As The Pig Turns

on to the high street. You have to drive right through the village to the far end. Yes. Now make a right, a left and a right again. It’s that cottage at the end separated from the others by a bit. Patrick gave me directions.’
    ‘No point in advertising our presence. I’ll park in that field under the trees and walk.’
    A FOR SALE sign glimmered whitely outside Beech’s cottage. ‘We could, of course,’ whispered Agatha nervously, ‘have simply gone to the estate agent tomorrow and asked for the keys.’
    ‘Might not work,’ said James. ‘There’s a recession on and they’re desperate for sales and would probably send someone to show us around. No, we won’t go in the front gate. Go along outside the side of the garden and then we’ll climb over the fence.’
    Which Toni could probably have leapt in one bound, thought Agatha.
    ‘Right,’ said James in a low voice. ‘Over here and we can try to get in through the conservatory at the back.’
    Agatha tried to scale the high wooden fence but fell backwards on to the ground.
    ‘I’ll give you a boost,’ said James. He held out his clasped hands, and Agatha gingerly placed one foot in them. He gave a great heave. Up she went and over, landing, winded, on grass on the other side.
    ‘That was dangerous,’ grumbled Agatha. ‘What if it had been a greenhouse I landed on?’
    ‘Stop wittering. We’ve got work to do.’
    James went up to the conservatory door. He took out a pencil torch and flashed a beam at the lock. He took out a thin piece of metal and inserted it between the lock and the doorjamb. There was a satisfying click as the door sprang open.
    They eased their way quietly inside, and James closed the door behind them. The place had all been cleaned up. Whatever plants there had been in the conservatory had been removed.
    They moved from room to room. Agatha could not see any of the expensive pieces of furniture that Bill had mentioned. Amy must have sold them.
    ‘There are no drawers or anything left to search,’ she muttered dismally. ‘Where could he have hidden something that neither the police nor his killers could find? The garden?’
    ‘It’s been all dug over. The police will have searched there as well.’
    ‘I wonder if there’s a loft. People often hide things up in lofts.’
    They felt their way up the stairs in the darkness. The upper floor contained two bedrooms, a bathroom and a cupboard with a hot-water boiler. James shone his torch at the ceiling. ‘No evidence of any loft.’
    ‘Nothing but fake olde world beams on the ceiling. How naff,’ said Agatha.
    ‘Now there’s an interesting thing.’ James studied the beams. ‘He might have made a hollow in one of those beams to cache something.’
    ‘I don’t see how he could have done that without leaving some trace,’ said Agatha. ‘Oh, let’s get out of here.’
    ‘You can go and wait in the car if you like.’
    ‘Not on my own. I’ll stay here until you are finished. I mean, James, they’re not thick original beams. They’re just really slats made to look like beams.’
    ‘Wait a minute.’ James got down on his knees and began to delicately run his hands along the skirting board.
    Agatha sat on the floor, feeling sore after her crash over the fence. ‘If I wanted to hide something in the skirting board,’ she said wearily, ‘it would probably be behind my bed.’
    ‘There’s a thought. I wonder which room he slept in.’
    ‘The bigger of the two, I suppose,’ said Agatha nervously. ‘Can’t we just leave?’
    ‘Not long now.’
    James went into the larger bedroom. There were two closets in the right-hand wall. He was just making for them when they heard a car coming along the road and lights shone across the ceiling. He took a quick look out of the window. ‘It’s the police. Damn it. Someone must have seen us. Let’s get into that closet and hope when they find the doors locked that they’ll go away.’
    The closet they crowded into had once been used as a wardrobe. A few steel hangers hung from a rod.
    Then they heard the voices of the police outside the house. ‘Looks all locked up,’ said one voice. ‘Try round the back, Harry.’
    There was a silence and then Harry’s voice. ‘Locked up round the back. Shall we leave it?’
    They were joined by a woman. ‘I was walking my dog and I’ll swear I saw two people going up the side of the house.’
    ‘What were you doing walking your dog at this time of night?’ demanded the