Abigail woke at seven thirty the next morning despite having had only four hours sleep, but the adrenalin was still coursing through her veins. She had been having a strange dream that she was back at her school disco but the music had been speeded up, as if someone was playing old thirty-three-speed records at the seventy-eight setting on the record player.
The sun was pushing its way into the room through a crack in the curtains, and the birds chirping outside suggested another fine day ahead. Last night, she had come home and gone straight upstairs before undressing and throwing her clothes over the old armchair in her bedroom and flopping into bed. Now, looking at her jacket on the arm of the chair she could see two muddy imprints from a pair of size eight boots. I can’t believe we did that last night, she thought as she put on her dressing gown, we must have been mad. But it did get us some information and I’ve got to hand it to Alasdair; his feelings about Milton Scott were borne out, which just shows he’s not as barmy as I sometimes think. I’m surprised he hasn’t called yet, he must be turning cartwheels at home, not to mention Sophie who’ll be wondering how on earth he’s ended up involved in this now.
Emma was pottering about in the kitchen when Abigail came in for breakfast. ‘Morning Abigail, you’re up early. I wasn’t expecting you for hours yet. How did it go last night?’ Abigail relayed the story of their surveillance expedition as Emma gradually stopped what she was doing and became more engrossed in the story until she was sitting at the table opposite Abigail hanging on to every detail. ‘Bloody hell, that’s incredible. What did the police say about it?’
‘That’s the problem, we can’t tell the police. We borrowed the mobile library without permission; goodness knows what they’d say about that. I’d lose my job, let alone what the police would do to us for spying.’
‘Could they do anything? I mean you were just parked on a public road and then the path up the back of the house was public as well wasn’t it?’
‘Well, yes, but I’d still be more worried about taking the library van. They might arrest me for grand theft auto.’
Emma squinted. ‘Do we have that here? I thought that was just an American thing. We’d probably have something like, taking a vehicle without permission. Our crimes never sound as grand as they do in America.’
‘Oh hang on,’ Abigail rose from her chair and went through to the lounge, returning a few seconds later with a paperback book in her hand, on the cover of which Emma could see a large eye peering through a magnifying glass and a trilby hat on top of one of the words in the title. ‘I ended up with this book from Alasdair. He was getting into it with his usual gusto last night, full detective rig out, you can imagine.’ Emma nodded and smiled, as she could perfectly well imagine how he had looked. Abigail handed her the book. ‘I had a flick through it and it’s been written by an American so some of the references are from over there. Quite an interesting book though I must say.’ She poured them each a mug of tea and sat down again.
‘So did you put a tail on the van?’ Emma said only half joking.
‘No, we did not. I’ve no idea what we do next, we need to try and get some proper evidence for the police without getting into trouble ourselves.’
‘What’s Alasdair thinking about it all?’
‘I’ve not spoken to him yet this morning, but knowing him he’ll be putting a call into Downing Street to get the SAS to storm the building. I think we need to do something more subtle but equally as effective.’ She took the book from Emma. ‘Perhaps the answer lies within?’ she said, waving the book in the air, just as the phone started to ring in the hallway. ‘Ah, speak of the devil, that’ll be Columbo on the phone now!’
Alasdair lay flat on his back on the bathroom floor, the miasma of the family remedy wafting up from his back into his nostrils and, he wasn’t sure, but he could have sworn there was a greenish cloud wafting across the ceiling towards the extractor fan. This is definitely the stuff, he thought, I wish I’d started marketing this years ago. I could have done for backs what Dr Scholl did for feet – Mr Mills’ Lumber Wonder. Perhaps I could get a doctorate from the university to make it sound better.
The phone sat on the floor next to him, ringing loudly on the speakerphone since it was too much effort trying to keep the handset to his ear while maintaining optimum back relief. Abigail answered on the fifth ring. ‘Abby! How are you this morning? Hope you’re none the worse for wear. I’m laid-up on the floor again with my back!’
‘Good God, you’ve got it on speaker phone.’ Abigail jerked the phone from her ear. ‘You need to turn it down Alasdair, it sounds like you’re in a cave with a megaphone. You’ll do my eardrums a mischief.’ He fumbled with the phone and managed to turn the volume up at first, thereby allowing Emma, who was twenty feet from Abigail’s phone, to partake in the conversation, but then turning it down again to a more reasonable level. ‘How’s that now?’
‘Much better. I take it your back didn’t react well to our expedition last night?’
‘No, it’s seized up completely. When I got up this morning I had to come straight to the bathroom and lie down. Sophie’s not pleased at all with this caper, she thinks we should stay out of the way of it all. Not to mention the difficulty she had when she was trying to get ready this morning with a sleeping policeman in the bathroom, pardon the pun.’ He tried to raise himself up to a sitting position but failed as pain stabbed him in the back. ‘Nope, just tried moving and it’s still agony. This is extremely inconvenient, we’ll need to wait until later to go round and confront him.’
Abigail’s heart leapt. ‘Whoa, what do you mean “confront him”? We’ll do no such thing, I’ve just been chatting about it with Emma and we need to find some way to implicate him to the police. We can’t go charging in throwing accusations around. We don’t have any proof.’
‘But we saw them there Abby, we’ve as good as got him banged to rights! The van that was seen outside my house when the burglary took place was in his driveway and he was talking to the people who were in it.’ He winced as pain shot up his back again due to the tension in his body.
Abigail’s voice was calm when it came back over the speaker. ‘OK then, Columbo, so we go to the police and tell them about it and we show them what? The photographs we took last night, the video from our surveillance cameras? Or perhaps a quick sketch we can draw on the back of a napkin? If we go to the police we’ll look daft. We’ve no proof and they know you and Milton don’t get on so it just looks like you’re trying to throw some mud at him.’
Alasdair sighed heavily. ‘Maybe. But we did see them there, surely that counts for something?’
‘It counts enough to let us know that our hunch, or rather your hunch, was right. But we don’t know that the van that we saw last night is the same one that was at your house – we didn’t get the registration. The one Dorothy saw may have been stolen and used for the burglary, we don’t know.’
Alasdair was prepared to concede there was some logic to this but his frustration was still evident.
‘OK, Abby. But I know it was him, I can sense it. I mean it’s not as if they were making a business call at that time to check his guttering, is it?’ Abigail had to concede this time that he did have a point. ‘And they were having coffee with him as well so my gut feeling is it’s him behind this, and I’m going to make sure that my property is returned.’
It was Abigail’s turn to sigh. ‘Yes, you may be right Alasdair. But let’s not do anything rash, we need to figure this one out. Let’s not put him on the most wanted list as public enemy number one just yet.’
‘Public enemy number one? Have you got my book Abby?’ He could almost feel the heat from her face coming down the line.
‘Erm no, well yes, but never mind about that. Just you get your back sorted out and I’ll see what I can find out. I’ll talk to you later.’