Pedro was not surprised when he received a call from the City Police Department. As one of the box owners at the bank, he knew he would be summoned for an interview and he’d had plenty of time to prepare his story. Detective Alex Martin sat opposite him in the bare, windowless interview room, located in the basement of the station. Between them was a small metal table, on which sat a couple of polystyrene cups of water and a blue folder that the detective was flicking through.
“Thanks for coming in to see me, Señor García. We are interviewing all the owners of the security boxes kept at the Banco Estero, whether they were stolen or not. Turns out you were one of the lucky ones.”
Pedro nodded and tried to stay relaxed. “Detective Martin, it’s a sad state of affairs when a man’s possessions aren’t secure inside a safe-deposit bank. I was told that vault was impregnable. Seems not.”
Martin was looking down at the file. “It appears you made regular visits to the bank. Can I ask you why you checked your box every month?”
Pedro moved smoothly into autopilot. “Since the 2001 crash I, like many of my fellow countrymen, decided it was pointless keeping cash in a current bank account. I always used to keep my savings at home but, as you know, in recent times, house break-ins have become a regular occurrence in the city, so a few years ago I decided to take out a box. I could only afford one of the smaller ones and, at the beginning of each month, I made cash withdrawals from it to top up my earnings. I’m self-employed and, to be honest, in the last year, work has been hard to find, so my savings have basically run out and my box is now empty. I was about to end the rental at the end of this month as I can’t afford to keep it going.”
Detective Martin appeared quite disinterested in the story, which was a great relief to Pedro, who had delivered his rehearsed lines perfectly.
“One last thing, Señor García. I believe you work as an air-conditioning engineer. How much do you know about underground ventilation?”
Pedro kept his composure. “Detective Martin, you flatter me. The truth is I’m nothing more than a glorified repairman.”
Maria had a spring in her step as she walked down the street, heading for the bus station. Maybe her luck was changing. She planned to use some of her windfall to treat herself and buy the blue designer cardigan she had been eyeing for weeks, and which was now on special offer in her local department store.
She paid no attention to the blacked-out transit that was tracking her every move as she walked along. Without warning, it accelerated past her and screeched to a halt. Two figures wearing black balaclavas leapt out and grabbed Maria from behind, dragging her into the back of the van. The whole operation took less than ten seconds and, rather than resist, her body went limp, paralysed with shock. The van doors slammed shut and, moments later, she found herself sitting on a bench between her two kidnappers, facing a third man who was unmasked.
Luciano Herrera was holding the diamond ring in one hand and the red velvet pouch in the other. Maria felt her bladder give way, and she wet herself. He smelled the sudden whiff of urine and saw the terror in Maria’s face.
“Hello, Maria. There is nothing to worry about as long as you are completely truthful with your answers to my questions.”
Maria was transfixed by the diamond ring Luciano was holding in the palm of his hand. Her mind was racing, trying to work out what was happening. “I didn’t steal the ring – it belonged to my late mother.” She found herself blurting out the lie without really meaning to.
“Maria, please calm down. Let’s not start on the wrong foot. Remember, I asked you to tell the truth. Your mother was a cleaner and the nearest she would ever have got to a ten carat Cartier ring would have been window shopping. Now, why don’t you tell me where you got it, and everything will work out fine.”
Maria was terrified but somehow her instincts told her she should carry on lying. How could they possibly know where she’d found the ring? “You are right. She was a cleaner and one of her customers left it to her in their will. I always thought it was costume jewellery, which is why I sold it for a few hundred dollars.”
Luciano was an experienced interrogator and could tell Maria was lying. He nodded towards the man sitting to her right. A moment later, a large serrated knife was jammed against her neck. She screamed with terror and began to cry uncontrollably. “Now then, Maria. This is the last time I am going to ask you nicely. Where did you get the ring?”
“I swear, Señor, I didn’t steal it. I found it. I found it in the garden of one of my clients.”
Luciano leaned forward and indicated to his henchman to remove the knife from Maria’s throat. “There we are, Maria. You see how easy it is to tell the truth? Now, I want you to tell me the name of your client and take us to their home.”
“His name is Raúl Gonzales, and he lives in La Boca, close to the port.”
The van’s engine fired up and headed for the south-east of the city.
Raúl Gonzales was dressed in his cotton pyjamas, sitting in a wheelchair in the corner of his living room. Resting on his lap was a small bowl of cornflakes, drenched in cold milk. He was watching a daytime game show, part of his regular morning routine, while he awaited the arrival of his carer. The transit pulled to a halt outside the front of his small house. The journey had taken about thirty minutes and no one inside the van had spoken since Maria had given up the address. She had stopped crying and was rigid with terror. The driver turned off the ignition and turned to Luciano.
“We’re here, boss.”
Luciano turned to Maria and smiled reassuringly. “Thank you for your help, Maria. There’s one last thing. Can you kindly give me the key to Señor Gonzales’s residence?”
