Sherlock Holmes and the case....

..of the deflating tyre.

Curious thing happened on Thursday night......let me tell you and you can make up your own mind.

I'm a cyclist and l live in an Edinburgh city centre flat with access to an excellent under the stair cupboard for bike storage; very handy. However, laziness sometimes gets the better of me and I leave the bike in the stair corridor outside our door. Whilst this looks a bit untidy, it's no obstruction to anyone in the stair; we don't share the corridor with anyone else and it leads only to our door...so the only people who could possibly be inconvenienced are people trying to access our door.

So, imagine my surprise when on Friday morning, with the birds singing in the trees, the sun shining and with a spring in my step, I left the flat only to notice that my bike had a flat tyre. "Typical", I was late for work and public transport takes 20mins longer than my bike journey, and I was already late so not enough time to fix it. Now comes the twist....on examining the tyre for glass or a nail, I found it undamaged. Checking the valve I noticed the cap had been removed and the high pressure valve had been tampered-with....horror and intrigue, my bike had been sabotaged by agents of evil!!

As I got up from the floor, I turned to see the dark, brooding face of the stair cleaner, watching me from the shadows of the stair, his Portivac slung over his shoulder like a gun. He held my gaze for a moment or two and then ghosted up stairs...curious. I stood reflecting on who might have a motive to sabotage my vehicle. My choice of suspects;

1) The Stair Cleaner..tired of having to negotiate around my bike and clean up dirt from the tyres?
2) The Postie...angered at having to constantly scrape past with his heavy bag, aggravating his bad back?
3) The New Neighbour...jealous that I've got keys to the cupboard, but he hasn't (there's only room for one bike)?
4) The Posh Students....a group of frightfully OK Yah kids have arrived to rent the top floor flat. Their idea of a jolly drunken jape?
5) The Professional Complainer...he lives in another block but he's complained about bikes being stored in the stairs at the residents association?
6) The 8 Year Old Son...intent on helping me pump up the bike tyre?
7) The Disgruntled Wife...annoyed at the black marks left on the wall by the rubber stoppers on the handle bars?
8) The New Kitten...chewing on anything and everything?
9) The Quirky Neighbour...has never said much in 7 years and his wife disappeared after 3 years...curious?
10) The bus driving fundamentalist at no 12.....he hates cyclists and I see the loathing in his eyes as I pass him every morning.

So Blippers...whodunnit?