Twin sisters teasing the police get their knickers thoroughly twisted

---

I've already told the tale of my first patrol as a raw young copper, and how it ended up with me stoking the fires of one of the local teachers in the school boiler room. I guess you can't ask for a better start to a job than that, but I'd been very lucky not to caught away from my beat while I was supposed to be on duty. So I decided to be cautious from then on, although I would certainly make sure there'd be other chances of getting Anna Morrison (Mrs Anna Morrison, no less) to mark my homework. It seemed like I'd already achieved a solid 'A' and the next assignment was definitely going to be graded 'A+' for effort.

Well, fine, but Anna was enough to be going on with. From now on I wasn't going to kick over the traces again, I was going to stick to the rules and regulations like glue and no more dodgy stuff. Ha!

That particular good resolution lasted as long as my next rostered market day duty. It was a Tuesday. Tuesday has been market day in the town since . . . oh, maybe since there'd been a Roman fort on the site. In fact it was really a case of two weekly markets being held together. There was a twenty acre open area with rows of pens where the livestock was displayed and auctioned. Then there was a long building by the side of the livestock market where stalls where set up under cover. At the far end of the market hall foodstuffs were displayed and general sales were at the other end, near the livestock market, everything from rag dolls to wrought iron pokers to pocket radios. Also a lot of Manchester and clothing, they were two of the most popular lines sold off the stalls in the general goods area.

Still, that sort of stuff wasn't usually of much interest to the police. Most of the textiles were factory discards and son on, legitimately acquired, and, anyway, just about impossible to trace if stolen. Livestock wasn't an issue because rustlers are rare in the English Midlands and the only hot items likely to be found in the foodstuff stalls were steak and kidney pies straight out of the ovens. It was the odds and ends on the general merchandise stalls we liked to run an eye over, just to see if any of it might be stolen gear being disposed of for cash.

So what happened was that every market day a constable was given market duty, supervising the setting up of the stalls, settling any territorial disputes between the stall holders and generally looking after things. He was also expected to have a full set of notes from the Station's Reported Crimes book about any items which had been nicked locally and might show up on the stalls.!

So, let me set the scene. A nice summer's day, plenty of sunshine outside the market hall, lots of nice smells down at the food end of the stalls and not so nice smells at the other end, which were near the cattle and sheep pens. And always a couple of auctioneers' voices to be heard from outside, their owners leaning over the sides of pens and slamming rolled up papers into their palms every time they completed a sale.

And in this midst of all the crowd of shoppers in the hall who should be strolling stalwart and tall but young Phil, crime fighter extraordinaire and pride of the shire police force. OK, tall anyway, that much was certainly true. Damn near seven foot from the top of my helmet down to the heels of my highly polished boots. And maybe it was an old fashioned kind of uniform in between boots and helmet but nobody laughed at it, not in those days, because coppers of my generation knew exactly how to use those boots to gain some respect without knocking any of the shine off their footwear at all.

So there I was, standing out above the crowd like a perambulating lighthouse, nodding to all the people -- and a lot did -- who smiled in my direction, and spending a lot of time introducing myself to the stall holders. Especially the female stall holders. Either owning a stall or helping out their husband with one.

What you might call a job lot. Forgetting about the married ones and the ones with figures like beer barrels, there were at least half a dozen who got little mental ticks against their names for follow up visits, with a view to further investigations into their willingness -- in the fullness of time -- to helping an eager young constable become an expert cuntstable.

So if you have the impression that I was quite happy in the performance of my official duties, you are correct. They were pleasant and undemanding, if hardly exciting. And then I wandered off to have a gentle look around the livestock market. I felt in the mood for some fresh air and that commodity was rather hard to come by near the well stocked pens, so I wandered over to the parking area to get a taste of untainted oxygen before heading back into the stuffy hall.

Which is when I saw a rather battered Landrover come through the market gates and drive along a row of parked cattle trucks, obviously intending to enter the last empty parking bay, which was only a few steps from where I was standing. An event which prompted me to step back out of sight behind one of the trucks.

Why? Because I remembered that Landie. Or at least I remembered the registration number. I'd had it pointed out to me by a fellow officer called Jimmy Giles when I'd been with him on a 'learning the district' drive around. Not because the vehicle was involved in any major crime, and perhaps not any crime at all, but it was a source of minor annoyance to the local coppers. Or so Jim had said.

