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My Fair Ladette - Part 1

The office was in shadow, the only light being provided by a desktop lamp. And Kreep sat at the desk, pouring over the dossier that he had been handed by his latest client, drumming metal-clad fingers in a constant staccato rhythm on the desk top.
The client had been an old man, even by Kreep’s standards. He had been soft-spoken, polite, and obviously ill at ease dealing with the situation. And his required task was a very different one to the type of job that Kreep normally accepted for his team. In fact, Kreep had almost considered politely refusing, until he had looked at the dossier that the man had so painstakingly compiled.

So now, he had accepted the job, and it was giving him a slight headache. Some elements of the job were simple enough, standard fare for his gang. But one element in particular was causing Kreep some issues.
He turned slightly, and switched on the monitor of the computer on his desk. He hated the thing, but he had to admit that it had its uses. Kreep was no technophobe, but he didn’t work well with computers. He hired other people to be good at them instead.
He clicked on the folder marked ‘personnel files’, opened a database viewer, and began perusing the lists of names, locations, ages, occupations and status relative to his organisation, each one accompanied by a photograph of the subject. The faces flickered past; most of them spared no more than a glance. Kreep was looking for a particular type of person.
Suddenly, the screen stopped moving. Kreep’s eyes narrowed slightly. He picked up a photograph from the dossier, and held it up, next to the picture on the screen.
“Well, I’ll be damned…”
Kreep picked up the bell that sat on the desk, and rang it a couple of times. After a short pause, the office door opened, and Ogre loomed into view. Looming in an intimidating manner was something that Kreep’s enforcer and batman was extremely good at, but there was something slightly different this time, something that most people wouldn’t have picked up on.
“Keeping you up, am I?” Kreep asked, with just a hint of sarcastic amusement in his voice.
Ogre shrugged his shoulders. “It’s that new camp bed I got. Can’t get a wink of sleep on the bloody thing…”
Kreep grinned behind his mask, and nodded agreeably.
“Well now, if you hadn’t tried to stuff Vampire, Barghest and Jabberwock into the old one and then folded it shut on them, you wouldn’t need a new one, would you?”
Ogre grunted. “You know how I feel about people who cheat at poker…”
Kreep raised an eyebrow.
“What makes you think they were cheating?” he asked, his tone of amusement increasing somewhat. Ogre shrugged again.
“Simple. I was cheating, and they were still beating me. Was there something you wanted, by the way?”
Kreep nodded. “There was indeed! It concerns the new job. I think I have found the solution to our little personnel dilemma for the mission at hand. Can you send in Banshee and Morlock for me? I have a job for them… a recruitment job. They are going to take a little road trip to Carrington for me…”

The key rattled in the lock, accompanied by the soft sound of a curse, followed closely by a happy little chuckle.
“I’m turnin’ it the wrong way… you silly tart…”
The door swung open, and in walked Harriet Palmer. Not the Harriet Palmer that most of her acquaintances would have recognised, though. This was a Harriet Palmer dressed to kill.
It had been a good night. No, scratch that. It had been a great night. Harriet had taken a taxi, and whilst freed from the responsibility of driving, she had gotten herself a little on the tipsy side. Not drunk – she was more sensible than that – but definitely merry. And to think it had all started out with the need to cheer her up and calm her down…

It had started when Harriet had met up with Abigail, and the two of them had gone to a coffee bar to grab some lunch. As they had sat chatting and sipping their coffees, they had become aware of a group of lads sitting nearby, who were obviously paying them a lot of attention. Or, to be more accurate, they were paying Abigail a lot of attention, mostly due to her pale blue sleeveless top and short black skirt, which set her figure off rather nicely. The lads, in their laddish way, had decided that the best way to pay compliments was to make comments about Abigail that she could obviously overhear. All fine and dandy, and relatively easy to ignore. But then the trouble had started.
One of the boys had decided to state that “The ginger one ain’t too bad lookin’ either”, to which another, the supposed leader of the group, had replied with the following statement.
“Nah… she dresses like a bloke! Too much of a ladette. I like girls to be girls!”

And it had all gone downhill from there, because Harriet, having grown up with her brothers, was not the type of girl to be intimidated by comments from a young man. She had responded in kind, loudly and sarcastically. She verbally neutered the guy in one go, leaving him red-faced and angry, and his companions laughing and making fun of him. A bruised ego on a lad is an ugly thing, and the situation quickly degenerated into an outright slanging match between the two. For her part, Abigail had been rather glad when the two of them had finished their coffees, and were able to leave before things got physical. But Harriet had been left seething. The idea that someone considered her to be unattractive simply because she dressed in her usual practical style bothered her in a way that she normally wouldn’t have given a second thought to.
So Abigail, in a move to defuse her bad mood, had made two suggestions. The first was that they would round up the rest of their friends and go out for a night on the town. And the second was that Harriet was to get her best glad-rags on, and show the world that a tall, athletic redhead was a thing of “Smoking hot” beauty.