Maria fumbled inside her bag and pulled out a large bunch of keys. She handed them across to Luciano. “It’s the one with the blue tape at the end.”
“Now that wasn’t very hard, was it, Maria? Thank you for all your invaluable help. I really appreciate it.”
Luciano smiled malevolently at Maria and then, a moment later, his eyes flicked to the man sitting next to her, who was brandishing the knife. His head gave an almost imperceptible nod.
For a brief moment, Maria felt an intense pain as the knife ripped into her skin and lodged itself inside her heart. Everything went black. The killing had begun.
Luciano stood outside the front door with three of his men, who were awaiting instructions. He turned to the driver. “Thiago, looks like the garden runs all the way around the back. You check out the grounds. Boys, you two come in with me. We will have a chat with Señor Gonzales and then we will tear his fucking house apart.”
As Maria had indicated, the key with the blue tape turned the lock, and, seconds later, all three men were inside the house. The TV was blaring out from the sitting room. Luciano and his two associates followed the noise. Raúl Gonzales was engrossed in the game show and didn’t sense the intruders enter the room, but that all changed when Luciano yanked the plug powering the TV set out of the wall socket.
The old man turned in his chair and saw the three men standing in his living room. “What the fuck do you guys want with me? If you’ve come to burgle my home, help yourself. There is fuck all left in this house to steal, unless you are desperately in need of toilet rolls and soap.”
“Calm down, old man. I just want to have a talk with you about this.” Luciano walked across the room and held the diamond ring up in front of Gonzales’s face. “I want to know where you got this bit of ice from and if you have anything else like it in your house.”
Realising that Gonzales was an invalid and offered no physical threat, he sent his two men upstairs with instructions to start the search. He then turned back to the old man. “So, Señor Gonzales, while my friends have a look around, why don’t you tell me about the diamond.”
“Fuck you and fuck your diamond. Why don’t you shove it up your arse? Look at me. Do you really think I’m a man who owns diamonds? Are you fucking mad? I can hardly afford to pay my weekly food bills and I live off benefits.”
The sheer anger and contempt that Gonzales exuded seemed totally genuine and Luciano wasn’t sure what to do next. That all changed a second later when his earpiece buzzed into life.
“Boss, I’m in the shed at the bottom of the garden. You won’t believe it. It’s a fucking Aladdin’s cave.”
The two men, who’d begun tearing the bedroom apart upstairs, also heard Thiago’s message and came running down the stairs, joining Luciano in the sitting room.
Herrera barked out orders. “Antonio, you stay here with Señor Gonzales. Carlos, come with me.”
By the time they reached the shed, Thiago was ripping open the last of the cloth bags and the floor was covered with an assortment of cash, jewellery and government bonds. It truly was a cave of wonders.
Luciano pulled out his iPhone and took a couple of photos, which he texted to his boss. A few seconds later, Paz was on the line.
“Boss, we’ve hit pay dirt. We’ve found the boxes.”
“Great work, Luci. Now, remember what we are searching for – a black leather case containing two 8-millimetre film cans, an old tobacco tin and three Manila files. As soon as you have them, call me back. And, Luci, however tempting it is, don’t touch anything else.”
Two hours later, after carefully sifting through literally millions of dollars’ worth of goods, Luciano was forced to acknowledge the items he was looking for were simply not present inside the shed.
He reluctantly called Paz back. “Boss, they are not here. I promise you we’ve been through everything really carefully. I don’t understand it.”
Paz had total trust in his assistant and thought for a moment. “Okay, Luci. Let’s think for a moment. We know they broke into almost a hundred boxes. Does it look to you like the bags held that much?”
Luciano scanned the floor of the shed, which now had a number of piles containing different items neatly stacked, including ten cloth bags which were in one of the corners. “No, boss, it really doesn’t. I’d say this is less than half of the haul.”
“Think about it, Luci. We know from our friend at the police department there were three of them in the gang that pulled this off. The chances are this is just a third of what they got.”
“Yes, boss, that makes sense. We need to find out who stashed the bags here, as it certainly wasn’t Gonzales. The old man doesn’t look like he could go anywhere without his wheelchair.”
It took two of Luciano’s men to carry the old man down to the bottom of the garden. He was a dead weight who offered little resistance but also no help. When they dumped him on the floor, he looked totally stunned. He found himself sitting in the middle of a treasure trove that had suddenly manifested inside his garden shed. It was insane. Luciano could see the genuine look of bewilderment on the face of the old man and so he chose his next words carefully.
“Señor Gonzales, I have no doubt at all that you are just as surprised as me at seeing all this. Thiago, here, had to break open the lock to gain entrance, so let me ask you a question. Who else has a key to your garden shed?”
The old man hesitated before replying. “No one, except my son Ricardo but then he hasn’t been here for years. We don’t speak.”
“I think you are mistaken, Señor Gonzales, and, what’s more, I think you’ll find he was here just a few days ago.”