Unsafe Deposit

by J. E. Kellenberger

  ‘Hallo Tommy,’ he called out loudly as he walked over to the table where a waiter had already begun to sweep up the glass shards from the ground. A somewhat flummoxed Tommy waved back a weak acknowledgment of Kevin’s greeting.

  ‘Remember me?’ Kevin said. ‘I’m Kevin, one of your old mates from the stalls and you are Stan Cahill’s son, right?’

  ‘Wrong, I was never your mate. Sit down Kevin and keep your voice down,’ replied Tommy quietly, wanting to make the handover as discreet as possible. ‘Here is what I have got to give you,’ he continued, handing over the small plastic bag which he had withdrawn from his rucksack. ‘I’m leaving straightaway but I want you to stay here for at least ten minutes giving me time to leave the main square.’

  And with that he was gone but in his rush for discretion he had made an unwitting but grave mistake. He had forgotten Rolf’s instruction to lodge the tube in the safe deposit and only hand over the pouch to the blackmailer’s agent.

  As he hastily departed Tommy had thrown down a five euro note onto the table. Kevin guessed correctly that this was meant to be used to buy a drink to ensure that he stayed awhile at the Café Rosah. Settling back in his seat on a warm day he tried to enjoy the lager that he had ordered although he noted that there had been no change from the five euros but something was troubling him. After alighting from the train in Buchs Kevin had taken the tramway for the short journey across the Rhein into Liechtenstein and, like Tommy before him, walked the last hundred metres or so to the main square where he had ambled around until it was the designated time to take up position outside Café Rosah. It was while lingering here that he first noticed a tall thin man with an erect stature who seemed to be interested in the comings and goings at the café. His clothing looked somehow out of place for the area, incongruous, maybe it was the white shirt and striped tie worn with jeans and trainers that jarred. But there was also something about the sideways tilt of his head that reminded Kevin of a copper who used to work in East London.

  The client instruction was to follow Rolf but when Paul saw the handover of “goods” from Rolf to Tommy, two men who were very obviously good friends as there had been a warm parting embrace, he made a spur-of-the-moment decision to track the goods rather than the man. It had proved a test of Paul’s surveillance skills as Tommy changed trains in Zürich and Paul had had to combine buying his rail tickets while keeping tabs on his target. Arriving in the main square at a prudent distance behind Tommy, he watched his target enter and leave a bank before taking a seat in the outdoor area of the Café Rosah.

  A deep feeling of unease overcame Kevin. Although he didn’t know what had been passed to him Ron had impressed on him its value. Now stuck at the small square table in the corner of the outdoor eating area near the railings he was almost in full view of this bloke. Had he seen Tommy hand him something? He didn’t know but guessed he had. Memories were beginning to flood back about the man with the head tilt. As a teenager Kevin and an accomplice had been apprehended for the first time in Kevin’s life by a tall thin copper who had caught them pinching a couple of cases of red wine from an off-licence. After several hours at the nick they had talked their way out of further proceedings and left with just reprimands and angry parents. In Kevin’s case parents not angry because he had done something unlawful, just angry because he had been caught. Over the next few years with his family background of scams and deceits Kevin grew to recognise all the local officers. A pal of his was involved in a knifing incident when a policeman startled him when he was trying to steal a watch from a jeweller’s shop in the East End. He drew a knife and attempted to stab the policeman in the upper arm but missed and caught him in the neck. Other coppers arrived and arrested him and his pal was charged with theft and GBH and served a prison sentence. The stabbing had caused permanent muscle damage to the officer’s neck resulting in a head tilt to his right and since then the tall thin policeman had been deemed fit for clerical duties only. Kevin couldn’t remember his name but he was now sure that he was being followed. Somehow he had to find a way to divert his attention so that he could slip away unnoticed.

