A Spoonful of Luger

by Ormerod, Roger

  Ten minutes later a dark green minivan drifted into the far end of the alleyway behind her. It lifted its wheels onto the pavement and nestled close into the shadows beneath the buildings. Its lights had been extinguished before it made the turn, and the woman did not notice it in the single rear-view mirror on the door of the van.

  There was silence. A lone police patrol car drove past the far end of the alley, but without pause. The woman glanced at her watch, but the dial was not visible. She reached for a cigarette, then decided against it.

  The two men had found the window. It had been left only fractionally open, and had been difficult to locate in the row of similar windows, some higher and some lower, all so deeply shadowed that it had required an overactivity of the torch to locate the correct one. Its use had probed at the nerves of the shorter of the men.

  “There’s got to be alarms.”

  The taller one was all confidence. “I told you,” he whispered. “In these places the security’s all for the daytime. They have to worry about armed idiots, when their stuff’s all out of the strongroom. At night the security’s concentrated on the strongroom door. Relax, Niels, and I’ll give you a shove up.”

  Niels grumbled. The job was bigger than they’d ever tackled before. “We left the gun in the car.”

  “Guns! It’s all you think about. This job’s all technique. Quiet, Niels, not your bloody bangs in the night. Where’s your foot?”

  Then they were inside. This was the women’s rest room. The taller one seemed to know his way around and located the door by touch. “Alarms! You’re crazy.”

  They were in a narrow corridor, linoleum beneath their padding feet, and up the stairs ahead. The door at the top was locked. Urged by his brother’s gloved hand, Niels moved forward. He had the slim crowbar ready, and the door flew open with a crack. They stood, their breathing quiet. Then Niels thrust open the door.

  They were in the inner office used by Helen Strange, PA to the managing director of Hammerstein & Co, jewellery restorers. To their right, now dimly visible because a side window looked out on the street, there was a frosted glass door that opened into the reception office, to their left a similar door, with the plain inscription: J Hammerstein.

  This door, too, was locked. Niels raised the crowbar to the glass, an abrupt, impatient gesture. His brother caught his arm and pointed to the jamb. Another brittle crack, and they were inside.

  Two long windows, shades up, with the room brightly lit by streetlamps, a large, cleared mahogany desk, thick carpetting, a single phone—it was plain but impressive. Here, Jacob Hammerstein, leading restorer in Europe, interviewed his clients, relieved them of jewellery that had become sadly jaded after a dozen displays at society functions, and returned them eventually looking worth twice as much as they’d originally cost. In the interval between acceptance and return, they rested in the strongroom set in the wall at the far end of his office.

  The firm had been established for two hundred years. Its strongroom was relatively modern, but Hammerstein was not up to date with his security. There was no time lock on the door; there were no invisible rays criss-crossing the area in front; there were no touch alarms, heat alarms, or pressure alarms beneath the carpet. There was simply the combination, and a wheel that turned back the lock. But it was a good combination, with no aural clicks, and no sense of touch to its tumblers.

  The younger brother, Gunnar, was tall and handsome, and, in other surroundings, casually charming. His charm had always worked before, though not with such critically important information as a strongroom’s combination. He had charmed the numbers from Helen Strange, and this time it had taken a full month. He now approached the door with confidence. The dial numbers were visible without the help of the torch. His brother did not watch, or if he did, it was casually, not noting the numbers used. He registered, perhaps, that it was a four-figure combination. But he was restless.

  With a gesture almost theatrical Gunnar rotated the wheel. The locking pillars slid back with a sigh, and the door swung open.

  The interior was six feet in height, with no more than a shoulder’s width between the shelves. A man of Gunnar’s breadth had to edge in sideways. The shelves were lined with metal trays, and the full depth of the strongroom was no more than four feet. The treasures left to Hammerstein’s care did not occupy much space, and half the trays were empty. Gunner began to slide them out.

