Abigail was the first to arrive at The Pudding Furnace on Monday night and Emma greeted her warmly and showed her over to a nice booth facing the fire. ‘It’s a pity it’s not lit, Abigail, this place will be so cosy in the winter.’
Abigail looked around at the other tables. ‘Quiet tonight isn’t it?’
‘It’s early yet but then Monday’s never a busy night for restaurants. Whose idea was it to book the table for six o’clock?’
‘Oh, Alasdair of course. I booked it for seven thirty but he changed it to six, as he doesn’t want to be eating too late. He wants to get home for some more recuperation. I bet he’ll do a fair bit of recuperating tonight when he sees the selection of whiskies behind the bar.’
Emma laughed. ‘I’d better go, other customers to see to.’ She whisked off and went to another table with a young couple and a small child. The child, a boy of around six years old, was eating a pie of some description and some vegetables. Very good, Abigail thought, none of this kid’s menu nonsense which everyone seems unable to do without these days. Grown-up food was good enough when I was young so it should be good enough now. She was at the point of being very impressed when there was a slight coming together of knife and fork which sent a flotilla of peas sailing across the table. The boy’s mother looked around and saw Abigail watching but she just smiled and then set to putting things right. Abigail smiled back, impressed at such a well-behaved child. Sometimes she thought that was a rarity but in fact she was sure there were lots of well-behaved children. The ones that visited the library were, for the most part, very well behaved and most seemed even to have mastered the concept of silence, as long as it was for a short-enough period.
The restaurant door opened and a small bell chimed above it causing Abigail to look over. Alasdair stood there holding a bunch of flowers. ‘Hi Abby, here we are again!’
‘What have you done to Sophie now?’ Abigail asked, incredulous that he might have upset her again within a week.
He laughed. ‘Ha, nothing at all. She’s just parking the car over the road.’ As he was taking his coat off Sophie walked in and Emma took both of their coats and they sat down, Alasdair sliding into the booth first, with Sophie nudging him to budge up a bit.
‘Hi Abigail, how are you feeling? Did you get on OK with the police?’
Abigail nodded. ‘Oh fine, yes, just gave my statement and told them everything we’d done, well almost everything. You did remember to leave out the bit about the library van, didn’t you?’ she said to Alasdair, who nodded distractedly as he studied the menu. ‘And then they said that was it. We’ll be needed as witnesses when it goes to court but that won’t be for some time. How about you?’
Alasdair shrugged. ‘Much the same Abby, much the same. I was given a bit of a lecture for putting myself into harm’s way and getting myself kidnapped but other than that it was fine. Speaking of which, we got these for you,’ he handed the flowers to Abigail, ‘as a thank you for helping with everything. I’m not saying that I wouldn’t have solved it by myself but it was good to have someone assisting me.’
‘Assisting you?’ Abigail exclaimed.
‘Oh pay no notice to him Abigail,’ Sophie cast him a cold glance, ‘he’s just annoyed because it was more you that solved it than him. Did the police give you any more details of what had been going on?’
‘A few, although Emma managed to get some information from her new boyfriend, this Chris Buchan. He’s likeable enough I think and she seems keen on him. Anyway, it appears that Milton Scott was using his website to generate sales leads, if you like, for where there were things worth stealing. Then he was almost operating a franchise system for burglary around the country. He couldn’t cover everything himself with just his two cohorts so he had sent them to make contact with local burglars and if they did the work they would get a cut while the rest of the money came back to Milton. Quite enterprising really when you think about it, just a pity it was all criminal. Chris said that the computer forensics people are going over the equipment they seized from his house but they think they can probably link about thirty burglaries back to him, either directly or by tying up the items stolen with those on his website. It was so spread out that no one had put two and two together previously, until I —,’ Alasdair looked at her, ‘sorry, we,’ she smiled, ‘pulled in the information from all of the other library people.’
Sophie was smiling. ‘It’s been quite an adventure, and while I can’t say I was overly enamoured with it all this last week while I was trying to get the high tea up and running, now that it’s out of the way I’m starting to come around to the excitement of it all.’
Alasdair harrumphed next to her. ‘I’ll be more excited when I get my slippers back. The police say I can’t get them back until after the trial as they’ll be held as evidence. Can you believe it?’
Abigail nodded. ‘Of course I can believe it. You didn’t think you’d get them back straight-away did you? You need to read that last couple of chapters of your book again.’ She turned to Sophie. ‘So how did the day go? Was a lot of money raised for charity?’
‘About ten thousand pounds – enough that they might let us do it all again next year. We’ll see, depends on the council coffers I suppose. But I had my guest of honour for the closing speech didn’t I?’
Alasdair feigned shyness. ‘Oh it was nothing, just the least I could do to show my appreciation for my darling wife.’ Abigail had to admit that Alasdair’s closing speech had been lovely. Since Milton was otherwise detained, he had been drafted in and had spent most of the time dedicating the event to Sophie and making sure she got a huge round of applause from the audience, who for their part also cheered loudly.
Emma came over to the table and took their orders and disappeared back to the bar. As she did so, Alec came out from the kitchen and spoke to her quietly before coming up and introducing himself.
‘Aye, it was a great day all round,’ he said. ‘Those that hadn’t quite had enough to eat must have come into town. We were packed in here last night.’ Emma came over, clinking a bucket of ice out of which poked a bottle of champagne. ‘Just me wee way of saying thank you and congratulations on your success.’ The three of them looked a little embarrassed but, thankfully, Alec made his excuses and returned to the kitchen to work as Emma popped open the champagne and poured out the glasses.
‘Well,’ said Alasdair, holding up his glass, ‘here’s tae us. Wha’s like us? Not many and they’re aw’ dead.’ They clinked their glasses together and took a sip, the bubbles nearly catching Abigail.
‘Here here! Oh, I could get used to this. We need to do this more often.’
Sophie nudged Alasdair. ‘Did you tell Abigail about the tickets?’
He gasped at his forgetfulness. ‘My God no, I forgot. Abby, you’ll love this – we’ve all got tickets to go to a grand dinner at the castle in a few months. It’s a big deal, black tie and all that, to celebrate part of the castle opening up again. What do you say?’
Abigail pondered it for a moment. ‘Well, I did vow to try and avoid any events with you two in the near future, given how yesterday went,’ she laughed, ‘but of course. I mean a dinner at the castle, not much can happen there …?