What a day it has been!
Mark Lyle phoned Margaret to confirm the delivery time and venue, and it was agreed that he would hire a bakkie to collect the stock at Margaret's warehouse at 3.30pm.
Margaret then contacted the detective, who said he and his men would wait for us and the scamsters outside the warehouse gates, in plain clothes and at a discrete distance away, at 3pm.
Margaret and I then drove to the warehouse and, as arranged with Mark, waited outside the gates for the hired bakkie. It was reassuring to see the two cars parked on either side of us, each about a block away.
Mark kept in touch with us, letting us know when the bakkie would arrive as well as its description, which we promptly relayed to the detectives.
Our hearts started pounding as we saw the bakkie approach us, with two black guys in it, and we opened the gate with the remote and drove in, letting the bakkie to follow us in.
We parked and Margaret opened the warehouse door and they started loading the bakkie. In the meantime, I reopened the gates with the remote and the two unmarked cop cars swooped in.
Three detectives, one white and two black, approached the two delivery guys and questioned them. The guys acted dumb and claimed that they were simply hired by Mark to pick up stock for him. The detectives told them that, unless they led us to Mark, their bakkie would be impounded and they would be arrested on the spot.
They said they would cooperate, so one of them was told to get in one of the police cars, while the other was told to drive the bakkie to Mark. Both their cell phones were confiscated.
Margaret and I were told to go home and that we would be contacted when they had some news for us.
We had hardly got home, when the senior detective phoned us to please meet him at the police station.
We arrived there, and saw the bakkie parked there, occupied by one of the detectives. When we walked into the charge office we saw the two bakkie guys in cuffs, together with a third guy. Then we were called to the other side of the police station to find the other two detectives and three cars, with constables guarding them. We saw a fourth guy in cuffs in one of the cars.
The detectives explained that they had been led to a shop in town, where they arrested the two other guys and found all 50 boxes of paper, which was now filling up the three cars in front of us!
Mark Lyle was nowhere to be found.
The detectives then followed us to Margaret's shop, where they helped us carry the boxes into our safe keeping.
So, four crooks are in jail tonight and Margaret has all her stolen goods back.
The detectives will now cross examine the four guys to see if they can nab Mark Lyle.
We are both pleasantly surprised at the efficiency of the detectives and their friendly assistance in getting the stock returned.
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