Theft on Thursday Read Free Page A

conservative board members when it became clear that there was no prospect of marriage in the offing for Rebecca and Bill. Acknowledging the fact that many young people lived together before getting wed, they had appointed Rebecca straight from college, certain that all would be regularized shortly. But it wasn’t, and one or two had said she was setting a bad example to the children.
    Bill had said he was more than ready to take Rebecca to the altar, but she had dug in her toes. “The more I’m shoved, the more I stick,” she’d said succinctly. And so, because she was an excellent teacher, the situation had been accepted and no more was said.
    The sun shone temptingly through the window of Lois’s office, and Enid Abraham shifted in her seat. “Excuse me, Mrs. M,” she said, this being the title for Lois tacitly agreed by the team, “there was something I would like to mention, if we have finished our business.”
    Lois looked at the small, insignificant figure, sitting so neatly on her chair, scarcely disturbing the air around her. She might look like a mouse, she reflected, but she’d proved to have the guts of a terrier. “Go on, then, Enid,” she said. “Don’t keep us in suspense.”
    Enid smiled. “Oh, I don’t think it’s that exciting … it’s to do with the choir.”
    “Ah,” said Sheila with satisfaction. “Somethin’ to do with that new young chap?”
    “Well, yes … um, you know I sing with them … not very well, of course, but … anyway … Mr. Mackerras, our new choirmaster, hopes to enlarge the choir, and we’re asked to spread the word. It’s all going to be much more fun … he says … jollier music and …” Her voice tailed away as always, and she looked tentatively round the room. Her appeal was met with total silence at first. Sheila, at least, had been hoping for something a bit juicier.
    Then Bill cleared his throat. “I could ask Rebecca,” he said. “She’s always warbling about the place. And—maybe I shouldn’t admit this—I was a boy chorister in our church at home. Up North, that is. Suppose I could give it a go.”
    Enid’s face lit up. “That would be marvellous,” she said. “Thank you, Bill.”
    But he’d not finished, and with a sly grin turned to Lois. “How about you, Mrs. M? A little bird told me you used to sing with a band in Tresham in your misspent youth.”
    “Me?”
said Lois in astonishment. “I sing like a cracked kettle. You ask Derek!”
    But Lois’s traitorous husband Derek, when he met Bill in the pub that evening, said that Lois could sing very nicely when she tried. The difficulty would be getting her to have a try, they agreed, and had another pint to give themselves the strength to persuade her.

F OUR

    C HIEF D ETECTIVE I NSPECTOR H UNTER C OWGILL SAT at his desk, eyes closed, apparently asleep.
    “Your usual, sir?” said the tea lady, coming in with a rattle of crockery.
    Cowgill opened his eyes and stared at her as if he’d never seen her before. “Sorry? What did you say?” he said. He had been dozing in another, alarming world, where crime had been eradicated, and all around were good, law-abiding citizens.
    “Coffee and shortbread?” said the tea lady indulgently. Inspector Cowgill was one of her favourites. Always the gentleman, she told her friends. Her days were numbered, her job to be taken over by an anonymous machine in the corridor, and she’d miss Cowgill especially.
    “So sorry,” he apologized. “Miles away … er, no, no shortbread this morning, thanks. Too much flab, my wife tells me. She’s given me orders to avoid all sweet things.”
    He looked so sad that the woman tried a joke. “Right,” she said, “you’d better give me a wide berth, with or with-outme trolley.” He smiled dutifully, and took his coffee, waving a denying hand at the sugar.
    After she’d gone, he stood up and went to the window, where he looked down at the busy Tresham High Street, thoughtfully sipping his coffee.