All together now

Darren squinted in the light rain, his face lit orange by the Battersea side street lighting. He scanned the quiet scene of ongoing property development with muddy tyre tracks on the road and cement bag shreds tumbling in the breeze. He looked up again at the latest apartment block to go on sale within the lucrative regeneration zone surrounding what was once a famous southwest London power station. He studied lower apartments on the corner of the riverside ten-story tower.

“I can do it,” he said in a hushed tone, with a forced smile. 

Graham, as ever, had been responsible for acquiring the equipment. Stealing rope from boats on the Thames was relatively easy. A metal hook had been more challenging to source and required a distraction in the butcher’s store to remove a meat hook from the cutting area behind the counter while an expensive beef joint was retrieved from refrigeration. Darren wanted a large net, so Graham made a park tennis court his target. Having scaled the surrounding mesh fence, he used bolt cutters to release the net from its locked cable suspension.

It was Graham, too, who had spotted the opportunity presented by a tree yet to be removed from the building garden. Its mid-tier branches hung close to an unsold first-floor apartment balcony that could, with some rope and a hook, be connected to the balcony to provide precarious access that bypassed site security. “Are you sure? Getting on the first floor looks OK, but getting the hook up to the floor above will not be easy. It’s a meat hook. Sorry, it’s all I could get today; there was nowhere I could find a grappling hook”.

            “No problem!’ Darren assured. ‘The owner seems to go out every night till gone one, so I’ve got at least an hour to do the climbing, get in, and do the job. That’s plenty of time”.

            “You're sure the apartment alarm isn’t working?” Graham quizzed. 

            Darren gritted his teeth. “Yes, I am. Jason the Sparky does a lot of the developer’s indoor installations. He says they are still waiting for the control panels to arrive from Germany. None of the flats in this block are alarmed. Just the main doors and the site gates. Stop fretting.” He scaled the tree carrying the netting and laid it across two branches to form a makeshift hammock. He then moved the rest of the equipment off the ground and into the net before climbing higher and casting the hook to the first-floor balcony. 

Graham was relieved that it took only two attempts to get the hook to grasp the balcony's metal railing. Darren secured the rope to the tree but left a little slack before testing it to hold his weight. Slowly, he moved one hand along the rope while hanging on with the other hand. Within a minute, he had scampered onto the first-floor apartment’s outdoor area.  Catching his breath, suppressing the ache in his arms and stinging scratches to his legs, he peered through the glass door into the unoccupied high-value apartment. He hated the gentrification of his part of London and felt re-energised for some wealth redistribution. He stretched the horizontal rope before removing the steel J-shaped hook and tied the rope end to the balcony rail. 

Graham breathed heavily. He hoped he had obtained ropes that were strong enough and a hook that was big enough. A netful of electronics would provide a welcome windfall. This had to work.

Darren leaned over the first-floor balcony and looked up at the one directly above. He threw the hooked second rope upwards. It did not come close to catching onto the metalwork above. Against the inky sky, Darren failed to see the hook as it dropped beside him and clattered onto the granite-tiled floor. A dog barked, followed by several others, trying to outbark each other—no cause for concern in a neighbourhood familiar with the sounds from the district’s eponymous dog home. The second attempt looped over the target balcony but did not latch onto the railing as it was pulled from below. The third attempt behaved similarly, but with a few gentle tugs on the rope, the hook danced against the metal balcony rail until it gripped under the weight of Darren’s probing pull.

Burglary was familiar to Dazza, as friends referred to him. He had twice done some time at His Majesty’s Pleasure in his early twenties for petty theft. The experience left scars, and a determination to overcome the lousy hand life had dealt him. He had nothing to show for a decade of honest and dishonest toil. A fatherless upbringing broke family life, and relationships ended when the wounds were exposed. But he had learned from prison peers and previous failures. A good haul from this yuppy gin palace could provide a way out. 

