“Oh,” Tamsyn said, stunned for a moment.
“She was a piece of work, wasn’t she?” the officer asked.
“I’ve met nicer people, but she was upset.”
The officer closed his book, putting it back into his pocket.
“Thanks Miss Morrghan, if..”
“Tamsyn. I hate Miss Morrghan; my teachers used to call me that.”
“Okay, Tamsyn. If you remember anything else, here’s my card; just give me a ring,” he said, handing a card to the girl.
“I will.”
Mary handed him the laptop, so he got her to sign for it in his notebook.
The young officer seemed reluctant to leave. Tamsyn looked at him and cocked her head to one side slightly.
“And?” she asked.
“Um, you don’t fancy a drink or something?”
She smiled and shook her head.
“I can’t tonight; I’ve to finish helping with the dinners. Another time?”
“Tomorrow?” he asked, hopefully.
“Maybe; look, drop by and remind me at about five. If I’m not here, I may be busy.”
“Okay. Um, do you have a mobile?” he asked.
“I lost my last one, so I have to get another. I’ll have to wait until I get paid before I can afford one.”
John grinned, striking her off his invisible list of suspects for taking the money from the American’s wallet.
“Call me when you do, and let me have your number, okay?” he said.
“Oh, am I a suspect, then?” she asked.
“No, I just want to buy you a drink,” he said, grinning.
Tamsyn became suddenly aware that he saw only a young and attractive girl. Everything had been so new and wonderful, she had yet to actually stop long enough and let the full impact of the situation sink in. Not only was she vulnerable, alone and uncertain of her future, she also became fully aware of her new gender and, more importantly, her sexuality.
Her mind conjured up images of her new body, naked and entwined with another’s: a man’s body, strong, lean and muscular. She experienced unfamiliar sensations from her new nether regions and felt embarrassed, as she knew that she was becoming aroused by those images in her mind.
“I’ll hold you to that,” she replied, hoping he couldn’t see any physical manifestations of her state.
Grinning and full of hope, the young policeman left the guest house, leaving Tamsyn to find some space to think.
Living in Allun’s world had been so different, particularly as he would often lose himself as an alter-ego. Nothing prepared her for this particular experience, as his imagination had never encapsulated what she now was. However, now that she had lost every single facet of Allun, she smiled with an inner warmth and sense of having finally arrived.
Tamsyn went back to the kitchen feeling relieved and yet, slightly worried, as her plans to keep clear of the involvement hadn’t quite worked. It was only as she finished the washing up that her memories reminded her that actually, Allun was still with her, for deeply rooted in her brain were fifty years of his memories.
* * *
Many miles to the northeast, deep in the rolling landscape of rural Bedfordshire, as the Chiltern Hills rose to stretch across three counties, a man with no connection to Cornwall felt a growing sense of foreboding and disquiet.
His study was a dark place, with dark wood panels, creaky brown leather-clad chairs and a large, ancient desk. Almost every inch of the panelled walls were home to bookshelves. Some volumes were very old and bound in leather, while others were far more recent. A state-of-the–art computer stood incongruously on the desk amid neat piles of papers.
The man sat in his high-backed leather chair behind the desk, while in his hand was a very old sword. The tip on the sword rested on the desk, and his eyes were closed, a faint frown creasing his otherwise rather bland face.
Matthew Brand was a retired stockbroker with an interest in antiquities. He’d inherited Fullburough Manor from his uncle John in the late nineteen seventies, as the old man had never married or had any children of his own. His father, Henry, and his brother John hadn’t been close. For a start, there was a large age gap between them. Henry was nearly fifteen years younger and had left home in his early twenties to seek his fortune in Shanghai and other parts in the Orient.
Henry had been too young to fight in the first war, as he was only four at the outset of conflict in 1914. John, on the other hand had been nineteen, so had joined up as soon as he could, being commissioned into the Bedfordshire Regiment as a Second Lieutenant.
He was wounded in 1917, returning to England a shattered man. He was nursed back to health, much to his father’s relief. For by 1930, and despite his father’s disapproval, Henry had left Britain for the Far East, and was far more unsettled than his older brother.
In the mid nineteen-thirties, and as the winds of war began to blow once more, John inherited the family estate of Fullburough Manor from his father on his death. Henry, by now was reasonably wealthy and based in Singapore, having married another ex-pat Scottish heiress named Margaret Strachan (pronounced Strawn). In 1935, Henry returned for his father’s funeral, but as the brothers had a bitter quarrel, he had returned to the Far East, settling in Singapore with his wife, vowing never to return to England.
The Japanese advances surprised everyone, but Henry and his by-now pregnant wife left Singapore in time and headed for Australia.
Matthew was born in Adelaide in 1940 with no knowledge or understanding of his family history.
Henry, a keen pilot, joined the RAAF in Australia but was killed in 1943, leaving his widow with a little boy and a baby daughter called Millicent. Margaret, with no family or friends in Australia, headed back to Scotland at the end of the war, to take a cottage on her cousin’s estate in Angus, not far from Brechin. Margaret retained much of her inherited wealth, but found that sending a son through private schools was more expensive that she had anticipated.
So it was, once attaining the age of eight, Matthew found himself in a Scottish boarding school, unaware that his Uncle John existed.
John, on the other hand, became aware of his brother’s family, having attempted to contact his lost brother, only to find he’d been killed. Margaret received a letter in 1957 from a solicitor, in which she was informed that John had managed to trace them, and had named Matthew as his sole heir. This started a series of correspondence between Margaret and John that culminated in Margaret moving to Bedfordshire to become John’s companion and housekeeper.
Matthew, then aged seventeen, was on the point of leaving school and starting university, so was hardly affected by his mother’s decision and subsequent move. Over the next few years, he came to know and respect his rather distant uncle, who led a quiet and reclusive life in the large, ancient house in Bedfordshire. With three floors, a tower and three separate wings, the house covered many hundreds of square feet of land. Parts of the house were alleged to have been built before the Norman invasion, so were believed to be Saxon. Where the tennis court now sat was rumoured to have once had a Roman Villa standing there.
Matthew inherited it all except for a small cottage which John had left to Margaret for services rendered. She also received a small legacy from which she could live out her days in relative comfort. She died in 1999 aged a respectable eighty-nine, after which her cottage became the property of her son. Millicent, Matthew’s sister, it has to be noted; received nothing from her Uncle, but her mother left her everything apart from the cottage.
Millicent had disliked the British climate and her uncle John, whom, she claimed, treated both her and her mother like skivvies. She had returned to stay with friends in Australia as soon as she was free to do so after completing university, finally marrying an Australian doctor and making her life there. She and Matthew rarely corresponded.