“Fully understood,” Lorela said in her slightly American accent. Thank God they’d lapsed into English. (Hang on—why did I register that they’d
“You excavate all possible approaches.” Monique nodded. “I’m relieved to hear that our incognito status held up.”
“It’s the reason we chose the Repository,” I cut in. “In spite of your charges. They’m punishment, ’Rela, hon!”
We moved into the grand hall. Balcony, sweeping staircase, hall windows. Identical. Good old Colonel Marimee. His team only needed to stay a week at his country mansion to be able to creep in here at night and move around blindfold. Brilliant. Lorela, her Repository Director’s horns out, instantly launched into a spirited defence of her fees.
“There are so many expenses!” she battled. “You must be aware of the vast intelligence network the Repository must operate? All staff are security cleared. We have sixteen electronic, seven non-electronic auto systems—”
“You come strongly recommended, Ms. Chevalier,” Monique said, which got me narked. Here was I getting the whole dump’s security details, and she shuts her up. That’s women all over. They can’t plan. And nothing needs planning like a robbery. Hers or mine.
“Thank you, Madame,” from Lorela, leading us with the career woman’s defined walk into a drawing room. She hadn’t finished with me. “You could go to cheaper… firms.” She hated having to mention competitors. “Christie’s, Bonhams, or—”
“Sotheby’s Freeport Geneva, right? Lucky Number 13, Quai du Mont-Blanc?” I gave a sharp bark, digging Monique in the ribs. “She hates the enemy, notice that? Trying to sound they’s all
Lorela gave a glacial nod. Serfs ushered coffee, chocolates, those small sweet things that get your stomach all excited but turn out to be teasing promises. The silver was modern, I noticed, and therefore gunge. Why not go the whole hog, serve plastic from Burger Boss? I scrounged some edibles from habit. The women pretended to taste one. I often wonder if birds think noshing vulgar. “The difference is that the Repository is
“Henry adores the ins and outs of commerce,” Monique said distantly, to effect repair.
“Not me, Mow-Neekee.” I wouldn’t leave the subject. “Hate any kind of work.” I leered grossly at Lorela. “Except one—know what I mean?”
“Your requirements, Madame,” La Chevalier said, struggling on under my barrage of vulgarity. “Your possessions are to be in two lots, I understand. One group for shipment to a destination to be notified. One, much larger, group for storage until further notice.”
“Correct.” Monique held a cigarette for villeins to hurl platinum lighters at. “My husband has decided he will select which antiques will go into which group.” She let her withering scorn for me show, peekaboo.
Lorela smiled, offered me more of the vaporous grub fragments. I took the dish from her, irritated, and had the lot, getting hungrier with each mouthful. What narked me was the cleverness of Monique’s ploy. Spring my new identity on me at the last minute, as we enter the Repository, and I’d have no time to devise any alternative ploys. She’d say the play. Me dolt, her the brain—and that’s how Lorela was registering us. I’d done exactly as Monique planned. For the first time I really began to wonder how far they were willing to go in all this, and felt truly disturbed. I was on a raft in the rapids.
“Your shipments are already in the motor park, Madame,” Lorela said. “My apologies for the delay. The Repository insists on a thorough security scan of each vehicle before it can proceed to our unloading bays.”
“Had trouble?” I asked, an oaf trying to be shrewd.
“Over seventy robbery attempts in the past two years, Henry.” No harm in first names now the two women had tacitly agreed on my being a transparent idiot. “Robbers hiding in bureaux, silence-activated robots sealed in a Sheraton commode.”
I brightened. I’d not heard of a silence-activated robot before. First chance I got, I’d ask Torsion back home if he could knock me one up, have a go at the Ipswich depot. Or had they already tried it in Newcastle? They’re very innovative up there. Torsion’s a Manchester brain, thinks only electronics.
“How long was its trigger mode?” I tried to work it out. “They used a robot cable-cutter for that Commercial Street spang. It went wrong. Remote control’s overrated, I reckon—”
“Henry.” Monique viciously stabbed a phoney Lalique-style ashtray with the burning point of her cigarette, and rose. “You don’t want to tire Miss Chevalier with your famous stories. We’ll get on. Come, Henry.” Like come, Paulie.
And they were off, speaking in German, French, anything but my lingo. I crammed the few remaining petits fours in my pocket to eke out life, and followed. I was right—anybody could do this, any time, anywhere. They didn’t need me. Maybe, the intriguing thought came as we descended in a lift, they were making sure I wasn’t employed by rival thieves? Now there’s a thought…
Except, I saw as we went through doors on to a long wide loading platform, there was room for no fewer than six furniture pantechnicons backed up the ramp. Simulated daylight—never quite right to look at antiques by, but next best if rigged by experts. And clerks on old-fashioned high stools at tall Dickensian teller desks, snooping on all they surveyed. A humorous touch: their pens had prominent feathers. I smiled, not fooled. Every pen and pinna would be wired for sight, sound, gunfire.
“Simultaneous, then, Lorela?”
I laughed. A team of blokes in tan overalls were unloading the vans as they went. One queue of whifflers, antiques shifters, nurtured the antiques on to auto-trolleys, forming up at the end of the loading bay. There was no sound except the grunts and murmurs of the men. No fatties, no beer guts. They looked a fit lot. Thirty? With the clerks, about that.
