Welcome To Staithe & Willow Private Investigators

A selection of short stories to read while you unwind and relax.

The Bike

1. He was annoyed, no, he was furious. His only means of transport stolen. His precious bike, and the Police weren’t taking it seriously.

   “It’ll turn up. Someone has borrowed it to get home, and it will be reported having been thrown in a ditch somewhere.”

   Not good enough, Sebastian fumed, this wasn’t just any old bike, it was unique, he had built it himself. Admittedly, he had found the bits over the years, whatever had been left chained to a pole outside his shop after someone had pinched the other bits. Each time their needs had obviously been very specific as they had left enough from each skeleton for a whole bike, with many duplicate bits left over which he was keeping for spares. But not enough to build a new one.

   What he needed was someone who would take him seriously, and drive around the local lanes and roads, looking in ditches and under hedges, in fields and down farm tracks.

   
   

   Peter Staithe had finished the crossword, and his second cup of coffee, and was wondering what to do with the day. He could see that his partner, in life as well as business, Petra ‘Pussy’ Willow had a bored expression that could lead to ‘shopping’ unless he could think of something.

   
   

   Luck was with him. The phone rang, he let it ring once more, he thought this would give the impression of being both busy yet efficient.

   “Staithe and Willow, confidential Private Investigators,”

   
   

   “It’s my bike, it’s been stolen from outside my shop.”

   “Have you reported it to the Police?”

   “Of course, but they’d rather swan around in their cars than do a bit of legwork looking for it. What I need is for somebody to search the local area, could you do that?”

   “Well, if you could give me the details, Mr?”

   “Shafftoe, Sebastian Shafftoe. It is unique bike, the frame is black with yellow streaks, I think it is supposed to be lightning. Reynolds 531 tubing, of course.”

   “Of course.” Echoed Peter, having once owned an old pushbike, when what he really wanted was a Triumph motorcycle.

   “26 inch wheels, although the back wheel is too wide for the racing tyre I put on the front, so it has knobblies, more traction, you see.”

   Peter didn’t, but he intervened anyway, “I take it this bike is very valuable?”

   
   

   “It is to me! Derailleur gears, which sometimes slip as the front cogs don’t quite line up when I change down, but you get used to it. And the handlebars are my own design, drops but with the brakes only on the top as I never use it to race. I would have preferred straight bars but I couldn’t find any to fit.”

   Peter felt compelled to ask if there was a photograph as his imagination was floundering on the technical details.

   “Oh, you can’t miss it. Look out for the front mudguard, which is pink plastic and the rear which is an original black steel full guard to halfway down the wheel, with a reflector. Luckily, I had taken the lights off as it is Summer.”

   Pussy had sidled over to look at the notes that Peter had scribbled. Bike Unique Shafftoe nuts?

   He touched his phone to Speaker, so that she could hear.

   “I have to tell you, Mr Shaftoe, that we charge £50 an hour, plus expenses.”

   “What! £50 an hour? OK, you’ve two hours to find my bike.”

   “I’m sorry?”

   “I can only afford £100, so you’ve got two hours to get out there and find my bike.”

   Pussy put her finger to her lips, and then leaned over the phone, and in her sexiest voice said, “Hello, Mr Shafftoe, it Is Mr Shaftoe from Shafftoe Shoes, stockist of stilettos and stockings for the discerning modern woman, isn’t it? “

   Sebastian almost trilled with delight. “Yes, that’s me.”

   “Well,” continued Pussy, looking away from her phone which had the search results for Shafftoe, shops and Norfolk, with just one possible. “As you know, being a fellow businessman, there are certain discrete products that cost money to source and we will do our best, but cannot guarantee to find your precious bike however hard we try, within two hours. However, if you will give me your credit card details we will set off immediately, dropping all other investigations to devote our full resources to your predicament.” Purring now, “Are you ready, Mr Shafftoe?”

   
   

   “Where do we start? Who would pinch a bike, an instantly recognisable bike, in mid-afternoon, with three chains locking it to a post, in a quiet village?” Having got the commission, Pussy was now not so happy about her success.

   “It only had one lock, he used a cheap combination lock with a big hasp and put all three chains though it. The combination was 3-3-3-3, they stole the lock as well.”

