Mustang Case File #1

Chapter One

DERMOT MUSTANGONAVICH never had a real sense of his own identity until he reached the age of thirteen—and he attributed this to his mother shortening his surname to Mustang at the age of four. And as young as he was, he can still recall the blazing row his mother had with his father ending with, "Dermot is not going to start school with a surname no one can pronounce!"

At the age of five the school head bully Zac Crump punched Dermot to the ground, sat on his stomach and nose to nose snorted, "What kind of name is Mustang anyway?" as one of his goons spat in Dermot's face and another threw his school bag onto the back of a passing truck, laden with gravel—an after-school activity that would dog Dermot for many years.

Luckily Dermot had many good friends he could play with to make up for the short comings the educational system was offering him. His mother was forever having to listen about Mackie, Bugsie, Bob, Charlie and Wendy going on missions to find lost cats, dogs and neighbor's missing newspapers! She wasn't initially concerned as Dermot seldom left their street or that she hadn't met any of her son's friends, but when he added Buster, an imaginary dog to the list, she took her son to a Psychiatrist. "...and he's crossing his own name out on his school books and replacing it with the Bugsie lot," his mother whined. She was told, "Natasha, he's a lonely kid. You need to work on your relationship with your son, get him to confide in you. But, fortunately, it's just a stage he's going through!"

Happily, Dermot had his buzzy bee, a brightly painted wooden toy on wheels he could pull along behind him. Buzzy knew why Dermot did what he did and he told buzzy bee all his secrets and always, always asked for advice.

When Zac Crump forced Dermot out of the metal and woodworking queue—optional school subjects—he pushed him into Home Economics. It wasn't too bad. His class mates, all female, mollycoddled him and he soon discovered his long-tapered fingers were built for needlework and dipping into a mixing bowl!

At the age of eight, Mackie, Bugsie, Bob, Charlie and Wendy had apparently all left the district and Dermot discovered the internet. The internet provided him with enough scenarios to fill the void his friends had left. His mind was agog! All too soon he evolved the art of deception which ended the bullying. When Zac Crump was shown the family tree, listing Dermot as a Grandson of a fictitious Mustang Car Empire, not even the spelling mistakes were noted by Zac and his runny-nosed bunch of followers, and the noteworthy document shot Dermot up the playground hierarchy to at least someone to be sneered at in a sort of enviable manner, but never again to be punched to the ground, sat on and snorted at.

At home Dermot started spinning little white lies to appease his mother. His school reports were appalling, so until he improved, he wouldn't get an Xbox—he figured trading his fictitious Grandpapa Mustangs autograph for a decent school report was a worthy cause and when he handed the report to his mother, his much-coveted Xbox was in his hands!

One day in his early teens, Dermot discovered silky satin, delicate lace and brightly colored woman's lingerie. It was the day of the big storm and all sorts of garments (mainly women's underwear) ended up on Dermot's back lawn. He had used the return of each garment—by matching them with the posteriors of his neighbors—as a measurement of his investigative skills. And it turned out he was pretty damned good at it!

It was at that moment with the wondrous feel of the sheen fabric between his fingers, two knickers never made it back to their rightful owners. Instead, they were carefully enclosed in bubble-wrap and placed at the bottom of his double door wardrobe—hidden by his black lace up shoes, but easy enough to get to when he needed to study them further.

He'd recently made friends with Sophie whose main ambition in life was to become a model and her first gig was modelling knickers. She loved Dermot's bubble wrapped, faded and fingered knickers and wanted to wear them for her first shoot. And Dermot will always remember the buzz of excitement when Sophie's bum was too big for the knickers. MAGIC!