The rain had subsided by the time I arrived at the Ruffley estate, a sprawling mansion on the outskirts of Melbourne. I’d been hired by Chris Ruffley, who’d reported that his father’s glass installation had been destroyed. Before I could get started on my investigation, I needed to meet with the family and gather some initial information. Mostly, I wondered if any of them had a history of

As I stepped out of my car, I was met by Chris and a young woman. 

“Thank you for coming, Ms Callahan,” Chris said, leading me into the mansion. “This is my sister, Emily.”

“Pleased to meet you,” I said, shaking Emily’s hand.

Chris led us to a spacious living room, where we sat down on plush couches. “So, we’ve visited the scene of the crime, but what can you tell me about the glass installation?” I asked.

“It was our father’s pride and joy,” Emily said, her voice cracking with emotion. “He spent years working on it. It was the centrepiece of his art collection.”

“And now it’s gone,” Chris added, his face set in a grim expression. “We need to find out who did this. It’s not like I can book Melbourne glass repair to get it fixed, so we need to bring them to justice.”

I nodded. “Of course. Do you have any idea who might be responsible?”

“We have our suspicions,” Emily said, her eyes narrowing. “There are a few people who had a grudge against our father.”

“Such as?” I prompted.

“Well, there’s our cousin, James,” Chris said. “He was always jealous of our father’s success.”

“And then there’s our former housekeeper, Mrs O’Malley,” Emily added. “She was let go a few months ago, and she didn’t take it well.”

“Those are no good,” I said. “In my vision, while touching the shattered glass, I heard the word ‘dad’ whispered as the crime was done. Therefore, the only possible suspects are you two. Unless you have another sibling?”

Emily and Chris shared a look before they both turned to me and said, “Ricky.”

Do you ever just feel so excited about something that you have heaps of built-up energy and really need to find a well to expel it? That’s the situation that I’m in right now. I just want to run around like a dog that’s really happy and keen to show it. If you don’t know what that looks like then I’m very sorry, you won’t understand the analogy. But even worse, you won’t have seen one of the purest things in animal kind and that’s even worse. If I were you, I’d try and find videos of dogs doing it because it really is a sight to behold.

Anyway, back to what I was saying. Because I have so much built-up excitement, I really have the urge to smash something. I know that sounds bad, but I don’t mean it in a destructive way. I just need to give myself a release for this energy that is brewing inside of me. See, if I were to give in to my temptations (which is something that I really want to do), then I would do it and then clean up the mess straight away. Part of me really wants to kick in and smash the glass balustrades on my staircase, but if I was going to do that then I’d call a premium glass balustrade company in Melbourne straight away and get them to come and install new glass balustrades the very next day.

See, I’m not trying to do any damage to my house or my belongings. I just want to release!!!!!!!! Ah. I’m going stir crazy in here. If I don’t get outside in the next two minutes, getting our glass balustrade replaced isn’t going to be the only thing we need to do. I might just look up the number of a company offering residential glazing while I’m outside, just in case I come inside with the pent up energy still brewing inside of me. I have a feeling that will be the case, so it’s better to be prepared.