65: The great bank heist (part two)

‘We’re on a schedule and I haven’t even been properly briefed.’

‘Need to know.’ It was early morning and we were sat in the car, covering the entrance to the old bank.

‘Just tell me why this isn’t just, common burglary then?’

‘I am a Trustee, you are a Trustee, we are entering our own property. It just happens to be outside normal business hours.’

‘And Fin?’

‘He’s our contractor, here to do routine maintaince on the security system he installed; testing it, involves disabling it.’

‘And my role.’

‘Observer, here to take pictures of anything of interest which may happen, secure in the knowledge you cannot possibly incriminate yourself. Besides, if we turn up anything interesting, I’ll be the one waking up the Chief Constable, before alerting our friends in the media.’

‘You mean, if there’s a haul, it already belongs to us.’

‘Well, morally, probably not. But we will be seen to do the right thing.’

‘But why all the drama of a dawn swoop?

‘Because the valve lies not in what may be recovered, but the story of how it is recovered. Right, here they come.’

‘Are we set? Everyone know what they’re doing? Gloves, check. Okay, Fin, here are the two keys for the side entrance.’

‘Where did they come from?’ Demanded Charlie.

‘They’re the spares, I palmed them the other day whilst Bernard’s attention was elsewhere.’

‘What!’

‘Well, what with all that card manipulation for the wedding reception, my hands kind of did it for themselves. Cat, these are the keys for the safe.’

‘They look right, according to Mr Chubb’s catalogue, circa eighteen fifty.’ He replied.

‘Oh my god.’ Murmured Charlie.

Cat produced two cans of aerosol, one merely fresh air we were assured, the other the latest refinement of jet engine lubricant. Having blasted out dust and dirty, he held up each key, lightly sprayed them with magic oil and let them drop into the keyholes. ‘This could take a while, the mechanism will have a hole on the other side, when this liquidises again it may drip on whatever’s in there. I’ll do lots of gentle jiggling, but eventually one key will turn clockwise, the other anti, so the bolts withdraw from the side panels.’ After a while one key just kept turning, trying the other in the opposite direction, it worked too. ‘Now, the lid has to be lifted off, it has no complete hinge, just these groves that it sits in. There you go.’

We stared into the abyss. The only item, was some sort of smallish rectangular shaped leather holdall. ‘Kind of thing an engine driver might carry, room for a metal flask, bacon and eggs for frying on the fireman’s shovel.’ So offered Fin.

‘I’ll try the handles.’ Said Cat. Almost immediately he paused; ‘It’s heavy, there’s a fair chance these handles will give way. Fin, Charlie, get your hands underneath it as soon as you can.’

As soon as it was safely on the floor, Cat undid the straps and pulled back the cover.

‘Kitchen foil!’ Exclaimed Charlie.

‘Wooden lining, then lead foil.’ Corrected Cat. He peeled back one side, then the other. They lacked any lustre, they were small ingots and looked roughly made from a poor mould, but they were the right colour. There was a note, in copper-plate on a stiff placement card of some sort, it read; ‘I am the last of the Crimean gold.’

‘Well, well, who’d have thought. The sly old bugger, he primed me and I didn’t even know it. He didn’t know himself, just a gut feeling.’

‘Who? Your father?’ Charlie spoke.

‘I was only about ten, out of the blue one day he said; “Let’s take the afternoon off, go see a movie”. In this very city would you believe, The First Great Train Robbery starring Sean Connery. Of course, coming back into the light afterwards I must have said something like; “Was it a true story, did it really happen?” Then he explained, it was mostly fantasy, but there had been a real robbery, first of its kind, of the London Bridge - Folkestone boat train in the eighteen-fifties, a transfer of gold coins and bullion between London and Paris banks to balance the reserves, since onward payments for the war in Crimea would come from the French banks.’

‘Time-check please, Tony.’ Asked Cat.

‘Christ!’ I stepped forward and took a close-up snap of the exposed ingots and note. ‘Right, I’ll text that, to you know who. Now, Charlie, a variety of photos of the whole scene, show context, show safe as well, no people but something to show scale, we’ll all step back in the corner. Now, the call. Ringing. Ah! Good morning, Chief Constable, I’d like to report the discovery of stolen property, property of the Crown I have reason to believe. ..I’m using the same device I’ve used before, location activated. Thought I ought to inform you immediately on account of any moment now, cleaning services will enter the building, be surprised that alarms don’t go off, flip the switch, discover the alarms do go off; but anyway, your colleagues may get prolonged flashing lights, I thought you might care to take personal control?’