  Niels, who had seen the light come on in the strongroom, was still pitched high with nervous tension, and ran to the slatted blinds at the windows. Gunnar caught the movement in the corner of his eye.

  “No.” Quite quietly.

  Niels stopped, realising. The closed blinds would be a signal of their presence.

  “Then move it.”

  He drew out from beneath his sweater a calico bag and moved back towards the strongroom. Gunnar had a black velvet drawstring bag in his hand, and was holding it out.

  The man had not noticed the minivan, but his movement in the shadows attracted her attention. It was necessary to approach her quite closely to find the entrance her husband and his brother had used. She saw the shadow move into it. Without hesitation she reached forward, and drew the small automatic pistol from the shelf beneath the dashboard. She opened the van door quietly, stepped down onto the cobbles, then followed quietly. The window, left open, was noticeable at once. There was no sign of the shape she had followed. With the pistol tucked in the belt of her slacks, she jumped for the sill and drew herself up athletically.

  As Gunnar handed the velvet bag to his brother, the intruder walked in on them. He was as large as Gunnar, in jeans and a denim jacket, but he’d prepared himself with a mask, amateurishly made from a balaclava helmet with a scarf stitched across mouth and nose. He was holding a pistol in his right hand, an automatic, which was not, at that time, detected as a reproduction. He said nothing. He held out his free hand.

  He had timed it badly, and should have waited behind the door. The intention had been to wait until the calico bag, or whatever they’d be using, was full. This was only the first of the velvet bags. But there was no pressure, now. These two were clearly unarmed. He moved into the room, closer to the strongroom, and gestured with his gun. It was a good copy. He felt confident of the impression he made.

  With no word spoken, the intention was clear. Gunnar should continue to hand out the velvet bags, and Niels to fill the calico one.

  The woman walked in with the pistol in her hand. There was no doubt that this one was real. A lock of hair had escaped from her headscarf, but she in no way conveyed an impression of dishevelment or panic. Her eyes were steady and cold.

  The intruder realised that his position was now hopeless. He was in the centre of a triangle of opposition, with a toy gun, and with his left hand clasping the single velvet bag. There was a slight chance that he could get away with that one—that he might be allowed to. But he needed a diversion. With his shoulder behind it, he slammed the strongroom door.

  Instantly she fired, a reaction from his movement. She had not aimed, but the shot took him in the left forearm. He dropped the velvet bag, stood for a moment, and then, in a gesture of almost childish pique, he threw his ridiculous toy at the strongroom door, and with something like a sob ran from the room.

  Niels threw himself at the strongroom door. The wheel was solid. The lock had spun itself into locked position, and the combination dial had rotated automatically. He turned to her wildly.

  She had not spoken. The hand at her side still held the pistol; the other hand had its knuckles pressed against her teeth. Niels knew what he had to do, and realised he could not attempt it with Gunnar’s wife fluttering around him.

  “Get out of here.”

  She stared into his face. She knew he was unstable, liable to break down into fury under pressure. This was pressure, and his fury would stifle him. He needed, always, someone against whom he could direct it, and if she were here, then he might direct it at her. Alone he could, perhaps, control
it. She turned away. There was, possibly, something she could do.

  “Take it,” he snapped, his voice breaking.

  He was pointing at the velvet bag on the floor. Angrily, annoyed that he’d think of such a thing at that time, she bent and swept it up. Then she was gone.

  Left alone, he faced the strongroom door. Only Gunnar knew the combination, and he was inside. Niels was aware that he was close to breaking. He stood and drew in heavy breaths. Then he took up the crowbar, tapped on the door, and put his ear to it. Nothing. The door was blastproof, fireproof, and soundproof. He tried again, savagely this time, but he could detect no response from inside.

  Then, aware that concentration and control were all that would help him, he stood before the door, and began.

  One—one—one—one. Try it. No.

  One—one—one—two. Try it. No.

  And so on.

  It was later calculated that he would have reached the correct combination in a little more than a week.

