'OK. Don't do anything just yet and I'll be with you in about twenty minutes to see how the land lies.'
I contacted Dave and two other DCs and told them to come back to the station, then drove to Mrs Lewis's home. It was a semi, built back in the Thirties when houses had decent gardens but tiny kitchens. I drove round the block a couple of times, learning the street names, and parked a few doors away.
She was a pleasant woman, overweight and jolly, and not at all troubled by the attentions of the knicker thief. Her husband was there, sitting in an easy chair with a pair of headphones on. He had a bushy beard and wore brown brogues and a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows. Men who wear their shoes and jacket in the house make me lose sleep at night. I can't help thinking that they're prepared for a quick getaway. He removed the 'phones and stood up to shake hands.
'Don't let me interrupt the concert,' I said.
'Tchaikovsky,' he replied with a sniff. 'Music for lifts.'
Ah well, that was one of my favourite composers demolished. Mrs Lewis took me through into the kitchen, from where I could survey the garden. The rain had blown over but the next lot wasn't far away. There was a shed halfway down the garden, which would make a good observation post, and the neighbour had a greenhouse filled with tomato plants.
'Do you think your neighbours would let us use their greenhouse?' I asked, and I was assured that she wouldn't mind, so I rang the station and told Dave and the other two to come over, and arranged for a panda to stand by a couple of streets away. Then I asked Mrs Lewis to hang out the washing.
I sat on a step-ladder in the kitchen, Dave took the shed and the others lay doggo in the greenhouse. We stayed like that for three hours, as Miss Lewis's underwear came under more scrutiny than the Turin shroud. It hung from two lines like a set of teeth from some fabulous beast until the occasional gust of wind disturbed the image.
Dave rang me on my mobile at frequent intervals. 'They're big, aren't they?' he observed.
'Affirmative. Have you seen anything?'
'No, only some porn magazines.'
'I meant down the garden,' I said, squashing my ear with the phone and praying that Mrs Lewis, standing next to me, didn't have hypersensitive hearing. She was wearing an anorak and trainers, and carrying a stout walking stick, determined to join in the chase should the need arise.
At four o'clock the phone rang again, but this time it was Heckley nick. 'Have you had your mobile off, Charlie?' a smug sounding controller asked.
'No. Why.'
'We've been trying to contact you all afternoon.'
'Well it's switched on, and Dave's rung me several times without any problems. What did you want?'
'Ah well, there's no harm done. Just to report that uniformed branch have arrested a twelve-year-old youth on suspicion of theft of undergarments from washing lines. They took him home and his mother let them into his bedroom, which he kept locked. They found a regular lingerie department in there, apparently, and they're bringing him in.'
'You what?' I hissed.
'You heard. The lads in the panda you had standing by nabbed him. He walked round the corner but when he saw them he turned turtle and started running. Unfortunately for him we had Yorkshire's four hundred metres champion on the case, so it was no contest. You can bring your boys in, now, Charlie. It's all under control.'
Dave's comment was unrepeatable, Mrs Lewis was delighted and the two in the greenhouse were incensed. They'd had a break from watching CCTV videos and eaten a few tomatoes, but the neighbour didn't believe in using insecticides and they were covered in mosquito bites.
As the four of us trudged into the nick a grinning desk sergeant held up two bulging plastic bags, saying: 'Want to see some saucy items, chaps? We've got something for all tastes here.'
On the stairs we crossed Gareth Adey, no doubt coming back from regaling Mr Wood with news of his boys' success. 'Hello Charlie,' he gushed. 'Had a busy afternoon?'
We were in the office, drinking tea, when my power of speech returned. 'Well they can do all the sodding paperwork,' I declared.
'Adey'll never let us forget this,' Dave said.
'In that case, we'd better get one back at him.'
'Like what?'
'I don't know. Let's go home.'
'It's Saturday tomorrow.'
'True.' 'It's a great weather forecast — fancy going for a jog with tMe others?'
'Good idea. Bring your kit.'
'Have you rung her yet?'
'Who?'
'You know who.'
'Umm, yes, but she wasn't in.'
I had a big fillet of cod for tea, done under the grill with melted cheese on top, accompanied by new potatoes and petits pois. For pudding it was semolina and chopped banana. When you live alone there's a temptation to neglect yourself, eat junk food, but I try to take care. You are what you eat, as the bluebottle said to the dung beetle.
I rang Rosie afterwards, to undo the lie I'd told Sparky, and she wasn't in, just like I'd said. Except, when I put the phone down, I wished she had been in. I had a long soak in the bath and watched a video of Band of Brothers that one of the crew had loaned me. In under three weeks I had to produce two paintings for the show, but I had no ideas what to make them. I spent an hour looking at art books — Paul Klee, Picasso and Kandinsky — wishing I had their flair and originality. Whatever I produced, it would only be a pale imitation.
It was late when I rang Rosie again, but now I was resolved to speak to her. Sophie's postcard still lay alongside my phone, and I doodled on it as the ringing tone warbled in my ear, filling-in the loops of her writing with red Biro. I switched to a blue pen as the phone in Rosie's house played its shrill monotonous music to the empty room, and replaced the receiver with mixed emotions. I was disappointed she wasn't there but now I knew how my paintings would look. I went into the garage and painted one piece of board bright blue and the other yellow. Reading in bed is an art I've never mastered, but it was only poetry. I took the New Oxford Book of English Verse and Philip Smith's 100 Best-Loved Poems to bed with me.
Seven of us had a Saturday morning jog: five doing an easy four miles and two hard men galloping round the six-mile route. It was a bright sunny morning filled with the promise of a hot day. I'd gone in early and had an hour at the staff development reports before the others arrived. My intention was to stay on, after a shower, and finish them off, but someone suggested a pint in the Bailiwick and the temptation was too great. Then I saw the menu and smelled the cooking and decided to have lunch there, too. I went home feeling quite replete and mellow.
The boards I'd painted were four feet by three. I took a water-colour pad and drew squares on it twelve inches by nine, which was one-sixteenth the size of the boards, and wrote pieces of verse, gleaned from the poetry books, across them in loopy, joined up writing, as if they were snatches of a letter. I wrote:
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight and:
Remember me when I am gone away, Cone far away into the silent land; When you can no more hold me by the hand, Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay I did it all again, but this time I started writing one word into the first line and continued off the edge of the frame, to make them appear to be random pages of prose rather than pieces of verse. Then I filled in all the loops with different coloured fibre-tipped pens, so they looked like love letters someone had received and carelessly doodled all over, perhaps while speaking on the phone to another lover. I gave one letter some Mickey Mouse ears and made another into a Smiley face. Nobody at the show would recognise the hidden story behind the paintings, but perhaps Lizzie Browning and Chrissie Rossetti would have approved.
The next step was to transfer the writing on to the painted boards, but at many times the size, and this would be time-consuming. The enamel on the boards was dry but not hard, so I decided it would be better to leave them for another day. I made a mug of tea, found a couple of custard creams and fell asleep with the football on the telly.
I was awake again, planning the evening menu, when the phone rang.