Next, I took a look at Charlie’s pictures; ‘There’s just one to add. Charlie, stand about there, take off your gloves, pick up an ingot and make like you’re holding a winning lottery ticket.’

And she did. ‘Right, here’s your phone back. Text the pictures to Wooley now, may take several texts, no words; then wait for him to call you.’ Then the alarm system went off.

‘How long before the police arrive?’ Asked Cat.

‘Depends who’s in the vicinity. Depends who gets informed. We’ll open the basement door, indicate our presence, we don’t want unnecessary strangers and chaos throughout the building.’

‘I’ll go first,’ said Fin, ‘I’ve met some of the cleaners before. Besides, I’d like to get to the nearest video panel, see what’s happening in the street.’

We hung back as Fin proceeded with caution. After a minute or so there was conversation above. Another couple of minutes and Fin called me; ‘You’re on speaker,’ I responded.

‘There were just a couple of rozzers standing by their car, next to your car as it happens, you’ll be illegally parked in twenty-three minutes by the way. Anyway, madam just arrived, with another male officer of some sort.’

‘Right, make sure all aspects of the security system are switched back on, as in normal working day, then back here as fast as you can. Charlie, gloves back on now those pics are sent.’

‘This had better be good Anthony, just because you’re connected, doesn’t mean I won’t nick you for wasting police time. Please put your phone down Sparkwell. Oh Christ, you’ve got the whole placed wired, haven’t you?’

‘Meet Fin Heptonstall here, he installed it all, including the latest facial recognition technology. Perhaps, if you would allow Charlie to take a picture of you with the haul, she’ll text it to The Beacon, it might get into print along with all the others she’s already sent, then you’d have praise showered upon you by a grateful nation...’

‘We’ll see about that. Okay, let the dog see the rabbit.’

It was after we’d all departed the scene, leaving everything to forensics, that the Chief Constable suddenly paused; ‘I’ve just realised, its bloody you. Isn’t it? Last week I got a memo about what facial recognition software we’re supposed to buy, it said a demo could be provided by Brinkley Associates.’

‘Tried and tested commercial software, off the shelf, at the normal commercial rate. You know, where you went wrong with that previous system was trying to use your old mugshot database and just round up the usual suspects...’

‘Shut it! For almost two years now I’ve been forced to waste countless hours reading documents about you two. Orders from on high. You want to know what conclusion I’ve come to? Charlotte, despite straying, on several occasions, has always wanted to play it straight, whilst you, have a clean record, all the privileges, but are forever tempting provenance, be warned, I always get my man.’

‘Well, I would love to chat more, it’s just that we must get going, otherwise in two minutes time you’ll be entitled to slap a ticket on our car.’

End of season five.

47: Sparkwell's virtual world

Legally speaking, we were pushing it. Sparkwell and I moved stealthily around the club interior for the better part of a day in the company of a long-time, tech savvy associate, one Fin Heptonstall, hired exclusively for six weeks, with the promise of another month or so of work developing a second website, if all went well with the Park. Charlie was tasked with dressing and lighting the set. I set to, creating a roaring fire with the idea that it should be the focus of the whole experience. Wood that had been a bit green at Christmas, now looked, felt and smelt much more useful.

‘My point is, Fin, this is only going to be seen by members, people very familiar with this lounge, the bar, dining area, spa, games room and the ballroom; the extremely distorted perspective of a Google, just won’t do. Equally, the ambience must be of an escape from the mad world outside. So, even if you end up with something more modest, like just one or two static viewpoints in each room, the realism of traditional photography is all. See what I mean?’

‘Sure, actually, that’s an editing problem, doesn’t effect what I do today, today I just do everything from the user’s, member’s point of view to the highest speed and fidelity I can, leaving maximum choice in the editing. Wow! How do you do that?’ I’d shocked him by making the fire so quickly, judging the draft just right. There is no better hypnotic than an open wood fire, nothing more natural.

I helped Fin unload from his van. The kit all seemed a bit Heath Robinson to me, but he declared that the trick was to mount the roving-eyed camera and gyroscopic what’s-it atop a movie industry standard, steady-cam support. ‘Now what I’m going to do is a comprehensive, all spaces thing first, then ask you to show me four or five typical walks through the building, where you’d stop, where you’d sit etc. All done to and from the fire, I think?’

‘What an excellent idea.’

Fin became particularly excited when he saw the ballroom all lit up. Charlie had made sure it was all in conference mode, with the slightly elevated stage and the screen behind. ‘Can you green-screen yourself at home?’

