As always on Thursday the entrance to the alleyway was blocked by wheelie bins, scattered about the pavement ready for the rubbish collection. Emily pushed one aside with her arm. It was covered in muck and a cloud of flies hovered around the lid. The overwhelming smell of two-day-old fish and chips hung around it, making her almost gag.
She entered the alleyway and picking her way through the puddles, arrived at the back door of Posh Nosh. She hadn’t realised it had rained last night.
Peggy appeared on the other end of the alleyway and parked her bicycle near the back door.
‘Good morning,’ Emily said, quickly shoving her bag in front of the bulge in her sweater, where Trevor and Mike huddled together. She shouldn’t have bothered as Peggy only had eyes for the back door, which Emily now noticed, stood slightly ajar.
‘Hey, Emily,’ Peggy said. ‘What has happened here?’ She opened the door and studied the lock. There was a large dent in the wood of the door frame and the lock was all bent out of shape.
The hairs on the back of Emily’s neck stood out. ‘Don’t tell me the shop has been burgled.’
Peggy pressed her lips together. ‘It better not.’
The two women entered. Someone had been inside.
In the back passage, which was a bit of a storage area for miscellaneous items, everything was strewn about as if someone had been looking for something. Brooms and other cleaning aids were pushed over, a household ladder thrown on its side and two cardboard boxes with tote bags bearing the Posh Nosh logo turned upside down, the bags all in one large unruly pile.
‘The bastards,’ Peggy said, picking up one of the tote bags. It was covered in dust.
Emily stepped into the kitchen, where the mess was even greater.
Kitchen cabinets were opened, the contents thrown out, stored items from the shelves in the corner lay scattered over the floor. Even the doors of the freezer stood open, its content spilling out and defrosting into puddles all over everything else.
Peggy looked around with tears in her eyes. ‘Who does something like this?’
‘I don’t know,’ Emily said. She squeezed her aunt’s arm. ‘You stay here.’
As Emily walked into the shop her heart sank. The floor was strewn with items carelessly swiped off the shelves. It was a mess. Aunt Peggy didn’t deserve this. She had built this shop up from the ground and it was her whole life, her baby.
She walked back into the kitchen. ‘We’d better call the police. Let them take some pictures and fingerprints or something and then get everything cleared up as soon as possible.’
Peggy looked at Emily with a watery smile. ‘You’re a good girl. I know that.’ She gave Emily a quick hug. Trevor and Mike wriggled in the sweater pocket. Peggy broke free and stared at the bulge.
‘You brought your rats to the shop?’ She glared at Emily, her nostrils flaring. ‘Are you out of your mind?’
Emily felt the blood rush to her face. ‘They’ve only ever been by the back door.’ It sounded feeble even in her own ears.
‘You’ve brought them before?’
Emily’s shoulders slumped and she looked at the floor. ‘I thought it would be okay, but that was stupid of me. I know that now. I will take them back home right now.’
Peggy sighed deeply and looked at Emily in silence, her arms crossed on her chest. ‘I need you here right now. Just put them by the back door.’ She walked to the little office that was off to the side in one corner of the kitchen. ‘I’m going to phone the police, but don’t think you’ve got away with it. We will discuss this later.’
Emily put her sweater on the hook by the back door. She had never felt this guilty in her life. She could kick herself. Why had she brought Trevor and Mike to the shop? Now Aunt Peggy would never trust her again.
Emily walked back through the kitchen and into the shop. She surveyed the mess again. It would be hard to find out if anything was missing. Luckily, Aunt Peggy never left any money in the shop overnight.
The police arrived in the shape of Inspector McDermott and Abe Monday. Emily let them in through the front door.
‘That’s quick,’ Emily said. ‘We hadn’t expected the police for a while yet.’
McDermott glared at her. ‘We were in the neighbourhood.’ He looked around and sighed. ‘Anything missing?’
‘Hard to say. Perhaps when we sort things out a bit it will be clearer.’
McDermott stepped over the merchandise that lay scattered over the floor. ‘I can’t believe this burglar keeps eluding me. We had extra patrols out and everything last night.’
