickly skim-read the instructions,
not wanting to get it wrong once she got in there. It was fairly
straightforward, point and click.

She opened the door, launched herself in and immediately took three
photographs in quick succession. Very professional, she thought, except
she wasn't really aware until a moment later what it was that she was
actually photographing.

Howard Patterson and Justin Credible uncoiled themselves on the bed and
looked at her in horror. Cinnamon nearly dropped her camera in
surprise. Justin tried to get up, but was not really in a position to
do this quickly, being somewhat inextricably linked in his current
situation.

Cinnamon cleared her throat, " I'll be downstairs in the lounge
watching television. Come down in about an hour..."

She closed the door and leaned against the wall, needing to breathe in
and out a few times. She felt very giddy.

It was all terribly vivid and clear. She'd been set up. Justin had been
freaked by Gail's suspicion and interest in hiring a private
investigator to find Howard's mystery woman. He had suggested Cinnamon
to throw Gail off the scent. He had told Howard what she looked like,
which is why Howard had been scanning the street, looking for
her.

That was why he had been so hyper-cautious and then dropped the caution
once he had been told by Justin that the investigation was over. Justin
had probably given him a photo of Cinnamon, one of the publicity stills
from Open Wide 4.

And that all meant that the reason Justin had selected her as the
investigator was because he thought she was too dim to ever uncover the
truth. Bloody cheek !

The scene itself had been quite disturbing. Cinnamon had once been with
her foster mother to a dog-breeders, out in the middle of nowhere. This
was when she was about ten.

Cinnamon couldn't remember whether going on the trip was a reward or a
punishment, but anyway, she remembered going. The plan was to have
their pedigree bitch mate with an impressive male Irish Setter called
Sergeant. No interest had resulted, but while they were back in the
car, looking for Polo mints in the glove compartment, Sergeant had
discovered his libido and leapt through the open window, to couple with
Milady Sunburst on the back seat. The dog-breeder, all perm and wellies
had scurried to the window quickly and said, "Look, they're tied.
"

That was the word that came into Cinnamon's head, now, "tied".

Cinnamon sat in the lounge, drinking a large vodka and small tonic,
which she had put on the bill for Room 206. Her hand trembled a little,
but she told herself that it was just the ice in the glass.

She was beginning to get a nasty empty feeling in the pit of her
stomach. It was one thing going to Gail and showing her photographs of
her husband and some cheap tart, but photographs of her husband and her
porn star brother at it like the proverbial knives ? Cinnamon didn't
think even she could do that, not even to someone as frosty as
Gail.

On further consideration, she also wasn't entirely sure that Boots
would develop photographs which were quite as indecent as the ones she
had just taken.

Howard and Justin came into the bar, rather sheepishly. Cinnamon
immediately noticed that Justin was sucking on a mint. Howard wasn't
able to look her in the eye.

"She wasn't anything like as thick as you said, " Cinnamon said, in the
chilliest tone she could muster.

Justin cleared his throat, "Look, it isn't anything serious. Howard is
just... a bit confused. I was helping him out. "

Howard blushed.

"And what do you suggest I say to Gail ? " said Cinnamon, still angry
that she had been placed in this position, "You've landed me right in
it, Justin. And you told him I was thick..."

Justin flashed her his best grin, stray locks of hair falling over his
eyes, giving it the full boyish charm, "What can I say ? I didn't think
you'd fancy getting out of bed early and following Howard all over
town. I... suppose I misjudged you. "

"Bloody right, " said Cinnamon, waving her empty glass meaningfully
towards Howard, "Double vodka, tonic. And then stick another vodka in
there. "

Howard went off towards the bar. Justin leaned in a bit closer to
Cinnamon.

"Listen, you're not going to make things difficult for him are you ? "
Justin asked, "It's nothing serious for me. He was curious, always
asking me when we went out for a beer about what it was like, so I said
I'd show him. It was more to have a laugh at my dear sister's expense,
but he's quite a good bloke - I'd hate for him to suffer. "

Cinnamon made a show of chewing this over, Justin started to fear that
Cinnamon might be the type for blackmail. He had money and so did
Howard, but this was the sort of thing that could drag on forever. Why
the hell had he ever involved anyone as dangerous as Cinnamon, why had
he thought he would be able to control her ?

"Is there any way I could convince you to keep this quiet?"

Cinnamon put a hand on his leg, " I don't suppose you've even an ounce
of 'Bi' in your body, have you ? "

Justin shook his head, "Sadly not, but if it ever happens, I would
certainly call you. "

Cinnamon handed him the camera, " I suppose I already quit yesterday. I
only came back to find the truth. Now I've found it. "

Howard came back with the drink and handed it to her, she downed it in
one, the ice-cubes banging against her teeth. She was beginning to feel
nicely out of it and bore the look of a woman who was feeling
distinctly pleased with herself.

"But my character definitely gets more dialogue in Open Wide 5, right ?
"