"See that Landrover, Phil? Belongs to a local farmer called Frank Kirkpatrick. Nice guy with a lot of good acres and two daughters that are running a bit wild right now. Twins they are, identical twins, Kathy and Kirsten, eighteen years old. One of the has passed her driving test and the other one hasn't. That's Kathy, she can't seem to get the hang of driving, somehow. So when she's driving they should have Learner plates up on the Landie. They never do though, and if ever they get pulled over they always insist it's Kirsten who's driving. Twice that's happened and since I can't tell one twin from the other I've had to let them off the hook. It's not really important but I don't like anybody taking the piss out of us, even a couple of girls. And I'm sure it was really Kathy who was really driving. I just didn't have any way of proving it."

So it was because of that little tale from Jimmy that I'd moved out of sight behind the truck. Of course it might just be Farmer Kirkpatrick driving his own vehicle. Assuming that Frank liked stirring his gearbox around as if he was mixing a Christmas pudding. Anyway it wasn't him because there were two heads behind the windscreen, two heads both topped with fair hair, long fair hair pulled back into ponytails. The Kirkpatrick twins in person, and whichever one of them at the wheel was not -- to put it kindly -- a very gifted driver. When she stopped the four wheel drive it was more a case of taking the clutch by surprise than easing it off. The engine squealed in high revs as the brakes came on, then kangaroo hopped forward a couple of feet before stalling because the driver had taken her foot off the pedal too quickly.

I saw the girl in the passenger seat say something that was certainly short and looked sharp, and the twin behind the wheel shrugged her shoulders, apparently not caring much about the comment either way. I know how she felt my own efforts at learning how to drive a Daimler armoured car during National Service had been pretty rough going at first. But although I wasn't close enough to hear what was being said, I was close enough to see the girls were wearing blue work shirts of exactly the same cut and hue. That was their usual thing, to wear identical clothing so they could have games with people who couldn't tell one from another. And if it amused them and maybe some other people, it was no joke to the force. Even as a novice copper I knew that the one thing the police should never do is to let anybody at all make fun of us. This pair needed to be taken down a peg or two, but how?

Sure, I could go over, hold them on suspicion of breaching L Plate regulations and all the rest of it, but how could I possibly prove which one had actually been driving the Landrover when it came into the market?

And it was as I was pondering on that very awkward question that I noticed a small pot of paint hanging from the side bar of the cattle truck, a very small pot with a homemade wire handle and a tacked on cover, with a hole in the cover just big enough for the handle of the brush which was shoved down into the paintpot. Paint which I suddenly realised was for putting temporary markings on animals after they'd been bought, so they didn't get confused with any other livestock that might get loaded into the truck at the same time.

Which gave me an idea. Not a clever idea, certainly not a very original idea, but a bloody good one for all that. Because I pulled the paint brush out of the pot, gave it a wipe across the top of one of the back tyres to get rid of the excess paint and then walked over to the Landrover with a big goofy smile on my face and my hands behind my back, trying to look as friendly and unofficial as you can in a police uniform.

"Hello, girls. Nice day isn't it?"

The driver -- Kathy for a quid -- grinned at me and reached down from the opened window to operate the door lever from the outside, a common habit with the cramped military style Landrovers of that era.

"Hello, constable . . . what the hell!"

They say that nothing you do in this life is time entirely wasted. Maybe it's true, because as I whipped that paintbrush out from behind me I remembered all the time I'd spent watching the movie matinees as a kid. As fast as my trusty masked hero with the flashing blade, I put the mark of Zorro on top of the twin's right hand. It was a neat piece of work, even if I say so myself, though it didn't last long enough to matter as the girl immediately tried to wipe it off with her other hand. But if the Z got badly blurred the stain remained, and that marking paint would need a deal of scrubbing to get it off.

"What did you do that for?" the twin behind the wheel demanded to know.

"Because I think your name is Kathy Kirkpatrick, and that you haven't passed your driving test and you've been committing an offence by driving a vehicle on the public highway without having L plates on said vehicle. If you want to contest my statement we'll go down to the police station now, phone for your parents to come into town and let them decide which one of you is which."

"You sneaky sod," she said, not at all pleased as she rubbed the back of her hand again, which did nothing but spread the paint stains further across her skin.

By this time the other girl had walked around the vehicle and was smiling at me, but rather cautiously. She was a nice looker though -- well, having said that, they both were, naturally. Tall for their age, slim, with big blue eyes, perfect skin and good figures. Maybe the noses were definitely bigger than smaller, and maybe the sets of top teeth were slightly over the top in terms of overbite, but there was nothing else at all to nitpick about. Especially with those long legs both shown off to excellent advantage in tight fitting jeans and high heeled Western style riding boots. Country girls come to town.

