Twist in Sobriety

This would be a good night. Getting past the security devices had been easy and it wouldn’t take long to find the safe. Alfie was a criminal, but he only robbed from individuals who could afford to accept the loss and probably had their valuables insured. Sir and Lady Manning could manage the loss. The safe was located inside one of the wardrobes of the main bedroom and made to look like part of the drawers. Yes, this would be simple.

His day hadn’t started well. While having a leisurely meal with his partner Rachel, Alfie had an unpleasant encounter with Dennis Michaels, the local drugs baron who was not above selling his merchandise to schoolkids or getting them to peddle the stuff amongst their friends. The moral duplicity of his activities had no effect on him. Yes, Alfie was a bandit, but he made sure his victims were not hurt.

Before meeting Alfie, Rachel was Dennis’ squeeze and although she was definite about finishing their relationship, he still looked on her as his property. It was very awkward whenever they ran into him. Rachel didn’t tell Alfie that Dennis had turned up at her home a few times and on his last visit had threatened her with physical violence. She was frightened of him, but more scared of what he would do to Alfie if she cut him off completely.

Dennis was accompanied by two of his cronies who normally got drunk fought every Saturday night.  They all carried knives and would cut up anyone who got in their way while having a good time. They hovered ominously behind Dennis when he stopped at their table. “What are you doing here?” asked Dennis.

“Just enjoying a quiet bite to eat and drink on a Saturday afternoon,” Rachel replied. “Nothing special.”

“What I meant was why are you here with him,” said Dennis, pointing at Alfie.

“Just take it easy, man,” said Alfie, “we’re just having a quiet drink on a sunny day. Let me buy you a glass,” said Alfie, getting to his feet.

Dennis’ henchmen got agitated and the one closest to Alfie moved forward. Dennis barred his path with his arm. “I wouldn’t take a drink off you Redmond if I was dying of thirst,” he replied, glowering at Rachel. Michaels left them warning Rachel not to cheat on him or she would pay for her actions.

As Alfie opened the safe door, his mind flipped back to the present. The valuables lay there waiting to be picked. A few thousand pounds in ready money, ISA certificates and jewellery, which was what he had come for. Lady Manning had a reputation for having one of the biggest and most exotic jewellery collections amongst the A list celebrities of London.

Some of the jewels were in cases, but other items just lay loose in the safe. Lady Manning didn’t bother returning items she wore frequently to their cases. As Alfie’s torchlight shone on them, they sparkled like the brightest stars in the sky on a clear night. He made short work of collecting the money and jewels and put them into a gunny sack. Ironic, a cheap burlap bag carrying hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of jewellery.

It was thirty minutes past midnight and Alfie wanted to hurry home to get changed and then catch the underground to see Rachel. She knew what he was doing but turned a blind eye without question. What a star. Alfie ran to the perimeter walls of the mansion and climbed a wall covered by the growth of trees and bushes. His working clothes were black trousers and sweatshirt, and a black balaclava.

Getting into the house had been easy. Cameras inside and outside the house were linked to the local police station to send a warning if an intruder’s movements were detected. Alfie had visited the house earlier pretending to be from the power company, saying he needed to check their switchboard because of some complaints in the area of cut outs of the supply. While Lady manning went off to make him a cup of tea, he found the control box of the security system and bridged the connections to the alarm sensors before deactivating the motion detectors. This maintained the status quo, without sending warning signals or sounding alarm sirens. He could give security companies plenty of feedback on the do’s and don’ts of setting up a house protection system.

Alfie had parked his motorbike in a side lane and tried to camouflage it with branches from bushes and trees. He took off his balaclava and put on his helmet, pulling down the visor. Rolling the bike onto the tarmac, he mounted it, kicked it into life and raced to his house. He spent the ride wondering how he could treat Rachel. She didn’t want any part of his criminal plunder, but he could buy her something nice with what he got fencing Lady Manning’s jewellery.

Rachel told him she had one very expensive piece of jewellery herself. It was a sapphire broach with encrusted diamonds on the periphery and a large diamond cut into the centre of the sapphire, an heirloom her grandmother had given her. She said the broach was worth thousands of pounds and could match any expensive items of jewellery on the high street. Rachel put it into a safe deposit box of the local bank. It was a box they both used with him being the more active, hiding loot until it cooled off.

As he hurried home, he ran into his younger brother Eric, who appeared to be waiting for him at the junction of his street and was waving frantically to slow him down. Eric ran towards Alfie and caught up with him about 50 yards from the junction. “What’s up kid, I’m in a hurry to go over to Rachel’s place,” said Alfie.

“Slow down Bud, we need to talk, but first let’s get off the street,” replied Eric. Whatever Eric had to say must be important, thought Alfie, because he was normally very laid back.

They went to some garages behind the row of houses fronting onto the street. Alfie sat on his bike and took off his helmet, looking at Eric, waiting for an explanation.

“I don’t know how to say this, but Rachel’s dead.” Alfie heard the words but just kept staring at his brother, unable to comprehend the meaning for a few seconds. Suddenly he snapped, let his bike drop to the floor, and grabbed Eric.

“You’ve got to be mistaken? Who told you?”

“The police are waiting outside your place. They came around to Mum’s seeing if you were there,” answered Eric. “I think she was murdered.  The rumour is she was stabbed.”

Alfie immediately thought of Dennis and his friends. “Dennis has been questioned by the police,” said Eric, knowing who his brother would suspect of stabbing Rachel, “but he’s got an alibi. His alibi is supported by his thugs, and even the police know they can’t be trusted.”

