Chelsea Wives

by Anna-Lou Weatherley

  ‘Yeah, man, maybe we can try that tonight! If she’s still awake by the time I get home that is.’

  Dickie smiled warmly.

  ‘Alright,’ he sighed with resignation, ‘you can head off early tonight if you like.’ Well, he reasoned generously, it wasn’t every day your girlfriend was overdue with your first baby, was it?

  Paulo punched the air triumphantly.

  ‘If the little kid’s a fella, we’ll name him Ricardo, after you.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ Dickie laughed, shooing him away. ‘Never mind all that. Why don’t you give her a ring while you’re on your way to Starbucks to grab me one of those fancy coffees you’ve got me onto, eh? See how things are at home.’

  ‘Cappuccino, yeah? Plenty of froth, no sugar, right?’ Paulo called out. He was already halfway to the door.

  Dickie nodded and gave the thumbs up.

  ‘Right.’

  He chuckled to himself as he settled back into his chair, flipping open the visitors’ book to check out who had been into the bank that day, a little ritual he enjoyed far more than he cared to let on.

  ‘Evening, sir,’ Dickie called out across the vast reception area as he saw his boss walk through the revolving doors accompanied by two men in navy blue boiler suits with matching peaked caps. The two men were carrying what looked like workmen’s cases and he surmised that they had to be the two maintenance men from Ballentyne Security. The ones Mr Forbes had mentioned in his important e-mail to him the previous evening. It had struck Dickie as a little odd that Mr Forbes had left it so late to inform him of Ballentyne’s impending visit. Mr Forbes was an absolute stickler for anything to do with security and, up until last night, had not previously mentioned the need for any urgent maintenance down in the vaults. Still, he had signed off his important e-mail with an amenable, ‘best regards, Sebastian,’ which had made Dickie feel ridiculously chuffed. Never before in his whole career had his boss addressed himself so informally and Dickie had taken this as a great compliment.

  Dickie watched as the group hurriedly made their way towards the lift doors.

  ‘I will call the lift for you, sir.’ He made to stand but Sebastian held his hand up in silent objection and together with the two men, stepped into the open lift.

  Dickie was a little surprised; it was protocol that he always called the lift for his employer whenever he was in the building.

  He watched from a distance as the doors closed behind the group with a soft hiss, and wondered just what it was that was making him feel so peculiar. Was something amiss? He instantly dismissed the thought. He was getting old, he thought ruefully, as he settled back down in his seat and continued to study the visitors’ book.

  Imogen breathed a sigh of relief as the lift doors clamped shut. ‘Seb must’ve decided to leave early,’ she said. They had been watching the comings and goings from the ‘getaway’ car parked around the corner and had seen both Sebastian leave and Dickie arrive to take over from his colleague, who had left the bank shortly afterwards – or at least so they thought.

  ‘All the more time for us, darling.’ Calvary had flashed her a reassuring smile. ‘Do you think Dickie suspected anything?’ Imogen enquired, her hushed voice fraught with nerves.

  ‘He looks a bit doddery to me,’ Yasmin nodded confidently. ‘Probably wouldn’t recognise his own mother if she walked in.’

  Imogen placed a small piece of cloth over the tiny CCTV camera in the corner of the lift. Her heart was pounding against her ribcage so hard that it almost hurt. ‘I guess if he’d suspected anything we wouldn’t have even made it this far.’ Awash with adrenalin and giggling, the three women glanced at each other, suddenly aware of how absurd they looked.

  ‘Stop staring, Cal, you’re putting me off,’ Imogen said, catching sight of her reflection in the mirror.

  ‘I can’t help it, darling,’ she replied. ‘It’s just so bizarre to see you looking … like that. You really could pass as the real thing.’

  Imogen stifled a laugh.

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ she remarked as the lift juddered to a halt.

  As Yasmin handed her the tiny Dictaphone, Imogen made her way towards the Voice Activated Locking system that would allow them through the access hall and to the vault itself. It was a make or break moment and the three of them knew it. If the system rejected the recording of Sebastian’s voice then it would be instant abort mission.