"Oh, Phil, you're not really going to charge her, are you?"

Never could resist a girl smiling at me -- it's the story of my life. But I was surprised at what the twin had said. How did she know my name?

"If there's any charges getting laid, there'll be two of them, one each apiece. As a qualified driver travelling with a learner, it's just as much your responsibility to have L plates displayed on the vehicle as it is your sister's. Incidentally, we haven't been introduced, have we?"

Kristen's (or Kathy's) smile broadened. "We saw Jimmy Giles in the village a couple of nights ago and asked him who the handsome young policeman was who'd been in the car with him. He said your name was Phil -- Phil Rodgers."

"Hmm . . . "

It was an answer which took the wind out of my sails, especially when the other girl got out of the Landie and matched her sister's smile tooth for shiny white tooth. One smile and I'm easy meat, two simultaneous smiles from smart looking young females and fearless Police Officer Phil was breathing heavier than usual.

"It's no good trying to slide around me with that kind of approach, young . . . well, whichever one you are."

The one who'd been driving shrugged her shoulders "You're right, Phil, I am Kathy. I am the one without a driving licence." She held up her stained hand and shrugged wryly "I suppose you could say you've caught me black handed."

Then the smile turned into as blatant a come-on one as I'd seen for . . . well, at least a day. "Have we been very naughty, Phil?" she asked.

It was like little Annie Orphan trying to soften a miser's heart and once again that damned tight collar on my tunic was squeezing into my neck. Especially with that other pair of oh-so-innocent blue eyes also watching my reaction. It was time I got back into official mode.

"Now, girls, let's get this straight," I told them. "By rights I should take you right down to the station. It's not the L plates that are the real problem here, it's the way you've been playing the fool with the police, pretending to be each other and so on. That's got to stop. And there's another side to it as well. If you pair have an accident it's our job to be able to say straight away which one of you is which. Which we couldn't do right now, if neither of you was in a fit state to talk to us. You understand that?"

Kirsten nodded "OK, yes, we understand. So what do you want to do?"

"I want to be able to know which is which, while I've got the chance. You're Kirsten, and this one here with the paint on her hand is Kathy, I know that, so all I need is to find a mole or something which one of you has and the other doesn't, and then you won't be able to fool me in the future."

That did it. The pair of them burst into laughter without even looking at each other. Maybe they had a point, with the way I'd phrased it.

"On your faces or your necks, I meant. Just one identifying feature. There's nothing to giggle about so just stand still for a minute."

Well, they did stand still . . . sort of. With their hands to their mouths and clearly enjoying me as the biggest joke of the year so far. I was wishing like hell I'd never had my bright idea in the first place. If it hadn't been for the uniform I'd have shrugged my shoulders and walked away. But when you're a copper you have to browbeat the opposition every time or you'll never have any respect.

What made it worse was that I couldn't seem to see anything at all to distinguish the twins. No moles, no birthmarks. There had to be something, damn it, even if was only a freckle. But it was difficult to keep looking at one of them and then the other and trying to remember what I'd seen.

"Come on, stand together," I ordered. "Shoulder to shoulder."

"Yes, sir!" Kirsten said and the pair of them got together and made a big thing of pretending to stand to attention.

I only hoped nobody else was watching the maddening piece of mummery. It was time to read them the riot act.

"Listen, you pair of idiots, I'm trying to keep you out of trouble and you're still taking the piss out of me. If you prefer to go down to the station and get charged, I'm quite happy to do it. Right now."

Both of them shook their heads, and both in the same split second without either apparently taking a cue from the other one. Sometimes they seemed to be more like one mind in two bodies than two completely separate personalities.

"No, Phil, you don't understand," Kathy said softly. "It's not that we're trying to be clever, it's just that we both had the same idea at the same time and we both knew the other knew that we'd had the same idea, and we both thought it was a great idea."

""Uh . . . " It took me a second to untangle all that in my head.. "What idea?"

Again those two pairs of bright blue eyes were boring into me. Only now they looked about as innocent as a pair of foxes' eyes in a darkened chicken coop.

"Well, the idea that we'd both love to let you look at whatever you want. Kirsten, don't you think Phil would be interested in seeing our . . . identifying features."

"Oh yes, I'm sure he would. Only he'd have to find somewhere private to take us, wouldn't he? Before we could show him, right?"

