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Two women were standing together up ahead on the street, and when they saw Gabriella, the shorter one called out and waved her over.

Gabriella slowed her step.

Call her a shirker, but she just wasn’t in the mood for problems after both her meeting with Havelock and her near miss with a bus.

She had no choice, though.

She was clearly walking toward them, and had no excuse to turn tail and run.

The road she was on ran parallel to the road where she’d last seen Jerry, and she tried to inject some enthusiasm as she approached by telling herself there was a tiny possibility that what was happening here might have some link to Jerry.

“Good afternoon,” she said with a smile. “How can I help?”

“You’re not a WPC,” the woman who’d called her over said, accusingly.

“No.” She took a step back, almost relieved. “If you’re looking for the police, the closest station is on the high street.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Betty,” the taller woman, dressed in tweeds and sturdy brogues, shot her companion an incredulous look. “She never said she was a WPC. That was your mistake, not hers.”

Betty’s mouth thinned, and then she gave a shrug. “My apologies. I assumed you were when I saw the uniform, but the traffic wardens are a branch of the police, aren’t you?”

“No, we’re not.” And that was quite by design, Gabriella had heard. The government took traffic out of the police force’s duties when wealthy voters who didn’t like getting fines started hounding their Members of Parliament to cut the police budget so there were less police about to issue the fines. The police shifted the responsibility for parking fines to a new department very quickly when that started to happen.

“But surely you can bring something to the police’s attention?” Tweed Lady said.

“I can, but so can you,” Gabriella said. “I do know the local police because I come across them regularly, but if you have a problem, it’s best if you approach them yourselves.”

“I don’t have the time, but I feel this is important.” Betty held out two absolutely sodden letters to Gabriella. “I used to be a post mistress, and these letters are from the Holland Park post office where that horrible robbery was yesterday. And you can see from the post mark that this was stamped with yesterday’s date.”

Gabriella held the letters up, and gave a nod. “So you think these were in the bags that were stolen?”

“Exactly.” Betty seemed relieved. “They could only have come from that post office yesterday, and I heard from friends that still work for the post office that the thieves got all the bags that were collected.”

Gabriella handed the letters back carefully, as they seemed very fragile given how waterlogged they were, and dug in her bag for her notebook. “Where did you find the letters?” she asked.

“They were stuck in my hedge,” Tweed Lady said. “I asked Betty what to do with them, given she’s an expert on post, and she took one look and said we need the police.”

“I’ll take them to the police for you, but they will ask me for your address and names,” Gabriella said.

As the women were giving her their details, a man came striding out of a house a little further up the street and marched toward them.

“It’s Bob Morton,” Tweed Lady said. “What an absolute tosser.”

Gabriella raised her head, trying to remember where she knew the name from, and then remembered the complaint about the car parked in his driveway.

“I say,” he said, as he reached them. “I say. I want to make a complaint.”

“That does seem to be your speciality, Bob,” Tweed Lady said, sweetly. “I heard all about it from Belinda Carey.”

“That woman hasn’t let up since I made a completely justified complaint about her parking without permission in my driveway,” Bob Morton said. “I’ve had animal control around twice since Tuesday evening, for complaints that my dog is barking, but I don’t have a dog.”

“What’s that got to do with Belinda Carey?” Betty asked.

“She’s the one making the complaints. I finally got it out of one of the officers.” Bob Morton pointed a finger behind him, presumably at Mrs. Carey’s address.

“Come to think of it, I have also heard a dog barking,” Tweed Lady said. “It sounded to me like it was coming from your garden, Bob.”

“Well, it’s possible there is a dog getting into my garden and barking,” Bob Morton seemed pained to admit it. “But it’s a stray. I don’t have any truck with pets. Too much trouble.”