  ‘Shit or bust,’ Yasmin shrugged, forgetting herself for a moment.

  Imogen held the Dictaphone up towards the Voice Activated Locking system and with a visibly shaking finger, slowly pressed the button.

  CHAPTER 46

  Outside the vault, Imogen glanced down at her Cartier watch. It was 20:53. If she had calculated correctly, and she was sure that she had, they were just seconds away from making history. She could barely believe it. The Voice Activated Lock had opened without a hitch. They were in, and now the three of them were as high as kites on adrenalin and nerves.

  Crouched down, a tremulous, gloved hand hovered over the stainless steel keypad, her heart pounding furiously inside her chest, she hoped and prayed that she had done enough. This was the pay-off. This moment was the biggest gamble of all. Imogen had no way of knowing the code for sure – only Seb knew that – but she hoped with every fibre of her being that her calculated guess would be a good one. And if it was, then she had outsmarted that husband of hers. Well and truly.

  Slowly, with considered movements, the gloved hand that felt as though it didn’t quite belong to her anymore, hovered over the keypad. She could hear only the soft, shallow sound of her own breath and the rhythmic thud of her heartbeat in her ears as she glanced up at the two expectant faces standing obediently behind her, motionless as wax work dummies.

  Not wanting to prolong the agony any longer she pressed the four digits in succession: 1313. For a nanosecond nothing happened. The room’s eerie silence became so thick with tension it was almost tangible, then at once broken by rhythmic, mellifluous clicks that echoed around the steel walls like a joyful hymn. Slowly, flooded with a sense of euphoria and relief, she turned to her accomplices She did not need to say a word. Her eyes had said it all.

  As Imogen made her way over towards the diamond room, Calvary hung back a little alongside Yasmin. Both women stared at each other as if willing the other to follow Imogen but it seemed neither would budge. Both had their reasons for wanting to stay near the strong boxes.

  ‘Remember we have to look as if we’re carrying out a maintenance task.’ Calvary began removing tools from her workman’s bag. It was a ruse that meant she could legitimately start hacking away at Douglas’s box without raising too much suspicion from Yasmin.

  Yasmin, mirroring Calvary’s exact thoughts, wasted no time getting to work as Imogen began disarming the electric wall around the mighty Bluebird Diamond. Pressing the cast of her husband’s hand into the soft pliable substance, she thought of the electric shock Seb had allowed her to endure upon their first visit. It had hurt at the time; but it would be nowhere near as potent as the shock she was about to give him in return. Triumphantly snatching the diamond up in her gloved hand, Imogen glanced back at her friends who were busy pretending – although she had a distinct feeling that some real snooping was going on – to work on the strong boxes. It was almost over.

  Making her way back up from the vaults, her heartbeat rapid beneath her mask, Imogen held her breath as she exited the elevator. She would need to walk the length of the reception area, past Dickie, towards the opposite elevator that would take her up to the nineteenth floor. Acknowledging who he thought was his boss from his seat behind the imposing desk, Dickie raised his hand for the second time that evening, momentarily wondering if not having called the lift quickly enough for him earlier would be regarded as an oversight on his behalf. He hoped not.

  Glancing at his security monitors, Dickie noted that the two boiler-suited men who had accompanied Mr Forbes, were both still in the strong room, doing what, at a
glance, appeared to be maintenance to some of the security deposit boxes. It was unusual, he thought, that Mr Forbes had seen fit to leave the pair unaccompanied inside the vault. Leaving unauthorised personnel alone was considered a breach of security, a subject he knew his boss to be fastidious about to the point of obsession, but he wasn’t overly concerned, given that he had just witnessed Mr Forbes make his way back up towards his office. He assumed his boss must have forgotten something and would be down to rejoin the maintenance men shortly.

  Up on the nineteenth floor of Forbes Bank, Imogen, light-footed with adrenalin and perspiring beneath the sticky latex mask, swiftly made her way into Sebastian’s office. Closing the door behind her gently, her heart violently jumping in her chest, she reached into the inside pocket of her husband’s expertly altered Savile Row suit she was wearing and produced the enormous diamond that it contained. Staring at it for longer than she would’ve liked, hypnotised by its sheer brilliance and beauty, with a sticky, shaking hand she finally placed it in the middle of his desk and stood back to afford herself a better view of her efforts.

