The Weeping Women (The Mac Maguire detective mysteries Book 3)

by Patrick C Walsh

  The next paragraph was really interesting. No glass had been found inside the house and only a few small shards outside. Mac thought back to his meeting with Mr. Llewellyn-fforbes. The flooring in the conservatory was hard, made up of large ceramic tiles.

  He tried to picture how it might have been done. He knew that most of the golf course was fenced off but it was so big that parts of its perimeter were unfenced. He also knew that, even where there was fencing, it was sometimes damaged, often on purpose, as some of the locals used the course as a short cut at night. So it would be easy enough for anyone to get onto the course.

  The fence at the back of the Llewellyn-fforbes house wasn’t that high so it would be easy enough to lower one half of a combination ladder from the other side of the fence so that it was beyond the strip of newly dug soil. It would then resemble a giant step ladder allowing the thief to get easily up and over the fence. Once over a rope attached to the other half of the ladder might then be used to pull it over the fence. The thief could then lay the ladder down flat so it wouldn’t be noticed. Mac pictured someone carrying a ladder at night through the golf course in his head. Even if he was spotted it would probably be assumed that he was just a workman taking the opportunity to fix something or other while the course was shut.

  Once at the french windows the thief must have taped the pane of glass up, broke it and then carefully pulled the broken glass out in one piece still attached to the tape. This made for a quieter entry with no pieces of glass falling to the floor or, even more importantly, getting caught underneath the door when it was opened. Due to the tiles, if a chunk of glass had been trapped under the door, it would have made quite a racket when the thief tried to open it. Interestingly the thief must have taken the glass away with him as it wasn’t found at the crime scene.

  It would seem that it wasn’t kids or a random break-in but the work of a real professional. Forensics can tell a lot from a strip of tape but it can tell you nothing if it’s not there.

  Mac found he was really interested now.

  He read on. There were four people in the house on the night of the burglary; the old man, his grand-daughter Helena and two staff, Freddy and Brenda Michaels. Freddy was the gardener and odd job man while Brenda was the cook.

  They all slept upstairs, the family towards one end of the house while the staff had a room at the other end. The conservatory was roughly in the middle. In a house that big it probably would have taken a lot of noise downstairs to wake anyone up but Mac had the feeling that the thief was better than that anyway. There was a burglar alarm fitted but something had gone wrong with it some months before and they’d forgotten to get it fixed. Mac wondered if the thief knew about this and, if he did, how?

  So all in all it was a very professional burglary. Mac would wager a good sum of money that the thief was after more than chocolate. But what?

  He read the next file.

  Marianne Foskett, a retired office administrator who lived in Common View, Letchworth. This burglary took place three nights ago. No grand houses here, mostly Letchworth style cottages and terraced houses. Mrs. Foskett was a sixty eight year old widow who lived alone. She had a big bag of chocolate buttons stolen from her fridge. She’d bought them for her grandchildren who were visiting the next day. It was assumed that the thief came over the fence from an entryway at the back of the property although again there was no evidence to substantiate this. The thief managed to coax open a kitchen window that probably hadn’t been fully shut. Again the occupant of the house heard nothing. The burglary wasn’t noticed until the day after and it was confirmed that nothing else was stolen. There was no burglar alarm system.

  Mr. Robert Pegram, a plasterer who lived in Redbourne Way, Letchworth. This burglary also took place three nights ago. Mr. Pegram’s house was on one of the estates, working class and a bit rough, well rough for Letchworth that is. Anyway rough enough so a burglary wouldn’t be totally unexpected. Robert Pegram was a thirty nine year old father of two and a plasterer by trade. He woke up at six thirty in the morning to go to work and noticed that the kitchen door was open and that one of the Easter eggs his mother-in-law had bought had disappeared. Again nothing else was reported missing. Mr. Pegram admitted that he and his wife had had a few drinks the night before which might explain why there were no signs of forced entry. Neither of them could remember locking the kitchen door. They had made it easy for the thief who, in all likelihood, had gotten in via the unlocked door after scaling the six foot backyard fence from an entryway at the back. Again there was no burglar alarm fitted.

  Miss Alicia Pratt, a twenty three year old bank assistant who lived in Radwell Lane, Radwell. This one took place four nights ago. Radwell was a bit more like Letchworth Lane, nice houses with some being very nice indeed. However in this case it was a semi-detached house and there was no back fence as a ploughed field lay directly at the rear of the property. As no footprints were found in the field the investigator assumed that the thief had simply stepped over the three foot picket fence at the front and gone through the garden at the side of the house to the kitchen door at the back of the property. This door was locked so some brute force was used to lever it open. Miss Pratt claimed she was a light sleeper yet she slept right through the burglary. In this case a large bar of Toblerone was stolen which she’d bought for herself. Again nothing else was touched.

  The next bit made Mac sit up. Miss Pratt had a fairly new alarm fitted and it was switched on at the time of the robbery. One of the reasons why she slept so soundly was because her phone line had been cut and, once inside, the thief had levered the alarm box open and disconnected it from the power supply. This confirmed that the thief was indeed a true professional. He would have had only thirty seconds or so to locate and disable the alarm. He looked at a photo of the alarm box. Its lid had been levered off and he could see that several wires had been snipped. The photos also showed that the box was just a few feet away from the front door so locating it might have been the easy part. Again it was a very professional operation.