‘What makes you think this was done by the same person who broke into Nate’s shop?’ Emily said. ‘Food and jewellery are two different things. Perhaps it was someone else.’
‘You wouldn’t understand,’ McDermott said, looking down his nose at her. ‘My guts tell me that this burglar is the same that broke into Nate’s shop and murdered him.’
Emily shook her head. ‘That doesn’t make any sense. Why risk being caught by coming back?’
McDermott turned red, his breathing shallow.
‘Stop interfering,’ he said. ‘Or I’ll arrest you.’
Emily and McDermott looked daggers at each other.
‘Er… how did the burglar get in?’ Abe said. He pulled out his phone and started taking pictures of the mess.
‘The back door was forced open,’ Peggy said. She’d been watching from the kitchen. ‘I’ll show you.’ She took McDermott through to the back.
‘Stop riling him,’ Abe said. ‘You’ll only make it worse.’
‘I wasn’t riling him. Just asking some plain questions.’ Emily looked over her shoulder at the kitchen door. ‘He’s an idiot in any case.’
‘He can and will make things awkward for you,’ Abe said. ‘Keep that in mind.’ He walked off to take some pictures behind the counter and Emily stuck her tongue out at him.
‘By the way,’ she said. ‘Uncle Dave told me about the mysterious money in the Nate’s shop accounts. Did you have a chance yet to talk to Kenneth?’
‘No, I haven’t, but I heard that Kenneth used to be the ASBOW treasurer, so I’m thinking of checking their accounts as well.’
‘Good idea.’
Peggy and McDermott came back in.
‘I think we’re done here,’ McDermott said. He turned to Peggy. ‘Make sure you come to the station to report the break-in. And let us know if you discover anything is missing.’
After McDermott and Abe had gone, Emily and Peggy set to work clearing everything up. It took them about half an hour to get the shop back in some sort of order, during which Emily discovered that they were missing a large box of chocolates.
‘A burglar with a sweet tooth,’ she said. ‘Make sure you tell McDermott to keep a lookout for a bad guy with rotting teeth.’
Peggy smiled for the first time since the police had left. ‘I will go this afternoon, when it’s not as busy.’ She glanced around the shop. ‘Almost back to normal again. If you just stack those bags of pasta on the shelves, it’s all done.’
As Emily pulled a large cardboard box with pasta over to the shelves, the shop bell tingled and Sam walked in.
‘Can I talk to you for a minute?’ she said.
Emily nodded. ‘What’s up?’
‘Patrizia came by the restaurant last evening and told me something interesting.’ Sam looked over her shoulder at Peggy, who was refilling the bowls on the counter with olives. ‘Apparently she had realised that she had seen Colleen before. In Italy, years ago.’
‘What?’
‘It seems Patrizia had forgotten all about that encounter, but suddenly remembered.’
‘So Colleen has a connection with your family?’
‘It looks that way, but none of us have ever seen her before.’ Sam hugged herself. ‘I asked Lorenzo and Gianni, but they don’t know anything about it. And even if Colleen ever had a connection with my family, I’m not interested. She’s weirding me out.’
‘Not just you,’ Emily said. ‘Thanks for letting me know. Jacob and I will deal with this, don’t you worry.’
‘I don’t pay you to talk, Emily,’ Peggy said as she materialised next to the two girls. She looked at Sam. ‘If you’re not going to buy anything, then please stop bothering my staff. Out.’
With a small smile at Emily, Sam left, closing the door behind her.
Emily continued stacking the shelves, wondering what the connection could be between the Bandonis and Colleen. What was she planning to do? Perhaps they should talk to Patrizia about it.
‘Look what I found on my doormat this morning,’ Jacob said, handing Dave an opened envelope. ‘It’s an anonymous letter. No stamp, so someone shoved it through my letter box.’
‘An anonymous letter?’ Dave got up from behind his desk and peered at the envelope, holding it at almost arm’s length.
Jacob took his reading glasses from the breast pocket of his lab coat. ‘Here, let me.’ He took the letter out of the envelope. ‘It says, “Colleen is not who she says she is”. Nothing else.’
‘Colleen?’ Dave’s brow wrinkled. ‘What does she have to do with you?’
