Dangerous Games

by Gillian Godden

  ‘Very good, sir.’ The man selected a box and started wrapping it up. He finished by adding a large red bow.

  ‘How much do I owe you?’

  ‘That will be five hundred euros, please, sir,’ said the salesman.

  ‘I’m sorry, how much?’

  ‘Five hundred euros, sir.’

  Five hundred euros for a box of chocolates? Tony had never heard of anything so ridiculous. No wonder his grandmother made them last a long time!

  He paid the man and went back to the taxi.

  ‘For God’s sake, Tony, we’re up to our eyes in shit, and you’re buying chocolates. Are you completely mad?’

  ‘They’re for Miriam,’ Tony said.

  When they got to the airport, they saw that it was swarming with police. Some were armed.

  ‘I need the toilet,’ said Tony. He saw a sign for the public toilets and went in. Jake followed.

  ‘If you think I’m swallowing them, Tony, you are seriously mistaken. And you can’t flush them down the toilet, they’ll sink to the bottom and stay there.’

  Tony pushed Jake into a cubicle with him and shut the door. He carefully undid the ribbon the salesman had wrapped around the chocolates and removed the paper gently, so as not to tear it.

  A thought had occurred to him. Maybe Miriam wasn’t as bonkers as he thought. She had mentioned to him that people used to hide coins in the truffles … maybe they could hide the diamonds inside them.

  He took one out, while Jake watched him quizzically, and licked the bottom, as he’d been shown. He rubbed his finger across it and the chocolate melted. He took a diamond out of the velvet bag and carefully pressed it into the bottom of the truffle, then rubbed his finger across it again, and watched as the chocolate set and hardened. Miriam had been right; once the chocolate had set again, it looked like it had never been touched.

  He handed one to Jake and told him to do the same thing he had done. They did this with all thirty diamonds. This was a careful, slow process, but it would be worth it, if it saved them twenty years of their lives behind bars.

  When they had finished, Tony slipped the large bow back over the box, as the sales assistant had done in the shop. Jake opened the toilet cubicle door and, as he stepped out, he saw a man coming in to use the facilities. The man gave Jake an odd look when he saw Tony following him out of the cubicle.

  ‘You do realise,’ said Jake, smiling, ‘that guy thinks we’ve been up to no good in there, together.’

  ‘Bound to,’ said Tony, ‘anyone can see you fancy me.’

  ‘Not as much as you fancy yourself,’ said Jake.

  They grinned at each other.

  Tony wasn’t sure what to do next. He looked around the airport; he felt he was being watched. They walked up to the air hostess at the reception desk and handed over their tickets. It came as no surprise when they were stopped.

  They were taken into a back room and, despite their protests, both searched. The box of chocolates was unwrapped and checked to see if it contained anything that it shouldn’t. When that all came up empty, a doctor came in to carry out a strip search. They were both told to bend over while they were searched internally.

  It was horrendous, as well as humiliating. Both men complained loudly and demanded to know what it was all about. They knew they had to protest, and protest loudly.

  The airport police explained to them that they were perfectly within their rights to stop and search whomever they liked.

  An investigating officer came into the room; all Tony and Jake were wearing were surgical gowns.

  ‘Would you gentleman like us to telephone a lawyer? Would you like some legal representation?’ he asked, in his Dutch-accented English.

  ‘I’ll want a lawyer soon, when I sue you for all of this humiliation,’ shouted Tony. ‘Why do you think I need one now? What are you looking for – is it drugs or something? We’ve got nothing illegal either on us or in us, you’ve seen that for yourself!’

  He knew he had to keep up his indignant protestations. They had to sound real.

  Later, they were both being interrogated in separate rooms about why they had visited Amsterdam.

  ‘Are you saying nobody is allowed to visit this place?’ said Tony. ‘Why else would young men visit one of the most notorious red-light districts in the world, but to have some fun? Jake, the guy you’ve got in the other room, is married, he’s not going to mess around on his own doorstep, is he? We came for some Dutch fun, that’s all. It’s not a crime, is it?’

