Danger on the Island by Giles Stewart

Author:Giles, Stewart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: STILL Books
Published: 2023-10-30T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

O’Reilly thanked DC Stone for the lift and hobbled towards his apartment. There was a reception committee waiting for him by the front door. Bram and Juliet stood to attention when they spotted O’Reilly.

“Have you forgotten how to use the cat flap?” he asked the feline squatters. “Dumb moggies.”

He unlocked the door, and the cats followed him inside. He sensed there was something wrong straight away. There was something different about the apartment – the air inside felt different, there was a sweet smell inside, and when he realised the back door was wide open his suspicions were confirmed. His detective brain was instantly alerted. He stopped dead and held his breath. Apart from the low buzzing from the fridge the apartment was silent.

He exhaled a long breath and approached the back door. The key was in the lock on the inside. After further inspection O’Reilly couldn’t detect any evidence to suggest it had been tampered with. He left it open and went to check the rooms inside the apartment.

It took him no longer than a few minutes to see that nothing appeared to have been taken. There was nothing that told him that somebody had been inside the apartment, so why was the back door wide open and why was he experiencing such a powerful sense of unease? He couldn’t understand it.

He went back to the kitchen and closed the back door. He took a bottle of beer from the fridge and downed half of it in one go. He’d no sooner sat down at the kitchen table when the back door swung back open. O’Reilly could feel his heart beat in his ears and he prepared himself for the worst. If someone was intending to hurt him, he was at a serious disadvantage. The damage to his leg meant he was nowhere near as quick as he once was, and he was very easy to knock over.

He got to his feet and approached the back door slowly. He gave it a tentative shove and it swung back open again. The cats were nowhere to be seen.

“Cowards,” O’Reilly shouted down the hallway.

The mystery of the door was solved when O’Reilly spotted the position of the latch bolt. The bolt was flush with the face plate. After a bit of jiggling the latch bolt came free and O’Reilly was able to close the door and keep it closed. He realised he must have forgotten to lock the door that morning – the latch bolt had become stuck, and the wind had blown the door open.

“Emergency over,” he called to the cats.

He turned the key in the lock, got another beer and sat back down at the table.

“You can come out now,” he added.

Bram and Juliet obliged. The ginger tom and the slender black lady crept inside and sheepishly rubbed themselves up against O’Reilly’s legs.

“Some guard cats you are,” he informed them. “I imagine you’re hungry after all that excitement.”

The sound of his ringtone stopped him from filling their bowls with food.

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