If there's a more boring job than staking-out someone who's enjoying the comforts of their own home, I've yet to discover it. To relieve the monotony, I used my new toy to call the Central Reference Library and asked them to check the electoral roll for this address. Cheetham was the only person listed. Then I rang Richard to tell him my new number. This week, his answering machine featured him rapping over a hectic backing track, 'Hi, it's Richard here, sorry, but I'm out, leave your name and number and I'll give you a shout.' At least it was an improvement on the throaty, sensuous one he'd had running the month before. I mean, you don't expect to find yourself in the middle of a dirty phone call when it's you who's done the dialling, do you?
Then I settled down to listen to the play on Radio 4. Inevitably, five minutes before the denouement, things started happening. A white convertible Golf GTi pulled up outside Cheetham's house. A brown court shoe appeared round the driver's door, followed by an elegant leg. The woman Cheetham had called Nell emerged, wearing a Burberry. Her choice of car came as no surprise, though I've never understood the fascination the Golf convertible holds for supposedly classy women. It looks like a pram to me, especially with the top down.
Nell followed Cheetham's path to the door, and also let herself in with a key. Then, about twenty minutes later, a white Transit van turned into the street and parked a couple of doors away from Cheetham's house. Lomax got out, wearing a set of overalls like a garage mechanic, a knitted cap covering his wavy brown hair. He didn't give my van a second glance as he marched straight up to Cheetham's front door and pressed the bell. He only had moments to wait before the door opened to admit him. From where I was parked, I couldn't actually see who opened the door, but I assumed it was Cheetham.
I thought about sneaking round the back of the house to see if there was any way of hearing or seeing what was going on, but it was way too risky to be anything other than one of those tantalizing fantasies. So I waited. The plot was thickening, and I was powerless to do anything about it.
I phoned the office, on the off-chance that Bill would have some emergency that required me to abandon my boring vigil. No such luck. So I baited Shelley about Ted Barlow. 'Has he asked you out, then?'
'I don't know what you mean,' she said huffily. 'He's just a client. Why should he ask me out?'
'You'll never make a detective if you're that unobservant,' I teased. 'So are you seeing him again? Apart from in reception?'
'He's coming round about a conservatory,' she admitted.
'Wow!' I exclaimed. Terrific! You be careful now, Shelley. This could be the most expensive date you've ever had. I mean, they don't come cheap, these conservatories. You could just ask him to Sunday dinner, you know, you don't actually have to let him sell you enough glass to double glaze the town hall.'
'Do you realize your feeble attempts to wind me up are costing the firm 25p a minute? Get off the phone, Kate, unless you've got something useful to say,” Shelley said firmly. 'Oh, and by the way, the garage rang to say your Nova is definitely a write-off. I've phoned the insurance company and the assessor's coming to look at it tomorrow.'
For some reason, the thought of a new car didn't excite me as much as it should have done. I thanked Shelley, pressed the 'end' button on the phone and settled down gloomily to watch Cheetham's house. About an hour after he arrived, Lomax appeared on the doorstep, struggling with a large cardboard box which appeared to be full of document wallets and loose papers. He loaded them into his van, then drove off. I decided it was more important, or at least more interesting, to follow Lomax and the papers than to continue watching the outside of a house.
I waited till he rounded the corner before I set off in pursuit. The height of his van made it easy for me to keep him in sight as he threaded his way through the afternoon traffic. We headed down through Swinton and cut across to Eccles. Lomax turned into a street of down-at-heel terraced houses and stopped in front of one whose ground floor windows were boarded up.
Lomax unlocked the door, then returned for the bulky box. He slammed the door behind him and left me sitting watching the outside of a different house.
I gave it half an hour then decided I wasn't getting anywhere. I decided to swing round via Cheetham's house to see if anything was happening, then head back to my other stake-out to see if the tapes were running with anything interesting. As I turned into the street that Cheetham's road led off, I nearly collided with a Peugeot in too much of a hurry. To my astonishment, I realized as I passed that it was Alexis. Unaccustomed to seeing me driving the van instead of my usual car, she obviously hadn't noticed the driver she'd nearly hit was me. I hoped she hadn't been round at Cheetham's house, giving him a piece of her mind. That was the last thing I needed right now.
More likely, she was hot on the trail of some tale to titillate her readers. There was nothing unusual in her driving as though she were the only person on the road. Like most journos, she operates on the principle that the hideous road accidents they've all reported only ever happen to other people.
The Golf had gone from outside the house in Tamarind Grove. Cheetham's BMW was still sitting outside the garage, but there were no lights on in the house, though it was dark enough outside for the street lights to be glowing orange. Chances were Cheetham had been driven off somewhere by the lovely Nell. Which meant there was probably no one home.
To make doubly sure, I got his number from Directory Enquiries. The phone rang four times, then the answering machine cut in. 'I'm sorry, I can't take your call right now…' And all the rest. It wasn't proof positive that the house was unoccupied, but I figured Cheetham was too stressed out just now to ignore his phone.
I couldn't resist it. Within minutes, I'd changed from my business clothes into a jogging suit and Reeboks from the holdall I'd removed from my wrecked Nova. I added a thin pair of latex gloves, just in case. Out of my handbag, I took my Swiss Army knife, my powerful pocket torch, an out-of-date credit card, a set of jeweller's tools that double as lock-picks, and a miniature camera. All the things a girl should never be without. Checking the street was empty, I slipped out of the van and down the flagged path that ran by the side of Martin Cheetham's house. Fortunately, although the bell box on the front of the house indicated he had a burglar alarm, he hadn't invested in infra-red activated security lights, as recommended by Mortensen and Brannigan.
The back garden was enclosed by a seven foot fence, and the gloom was compounded by thick shrubs that cast strange shadows across a paved area which featured the inevitable brick-built barbecue. There was no sign of light through the pair of patio doors that led into the garden so I cautiously turned on my torch. I peered in at a dining room with a strangely old-fashioned air.