  *

  At eight-thirty the staff arrived. The police were at once informed. When the patrol car arrived, Niels was still working at it, snarling at anyone who came near. He was kneeling in front of the door by that time, his face distorted by tension, and sweat streaming from him.

  Seventeen—three—nine—seven. Try it. No.

  Seventeen—three—nine—eight. Try it. No.

  Two policemen dragged him screaming to his feet. No one could understand what he was saying, as it was in a foreign language. After he had been sedated he was taken away, but by that time Helen Strange had arrived. She opened the door. Gunnar was dead, quietly in a slumped heap on the floor with one of the metal trays still in his hand. With a small cry, she collapsed beside him.

  Two hours later Helen Strange was arrested. It was thought she could not have realised the theft would point directly to her, as one of the only two people knowing the combination. But three days later, when Niels Bergh was able to speak coherently, and this time in English, the truth became more clear. Gunnar, the younger brother, had had to work hard on this one, but behind Miss Strange’s quiet and cool exterior there had lurked a warm and rapacious woman, who could be persuaded with promises of a wild escape to romantic foreign lands and a life of excitement. When Gunnar had contacted her in the jazz club, where her sublimated soul found some release, she had apparently seen him as some sort of talisman, and had seen visions of wide expanses of freedom.

  But Gunnar had made a mistake. Once he had the combination, he had not revisited the club. And there was delay. Niels was nervous, and himself had to be persuaded. Four days went by, and Helen Strange became afraid, realising what she had done, and with her dreams shattered.

  The rest was guesswork. She could not force herself to go to the police, even less to her employer, but she would have to turn to someone. Had she confided to a friend? It was likely. Had she hoped that an intervention by that friend would prevent the theft? That, too, was possible. She was not a person who read other people’s minds with any clarity, and could not have known that opportunity sometimes has to be seized. If only with a toy pistol.

  But Helen Strange, though perhaps not very bright, was at least loyal. She never revealed the identity of the masked intruder. That such a timid, quiet creature could hold out so successfully against expert interrogation surprised everyone. In court she spoke not a word. It was only later, when she was transferred from Holloway to a mental hospital, that the truth became apparent—her mind had collapsed.

  After all, it was she who had opened the strongroom door.

  Two weeks later, Gunnar’s wife was arrested in Stockholm. She denied any knowledge of the jewels that had been in the black velvet bag, and was committed to Holloway for three years. Niels, her brother-in-law, got eight years.

  It was a pity that the jewels had not great intrinsic value, as they were not in their settings. They consisted mainly of sapphires, with a few emeralds and rubies, and were from an eighteenth-century Finnish necklace. In their settings they became a Finnish national treasure, which could be valued only in terms of national pride, which, with the Finns, was immense. Out of them they were virtually worthless.

  It was the metal tray containing the settings that Gunnar was found to be gripping in his right hand. Apparently, he had been tapping out the combination with it on the inside of the door.

  Chapter One

  My day had been a complete washout, but an hour from home the rain eased, and by the time I turned into my drive the stars were shining. The bungalow was dark and quiet. I told myself that this could mean she’d returned home and gone to bed. Complete self-deception. The despair had soaked into me and I knew it was a delusion. Besides, the garage door was open, and there was no sign of her red Mini.

  The garage door was open—and I’d left it locked!

  It was an effort to climb out of the Dolomite. I stood very still, not allowing the car door to slam. You never completely lose the instinct, and though I’d been six years out of the force, the same old prickling was there. I’d had intruders, and they could still be there.

  I left my camera holdall on the back seat and stepped sideways onto the lawn. The weariness of the long drive seemed to drain out of me, and I was tense, moving forward on the balls of my feet, into the deeper shadows of the trees. With my head low I reached the front window and carefully, in the corner, raised my eyes above the sill.

  Nothing. No flicker of light, or movement of the shadows. And yet...the shadows were not exactly where they should have been. There had been a displacement of the furniture.

