Thompson’s Lost Plimsole

Part 31

It had taken a good half hour of hard work to finally breach the concrete floor beneath the bank manager’s office. A small section of parquet flooring had to be removed, but this came away easily. Now the whole team were in the bank and had located and disabled the alarm system. The bank’s main vault was on a time lock, but it wasn’t the main vault that the gang were interested in. The room holding the private safety deposit boxes was a much easier target.

This room was accessed via a heavy steel door with a double lock, the keys for which were kept in the separate offices of the manager and his assistant. Thankfully, the twin’s aunty Nellie, as the long-serving cleaner of this establishment, had ready access to both of these offices, and it was her impressions of the office keys that meant that her nephews would not have to smash their way in. The small safes in each of these offices were easily breached by these expert cracksmen and once the keys had been secured, then the gang were in the strong room and getting to work on the deposit boxes. Each box had an outer door covering it with two locks, each key being held individually by the bank and the depositor. Once again, these men knew their trade and were soon stacking up the inner boxes containing, what they believed, would be a fortune in jewels and other untraceable items. The plan was to form a chain and ferry the unopened deposit boxes from the bank via the tunnel and into the shop on the other side of the street. Once safely away from the area, the boxes could be opened at leisure.

On the Tuesday morning following the bank holiday, the first members of staff to arrive were surprised to find the alarm system inactive. Closer inspection allowed them to see that there were other discrepancies to what would have normally greeted them first thing. There was concrete dust across the floor to the alarm panel and from the manager’s office to the safety deposit box room. There was also an all-pervading smell of burning, as if someone had been grinding metal. There were footprints in the dust leading to, and from, the deposit box room; however, the door to the room was closed and locked. The assistant manager was next to arrive and after surveying the scene, used his key to enter his own office only to find it already unlocked. He could see that things had been moved around and then noticed that the door to his safe was open. His set of keys was missing, as was his photographic collection of artistically posed ladies in various stages of undress. The manager appeared at his assistant’s door looking equally flustered and bemused. “Call the police”, he demanded, “and don’t touch anything!”.

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