The Dali Deception

by Adam Maxwell

  “Excellent, that’s what I like to hear,” said Violet. “And another thing.” Violet gave one final prod with the lock pick and then used the tension wrench to turn the lock. “We’re in.”

  She pushed the door and stepped from the cramped ante-corridor into a climate-controlled storage area.

  “You can tell me how wonderfully talented I am now if you like.” Violet flashed Katie a grin and Katie rolled her eyes in return.

  “Suit yourself,” said Violet. “Now... where was I..? So I’d told Jenny to go and double check the alarms because I ‘had a bad feeling’.”

  Katie nodded, a seriousness entering her expression.

  Violet sensed it and her tone changed. She started again, rewinding the story back to its proper origin. Percy Parkin. Violet’s now ex. Though ex what? That was probably a good question. Ex-boyfriend certainly. Ex-fiancé? Not quite but as good as. And, of course, her ex-partner was also the ex-fence of any stolen property anyone might wish to shift.

  Because Percy had had a tip off. Too good to be true. And of course if something appears to be too good to be true then, inevitably, it is. Unless you, or one of your crew, has a deep desire to end up behind bars.

  Except, of course, you trust your partner, don’t you?

  Don’t you?

  And Violet had. At that moment, for her, Percy could do no wrong. Little did she realise that he was about to hurl himself from that pedestal and out of her life.

  Busting in and busting out of a diamond wholesalers. That was the job. She had thought he was joking when he told her. She had replied that they should rob the coffee shop they were sitting in and told him it was because ‘Nobody robs coffee shops, pumpkin.’ But it had turned out he was completely serious. It wasn’t a hare-brained scheme he had cooked up after watching too many Tarantino movies. In fact, he knew a bloke who knew a bloke...

  It often started that way, of course, that much wasn’t new. And she had chalked up her original bad feelings to the fact that the robbery went so badly in the movie. But they were professionals, not actors. This wasn’t scripted, it was real life.

  “And things were about to get seriously fucked up for us,” said Violet to Katie, closing the door to the room as Katie entered. Although, as it turned out, this was less of a room and more of a vault. A blanket of cold air blasted down from an air conditioning unit suspended from the ceiling. Katie surveyed the area, looking over the tops of the shelves and storage containers but finding no-one.

  Violet closed her eyes, searching her memory for the location of the item she was looking for. It came to her as she moved forward, Katie in tow.

  “Percy said he could move the diamonds,” Violet went on. Katie raised her eyebrows. “Not any diamond. There were some specific stones that were easier for someone of his status as a mid-level fence to move. The ones he’d had the tip off about.

  “So we weren’t going in there on some smash and grab mission. It was planned. It was controlled. At first.

  “Jenny had disabled the alarms before we got inside so she was trailing around whilst other people did their thing, and she was royally bored. A bit like you right now, I suppose. Anyway, she started flirting with Will, this short fat guy who was our inside man. But he wasn’t responding.”

  Katie shrugged, confused.

  “Will was this sweaty, horrible, greasy, hairy little man. He was fat, he smelled really bad.”

  Katie’s lip curled.

  “Exactly,” Violet said, her pace quickening and her eyes flashing left and right, looking, searching. “Never felt the touch of a woman, I bet. What an odd phrase. The ‘touch of a woman’.”

  Violet ran her fingers seductively along the back of Katie’s hand.

  “Do anything for you?” she asked.

  Katie shook her head.

  “I must be having an off day then,” Violet concluded. “But Will... I don’t know. At the time I think I just wanted to concentrate and Jenny’s flirting was irritating me but… I dunno. Now that I think back I wonder if somewhere in my head something was telling me that there was a piece out of place. And that was why I gave her a task.

  “All I had to do, it was simple really... All I had to do was get into the case that held the diamonds. One last lock. And if the alarm was disabled just scoop them up and go. Like I said, I trusted Jenny so the alarm was off, getting her out of the way was never really about that. Of course, Will had gone to follow her. But this is the part I can’t explain. I stopped him.”