  Kevin was seated just in reach of one of the bicycles chained to the railings. If he reached out he could just put his hand into the rear wheel pannier. He knew that his follower would not dare to keep in constant eyeball contact with him and so Kevin resolved to take the two items out of the plastic bag the next time Paul was not looking directly at him and stuff them into the pannier the following time he was not being observed. He would then get up from the table flourishing the plastic bag, stroll out of the café and walk calmly around the main square until he found a waste bin where he would jettison the plastic bag. With luck his follower would dash to the waste bin as soon as Kevin was a little way off and when he did Kevin would take to his heels and run down a side street away from the square as quickly as he could to try to lose him. When he was sure that he had lost him he would make his way back to Café Rosah and remove the two items from the pannier. It was a very distinctive pannier with a grey and white background on which were drawn matchstick figures in black and Kevin was sure that he would remember it. He would set the bait and hope that Paul would spring the trap. It was a trick he had pulled many times before in his shady past. It had worked then and he saw no reason why it wouldn’t work now.

  Kevin was younger and fitter and had no trouble in shaking off Paul. He had run at a pace that ensured Paul saw him turning the corner off the side street from the main square. He had to string Paul along just far enough away that he could race back to Café Rosah and collect the items before Paul could get back there to see what he had done.

  The cycling club group had enjoyed a pasta lunch. They had stoked up on carbs with a beef lasagne in a thick tomato sauce topped with grated Parmesan cheese and a large slice of Black Forest gateau for dessert. One of their waiters recommended a large beer as also essential because of the warm weather and everyone had agreed. Amid much laughter they had told him that they couldn’t have schnapps with their coffees as they still had another fifty-three kilometres to go to their next overnight stop in Weesen at the head of Lake Wallen in Switzerland. Setting off south they soon gained the Grosser Kanal and followed the towpath for a few kilometres with the Rhein itself running parallel to their right and which they later crossed at the point where there was a marked bend in the river. After negotiating the railway lines and main roads leading to and from Buchs they made their way up through forests and tranquil valleys on quiet village roads to the southern shore of the lake and hugged its banks up to their final destination of the day.

  Regaining the main square very breathlessly, Kevin hurried over to Café Rosah and was stunned by the absence of bikes. A nasty feeling began settling in the pit of his stomach. He swung his gaze three hundred and sixty degrees around the square hoping desperately that he would see some sign of the cyclists but there was none. He wanted to panic but he knew he had to keep calm. Seeing a waiter, he enquired about the whereabouts of the cycling group. Apparently they had left a few minutes earlier and were heading for a hotel in Weesen where they planned to stay the night before their final stage the following day which would take them to Zürich in good time to catch the train to Paris with a connection on the Eurostar to London. Kevin caught the tram and crossed over the Rhein and its canal on the Zollstrasse Bridge leaving Liechtenstein and entering Switzerland for the important rail junction of Buchs from where he could catch a train directly to Zürich and be waiting the following day in the Hauptbahnhof to monitor the arrival of Doug Watson’s group.

  Paul arrived back in the main square just in time to see Kevin getting into the tram which served Buchs station. When he found nothing in the plastic bag that Kevin had discarded in the waste bin Paul realised that he had fallen for Kevin’s ruse and the subsequent futile chase around the back streets of the main square had just confirmed that. He knew that something had been handed over from Tommy to Kevin but he
didn’t know what and, crucially, he did not know that this package was now in Doug Watson’s pannier. Finding a taxi he instructed it to speed to the station where he hoped to be in time to follow Kevin’s next move.

  As far as Tommy was concerned he had fulfilled Rolf’s brief to the letter. He had felt a little nervy waiting for the blackmailer’s agent to show up and Kevin’s incautious manner had not helped but now he felt relaxed and could text Rolf with the news, job done! He would make his way back to Basle in the car Rolf had pre-arranged. At the airport he would hire another car and park it in the short-stay parking all ready for when Jane arrived. His assignation with her in the spa town of Baden was at the forefront of his mind. More parochially he was eager too to sample the thermal waters which had been recommended to him as therapeutic for rheumatism. He was happily oblivious to his error.

