Chapter 7
Wednesday, April 21st. 2:30 pm.
The shop was unusually busy for a Wednesday. Unless people had anniversaries or birthday’s to buy for, or a repair is required for a watch or some other piece of adornment, Hatton Garden jewellers were usually pretty quiet, midweek.
Nicole rang the buzzer.
Victoria, even though she was preoccupied looking after a customer trying to find the right pair of earring for his wife, saw who it was and excused herself, as the man continued to browse through a selection she’d lifted out. Quickly she made her way to the entrance, and opened the door.
‘Sorry to keep you waiting.’ Her tone sounding a touch ruffled, ‘But I’m sure that every husband in London is looking for a pacifier today, trying to keep their wives happy, so they won’t suspect any indiscretions. This is the fourth man I’ve had in looking at the same thing. Earrings.’
Nicole looked Victoria straight in the eye.
‘Pacifiers?’ she grinned, ‘Sorry,’ she said slowly and with sarcasm, ‘jewellery doesn’t work. Flowers don’t work. Perfume doesn’t cut it. Even designer clothes do nothing these days. Only pound notes and sex hit the spot. Where is he?’
Victoria didn’t know where to look, after Nicole’s remarks about pound notes and sex, and could only respond with.
‘I think Mr Granger’s in the office.’
‘Are you and Becky working tomorrow?’
‘Yes,’ Victoria replied sounding a touch curios. ‘Mr Granger says that he wants us both in, and that you’re going to be here as well. You’ll be in charge, because he’s going to be fully occupied with a delivery.’
‘That’s good,’ answered Nicole, ‘we want everybody in if possible. Do you know whether or not Jim’s going to be working?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Victoria, ‘he seams to be in most days. The only day we don’t see him is Sunday, and that’s only because we’re closed. Being on his own since his wife died, I think he prefers to be here than being all alone at home in his bungalow.’
She paused to take a breath.
‘I know this may sound a bit nosey,’ Victoria was choosing her words carefully, ‘but why all the fuss. Mr Granger very often has expensive watches and jewellery delivered. And even if there’s only one of us on the counter, he usually deals with it without any problems?’
‘This is a bit different.’ remarked Nicole.
‘This delivery is a very, and I mean a very expensive gem, and Hartley’s not taking any chances. He’d prefer to have more bodies around, just in case of trouble.’
‘Are you expecting something going wrong then?’
‘There are a lot of interested parties wanting to get hold of this particular piece, so I think he’s just trying to be extra vigilant.’
Nicole realised that she needed to put Victoria at ease, rather than having her feeling over anxious.
‘Oh, but don’t worry. The minute the delivery is on the premises, it will be locked in the safe. And then if we’re quiet, it wouldn’t surprise me if Hartley lets one of you finish early.’
The phone started to ring.
But before Victoria could get to it, Hartley had picked it up.
After a few minutes, Hartley came into the sales area.
‘Nicole, Victoria. I’ve just had word that the delivery I’m expecting tomorrow will arrive at 9:30. So if everybody starts at their usual time, that should be fine.’
‘Shit.’ thought Nicole. ‘I’m going to have to get a move on.’
She glanced at her watch, it was 2:50.
Quickly she nipped into the office, opened the cupboard where the CCTV hard drive and monitor connections were housed. She yanked out one of the cables connected to the computer, hoping that that would do the trick. And even though nothing looked out of place, Nicole was keeping her fingers crossed that one way or another, she’d managed to dislodge something which would cause a problem.
‘Darling,’ she called, ‘there’s something wrong with the cameras.’
As Hartley was slowly walking round, carefully inspecting the four security cameras located in each corner of the shop, he called out.
‘Nicole.’
‘Yes.’ she replied trying to remain calm. However, inside she was feeling pretty anxious, wondering whether or not her act of sabotage had worked.
‘These cameras look fine.’ Hartley sounded somewhat none plus as to what she’d seen that would cause her to report a problem to him.
‘But I don’t think they’re recording.’
‘What gives you that impression?’ he was beginning to sound curious as he walked towards the office. ‘You’d have to go into the cupboard to see whether the red light indicator was flashing or not. That’s the only way you could tell if there was something wrong.’
‘But that’s what I did.’ she was flying by the seat of her knickers by now.
‘I was looking for the diary. And as it wasn’t on your desk in its usual place, I started to look round for it.’
‘But why the CCTV cupboard? There’s never anything in there apart from the surveillance equipment.’
‘I just thought you may have hid it in there, because it probably contains details of the gem that’s being delivered tomorrow.’
As Nicole was speaking, Hartley had arrived at the cupboard, and swung the doors open.
As soon as he opened it, he spotted that the red record light wasn’t flashing.
‘Well done.’ he was falling for her prank.
‘It’s a good thing you started rummaging round, or we would never have known the system was on the blink. I’ll get them to come out straight away, so that it’s working before tomorrow morning. I can’t take any chances on it not recording as it should.’
‘Thank fuck for that.’ thought Nicole, realising that she’d actually got away with it.
‘I’ll just go and make sure everything’s alright out front.’ she remarked, as Hartley lifted the phone handset and started to dial.
As her husband was waiting for his call to be answered, Nicole left the office but kept the door slightly ajar, so that she could eavesdrop in on his conversation.
‘Yes, this is Mr Granger from Granger’s Jewellers.’
It was clear that whoever had answered his call, had gone through their company spiel, and all Nicole could hear were his responses.
‘Is there any chance of getting someone over here ASAP. The system appears to have developed some sort of problem and isn’t’ recording.’
There was a silence as the person on the other end of the phone gave him their response.
‘I think his name’s Benny.’
Another silence.
‘Great, that’s much appreciated.’
Hartley sounded satisfied with the result of his call. But Nicole only just made it through into the shop, before getting caught skulking behind the partially opened office door.
‘The engineer’s on his way.’ said Hartley understandably pleased.
‘Is it the usual guy?’
Nicole wanted to be absolutely sure that it was the same man the Alf had blackmailed into fixing the system, by kidnapping his son.
‘Yes.’ Hartley sounded a touch none plus.
‘It almost appeared like he could have been expecting an emergency call.’ he remarked. ‘Because whilst I was put on hold so that the secretary could check whether or not he was available, she was surprised that he was still on the premises. Normally this Benny fellow would have left for home by now. Apparently, he likes to start early and finish early, so that he can get away. Bit of a home bird if you ask me.’
‘I’d call that a bit of good fortune, don’t you? At least it’s the same man who knows our system, and should be able to rectify the problem reasonable quickly.’
‘That’s true.’ he replied, seemingly satisfied that the issue had been resolved.