When a young French student had parked his old, dented 2CV, in front of an estate agency in a small seaside town on the East coast of England, he had an absent-minded look at the properties on offer in the window. When he realised how ridiculously low the asking price of a grand palatial house was, he walked in, asked to view the house, and bought it on an impulse, to the shocked horror of his mother and friends. Little could he guess that he was hopping into a trap that would cause him to be followed by the police in several countries, and even offer him an opportunity to discover what it was like to be remanded in custody, all that without ever realising what he was wanted for. Meanwhile, he had made friends for life in the town, and would never be able to stay very long away from his family, his friends, his lovely house, his job a couple of miles down the road, or the local garden fete.