Diamonds

Graham and Joe are in the corner of a field, looking for a key in the long grass beneath a tree. An owl looks down on them from a branch above.

Graham says, "I've been thinking about how we could pay Jackie, just in case we lose the bet."

"We'll only lose the bet if we can't find the bloody key."

"Yeah, but you can never be absolutely sure about these things anyway. I've been thinking about it, and here's an idea. And don't say no straightaway. Think about it first. We could steal diamonds from the Mahon's house."

"That's stupid."

"It's interesting that you said it was stupid and not wrong."

"It's stupid and wrong."

"Think about it first."

The house is on a hill just outside the town. There's woodland nearby, and a small lake in the valley beneath. The house is two-hundred years old now, and it's starting to show signs of age. To pay for the repairs, Henry Mahon has stocked the lake with fish, and people pay to fish there. He's also setting up an equestrian centre.

"Why the Mahon's house?" Joe says.

"Their eldest daughter is having an affair with a blacksmith, so they'll be a bit distracted now. It's the perfect time to strike."

"Isn't she the actress?"

"She's a model."

"Why is she having an affair with a blacksmith?"

"I don't know. Probably to annoy her parents. Which is perfect for us."

"How is their daughter's affair with a blacksmith going to make them more susceptible to being robbed?"

"They're just... Well maybe that isn't such a help to us, but this thing is so easy anyway. We even have the woods to hide in if anything goes wrong."

"I didn't know that blacksmiths still existed."

"The Mahons keep horses, and he does the shoes for the horses. That's probably where he met her."

"Didn't you go out with her sister once?"

"No."

"I thought you went to Dungarvan with her."

"I... No."

She once threw a vodka and Red Bull in his face, and this somehow expanded into a story about the two of them going to Dungarvan.

The owl in the tree above is having trouble staying awake. His eyes slowly close, and he leans slightly forward.

"Why do you want to steal diamonds?" Joe says.

"Because she has diamonds waiting to be stolen. They're not in jewellery or anything - just diamonds on their own, in a small bag. Alan was saying she won them in a competition, but I don't know what sort of a competition you'd win diamonds in. She keeps them behind some books in the library. They're not in the safe at all. I don't know where the safe is anyway."

"How do you know about this?"

"Alan told me."

"Who's Alan?"

"He's the guy who lets people drive over his head."

"Well how does he know?"

"He wouldn't tell me that. He says he was doing some work in their garden and he ended up in the library, but he wouldn't tell me any more than that."

"What books are the diamonds hidden behind?"

"He said to look out for a book about glue, but it's not really a book at all."

"What if they hear us?"

"They'll just think it's Isobel coming home with the blacksmith. THAT'S how this thing will help us. I bet they're always waking up to the sound of herself and the blacksmith in the middle of the night. Can you imagine a blacksmith trying to be quiet? And they stay out for half the night too. I heard that she was throwing flower petals in the lake with him at three o' clock in the morning."

"What was she doing that for?"

"I don't know. She's just a bit unpredictable. Like her sister."

Joe remembers being in a restaurant with his girlfriend last week, waiting for dessert to arrive. She said, "I painted the nail on one toe, but forgot about the rest. Look."

She showed him her foot. He didn't know what to make of it.

"I just don't understand women," he says to Graham.

"I'm sure poor old Henry is thinking exactly the same thing."

"Why do you want to steal from the man if he has enough troubles as it is?"

"We're stealing from his wife."

The owl's eyes widen, and he looks around, but after a few seconds he starts to doze off again.

"We're amateurs," Joe says. "How are we going to get away with something like this?"

"This is the best part of the plan. And we have Janet to thank for this." Janet is Graham's girlfriend. She once threw a drink in his face too, but that was for a dare. "She has this theory about crimes, that if you eliminate all other explanations, the only one left must be the truth, however unlikely it is. She got this from her Sherlock Holmes phase. Do you remember the time she broke her leg at the garden centre?"

"Yeah."

"She was getting people to sign her cast, and someone wrote the words 'I injured a donkey' on it. She put on a Sherlock Holmes hat as she tried to figure out who did it. It was something for her to do."

"And who did it?"

"I did, but that's not the point."

"Did you injure a donkey?"

"That's a different story. The point is, she put on a Sherlock Holmes hat and she started her investigations. Only she never considered the possibility that I did it. The only theory she couldn't rule out was that her sister did it because Janet had done something to her sister. I have no idea what that was all about. I just wasn't listening. It was something to do with a lamp, and Janet was convinced that her sister wrote that thing about the donkey on her cast as revenge."

"I REALLY don't understand women."

"So let's say we rob the diamonds, and we leave a pig behind us in the library. A small pig. All the possible theories of what happened are examined. They rule out most of them, and the only one left is that a pig did it. That's a difficult theory to disprove. They'd blame the pig. Or else they'd just forget about it rather than blaming a pig."

"What if there are only two theories left: one that a pig did it and the other that we did it. The least improbable one would be the truth then."

"Not necessarily."

"It would be if the most improbable one is that a pig did it."

"Wait a second here. Do you know Wayne who works in the off-licence?"

"Yeah."

"He said there was a hedgehog working in the off-licence for three years and no one noticed it. Well, it wasn't so much working there. But the point is, no one noticed it was a hedgehog. And then one morning when Wayne went into work, every bottle of brandy and 240 cans of Murphys were missing. He said, 'Hey Jimmy, what happened here?... Jimmy?' That's when he noticed for the first time that Jimmy was a hedgehog. And he says that this hedgehog used to sign invoices and things. So he says anyway."

"What does the hedgehog have to do with all that drink going missing?"

"That's the thing. No one knows for sure. Wayne is convinced that the hedgehog was involved somehow. He used to sleep there at night. But Wayne can't exactly accuse a hedgehog of it. It's the same with the pig. Leave a pig there and they'll suspect the pig. But who's going to accuse a pig of stealing diamonds. They'll just forget about it rather than accuse the pig."

The owl's eyes are fully closed now. He leans forward very slowly.

"Well why don't we use a hedgehog instead of a pig?"

"Wouldn't that be a bit too stupid?"

"Maybe, but... The whole thing isn't quite as stupid as it sounds, but still... No, it's still too stupid."

"Think about it. That's all I'm saying."

"We have to find the bloody key first."

The owl falls forward and spins all the way around on the branch until he's upright again. He opens his eyes suddenly and looks around. "I nearly fell asleep there," he says to another owl.