Previously...

A pair of suspicious buyers turned up at the door with our address. A football match between two teams of different coloured play-doughs. And I realised my mum had been cloned. (Read the previous post for more detail).

A few days had passed since the suspicious characters turned up unexpectadly at our household door, claiming to have been a suitcase. The image of that man that had accompanied the woman had been bouncing around in my head for ages: long brown beard with grey streaks, great blackened eyes like two blazer buttons, a navy blue cap on with a slight tear at the front and, most distinct of all, an orange high-visibility jacket over his shoulders. He seemed very familiar, but tbh, everyone looks familiar when all you can see is a blurred face. 👓

The account had been deactivated. We approached other people who seemed to be in similar situations and attempted to explain what is happening but they refused to accept it. They were entirely sure that there is no way someone had broken into their house and take an item as big as a suitcase without anyone seeing them enter the property. But then something crossed my mind: what if it was someone we knew and had allowed them access to our homes.
I leapt out of the chair and ran around the house searching. PAPER. PEN. PAPER. PEN. Ah! Paper. I took out a sheet of paper, folding it in half whilst trying to find a pen. There! I snatched up the pen, leaned down on the granite worktop and began frantically writing down names and people that had been to our house. I phoned the other residents I had contacted before and asked them to make a list of all visitors - even family - that had been to their home and to bring me the list to my house by hand (no point in wasting  stamp if you literally live a sneeze away).
After a couple hours of continuous pacing across the living room floor, the lists began flying through my letterbox. There was a constant metallic thudding coming from the letterbox for about a further hour before I had them all. I spread them across the dining room table before reading them individually and comparing them to each other to find any common visitors: 'Postman, driving instructor, parents, the water man, parcel man, builder, postman, shopping delivery, leaflet posters. It was very difficult to find a common visitor between all the lists but one stuck out more than everyone: the postman. He visited people's homes everyday; he knew where people lived and what the houses were like security-wise but there was no way he would be able to enter the house through the front or back without the surrounding homes seeing him. And being a postman, it would seem very suspicious if he was seen wondering round the back of a house.

I went through the lists numerous of times before successfully failing to find anyone that could have possibly been able to enter our house and steal a suitcase. That evening, I sat round the table - top corner, facing the rest of the family so that I can see what they are all doing and furthest away from the constant hustling from my siblings getting up and sitting down to get a drink. As I was scraping the last few bits off my plate, the lists were flying in front of my eyes (well, not literally): postman, water man, builder, driving instructor...Surely one of these had got to be it.

I woke up the next morning suddenly at the realisation that both a builder and the water man had access to the houses. I immediately dialled various numbers and asked them if they had had builders of some sort round their homes, many of which said yes. I had got it! Not only can a builder access the gardens of your home, they can access the inside of the home and help move items out of the way for the building to begin. But there was still one link to make: the link between the two people wandering round houses claiming they had bought a suitcase and the builders. Perched upon my seat, I continued to ask the people for  description of what their builders looked like: bald, no beard, short etc. None of what they described fitted the man that was at the foot of my door with his female accomplice. Maybe he had dressed up with a fake beard or something. No chance. You only see that sort of stuff in films. After further thinking, I realised something. I had missed one big thing out that would help narrow down the link: if it was a builder, how would they have got into my property because no-one around us had any building work done at all?
This just left the water man.

It was a sweltering hot day. Sat in the garden, I asked my mum if we had a man come to check the water meter and all that rubbish. I soon discovered that we did have one come to our house early the following morning after the man and woman had kncoke don our door. 🤦. If I had known this as soon as it had happened I would have been further along to finding out what had happened. I could have seen what he had looked like. Again, I ferociously typed in the numbers of the other tricked sellers and asked them the very same question: "Have you had a water man come and check your meter?". They all, after some confused questioning back, said....YES! The link had been made. There was something happening between the water man and the missing suitcases. But I had no idea if the water man was the same man as the one who came to the door claiming that we had unconsciously sold his lady-friend a suitcase because I wasn't aware that he had even come. I turned to my bewildered mother but she couldn't remember a face either. Next I asked around if anyone could recall what the man looked like that checked their water meters: beard, cap, high-visibility coat, and TWO BLACK BUTTON EYES. They told me that they could never forget the strange eyes that appeared to be glass with a large black circle painted onto the surface.

I had seen someone with a very similar description somewhere, the man in the screenshot we took of the profiles of the man and woman that came for the suitcase. Now, if he was the water man, eveything makes more sense. He was able to access our homes, be left alone to do his work, and move around our property without any of the neighbours suspecting a thing. But one thing still didn't make any sense: why did they need all the suitcases. It was time to call the police. (Yes ik we could have done that in the start but where's the fun in that? Plus we were too busy destroying the neighbours in our tanks 💣💥 - it's still going on!)

After the police had been filled in on what was happening, they went on to find the names of the woman and more importantly the 'water' man. The names, of course, were not familiar with anyone and they had apparently stolen more than 20 suitcases (would've said 100 but that doesn't sound legit😂-then again does any of it). We thought our minds had been put at rest, that we had simply been involved with some crazy suitcase hoarders (whatever floats your boat) but we were fsr from right.

One week later, whilst watching the news, we saw the 'Breaking News' banner flash on screen - "15 bodies distributed between 20 suitcases have been found dumped in a large water reservoir outside the town. They were discovered by the reservoir maintenance group in charge of cleaning out the water."