Lips White As Snow

12-All Wrapped Up?

Edmund made it back to the bottom of the pit as quickly as he could.

"Ma'am?" he shouted up.

"What?"

"I think we were right. The trail leads to under the bakery, I'm pretty sure!"

"I don't want 'pretty sure' I want 'definite'!" came the abrupt reply. Edmund rolled his eyes.

"I know of a way we can check" he grumbled. "Can I come up now?"

A light flashed down from above. Hawes was lighting the way for him with her torch.

How kind, Edmund thought.

He made it to the top of the shaft with little difficulty, and Hawes let him out before lowering the dumb-waiter back down again.

"Now what?" he asked, putting the UV lightsaber down, flicking it off, and trying to brush some of the dirt from his clothes.

"You tell me" Hawes replied. Edmund smirked, rolling his eyes.

"Fine. We need to see if Mr and Mrs. Tooke have a rug that looks like this in any of their back rooms..."

He held up his phone, showing the pictures he'd taken whilst down in the pit. A red, yellow and blue patterned wool carpet peeked through the slats in the wood, illuminated by the flash.

"Shouldn't be too hard to find" Hawes commented. "It looks like a mock-up of an Indian rug. Quite a pretty one, too. Good work, Gray."

Edmund was genuinely off-handed by the praise. He cleared his throat and nodded, stuffing his phone back into his pocket and picking up the UV light so Hawes wouldn't have to carry it. She shook her head, quickly dismantling the lightsaber part of the UV light and stowing it in the bag, taking it off Edmund.

"I can..." the D.S. began.

"No bother" came the staunch reply. Edmund shrugged and followed her out into the open, and the two of them made their steady ways down the hill once more, and over to the car, where Hawes replaced the Hessian bag in the back seat.

"Now" she mused, sucking her lip. "How are we going to get to look through the Tookes' back rooms? We can't get a warrant unless we know for sure there's something there, and as sure as we are, what we've got won't stand up on paper."

"I have an idea" Edmund mused. "But it'll involve you having to talk out of your arse for at least half an hour..."

"Is that a challenge?" Hawes queried, eyebrow raising.

"Well, sort of" Edmund admitted. I was thinking that if you could get both of the Tookes in one room and talking, I could sneak in and explore the rest of the house..."

"That's hideously illegal" Hawes pointed out.

"You got any better ideas?"

She hesitated.

"Not really."

The two of them slipped unobtrusively into the front seats of the car.

"There must be another way of doing it" Hawes sighed.

"Well, how's about we both go in, and then I'll ask to use the loo?" Edmund tried. "I'll just get deliberately lost."

Hawes chewed her lip, and Edmund was sure she'd have mashed it to pieces by now. She'd have mouth alsars for weeks, which didn't bode well for him.

"Fine."

Edmund smiled, perhaps a little too cheerily.

"Cool" he said. "Let's get cracking."