Her parents were away for the weekend at a wedding, and her brothers were all off doing their own thing. So Harriet had no need of tiptoeing around the house. She took off her usual green jacket and hung it up, revealing a rather slinky black dress, with a black satin-effect blouse worn open over the top. The ensemble was completed with a green sash belt, dark tights, and black heels with velvet bows on them. She kicked off her heels, and climbed the stairs without bothering to turn the hall light on, and walked into her bedroom, where she elected to flop onto her bed for a while, legs dangling over the edge, still chuckling to herself.
After a while, she decided that a cup of coffee and a late night channel surf for a decent movie might be in order before hitting the sack, so she picked herself back up, walked out of her room, and started down the stairs.
And that was when she stopped.
In the darkness of the downstairs hall, two dimly glowing green lights were seemingly hovering in the air. Harriet paused, staring at the lights uncertainly. She had no idea what they were, or what was causing them. She rubbed her eyes slightly, wondering if she was more tired than she had thought. But no; the lights were still there. And as she watched, they started to move closer, slowly, smoothly, and in total silence.
Harriet went from tipsy to stone cold, ice-bucket-down-the-spine sober in an instant. She was a brave girl by nature, but there was something about those advancing green orbs that struck an unaccustomed chord of fear in her. She took a faltering step backward, and then, in a way that she hadn’t done since she was a small child, she turned and fled for the safety of her bedroom. Behind her, there was a urgent rustling sound, which told her that her sudden burst of fear hadn’t been unjustified: It was coming for her.

She burst into her bedroom, span in a circle, and tried to shove the bedroom door shut, even as she realised that there was no lock on the door, and that her phone was in her jacket pocket. And as that terrifying realisation hit her, a heavy, forceful weight slammed into the door, driving her back, and a leather gloved hand, attached to an arm in a ragged black sleeve, snaked around the door and tried to grab her arm.
Harriet threw herself back against the door, desperately trying to trap the arm. She was so filled with the adrenaline and urgency of the moment that the idea of shouting or screaming for help hadn’t even occurred to her. And her desperation increased as, little by little, she found herself losing the struggle, unable to muster enough force to keep the intruder out…

Suddenly, with a rush, the door was thrown open, and Harriet stumbled back, almost tumbling over her bed. She instinctively turned to grab something… anything… that she could improvise as a weapon. And in that moment, she was seized from behind, lifted off her feet, and unceremoniously dumped face down on the bed, pinned down by a weight behind her. A gloved hand clamped tightly over her mouth. Not that it was completely necessary; Harriet’s landing, and the weight that had descended upon her had driven the air from her in a rush. She struggled frantically, trying to squirm out from under her assailant.
Suddenly, she became aware of another presence in the room. Someone female, going by the scent of a probably rather expensive perfume that suddenly filled her nostrils. And then a voice spoke, soft and gentle, whispering in her ear.
“Shhh… just relax sweetie… no one is going to hurt you…”
Harriet froze. She recognised the voice, with its beguiling tone, and soft Irish accent. That voice had spoken to her before, on two occasions. The voice had complemented, soothed, seduced and calmed, and had been at least partly responsible for her being held captive on both occasions. Harriet’s eyes flickered to the side, and met the gaze of a pair of eyes, hidden behind red contact lenses, and surrounded by a white silk mask with an Egyptian motif.
And finally, Harriet had the urge to scream. But it was far too late by then.

They had carried her from her house, leaving the place in darkness. Her hands had been cuffed behind her back, and a spongy rubber ball, wrapped in a silk scarf, had been pushed between her lips to silence her. Finally, her own sash belt had been used to blindfold her. Then, she had been lifted up in a pair of strong arms, and she had been carried from her bedroom, down the stairs, and out of the front door. Her muffled and hopeless attempts to yell for help had received a gentle and teasing admonishment from the soft Irish voice, along with a hinted threat that she would be drugged senseless if she didn’t calm down and behave.
Finally, she had been placed on what she could only assume was the back seat of a vehicle and a blanket of some sort had been wrapped around her. Her head was lifted, and then placed on the woman’s lap, where gloved fingers gently stroked her hair.
“Just take it easy, Harriet. We aren’t going to hurt you, or harm you in any way. We aren’t even really kidnapping you. We are just… borrowing you for a bit.”
Harriet had no idea what to make of that statement, other than her gut instinct that it was an outright lie. She knew who it was who had grabbed her from the safety of her home, knew their reputation, and couldn’t help herself from wondering if her friends were in similar danger at that very moment. And then the vehicle had started up.
It was a fairly long journey, and by the time it had ended, Harriet had sunk into an uneasy, exhausted sleep.

“You didn’t drug her?” Kreep asked Banshee, who was lounging against his office desk. The woman smiled and shook her head.
“No need. She just drifted off. Totally out of it. She didn’t even wake up when we carried her inside.”
Kreep nodded, and glanced at the computer monitor, which showed the view from a CCTV camera. It showed Harriet, lying asleep on a folding cot bed in a bare, dark room.
“Well, we have a deadline to keep. So you’d better go and wake the sleeping beauty up, and bring her here. We have a lot of work to do, and not much time to do it in.”