‘Er, only in a very limited sense, like a head and shoulders shot at my desk. Medium close-up, local newsreader style.’

‘Still, you could do a sort of Big Brother, message from your leader thing, seen from the back row here it would give the illusion of big screen cinema.’

‘Not really my style, I leave that kind of thing to Buffy Trumpton.’

‘Of course, you know him don’t you. Is he a bit of a fascist then?’

‘Oh no, he lacks the intolerance that comes with an ideology. No, Buffy is a naughty boy, not a crook. He’s also lucky. Happy to be thought of as a buffoon. But above all willing to go where angels fear to tread. Who dares wins - but a bit shaky as to where he wants to get to, and certainly no map reader!’

A day or so later at the apartment, Charlie commented; ‘We seem busier than ever, whilst the rest of the world is coming to halt.’

‘There are two sorts of people as far as I can tell. Those who see uninvited change as an opportunity to up their game and those who just want to huddle down.’

‘I think it’s becoming about insiders and outsiders, mind you the insiders rely a lot on their cars.’

‘A lot of driving around but not really going anywhere you mean?’

‘And a sort of superior designer mask when visiting the one-stop out of town shopping experience.’

‘The media talks a lot about the mental health implications of isolation, they don’t seem too worried about not being able to read others emotions through a mask!’

‘You can tell a lot from gait, even the way people point their feet.’

‘True.’

‘Julia! What’s the problem? You’ve gone quiet.’

‘Why do you look like you’re in a high definition, Technicolor version of your flat, whilst I look like I’m on grainy old black and white tv?’

‘Because you’re trying to run Windows 10 on a knackered machine, which won’t even accept the full standard package.’

‘Why do we have to do things like this anyway, what’s wrong with the telephone or writing letters?’

‘Because I’m going to tell you how, with your cooperation, I’m going to save your magazine and not leave you to go into debt. That fifty grand you stung me for a year and a half ago, will not be in vain. And what’s more, as soon as possible, I’ll personally come down and upgrade the two of you whether you like it or not!’

‘Oh lord. We don’t take kindly to being instructed, especially at our age.’

‘For goodness sake, this is twenty-twenty and you’ve only just turning sixty.’

‘Yes, but all this technology makes us nervous. I know what you’re going to suggest, our printers have been saying for years that the website and an app should be our main source of revenue, with a print edition half the size and with a much smaller run. I know some people think it’s already too late. We can’t even get our own .com name apparently.’

‘Julia, I hate to tell you this but, the Trust acquired thecountrywoman.com and crawfordspa.com years ago!’

‘I’m a bit nervous about this online consultation you think I can do.’ So said Charlie sat at my desk having just ended skyping a friend.

‘I think it’s all about creating the right atmosphere and getting the psychology right. I think you should work from your chair in the treatment room, when it’s alongside your table, as if you were working on someone’s hands. We set up Camera Two, fairly close-up, but a wide enough angle to see all the familiar stuff the client sees when settling down on the table. The background music can play as usual because it’s always behind you anyway, so the levels should be right when you speak, in fact start the music before connecting with the client. You, no matter what you see or hear from the monitor, carry-on in normal treatment room mode. See where I’m going with this?’

‘A person that I already know, looks weird on screen...’

‘And that might have nothing to do with their state of mind or physical condition in the here and now.’

‘But, oh god, if I instinctivly adjust my behaviour to what I see, they’ll experience what’s normally comforting as discomforting.’

‘I think so, that’s what we need to practice, me from here, you in the treatment room.’

‘They want the same feelings they always get.’

‘Yeah, you change nothing, they want to see you in your normal environment, doing your usual things, that’s what will be therapeutic. But you may not see a meaningful response, you may not register any of the normal positive feedback.’

So, we experimented. ‘It would be better if I saw no picture at all, just audio, the tone of voice, the way people say things.’

‘Yes, but believe me it’s only a question of practice, the brain uses selective attention all the time, it has too, you just have to consciously hack it for a while until it becomes a habit.’

‘Well not too much. If we self-isolate from each other we’ll be crazy within days!’

Then my mobile rang. ‘I see. ..Right. ..Well, thank you for letting me know.’

Charlie had returned from the treatment room. ‘Hospital?’

‘She’s worse, organs failing, end of life stuff, apparently they were going to try for some kind of emergency transfer somewhere, but she gave clear instructions not to. They all think they’ve all got it, but everyone is responding differently. I’d better do a bit of a ring round.’