Once again I had what was becoming a surprisingly regular feeling since I'd started being a copper, a feeling of being throttled by my high necked uniform collar. Of course they were still having a joke with me, weren't they? And of course even thinking about taking the Kirkpatrick girls somewhere private was madness. But . . . but when you're being offered an invitation to maybe peel a couple of presentable teenage twin girls out of some of their clothing . . . well, everything else seems to go out of focus somehow. When you're young, anyway.

Of course I was supposed to be marching around the market carrying out my official duties. But . . .

"There's the old offices. The old clerks' offices," I said -- not loudly, sort of thinking around.

The twins turned together again, like soldiers hearing a single word of command, and looked across the pens to the small brick building right in the middle of the livestock market place. It was called the clerks' office because there were three empty rooms in it which had indeed once been used by clerks recording bills of sales in market authority ledgers. But that had been a long time ago, before the war. All that was left now in the clerks' rooms was one dusty desk with a telephone on it. The auctioneers and some other market officials such as the duty vet had keys to the old building so they could use the phone when necessary.

"There's people going in and out of there all the time," Kathy objected.

"Only into half of it. The other half of the building is still a police post," I answered. "But not many people know that."

"A police post?" Now it was Kirsten, and she sounded interested.

"It always has been, so they tell me," I explained. "We have our own telephone there, and a place to make a brew up, and a toilet and a couple of cells."

Both of them responded to that word as if there'd been a peal of thunder out of the clear blue sky.

"Cells?"

Again, I was the target of those eyes, and this time there might not really have been any thunder about but there certainly was some electricity building up behind them. It was getting hard to keep my mind on what I was talking about.

"Yes, cells. Back in Victorian times the publicans were allowed to set up barrels of ale here in the market and sell pints to the farmers and auctioneers and workers all day long. Sometimes there'd be trouble as a result, and the cells were built as part of the clerk's offices so there'd be places for the market constable to lock up the nuisance drunks until they were sober enough to be released or carted off to the town police station. Horse and carted, I suppose."

"Oh, well, Phil, you'd better take us to the cells then," Kathy said. "After all, you're not going to get a chance like this again, are you?"

"What chance?"

She tapped the back of her stained hand "A chance to know which of us is which. A chance to give us a real good sorting out."

The other twin went into a fit of giggles and that bloody collar was squeezing me like a python necklace. I really hadn't got this sorted out at all it still seemed I was on the losing end of a ongoing gag that only the girls understood. Maybe it was time, just this once, to back off.

"Well, the pair of you, I think I'd better say to you that you are not under arrest in any way. You don't have to come over to the police post with me if you don't want to."

"But we do want to," Kirsten said. "Don't we, Kathy?"

"Of course we do," the other one answered straight back. "It's our duty to assist the police with their enquiries, isn't it?"

"Of course it is. We're all yours, Phil, take us away."

"Uh . . . maybe it would be better if you gave me a minute and then followed on behind. Just walk around the office building until you come to a side door. It'll be unlocked."

"Not ashamed of us, are you, Phil?" Kathy asked, grinning.

"I'm being careful, that's all. A copper is always being watched and if I'm seen escorting anybody anywhere people always jump to the worst conclusions. We don't need any stupid gossip, so don't make it look as if you're with me."

"OK, Phil," one of the twins said. "You go over there and wait for us to come over."

"Right, right."

My voice was croaking again, just like it had when the head teacher had started polishing my truncheon with her handkerchief. God, was I imaging things or could this possibly be another situation like that one? With a pair of girls -- twin girls -- to myself. Gordon Bennett!!!

No, not possible. It was just a case of them flirting with me and maybe -- if I was very lucky -- getting a quick flash of something nice. Maybe in duplicate. Well, that was better than nothing on a quiet day. As long as they didn't go blabbing about it afterwards. But I did have reasonable grounds to think the twins had been breaking the law. That should be enough to deal with any questions, if I was careful.

Without glancing back I walked over to the clerks' building. Round the corner to the door, took the old fashioned iron key out of my pocket and went in. It was the first time I'd been inside the post and the first thing I saw was a table with a tatty old oil cloth covering on it -- instant deja vu! It was like being back in the caretaker's room at the town school.

Same kind of table, a couple of old wooden chairs, even a sink. Only this was an old fashioned deep square sink with a checkerboard of tiles on one side as a draining board and instead of a steel locker there was a wooden cupboard hanging on the wall. The only other major difference was that I didn't have a well built red haired school teacher walking in with me. On the other hand . . . the door hinges squeaked and one of the twins was grinning at me.

