Prior to the robbery, the three thieves had plenty of time to plan and source their respective hiding places and, unknown to each other, they all came up with completely different ideas. The small lock-up garage Pedro had hired to stash his share was just under three miles away from his flat in the Villa Lugano district. It was positioned at the end of a run of ten garages located in a quiet cul-de-sac, which rarely saw any traffic. It was close to midnight when Pedro steered the white transit van into the garage and, as there were no street lamps, his only source of light came from the headlights. As he made the thirty-minute walk back to his flat, he mused he had sourced the most unremarkable location possible. The garage’s owner had insisted on a year’s rental upfront and Pedro had no intention of paying for a second year.
As a young man, Sebastian Ramos had worked as an apprentice carpenter before turning his attention to crime. His skills proved very handy when it came to creating a novel hiding place for his share of the haul. Sebastian lived in a small one-bed basement flat in Barrio Soldati, a rundown neighbourhood located in the south-west of the city and, before the robbery took place, he began carefully lifting up the old pine floorboards in his living room. They rested on wooden joists that ran lengthways across the room and were about four feet apart. He calculated the gaps between them were wide enough, and just about deep enough, to provide a safe haven for the valuables he planned to steal.
Sebastian used twelve-inch-wide strips of chipboard to create a smooth base underneath the wooden floor so the cloth bags could rest on a clean surface. His estimates were spot on and, sure enough, two months later, the bags filled the gaps between the joists perfectly, just as he had planned. He replaced the floorboards and ensured he left no sign they had ever been tampered with. The interior of the flat looked exactly the same as it had before the robbery. The only difference was, his cheap apartment was now worth approximately thirty million dollars.
Ricardo Gonzales had given great thought to where he would hide his share of the raid. His tiny third-floor studio flat in Pompeya was less than five hundred square feet in dimension and had no hidden spaces. But he had another location in mind that he knew would be absolutely perfect. His father had suffered two major strokes in the last five years and was housebound. He still lived in their family home, a small three-bedroom detached house on the outskirts of the city.
Ricardo had no interest in visiting his father, whom he hadn’t seen for over three years, since the passing of his beloved mother. However, he didn’t need to visit the house to enact his plan. At the bottom of the garden was a substantial shed he had helped his father build some years earlier, when he was living at home. He knew it wasn’t used any more and the wooden door was well secured by a mortice lock. A lock he had fitted himself and for which he still held a spare key. The shed was built from ten-inch rendered concrete blocks with a solid base and no windows, and so provided a perfect temporary home for his newly acquired assets.
At four in the morning, he parked the van outside the front of his father’s house. The lights were off inside and the street was deserted. Ricardo made ten separate trips, carrying the bags one at a time from the back of the van to the shed at the bottom of the garden. As he expected, it was completely empty, except for a rusty old lawnmower and a couple of watering cans that were covered by a layer of cobwebs.
About an hour later, he relaxed back in the driver’s seat of the van and turned the ignition. The engine burst into life and Ricardo resisted the usual instinct to flick on the headlights. He carefully placed the shed key back inside his jacket pocket and smiled to himself as he slowly steered the van away from the pavement. It had been a good night’s work and he was feeling euphoric. Unfortunately, he was totally unaware of the small red velvet pouch that had spilled from one of the cloth bags and was now lying on the grass verge inside his father’s garden, a few feet from the front door. The first mistake had been made.