Sebastian phoned his office to say he would be late in because of the robbery, and waited until two uniform police officers arrived from the local station.
They checked the premises, gave Sebastian and Rebecca a little talk on basic crime prevention measures and then handed them a leaflet with the telephone numbers of their local Neighbourhood Watch and Victim Support Group. ‘Oh yes and you’ll need this,’ said PC John Hawthorne, handing Sebastian a crime reference number. ‘You’ll need this to claim on the insurance policy. By the way did they take much?’
It was the constable’s rather off-hand manner that annoyed Sebastian. It was if what was missing was an afterthought. ‘Well actually officer it wasn’t how much they took as what they took.’
‘What do you mean sir?’
‘Well my wife and I,’ and he looked over to Rebecca. ‘We had decided to get rid of all those old kitchen gadget things. You know the stuff officer, the sort of things you buy and never use.’
‘You don’t have to tell me sir, my wife’s got cupboards full of them, never used more than once.’
‘Quite, officer. Well strangely enough it is all those things like the juice extractor, blender, slow cooker, grilling machine, all those sorts of things that have gone.’
‘And the kettle sir, I notice you haven’t got a kettle.’
‘Yes officer, and the kettle, but as I was saying it is all the appliances we were hoping to auction on one of those online auction sites that have up and vanished. Most peculiar.’
‘And nothing else sir?’
‘No, nothing else.’
‘Probably kids sir, teenagers. That’s’ the sort of stuff they take, that and dvd players and iPods and things.
’‘Quite officer, but a food vacuum sealer and a meat mincer, all of which were hidden away?’
‘Yes sir, I must say sir, that does sound a little bit odd.’ There was a pause. ‘The fingerprint guys will be round later to see if they can throw some light on it all…There was another pause. ’Don’t worry, we’ll see ourselves out.’
When the finger print officer arrived prints were taken of Sebastian, Rebecca, and the children to eliminate them. Then the open kitchen window and the kitchen door were dusted for prints as were several of the cupboards and drawers.
‘And you say you thought you had left the alarm on and the window closed?’’ one of the accompanying detectives asked Sebastian.
‘Yes I’m pretty sure of it.’
The detective looked puzzled.
‘What is it officer,’ said Sebastian.
‘Well sir, as crazy as it may seem this doesn’t look like a break-in at all. In fact it has all the hallmarks of a break-out.’
Gadgets: The Great Escape Page 9
