“Ok, what is it?” I asked, as adrenaline coursed through my veins and sprang me into action even better than a cup of coffee could.
“I have uncovered a fairly major clue in our search for the killer. Come with me,” she ordered, and I got out of bed, groaning as the knowledge that my murder was no longer imminent took hold, and that I had just been dragged out of bed to look at a clue.
“What time is it?” I asked as I followed Violet out of the guest room and down toward the stairs.
“I have no idea,” Violet replied. When we got downstairs–carefully avoiding the broken step–I glanced at the old-fashioned clock on top of the mantelpiece and let out a groan.
“Did you seriously have to wake me up at three eighteen in the morning to look at a clue? Why aren’t you in bed, anyway?”
“I could not sleep; anytime I closed my eyes I could only think of the algorithm and what someone could possibly want to kill three–possibly aiming for five–people for it.”
“And did you figure it out?”
“I did,” Violet exclaimed proudly. “And you will not believe what I have discovered.”
“Ok, what is it?”
“Think about it. What sort of person needs to reverse a mathematical equation? Someone who is trying to get into something. For example, a safe.” Violet’s eyes were gleaming now, and mine widened as I realized where she was going with this.
“Oh!” I said.
“Yes, exactement! The day after Amelia Waters was killed, and her computer pilfered, a group of three men robbed a jewellery shop of millions of pounds worth of diamonds. This same group had robbed another diamond shop in the past as well, and a truck at the airport, but there was a difference: this time they were able to enter the safe.”
“So you think they stole the algorithm because it would allow them to figure out the code to get into the safe?”
“Oui, c’est ça. In fact, I confirmed it only a few moments before waking you. I was able to get in touch with the owner of the store who was robbed–evidently he is having some difficulty in sleeping after what has happened–and he confirmed for me that the store’s safe used a code which was changed automatically every twelve hours, with the resulting code sent via text message to his phone.”
“So, if someone were to intercept those emails somehow, they could keep a record of them, and then using the algorithm Amelia and her friends came up with, figure out what the next code would be.”
“Précisement,” Violet nodded. “In fact, I am certain that is what happened.”
“But how can you know for sure that it was the same group of people? After all, it could have been a coincidence that they hit the diamond store the night after Amelia was murdered.”
Violet motioned for me to look at the computer. “DCI Williams sent me the video files which he had promised to send, the ones of the diamond exchange robbery. Look for yourself.”
I leaned over to look at the screen as Violet opened a video. Immediately the screen showed relatively grainy camera footage–it was better than your average gas station security camera, but I would have expected ultra-high definition from a jewellery place, to be honest–of the back room of the store.
For the first ten seconds or so of the video, there was no movement, but suddenly three figures, all dressed in black, wearing balaclavas, entered the screen. Violet was right when she had looked at the pictures and determined they were all professionals. One of the men immediately made his way to the safe and confidently typed in a series of numbers while the other two flanked him, looking around on either side, but without any panic. It was more like they were bodyguards than panicking robbers. As soon as the safe opened, all three men sprang into action. One man pulled out a Helly Hansen duffel bag, while the other two pulled out some old, ratty-looking backpacks. They immediately reached in and began pouring tray after tray of diamonds into the bags. When a jewel or two slipped out and onto the floor, the men didn’t even react. Most of the gems, as far as I could tell, were loose stones; there were only a few in any settings, and they did grab a handful of watches as well. Just like with the previous robberies, they only went for the diamonds. The rubies, sapphires and emeralds left in the safe went ignored, as did a number of diamonds. Even in the grainy video I could see a lot of potential loot still left by the time they closed the safe and left.
Less than three minutes had passed in the video when the men closed the safe then confidently strode back toward what I assumed was the front of the store, out of view of the cameras.
“They definitely knew what they were doing,” I said. “But I don’t know if I recognized any of them.”
“The man on the left, the one with the duffel bag. He was the man who came in here and attempted to kill us.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, and Violet gave me that look that meant of course she was sure.
“There are exactly nine reasons why I am one hundred percent certain they are the same man, which range from the mannerisms, to the shoes he wore. I am absolutely certain that the man who attempted to kill us, and who killed Amelia Waters, is one of the Terrible Trio.”
I couldn’t help myself; even though this was incredibly dramatic, and a huge break in the case for us, I opened my mouth and yawned. I mean, to be fair, it was just after three in the morning. Exciting or not, I had the right to be pretty tired.
“So, what do we do now?” I asked.
“We will wait until morning, and we go see Mrs. Michaels, and then we will see DCI Williams. I believe that solving this case will be the fastest way to find our killer.”
“Wait, how can Mrs. Michaels help?” I asked.
“Ah, she has more experience than most in these sorts of cases,” Violet replied with a sly smile. “She may be old, but she is not nearly so innocent as she pretends to be.”
I had a feeling there was more to Mrs. Michaels than met the eye, and I was looking forward to getting an opportunity to solve some of the enigma that was my landlady.
“Well, until then, I’m going to bed,” I said, sleepily making my way up the stairs to the bedroom, only to find that Biscuit had moved into the warm spot on the bed I’d vacated.
