Love You Dead

95 Thursday 12 March

The mildly eccentric-looking lady, her face heavily made-up, dressed in a calf-length coat, woollen hat and old-fashioned glasses, looked every inch the elderly bohemian artist. She hobbled slowly through the door in the white facade of the corner store premises of Lawrence Art Supplies in Hove’s Portland Road, supported by her silver-topped walking stick.

She made her way to the counter and politely requested a large tub of aluminium powder and a hot-glue gun. She paid for them with an American Express card in the name of Mrs Thelma Darby. Five minutes later she emerged with her purchases in a carrier bag and approached the waiting taxi. The driver helped her in, passing her the stick and carrier bag after she was seated.

Then, as instructed, he took her to a nearby aquarium store. Thelma again asked him to wait, then entered the store. She came out a short while later with two carrier bags, containing four boxes of oxygenating tablets and a frozen white mouse.

Climbing back into the taxi, she asked the driver to take her to the plumbing supplies store on a nearby industrial estate, where she bought an eighteen-inch length of malleable steel pipe with screw-ends. Then, as a precaution, she changed taxis and ordered the next one to take her to an electrical store on London Road.

There she bought a mini Arduino relay that was just half an inch across, a mercury tilt switch and an assortment of USB memory sticks. The assistant behind the counter gave her an odd look, as if wondering how on earth a batty-looking old lady like this even knew what these things were, let alone what to do with them.

Carrying her purchases, she stepped out and turned right, walking along London Road, stopping at a chemist to buy a cold gel-pack, then at a hardware store where she purchased a short length of heavy-duty insulated wire, a roll of insulating tape and a pair of pliers. She hailed another taxi and instructed the driver to take her to a kitchenware shop in Western Road, where she made her final purchases of a small set of digital kitchen scales and a coffee grinder.

She then asked the driver to take her to the Jurys Inn Hotel, opposite Brighton Station.

As she made her way across the hotel foyer towards the lifts, leaning on her stick with grim determination, she was looking forward to getting down to work. Her shopping trip was complete and one hundred per cent satisfactory, no problems at all.

She didn’t do problems.