Epilogue
L eo and I were already awake before the alarm went off, but being otherwise engaged, it took a good few minutes before we registered the noise.
‘Maybe we should?—’
‘Are you sure?—’
Both of us spoke at once, far too comfortable tangled up together beneath my duvet to want to move. I traced a line of kisses along Leo’s neck and shivered with delight as he responded with an exploration of his own.
The phone buzzed again, this time to signal a text had landed.
‘We should probably check that,’ I said reluctantly.
Leo rolled over, taking me with him, then quickly read the message.
‘Gavin’s nearly in his surveillance position at the other side of the bridge.’
‘We’d better get going then.’
We dressed in a hurry and left our sanctuary to join the stream of people emerging from their houses, marching purposefully down the street, mingling with those dressed in their party clothes and still clutching last night’s empty bottles of wine.
May morning in Oxford brought everyone out.
There was little traffic on the road, and as we neared the Magdalen roundabout, I started to hear the hubbub of the crowd.
Somebody had set up a stall selling hot chestnuts near one of the bike stands and their smoky smell filled the air, mixing with the pungent scent of more illicit substances that a few very chilled-out individuals had clearly been indulging in.
A team of Morris dancers was gathering, multicoloured strips of fabric streaming from their shoulders, the bells around their ankles chirruping as they finished off each other’s blue stripey make-up and tried a few experimental leaps. I checked my phone. It was nearly six o’clock.
Since that Saturday just over a year ago when Dom Markham, the man formerly known to me as Scammer Brian, had been arrested, the SO Ox app had been taken down and its founder sent to prison for a catalogue of fraudulent activities.
The success of our detective work had given Leo the boost he needed to establish his own investigations agency aimed at helping those who might not otherwise get justice.
The bank had been most impressed with the business plan he’d compiled with Doris’s help, and mine, and although it was still early days, the agency was going places.
I was enjoying continuing my sleuthing exploits in a consulting position alongside my library work and had already started jotting down some notes on our adventures so far, thinking that there might be a novel or two in them.
After all, the Oxford Community Library could never have too many books, and it would be nice to have a few of my own on the shelves.
‘Where do we think this dodgy tour guide is going to be, then?’ I asked.
‘According to my sources, he’ll be targeting tourists as they gather at the bottom of Magdalen College Tower for the singing.’
‘We’d better blend in with the crowd,’ I said. ‘We can’t have him clocking us before we’re ready to take him down.’
‘How do you suggest we do that?’ said Leo, with a sparkle in his eye.
‘I’ve got a few ideas,’ I said, looping my arm around his waist.
At six o’clock, the bells in the churches and colleges around Oxford started their slightly out of sync chorus of chimes, and the choir at the top of Magdalen Tower began their song. The centuries old tradition celebrated the start of a new season and new beginnings.
I scanned the crowd, searching for our target.
‘We’d better track him down today,’ I said. ‘It’s going to be more of a commute from tomorrow once I’ve properly moved into our new home.’
Leo’s friend had eventually decided that he wasn’t going to return to the UK. This afternoon Leo and I were heading to the solicitor’s office to sign the final paperwork making the chocolate box cottage in the Oxfordshire countryside ours. Well, ours and the bank’s.
‘No regrets?’ asked Leo.
‘None whatsoever,’ I said. ‘Although ask me again when you interrupt me mid-chapter.’
He laughed, and pulled me closer to him, dropping a kiss on my forehead.
‘I would never dream of committing so heinous a crime.’
He really was a hero worthy of a book, but thankfully for me, there was nothing fictional about him.