The girls in the Minton Upper School playground were thankfully oblivious to his presence – that was a key part of Gerry’s design. It would only serve to spoil everything if they knew about him. He wanted them ‘au naturel’ and not playing to the gallery.
For what must have been the tenth time he wiped the perspiration off his binoculars and hoped to goodness that they hadn’t alerted the girls by glinting in the fierce early summer sunshine.
Getting a room with a decent view had not been easy. Fortunately, Gerry had eventually found a gentleman who nodded understandingly when he said he wanted to observe the girls ‘in camera’. The man even went so far as to suggest that they shared a common interest. Perhaps they should get together for a chat later, Gerry mused, allowing himself a wry smile as he did so. For the moment, though, he had a strictly one-track mind.
It would have been good to get nearer. Watching the girls coming out from their lessons at lunchtime and seeing them milling around the playground from the far side of a busy road was not ideal, but he would have attracted unwanted attention if he’d sat in his car. Besides which, it was all double yellows anyway, and he didn’t need a traffic warden nosily querying his activities. Still, it didn’t stop him wishing he were there in the school and among the action.