“Whatever his story, I don’t believe him. You should have heard the way he talked to Rachel earlier today. He thinks he owns her,” replied Alfie, suddenly realising he was talking as if she were still alive. His heart started beating so fast he felt it was going to burst out of his chest. He screamed and dropped to his knees, punching the ground.

“Forgive me, Alfie, but keep your voice down. You don’t want to talk to the cops until you’re ready.” Eric was right and the two of them got back onto the bike and rode to the house of Eric’s girlfriend, Shona. She was waiting there anxiously and pulled them in quickly after opening her door.

Alfie sat down heavily, still disbelieving Rachel was dead. “I’ve got a bit more news on Facebook. That rat Dennis Michaels is saying you killed Rachel because she wanted to go back to him. Anybody who knows him, knows what a liar he is and that he can’t be trusted,” said Shona.

“I will kill him,” seethed Alfie.

“You do nothing, just lie low,” said Eric. “You can’t account for your whereabouts because you were on a job, and don’t lie, I know you were.”

Alfie suddenly remembered his gunny sack was still in his top box and went out to retrieve it. “I must have a couple of hundred thousand pounds in this sack, but I’d give it away to get Rachel back.”

“Maybe we can use it to lure Dennis out of the long grass,” said Eric. “He’s always up for making a bit of money, and has fenced stolen jewellery before. If he takes the bait, we can get him alone and beat the truth out of him.”

“He goes nowhere alone and we can’t overpower him because of the goons he always goes around with. We’ve got to frame him and give the police cause to make an arrest. They don’t seem able to stop his drug peddling. I’d like to see him nicked for something he didn’t do, but with a catch,” said Alfie.

“How?” said Eric. Shona was hanging on his every word.

“Go to Ronnie and ask him to get word on the street that there’s a valuable stash of jewellery up for grabs. If he doesn’t already know, tell him about Rachel and our plan to get the killer. The story is the seller is desperate to leave the country and will take tenpence in the pound. We tell Ronnie it’s a setup, so he knows what’s going on.”

“We get Michaels implicated in the robbery, but how does that help with Rachel’s murder?” asked Eric.

“Rachel has a family heirloom that her mother will recognise. If we put it in with my little haul tonight, it will provide a motive for her murder.”

Ronnie Fenton is a well-known name on the street with many contacts for getting rid of stolen property. He often sold to criminals like Dennis Michaels acting as a facilitator for passing on hot property. Like everyone else in the East end of London, he was horrified by Rachel’s murder and suspected Dennis Michaels was the culprit. He wasted no time in getting word on the street about the Manning jewellery. It wasn’t long before Ronnie got a phone call from Michaels.

“I hear you’ve got merchandise someone is willing to unload for 10 percent of its value,” said Michaels without feeling it necessary to introduce himself.

“Yes, I have, are you interested?”

“I might be. I’ll be around later today, at about two.”

Ronnie ran a pawnbroking business, and many transactions took place in secret in the back room. Dennis turned up at 2PM with his entourage and a valuer. Ronnie shut up shop with a “Gone for lunch” notice and everyone disappeared into the back room.

“I hope you’re not wasting my time, Ronnie,” said Dennis in his usual unfriendly manner.

“Judge for yourselves,” said Ronnie, lifting Alfie’s gunny sack onto a table in the middle of the room and emptying its contents. Michaels valuer was straight on them, putting a loupe magnifying eyeglass to his left eye and examining each item in turn. He made a list of each item and their value and handed his notebook to his boss.

“My man’s valuation is three hundred and fifty thousand,” said Dennis.

“The same as mine,” lied Ronnie, who had put the value at half a million pounds.

“That’s thirty-five grand then.”

“Let’s call it fifty grand, I like simple numbers,” replied Ronnie. Dennis hesitated for a second but then agreed, happy with the trade. They arranged to meet later in the day to make the exchange. Ronnie said he was having dinner with his daughter, who lived close to Michaels, and they could make the exchange in his flat. Dennis agreed.

Alfie was retrieving Rachel’s family heirloom from their safe deposit box at the bank while the deal was being made at the pawnbrokers. He also tipped off a police snitch about the exchange, expecting a raid on Dennis’ flat after Ronnie had left the building. Possession of the stolen jewels would be enough for the police to arrest Dennis.

The plan worked well and by midnight Dennis and his thugs were in jail. Dennis was charged with the theft of the Manning jewellery and they arrested his henchmen for obstruction. Lady Manning went to the police station the following morning to identify her jewellery and confirmed her ownership of everything except Rachel’s heirloom.

They found Dennis was carrying a knife when he was arrested and forensics discovered Rachels DNA on the blade in traces of blood left after he cleaned the knife. The police eventually traced the ownership of the sapphire broach to Rachel, which gave them a motive for her murder. The police charged Dennis with Rachel’s murder, a watertight case.

The night of the exchange, Alfie went into the police station to give them his movements on the night Rachel was killed. As expected, the police held him for a few hours for questioning. He explained he hadn’t seen Rachel the previous evening and stayed at home with Eric and Shona, who of course backed up his story. He left the police station as Dennis was being brought into the police station and smiled contentedly, knowing Rachel’s murderer would be locked up for a long time.

The broach was returned to Rachel’s mother, who was still distraught over her daughter’s death. She couldn’t understand why anyone would kill for it as it was only a cheap piece of jewellery worth a few hundred pounds. Rachel’s grandmother was convinced it was priceless and everyone went along with it to keep her happy. The “expensive” broach was a family secret that had been nurtured for generations.