“We did it!” said Kelly triumphantly after Randolph had gone. “I don’t know how, but we did it!”

“No time to dwell on that, we’ve got to be back here in an hour. Follow me.”

He led her upstairs and indicated a door.

“That’s Randolph’s bedroom,” he whispered. Kelly nodded her understanding and they crept noiselessly towards the fire escape at the other end of the landing. Adrian pressed down the lever and within moments they were on the small metal balcony outside. He pushed the door to behind them.

“I’ll leave it ajar so we can get back in.”

Kelly looked up at the moon. There was a bite taken out by the Earth’s shadow, but the eclipse was at an early stage and it still offered plenty of illumination. Fortunately a thick copse cast the house in darkness so she didn’t feel exposed.

She peered over the edge of the platform. The house was flush against the back of the grounds in which it was built, the surrounding wall merging with the building’s rear face. In response to this weak point in security, the fire escape featured a retractable ladder suspended from the top Read more...

“You still haven’t told me what those costumes are for,” Kelly observed as they waited on the doorstep for Adrian’s boss to let them in.

“They’re just so we can – Randolph, hi!”

Adrian’s boss had opened the door. He looked small and frail, quite unlike the confident, sprightly figure Kelly remembered from earlier in the day. There was a phone to his ear.

“Sorry Yvonne, I’ll have to call you back. Evening Adrian, Kelly,” he said, hanging up. “Come on in.”

He sounded unusually subdued, so as he led them through to the dining room Adrian asked: “Is everything okay?”

“It’s been a hell of a day, that’s all. Of course you know what happened at the do this afternoon; then I got home to find a couple of intruders. Oh, it’s alright, I saw them off. It’s more the shock than anything. And now there’s some kind of demonstration afoot outside my house. Do you know what they’re protesting against?”

“Something about brainwashing children,” Kelly informed him. Randolph frowned.

“And they think I’ve been doing that? I don’t know wh Read more...

Pigeons and babies and chinchillas

“You said you were pregnant?”

Kelly and Adrian were dining once again at The Windmill. She was filling him in on what had occurred at the do while they awaited dessert.

“I thought this first aid guy was going to drag me to A&E, I had to reassure him there was nothing wrong. Trouble was, Randolph then came to sit with me and started asking questions.”

“Oh, he will. He reckons himself a bit of an expert after spawning so many children and grandchildren of his own. Don’t pay much attention to his advice – do what he says and the kid will be lucky to survive six months.”

“Er, you do realise I’m not really pregnant?”

“Oh yes, sorry. I forgot.”

A waiter rolled up with a peach melba and knickerbocker glory, and they broke off the discussion to tuck in.

“It was a nightmare,” Kelly resumed after a couple of mouthfuls. “He asked how far gone I am – I thought that meant how long left, so I said nine months, conscious of my flat stomach. Turned out I’d told him I was nine months pregnant. Fortunately I was sitting with my knees up in front of me, but I spent the rest of the conversa Read more...

“You took your time,” said Elizabeth when Adrian returned from the kitchen with paracetamol.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I’d forgotten where we kept them.” And I was lacing Norbert’s chop with coke so he goes for your throat, he didn’t add. It was a desperate gambit, born of his suspicion that Elizabeth was onto him: he could no longer risk allowing her to live another day, and the window in which he could prove he was somewhere else was closing rapidly. Thus he was reduced to gambling on the presumption that the dog, fuelled with cocaine, would react in the same way he had as a puppy – now with added teeth. If he didn’t, it was no real loss: the only danger was that he’d attack Adrian instead, but forewarned is forearmed, and once he’d handed Elizabeth the tablets he sat beside the fireplace where he had ready access to the poker.

Like his previous improvisation, this system had the advantage over a shooting that no one would suspect foul play. Even if they bothered to drugs test the dog, it was hardly a traditional murder weapon. No one had ever spoken the phrase: “I think it was Colonel Mustard in the library with Read more...