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In the kitchen of The Wee Hoose, Edith was coming to the end of her story.

"...and once I knew I'd lost them, I came here as quick as I could," she finished.

The tale had taken another pot of tea to tell, and Margaret took its ending as her cue to put the kettle on again.

"Well, they've got some brass neck, I must say," Alice remarked. "Snatching people - respectable people - in broad daylight? In a busy shop? They're getting bolder than we'd thought."

"Or more desperate," called Margaret over her shoulder.

None of this seemed to make any sense to me.

"Hang on," I interrupted. "Are you saying," I asked Edith, "that you were in the newsagent's, minding your own business, when you were kidnapped? And then they took you away to interrogate you, using some kind of weird equipment?"

Edith nodded emphatically. She was a round-faced woman, wearing little wire-frame glasses, and they bounced up and down on her nose in counterpoint to the nodding. "Yes, that's right. I know it sounds a bit far-fetched, but that's exactly how it happened. I couldn't believe it myself."

"But didn't the newsagent see what was going on? Why didn't he help you?"

Edith looked confused.

"Son, weren't you listening properly? He's the one who organised it. It was Mr Hewson who was ordering them about."



Story starts here.