adjusted his tie, picking his silver cufflinks off the chipped filing cabinet that now doubled as a chest of drawers and deftly threading them through the double cuff of his Hilditch & Key shirt.
“I’ll see you later,” he shouted to Dominique as he clattered down the concrete steps, his footsteps echoing back up around the stairwell’s empty carcass.
“Okay.” She had appeared at the doorway to the second floor where she had taken up residence amid the tea-stained walls of the former finance department. “Have fun.”
Tom stepped out into a cherry sunset, the sun scrolling down through an orange sky, a warm whisper of air shushing through the streets. He liked seeing the city at this time. It was a strange transition period, when one set of inhabitants melted away and another appeared.
He soon reached Smithfield, Europe’s oldest meat market, a low-slung amalgam of a refurbished cast-iron Victorian market hall and a postwar brick-and-concrete hangar. It was surrounded on all sides by a crenellated roofline of alternately short and tall warehouses, a jarring convergence of redbrick and white stone, of gothic windows and industrial steel shutters. Five minutes later and he was in Hatton Garden, the center of London’s diamond trade.
It was nearly empty. Gone were the eager shop assistants enticing you to enter, offering you their very best price, suggesting a pair of earrings to go with the necklace. Gone were the courier bikes and the security vans and the anxious soon-to-be-weds, comparing ring prices in gaudy shop windows. Their shutters had been drawn down, their contents safely stowed for the night, their neon lights extinguished.
And yet the street projected a latent energy. Rather than be asleep it was merely resting. A few Hasidim with pale faces and dark suits still stood in doorways, plunged into shops and buildings, swapped anxious glances from under their dark fedoras. Behind the scenes, the work went on, stones were cut, deals were done, hands shaken, money counted.
Perhaps because his own life had been so lacking in order, so devoid of any fixed reference points or rules, Tom was fascinated by this place. As in Smithfield, he drew an almost spiritual reassurance from the continuity of these streets, their daily cycle, the comforting embrace of their familiar routine. In a way, he craved their predictability.
Stepping in off the street, Tom presented his pass to the security guards on duty in the dingy fluorescent lobby of the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit, Ltd. Sitting behind their barred window they inspected it carefully, flickering screens in front of them covering every angle of the lobby and vault and staining their faces blue. Satisfied, they buzzed him through the first door and then, when that had closed behind him, the second door with metal bars running through it.
The reinforced vault there, at the foot of the dark green linoleum stairs, was about seventeen foot square, its walls lined from floor to ceiling with 950 identically sized tungsten and steel doors that gleamed silver under the lights, each individual box numbered in black. Unusually for that time it was empty. That suited Tom perfectly.
He took a key out of his pocket and indicated to the guard who had followed him into the room which box he wanted opened. They both put their keys into the two separate keyholes and turned them. With a click, the door opened. Tom drew out the black metal container it concealed and placed it on the metal tray that slid out from between two layers of boxes at about waist height. It was empty apart from another key, which he removed. Turning to a second box on the opposite wall, he and the guard again inserted their keys. This time, Tom waited until the guard left the room before opening the black container.
He already knew what was in it, but opened the small leather pouch it contained anyway, emptying its contents into his gloved hand. Just over a quarter of a million
“I’ll see you later,” he shouted to Dominique as he clattered down the concrete steps, his footsteps echoing back up around the stairwell’s empty carcass.
“Okay.” She had appeared at the doorway to the second floor where she had taken up residence amid the tea-stained walls of the former finance department. “Have fun.”
Tom stepped out into a cherry sunset, the sun scrolling down through an orange sky, a warm whisper of air shushing through the streets. He liked seeing the city at this time. It was a strange transition period, when one set of inhabitants melted away and another appeared.
He soon reached Smithfield, Europe’s oldest meat market, a low-slung amalgam of a refurbished cast-iron Victorian market hall and a postwar brick-and-concrete hangar. It was surrounded on all sides by a crenellated roofline of alternately short and tall warehouses, a jarring convergence of redbrick and white stone, of gothic windows and industrial steel shutters. Five minutes later and he was in Hatton Garden, the center of London’s diamond trade.
It was nearly empty. Gone were the eager shop assistants enticing you to enter, offering you their very best price, suggesting a pair of earrings to go with the necklace. Gone were the courier bikes and the security vans and the anxious soon-to-be-weds, comparing ring prices in gaudy shop windows. Their shutters had been drawn down, their contents safely stowed for the night, their neon lights extinguished.
And yet the street projected a latent energy. Rather than be asleep it was merely resting. A few Hasidim with pale faces and dark suits still stood in doorways, plunged into shops and buildings, swapped anxious glances from under their dark fedoras. Behind the scenes, the work went on, stones were cut, deals were done, hands shaken, money counted.
Perhaps because his own life had been so lacking in order, so devoid of any fixed reference points or rules, Tom was fascinated by this place. As in Smithfield, he drew an almost spiritual reassurance from the continuity of these streets, their daily cycle, the comforting embrace of their familiar routine. In a way, he craved their predictability.
Stepping in off the street, Tom presented his pass to the security guards on duty in the dingy fluorescent lobby of the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit, Ltd. Sitting behind their barred window they inspected it carefully, flickering screens in front of them covering every angle of the lobby and vault and staining their faces blue. Satisfied, they buzzed him through the first door and then, when that had closed behind him, the second door with metal bars running through it.
The reinforced vault there, at the foot of the dark green linoleum stairs, was about seventeen foot square, its walls lined from floor to ceiling with 950 identically sized tungsten and steel doors that gleamed silver under the lights, each individual box numbered in black. Unusually for that time it was empty. That suited Tom perfectly.
He took a key out of his pocket and indicated to the guard who had followed him into the room which box he wanted opened. They both put their keys into the two separate keyholes and turned them. With a click, the door opened. Tom drew out the black metal container it concealed and placed it on the metal tray that slid out from between two layers of boxes at about waist height. It was empty apart from another key, which he removed. Turning to a second box on the opposite wall, he and the guard again inserted their keys. This time, Tom waited until the guard left the room before opening the black container.
He already knew what was in it, but opened the small leather pouch it contained anyway, emptying its contents into his gloved hand. Just over a quarter of a million
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