Free La's Orchestra Saves the World by Alexander McCall Smith Page A

For a few moments it became even darker, though, as a wisp of cloud moved across what little moon there was; La thought she could make out the figure of a man, but then she realised that she was staring at the large wisteria she had been trimming earlier that day. To the right, then, and …
    The man moved suddenly; just a few yards, but enough to make himself distinct against the light that was coming from corner of the large window in the sitting room; the curtains did not meet exactly, and light escaped, enough to silhouette the figure of a man.
    “Boo!”
    It came to her completely spontaneously; so quickly, in fact, that she was unaware of any decision to shout out. And afterwards, when the childish word had been uttered, so loudly that it seemed to fill the night, her breath was gone from her, and she gasped. And the gasp might have been at her own sheer effrontery, or her surprise at what happened next. She saw the man jerk, like a cut-out in a shadow-play, as if invisible strings holding him up had been jerked. Then she heard the thudding of his feet on the gravel as he tore along the path beside the house to make good his escape down the drive.
    She stayed where she was for a few moments. She was shaking, but felt strangely elated, as if she had just run a race and reached the finish line far ahead of the other contestants. She thought she should be feeling frightened, but shedid not; she had done exactly what Percy Brown had implied one should do to burglars. You should say boo, and then, exactly as he had predicted, they would run, or scarper, as he put it. He had been talking of a metaphorical boo, but she had taken him at his word and done as advised, with the result that she now saw.
    La crossed the lawn, back towards the house. Then, following the path round towards the back, she found herself on the drive. She felt no fear now as she walked down to the point where the drive joined the lane; the intruder would be well down the road now, heading back to wherever he came from; which must be, she thought, her village, or possibly the neighbouring village two miles away on the Bury road. That thought unnerved her; the idea that this sleepy little place could conceal somebody given to creeping round—and into—the houses of others was not a comfortable one. And yet criminals had to live somewhere; burglars had their neighbours, as indeed did murderers. Such people also had jobs, in many cases; worked alongside workmates, stood or sat beside them in the pub; passed the time of day with others at the bus-stop. In spite of all this, of course, such people still did the things that they did: looked through windows, forced doors, and worse; even if it must have been more difficult for them than their city equivalents. In the city crime was anonymous; here it was personal.
    From the edge of the drive, La noticed a light atIngoldsby’s farmhouse in the distance, in spite of the lateness of the hour. Agg was up, or Mrs. Agg, perhaps, baking bread in the kitchen. She toyed with the idea of going over there right away, to tell her that that there was a prowler on the loose. Mrs. Agg was proud of her Aylesbury ducks, and if the prowler was a thief—and he must be—then a duck would be a tempting target. But she decided not to go; she had no torch and the car was put away in the garage. She would go tomorrow.
    She was at the back of the house now—the side that faced the lane—close to the kitchen door, from which she had left the house to go into the garden. She made her way to the door and pushed it open—or was it already open? She stopped. She tried to remember: Had she left it ajar when she had gone into the garden, or had she closed it behind her? She closed her eyes. She had been at the kitchen window when she had seen the flapping of her blouse on the line; she had opened the door—she remembered the light from the door falling across the stone paving outside and then … then she had closed it because she