Fourteen.
"Miss Saddler?" Barnaby called from the sunken brick path in the front garden. There was no reply, nor had there been when he'd rung the doorbell. Still, Barnaby had not made Chief Inspector by giving up easily.
It was a small little cottage, pretty, built in red brick with tall green ivy winding its way across the masonry and small flowerbeds of peonies and pansies.
He let himself around the back, into a long thin garden dotted with vegetable patches, clearly Mary Saddler was a woman who enjoyed rural life. Closer to the back of the house, there was a small patio with a wrought iron table, a cat was sitting on top licking his paws calmly, eyeing Barnaby with suspicion.
The little back door, painted yellow, faced onto the sunset-drenched patio and he went up to it and peered through the latticed windows.
His phone beeped in his jacket pocket, and he pulled it out, stabbing at a button he hoped was right. Not that he wasn't willing to work with modern technology of course, it just so happened that most of the time it wasn't willing to work with him.
"Hello?" still peering through the window, it took him a good few seconds to work out that it was a message and not a live conversation he was listening to. It was Scott.
"Sir, Scott here. Just got a call from Mitch Cannaby, wants me to meet him at the theatre, not sure why but I'm on my way there now. I'll let you know if it's anything important."
As the message clicked off, Barnaby pushed at the yellow door gently. It swung in at once, and he found himself looking into a little kitchen.
"Miss Saddler?" the cat ran in past him to a plate of food and Barnaby stepped over the threshold, "Miss Saddler, it's Chief Inspector Barnaby."
He wasn't sure why he was still shouting when it was obvious she wasn't in, still, he wasn't very confident about wandering un-permitted around someone's house when they weren't in, and the longer he pretended they might be, the better it made him feel.
By now he'd reached the small sitting room and his eyes were instantly drawn to a desk scattered with items. A few were photos of a man and several loose keys, one blank sheet of paper seemed entirely filled with little doodles and unfinished games of hangman in which the words were still not guessed but the drawings complete. Next to them lay a diary, which, after opening carefully, Barnaby found had a rough entry scrawled across the date. He peered at it, muttering the words to himself.
"Mitchell, Marette."
He thought about it for a while, casting around the untidy room. It came to him suddenly.
"Mitchell Cannaby, the Marette Wilson Theatre."
So that was where she was. Guilty at having snooped around her room Barnaby went to put the organiser back, a thought crossing his mind as he did.
Wasn't Scott going to meet Mitch at the theatre?
The thud of something dropping to the floor turned his attentions, and he stooped to collect the black item from the carpet. As he did, his blood ran cold. Something was definitely not right.
Lying in the palm of his hand, was Scott's badge.
ooooooooooooooooooooooo
Mwahaha!