Between the lines

As Adam leafed through the notebook, it struck him that his gran's usually neat, old-fashioned script looked more erratic, as if she'd been making notes hurriedly. It read like a diary, often in note form - though it was always both legible and lucid.

Some of the entries seemed to be bits of gossip: Jean's says daughter Jo - works in BGC est agents - got interest in old church. Other entries were more like surveillance notes: BH and friends round at church building again: arr 5.10, stay 40 mins.

Other sources of information came into play; the under-manager at the bank letting slip that a group of businessmen had applied for a significant mortgage, the mother of one the town's surveyors describing development plans for a certain property.

If nothing else, the notebook told Adam that had seriously underestimated the number of people his gran knew in this town, and how diverse her contacts were.

Seen in one way, this was simply a collection of snippets and suppositions.

But there was a clear theme at the heart of the notebook, which begged the question: why did a group of unconnected businessmen want to buy a large, semi-derelict former church building?



Story starts here.