  Turning to take one last look as she made her leave, Imogen smiled, a smile that seemed to come from the very bottom of her soul and light up the room.

  ‘From me to you, Sebastian, darling,’ she said, blowing a kiss into the air before closing the door softly behind her.

  CHAPTER 47

  One thing that Dickie had learned in all his twenty-two years’ service at Forbes Bank was that people were creatures of habit. Over the years he had seen the same faces come and go as regular as clockwork. The last Friday in the month saw the likes of the exotic-looking Miss Milena Pleshkova and the lovely English rose, Ms Alice Dawling. Old Earl Bamberger usually dropped by with his son in-law, Henry Hudson-Brown, and then of course there was the stalwart regular, Dame Margaret Montifiore. Dame Montifiore had been a lifelong Forbes client. Highly respected, she was almost part of the furniture, ‘one of the family’ as Mr Forbes always told her with a saccharine smile. She’d been coming to the bank regularly since time immemorial.

  Despite what many would consider to be a lack of respect and recognition for his loyal and lengthy service, Dickie had always been proud to work for Forbes Bank. Drenched in history, Forbes’ humble beginnings dated back to 1691 when a young Englishman, John Forbes, set up business as a goldsmith-banker in Aldwych. Having been granted royal patronage in 1705, today, it was the only place privileged peers and the super rich deemed befitting enough to house their wealth.

  As a young man, Dickie had dreamed of being part of such a world, but now that he was practically in his dotage, had long ago accepted that would never be. Still, he was happy to be on the peripheries; the old boys he socialised with down at the Dog and Whistle in Sydenham were impressed at the mere mention of the Forbes name.

  Dragging Dickie from his thoughts was the reappearance of his young colleague, Paulo. With a look of sheer panic etched on his young face, he almost fell through the revolving doors, holding the two Starbucks cups tremulously in his hands.

  ‘Her waters have broke, Dickie!’ he said breathlessly, his eyes so wide with a mix of shock and excitement that they seemed to have taken over his entire face. ‘She just called me to say she was in the middle of watching Coronation Street when suddenly, pop! And now the contractions are coming … screaming the place down she is, the ambulance is on its way.’

  Dickie rushed towards the young lad concernedly, relieving him of the scalding cups of coffee and placing them precariously onto the pristine glass desk.

  ‘Well, that’s just wonderful,’ he said, impassioned. ‘See, I told you the little one would come when it was ready and not a moment before.’ Paulo nodded, his breathing audible as he absentmindedly wiped the spilt coffee from his arm with his sleeve.

  ‘Well, what are you waiting for, lad?’ he cried, ushering him back towards the doors. ‘Go to her! You’re no use to me here. That girl needs you by her side. If you hurry, you might make it in time to see your son or daughter come into the world.’

  Paulo nodded enthusiastically, his face suddenly growing a little pale as the gravity of the situation began to dawn upon him.

  ‘I’m going to be a father, Dickie,’ he said, gripping his colleague’s arm, his voice full of emotion. ‘It’s really happening.’

  ‘Yes! Yes, it is!’ Dickie laughed, overwhelmed on the boy’s behalf. ‘Now get yourself in a cab and get down that hospital, sharpish. Don’t worry about anything here. I’ll be right as rain.’

  Paulo nodded, visibly trying to compose himself. ‘I hope I make it in time. The traffic … Mr Forbes had to set off for the airport early because it was so bad and …’

  ‘More speed, less haste, boy!’ Dickie commanded, taking him in hand. ‘Look, there’s a taxi with its light on – what are you waiting for?’ he bellowed with fatherly concern, shooing him from the building, ‘the child will be in long trousers if you don’t get a move on!’

  Shaking his head, Dickie sat down in his chair behind the desk once more and thought what a funny old world it was. A baby born. Chuckling jovially to himself, secretly chuffed to pieces for the young colleague he had grown so fond of, he suddenly remembered what Paulo had said about Mr Forbes having left early for the airport. He had to have got that wrong, he thought as he glanced at the security monitors. Because if Paulo was right and Mr Forbes had left for the airport some time ago, then who the hell was that up on the nineteenth floor and who were the two shadowy figures down in the vault?

