63. Back at Lövånger
In which an email arrives…
At a little before midday the same morning, @Hedgehogforshort’s phone buzzed in her pocket.
She was outside the last cottage in the second row at Lövånger with @EdithStourton, @JanesLittleGirl, @NotAtMyAge and the dogs. They turned as one and looked at her. Hedgehog walked rapidly towards the church before she answered it. Brains followed her. Batshit stayed under the window with her nose against the glass.
“Gosie,” said Hedgehog. She listened for a long time, finally saying, “No. We’re still here. Nothing has moved.” She ended the call and returned to the women waiting near the cottage. They had moved away from the cottage itself so they could talk privately.
“The gerbils are safe,” said Hedgehog. “Gemma Glasswing arrived to check the Winchester crate, and Empressaurus called the police. Gemma has been arrested. MyrtleLion has the crate, and the police have assumed she will bring the crate to them as evidence.”
“That’s a relief,” said Edith.
“I don’t think the crate is going to be sent here any more,” said JanesLittleGirl.
“I agree,” said NotAtMyAge, “what will Gosie do now?”
“They are going back to the UK to stop the replica window going into Winchester Cathedral. Gosie said we should stay here and follow this crate as far as we can,” said Hedgehog.
“We’d better see what happens now, then,” said Edith
They returned to the cottage window. Batshit had not moved.
Inside, the woman was sitting at the long table with a cup of coffee, scrolling through her phone. The four panels still lay on the table. There was the bleep of a notification, and she opened her email account. After reading the message, she made a call.
NotAtMyAge leaned closer to the glass. “She says she has only four,” she whispered. “Should she send them immediately or still wait for the fifth one?”
The woman listened. “Tjugo minuter?” she said. “Ja. Okej.”
“A van is coming in twenty minutes,” said NotAtMyAge. “She said all right.”
“Who is she talking to?” asked Edith.
“She hasn’t said.”
JanesLittleGirl already had the keys in her hand. “I’ll bring the car round,” she said, “so we are ready to follow it.”
The woman ended the call, then went over to the crate and pulled out the packaging that had wrapped the four panes of stained glass. She began to rewrap the first panel. As she folded the padding over it, the light it cast on the floor disappeared. Batshit looked at the place where it had been, then up at Edith.
The woman wrapped the second panel, then the other two and placed them all carefully back in the crate. She took a hammer and some nails and secured the lid.
JanesLittleGirl parked the car a little way away from the cottage and everyone except Hedgehog sat in the car to wait.
Twenty minutes later a pale grey KS van arrived. The courier proffered her clipboard to the woman, who signed it and tore the sheet along its perforation, handed one half back and put the other in her pocket. The courier wheeled the crate into the delivery van, then turned around and left.
Hedgehog hurled herself into the passenger seat as JanesLittleGirl put the car into first gear and drove off after it at speed.
The van went south, back past the Sävar turning, and carried straight on down the road. On the edge of Umeå NotAtMyAge read a sign as it went by. “Flygplats. Airport.”
“Not the passenger side,” said JanesLittleGirl, as she followed the van past the terminal car park. “It’s going to the cargo area.”
She parked beside a wire fence where they could see the apron. A white aeroplane with no windows in its side stood with its cargo door open. A loader lifted the crate onto a pallet wating to be loaded onto the plane.
“I’ll find out where it’s going,” said JanesLittleGirl, and got out of the car. She walked into the cargo office as if she worked there. She came out three minutes later.
“There is a departures screen behind the counter,” she said. “One freight flight this evening to Stockholm, but the crate is flying onwards early tomorrow morning to Stansted airport.”
“How did you find all that out?” asked Edith.
“I asked,” said JanesLittleGirl. “People generally answer my questions.”
Hedgehog made a call standing by the fence, with one hand over her other ear.
“@MarieDeGournay. It’s Hedgehog.” She watched the cargo door start to close. “There is a crate arriving at Stansted Airport early tomorrow morning. Four windows from Fenella Burnish’s workshop. Somebody will collect it when it lands. We need to know where it goes.”
She listened.
“Thank you,” she said. “Ring me when you know.”
https://myrtlelion.substack.com/p/63-back-at-lovanger