  Mr. Colin Wells, a builder who lived in Limekiln Road, Baldock. The first of the Great Easter Egg Heists, as Mac was beginning to think of them, took place five nights ago. The photo showed a large bungalow with a drive to the left that appeared to run to the rear of the house. Google Earth confirmed that the drive ended at a garage at the rear of the property. There was a fence at the back and beyond that there was another property so it was unlikely that the thief would have come in that way. Although the driveway had a metal gate, Mr. Wells, a fifty two year old builder, admitted that it was rarely put to use as he kept some of his building materials at the back of the house and he needed to get in and out quite frequently. So it was likely that the thief just strolled down the drive from the street and walked to the kitchen door at the back of the bungalow.

  Once there the thief gained entry without having to force or damage anything. The investigator asked Mr. Wells if any keys had gone missing but apparently none had. Mac looked at the photo of the door closely then rolled his eyes heavenwards. He had an idea of how it might have been done.

  Mr. Wells also mentioned towards the end of the interview that he had two CCTV cameras fitted in the yard at the back because he suspected that’s some of the neighbours had been helping themselves to some of his bags of concrete. However when the investigator and Mr. Wells reviewed the images all they saw was a static image of a pile of building materials until, one after the other, the screens suddenly went black. When they went outside and looked at the cameras they found that both had been sprayed with black paint.

  When asked what had been stolen Mr. Wells said that a single Easter egg had gone although the thief had left another fifty one eggs behind. When asked why he had so many eggs when he had no children Mr. Wells replied that he’d bought some of the eggs and collected others from friends to bring around the hospitals on Easter Sunday. It was something he’d done for the last six years ever since he’d visited his niece in hospital
one year and noticed that quite a few of the kids didn’t get anything.

  With no sign of forced entry the investigator had asked Mr. Wells if perhaps he’d miscounted his eggs and that perhaps no burglary had actually taken place.

  Mr. Wells replied that the one that had gone was the one that he’d bought for his wife. It was a very large egg and it was no longer there. He also stated that his wife had gotten up in the night to go to the toilet and saw someone leaving by the back door. He also said that they weren’t in the habit of leaving back doors wide open when they went to bed at night. Mrs. Wells confirmed this but couldn’t supply any further details, the person was dressed in black and she only caught the merest of glimpses as he went out of the door.

  The investigator had asked about her using the word ‘he’ but she said it could just have as easily been a woman. The thief wasn’t all that tall or short or fat or thin but she added that she couldn’t be totally sure on any of these points.

  When Mac had finished reading he topped up his coffee again and gave it some thought. What did he know now that he didn’t know before?

  The thief is a professional. He accepted the easy opportunities when they came along but could also quickly disable a modern burglar alarm system in seconds if required. He was clean and left nothing behind for forensics to have a go at.

  The thief was not after chocolate. If that was all he’d been after then the other fifty eggs in the Wells’ house would have also disappeared. He was sure that the thefts were a blind, an attempt to make the break-ins look like a quirky joke of some sort. If that was the case then what was the thief really after? All five victims were sure that nothing else had been stolen so what else might the thief have taken away with him? Perhaps he was after information of some sort but what? And why these particular properties, what did they have in common?

  He wondered if stealing the chocolate was a sort of signature for the thief. Besides the burglars with a fetish, who would steal women’s underwear, shoes and clothes, other mundane things like umbrellas, fruit and music CDs would often disappear too. He remembered that they’d once linked a number of break-ins with a particular music genre, the thief preferring eighties music and especially Abba. Then there was Teabag Tommy as they christened him. He always made himself a cup of tea and even washed up after himself. He was currently doing a nice stretch in Pentonville.

  He got Google up and entered ‘chocolate thief’ as the search term. Most of the results were related to a book of the same name, videos of cute children and reports of actual thefts of chocolate. There was one entry on the third page that Mac couldn’t read as it looked like it was in Greek. His computer kindly offered to translate the article for him.

  ‘The Chocolate Thief Strikes again’ was the headline. The article was from the month before. Mac was interested and read on.

  ‘The burglar known as the Chocolate Thief has struck again. Two properties in Kolonaki were broken into last night and jewellery, money and other valuables were stolen. A chocolate bar was also stolen from each property, both Ion bars which are known to be the Chocolate Thief’s favourite. Because of the current crime wave due to austerity both houses had alarms fitted but the thief was able to put them both out of action. The robberies weren’t reported until the morning after. The thief had been very quiet and the residents of both houses had slept right through the robberies.’

  Mac looked up Kolonaki in Wikipedia and found that it was a well-heeled suburb of Athens. He sat back and thought on this. It certainly looked like a similar MO but could a burglar from two thousand miles away really be plying his trade in Letchworth? Of course the big difference was that in the Athens burglaries the thief made off with a sizeable haul while he’d taken nothing other than chocolate from the ones that were carried out here. It all seemed very unlikely. Mac could only think it must be a coincidence but nevertheless he made a mental note and filed it away.