‘I don’t know. She’s also a teacher, perhaps that’s it.’
Dave took the envelope back. Jacob’s name was printed on an address label stuck to the front of it. ‘Is the letter printed on the computer as well?’
Jacob nodded. ‘Yes, on an otherwise blank sheet of A4 paper.’
‘So the person who wrote this has access to a computer and printer.’
‘But why send it to me? I hardly know the woman.’
Dave shrugged. ‘The person who wrote this clearly thought you could do something with this information, otherwise they would have sent it to someone else.’ He wrinkled his brow. ‘Could she have anything to do with Nate’s murder?’
‘Nate’s murder? Why would you think that?’
‘Because you and Emily are looking into that. And people are aware of it.’
‘Well, not that many people, I hope.’ Jacob shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘We’ve been pretty covert about it all.’ His mind skipped past all the people who knew, or could know about their somewhat haphazard investigation. Abe, Dave, Peggy, Sam, Patrizia, Gianni, Lorenzo Jr. Not that many really. His stomach tightened a bit. But four of them were members of the Bandoni family, a family in which Colleen seemed to have taken an exceptional interest and one of whom was friends with the victim.
‘Colleen is a stranger to Milbury, isn’t she?’ Dave words shook Jacob out of his reverie.
‘Yes, as far as we know.’
‘Even so, apparently there is someone here who knows enough about her to write you this letter.’
Jacob pondered this for a bit. ‘If Colleen is not her real name, then we need to find out her real one. It seems it’s important that we know about her duplicity, so we better find out more about her.’
‘How are you going to do that?’
‘I have no idea,’ Jacob said. ‘I must admit that up till now, finding Nate’s murderer hasn’t really been a priority for me. I just went along with Emily in her quest to help her friend. But now that it seems that Colleen is involved, I’m getting more and more intrigued.’
Dave smiled. ‘Can’t let a good mystery rest, can you?’
‘Seems that way.’ Jacob looked at his watch. ‘Blimey, is that the time? I need to teach!’ He stuffed the letter into his pocket and made his way to the door.
‘Whatever you do,’ Dave said, ‘don’t get too preoccupied with this anonymous letter. Peggy won’t like it if you talk about nothing else during your date with her this afternoon.’
Jacob glared at his friend. ‘It’s not a date.’
Dave looked smug, his eyes twinkling.
Jacob slammed the door of the office behind him. It was not a date!
Jacob’s heart was in his throat. It thumped so hard, that he was sure the adults downstairs would hear it. He tried to be absolutely silent as he sat himself down at the top of the stairs.
‘An anonymous letter?’ his father said. Martin’s was voice muffled a bit, as the door to the kitchen was only opened an inch or two.
‘The police received it this morning,’ Dave’s father said. ‘They told us about it when I got home this afternoon.’
‘What did it say?’ Jacob’s mother Dot said.
‘It said that Cornelius Clark might have kidnapped Robbie, and now they have taken him in for questioning.’
‘Cornelius Clark?’ There was a chink as Dot put her cup down on its saucer. ‘That’s utter rubbish, David. He’s got nothing to do with it. He helped me take down the washing the other day when it suddenly started pouring with rain. That man hasn’t got a bad bone in his body.’
Jacob agreed with his mother. Cornelius was perhaps a bit weird, but why would he have kidnapped Robbie?
David let out a deep sigh. ‘I know that it’s very unlikely that Cornelius would have anything to do with it, but it’s been nearly a week and there’s been no progress in the investigation at all.’
‘We know,’ Martin mumbled.
A chair scraped as David got up. ‘I better get back, Margaret is waiting for me. She’s trying to hang in there, but she’s taken it all very hard.’
The kitchen door opened and the two men came down the narrow hallway. At the front door, David turned around.
‘We all know what Cornelius is like, don’t we?’ he said under his breath to Martin. ‘Who is to say that men who like other men don’t go for little boys?’
Martin put his hand on the other man’s shoulder. ‘Listen to me. I know you’re upset, but you know as well as I do that it’s simply not true. Of course men like that don’t go for little boys.’
