UNFORTUNATE REWARDS
It was a moonless, starless night teeming with an early spring's heavy rain. The two men, wearing balaclavas, crouched behind the chest-high privet hedge establishing the boundary of the cottage's kitchen garden at the rear. Jacko grumbled, he was chilled and soaked through to the bone, but orders were orders. He always did what the others told him to do even if it did lead to trouble, and the blame for it, as a consequence. Larry had insisted they both get here early to wait for the occupants to leave the house; their departure would signal the field clear for their break-in. What none had realized was that from the hedge they wouldn't have sight of the front door. All they could see through the branches of the privet was the bottom end of the path leading down to the road at the front of the cottage. It didn't occur to them to wonder how the light, streaming from the front door, was switched off as the couple drove away.
Terry and Jacko watched the man and his wife walk out through the front garden gate and climb into their brand new green and white Ford Anglia parked in the road. Heaving a sigh of relief, they assumed their way was clear now for a spot of purloining of the owners' property. The two burglars waited a few moments longer only making their move when they felt sure the quiet country road would remain a quiet country road.
Terry led the way through the gate from the lane and up the path between the potato patch on their right and the cabbages and carrots growing in neat lines on their left. The owner of this cottage still maintained the thriftiness of the war years and grew a lot of his own vegetables for his table. Unfortunately for Jacko, for he stumbled in the dark and put his foot down on a marrow, squashing it out of existence.
'Now you've done it,' Terry whispered, 'the man's won prizes for them. He beat my Dad's at that garden show two years ago.'
'Well, he won't be beating your Dad this year with that one. Stupid bloody place to grow it, it's sticking out over the path,' said Jacko, cleaning his shoe on a patch of grass.
Jacko crept up to the back door of the cottage and took a small crowbar from the inside of his soaking wet jacket. He wedged it in at the site of the lock and prised the door open. The jamb crumbled with a loud crack and exposed the latch.
'Quiet fool!' said Terry pushing his hand through the hole and lifting the latch from its demolished catch and the door swung open. 'The fools forgot to bolt the door,' said Terry, 'My Mam would kill me if I'd gone off and not done that.'
'Lucky for us, then,' said Jacko putting the jemmy back in his pocket.
They crept in and found themselves in a short passageway leading through to the front of the house. On their left was the kitchen door and on their right the stairs up to the bedrooms, a little farther on was a heavy hallstand opposite the front room door. Halfway along the passage was a table, on it a white phone rested on a crocheted doily, its silver dial reflecting a light shining down from somewhere above.
'Hey, there's a light on.' Jacko was renowned for stating the obvious. 'There's no-one here is there?'
'Nah, they're like my Mam, she always leaves a light on somewhere in the house to deter burglars,' answered Terry.
'Who'd burgle your Mam? She ain't got anything has she?'
'She's got them souvenir plates she pinched from that street party we had for the Queen's coronation last year. They might be worth a bit. Don't you get telling Larry about them. I ain't stealing off my Mam, she'll kill me,' said Terry, breaking into a sweat at the thought of it. She was always threatening to kill him. 'Come on, the lounge is that way.' And Terry opened the door into the front room and Jacko followed him in.