   “Who pinches bikes? Students ‘borrow’ them to get to college if they miss the bus, but there are no colleges within twenty miles, too far. Drunks, but it was too early for serious drinkers. Schoolkids for a laugh, but too early in the afternoon. I’m stumped.” Peter cast around for inspiration on a High Street with only six cars.

   “What about someone whose car has broken down, and they need to be somewhere very urgently? It can take up to half an hour to get a taxi to come out from Wroxham. “

   Peter asked Mr Shafftoe to walk around the two village streets and point out any cars that he didn’t recognise as being local. There were only three, and when Peter put his hand on the bonnet two were still slightly warm. Which left the dark green Rover, with a very flat tyre. Peter phoned the local Police station and

   complained that this Rover was blocking his drive so he couldn’t get his car out, could they contact the owner and get him to move it, and keep him informed about the outcome.

   Ten minutes later the Police phoned back to say they could not contact the owner, the car was not registered locally and there was nothing they could do about it immediately as the registration number had flagged up an interest by the Met Police, and they would be sending someone down to examine it, but that would obviously take several hours.

   “We have ninety minutes left to find this bike, the thief is not our concern, the reputation of Staithe and Willow is, come on partner, we know which direction the car was headed, I’ll bet some criminal from London can’t ride a bike for more than five miles.”

   Peter was on a roll.

   Sadly, his intuition about the physical capabilities of big city dwellers was misplaced, as the criminal concerned was eighteen years old, and had been a bike courier until recently. He hadn’t actually bothered with a driving test, reasoning that two years of hot-wiring cars in North London and delivering them to a lockup in Neasdon more than qualified him. Norfolk was a different matter and required the finesse of watching the petrol gauge, not part of his skill set.

   It was therefor nearly an hour later, over ten miles and twenty seven remote farm houses checked, that the exasperated PI’s came upon the bike, in a ditch as predicted by the Police. A very deep and very wet ditch into which it had obviously been thrown with some force, buckling the racing wheel on the front.

   “Well. I’m not climbing down there.” Pussy Willow looked down at her tailored slacks and high heels, and then up at Peter. Before he could answer his phone rang and it was obvious that the caller was both loud and unhappy, as Peter winced and held the phone away from his ear. After a few moments he was able to get a chance to put his side of the story, and apologise for the slight misdirection he had practiced upon the local Police about being stuck in his drive. His good news about finding the bike calmed matters still further, although there was a lot of shouting he could hear in the background, before the call cut off.

   “Which still leaves us with the problem of getting the bike out of the mud, without costing me a new pair of shoes and trousers.”

   “You don’t think Mr Shafftoe would go to £150 as ‘expenses’?”

   Peter ignored that and was rustling around in the boot of the car. “I knew I had some old rope from the dinghy, frayed but it will do.”

   “What are you going to do, lasso the handlebars?”

   “It is very unprofessional to giggle while we are working.” Peter spoke sternly, “ I shall tie on the wheel wrench, with a suitable nautical knot, “ he said, trying to keep a straight face, “and throw it through the front wheel spokes, where it will catch and I can haul it up without getting wet.”

   He was on his third throw when a large BMW came down the drive and skidded to a halt just short of their car.

   “Oyyyy! Get your car out of the way. What the Hell are you doing, magnet fishing on my drive?”

   “As you can see, we are trying to retrieve a stolen bicycle from the stream, I thought you would have been pleased that we are clearing your dumped rubbish for nothing.” Pussy was all sweetness and light as she stepped from behind the car. “And it looks as though my Partner has hooked the wheel and we can haul it out, put it in the boot and be out of your way, very shortly.”

   But not quickly enough for the approaching sirens to materialise into a rush of flashing blue lights and the serrated click of handcuffs.

   
   

   The County Lines charges may have featured in the local paper, but the stolen, muddy bike with the splintered pink plastic front mudguard was added to the charge sheet, meaning another three months before the young man could go back to being a courier on the hard streets of London.

   Mr Shafftoe had his bike repaired free of charge by the local bike shop, sadly, they could not replace the pink plastic front mudguard, but they did respray a white metal one, so it looked similar.

   Life at Staithe and Willow, Private Detectives, returned to settling disputes on inherited mooring rights and domestic entanglements, with a new framed letter hanging on their wall from the Metropolitan Police thanking them for their help in breaking a drug gang.

   
   

   Colin Payn 20/10/24

   
   

   Find Colin’s books here: https://amzn.to/2ChlBkA