She climbed three flights of stairs, resting between floors, hardly breathing even then from the stench of urine. She held the four carrier bags of groceries up in the air for fear of putting them down, into who knew what.

Finally, she turned onto the landing and she peered over the ledge as screams stabbed the echoing quadrangle from the desolate gardens below.

As expected, nothing to see there. But as she reached her own uniform council-blue door, she immediately knew something was wrong. Splinters of wood and crunchy shards of glass littered the concrete floor beneath her feet and as she looked up, she saw where it came from.

It had taken little real effort from someone who knew how fragile these door frames were. However many locks and bolts tried to keep out the scum that frequented the block, they were barely less than tissue paper with the right equipment.

“Anyone there?” she shouted through the gap between door and frame, “Come on out now, there’s nothing for you in there.”

Not a sound leaked back to her.

She nudged the door back with her elbow and clunked the heavy bags against the wall as she took tentative steps inside, peeping into each room she passed on her way to the kitchen, where she put her load down to rest.

She walked back to the door and closed it as best she could. She looked upstairs and shouted once more.

“If you’re up there, get yourself down. I’m waiting for you.”

She was more confident now, for she was a powerful force to reckon with, in her own domain.

Nothing. The place was empty. And she breathed a little easier now.

As she turned back towards the kitchen, preparing to put the shopping away, she looked into the parlour and realized straight away that something was wrong. It took a moment to sink in and right then and there, she began to sob.

There was a raging in the hall and the young man crunched through the front doorway and found her, tears streaming down her face.

“Nan. Nan,” he shouted in a panic.

He came and put an arm around her as if in protection, but she pointed a finger across the room, without words to explain the reason for her distress.

“No. No. Where is it? Where’s it all gone?” He shouted now and she shook her head from side to side, “They’ve been and taken it. All of it.”

The three full plastic bags were not there any longer. They had been sitting on the mantlepiece since they were delivered. She and the boy had divided them very carefully into the three equal bags of the vital powder. And were now there no longer.

“It’s all gone. They’ve robbed us, lad,” she explained, “And they’ve taken it all.”

He went over to the fireplace and ran his hand along the top of the mantlepiece. As if by doing so he would be able to magic them up with a simple sweep across the cold smooth surface.

Which he was not able to, of course.

With fear in her wide eyes she asked, “What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know, Nan,” he replied, “But I’m going to find them and get it back.”

“No, lad, don’t. It’s too dangerous.”

But he was gone out the door and she could hear his running footsteps disappear down the corridor towards the stairs.

She sat herself down, still looking at the wall opposite where they had been. So carefully placed; so exactly measured out. How would she tell them it was all gone?

It had seemed a little tasteless somehow, to use plastic bags for it. She used freezer bags with the little plastic zip lock to keep everything where is would need to be, nothing lost. For every fragment; every tiny morsel was important to everyone involved.

After a few moments, she sighed a deep sigh and composed herself. She went into the kitchen as she considered who she would call first. It would not, of course be one call, for that was the reason for the careful division. She did not know the intended destination of each of the bags, but she did know that each of the recipients had different ideas for the contents.

She thought of that island just off Oban on the West coast of Scotland. Kerrera, she thought it was called. Of the bleak and deserted castle ruins on the Southern-most tip. Of how it looked out over the Firth of Lorne. Jerry would be the one who had that onerous task. She would call him first.

Then it was to the blindingly white beaches of St Petersburg on the Gulf of Mexico. She pondered on how they might have been able to take their precious cargo with them by plane, but now that was a bit of an irrelevance, looking back into the room with the bare shelf her focal point. The other option had been that little garden, just beneath the railway station at the gates into Disney World. That had been touted for another place and if so, maybe there could be a division made that could enable both possibilities to be served, over in Florida. Joanne and the kids would have been the ones to look into that, for they could make a holiday of it. There would be enough in the kitty to pay for that now that he had gone.

And her third—well, she hadn’t decided yet.

The kettle boiled and she made a pot of tea. Yorkshire Tea had been their staple for years; decades even and she smiled as she poured the first cup. He had been very particular about how it was made. The water had to be boiling; the pot (which had—of course—been warmed) left for exactly three minutes before a final stir and poured. He always poured half into one cup and then all into the second, to return to the first with the final pour, thus ensuring that both cups received the same strength.

She took hers back into the room and settled down again. The tears were past, though how she was going to break the news was still making her nervous.

The little bastards—no respect for anything. It was then that she chuckled, just a little at first. Then she erupted loudly into spasms of laughter and the new tears were of an unbridled joy such that when she stopped, she looked about her to make sure that there was no-one about to witness her mirth-filled behaviour, for in some ways it was unbecoming in the circumstances.

Then she laughed out loud once more, for good luck.

She pictured them, wherever they were right now, divvying up their spoils like dogs with two dicks, so clever they thought they had been. Even smaller bags, just for the purpose, would be receiving their valuable and deadly cargo, ready for exposure to the wider world.

She saw the little scroats already counting their money in their little stupid heads and calling their channels to come and collect and get out there on the streets. She wondered whether they would test the stuff before sending it on its way, or they would make an assumption that would inevitably be their downfall.

But what had really made her laugh was the grit in that off-white powder. Those tiny specks that you can’t get rid of during the process. She’d been surprised by it when she’d had the box delivered and natural curiosity had caused her to have a look and even a little feel. The bits in it were not what she expected, but then again, she realized, what had been?

She thought that they would be too greedy to test this time, what with their windfall and she smiled again as she realized another connection. The wind, surely a likely conduit for the final destination of that pretty package she’d received and then divided up for the relatives.

She realized that in their greed, they would send it out to the streets right away and only then maybe, as a celebration, would they try it out for themselves and take a sniff. And then it really would come to bite them.

The acrid powder with the tiny bits of grit would hopefully make them cough and how he would have loved it. She could hear him laughing right now from on high.

Maybe he would give up the fresh cold sea air that would swirl him up on that Scottish island. Maybe he would forgo an eternity mixed with the warm white sand of a Florida beach. Perhaps, willingly, he would laugh louder at such fun than he might in the theme park he loved.

The joke would be on them and as he lived, he died, leaving a legacy of an outcome he didn’t deserve, but one which he would have loved too.