The dark blue transit van pulled up outside number twelve Rosemead Avenue. Inside Peter Grimshaw switched off the engine, killed the lights and waited to see if his 3 am arrival had been noticed. Not that there was much chance of that, the trick or treating was long over, the hardy folks with patio heaters had set off their fireworks and gone to their beds hours ago.
After spending the last eighteen months incarcerated in Durham jail for attempted theft – how was he to know that the woman with the red Prada bag was an undercover policewoman - Peter had learned to be careful and since this was his first job as a burglar he had decided to take his time.
For the last two weeks he had kept an eye on the comings and goings of the old crone who lived there. Not that there was much to see. The old woman only left the house on a Tuesday to visit her friend in the nearby village of Willington and on Thursdays to shop in the local high street. Peter had originally thought that he would be able to break in through the day. But the arrival of a younger woman obviously the daughter - she had the same hooked nose and pointy chin - at nine each morning on those days, put paid to that idea.
So here he was in the middle of the night watching leaves dancing on an autumn wind, while he made one last check in case an insomniac dog walker came wandering by. Finally satisfied, he stepped out of the van and made his way up the leaf-carpeted drive towards the darkened house. On reaching the garage he slipped around to the back, jimmied open the kitchen window and slipped inside.
After scrambling over the old stone sink he looked around, it was like entering a time warp, at the far end was an old black range with a pot suspended over a dully glowing fire. The floor was stone flagged and an oil lamp stood on the kitchen table, He smiled, the stupid old crow was living in the past and the house would probably be stuffed with antiques. He stood listening, not a sound. She must be sound asleep, good; he could take his pick from downstairs while she slept.
Flicking on his torch, he moved into what was obviously a dining room, if he was looking for antiques this was the place. The furniture was old probably Tudor and too heavy for one man to carry. Still, there was a lot of pewter in the dresser and that would do for starters. He began to carry it through and stacking it on the kitchen table.
He was on his last load when the old woman appeared from nowhere. One minute he was stacking his ill gotten gains on the table and the next he had turned around and she was there, waving her finger in his face and saying, 'Naughty, naughty.'
He wanted to reach out, grab the silly old bat by the neck and wipe the grin from her face, but he was frozen in place, unable to move. She walked around him three times, did a little jig, cackled a few strange words and touched him on the tip of his nose with a gnarled finger. A tingling began in his head and moved down though his body until it reached his toes, then stopped. For a moment nothing else happened, then he felt strange, it was almost as if he was shrinking. The old woman opened the back door and told him to leave.
He looked up at her, gave a loud croak, and hopped off, in search of a pond.
