Chapter 8
Wednesday, April 21st. 4:10 pm.
‘Hi, I’ve come about the CCTV system; I believe you have a problem.’ said Benny as he was greeted by Hartley who had been waiting by the front door, obviously expecting him.
‘Yes, please come through.’
As Hartley led the engineer through the shop on their way to the office, they passed Nicole who was stood behind the counter, attempting to look busy. With knowing what was going on, she didn’t want to make it to obvious that she was keeping an eye on things.
Within a couple of minutes, Hartley was back in the sales area.
‘He says it shouldn’t take more than half an hour.’
‘That’s good,’ answered Nicole, ‘at least we’ll be able to close the shop on time.’
Hartley went to the back of the counter, and started to chat with Victoria about their earring and bracelet stock levels.
She waited for a couple of minutes, and then as soon as she spied a chance, Nicole headed for the office.
As she closed the door behind her, Benny glanced over and smiled, not realising what was to come next.
‘You’d better do this right,’ said Nicole firmly, ‘or you’ll never see your fuckin’ lad again.’
Benny looked at her in sheer astonishment.
‘You know what’s going on?’ said Benny nervously. ‘But you work here.’
‘I don’t work here,’ she replied, ‘I’m Hartley’s wife. I own the place. So if you know what’s good for you, you’ll do the job right and no harm will come to your son. Understood?’
She didn’t wait for a response.
‘But, if this doesn’t work out right because you’ve fucked up, you’ll never see your boy again. My associate has no scruples, and has no qualms about blowing your lad away. And, just so you know, none of his other victim’s bodies have ever been found. He’s got an excellent method of disposing of corpses.’
The look on Benny’s face was of abject terror.
‘Right then,’ said Nicole, as though she was speaking to someone that had just come to service a washing machine, ‘I’ll leave you to it.’
All he could do was make certain that the CCTV system did exactly as his son’s kidnappers had instructed. It was the only way that he was going to be able to stop Keith from having his head blown off.
Suddenly, a terrifying thought ran though his mind.
He’d met Mrs Granger. Who was unmistakably in league with the criminals that were going to rob her husband’s jewellery store. The problem was. He could identify her.
This not only put his son’s life in danger, but also his own.
‘Concentrate man,’ he thought, ‘what the fuckin’ hell can I do?’
He pondered for a few seconds, and then it hit him.
‘USB.’
He knew that he had a couple of 64 gig USB memory sticks, which he’d used to check other company’s systems, when their hard drives had been corrupted or damaged. But they were in the van.
If he could just get hold of one of them. With his knowledge and expertise, he would be able to rig the Granger’s system. Make it appear to operate in the way that the robbers wanted. But set it, so that everything would record onto the USB, but not on the hard drive.
Benny had no choice but to go with his gut feeling.
He made his way back into the sales area, where Hartley, Nicole, and Victoria were busy dealing with customers.
Nicole spotted him out of the corner of her eye.
Excused herself to the customer she was attending to, and approached him.
‘Problem?’ she enquired, frowning suspiciously.
‘Yes, I need my soldering iron from the van.’ He was hoping that his acting skills were up to the mark.
‘For?’ she questioned.
‘One of the input cables has been damaged and needs to be soldered back in place. Otherwise the system won’t be able to process all the data necessary to record anything.’
Knowing that she was in full view of both staff and customers alike, and some of them must have overheard part of the conversation, Nicole played along, so as to avoid bringing suspicion upon herself.
‘I’ll open the door for you, so that you can go and get it.’
The two of them headed for the front door. And as Nicole was unlocking it to let him out, she managed to whisper.
‘If you’re fuckin’ us about you’ll regret it. It only takes one phone call, and your dear beloved Janice will be arranging two funerals, not one. Is that clear?’
‘Oh I understand alright.’ Benny was trying to be as calm as possible, but inside it felt like a stampede of raging bulls were stomping all over his guts.
‘I just need my soldering iron to make sure that the system does exactly what you want it to.’ he paused, and then queried. ‘Oh, and by the way, where’s that DVD I’m supposed to record onto the system?’
‘Don’t worry about that,’ she replied, ‘there’s been a slight change of plan. You just do what you’ve been told.’
Then without another word, Nicole opened the door and waited. Constantly watching him. She wasn’t going to let him out of her sight for a single second.
Benny quickly walked over to the van. Started to rummage around in a tool box trying to find his soldering iron. Having located it, he picked it up and managed to grab a USB stick which was lying on the top tier of the box, and slip it inside the irons cable, hopefully without being spotted.
‘Got it?’ questioned Nicole as she let him back in.
‘Yes.’ He arrogantly lifted the soldering unit up with his right hand to show her, keeping the cable and USB stick gripped firmly in his left hand.
‘Right then, you might as well go and get the job finished.’
When they got to the office door, Nicole quietly whispered.
‘Don’t forget. Fuck up and you can say goodbye to your son. And you’ll follow him, just as soon as the pain of losing a son has sunk in. Yes, we will make you suffer.’
If looks could kill, Nicole would have dropped dead there and then on the spot.
Benny went directly to the computer system, and logged into the settings menu.
It didn’t take long to reset the direction of the recording. Making sure that it didn’t record onto the hard drive, just on the USB.
He had to get this right.
The consequences were too dreadful to even consider.
So to make certain that he’d set it up correctly, Benny started the recording sequence, and after a minute, played it back on the monitor in the office.
Perfect. It worked a treat.
Nothing on the hard drive. But everything on his USB.
4:55 pm
‘All done.’ said Benny as he made his way out of the office.
‘It should work fine now.’
‘What was the problem?’ enquired Hartley.
‘It’d be a bit complicated to explain.’ replied Benny attempting to bluff his way through, without sounding like he was bullshiting.
‘But to put it simply, in layman’s terms, one of the contacts in the hard drive had burned out, that’s what I needed my soldering iron for.’
‘It’s OK now though isn’t it?’ enquired Hartley, ‘It’s not going to cause any problems tomorrow I hope.’
‘No,’ replied Benny, ‘it should be fine. But if you do experience any issues with it, don’t hesitate to give the office a ring, so they can send an engineer out right away.’
The minute Benny had left; Hartley went straight to the office and checked the surveillance monitor. Everything appeared to be in order. The red recording light was flashing, which, as far as his knowledge base went, was a good indication that all was well.
‘Is everything working now?’ enquired Nicole, as Hartley came back into the shop.
‘Yes. It all looks fine. I just don’t want it failing tomorrow, that’s my only concern.’