LITMIR.BIZ

       Eight

      Grace woke with a sore head. She lay for a while going over the events of the previous night. She should have waited and gone on the rounds in daylight but she hadn’t wanted the money in the house overnight. The post office was open on Saturday morning so why hadn’t she drawn the money first thing and done the round in the afternoon? And it would have been far more sensible to do what Constable Higgins had suggested and have everyone come to her. She could see now what a fool she had been.

      She ran her tongue over her bottom lip. It felt funny. She climbed out of bed. The room was so cold she could see her own breath. She pulled the eiderdown off the bed and around her shoulders and looked at herself in the dressing table mirror. What a sight. Her right eye was as black as the ace of spades. Her forehead was like an artist’s paint palette, a mixture of red graze and blue bruise with a hint of green and purple, although the egg-sized swelling had gone down. She had a graze at the corner of her mouth and her bottom lip, the cause of her discomfort, was slightly swollen. She looked as if she’d done ten rounds with Bruce Woodcock, the British and Empire heavyweight boxing champion. When she touched her forehead, it hurt like hell.

      Grace lowered herself onto the bed again and pulled the old eiderdown tight around her shoulders. Boy, was she stiff. She was supposed to go to the police station to make a proper statement but it was the last thing she wanted to do. Constable Higgins had been confident that they would catch the thief but they didn’t hold out much hope of getting the money back. ‘He’ll have put most of it down his neck long before we catch up with him,’ Higgins said bleakly.

      Grace sighed. She would have to go round and see everyone, explain and apologise. She’d promise that no matter how long it took, they would get their money back … not this Christmas but maybe in time for next. She shivered with cold but she wasn’t ready to face the world just yet so she climbed back into bed and tried to work out how much money she could lay her hands on.