The flat was over a grocer’s shop in Berry’s Wynd, one of the narrow medieval streets behind the abbey.

‘If the street door is locked, I can’t stand in broad daylight picking the lock,’ complained James.

‘We won’t know until we try it,’ said Charles. ‘Come on.’

They crossed the street. Charles turned the handle of the front door. It swung open.

‘See,’ he said. ‘Faint heart never won successful burglary.’

‘What if there’s more than two flats?’ whispered James.

‘It’s just a little Pakistani grocer’s,’ muttered Charles impatiently as they mounted the stairs. ‘See! One flat. I’ll knock first.’

He knocked very loudly. ‘There’s a bell,’ said James.

Charles leaned on it. No reply.

‘Okay,’ said Charles. ‘Get to work.’

James pulled out a set of skeleton keys. ‘I remembered you had a set of those,’ said Charles. ‘Where did you get them?’

‘I took them off someone a long time ago.’

‘Does it always take this long?’ complained Charles after ten minutes.

‘Shut up. This isn’t a movie and there are two locks here. We really should have checked in the grocery store first. No doubt they own this flat. Maybe they’ve already re-rented it. Ah, here we go.’ The door opened.

They found themselves inside a small two-roomed flat with a tiny bathroom and a minuscule kitchen behind a curtain. Charles started searching in the bedroom while James searched the living room.

‘Her clothes are still in the wardrobe,’ said Charles. ‘Very dowdy they are, too.’

‘There’s hair dye in the bathroom,’ called James. ‘She’s gone blonde by the look of it.’

Charles wandered back in. ‘She’s left nothing else apart from the clothes. No sign of any personal papers or passport.’

‘And no toothbrush in the bathroom,’ said James.

Charles peered out of the kitchen window and down into the area at the back.

‘Thank God for the new lousy rubbish collections. There are bins down there. Feel like some bin diving? We may find some clue as to where she’s gone.’

‘How do we get to the area?’ asked James.

‘I saw a lane at the side of the shop.’

‘What if someone comes out of the back of the shop and asks us what we are doing?’

‘They won’t because we are going to go into the shop and tell them why we want to search the rubbish and ask them to tell us which is Betty’s.’

A large woman in a sari behind the counter raised her hands in horror when they explained about Betty being a thief. She summoned a small boy and told him to show them the bin where Miss Talent put her rubbish.

‘Now,’ said Charles, ‘all this recycling is great because we don’t want the small green food bin, we want that big grey one.’