  He decided that he might as well get on with interviewing the victims. One can only tell so much from photos and statements. He looked at the clock and found that it was nearly four, a good time to start, he thought. Early evening was usually the best time to catch people in.

  He decided to start with the first break-in and work his way up to the last one. He rang the Wells’ house in Baldock and Mrs. Wells answered. She was happy for Mac to come around and that her husband should be home shortly.

  Mac smiled at himself in the hall mirror as he passed by. He was on a case again.

  Chapter Three

  Mac stood on the street and gazed at the Wells’ bungalow. It looked like it was a pre-war build, but it was in excellent condition, as you might expect with the owner being a builder. He had a look at the metal gate at the top of the driveway and found that it was held back in place by several bricks. Grass was growing around the bricks so they obviously hadn’t been moved for quite a while.

  He walked towards the back of the house and noted the positions of the CCTV cameras. One was attached to the side of the house and pointed at roughly forty five degrees to its right, straight at a pile of building materials that took up most of the large back yard. The other was attached to a large shed at the back of the yard. Mac walked over to it. It also pointed at the pile of concrete bags and bricks but it looked like it might just include the kitchen door in its field of view.

  He could imagine the thief walking down the drive, keeping close to the fence on the left as he came in. Take out the camera on the shed first and then the one on the side of the house. That way he would ensure that he couldn’t be caught on camera.

  He next went and looked carefully at the kitchen door. It was as he’d thought. He went back to his car and got a broadsheet newspaper out. He’d bought it on the way especially. He slid it slowly underneath the gap at the bottom of the door and then, using a biro, he pushed the key out of the lock so that it landed on the newspaper. He pulled out the paper and the key that had landed on it.

  He opened the door with the key and said loudly, ‘Mrs. Wells, it’s Mac Maguire from the police. I’m at the back door.’

  A few seconds later a large woman in her fifties with a puzzle book in her hand waddled down the corridor towards him. She wore glasses and a puzzled expression as Mac showed her his warrant card.

  ‘I could have sworn I locked that door,’ she said. ‘After what happened my husband said that we can’t be too careful.’

  ‘You did lock the door Mrs. Wells but I got in the same way the thief probably did.’

  He explained what he’d done.

  ‘Oh, it’s that husband of mine,’ she said in an exasperated tone. ‘He took the draught excluder off a couple of weeks ago and hasn’t got around to replacing it yet. It’s freezing in the kitchen first thing in the morning when I’m doing the breakfast but does he care? I’ve never heard of anyone doing that before though, is it something new?’

  ‘No,’ he smiled. ‘That one’s been around since doors and locks were first invented. Anyway, while we wait for your husband, tell me what you saw on the night of the burglary.’

  She unfortunately had nothing new to add.

  ‘I notice you wear glasses. How well do you see without them?’

  ‘Not that great I’m afraid, I’m quite short-sighted,’ she explained.

  ‘I take it that you don’t put your glasses on when you go to the toilet in the night?’

  ‘Oh no, I’d have to turn the light on and Colin would moan if I did that. He needs his sleep, as he keeps telling me.’

  ‘So perhaps the main reason you couldn’t make out much about the burglar was because you weren’t wearing your glasses?’

  She took quite a while to think this through.

  ‘Yes, you’re probably right. He was all blurry but I forgot that I hadn’t got my glasses on.’

  ‘Where exactly did you see him?’

  She walked towards the open back door.

  ‘Just here,’ she said pointing to a patch of ground just outside the door. ‘But it was o
nly for a second. I thought it was some sort of shadow at first.’

  ‘Was he dressed in black do you think?’

  Again a silence while the mental wheels turned.

  ‘Yes, yes he could have been but it was so dark outside I couldn’t be that sure.’

  The sound of the front door opening caused Mrs. Wells to scurry down the hall.

  ‘Had a good day love?’ she enquired solicitously. ‘The police are here again about the break in.’

  ‘Really? I thought they’d given up on us,’ a man’s gruff voice replied.

  The owner of the voice appeared in the hallway. He was a stocky, bluff looking man in his late fifties with a receding hairline and some white straggly bits of white hair sticking out at the side. He wore a pair of stained dungarees over a lumberjack shirt.

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ he said, holding his hand out.

  Mac received a firm handshake as he introduced himself.

  ‘He’s told me how the burglar got in. Very clever it was too,’ Mrs. Wells said.

  He took Mr. Wells through it.

  He shook his head and said, ‘God, oldest trick in the book that one, isn’t it? It’s my own fault then for not replacing the excluder. Oh well it could have all turned out worse I suppose.’

  ‘How?’ Mac asked.

  ‘Follow me.’

  Mac followed the builder into a spacious living room. In a corner there was a large stack of Easter eggs. There must have been a couple of hundred in there at least.

  ‘Where did all these come from?’ Mac asked in wonder.

  ‘It was in the paper, wasn’t it? Only had the one egg nicked but when people found out what we were doing they started calling in and dropping Easter eggs off. Well the kiddies are going to have a bumper year this year.’