Another bit!

Friday August 20th 2004

I'm sure you're all simply dying to know what I found out about the kidnapping of a certain Mr Winton yesterday.

Well, once I got home last night, I opened my Detective Action pack, placed the deerstalker hat on my heed, placed the 'Kojak' lolly in my gob and set to work. I grabbed the magnifying glass, the mini notebook and pen and my fake ids, and off I went. Firstly, I scoured the road junction where the 'incident had occurred' (they tell you all the technical language you need in the handy guidebook that comes with the pack). Apart from some tyre marks, which only indicated that it was a front wheel drive vehicle, was manufactured in the late 90s, was driven by a heavy-set man with rather bad dandruff and that they'd paid little heed to the Highway code, it didn't really tell me much. I tried some door to door enquiries, but after three hours of saying 'No, I'm not selling encyclopaedias, I'm trying to solve a crime', I gave up.

However, just when I was about to turn for home, I noticed a trail of blue smarties, leading across the road into the local park. I followed it for a while, and it led to the children's paddling pool, in the middle of which a note was left tied to a brick. Fortunately there was no water in the pool, as I'd completely forgotten to bring my galoshes, and my suede effect brothel creepers don't react well to getting wet.

Anyway, I retrieved the brick, untied the note (noticing as I did that they'd used a clove hitch knot, with a double salco - ice skating sailors perhaps were involved?)

The note was one of those classic ransom notes, with letters cut from magazines to make up the words. I think it was either Playboy or Gynaecologist's Weekly that they'd used as there were some rather interesting images to accompany the letters, but I digress. It read: If you want to see Winton alive again, we want five hundred pounds, a getaway car and a subscription to Zoo. Oh, and some pork scratchings. We will leave another note telling you where to leave the money. Thank you.

Very polite for kidnappers, but still no clue as to who they are. I'll keep investigating.