Detective Inspector Jenny Armitage was a tall, striking looking woman.
Indeed, she was the sort of woman for whom the word handsome was coined. Not young enough or petite enough to be called pretty, and not quite breathtaking enough to be called beautiful, she was nonetheless a looker. With her luxuriant auburn hair, clear blue eyes and dignified poise she commanded everyone's attention.
But there was also something a little severe about her. Those eyes could be cold, even disdainful. The skirts and jackets she wore were rather austere, usually in a restrained pin stripe. The skirts were always of a decorous length.
However, her clothes could not disguise the fullness of her breasts or the length of her legs.
The thought of what else lay beneath those clothes had been tormenting me for weeks.
Which, I guess, was the point because she was the succulent morsal in a deadly mousetrap.
Had she been aware that I knew she was a Detective Inspector she would have been furious because she'd spent weeks passing herself off as Clare Shelly, a newly hired saleswoman for my company.
She had entered my world and ended it at the same time.
I have never been so frightened in my life.
It all started so promisingly when she joined the company.
Though I was over sixty, I generally still went for much younger women. At nearly forty, Jenny was definitely pushing the envelope but she was so attractive I didn't care about her age.
My smiles and flirting had bounced right off, but that was to be expected.
And anyway, I had other well-used tricks.
Owning a big security company has many perks, not least access to all sorts of information people want to keep hidden. Information that can be used to leverage a woman into sexual surrender.
And poor Clare Shelly had a shit-load to hide. She'd married some goody-two-shoes social worker and had two kids. Did Two-Shoes know she had a record for fraud and prostitution?
Crooked, and sloppy enough to keep getting caught, she'd spent a few months in jail. Which, with Britain's crowded prisons and paralysed legal system, is actually no small trick. She must have seriously pissed off the judge.
Plus, of course, she'd neglected to mention any of this when she'd applied for the job. Even though her criminal activities had taken place years before, I could sack her instantly. That would be a disaster for her. After hooking her mug of a husband her life had morphed into one of respectability. Both her kids went to an expensive private school.
Not bad for a whore.
But, without her high salary she wouldn't have a hope of maintaining that lifestyle.
I had her! Faced with exposure, she'd almost certainly agree to let me bed her.
I remember sitting back and laughing in triumph.
But then the back of my scalp started tingling and the laughter died.
It had all been too easy, too perfect. Working in the security field brings with it a necessary degree of paranoia and that's what saved me.
Even before I began to dig deeper, I knew in my water that I was being played.
I ran a scan on her ID badge photo. Undercover coppers are easily rumbled in this way nowadays so their IT guys fillet the web of such photos. But, my company does a ton of work for the Home Office and we have access to passport and all sorts of other restricted databases.
The search produced hundreds of hits (you may think you look unique but, trust me, you don't) and I spent a caffeine-fuelled night going through every one.
I missed hers first time round. Her real hair was much darker than the auburn it was now, and it turned out the cold blue of her eyes were down to contacts. They were actually dark brown and much warmer.
Once I'd got her real name, the rest was child's play.
I'd guessed she was a copper but that she was an inspector rocked me back in my chair. It was usually only lowly constables they sent out on undercover stings.
That showed they must be taking this really seriously. The 'Clare Shelly' backstory had been a carefully baited hook suggesting they knew exactly what sort of things I got up to.
And I'd given the cops plenty of ammunition. I'd compromised women just once or twice a year but, over nearly forty years, that mounted up.
If the cops could make a case then, like all those women, I'd be well and truly fucked.
I make preparations to do a runner. Money transfers zipped through undersea cables to some of the less reputable Caribbean banks.
But, before I fled my oh-so-comfortable life, I had to find out just how deep in shit I was.
It was easy to trick her. I'd told her to work late on Friday as we had an important client flying in. We were selling him anti-surveillance equipment and we'd be doing a demo in the testing facility. As that was far over on the edge of the site, it was natural that she would come in my car.
Little did she know that the instant she closed the car door, the tables had been turned and she was suddenly the trapped mouse.
I drove my big Beamer through the rainy night and then straight into the open doors of the facility. I'd taken the remote control earlier and I pushed the button as the car entered. By the time we got out of the car the doors had closed.
Getting out, and showing a flash of shapely leg, she smoothed down her skirt. Her makeup was perfect and her poise superb. I'd told her to take special care to look good for the client. Tonight she did look beautiful.
"So, where's the..." she started saying as she looked around. Thus distracted, it was easy for me to grab her arms, pinning them behind her.
She immediately started struggling but I'm still strong and fit. Before she could start kicking me, I dragged her hard back against a structural pillar. Pulling handcuffs from my jacket pocket I snapped them on her wrists so she was trapped with her back against the pillar.
She strained against her bonds, her heavy breasts swaying. I stepped back out of range of her kicking feet.
I almost flinched at the look of fury on her face.
"What the hell d'you think you're doing?" she yelled.
"I wanted a word with you in private, Inspector."
"What did you call me?"
I smiled. "I can call you Jenny if you like."
She froze.
"You've got the wrong..." she began, but I was having none of it.
"Forget it, Jenny!" I said, interrupting.
Then I and gave her chapter and verse about her work with the police, when she graduated from Hendon Police College, where she'd served, her notable arrests. The name of her husband, not a social worker at all but rather another copper.
As I talked, the look of anger was replaced by dawning horror, but she still wasn't willing to admit the truth. "If I really was a copper then I'd have backup. Any second now they'd be bursting in mob-handed."
I was pretty sure that wasn't true. I hadn't even begun to blackmail her yet. It was only when I demanded payment that there'd be full surveillance, including men with binoculars and an urge to kick in doors.
But that didn't mean she wasn't wired or that there wouldn't be some lower level tracking going on.