Until Proven Innocent 🤍 Net/James

Chapter 6 ~ gotcha ~

The following weekend Noel arrived at Man's house just before 9am again, he wondered what jobs he would be doing this weekend as there was very little he could see that needed to be done now other than general upkeep.

He let himself in and secured the door as usual then walked in to the kitchen. He took off his sweater and bag and deposited them on the counter before picking up the list which had an envelope full of cash beside it. Wash the upstairs windows inside, wash the upstairs curtains, strip all the beds, wash all the bedding and dust the study/home office being careful not to move any paperwork.

Noel looked at the list, there was a lot of laundry that he had to do but luckily the weather was good. He went up to the master bedroom where he had stashed his clothes and changed into his work outfit which was a baggy tee shirt and a pair of shorts. He left his pants and shirt folded up on a chair by the door.

The first thing he would do is strip all the beds and take the bedding downstairs, the sooner he got the washing machine going the better and he could leave it to do it's thing while he began the other jobs.

He decided to get the study dusted first then he could forget about that and concentrate on the upstairs windows. then depending on how that went he could wash the upstairs curtains tomorrow.

Gathering some dusters he went towards the study, he hadn't really spent a great deal of time in here other than checking the windows but it was a lovely room with one whole wall full of books on shelves, law books, history books, criminal psychology books and a few random crime thrillers.

Noel had a look around the room wondering where to start, he wondered if he was supposed to remove the books individually and dust them but his boss hadn't said that on the list so he decided to just dust the spines of the books and the visible shelf in front.

He worked his way across the shelves then moved to the large office desk which was covered in paperwork and other official looking item's. Noel was scared to touch anything but he decided to carefully lift things bit by bit and dust beneath them then place them back exactly where they had been.

First he started with the telephone, he lifted it, dusted beneath then placed it back down, he dusted the phone itself and the handset before moving on to a pile of business cards next to it. He slowly worked his way around the desk until he came to a tall stack of files.

Suddenly he heard a loud crash and he turned to try and hear where the sound came from at the same time knocking the files all over the floor. All the papers which were inside had fallen out and Noel looked in horror.

What he didn't know what that Man had arrived at the house about an hour after he had and let himself in through the cellar door. He was presently in the basement setting up his laptop to see what Noel was up to in his study.

He had purposely left files containing unimportant material on old cases laid around to see what Noel would do. Man had locked the cellar door from the inside so he couldn't be discovered but unfortunately he had lost his footing and fallen against some cans of paint causing one to fall and make a loud crashing noise.

Meanwhile, Noel listened out for any more noises but the house was quiet again so he just assumed something had fallen, he would check it out later, it was probably just the vibration of the washing machine.

Looking at all the paperwork on the floor he knew he had to pick it up and try to arrange it properly but where did he start? He would have to read some of the papers and just try and put sheets which looked like they were connected in the same folders. 

He sat down on the floor to begin, the papers strewn all around him as he began trying to place them in order, he just hoped he wouldn't get the sack for this. Down in the basement, Man accessed the webcam for the study, he wanted to see what Noel was up to.