Sentence The Fivehundredandthird 

And while Teri was busy texting her friend Ryanair – with lots of innuendo, suggestive words and phrases, quite out of keeping with her normally discreet and reticent communications with men, whom she usually tended to hold at arm’s length, especially Mr Murdoch MacMurdo, the eminent slyboots and decidedly lecherous surgeon who had been openly flirting with her in Theatre yesterday – Jasmine Juniper-Green was equally busy; she and Sam Smiles had spent the past two days keeping tabs on the group of men who had been at Ranulph Ochan'toshan's Hill House shaggery in Bowden: they knew that Duncan Doubleday had returned to his office at Police Scotland HQ in Edinburgh and seemed to be keeping his head down below the parapet; Larry 'Knickers' Lauderdale and his 'wife'

Christiane had gone straight to their little cottage in the village and had rarely been seen, except for some long-shots taken by an observer in a tree overlooking their back garden; Lauderdale's brother Gary, also a Police Officer, had sent in a sick-note and was skulking behind the closed doors and drawn curtains of his upper flat in a four-in-the-block in Newtown; Sir Parlane MacFarlane and his servant, Dominic Doubleday, had booked into The King's Arms in Melrose and appeared to be spending their time in the hotel bar, drinking at the expense of the taxpayer – the DCC having arranged for them to be given sufficient money to tide them over until forensic accountants had tracked down MacFarlane's own entitlement from whatever wealth had been in his belonging at the time of his disappearance in 1266 and could be identified through the wills and sasines of his descendants through the intervening centuries – he had also issued a directive that any officer who should asperse Ranulph Ochan'toshan and his chums would suffer instant suspension and dismissal, together with loss of all pension rights without benefit of appeal; and Ochan'toshan himself, together with his solicitor Mr Peter Boo WS of Edinburgh, seemed still to be house guests of The Duke of Albany at Albany Palace; Sam Smiles had organised a tap on all of the Advocate Martin Elginbrod's phones and internet devices, but the man himself had taken his family off to the Ayrshire resort of Trumpington Towers, where he was scheduled to have a game of golf with 'President' Duck Trumpet-Trousers early the next morning; and in a lull, Jasmine had called Teri for an update: “oh, Jas, he's so

sweet and keen, I've never met a man like him before,” and Jasmine interjected: “you haven't actually met him either!” and heard her cousin huffing down the line: “he's so cute and it's just a shame he's so far away,” said Teri and Jasmine laughed: “he's probably that phantom whistler round the corner – he whistled at me the other day, have you ever seen him?” and Teri admitted that she hadn't, just glimpses of a shadowy figure behind the rhododendrons which filled the front garden, “well, then, do you want me to do a check on his mobile, find out where he really is, see if it matches what he's told you?” but Teri objected: “oh no, that would be paranoid, I know where he is and who he is!” at which it was Jasmine's turn to huff: “okay, just don't do anything silly, like sending him sexy pics which could come back to bite you,” and Teri laughed: “chance would be a fine thing – no, Jas, it's just a bit of fun, and nice to be in contact with someone who's not involved in all the stuff going on here, it takes my mind off the worries about Gertie and Roxy and Tavish, Tammy and Bernie; do you have any clues about where they are?” but Jasmine held back from telling Teri everything she knew: “we're working on it, darling, I'll tell you more when I know more myself,” so Teri, accepting that even kissing-cousins still had to keep some things in abeyance, replied to the latest text with a big smile on her face and then turned back to the basket of laundry she had to hang up outside, telling

herself, don't be silly, Teri, he's just a man! one boy in a googolplex, the likelihood of him being the one for her was so impossibly unlikely that she pushed him out of her head and began hanging up the sheets from her basket, “but it would be nice to find out for sure if he is,” she murmured with a smile lighting up her face.