  CHAPTER 48

  The vault at Forbes Bank was not so much a strong room as an impenetrable one. Situated in the basement of the building, the entire bank had been built around its solid steel and concrete foundations, and for good reason. Dickie was well aware that it housed the prized possessions (and scandalous secrets) of the world’s wealthiest; it was little more than a giant trinket box brimming with priceless pieces and incriminating evidence that would have any blackmailer or tabloid editor salivating.

  ‘Hiroshima could happen all over again, Richards, and that vault would still be in perfect tact,’ Mr Forbes had once boasted to him. ‘It’s indestructible. Completely and utterly impenetrable to man or beast.’

  Forbes’s vault was a felon’s nightmare and it was for these very reasons that Dickie didn’t give too much credence to his initial sense of unease.

  He was just being paranoid, that was all. He had seen Mr Forbes go down into the vault and come back up again himself, with his own eyes. There was nothing to worry about. In his panic, Paulo must have been mistaken, got his timings mixed up. He settled back into his seat, only somewhere in the back of his mind, an alarm was sounding.

  Dickie had known Sebastian Forbes for almost all of the man’s life. He had seen him grow from a boy to a man, take over the reins from his father before him. Though he might not have known his favourite restaurant, city or film, time had ensured that Dickie was highly familiar with every inch of his boss’s physical appearance, including the small idiosyncrasies that were peculiar to him. Something in his gait, the way that he had carried himself, had been different tonight – and it troubled him. It troubled him a great deal.

  Paralysed in front of the small CCTV screen and unable to ignore his increasing sixth sense any longer, Dickie felt a violent surge of adrenalin hit his stomach and explode like a mushroom cloud. During his whole twenty-two year career at Forbes’s he had never had to deal with any real major breaches of security. Signing people in and out, fire drills, walking people through the metal detector on their way in – that was about the extent of it.

  The sudden reappearance of Mr Forbes dragged Dickie away from his thoughts and he watched with a deep sense of relief as his boss exited the elevator and marched off back down towards the vault. Watching the security monitors closely, he saw the three men greet each other and moments later make their way back up towards the reception area. He shook his head wearily. His old mind working overtime, that was all.

  ‘Good
night, Mr Forbes,’ Dickie called out to him from his seat behind the desk. ‘Have a safe flight to Rio.’

  ‘Goodnight,’ came the faint response as his boss disappeared through the revolving doors. Dickie stood, suddenly paralysed to the spot. The voice. Mr Forbes’s voice. There was something unusual about it. Dickie suddenly felt compelled to activate the alarm and alert the authorities. But of what? He would have to go down to the vault and take a look at things.

  Dickie had been down inside the vault many times during his service at Forbes. As head of night security and with his unblemished long-serving record, he was one of a carefully selected group of security staff entrusted to assist Mr Forbes and clients in depositing or retrieving their valuables. Dickie checked his watch again. It was 20.42. The door to the vault would deactivate at 21.00 hours – he had better get a wiggle on.

  As he purposefully stepped inside the lift, having pressed the red button for the basement, Dickie suddenly experienced something he hadn’t felt in a long time: fear. Real, gut-wrenching, chest-crushing fear.

  Making his way from the lifts towards the first set of security doors, Dickie entered his unique PIN code access and spoke into the voice-activated lock.

  ‘Derrell Richards,’ he said as authoritatively as he could. The doors opened with a satisfying hiss and he tentatively walked through them towards the vast iron entrance to the vault lobby. Dickie shuddered. Pull yourself together, man, he told himself sharply, inhaling deeply as he spoke into the microphone on the wall.

  ‘Derrell Richards,’ he said again, his voice tremulous this time, the loud clicks of the numerous locks opening echoing sinisterly around the steel walls. Leaning on the lobby door, which was slow to open given its substantial weight, Dickie immediately noticed something wasn’t right. The door to the vault was ajar. Jesus Christ; it was open.