  Violet held up her palm and Katie came to a dead stop, her thin eyebrows descending into a familiar look of concentration. A silence overtook them for a second, without the echoes of conversation, but then their ears attuned to the background thrum of the air conditioning. Violet shook her head, shaking out whatever thought she had. They moved off once more.

  “I stopped him by handing him my tools,” she continued. Katie held up Violet’s bag and waggled it in the air. “Ah yes,” said Violet. “Just like that. I kept asking him to pass me this, hand me that... All the while fiddling with the lock. Of course, I’d had it open before Jenny left the room but that was beside the point. Will just got more and more uncomfortable. And more and more sweaty.”

  The corners of Katie’s mouth turned down and half a frown formed in her brow.

  “Looked like he’d pissed in his pants,” Violet said through a grimace. She stopped walking then continued, “Hang on. This is the one we’re looking for.”

  She gestured toward the cabinet in front of them then lifted her tubular courier bag up over her head and loosened the lid. From inside she took two pieces of paper. They were ridiculously small given the size of the container. The tube itself was perhaps a metre or so long and the pieces of paper it contained no more than twenty centimetres along their longest edge.

  Katie stooped to read what was written on them:

  ‘This object has been temporarily removed for cleaning and study.’

  And in the bottom right hand corner was the logo from the museum.

  Violet handed the small cards to Katie with a smirk. Katie proffered the make-up case but Violet shook her head, instead reaching forward and pulling at the handle on the metal casing. With an alarmingly loud grinding noise the container opened.

  “Who’d bother locking these? Imagine if you worked here, it would be a right old pain in the arse if you had to unlock every single one. Their laziness, however, is our gain...”

  Inside the metal drawer was a small canvas which was almost as minimalist as the paper Katie held for Violet. Its shortest edge was perhaps thirty or so centimetres long, its longest no more than fifty. And it was completely blank.

  With some reverence Violet lifted the canvas from the drawer and held it aloft. Delicately, slowly and precisely, Violet rolled the blank canvas until it was tight enough to fit into the courier tube. Gently, she slid it inside, took one of the ‘removed for cleaning’ signs, then placed it in the metal drawer and pushed it closed.

  Katie was about to walk away but Violet stopped her.

  “I’ve got a plan,” she said with a grin as she reached forward, pulling at the handle of the next drawer. The pair winced as the cacophony of clanking filled the air. Inside the drawer was another blank canvas.

  Violet reached forward to remove it. “And this is exactly what I need to make it happen.”

  Chapter 4

  Violet closed the drawer and flipped the courier tube over her head, letting the strap fall across her body from shoulder to hip.

  “Come on,” she said, and the pair set off at a jog. Well, Violet was at a jog; Katie kept pace just by lengthening her stride.

  “That was the moment in the job,” Violet whispered, “when you really don’t want to get caught.”

  Katie looked over at her and then pointed at the ground.

  “No, not this job,” Violet began before a thought crept up on her. “Actually, yes, just like this job. You’ve got the goods, but you haven’t got away yet, and you don’t w
ant to get caught en flagrant délit.”

  Katie raised one eyebrow.

  “I’ve been reading,” Violet retorted. “I’m well-read now. It means red handed.” She glanced over to her friend, who responded by rolling her eyes.

  “Which you already knew. Well, fine. Up yours,” Violet paused at a crossroad in the museum stacks and glanced around. “Anyway, Will stayed, holding the tools for a minute and then off he trotted after Jenny. At the time I thought Jenny would be well out of the way so I figured it would be okay to let him go…

  “Turned out afterwards that Will caught up with her. Bludgeoned her with his baton.”

  Katie stopped and stared at Violet, letting her jog off ahead.

  Violet skidded to a halt as she reached the door she was looking for and stared down the corridor at Katie’s imposing silhouette way behind her.

  “I’ve thought about it a lot and I don’t think I could have known,” Violet’s voice echoed down the long corridor. “I couldn’t have known.”