Harriet awoke to a firm but gentle shaking of her shoulder. She was mildly surprised to find that she was no longer blindfolded or gagged. She looked up, and saw the masked woman, with her long tumbling mane of red hair, leaning over her.
“Wakey wakey, sleepy. Time for you to get up. Someone needs to have a word with you…”
Harriet struggled to sit up, angrily shrugging off the guiding hand that aided her.
“Where am I? What the hell do you want, and where are my friends?”
The woman shook her head slightly. “As far as I know, they are all tucked up asleep in their beds. We only needed to borrow you.”
“Borrow?” Harriet gaped incredulously. “You bloody kidnapped me!”
Banshee laughed at that. “This isn’t a kidnapping, babes. Trust me, you’d know the difference. Now, slip these on, and come with me.”
She put down a pair of simple black slip on shoes, and waited whilst Harriet slid her feet into them. And then, taking her by one of her still cuffed arms, she guided the angry and flustered girl out of the small room, down a narrow passageway, and opened a door.
There was a raucous and lively series of conversations going on as the door opened, which faded into silence as Harriet was led inside. She looked around the room at the odd assortment of masked faces that stared back at her, and then Banshee led her across the room, with a dismissive wave at her fellow henchmen.
“Put your eyes back in your heads, boys. You’re making her nervous!”
Vampire gave a low whistle as the two women passed.
“Now there’s a sight for sore eyes…”
Bandersnatch, sitting opposite him on a large wooden crate, nodded in agreement.
“Pretty little lassie, ain’t she? They don’t make meddling teenagers like they used to…”

Harriet was glad to be out of the view of the watching eyes as Banshee led her into another passageway, which led to a plain wooden door. She gave a knock, and a voice from the other side bade them enter.
Kreep rose from his desk as they walked in, holding the dossier in his hands. He walked around the desk, and gestured to a high backed chair.
“Miss Palmer. Please have a seat, and pay close attention. This is important, and we don’t have a lot of time…”
Harriet sat down in the chair, staring back at the man. She had heard Sara and Molly talk about him, but had never met him in person before. She found it hard to reconcile his clipped, well-mannered tone with his shabby and sinister attire, and the pair of narrow, intently staring eyes with the yellow lenses that only showed his pupils as two black dots.
Kreep pulled up a second chair, and eased himself into it. He was still limping, but didn’t require the walking cane as much these days. But when you get to a certain age, injuries like that took more time to heal, and Kreep was no spring chicken.
“Firstly, I apologise for the manner in which you were brought here. Unfortunate, but necessary.”
“Why?” Harriet found herself asking without actually planning to.
“Would you have dropped everything and come with us if we had simply asked you?”
Harriet had to admit that he had a point. Nothing short of total insanity would have got her here willingly.
“Now then. We have brought you here because, and you may find this hard to believe, we require your help. A matter of urgency. A life may well hang in the balance.”
Harriet perked up at this. A bunch of crooks, needing her help to save someone’s life was a new one.
“Who is it? Do I know them?” she asked, leaning forward a little in the chair.
Kreep opened the dossier, and took out a large glossy portrait photograph. He held it out for Harriet to see.
“Probably not. Her name is Jessica Latchworth. What do you think at first glance?”
Harriet stared at the photograph. The face of a young woman looked back at her. A young woman with red hair and green eyes, with a nice smile, wearing a black velvet jacket over a white blouse. A face that looked remarkably familiar. Uncannily so, in fact.
“Um… the sister I never had?” she ventured.
Kreep nodded in agreement. “Exactly what I thought when I compared your pictures. The resemblance is startling. And this young lady is in imminent danger. My colleagues and I have been contracted to protect her, and this is why we need your help.”
Harriet blinked at this. It didn’t sound much like the gang that she had heard some pretty horrible things about, and her own personal experience of them was at odds with this as well.
“You are supposed to protect her? I’d have thought that kidnapping her for ransom was more your thing…”
Kreep made a face behind his mask.
“This job is admittedly a very different challenge from our normal modus operandi. Allow me to explain. Miss Latchworth is the heiress to a considerable family fortune, which was held in trust after her parents unfortunately passed away a few years ago. Some months past, Miss Latchworth became 21, and the trust was opened up to her. She has proved to be everything her parents had hoped for – sensible, caring, compassionate, charitable and generous. Her only flaws are her ungovernable shyness, and her far too trusting nature. The poor girl has fallen deeply in love with a young man who could best be described as a ruthless, free-spending chancer, who is intent on getting his hands on her money and her family’s property.”
Harriet nodded slightly. She had a pretty good mental image of the type. Slick and showy, with a really nasty streak lurking under the surface. She and her friends had encountered people like that in the past.
“The man has lured her into attending a charity gala function for one of the causes that she has generously supported”, Kreep continued. “He intends to have her kidnapped, whilst fixing a suitable alibi for himself. Once she has been abducted, she will be forced into giving him power of attorney over her finances… and then most likely, she will meet with an unfortunate accident.”
“And you have been hired to stop that from happening?” Harriet asked. She was extremely suspicious about the whole thing. It all sounded way too convenient.
Kreep nodded. “Indeed. Our job is to stop her attending the event, and convince her with the evidence we have been supplied that the man she has fallen for is a dangerous, possibly even murderous thief and liar who is using her.”
Harriet was starting to get the picture. “Let me guess… you want me to be a decoy, don’t you?”
Kreep nodded, and snapped his gauntleted fingers. “Got it in one, Miss Palmer. We need you to take her place at the charity event. It may well be dangerous, but we will do everything in our power to ensure your safety if you agree to cooperate.”
“And if I refuse?” Harriet asked, although she already had an inkling of what the reply would be. She wasn’t disappointed.
“If you refuse, your friends and loved ones will have heard the last of you.” Kreep’s tone was still as calm and pleasant as if he were discussing plans for a country picnic, but the intensity of his stare spoke volumes. He wasn’t kidding around.

