I then explained to him how I had gone back into the living room. I had stood in the middle of the floor and scanned the room slowly. It had seemed as usual.
“But you get used to certain things being in certain places when you live on your own. And you know that you’re the only person that can move things.”
“That I understand,” said Pierre. “I have one particular hang up which always used to annoy Liz. I hate pictures that are not exactly horizontal. Sometimes I even check them with a spirit level. Liz thought I was daft but it’s always been something that disturbs me. I’ve even been known, much to her embarrassment, to straighten pictures in other people’s houses, or tell the proprietor of a restaurant that his pictures are squint.”
“What did you notice?” “Dad’s picture, on the wall leading towards the kitchen, was not quite right and that big oil over there of Glencoe that Liz gave me for our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary was definitely on a slant. How the hell could that have happened?”
I then described to Pierre how slowly the idea had started to percolate into my brain that someone had come into the house while I was out and had been snooping around. Impossible. Crazy. But what if it was true?
I had gone straight to the front door to check if there were any signs of illicit entry. Nothing. I had checked all the windows – upstairs and downstairs. Nothing. The back door, which led off from the kitchen seemed unmolested.
I had concluded that I must be imagining things. Old age catching up with me. Bullshit. I still had all my marbles.
“I even went out the front door and crossed the road to look back at the house, to see if there was anything unusual. All seemed as you would expect it to be. I walked up the lane at the side of the house and looked over into the garden. Still nothing different. The only thing I did notice were fresh-looking car tyre tracks on the verge, as if a car had stopped there. There could be a perfectly logical explanation for that, although not many cars go up the lane because it only leads to Jack Gibson’s farm a mile and a half further on.”
“Let’s do another check,” suggested Pierre We started upstairs but without any result. We went back into the living room. It was then that I noticed that one of the drawers in the hall table was not properly shut.
“Pierre, look here,” I called him over. “This drawer isn’t properly shut. It needs some sanding so that it’ll close smoothly and neatly. I’ve been meaning to fix it for months but I’ve never got round to it. As it is, it needs a special technique. You have to push it closed on the left side first. It is a bit of a fiddle to do but I always do it because it looks untidy otherwise.” Pierre tried to close it without success. If you didn’t take the time to find out the technique it would remain partly open at one side. That was the giveaway. Someone had definitely been in my house. I then started to look much more carefully. There were hardly any signs. Whoever it was had been extremely professional and careful. Practically nothing had been disturbed – practically nothing, but not nothing.
The pictures, the leaf, the drawer – and I noticed also that a wooden box that I kept papers in had been slightly displaced. There were signs in the dust that it had been moved. My cleaning lady only comes in once a week and although she’s good with a vacuum cleaner and she’s got a thing about clean windows, she’s not too hot on the dusting, bless her.
Pierre was thoughtful as I pointed out the evidence to him.
“If you’re right and someone has been in, why didn’t they take anything?”
All I could think of as an answer was that there wasn’t much of value in the house anyway.
“Could they have been looking for a document or documents? That fits with looking behind pictures.”
“I don’t have any documents of any importance. Anything like that I keep in the safe deposit box at the bank.”
I stopped suddenly. Documents. “Shit!” “What is it?” asked Pierre.
“Alice’s envelope.”
“What do you mean?” “The documents that Alice Hetherington gave me at the conference. All her papers concerning AIM – the stuff I showed you the other evening. I put the envelope down on the bureau over there and, as it is not something that’s usually here, I’ve only just realised that it is missing. I know I put it down there on Friday evening when I got back.”
“Why would anyone think that papers in a brown envelope would have any value?” asked Pierre.
“God knows.” We looked at each other, both coming to the realisation at the same time.
“It can only be Purdy or someone sent by him. He saw Alice give me the envelope . . .”
“. . . which means,” went on Pierre, “that they are important, at least to him, and he doesn’t want anybody poking his nose into one of his client’s correspondence . . .”
“. . . which means he has something to hide . . .” “. . . which means that we’re maybe right and there definitely is something fishy about AIM,” I said, finishing off the combined train of thought.
Chapter 9
As it was warm and sunny we went out into the back garden and sat down on my patio. I looked ruefully at the garden which definitely needed some attention. For a start the rose beds were becoming overgrown with weeds. I hated the task. Down on your hands and knees wrestling with dandelions, chickweed and daisies, which had somehow migrated from the small patch of grass that I had. I told myself I would have to do something about it within the next few days.
I told Pierre about my visit to Alice and how, unfortunately, she only knew of one other person who had invested in AIM. I thought I might try to contact him.
“I wish there was some way we could get hold of the names of more people. Perhaps that would give us more information.”
“What about Alice?” Pierre asked.
“What do you mean?” “Can you get her to recopy her papers and send them over? We might discover what it was that Purdy found so important.”
I was struggling with the cork of a bottle of Beaujolais when Pierre spoke again.
“Bob, I’ve just had another thought. If these papers of Alice are so important and Purdy sees that they are copies, do you think he might try to get hold of the originals?”
“Bloody hell. I didn’t think of that.” I finally got the cork out and poured us each glass. The wine had been in the fridge and was deliciously cool.
“We’d better warn her.” “What about putting a guard on over there?” suggested Pierre.
That seemed to make sense because if anyone did try to do another burglary on Alice’s house a guard might catch him in the act. We’d have a way of confirming who was behind it and something to nail him with.
“Can you fund the cost?”
“No problem.” I got on the phone to Mike, who answered with a “morning after the night before” voice.
I told him about the break-in and the disappearance of Alice’s papers and explained our concern about a repetition on Alice’s house.
“Have you contacted Doug and Mac yet?” I asked. “Yes. They’re up for it. I’m seeing them tomorrow to give them a rundown and send them over to Edinburgh.”
“Good. Can you change the plan a bit? Would Mac be able to go and babysit Alice for a few days? Our idea was that we would offer to repaint the outside of her house for free and she could put Mac up for the three or four days that it would take and be bodyguard at the same time. Maybe nothing will happen but you never know. And you and Doug could do the Edinburgh side of things.”
He agreed and promised to organise it like that. I gave him Alice’s name and address and said I would phone her straight away. He could assume all was on if he didn’t hear from me. That way I’d save the price of a phone call.