  Katie nodded before pointing towards the door but Violet shook her head, instead opening it and waiting for Katie to walk through. Violet dropped to her knees and retrieved her picks, effortlessly re-locking the door behind them.

  Katie pointed to the door opposite the one Violet had just locked and this time Violet nodded. Interlocking her gloved fingers, Katie cracked her knuckles then dropped her foot back, bracing herself. Violet squinted, knowing what was coming next. Katie erupted, stepping forward and slamming her palms simultaneously above and below the position of the lock on the door.

  The door, which was entirely unprepared for such an assault, exploded inward, its frame shattering, sending shards of wood and plastic spiralling through the air.

  Violet clapped her hands slowly and deliberately. “Good show, old girl. Jolly good show.”

  Katie reached up and touched two fingers to her forehead in a mock salute, but the serious expression had not left her face.

  “I could have done with your help on Percy’s job.” Violet walked through the shattered frame and looked around, getting her bearings once more. “Sometimes you choose the wrong people.”

  Katie stood outside the room. Waiting. Listening.

  “You know how long you’ve got, at that point, before they arrive with their flashing lights and give you a lovely new set of bracelets. I mean, you don’t know it know it. You just... you know... know it, don’t you?” Violet’s voice was beginning to become more faint as she ventured slightly further into the room. Katie remained where she was.

  “I phoned Percy. Couldn’t get a word in. He thought I was at the police station already, using my one phonecall on him. Just kept trying to get me off the line. I was going to shut him up, but then I realised there was no way he could have known about the police. I got the feeling you get on a roller-coaster, you know, when you hit that point and it feels like the bottom of your stomach gets sucked down and out of you?”

  Katie frowned and shook her head.

  “Of course you don’t. Anyway, I waited for him to stop talking, then I told him I hadn’t been arrested. That I wasn’t going to be arrested. And he says, ‘Fuck, really? You haven’t been arrested?’ and the tone of his voice, he can’t believe it. And then there’s another voice in the background. A woman. I hear her screaming at him ‘What do you mean she hasn’t been–’ and then he hangs up. And... well, you know the rest about Percy.

  “So I knew that I had enough time to get out of there but... fuck... you should have seen her, Katie... Jenny was a bloody mess.” Violet’s head poked around a set of shelves and into view for a moment. “But with actual blood.”

  Katie nodded and stared. Violet stared back for a moment, the events replaying in her head. She hadn’t felt anything like that before. Violet had always been supremely confident. She was the brains of the operation, it was her plans the team executed and they always worked. Except that time they didn’t. When she left Kilchester, she left vulnerable and with her confidence hanging in tatters. The vulnerability hadn’t lasted long. Violet had used her time away to rebuild herself, and it had taken time, but she had come back a stronger woman.

  “There was a cleaner’s cupboard. It was locked but you know me... So I dragged her in there, then I used a cloth, some bleach and cleaned the floor where he’d left her. Cleaned it and dried it off with some paper towels and then locked us both in that cleaner’s cupboard.

  “You could hear the police come and then go again. There was a first aid kit and... I don’t know anything about that sort of thing but my phone still had signal in there and I Googled the best I could. Made her comfortable. And this was... Saturday. So we were in there until it all died down. On Monday.

  “At first, it was like in the movies. She’d been knocked out or whatever. She was in and out of consciousness and she was talking here and there. Not so loud you could make out what she was trying to say. I thought... well, I thought I was saving her from being arrested. Saving both of us.”

  Violet loitered where she was, half way around a corner standing fifteen metres away from Katie. Even from that distance Katie could see Violet’s expression change, her brow furrowed as she stared downward.

  “Anyway...” Violet said eventually. “I found what I was looking for here.”

  “Run,” Violet said as she triggered the museum alarm system.

  And they ran.

  20th August

  * * *

  7 weeks to go…

  Chapter 5

  “Please, Miss Winters, take a seat. Can I get you a drink?” Brad Fegan’s right hand instinctively moved to his left lapel. He squeezed it gently between his thumb and forefinger, smoothing it out. He loved the feeling of the moleskin fabric and was on the verge of developing an interesting series of tics all based around the stroking of various parts of his jacket.

