"Haven’t you forgotten something?" Fi asked sweetly. She had one hand on her waist, the other arm was extended, a business-sized white, window envelope in her fingers. She waved it in front of Kiwi’s face, causing strands of his long, mid-brown hair, which had escaped his hair elastic, to waft about.

"Oh – the bill – nearly forgot about that. Cheers." He plucked it from her fingers and placed it on the table beneath his car keys.

Fi tipped her head to one side and laughed. "Don’t give me that, you didn’t forget it. You were just hoping that if you left it here ‘by accident,’ then I’d discover it and deal with it for you!"

Kiwi inhaled sharply, and laid a hand against his chest in an exaggerated show of blamelessness. "Who – me? I’m innocent, dude!" he protested.

"Yes, you!" She turned away and pulled her jacket down off its coat hook. "You’ve got to get over your dislike of charging people when you’ve completed an assignment." She glanced back at him, her hazel eyes flashing. "That’s how it works you see – you do the work, they pay you for it – it’s the natural law of supply and demand. You’re in business to make a living, after all!" She freed her long, chestnut hair from the neck of the coat. "I’m not surprised Mark handled all the money in England."

"But I hate asking for money and Mark lives for the smell of big bickies! It’s a partnership made in heaven…."

Fi sighed, exasperated, and slapped another, larger envelope into his hands.

"These photographs don’t exactly help," Kiwi pointed out, opening up the flap and looking inside. "How can you present someone with something like this and say, ‘Here’s the proof of your husband’s infidelity – oh, and here’s the bill.’ – hardly sympathetic! "

Fi laughed, seeing the logic in his argument and Kiwi smiled at his girlfriend’s trilling giggles.

"Okay, point taken, but it’s gotta be done." she said, and headed for the front door. "I must go. What time do you think you’ll be back?" Turning, she found he had followed her and was now standing right behind her; their differences in height granting her a close-up view of his chest. She was hardly short, but even at 5’8", she was always going to be dwarfed by her 6’5" fiancé. Her eyes scanned up until they met his smiling brown ones.

"Hard to say – about three o’clock-ish?" he suggested and pulled her into his embrace. Knowing it would tickle like crazy and drive her insane, he dipped his head and breathed into her inner ear: "Sssseven ssssausages for ssssupper, ssssir?"

She squealed loudly and wriggled free of his grip. "Get away from me, Dave Barton, you Wally! You’ll get zip if you do that again, other than a wedgy! – sausages or otherwise!" With a swift, but lingering kiss, she was out the door and gone, her wavy hair bouncing in the breeze. He leaned his shoulder against the doorframe and watched until she’d got to the corner. As usual, she turned and gave a short wave before disappearing from view.

*****

Kiwi glanced in the bathroom mirror, and noticed how untidy his hair looked. As his locks grew longer, it was becoming harder to maintain neatness and justify length. He dreaded the day of their wedding, when he would finally be forced to have it all cut off. He pulled his hairband free, combed his mane back into place and then encased it again into its familiar ponytail. Making a face at himself in the mirror, he checked his watch and gasped at the realization that he was already running late – as usual. "Hell’s bells!"

Seized with sudden panic, he began rushing about their ground floor apartment, grabbing his coat, and snatching up his keys and the envelopes. He shot out of the front door, and slammed it shut behind him, not bothering to secure the dead bolt. "No time!" he rationalized – even though he knew he’d catch hell from Fi when she got home from shopping.

Kiwi ran up the path and climbed into his Land Rover, but it became obvious a fast getaway wasn’t an option when he found his knees were jammed up against the steering wheel. Fi had been there before him, and hadn’t readjusted the seat. He reached for the lever to move it, and finally managed to modify himself and the car into a comfortable driving position. He turned the engine on and was away.

For all his apparent enthusiasm for getting to his appointment on time, this was one meeting Kiwi had no wish to attend. It was bad enough that he had to take crappy jobs such as spying on someone’s husband, but even worse to find out that person’s husband actually had been playing away from home.

"The quicker Fi’s emigration paperwork is processed, the quicker we’ll get back to England and on to more juicier cases!" he mused. The thought of breaking bad news to his client – someone he liked very much – was sending his stomach on a one-way flight to Nervesville.

Half an hour later, he was swinging into a parking space opposite his client’s house. He glanced up at the five-bedroom property that Mrs. Gyles and her husband inhabited and considered humorously how impressed he would have been with it only three years ago, before he started living in the gatehouse at Conroi Court. "I’ve been spoiled." he chastised himself before mounting the steps to the front door.

A small woman with fair hair answered his knock. "Hello David," she greeted in a soft voice and opened the door wider to admit him.

He entered without saying anything other than "Afternoon." He could tell by her defensive demeanor she knew it wasn’t going to be good news. It was at times like this Dave Barton wished all his thoughts couldn’t be read simply by looking at his face. "I’m like an open book." he thought sourly.

She paused at the kitchen doorway and turned to him, her cheeks slightly flushed. "Would you like a drink of some sort?" she asked. He was about to decline, but she said, plaintively, "Say you will, David, and delay the inevitable." She smiled at him shyly.

"Okay then," he agreed. " I’ll have soda water, if you’ve got some."

"Yes I have, but you’re letting me down, David…"

Kiwi tensed and held his breath. What was she referring to?

"…that won’t delay the inevitability for long. Come on in."

He let out the air he was holding in relief and entered the kitchen area behind her.

"Ice?"

"Yes, please."