  ‘Did you enjoy our hospitality, Mr Lambrianu?’ the officer asked.

  ‘I’ve had better,’ Tony answered. He saw the officer look down at the table, where the unwrapped box of chocolates sat.

  ‘Ah’, said the officer, ‘I see you like our famous chocolate truffles. It’s a long way to come for those, even though they are magnificent.’

  ‘They’re for my grandmother, it’s her birthday, soon,’ said Tony. Now he was worried.

  The officer removed the lid. Tony felt his palms sweating. This was it, he knew now he had been caught. He was trying to avoid the eyes of the officer and so looked down at the table before him. This was the time to show his poker face.

  ‘They are my favourites, the rough-edged truffles, although on my wages I cannot afford them very often. They are, indeed, a treat. You must love your grandmother very much.’

  The officer took one of the truffles out of the box, raised it to his mouth and bit it in half.

  Tony froze; he hadn’t expected that. The man was just trying to get under his skin, but one crunch on one of those diamonds and this farce would be over. He felt his stomach do a somersault.

  The officer was relishing the luxurious chocolate and even went so far as to lick his fingers. Tony showed no reaction.

  ‘I am sure your grandmother will not notice one is missing,’ the officer said, sarcastically. He put the lid back on the box and pushed it towards Tony.

  Tony decided not to make a fuss; he just nodded at the officer. His throat was so dry, he doubted he could speak, anyway.

  The calculating officer had listened carefully and taken note of everything Tony said. Now, he turned to another officer. They whispered to each other, and then left the room.

  Tony was anxious and nervous; he was trying to hold his nerve, but he felt this investigating officer could see straight through him. He hoped Jake was okay.

  Six long hours later, they were told they could get dressed and leave.

  Tony and Jake had both asked what it was all about; surely, they didn’t put all their tourists through this? However, they were given no explanation, just told they could leave.

  They were escorted to their plane by security, and at long last they were in the air, flying away from Amsterdam.

  Neither of them spoke during the flight; they didn’t know whether there were any police on the plane listening to their conversation. It wasn’t a long flight, but it seemed to take forever. Finally, they put down in England. Home and free!

  As they were leaving the airport, Tony spotted a Post Office. He walked in, selected a large padded envelope and slipped the box of chocolate truffles inside. He needed to get rid of them, fast. He fished the piece of paper Miriam had given him, with her address on, out of his wallet, and wrote it on the envelope. Just a few minutes later, the truffles were in a cart, along with other parcels destined for Italy.

  ***

  From the airport, they went directly to Jake’s house, where they could talk in private. Sharon was out and they had the house to themselves.

  They were exhausted, the whole incident had been mentally draining. When Tony told Jake the investigating officer had eaten one of the truffles, he saw his eyes open wide, and his jaw dropped.

  ‘If he’s eaten one, that is going to be the most expensive shit in the world,’ said Jake.

  ‘Don’t forget, there were forty chocolates in that box. If he’d have crunched hard down on one of those diamonds, he would have broken his tee
th. All the diamonds have to be still in the box.’

  ‘What about your grandmother?’ said Jake, ‘what if she eats one? It could kill her.’

  ‘She’ll be fine,’ said Tony, feeling confident. ‘She doesn’t eat them, does she? She licks them.’

  Tony had a feeling his grandmother would know when they arrived, what was in them. She had mentioned his meeting, and asked about diamonds, then she had gone on and on about how people used to hide things in those chocolate truffles. She was cleverer than she looked.

  Miriam had told him what to do, and how to hide them. It had been up to him to understand and to act.

  Now was the time for a very large whisky each, Jake decided, they needed it. They both agreed, the police had been tipped off and were waiting for them.