‘I know.’ David looked at his shoes, then up into Martin’s face. ‘It’s just been so very hard, you know. I just want my little boy back.’
Martin nodded and watched as his neighbour disappeared down the street. Then he closed the door and turned round. He looked up the stairs and saw Jacob looking down on him.
A coldness hit Jacob at his core, when he noticed that tears streamed down his father’s face.
The first sign we got that the Mafia was approaching, was a little tingle from the bells inside the wall. It sounded innocent enough, but it put us on high alert in an instant. We stared at the hole in the wall, our senses heightened, as confusing sounds drifted out.
‘Be quiet,’ Victor hissed.
‘It’s not my fault,’ Dino said. ‘There’s something hanging here and it’s stuck behind my ears.’ The bells tingled even louder as he tried to untangle himself.
‘Idiot!’
Leo looked at me over his shoulder, a big grin on his face. ‘It’s working.’
We’d entrenched ourselves in the front room of the old building behind an assortment of boxes and an old wobbly chair that we’d dragged in from the kitchen. Hoping to ambush the Mob, we waited in silence, piles of ammunition by our sides.
Then the first of our enemies stuck his nose out of the hole. It was Sal, who looked around the room with his beady eyes, whiskers twitching.
Next to me, Gus picked up a large paper clip without making a sound, ready to start chucking it at his cousin.
‘Wait,’ I mouthed to him, and he nodded his head. The tension in the air was palpable, something that wasn’t lost on the Three Bambini.
‘Something’s wrong,’ Sal said, stepping out into the front room. ‘Didn’t you say they were here?’ He turned to Dino, who studied the pile of boxes in the middle of the room.
‘That wasn’t here before,’ he said.
Through the crack between the boxes I could see Victor pushing his way into the room. He’d managed to fasten the diamond ring to his paper clip necklace. It glinted in the morning light.
‘Where are those little runts,’ he said looking about him. ‘No doubt hidden away somewhere, trembling in fright.’
He motioned with his paw to Dino and Sal, who started moving, one to the left and one to the right. ‘Let’s find those jewels and then make this joint our new headquarters. There’s so much more room here than down in those dank sewers.’
I held my breath as I watched Dino and Sal getting nearer, while Victor kept hanging back.
‘Now!’ I shouted and we jumped clear of the boxes pelting the startled rats with paper clips and erasers, shouting at the top of our lungs.
Daisy had the most success in hitting the enemy. She’d fashioned a makeshift catapult out of two pencils, which she’d stuck in the side of a cardboard box. With a rubber band, she was able to accurately shoot paper clips at Dino, who in a sort of blind panic came running towards her at great speed. He stopped in his tracks, though, when she hit him right in the eye and then soon after, painfully on his nose.
Gus climbed on top of the chair and chucked streamers and confetti down, which we’d found in an old box with some other party supplies. It added nicely to the confusion, as Dino and Sal nearly ran into each other, trying to keep clear of our assault.
Victor was the only one who kept a cool head, realising that our barrage mostly focussed on his brothers. He spotted a spare box, pushed it in front of the hole in the wall and ducked behind it, motioning to Dino and Sal to join him.
‘Stop,’ I said, holding up my paw, as the Three Bambini disappeared behind their box. ‘We’d better save our ammunition.’
‘What are we going to do?’ Gus said, pulling at the fur on his head.
‘Let’s just wait for a bit,’ Vinnie said. ‘They’re bound to do something stupid.’ He turned his ears towards the enemy box. Voices now could be heard from behind it.
‘My eye hurts,’ Dino’s voice came. ‘You said we’d steamroll them.’
‘Stupid knucklehead,’ Victor said. ‘It was you who warned them by walking into their trap.’
‘Yeah,’ Sal said. ‘If you’d kept your eyes open, we would have jumped them.’
Victor put his nose around the box, but quickly withdrew it when Daisy shot a paper clip at him.
‘You’d better retreat, Victor,’ I yelled, the adrenaline surging through my body. ‘You’re not going to kick us out so easily this time!’
‘Give us the jewellery and we’ll leave you in peace, you mangy Irish bum,’ he yelled back.