"OK to come in, Phil?"

"Yeah, sure."

Both of them entered. Kathy was second. I saw the Z blur on the back of her right hand as she tried to close the door. She had some trouble because the lock was stiff and wouldn't close. So I had to use the key to get some leverage and turn the mechanism. Kathy giggled again and looked around at her sister.

"He's making sure of us, isn't he? No escape from the long arm of the law now, right?"

"Or the long anything else of the law."

I was as happy as they were to fool around for as long as it took to get anywhere but I was supposed to be on duty. Maybe I'd regret it like hell late on but it was time to remember it now.

"Look, girls, I've got to go for a walk around the hall again or somebody'll be phoning my sergeant and telling tales on me. It'll only take me ten minutes and then I'll be back."

Kirsten laughed "Are you going to lock us in while you're away?"

I nodded "I have to. It's the only way to secure the door. I can't leave it open for anybody to come strolling in."

"No, of course you can't. You lock us in Phil and then you'll know we'll be here when you get back. Won't you?"

"Yeah, right . . . right."

OK, I wasn't at my best, not for making small talk anyway. I felt like I'd gone out into the river for a quiet swim and was suddenly hearing a noise like a enormous waterfall just around the bend -- a noise I was hearing at about the precise time I realized I was being swept downstream by a current it was impossible to get clear of. Which is a poetic way of saying that when I went out and locked the door again that big old iron key was probably softer than the boner inside my official issue police trousers.

A good thing those trousers were matched by the long uniform tunic. Even so, I walked as if my truncheon had become entangled in my underpants. Except that I never wore underpants and I always kept some condoms tucked away in to lining at the top of my helmet. I might have been a raw beginner as a police officer but I'd learnt fast about the essentials needed for the job, thanks to Head Mistress Morrison. But thinking about her as a way of taking my mind off the twins was like trying to douse a fire with high octane petrol.

Fortunately there's one subject which has always been as important to me as women, and that's food. I just managed to keep from making a spectacle of myself by concentrating very, very hard on all the pies, pasties, cakes, sandwiches and other good things displayed on the stalls I walked past. I even managed to chat to a couple of the stall holders without suddenly screaming in impatience and running back to the old market building. I'd like to claim it was due entirely to my strength of character. More truthfully, it was because having the twins under lock and key really didn't mean a thing. Most likely than not they were only cock teasing me unmercifully. Which would be a big disappointment but one I could live with if I didn't build my hopes up too high.

Not that I'm trying to pretend I wasn't seething and steaming like an active volcano when I got back to the building. And at least I was able to loosen that damned collar and take off my helmet before I unlocked the door. Then I pushed it open with the hinges creaking and . . . the place was empty.

"Better lock the door again, Phil."

It was on of the girls, and the voice was echoing from the inset archway of red bricks on the side wall which was the entrance to the two cells. I turned the key and put it on the table with my helmet, then went through the archway. On the far side was a niche, lit only by the single 40 watt globe burning behind me in the tea room, with a wooden cell door on each side. Both of the doors were closed. Both of the viewing panels inset into the doors were also closed. I reached up, slid open the one on the left hand door and looked into the cell. Bright lengths of sunlight were shining through the single small barred window high up in the wall. The glowing strips illuminated a stone flagged floor. Apart from the dust motes floating in the light there was nothing else to see in the cell. I turned to my right and slid open the other panel. Then I decided it was a very good thing I'd already loosened my collar.

One of the chairs from the other room was set in the middle of the floor, exactly in the centre of the pattern of falling sun rays. Sitting on the chair was one of the twins, wearing only a pair of tight fitting panties . . . white panties . . . pure white panties. Those and her shirt, which was tangled up with wrists and behind her head. The reason her wrists and shirt was behind her head was because her sister was holding them there, and standing behind the chair. She still had her shirt on her shoulders but it was unbuttoned all the way down, with no more sight of a bra than her almost naked twin. The only real difference was that the one behind the chair was wearing black briefs. Identical cut and pattern, but black.

Oddly, the cell door wasn't at all stiff as I pushed it open. I was though -- my prick felt as if it was going to poke a hole through the thick blue material of my uniform and smack me under the chin. As I got closer to the chair I saw the paint marking on the hand of the sister behind the chair.

"Kirsten wants to say sorry to you, Phil. She's the one who insisted we didn't need to bother with L plates because the coppers were too stupid to know which of us is which. So now she has to open her big mouth again to say sorry."

END OF PART ONE