  ‘Thank God for Granny and her bloody chocolate fetishes. Let’s face it, that was quick thinking from you. You and your granny have saved us.’ Jake took a drink. ‘But now what? Surely that two-faced bastard bossman will want his diamonds, and we don’t have them.’

  ‘Let him sweat. He’ll already know by now that we’re home safe and nothing was found. He probably had us followed, anyway, once we picked up the diamonds and left for the airport.’

  ‘Thank goodness Shaz is an understanding wife and knows about all of this.’ Jake looked at Tony. ‘Well, some of it, anyway. They said you told them that we were hanging around Amsterdam for the red-light district. Thanks, Tony.’

  ‘Sharon’s no fool, she’ll understand. Why else would a couple of young guys go to Amsterdam for a few hours? I could see their point.’

  ‘I only told her a bit about it, Tony.’ Jake looked worried. ‘She deserved to know something in case it all went wrong, and we were arrested.’ He shot Tony an apologetic look. He didn’t want his brother thinking he had betrayed him.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Jake, she’s family, she knows we’re not squeaky clean. You were right to let her know something, because those guys were going to lock us up and throw away the key. It was better that she heard it from you, first.’

  They had another drink, and discussed their day. When Sharon came home, she seemed surprised to see them.

  ‘You made it home then, you two. Everything okay?’ She had been worried all day, and had thought that Jake might at least telephone, to put her mind at rest.

  ‘Of course we did, with that cool-headed sod by my side, it seems we’re invincible,’ Jake said, trying to make light of it.

  HIDDEN DEPTHS

  The chief security officer at a certain big London hotel had been informed by the security men who watched the monitors, daily, that the CCTV system was not working properly. The problem was sporadic and didn’t always affect all monitors, but on at least some, from time to time, the image was blurred, or there was no image at all. One day, it had been the CCTV cameras watching the reception area, and on another it was the outside monitors – even the cameras that covered the staff entrance hadn’t worked. The system was faulty. The belief was that something was wrong with the wiring.

  The chief security officer had reported the problem to the manager of the hotel, and he had telephoned the engineers, to call them in to repair the system.

  In the end, the manager had insisted that the CCTV company should rewire the whole security system, from scratch. The prestigious hotel had some very wealthy visitors, and they needed to feel that they and their valuables were safe.

  It was during this period of confusion that Don Carlos had visited the hotel for his very short stay. Don Carlos knew the chief security officer and had not only paid him handsomely to switch off cameras and interfere with the CCTV feed, as necessary, but to alternate the problem cameras, making it look like a fault in the wiring. He had made sure he had never been recorded either going into or coming out of the hotel.

  So, although the bossman claimed he had met an Italian at the hotel, there was no evidence of it. The police he gave the information to checked the hotel register; the hotel suite he claimed to have been in had been rented by an Englishman, a well-known politician, who had stayed there with his wife. The hotel had hosted a Masonic Ladies’ Evening in the function room, that night, and the politician and his wife had attended, then stayed over.

  It was while the politician and his wife had been at the function that Don Carlos used the suite for the meeting with the bossman. The event and the original booking were legitimate, and the politician did not like the police checking up on him. He told them he was going to make a complaint to their superiors.

  The police were angry when they realised that their informer, the bossman, was double-crossing them; they knew he was most definitely involved in the diamond heist, but they had no hard evidence. Each time they questioned him, he told them the same story about meeting an Italian, although he couldn’t tell them the man’s name or give any other details about him. As far as the bossman knew, this Italian was negotiating on behalf of his own boss. The one name the bossman did know – Ralph Gold – was not one he would ever dare to divulge.

  The police checked all the CCTV footage and found nothing useful. Of course, as well as there being no sign of the Italian and his associates, there was no evidence that the bossman had been at the hotel, either.