  Tommy was in arrivals in plenty of time to meet Jane off the London flight. When she appeared through the automatic frosted glass doors he was quickly at her side and took her overnight bag in a gallant gesture. We’re going to Baden to sample the thermal waters, he explained to her. They are good for rheumatism apparently! She giggled. There’s also a wonderful hotel there. We’ll start with a long dip in the Roman-style baths and then, I suppose, we’ll have to go up to our room, he had said, arching his left eyebrow meaningfully. She giggled again. It would be her first affair and her last.

  As a constable in his early years in the force Paul had been mostly on the beat. It was only after the injury that left him unfit for normal duties that he was given a less physically strenuous role in the police station. Casting his mind back on all the faces he had known over the years both on the street and in the station, he couldn’t place Kevin’s face. However, it was now obvious to Paul that Kevin knew him and that he therefore had to be a great deal more vigilant when tailing him. Using his mobile without worrying about data roaming charges he rang his employer Alan with the up-to-date position. Did Alan wish him to continue surveillance bearing in mind what Paul had reported back? He received the instruction to carry on and to try to discover what it was that was being smuggled from one person to another. He had narrowly avoided Kevin at one of the ticket machines at Buchs station and when he saw him standing on the platform for the Zürich train Paul had hastily bought a ticket. The train that arrived was not SBB rolling stock but an intercity train of the Deutschebahn from Munich which, according to the placard on the outside of each carriage, was going through to Paris. Just as Kevin was boarding the train Paul was able to take a photo of him with his mobile without being detected. With Kevin alerted further surveillance was no longer viable and Paul had to stay out of sight and take a chance that Kevin would not disembark before Zürich. Sitting back in his seat, he contemplated how Kevin could be followed if he could not do it himself. Using the train’s wifi connection he sent a text to one of the partners in the investigation agency explaining the difficulty and suggesting that the target might get off at Zürich in which case he would try to continue to trail him or he might go through to the terminus at Paris. If this was the case then he thought that there would be sufficient time for one of the partners to get on a Eurostar train and be in Paris before the Munich train arrived and, at the press of a button on his keypad, he was able to send the photo of Kevin. Within minutes Colin, the senior of the three partners, replied that they were already searching a criminal database for a match with the photo but in the meantime Paul should just sit back and work out in his own mind how he might shadow Kevin if he left the train in Zürich. It was stuffy in the carriage as the sunlight glinted on the windows and shafts of light warmed the seats and Paul nodded off.

  Paul was awoken by the vibration of the mobile in his back pocket. Somewhat startled he read the message on the screen telling him that Susan, his other part-time colleague could go at a moment’s notice to Paris that Thursday afternoon and should be there in time to cover Kevin’s arrival should he remain on the train at Zürich. Also, he would be pleased to learn that the database search had thrown up an interesting result. In the past a well-known petty criminal named Darren Yorke had been prosecuted by the Trading Standards Agency for selling fake goods and one of the partners had linked the emailed photo with the one of Darren on the database. It was his son, Kevin.

  Paul had been trying to recall the layout of Zürich Hauptbahnhof. He had been there for only an hour or so when he had changed trains on his outward passage to Vaduz and most of that time had been spent keeping Tommy under close observation. At Buchs Paul had deliberately got into the last carriage in order to separate himself from Kevin by as far as possible in the hope that Kevin would think that he was no longer being tailed. Paul’s plan on reaching the platform at Zürich was to ensure that he was the first person to disembark from the rearmost exit. In this way he would be certain that there was nobody off the train behind him and that if Kevin was disembarking that he must be in front of Paul. Working his way quickly but stealthily along the platform using the many roof-supporting columns and timetable boards to hide behind Paul worked his way almost up to the concourse before he spotted Kevin. Kevin was standing still and appeared to be dithering about what to do next. He took off finally on what seemed to be a circuit of the concourse before he stopped at a large illuminated board displaying hotel accommodation availability. Kevin used one of the free telephones provided and after a short conversation he made his way out of the station via the museum exit, crossed the road, walked along Museumstrasse before entering a hotel in Neugasse. Satisfied that nothing more could be done until morning Paul texted the information to his office and received his instructions back for the following day and the news that Susan was also free to travel to Paris on the Friday providing that seats were still available on what was usually one of Eurostar’s busiest days of the week.