Harriet took a deep breath. She didn’t really have much choice in the matter at present. But she was still trying to feel her way through the situation.
“How do I know that you are telling the truth? For all I can tell, you might be planning to kidnap her and get your hands on her money yourself. Or you might be working for this guy who she is in love with…”
Kreep leaned back in his chair, his eyes locking gaze with the young woman opposite him.
“Put quite simply, you don’t. And you have no reason at all to trust what I am telling you. This could indeed all be a ruse of mine. But ask yourself this: if that were the case, why would we have to go to such extreme lengths? Why not simply kidnap the girl while she is alone? We certainly wouldn’t require your cooperation for that, would we?”
Harriet thought about this, and then nodded slowly.
“Okay. Suppose for now that I accept what you are telling me. How am I supposed to take her place?”
Banshee leaned over the back of the chair, placing her hands on Harriet’s shoulders.
“Well for one thing, her shyness means that she has spent most of her life out of the public eye. You are a very close match for her, even with your height. And no one at the event knows her intimately, which is good for us. We’ll be able to pass you as her very easily, I reckon.”
“When is this charity event?” Harriet asked, looking up at the woman, and then back at Kreep.
“Two days’ time,” Kreep replied. “And in those two days, we have a lot of work to do.”
“What do you mean?” Harriet asked. “What work?”
Banshee smiled, and squeezed Harriet’s shoulder. “Jessica Latchworth was educated at a top finishing school. She might be shy, but she knows exactly how to behave at a high society event like this. Whilst you, gorgeous tall kitten that you are, are an eighteen year old teenager who has never even seen a finishing school, let alone attended one. And no offence, sweetie… but you are a bit of a tomboy at heart, aren’t you?”
Harriet frowned slightly. There it was again. The ladette tag.
“And what if I am? There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”
Kreep chuckled at her defiant tone.
“Apart from it making you a potential thorn in my side, no there isn’t. But we need you to be able to act as a shy and demure young woman who has been well educated in high society savoir faire. Fortunately, Banshee here has been passing herself in high society for years…”
“Then why doesn’t she do it?” Harriet asked, still feeling a little piqued.
Banshee laughed out loud. “Oh, isn’t she a darlin’? Thank you for thinking I could pass for a twenty one year old, my love. But I’m a little too old for that. But you, you have naturally got the looks, and you’re the right age. We just have to give you a high intensity crash course in being a society girl!”
“So what does that involve?” Harriet half turned in her chair to regard the woman.
“We are going to teach you how to carry yourself, how to do the formal dance thing, how to behave whilst dining at a full-service dinner, the right things to say in polite society… Think of it as a millionaire manners makeover. It’ll be fun!”

Harriet looked back and forth at her two captors. These people really know how to turn your world upside down in a few minutes, she thought. She licked her lips, took a deep breath, and shot Kreep a look.
“One thing.” She stated quietly.
Kreep leaned forward. “What is it, Miss Palmer?”
Harriet stared at the beady yellow eyes. “Promise me. Promise me that you aren’t out to hurt this girl. Swear on your life or something, and if I don’t think you’re lying, I’ll help.”
Kreep’s eyes didn’t leave hers for a moment. “I swear on everything left that I hold dear that we are telling you the truth.”
Harriet’s breath left her in a sigh. She stared at Kreep in silence for a couple of minutes.
“Okay. I’ll do it. But if I find out you’re lying to me, I will find a way to make you really regret it.” Banshee grinned and ruffled Harriet’s hair playfully.
Kreep nodded, and then smiled. He clapped his hands together, and rose from his seat. “Good. We have a deal, it appears. All being well, you’ll be back home with your family and friends in a couple of days… Redcap.”
Harriet looked up, frowning. “Sorry? Redcap?”
Kreep leaned forward until Harriet could see her own reflection in his yellow contact lenses.
“Your codename. For the time being, Harriet Palmer… you are one of us…”
Harriet swallowed. Somehow, that sounded even more threatening than being told that she could be made to disappear forever…

Description
My Fair Ladette - Part 1

The office was in shadow, the only light being provided by a desktop lamp. And Kreep sat at the desk, pouring over the dossier that he had been handed by his latest client, drumming metal-clad fingers in a constant staccato rhythm on the desk top.
The client had been an old man, even by Kreep’s standards. He had been soft-spoken, polite, and obviously ill at ease dealing with the situation. And his required task was a very different one to the type of job that Kreep normally accepted for his team. In fact, Kreep had almost considered politely refusing, until he had looked at the dossier that the man had so painstakingly compiled.