  The manager told the police about the problem with the system, which had started around a week before this meeting had supposedly taken place. He explained that the whole system had been affected over a period of time; not just the cameras covering that floor on that night, so he felt it was unlikely anything had been tampered with deliberately. The engineers also confirmed that they had been called out regularly to check the security system and had had to refit a whole new one. The police agreed that nothing untoward had taken place.

  The trail was cold and the police were angry; an awful lot of their time had been wasted checking out the bossman’s story and each time nothing had been proved. It just made them look foolish. Their superiors wanted the crime solved; they wanted a name, and fast.

  The press had a field day with the story about how New Scotland Yard were investigating a well-known politician for staying at one of London’s most famous hotels with his wife. It was obviously a wild goose chase, but it made good reading.

  In an attempt to save face, the police went to see the bossman again, and told him to come up with some names, or he, himself, would be put in the frame.

  The bossman was at his club with Eddie. He was panicking, he knew the job had been too big for him, but greed had got the better of him. He was frightened and he didn’t know what to do to get the police off his back.

  ‘It’s a shame, boss,’ said Eddie, when the bossman had told him he was involved, too, because he knew about the meeting. The bossman had come to a decision; if he was going to take any blame in this, he was going to take everyone he knew had been involved down with him.

  ‘The only Italian I know who was there that night is Tony Lambrianu,’ said Eddie.

  The bossman looked up at Eddie; he was right, of course. Why hadn’t he thought of Tony?

  ‘Make the call, Eddie, tell them you know who the Italian is. Tony Lambrianu.’ At last, he had a name to give to the police. Tony didn’t match the description he had given them, but that could be sorted out easily enough. This would help him ingratiate himself with them again, and maybe they would leave his other businesses alone; after all, that had been their agreement for years.

  Eddie made the call and the police got warrants to search Tony’s new apartment and Jake and Elle’s houses. The police seemed to be at one or the other of the houses on a regular basis, rummaging through drawers, opening up cushions and lifting up flooring. They left a trail of mess behind them.

  In the end, Elle, who was very distressed by all of this, stopped cleaning up after the police when they left; she reckoned there was no point, they would just be back again tomorrow.

  Her beautiful new bungalow and Sharon’s house had been trashed by the police, and they had found nothing. Tony and Jake were taken in
for questioning time and time again, and their stories were identical to what they had told the investigating officer in Amsterdam.

  Jake had begged the police not to tell his new wife, Sharon, that he had been in Amsterdam with Tony having a little ‘adult fun’, as she wouldn’t understand. Of course, he knew they would tell her, just out of spite, and they did.

  Sharon had gone berserk in front of the police and had thrown Jake out, claiming she never wanted to see him again. She even threatened divorce. Sharon played her part brilliantly; she was so convincing even Jake started to believe her.

  Jake went to stay with Tony. Thank God Jake had told her about it all beforehand, otherwise he would have known for definite, she meant what she said.

  The English and Dutch police had been delighted when they got the tip-off that Tony and Jake had just picked up the stolen diamonds in Amsterdam and were making their way home, but despite them having been thoroughly searched at the airport, they’d found nothing and had to let them go. Now there was nothing to be found at any of their houses, either.

  The detectives’ main suspect was now the bossman; he had given them false leads all the way through the investigation. They had picked up a few unimportant men involved in the robbery, but it was taking too long and the pressure was on from above.

  All the police the bossman had once been friends with and given information to now disowned him. They didn’t want to be associated with him anymore.

  The police decided if they couldn’t get him one way, they would get him another. They went through all of his accounts from the club and any little sidelines he was involved with, including drugs and prostitution. The bossman was already looking at his day in court.

  ***

  An invitation for a free meal at an Italian restaurant was put through Tony’s letter box. Another restaurant promotion; he threw it on the worktop.

  There was still pressure on all of them. Tony felt guilty that Elle’s new bungalow had already been tarnished. As always, she said she didn’t mind, but it didn’t ease the guilt. Poor Elle; she always got dragged into his troubles, and she always shrugged it off. He was lucky to have her.