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Middle East somewhere and she’d gone with him. She’d been a nurse on permanent night duty, at one of the Liverpool hospitals, she thought. He’d been something in personnel. She’d had a blonde urchin cut, just like that Sally Webster on Coronation Street . He’d been tall, dark and handsome. She’d had some kind of little car, he’d had some kind of big car. He often worked late. They went out a lot when they weren’t working. The perfect description to put out to Interpol.
    The next house still had its conservatory. It also still had a satisfied customer, which I was grateful for. I really didn’t need to be mistaken for the customer services department of Colonial Conservatories. I plowed on through the list, and when I reached the end, I reckoned I was entitled to a treat for having spent so task-oriented a day. Four o’clock and I was back in Manchester, sitting in my favorite curry shop in Strangeways, tucking into a bowl of karahi lamb.
    As I scoffed, I popped the earpiece of my miniature tape recorder in place and played back the verbal notes I’d made after each of my visits. Five out of the eight were victims of MCS (Missing Conservatory Syndrome, I’d christened it). The only common factor I could isolate was that, in each case, the couple concerned had only lived in the house for a few months after buying it, then they’d moved out and let the place via an agency. I couldn’t make sense of it at all. Who were all these people? Two brunettes, one auburn, two blondes. Two with glasses, three without. All working women. Two drove red Fiestas, one went everywhere by taxi, one drove a white Metro, one drove “something small.” All the men were on the tall side and dark, ranging from “handsome” to “nowt special.” A description that would cover about half the male population. Again, two wore glasses, three didn’t. They all drove standard businessmen’s cars—a couple had metallic Cavaliers, one had a red Sierra, one had a blue Sierra, one changed his car from “a big red
one” to “a big white one.” Not a single lead as to the whereabouts of any of them.
    I had to admit I was completely baffled. I dictated my virtually non-existent conclusions, then checked in with Shelley. I answered half a dozen queries, discovered there was nothing urgent waiting for me, so I hit the supermarket. I fancied some more treats to reward me for the ironing pile that faced me at home. I had no intention of including myself in Richard’s plans for the evening. I can think of more pleasurable ways of getting hearing damage than boogying on down to a double wicked hip hop rap band from Mostyn called PMT, or something similar. There’s nothing like a quiet night in.

4
    And that’s exactly what I got. Nothing like a quiet night in. I’d gone back to the office after a quick hit on Sainsbury’s and dropped off my cassette for Shelley to input in the morning. I was sure the thought that it was for Ted Barlow would make her fingers fly. Then I’d finally managed to find the peace and quiet to develop my surveillance films from PharmAce Supplies. As I stared at the film, I wished I hadn’t. On the other hand, if you’re going to have a major downer, I suppose it’s as well to have it at the end of a day that’s already been less than wonderful, rather than spoil a perfectly good one.
    Where there ought to have been identifiable images of PharmAce’s senior lab technician slipping in and out of the building in the middle of the night (timing superimposed on the pictures by my super-duper Nikon), there was only a foggy blur. Something had gone badly wrong. Since the commonest cause of fogged film is a camera problem, what I then had to do was to run a film through the camera I’d been using that night, and develop it to see if I could pinpoint the problem. That took another hour, and all