S am followed Delia through to the back rooms. Even though the night was getting very late, Marvin and Delia were still up. In fact, Marvin seemed to have roused himself from his chair and was doing some work on Delia’s puppets on the side bench.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” he said. “Did you get lost coming back from the pub?”
“Hmm, got sort of detoured. Ended up talking to Lucas Camara.”
“Ah,” he said, and he and Delia shared meaningful a glance. “Did he give you an update on the woman who attacked Delia?”
“No, er, we didn’t talk about that.”
“Right. Because I bet they haven’t got a clue as to where she is.”
“I don’t suppose they do.”
Marvin and Delia shared another meaningful glance, but this one of a different sort.
“What?” said Sam.
“While you were out gallivanting —” Delia began.
“I was not gallivanting,” said Sam.
“And possibly canoodling,” said Marvin.
“There was… minimal canoodling.”
“— your father and I thought we should do something to draw this dangerous Candelina and any other sinister forces out into the open.”
“We need to put ourselves on the line, do we?” said Sam, with a frown.
“Yes we do!” said the puppet on Marvin’s hand in a strangled falsetto. “Let me help!”
Sam looked at Delia with her eyebrows raised. “What are you thinking?”
“We know that everyone’s after the Bartholomew Punch, right? So, we tell everyone we’ve got it.”
“We haven’t, though.”
Delia moved along the row of part-finished puppets. “I could make one that’s sufficiently similar to draw people to the shop.”
“You post a photo on Facebook and when the woman shows up you’re waiting by the door with a baseball bat like Wile E Coyote?” suggested Sam.
“Well, not exactly,” said Delia.
“Oh? Then…?”
Delia’s face shifted through a number of awkward expressions. “Okay, something a bit like that. I’m sure I had a better vision but now I can’t get the baseball bat thing out of my mind.”
“I thought it was a good idea,” insisted Marvin. “Not the baseball bat thing. I don’t think violence is our style.”
“Careful, or you’ll have Delia building a complicated man trap in one of the aisles,” said Sam.
“Ooh,” said Delia.
“No,” said Sam, suddenly caught up in the idea of dealing with Candelina once and for all. “We want to draw her into the open, properly. We want her in the public eye. We want to catch her in the act of trying to steal it so our friendly police force —”
“Very friendly, I hear,” said Delia.
“Stop it. The evening did not go that well. The evening did not go well at all, in fact.”
“Oh.”
Sam looked around. “Is there any more of that cocktail left?”
“Are you sure drinking is the answer?”
“I can drink and think at the same time.”
Delia turned to her emergency drinks trolley and set out some glasses.
“Just one drink, mind,” said Sam. “I think I might still have a work team-building thing in the morning.” She frowned and then raised her eyebrows. “That could work.”
“What could work?” said Delia.
“Inspiration struck before you even got the glass in your hand?” said Marvin.
“We put on an event,” said Sam. “In public. On the beach.”
“Are we putting on a show?” asked Marvin. “I would very much enjoy that. A puppet show?”
“Yes.”
“We could dedicate it to the memory of Weenie White. I could try my hand at being the Punch and Judy man.”
“We put on a puppet show and see who comes,” said Delia. “But how will we get an audience for this event? It’s all very well us putting on a Punch and Judy show, but if the only people that turn up are the obsessive history buffs and vintage puppet enthusiasts who’ve been commenting on my Facebook post then it’s going to be more like a nutty professor convention.”
“I quite like the sound of that,” said Marvin. “A gathering of genuine eccentrics is never a bad thing.”
“That’s true,” said Sam, “but I will have a ready-made audience for us. I’ll just have to co-ordinate with Malcolm.”
“Malcolm the manager?” said Delia.
“Actually, he’s an actor hired to pretend to be a manager.”
“Really?”
“Mmm.”
“But we need more than just puppets to put on a show,” said Delia. “We need the tent thing as well.”
Marvin nodded solemnly. “I shall make enquiries about the one that Weenie used. I believe it’s kept in a store room at Putten’s. No idea who it actually belongs to, but Daryl might let me borrow it.”
“I’d play down the part about the show being dedicated to the memory of Weenie when you’re talking to Daryl,” said Sam. “Seeing as how he single-handedly destroyed fifteen caravans.”
“Are you kidding?” said Delia. “There’s this one guy who’s gone viral on social media. Someone filmed him sitting on the loo with broken caravan all around him. If Daryl has any sense, he’ll turn all that free publicity into a selling feature.”
“What, you mean like ‘come and sit on the toilet made famous by Kev from Leicester’?” said Marvin. He shook his head. “Anyway, if I am to have the honour of being puppet master for this occasion, I had better adapt some of these puppets to be my cast. If I may, Delia?”
Delia gave an extravagant bow. “They are yours to do with as you please, Marvin.”
“Hang on,” said Sam. “This is all just ideas. I don’t think I want us to put on a show to draw out this woman and then put my dad in the firing line by having him alone in the tent with the fake Bartholomew Punch.”
“But you’ll be keeping an eye out for her, won’t you?” said Marvin blithely. “You’ll see her before she gets within ten feet.”
But Sam was shaking her head. “You nearly got squished by a flying caravan today, Dad.”
“Yesterday, technically,” he said, looking at the clock.
“I’m not going to risk you being hurt.”
“You should have a code word,” said Delia.
“What?”
“If Marvin’s in the middle of the act and he’s about to be attacked, he can shout out a code word. Or you can. Or I can.”
“Canoodling ,” said the policeman puppet on Marvin’s hand. “That can be our safe word.”
“Code word, Dad,” said Sam. “A safe word is something different.”
“Is it?”