The story so far: Ted's wife died. Moved to Station Road. Street is full of snobs who all dislike the Grimson family. Ted strikes up a friendship with Grimson child -Billy. Shows Billy precious necklace. Necklace goes missing. Read on.

This Chapter seems a bit static, but it's short and necessary.

Chapter 6.

This is the part of the story that I’m going to find really hard to tell.  There are two reasons for this.  The first is, when I think back to it, I still feel almost as upset and as sick as I did then.  The second reason is even worse, but I’ll come to that later.

 As I told you, I had decided I was never going to set foot inside that vicar’s church again for what he said about Billy.  So this particular Sunday I walked a good mile and a half to go to Saint Augustine’s.  Even though it was further away from home, it was closer to the cemetery, so it wasn’t too much extra walking for me.

 After the service I walked over to the graveyard to put some fresh flowers on Elsie’s marker.  This sounds a bit funny, but it was a bit like a club that cemetery.  Every week you’d see the same old faces paying their respects.

 “’Ow do Ted?” called old Alf.

 I could call him old Alf because as old as I am, he was old enough to be my father.

 “Fine Alf.  And you?”  I replied.

 “Doin’ okay.  See you next week.”

And he was off.  Back to his flat for a lonely lunch I suppose.

Now even though I missed Elsie very much, I was never one for moping around.  Life’s too short to be wasting it being miserable, especially at my time of life.  But this particular Sunday I couldn’t help myself.  It was beginning to get me down that my neighbours didn’t seem particularly friendly.  They were certainly not the sort of people Elsie would have enjoyed spending time with.  She never had a bad word to say about anyone and avoided people who talked behind other’s backs.

 “You never know when they’ll start on you,” she used to say.

I don’t suppose that would have bothered me that much if it wasn’t for Billy.  I really thought I’d made a friend there and I liked him very much, but I was worried that I’d said the wrong thing and upset him the day before.

When I got home I was tired.  It’s not every day a chap my age walks so far.  I was still feeling a bit maudlin and started looking through a few old photographs.  One thing led to another and I was soon thinking about the necklace and diamond I’d given to Elsie all those years ago.  I thought I’d go and have a look at it, so I got up and went to the sideboard to get the jewellery box.

My stomach lurched and it was a good job it was so long since breakfast or I might have been sick.  I looked where it should have been and then quickly scanned the rest of the sideboard.  No box.  Well, as you can imagine, I was frantic.  I searched the whole house from top to bottom, but even as I was doing it I knew I wouldn’t find anything.  I knew it should have been on the sideboard and I knew I hadn’t moved it.  At last I gave up.  I’m not ashamed to say that I sat down and wept.  Not for the worth of what had gone missing, but for the sentimental value.  Elsie had really loved that necklace and it was the only classy thing I’d ever been able to buy her.

When I finally got a grip on myself and stopped crying I started to get angry.  Who was the worthless little thief who had stolen it?

I knew.  It could only be one person.  Billy Grimson.  He probably did it while I was out in the kitchen getting the biscuits the day before.  No wonder he left looking a bit sheepish.  I can tell you, I was almost ready for murder.