  “Call me Violet. And yes, I’ll have a Long Island iced tea.” Violet looked around, taking in the grandeur of the restaurant then, feeling a little underdressed, began smoothing down imaginary creases in her skirt.

  Fegan nodded to the waiter attending their table and he moved away purposefully.

  “Have you been back in Kilchester long?” Fegan asked.

  Violet smiled and shook her head slightly. “No, I just got in this morning. I only have one meeting and then I’ll be back on the train out of here.”

  Fegan raised two bushy, black eyebrows in mock-surprise as the waiter returned and deposited a drink in front of each of them.

  “Will there be anything else, Sir? Madam?” the waiter oozed obsequiously.

  Fegan ignored the waiter, his eyebrows still raised, waiting for Violet to continue.

  Violet stared back, letting Fegan play his little game.

  The waiter coughed.

  Without breaking eye contact with Violet, Fegan beckoned the waiter who leaned closer.

  “Fuck off,” he said quietly.

  The waiter nodded and off he fucked.

  “You hate this place so much?” Fegan raised his left hand and slowly rubbed at his breast pocket in a way that probably wouldn’t have been entirely appropriate in a restaurant of this calibre. That is, if there was anyone in the restaurant except for Fegan and Violet.

  “No,” said Violet, staring past Fegan to the empty tables beyond. “It’s a lovely place, it’s just... complicated.”

  She lifted her drink to her lips and sipped lightly at it.

  “Oh, do tell,” said Fegan, leaning forward eagerly. “Do tell.”

  Violet leaned forward, letting a few strands of hair fall across her face, then fluttered her eyelashes a couple of times. With her index finger extended, she slowly moved her hand from the polished gold cutlery on the table, across her body and up to point at her pouting lips.

  “Fuck off,” she said quietly as she finally met his gaze. “You asked me here and it wasn’t to talk about why I will or will not be staying in Kilchester. And you know anyway, you knob.”

  A vein in Fegan�
��s neck pulsed one, twice, before he burst out laughing.

  “I like you, I really do,” he wheezed, caressing the cuff of his coat. “And I have to know – did you actually make off with any diamonds in the end?”

  Violet took a sip of her drink. They certainly hadn’t skimped on the rum. Or the tequila.

  Fegan flicked one of his eyebrows in anticipation.

  Violet tilted her head slightly to one side and waited. The alcohol stung her mouth as she savoured it.

  “You want me to tell you what happened?” She rapped four long but unpainted nails on the placemat in front of her, then shrugged. “Okay then. We’d had a tip off. The fence, my then boyfriend, told us exactly where the items were. It wasn’t a smash and grab, it was a… erm…”

  “Duck and pluck?”

  “Is that a thing?”

  “Duck the police, pluck the diamonds. If it isn’t a thing then it most certainly should be.”

  Violet nodded and took another sip of her drink. It was entirely possible that this was a set-up. That someone was recording the whole conversation. She stared at Fegan, his nervous tics dancing through his fingers as he touched parts of his coat repeatedly.

  He caught her studying him and placed his palms on the table in front of him.

  “This isn’t a sting,” Fegan said, staring at her calmly.

  Violet dabbed at her mouth with a heavy linen napkin for no other reason than to see it stained with her dusky red lipstick.

  “If I really believed it might be a sting then I wouldn’t have come,” she said. “But I’m here so… you show me yours and I’ll show you mine.”

  Fegan scanned the room, looking for loitering waiters or waitresses.

  “There’s a painting one of my clients wants. But it’s complicated,” he said.

  “Which is…”

  “…why I need a person of your particular proclivity,” Fegan interrupted.

  “And how did you find out about my skills?” Violet retorted, a little too quickly. She took a breath, picked up her drink and sipped. Damn if there wasn’t a whole lot of alcohol in there.