‘Never!’ Gus yelled. ‘The treasure is mine and I’ll defend it tooth and nail.’
‘Ha! You don’t have enough Italian blood in you to defend yourself! You don’t stand a chance.’
Vinnie looked at me. ‘This has the potential to turn into a standoff,’ he said in my ear. ‘What do you think of implementing your secret weapon?’
‘Good idea,’ I said. ‘Before Victor has a chance to come up with a plan himself.’ The hurling of insults could only go on so long and we’d better keep the upper hand and surprise them some more. I looked over my shoulder at the shelving on the back wall. Time for me to do some climbing.
‘Keep them busy,’ I said.
Vinnie nodded. ‘Good luck,’ he said, but his slightly droopy ears betrayed his real feeling about my rather outrageous plan. It didn’t fill me with confidence.
I crept away to the back wall unseen by the Mob, who were still trading insults with Gus and Leo.
‘I’m richer than you, Victor,’ Gus yelled from behind our defences, while I made my way up to the top of the shelf, trying not to dislodge anything and give myself away. ‘I have more diamonds!’
‘You’d better show me where they are, dear cousin,’ Victor yelled back. ‘Or I’ll send my brothers to squeeze them out of you.’
I arrived at the top shelf and took in the view of the room below. I could see the Three Bambini sitting behind their box. Dino still pawed his eye; a lump had now formed above it. He didn’t seem at all menacing from up here.
Looking down, I had second thoughts about the wisdom of my plan.
The evening before, we’d fashioned a strong piece of twine from the top shelf to the windowsill across the room. Using that piece of twine as a zip line, I planned to dive-bomb the Mob with heavy rolls of one-penny coins we’d found in a drawer of some old desk. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now the twine looked very thin and the drop very high. I’d better do this now, before I changed my mind.
I swallowed as I grabbed the large paper clip we’d clipped around the twine. Straddling a roll of pennies with my legs, I took a deep breath before launching myself off the shelf.
As I zipped down the twine, holding on to the paper clip for dear life, the ground came closer and closer. So did the box behind which Victor and his brothers huddled. They had now spotted the movement and I could see Sal pointing me out to Victor. Soon it would be time to release the roll, in the hope it would hit one of them on the head, knocking them unconscious.
Suddenly the twine slackened. It had come loose from the shelf and I now no longer zipped through the air, but dropped to the floor like a stone.
A yell escaped from my throat, then I hit the floor with a bump, the twine falling all around me. The room spun and I closed my eyes to avoid getting nauseated. I inhaled deep down into my lungs, while moving my limbs one by one, trying to find out if I had broken anything.
‘Grab him!’ Victor yelled and I opened my eyes just in time to see Dino and Sal jump on top of me. But instead of grabbing me, the twine that had entangled me, tangled them as well. Sal tripped and in his fall, hit his head on the side of the roll of pennies that had come down with me. Dazed, he sat shaking his head.
‘You nitwits!’ Victor shouted from behind his box, hiding like the coward he was.
Dino managed to free himself from the twine and grabbing hold of my leg, started dragging me across the floor in the direction of the enemy box. I tried to kick him in the side, but with little success. The rat was simply too big and too strong.
Then something whizzed over me and hit Dino in the head.
‘Ouch!’ he said and let go of my leg. Another thing whizzed over me, this time hitting Dino in the chest.
I looked up and saw Daisy standing behind her catapult, loading another paper clip. Vinnie and Gus stood next to her, motioning wildly with their arms for me to start running towards them.
‘Run!’ Leo yelled. ‘Run!’
I scrambled up, setting myself in motion at the same time, while Daisy shot another paper clip. It narrowly missed me, but I could hear it hitting Dino’s body.
‘Ouch! Not again!’ He grabbed his shoulder.
In no time, I was back behind the safety of our defences. Vinnie checked me over, while I watched as Dino and Sal limped back behind their own box, zigzagging a bit to avoid the barrage of paper clips from Daisy’s catapult.
‘Better not do that zip-line thing again,’ Vinnie said. ‘I admire your courage, but that was just a bit too crazy.’
I nodded, trying to catch my breath. ‘Agreed. We need a better plan for next time.’