I've never liked tea. When I first sipped it, I found the drink to be bitter and scorching. My opinion had never really changed, to be honest but now I hate the drink even more. As readers of my exploits will know, I work for the Pavilion Paper in Glasgow. It was last week that a kettle in the archive room- intended to be used in the creation of a cup of tea- malfunctioned and set fire to this lower floor. The blaze climbed further and further up the building until the inferno had completely engulfed our base of operations, Pavilion HQ. Luckily, myself and assistant, Robin Greenhouse, had been leaving the building as the alarm went off. We were just placing our feet on the paving stones as the sirens wailed and the rest of the company burst out. We stood on the street as the buildings blaze was put out. The current issue was destroyed and hardly anything was recoverable. Luckily, the contents of my computer had been uploaded to some sort of online system thing so nothing was lost, except my computer. The archive room was completely lost, but our editor seemed to have backups of everything apart from the current issue. Most editors would close the newspaper for a while but not Lawrence Brookes! Oh no! He told us we had one month and five hundred pounds to set up a base and write a new article. We spent a day having some time off and then I invited Robin around to my flat. The flat was the sixth floor of an old building in the middle of our glorious city. it was the entire attic so there was sawdust all over the place with cobwebs hanging from the sky. The window had a seat built into the frame so you could lie down looking out of the window, which was round and translucent, occasionally letting in shafts of blue light. There was an engraved desk with a leather rectangle on where my typewriter sat and a trail of fairy lights illuminated the atmosphere. There was a spiral staircase in the corner where Robins ginger hair was slowly creeping up. She walked up to meet me and threw her coat onto the hat stand. She had a brief case in her hand and she looked round. The walls were lined with bookcases and there was a bar and kitchen area at the end of the attic. "Welcome to my humble abode!" I spoke, tapping away at my typewriter.
"It's not exactly what I was expecting."
"No but you can hardly talk, living in a castle!"
"Point taken."
"Now, what on Earth is in that brief case?"
"I've been using our list of contacts to find some interesting cases."
"What cases?"
"Our man in the estate has said that a series of bikes have been stolen."
"Not exactly brilliant?"
"Ok. I have some notes on a series of break ins."
"To where?"
"A bakery."
"Ok. Anything else?"
"There was a little thing from Lodsbury."
"I love when I can work with Lodders! Here, tell me what it is now!"
"Just a little case about a break in."
"Oh."
"That couldn't possibly have happened."
"Well that's good."
"And didn't."
"What? Why are we investigating it then?"
"Because a series of alarms were set off inside the vault of a bank when no one could possibly have got in and nothing was stolen."
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