Adrenalin made the climb to the second floor effortless. He secured the rope for his descent and threw the hook into the netting below. Removing a small screwdriver from his shirt pocket, he quickly picked open the French window. He slid the full-length glass door open and paused momentarily to listen for any sounds. Darren reached for his pen-sized torch, switched it on, and systematically swept the darkened living room with the narrow searchlight.

He saw nothing: no TV, no Hi-Fi, no computer, no sign of wealth. The apartment had a small dining table with two matching chairs, and that was it. Darren moved to the kitchen. There were spaces where white goods should be installed. He went to the bedroom and found only a double mattress on the floor. He opened the built-in wardrobe, and no clothes hung from its rail. He moved the torchlight downwards and spotted something. A zipped-up navy-blue canvas gym bag.  Darren placed it on the mattress and unzipped it, hoping for a decent pair of trainers. 

The golden torchlight illuminated the treasure of numerous rolls of banknotes bound by rubber bands. Exhilarated but terrified, Darren zipped up the bag and rushed to the balcony. He threw the loot into the tree net and prepared to descend. Before he did so, his eyes, now accustomed to the darkness, saw a blue LED light in the apartment. It was coming from an otherwise bare shelving unit in the living room. Darren aimed the torchlight at the bright dot and saw a portable high-end security camera, clearly online, turning and zooming towards him.

Darren scrambled down to the first-floor balcony, reaching for the horizontal rope with one hand and swinging the other onto it. As his weight moved onto his escape rope, the rain-sodden knot on the balcony rail began to slip. He felt the movement in the rope and the sensation of dropping a few inches and then a few more. The rope had untied, and Darren was swinging towards the tree trunk. In a split second, he released the rope and hit the bellowed tennis net and the branch beneath it with his midriff. Winded but uninjured, he grabbed the gym bag and dropped to the grass below. 

Graham started to permutate escape ideas. Running through South London with a bag full of cash was not one of them. ‘Let’s get some rest and think. Perhaps jump on a train when they start up later,” he suggested with his thumb and forefinger on his chin.

            “Public transport, with all the CCTV and a face known to all the local old Bill, is not the way,” Darren said with gritted teeth. “I skip probation, and they will be after me too. But I’ve been in worse scrapes. It will be fine”.

Twenty minutes later, Darren closed the door of his rented studio apartment on the wrong side of Battersea. He pulled the pencil-thin bolt into its sheaf and held his head with both hands, fingertips feeling his racing pulse. Memories of incarceration flooding out.

            “There’s a gun in the bag—a pistol. And there’s a few bags of powder,” Graham choked. “This is drug money you’ve stolen”.

Darren pounded his forehead. “I don’t do guns. It’s not happening. They have me on camera. I need to give them the money back. Say it was all a big mistake.”

Graham gasped. “Darren, there’s about eighty grand in the bag. Each roll is a thousand quid. We can jump in a cab now and make our way up to Liverpool. Pay a boat owner to go over to Ireland, off the grid. Start afresh”.

“Can I come?” Carol said.”

“You, you’re back”, stumbled Darren, “I thought you’d gone for good”.

“Don’t put the light on - I'm here now, and you need me. I can help. They will be looking for you, asking around, showing your photo.”

“I don’t want to die” sobbed Graham.

Carol sniffed.

Edon was at a casino in Chelsea when he watched the video message advising of an intruder in his apartment. Two muscular compatriots hurriedly left the casino with him and sped to Battersea. Darren’s face was circulated to all their local dealers and associates during the short journey. Darren was no longer a user, but he was known regardless. Edon’s phone pinged, with an address provided by an electrician. Edon checked his firearm and turned off the safety.

With one hand, Carol had packed a few things into the gym bag, squeezing socks, underwear, asthma inhalers, and painkillers between rolls of opportunity money. She considered for a moment a happier life in Dublin, thoughts then racing on the best routes, the things the money could buy . . .

Edon kicked open the flimsy door, and piercing hall lighting flooded the bedsit, silhouetting him and his henchmen. “Found you!” he shouted.

Neighbours heard three gunshots and called the police.