  Then, heart pounding, I knew what it could mean. I straightened. No hesitation now, because my original suspicion of intruders seemed to be unfounded. Karin had been home! And left again? That possibility was appalling to consider.

  That she’d been gone four days, leaving no word or message, was bad enough. It had driven the heart from me. That she could sneak back, possibly to collect some of her things, at a time when she’d know I was on a job in Yorkshire and would be away all day...that was mortifying.

  I plunged for the front door and fumbled with the key, swung it open, and darted my hand to the light switch. “Karin!”

  The bungalow had the feel of emptiness, as though the air had settled and become sluggish. My voice was tiny and inadequate. I turned to close the door, and noticed for the first time that there was a hole in the glass beside the lock. My feet, when I moved them, tinkled in it.

  The anger and shock at having to face a break-in, after all, was only slightly buffered by the thought that at least it hadn’t been Karin who’d degraded me. For a moment my emotions clashed, and I couldn’t move. So many times I’d struggled to understand the distress of burglary victims whom I’d interviewed, but I’d never quite absorbed from them the shock of personal assault. Now I knew. Every nerve cried out in outrage. They’d laid their filthy hands on my life.

  They had, too, politely placed my mail and newspaper on the hallstand.

  It was ridiculous that I didn’t know what to do. Shock held me, and I do not remember walking into the front room until I was there with my finger on the switch, but with fear preventing me from putting it on. I was afraid to see what they had done, and already my stomach was heaving. Without conscious volition I depressed the switch.

  Then the light from the chandelier fixed it in my mind, like the flash from my own camera outfit. A complete shot, in colour, gradation perfect, colours for some reason too bright, but accurate, with every detail superb.

  They had wrecked the room. I drew in my breath. But still, behind it all, I felt strangely calm. I was simply observing.

  Karin’s cut-glass collection had been swept onto the floor from their cabinet, the books tumbled, scatter-leaved, from the low bookshelf, my hi-fi torn out and dumped across the rug, the vases smashed against the wall, and the roses I’d replaced fresh, in case she returned, lying in the hearth. Amongst the flowers were the remnants of Karin’s own yellow vase, which she’d
made herself when she was fourteen. “I used to go to my Aunt Sigrid’s place, Owen,” she’d told me. “She let me practise on her wheel.”

  It was strange that she hadn’t taken it with her, I thought vaguely. She hadn’t taken many of her clothes, either.

  Still I had not stirred. My hand was over the switch, and time was not moving. There was a thought struggling to get through, and I tried to focus on it, forcing my eyes to absorb the scene. Then I had it. This had not been a burglary, because as far as I could see nothing was missing. It was a search, a frantic one, but a complete one.

  Then training and routine took over. I was, again, a police officer, in somebody else’s house, calm and observant and completely impersonal. I left the switch on, and went systematically through the bungalow, leaving lights on in every room.

  Across the hall to the main bedroom. It was the same there, destruction and disorder, but nothing missing. The mattress and the base were both slashed open, sheets and cover scattered, pillows slashed and flock everywhere. They’d taken out the drawers from the dressing table and dumped their contents on the carpet, and stripped out the wardrobe. But nothing had been taken.

  In the other bedroom, which was really a storeroom, it was a similar picture. Disorder and ransacking, but no theft. The same in the kitchen, and the same in the back room, which was my office. They had completely scrambled my filing system and cleared out the cabinet, but there had been something desperately systematic about it. They had even been through my diaries, though that could’ve given them little more than a picture of my steadily growing professional stature as a photographer—more a picture of Karin than of me, because it was she who’d given me the self-confidence and drive to pursue it so intensely.

  Eventually, stomach now in control and my outrage cooled, I went into the kitchen and filtered some coffee. The anger now was that it was something I couldn’t understand, when I already had enough on my mind worrying about Karin. Four days, and not a word! Could this be linked with her extraordinary behaviour? Could it, I wondered, possibly not be linked with it?