He sat down at the breakfast bar as she set the frosted glass down in front of him. He took a good, long, drink, holding the liquid in his cheeks for a moment before swallowing – his mouth was dry, a sure sign he was nervous.

She sat down, put her elbows on the work surface and interlaced her fingers. "So, you’ve got some news for me?"

"Yes I have, and none of it good I’m afraid, Mrs. Gyles."

She placed her hands against her cheeks and said, "Tell me the worst."

Kiwi got up and pushed his stool closer to hers before sitting down again and fishing out the fat envelope from his inside pocket. He folded open the tab and slid a stack of 5 x 7 photographs out. He was so nervous, he could actually see the pulse drumming through the skin of his wrist. Running his tongue over his gums, he began to lay them out in front of her, one by one. Mrs. Gyles stared intently as each image was presented to her.

"You—" He stopped and coughed; his voice had come out squeaky. "—you were right about his secretary." he began again, indicating each picture in turn and hoping she didn’t sense how nervous he was. "Here she is leaving the office with him…" he laid another down on top. "…and here she is again, getting into his car."

"Couldn’t they have been going to a meeting?"

"That’s what I was hoping for, so I followed them – but no. It became obvious they were not heading for an appointment once they’d arrived at their destination." He slid a further photo in front of her. Gulping heavily, he said, "This was taken outside the Star City Hotel." The picture showed the couple walking towards the front foyer area, their arms about one another, laughing.

Mrs. Gyles started at the name of the hotel.

"What’s wrong? Does that ring a bell?"

She shook her head in disbelief, her eyes not leaving the picture. "You bet it does!" she gritted, "That’s the hotel Jack and I stayed at on our wedding night!" She was starting to sound angry now, fury replacing the hurt. "Show me the rest," she ordered. "Don’t explain, just show me."

"Are you sure?" he asked, laying his hand on her forearm. "They’re not pretty pictures."

"Show me!" she repeated fiercely.

So Kiwi did as she wished, and laid out her husband’s infidelity coldly in front of her. The photographs were a macabre memento of an illicit and sordid episode. By the time the final photograph was placed in front of her, Linda Gyles’ hands were shaking and she was breathing heavily.

"He’s…he’s…!" she muttered, unable to put anything concrete into words. She took a deep breath and then turned to Kiwi. "I’m going to take him for every cent, EVERY CENT! How dare he even think he can make a fool of me this way!" Although she was angry, her hurt and sense of betrayal were also evident in her eyes. "And now he’s away – on a ‘business trip.’ I’ll bet he’s with HER!"

Kiwi licked his lips, his mouth dry again. "Are you gonna be okay?" he asked.

"Oh yes, I’m going to be fine, but he won’t, or his…his…that…tramp!" She went back to flicking quickly through the photographs again, her movements becoming more and more wildly erratic. Eventually she said, "You should go, David."

"Are you sure? I could stay a bit longer if you need me."

"No, I’m fine. I think I’d rather be alone."

"No worries."

He sat for a few moments in the front seat of the car, his hands gripping and kneading the steering wheel hard. "Strewth! That was really…really full-on!" he thought and made a mental note never to do that to Fi. Feeling depressed, he finally turned the key and gunned the engine to life.

Five minutes later he remembered, with a groan, that he’d forgotten to present Mrs. Gyles with the bill for his services. He pulled the Land Rover over to the side of the road, took the invoice from his pocket, and sat tapping the now slightly creased envelope against his thumb thoughtfully.

He weighed the pros and cons: either return to Fi and admit he’d yet again failed to ask for payment, OR face a distraught Mrs. Gyles – no contest really. "Mrs. Gyles, it is!"

He glanced up into the rear view mirror in order to do a U-turn and noticed something was wrong – or rather, missing. The little red teddy bear Fi had bought him on their first official date wasn’t hanging in its usual home on the mirror casing anymore. He stupidly looked behind the glass, as though the bear would somehow be hiding there, and then searched the foot wells, both front and back. "Weird." he thought, "Where’s it gone?"

He took the car out of gear and set the parking brake. Leaning forward, he probed about under his seat to see if the little bear had rolled beneath, but other than an errant pen, he came up empty handed. Doing the same with the front passenger seat, his fingers suddenly snagged something long, cold and flexible. He tried to pull it out, but found it was hooked around one of the levers. Tugging at it did no good; he was still unable to free it. Finally he ended up stretched across the two seats, with his arm nearly at breaking point, trapped beneath. Suddenly the mystery object slithered free and he was able to pull it forth.

Kiwi’s eyes widened to the size of saucers at what was curled up in his hand. If he hadn’t already been lying across the seats, he would now surely be splayed out in shock. Heart hammering, the young detective stared at the diamond-encrusted necklace entwined in his fingers, a necklace that must be worth thousands of dollars – if the stones were real – and from where he was lying, they looked pretty authentic to him!

Sitting back upright, Kiwi continued to stare in bewilderment. "Fi’s – it must be Fi’s!" he thought, although he couldn’t remember ever having seen it before. He scratched his forehead, wondering what to do next. "The bill. Deal with the blasted invoice, and then worry about the diamond encrusted must-be-worth-a-million-bucks necklace – Whoo-hoo!" He grinned widely.

Luckily, the Land Rover had a lockable glove box, so he hid the necklace behind the junk accumulated within and made sure the compartment door was solidly shut. Pushing the mystery to the back of his mind for the time being, he turned the car around and headed back to Mrs. Gyles’ house.