So now, he had accepted the job, and it was giving him a slight headache. Some elements of the job were simple enough, standard fare for his gang. But one element in particular was causing Kreep some issues.
He turned slightly, and switched on the monitor of the computer on his desk. He hated the thing, but he had to admit that it had its uses. Kreep was no technophobe, but he didn’t work well with computers. He hired other people to be good at them instead.
He clicked on the folder marked ‘personnel files’, opened a database viewer, and began perusing the lists of names, locations, ages, occupations and status relative to his organisation, each one accompanied by a photograph of the subject. The faces flickered past; most of them spared no more than a glance. Kreep was looking for a particular type of person.
Suddenly, the screen stopped moving. Kreep’s eyes narrowed slightly. He picked up a photograph from the dossier, and held it up, next to the picture on the screen.
“Well, I’ll be damned…”
Kreep picked up the bell that sat on the desk, and rang it a couple of times. After a short pause, the office door opened, and Ogre loomed into view. Looming in an intimidating manner was something that Kreep’s enforcer and batman was extremely good at, but there was something slightly different this time, something that most people wouldn’t have picked up on.
“Keeping you up, am I?” Kreep asked, with just a hint of sarcastic amusement in his voice.
Ogre shrugged his shoulders. “It’s that new camp bed I got. Can’t get a wink of sleep on the bloody thing…”
Kreep grinned behind his mask, and nodded agreeably.
“Well now, if you hadn’t tried to stuff Vampire, Barghest and Jabberwock into the old one and then folded it shut on them, you wouldn’t need a new one, would you?”
Ogre grunted. “You know how I feel about people who cheat at poker…”
Kreep raised an eyebrow.
“What makes you think they were cheating?” he asked, his tone of amusement increasing somewhat. Ogre shrugged again.
“Simple. I was cheating, and they were still beating me. Was there something you wanted, by the way?”
Kreep nodded. “There was indeed! It concerns the new job. I think I have found the solution to our little personnel dilemma for the mission at hand. Can you send in Banshee and Morlock for me? I have a job for them… a recruitment job. They are going to take a little road trip to Carrington for me…”

The key rattled in the lock, accompanied by the soft sound of a curse, followed closely by a happy little chuckle.
“I’m turnin’ it the wrong way… you silly tart…”
The door swung open, and in walked Harriet Palmer. Not the Harriet Palmer that most of her acquaintances would have recognised, though. This was a Harriet Palmer dressed to kill.
It had been a good night. No, scratch that. It had been a great night. Harriet had taken a taxi, and whilst freed from the responsibility of driving, she had gotten herself a little on the tipsy side. Not drunk – she was more sensible than that – but definitely merry. And to think it had all started out with the need to cheer her up and calm her down…

It had started when Harriet had met up with Abigail, and the two of them had gone to a coffee bar to grab some lunch. As they had sat chatting and sipping their coffees, they had become aware of a group of lads sitting nearby, who were obviously paying them a lot of attention. Or, to be more accurate, they were paying Abigail a lot of attention, mostly due to her pale blue sleeveless top and short black skirt, which set her figure off rather nicely. The lads, in their laddish way, had decided that the best way to pay compliments was to make comments about Abigail that she could obviously overhear. All fine and dandy, and relatively easy to ignore. But then the trouble had started.
One of the boys had decided to state that “The ginger one ain’t too bad lookin’ either”, to which another, the supposed leader of the group, had replied with the following statement.
“Nah… she dresses like a bloke! Too much of a ladette. I like girls to be girls!”

And it had all gone downhill from there, because Harriet, having grown up with her brothers, was not the type of girl to be intimidated by comments from a young man. She had responded in kind, loudly and sarcastically. She verbally neutered the guy in one go, leaving him red-faced and angry, and his companions laughing and making fun of him. A bruised ego on a lad is an ugly thing, and the situation quickly degenerated into an outright slanging match between the two. For her part, Abigail had been rather glad when the two of them had finished their coffees, and were able to leave before things got physical. But Harriet had been left seething. The idea that someone considered her to be unattractive simply because she dressed in her usual practical style bothered her in a way that she normally wouldn’t have given a second thought to.
So Abigail, in a move to defuse her bad mood, had made two suggestions. The first was that they would round up the rest of their friends and go out for a night on the town. And the second was that Harriet was to get her best glad-rags on, and show the world that a tall, athletic redhead was a thing of “Smoking hot” beauty.