  Any inhabitant of Zürich could have told Kevin that the most crowded place in Zürich on a Friday evening was the concourse of the main station. Brimming with foreign workers, especially Italians travelling back to their homes in northern Italy for the weekend, with office workers journeying to the lower Alps to enjoy walking or cycling weekends and holiday makers returning home to start back at work the following Monday and therefore it was hardly surprising that Kevin failed to identify the particular cycling group that he had seen in Vaduz. He therefore had no alternative but to board the train for which he had already purchased his ticket and trust to luck that while walking through the carriages he would spot the English-speaking group and somehow identify the person to whom the bike with the distinctive panniers belonged.

  Working his way from the front carriage backwards he came across only one English-speaking group, all male, wearing cycling-style clothing but he was unable to marry up the person with the pannier as the bikes were all dangling from stout hooks in the carriage roof. The train was packed and the cyclists themselves were either sitting nearby or standing talking amongst themselves. On arrival in Paris the train pulled into Halle One for the “Grandes Lines” and disgorged its occupants in a mêlée of confusion and noise. Despite having to offload their bikes the English-speaking group moved astonishingly quickly down the platform to the exit by the Boulevard Diderot where they crossed the road, mounted their bikes and rode off along the Rue de Lyon heading in the direction of the Bastille and the Gare du Nord. The swiftness of their departure had caught Kevin on the hop. Knowing in advance that they were making their way to the Eurostar terminal he had thought that he would have plenty of time in the Gare de Lyon to confirm their intention to transit from one station to another and still have time to get a taxi for himself but he could not find one for love nor money. Running back into the concourse he descended to the lower level by escalator and followed the signs to the Metro. Hampered by his lack of basic French he couldn’t understand whether he needed the Metro or the RER until an English-speaking customer service agent patrolling in the ticketing area was able to explain that he needed to “compost” his ticket and then
follow the RER line D signs and his destination was only two stops away. Twenty minutes later at the Eurostar terminal he had bought his ticket for the London-bound train and was going through the customs and security checks. He saw no sign of the cycling group until, herded from one point to another by various officials, the passengers shuffled across a bridge that spanned two platforms and led down to the one on which their train was waiting when Kevin spotted the cyclists standing together outside one of the entrances to a carriage. It occurred to him then that they had probably had to arrive early in order to stow their bikes in a reserved area. Kevin thanked his lucky stars that he had got to the terminal just in time to be on the same train but he acknowledged to himself that he would have to plan his moves much more strategically for arrival at St. Pancras. This proved to be more straightforward than Kevin could have dared to imagine as the cycling group split up very quickly on arrival and he was easily able to see Doug make his way down the long platform with his bike with the distinctive panniers in tow. Susan was also watching proceedings carefully.

  At St. Pancras Doug said a fond farewell to his cycling chums. He had really enjoyed the five-day break and got to know quite well a couple of the bikers in his own age bracket. He had enjoyed the exercise, the fresh air, the magnificent views and the company of other men and the suggestion of a trip the following year up the Rhein and swinging round east to go through south-west Germany, Belgium and Holland was welcome news. He said a particularly fond farewell to the seventy plus aged club member in whose company he had cycled many kilometres because of their similar speed. This chap had regaled him with stories of his cycling adventures over the last fifty-plus years and Doug had grown to respect his prowess. Feeling the fittest he’d been in years Doug took to the streets to cycle to Fenchurch Street station to catch his train home. Kevin followed him in a taxi and Susan was not far behind.