“Move over, silly butt,” I told my cat. “I haven’t gotten up for the day just yet.”
Biscuit let out a meow of protest as I had to pick him up and move him over to one end of the bed so that I could fit into the double as well. I laid my head down and fell asleep immediately.
However, with all the excitement of the night, the rest of my sleep was restless, and by the time six thirty rolled around I gave up completely and grabbed my iPad off the nightstand.
Remembering what Charles Dartmouth had said to me, I looked up the article on The London Post-Tribune from the previous day and found that it was written by one Keegan Coors. Scanning the article again made my blood boil; what he had written about Violet was practically slander.
I Googled his name and found that he had grown up in Greece, to a Greek mother and English father, before being shipped off to some posh boarding school, after which he got his journalism degree from Cambridge, which quite frankly I figured would in no way be able to match the ancient grandeur of Oxford. He got his start in journalism as a freelancer before being hired by The London Post-Tribune, where the owner Edward Cornwall took a keen interest in him and began to act as his mentor. He was now widely considered one of England's most prominent journalists.
I wondered what on earth it was that Charles Dartmouth wanted me to look at when it came to the man. He had told me to think globally. Maybe I should have started with Greece, then? But what did he want me to look at?
I thought about it for a minute. Charles had indicated that whatever Keegan had done, it was bad enough to be a big scandal. What kind of scandal could a journalist be involved in?
There was always the use of prostitutes, the old chestnut that had ruined many a political career, but not so much journalists. Plagiarism was the obvious one that came to mind, but there wa
s also corruption. What if Coors was being paid off by someone in exchange for favorable or non-favorable articles being written in his paper?
I figured the best way to find out would be to start by going through Keegan Coors' old articles and seeing if anything stuck out. I typed his name into the search bar on The London Post-Tribune's website and began to scroll through his article headlines.
It was obvious that Coors had been getting prime assignments to cover by the paper. His articles were largely comprised of the sort of thing that one would expect to see on the front page. Grenfell Fire: Who's to Blame, Terrorist's Family Warned Police Before Attacks and similar headline-worthy topics abounded.
There were a few that weren't quite so obvious, however. I clicked on one article that drew my eye: Bank Purchase Deal Nearing Failure: Source.
Now that was the sort of thing I could expect someone to get bribed over.
I opened the link and began to read.
Three months ago, the purchase of Central London Bank of Commerce by the German Conglomerate Bergen Gruppe seemed all but certain. At the company’s headquarters in Munich, the excitement in the air was palpable. The men and women–dressed in nothing but the best suits bought in Milan–walking through the glass-and-metal corridors that look more like they belong in a science fiction movie than the outskirts of the Bavarian capital have a noticeable spring in their step, and their enthusiasm and positivity make even the German language seem friendly and inviting. But as the deadline for the official signing of an agreement, which would make Central London Bank of Commerce one of the largest foreign-owned banks in the United Kingdom, The London Post-Tribune can reveal that sources close to the negotiation have let us know that those negotiations have stalled, and that a deal is unlikely to be completed at this time.
According to our sources, negotiations have stalled due to the current heads of Central London Bank of Commerce’s reluctance to agreeing to retirement terms for certain executives at the bank. Meanwhile, thousands of investors with the bank wait with bated breath to see if the deal will continue as planned, or if negotiations have stalled permanently.
I leaned back against the bed and tried to think. There would be a lot of people who would want this deal to go through: I imagined most of the investors in the bank would. Usually buyouts like this came at a premium, affording healthy profits to investors. And going by the tone of the article, Keegan Coors was obviously pushing for the agreement to go through.
Just then there was a knock on the door.
“Cassie? Are you ready to go? We see Mrs. Michaels in ten minutes.”
I put the iPad away, my mind whirring away as it considered what I’d just read. I was almost positive I was on the right track, now I just had to put the rest of the puzzle pieces together.
Chapter 13
It was just after seven thirty when Violet knocked on Mrs. Michaels’ door. My landlady opened up a minute later, her arms opening wide when she saw us.
“Violet! Cassie! So lovely to see the two of you. Please, come upstairs, you must want some tea. Or perhaps something a little bit stronger? After all, the two of you are still young and this must be practically the crack of dawn for you. Not like me, when you get to my age, no one tells you the real reason we all get up so early is because we’re afraid of missing any of the last few moments we have left on this earth.”
I had to stifle a smile; Mrs. Michaels was definitely a personality.
“I will stick with the cup of tea, thank you,” Violet said.
“Organic Herbal, as always?” Mrs. Michaels asked, shuffling her way toward the kitchen after motioning for us to sit down on one of the couches in her living room.
“Yes, thank you,” Violet replied, sitting.
“Something a bit stronger sounds good to me, thanks,” I replied, eagerly anticipating the caffeine jolt from a cup of coffee. While my brain hadn’t been able to sleep very well after my middle-of-the-night wake up call, that didn’t mean it didn’t have to.