Her parents were away for the weekend at a wedding, and her brothers were all off doing their own thing. So Harriet had no need of tiptoeing around the house. She took off her usual green jacket and hung it up, revealing a rather slinky black dress, with a black satin-effect blouse worn open over the top. The ensemble was completed with a green sash belt, dark tights, and black heels with velvet bows on them. She kicked off her heels, and climbed the stairs without bothering to turn the hall light on, and walked into her bedroom, where she elected to flop onto her bed for a while, legs dangling over the edge, still chuckling to herself.
After a while, she decided that a cup of coffee and a late night channel surf for a decent movie might be in order before hitting the sack, so she picked herself back up, walked out of her room, and started down the stairs.
And that was when she stopped.
In the darkness of the downstairs hall, two dimly glowing green lights were seemingly hovering in the air. Harriet paused, staring at the lights uncertainly. She had no idea what they were, or what was causing them. She rubbed her eyes slightly, wondering if she was more tired than she had thought. But no; the lights were still there. And as she watched, they started to move closer, slowly, smoothly, and in total silence.
Harriet went from tipsy to stone cold, ice-bucket-down-the-spine sober in an instant. She was a brave girl by nature, but there was something about those advancing green orbs that struck an unaccustomed chord of fear in her. She took a faltering step backward, and then, in a way that she hadn’t done since she was a small child, she turned and fled for the safety of her bedroom. Behind her, there was a urgent rustling sound, which told her that her sudden burst of fear hadn’t been unjustified: It was coming for her.

She burst into her bedroom, span in a circle, and tried to shove the bedroom door shut, even as she realised that there was no lock on the door, and that her phone was in her jacket pocket. And as that terrifying realisation hit her, a heavy, forceful weight slammed into the door, driving her back, and a leather gloved hand, attached to an arm in a ragged black sleeve, snaked around the door and tried to grab her arm.
Harriet threw herself back against the door, desperately trying to trap the arm. She was so filled with the adrenaline and urgency of the moment that the idea of shouting or screaming for help hadn’t even occurred to her. And her desperation increased as, little by little, she found herself losing the struggle, unable to muster enough force to keep the intruder out…

Suddenly, with a rush, the door was thrown open, and Harriet stumbled back, almost tumbling over her bed. She instinctively turned to grab something… anything… that she could improvise as a weapon. And in that moment, she was seized from behind, lifted off her feet, and unceremoniously dumped face down on the bed, pinned down by a weight behind her. A gloved hand clamped tightly over her mouth. Not that it was completely necessary; Harriet’s landing, and the weight that had descended upon her had driven the air from her in a rush. She struggled frantically, trying to squirm out from under her assailant.
Suddenly, she became aware of another presence in the room. Someone female, going by the scent of a probably rather expensive perfume that suddenly filled her nostrils. And then a voice spoke, soft and gentle, whispering in her ear.
“Shhh… just relax sweetie… no one is going to hurt you…”
Harriet froze. She recognised the voice, with its beguiling tone, and soft Irish accent. That voice had spoken to her before, on two occasions. The voice had complemented, soothed, seduced and calmed, and had been at least partly responsible for her being held captive on both occasions. Harriet’s eyes flickered to the side, and met the gaze of a pair of eyes, hidden behind red contact lenses, and surrounded by a white silk mask with an Egyptian motif.
And finally, Harriet had the urge to scream. But it was far too late by then.

They had carried her from her house, leaving the place in darkness. Her hands had been cuffed behind her back, and a spongy rubber ball, wrapped in a silk scarf, had been pushed between her lips to silence her. Finally, her own sash belt had been used to blindfold her. Then, she had been lifted up in a pair of strong arms, and she had been carried from her bedroom, down the stairs, and out of the front door. Her muffled and hopeless attempts to yell for help had received a gentle and teasing admonishment from the soft Irish voice, along with a hinted threat that she would be drugged senseless if she didn’t calm down and behave.
Finally, she had been placed on what she could only assume was the back seat of a vehicle and a blanket of some sort had been wrapped around her. Her head was lifted, and then placed on the woman’s lap, where gloved fingers gently stroked her hair.
“Just take it easy, Harriet. We aren’t going to hurt you, or harm you in any way. We aren’t even really kidnapping you. We are just… borrowing you for a bit.”
Harriet had no idea what to make of that statement, other than her gut instinct that it was an outright lie. She knew who it was who had grabbed her from the safety of her home, knew their reputation, and couldn’t help herself from wondering if her friends were in similar danger at that very moment. And then the vehicle had started up.
It was a fairly long journey, and by the time it had ended, Harriet had sunk into an uneasy, exhausted sleep.

“You didn’t drug her?” Kreep asked Banshee, who was lounging against his office desk. The woman smiled and shook her head.
“No need. She just drifted off. Totally out of it. She didn’t even wake up when we carried her inside.”
Kreep nodded, and glanced at the computer monitor, which showed the view from a CCTV camera. It showed Harriet, lying asleep on a folding cot bed in a bare, dark room.
“Well, we have a deadline to keep. So you’d better go and wake the sleeping beauty up, and bring her here. We have a lot of work to do, and not much time to do it in.”

