Regardless, before they could find out, the old man from earlier appeared with his dog and now he was inside with their target. Worse yet, it didn’t look like they were leaving any time soon.
Francis was just thinking about calling Eugene when his phone began to vibrate. He spoke a single word as the call connected. ‘Go.’ He and Eugene were both ex special forces and favoured brevity in their exchanges.
‘Is something happening?’ Eugene asked. ‘The lights in the back rooms started to come back on. I think I can see an old man in there with him now.’ Eugene was inappropriately dressed for night ops and for the weather. His jacket was going to ruin if it got much wetter and his expensive Italian loafers were soaked right through already. He couldn’t moan about it because Francis would scoff at his need to dress smartly.
Francis replied, ‘That’s the old man he was talking to earlier. I remember the giant dog.’
‘Any idea who he is?’ asked Eugene.
Francis pulled a face at his phone. ‘How on Earth would I know who it is? I watched them go through to the back rooms. If they are in an office, can you see what they are doing?’
Eugene grunted, ‘Sitting in front of a computer. This feels like a bust.’
‘He won’t like that,’ muttered Francis, referring to the earl’s lack of patience.
‘Tough,’ growled Eugene as his stomach rumbled. ‘We can’t work miracles and I’m not rushing this and getting caught just because the earl wants it done fast. Besides, I’m getting hungry.’
‘Fish ‘n’ chips?’ suggested Francis thinking some dinner sounded like a good idea.
‘You’d better call him and let him know,’ Eugene insisted, quite certain he didn’t want to be the one to break the news.
Francis curled his lip. ‘Why me? Why don’t you call him?’
‘Because he likes you.’
‘He doesn’t even remember my name,’ Francis protested.
Eugene chuckled. ‘He doesn’t remember anyone’s name. You call him and I’ll buy dinner.’
Francis took a second to weigh up the proposed bargain. ‘All right, but I want mushy peas too.’
Dodgy Accounting
In the back office of the Clanger Café, Albert sat in front of the computer while Victor leaned over him to navigate to the accounts.
‘Kate switched the firm across to a software platform that she said was easier to follow and would do a lot of the work for us. It caused untold drama with April because she’s been here since before computers existed. I don’t know when the previous owners shifted her onto a computer, but she was using a spreadsheet she’d created herself. I don’t think anyone else could hope to understand it which she thought made her irreplaceable. It really put her nose out of joint when Joel announced Kate was taking over the bookkeeping and she made so much noise about her rights being unfairly undermined that Joel relented and had Kate show April how the system worked.’
‘That’s how she came to take over today the moment Kate was taken away and how she would know if someone were fiddling the books,’ Albert concluded.
Victor nodded as he pulled up a second chair to sit next to the old man. ‘That’s right.’
Questions were forming a queue in his head already, but Albert asked the most obvious one, ‘If Kate is the accountant, how come she was working behind the counter and cleaning away plates?’
Victor flipped his eyebrows. ‘This is a small, family business, everyone switches between tasks and mucks in to help out. In fact, most of the people working here are related. Even April – one of our youngest, Shannon, is her sister’s granddaughter.’
Albert pursed his lips and looked at the screen. ‘Have you spotted any accounting anomalies that might make you believe April is right?’
‘Me?’ Victor flared his eyes. ‘Goodness, no. I have no idea what all those lines of numbers mean. I’m just a guy that is good with pastry. Shall I leave you with it? I need to start cleaning up.’
Albert’s reply came without him needing to think. ‘Sure.’ His attention was already on the screen. A murder, possible embezzlement: he wouldn’t have to worry about finding his book boring or the people in the pub rowdy.’ He heard Victor ask something about a cup of tea and couldn’t say afterwards, what answer he might have given - the pull of the mystery was too great.
Rex sniffed around the office. It was a small space, roughly ten feet by ten feet with filing cabinets along one wall and shelves covered in box folders along another. He wanted to shake his fur properly, but when he lined himself up to do so, his human placed a hand on his head and begged that he lie down. He complied with a loud harrumph, making his feelings clear.
Above him, his human silently scanned along the rows of numbers.
Disappointment
‘Why are you not on the return leg?’ he demanded to know.
Francis sighed and bit his lip. He’d worked for worse employers, far worse now that he gave it some thought, but the earl had never worked a day in his life. He didn’t clean, he didn’t cook, he didn’t lift a finger unless it was to pluck a morsel of food from a dish. He had no concept of what doing anything took with regard to effort, investment of time, and to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the task, luck. He simply expected things to happen because he wanted it to be done.
‘We have been unable, at this time, to acquire the target,’ Francis attempted to explain.
‘Acquire the target?’ repeated Earl Bacon, the words dripping from his