“Of course, dear,” Mrs. Michaels said. She came back a minute later with a pot of tea for Violet, then brought me over a mug of coffee. When I took a whiff, there came the unmistakable aroma of Bailey’s, and I almost laughed out loud. Evidently when Mrs. Michaels said “stronger”, she meant “stronger”.
Sitting down across from us, she looked from one of us to the other. “So. What is it that brings you to my end of the street?”
“I am in need of information,” Violet said. “Information which I am certain you will be able to provide.”
“Pray, do tell,” Mrs. Michaels asked, leaning forward. “Ever since Enid and Dorothy buried the hatchet after their feud over who gets to make Christmas sweaters using Sultan Blue colored wool there’s been absolutely nothing exciting going on in my life.”
“Wait, that was a feud?” I asked, and Mrs. Michaels turned to me.
“Oh, yes dear. And a rather nasty one at that. At one point Dorothy called Enid’s grandson’s school and tried to have him expelled. It was quite entertaining, really, watching from the sidelines.”
“I am certain that it was, but for now we require some information on a completely different matter,” Violet said.
“Right. Of course. And what might that be?”
“The Terrible Trio. The diamond robbers. What do you know of them?”
“Well, as you know, I am but a kindly old lady now.”
“Of course,” Violet said deferentially, with a small smile on her face. Wait, this was what we were here to talk to Mrs. Michaels about? Jewellery theft? And she was a good source of information about it?
“I may have heard a few details here and there. Although, to be perfectly honest, I’m quite surprised at how quiet this latest group has been. There has been virtually no chatter among those with whom I keep in regular contact about identities, or process, or where they plan on hitting next.”
“Now that is interesting,” Violet said quietly. “What do you know?”
“I know that they only steal diamonds. And they move around a fair bit; they’ve only hit one shop in Hatton Garden.”
“What’s Hatton Garden?” I asked.
“It is the London jewellery center,” Violet replied. “Equivalent to your diamond district in New York City.”
“So, two of their three hits have been outside of Hatton Garden, which is interesting in and of itself, since most major thefts take place there. But I must say, there is a certain finesse to these crimes. Back in my day–er, should I say, my husband’s day–there was no finesse to the crime. He would run in, smash some cases, grab some jewellery, and that was that. He was in and out, and a few tens of thousands of pounds richer. But these crimes–they are beautifully done. Reading about them is like seeing a work of art. Whereas my husband’s crimes were those of a jackhammer, smashing away at everything, these are the work of a scalpel. They are precise, and perfect, and they come out of each robbery with the kind of money my husband could only dream of.”
I took a sip of my Bailey’s coffee to hide my pure surprise. So, Mrs. Michaels’ husband had been a jewellery thief?
“You mean your husband stole jewellery?” I asked, unable to resist the question that had been on my lips all the same.
“Oh yes, dear,” Mrs. Michaels said. “Of course, he wasn’t my husband at first. We were just lovers when he started out. It was the sixties, after all. What was a little bit of crime to help overthrow the capitalist system?”
“Do not pretend that you were completely innocent, Mrs. Michaels,” Violet replied with a small smile.
“Well I may have taken part in a spot of smuggling here and there, but what’s sneaking a few hundred thousand dollars’ worth of diamonds across the channel to Antwerp between friends?”
Of course Mrs. Michaels would consider that “a spot” of smuggling. At this rate, I was going to need another shot of Bailey’s in my coffee.
“Now,” she continued, “I do think that whoever is doing this has some experience wit
h a lot of things. You say there are three men?”
Violet nodded.
“Well in that case, they are almost all specialized in some way. One thing that is curious about this case is that this last robbery is the first one where they entered a safe. They are getting more sophisticated with every hit. The first one was the closest thing they have committed that could be called a smash-and-grab, in the middle of the day. Nothing too fancy about that, except that even then they were very well organized.”
Mrs. Michaels paused, then continued. “They had an exit strategy. They were not like those idiots a few years ago who fled on mopeds and were stopped by a crowd who had noticed the robbery; they were in and out without anyone outside of the store staff noticing anything was wrong.
“The second time, they targeted a truck at Heathrow airport carrying diamonds to cargo to Dubai. That was a much smoother operation, but also so much more daring. After all, with airport security the way it is these days, can you imagine how much work must have gone into ensuring they weren’t caught? And this last one, in which they managed to break into a safe in four minutes and get out, is even better. Your thieves are fast learners; they are improving with every score.”
“Which would imply that they are new to the game, no?” I asked.
“New, perhaps, yes. Or they are recent transplants to England, with experience overseas. If they are new to the robbery game, they are hands down the best beginners I have ever seen.”
Violet nodded slowly. “And yet you have heard nothing about their identities.”
“Nothing concrete, no. There have been rumours that one of them might be a foreigner, but I’ve heard nothing really solid or even really reliable. It really does feel like they’re ghosts. I mean, even back in seventy-one, when the Baker Street robbery happened and there were calls of D-notices being sent out and rumors of the police trying to quash any information about that robbery, everyone knew the car dealer who was behind it all. My husband was even involved in helping him get out of the country after.”
Strangled in Soho Page 8