Harriet awoke to a firm but gentle shaking of her shoulder. She was mildly surprised to find that she was no longer blindfolded or gagged. She looked up, and saw the masked woman, with her long tumbling mane of red hair, leaning over her.
“Wakey wakey, sleepy. Time for you to get up. Someone needs to have a word with you…”
Harriet struggled to sit up, angrily shrugging off the guiding hand that aided her.
“Where am I? What the hell do you want, and where are my friends?”
The woman shook her head slightly. “As far as I know, they are all tucked up asleep in their beds. We only needed to borrow you.”
“Borrow?” Harriet gaped incredulously. “You bloody kidnapped me!”
Banshee laughed at that. “This isn’t a kidnapping, babes. Trust me, you’d know the difference. Now, slip these on, and come with me.”
She put down a pair of simple black slip on shoes, and waited whilst Harriet slid her feet into them. And then, taking her by one of her still cuffed arms, she guided the angry and flustered girl out of the small room, down a narrow passageway, and opened a door.
There was a raucous and lively series of conversations going on as the door opened, which faded into silence as Harriet was led inside. She looked around the room at the odd assortment of masked faces that stared back at her, and then Banshee led her across the room, with a dismissive wave at her fellow henchmen.
“Put your eyes back in your heads, boys. You’re making her nervous!”
Vampire gave a low whistle as the two women passed.
“Now there’s a sight for sore eyes…”
Bandersnatch, sitting opposite him on a large wooden crate, nodded in agreement.
“Pretty little lassie, ain’t she? They don’t make meddling teenagers like they used to…”

Harriet was glad to be out of the view of the watching eyes as Banshee led her into another passageway, which led to a plain wooden door. She gave a knock, and a voice from the other side bade them enter.
Kreep rose from his desk as they walked in, holding the dossier in his hands. He walked around the desk, and gestured to a high backed chair.
“Miss Palmer. Please have a seat, and pay close attention. This is important, and we don’t have a lot of time…”
Harriet sat down in the chair, staring back at the man. She had heard Sara and Molly talk about him, but had never met him in person before. She found it hard to reconcile his clipped, well-mannered tone with his shabby and sinister attire, and the pair of narrow, intently staring eyes with the yellow lenses that only showed his pupils as two black dots.
Kreep pulled up a second chair, and eased himself into it. He was still limping, but didn’t require the walking cane as much these days. But when you get to a certain age, injuries like that took more time to heal, and Kreep was no spring chicken.
“Firstly, I apologise for the manner in which you were brought here. Unfortunate, but necessary.”
“Why?” Harriet found herself asking without actually planning to.
“Would you have dropped everything and come with us if we had simply asked you?”
Harriet had to admit that he had a point. Nothing short of total insanity would have got her here willingly.
“Now then. We have brought you here because, and you may find this hard to believe, we require your help. A matter of urgency. A life may well hang in the balance.”
Harriet perked up at this. A bunch of crooks, needing her help to save someone’s life was a new one.
“Who is it? Do I know them?” she asked, leaning forward a little in the chair.
Kreep opened the dossier, and took out a large glossy portrait photograph. He held it out for Harriet to see.
“Probably not. Her name is Jessica Latchworth. What do you think at first glance?”
Harriet stared at the photograph. The face of a young woman looked back at her. A young woman with red hair and green eyes, with a nice smile, wearing a black velvet jacket over a white blouse. A face that looked remarkably familiar. Uncannily so, in fact.
“Um… the sister I never had?” she ventured.
Kreep nodded in agreement. “Exactly what I thought when I compared your pictures. The resemblance is startling. And this young lady is in imminent danger. My colleagues and I have been contracted to protect her, and this is why we need your help.”
Harriet blinked at this. It didn’t sound much like the gang that she had heard some pretty horrible things about, and her own personal experience of them was at odds with this as well.
“You are supposed to protect her? I’d have thought that kidnapping her for ransom was more your thing…”
Kreep made a face behind his mask.
“This job is admittedly a very different challenge from our normal modus operandi. Allow me to explain. Miss Latchworth is the heiress to a considerable family fortune, which was held in trust after her parents unfortunately passed away a few years ago. Some months past, Miss Latchworth became 21, and the trust was opened up to her. She has proved to be everything her parents had hoped for – sensible, caring, compassionate, charitable and generous. Her only flaws are her ungovernable shyness, and her far too trusting nature. The poor girl has fallen deeply in love with a young man who could best be described as a ruthless, free-spending chancer, who is intent on getting his hands on her money and her family’s property.”
Harriet nodded slightly. She had a pretty good mental image of the type. Slick and showy, with a really nasty streak lurking under the surface. She and her friends had encountered people like that in the past.
“The man has lured her into attending a charity gala function for one of the causes that she has generously supported”, Kreep continued. “He intends to have her kidnapped, whilst fixing a suitable alibi for himself. Once she has been abducted, she will be forced into giving him power of attorney over her finances… and then most likely, she will meet with an unfortunate accident.”
“And you have been hired to stop that from happening?” Harriet asked. She was extremely suspicious about the whole thing. It all sounded way too convenient.
Kreep nodded. “Indeed. Our job is to stop her attending the event, and convince her with the evidence we have been supplied that the man she has fallen for is a dangerous, possibly even murderous thief and liar who is using her.”
Harriet was starting to get the picture. “Let me guess… you want me to be a decoy, don’t you?”
Kreep nodded, and snapped his gauntleted fingers. “Got it in one, Miss Palmer. We need you to take her place at the charity event. It may well be dangerous, but we will do everything in our power to ensure your safety if you agree to cooperate.”
“And if I refuse?” Harriet asked, although she already had an inkling of what the reply would be. She wasn’t disappointed.
“If you refuse, your friends and loved ones will have heard the last of you.” Kreep’s tone was still as calm and pleasant as if he were discussing plans for a country picnic, but the intensity of his stare spoke volumes. He wasn’t kidding around.

