The Next Day

John contacted the insurers and was allocated Northern Accident Repair in Rochdale to do the job. Next he went over to Halifax to pick up the Lowdham 'briefcase' of documents and give our benefactor a Sainsbury's gift card. He did not meet the man, but the site manager will make sure he receives it. They were a cheerful bunch and spoke of how much effort he had put into finding us yesterday.

In the afternoon both of us went into Rochdale to discuss the repair job with NAR. The manager thought it would be very expensive (around £600 installed) because Fiat will only supply a full lock kit (£460) for a complete vehicle lock replacement and it has to have its electronic bits validated by some specialist at £80 a visit. We thought this through - was it really worth doing? After all the locks still work from the remote control and can be alarmed. But the insurers know the vehicle has been broken into and pillaged. Surely they will insist on (a) new lock(s) to validate the insurance.

Whilst that was going on, Chris was having phone conversations with the police in Halifax who were showing some interest in our break-in because the previous day there had been an incident near-by involving a vehicle which the police suspect is related to car cloning. Later today a SOCO called to do a full finger print of the van, but she didn't hold out much hope of a result.

This is a continuing story.