Harriet took a deep breath. She didn’t really have much choice in the matter at present. But she was still trying to feel her way through the situation.
“How do I know that you are telling the truth? For all I can tell, you might be planning to kidnap her and get your hands on her money yourself. Or you might be working for this guy who she is in love with…”
Kreep leaned back in his chair, his eyes locking gaze with the young woman opposite him.
“Put quite simply, you don’t. And you have no reason at all to trust what I am telling you. This could indeed all be a ruse of mine. But ask yourself this: if that were the case, why would we have to go to such extreme lengths? Why not simply kidnap the girl while she is alone? We certainly wouldn’t require your cooperation for that, would we?”
Harriet thought about this, and then nodded slowly.
“Okay. Suppose for now that I accept what you are telling me. How am I supposed to take her place?”
Banshee leaned over the back of the chair, placing her hands on Harriet’s shoulders.
“Well for one thing, her shyness means that she has spent most of her life out of the public eye. You are a very close match for her, even with your height. And no one at the event knows her intimately, which is good for us. We’ll be able to pass you as her very easily, I reckon.”
“When is this charity event?” Harriet asked, looking up at the woman, and then back at Kreep.
“Two days’ time,” Kreep replied. “And in those two days, we have a lot of work to do.”
“What do you mean?” Harriet asked. “What work?”
Banshee smiled, and squeezed Harriet’s shoulder. “Jessica Latchworth was educated at a top finishing school. She might be shy, but she knows exactly how to behave at a high society event like this. Whilst you, gorgeous tall kitten that you are, are an eighteen year old teenager who has never even seen a finishing school, let alone attended one. And no offence, sweetie… but you are a bit of a tomboy at heart, aren’t you?”
Harriet frowned slightly. There it was again. The ladette tag.
“And what if I am? There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”
Kreep chuckled at her defiant tone.
“Apart from it making you a potential thorn in my side, no there isn’t. But we need you to be able to act as a shy and demure young woman who has been well educated in high society savoir faire. Fortunately, Banshee here has been passing herself in high society for years…”
“Then why doesn’t she do it?” Harriet asked, still feeling a little piqued.
Banshee laughed out loud. “Oh, isn’t she a darlin’? Thank you for thinking I could pass for a twenty one year old, my love. But I’m a little too old for that. But you, you have naturally got the looks, and you’re the right age. We just have to give you a high intensity crash course in being a society girl!”
“So what does that involve?” Harriet half turned in her chair to regard the woman.
“We are going to teach you how to carry yourself, how to do the formal dance thing, how to behave whilst dining at a full-service dinner, the right things to say in polite society… Think of it as a millionaire manners makeover. It’ll be fun!”

Harriet looked back and forth at her two captors. These people really know how to turn your world upside down in a few minutes, she thought. She licked her lips, took a deep breath, and shot Kreep a look.
“One thing.” She stated quietly.
Kreep leaned forward. “What is it, Miss Palmer?”
Harriet stared at the beady yellow eyes. “Promise me. Promise me that you aren’t out to hurt this girl. Swear on your life or something, and if I don’t think you’re lying, I’ll help.”
Kreep’s eyes didn’t leave hers for a moment. “I swear on everything left that I hold dear that we are telling you the truth.”
Harriet’s breath left her in a sigh. She stared at Kreep in silence for a couple of minutes.
“Okay. I’ll do it. But if I find out you’re lying to me, I will find a way to make you really regret it.” Banshee grinned and ruffled Harriet’s hair playfully.
Kreep nodded, and then smiled. He clapped his hands together, and rose from his seat. “Good. We have a deal, it appears. All being well, you’ll be back home with your family and friends in a couple of days… Redcap.”
Harriet looked up, frowning. “Sorry? Redcap?”
Kreep leaned forward until Harriet could see her own reflection in his yellow contact lenses.
“Your codename. For the time being, Harriet Palmer… you are one of us…”
Harriet swallowed. Somehow, that sounded even more threatening than being told that she could be made to disappear forever…