The Thief Always Comes at Night
PART ONE
Ten Years Earlier
I was twelve, almost a teenager. I should have been behaving like an adult, but instead I swung on the steel bars making sounds like a monkey. It was a cage and that was all there was to it.
Sure it was full of expensive things, but a cage none the less. It was dreary, with harsh lighting and no windows. Across the room a workbench was scattered with tools for delicate work and behind it big dull grey cabinets that reminded me of a bank robbery movie lined the bare brick wall at the far end. Several old wood and glass displays were littered closer to me as though they had been unceremoniously dragged from the elegant shop at the front and dumped. They looked ancient, from some past age that perhaps my dad came from.
I'd studied their contents at first, a little excited to see such nice things. Necklaces, rings, wrist watches. All gleamed with gold and tiny precious stones that dazzled in reflected light. Now I was just bored, intent on trying to pass the time while I waited.
Dad and the man he called Victor were discussing money and looking at jewellery. It wasn't very exciting when I just wanted to go and eat ice cream down at the harbour. The west coast summer was in all its glory outside and I was trapped in this dull untidy dungeon that smelt like a musty old wardrobe.
I hooked my legs between the bars and hung upside down from a crossbar letting my fingers brush on the floor.
"Dad." Almost a plead. I wanted to go.
"Dad."
"Just a minute Gracie." He replied sweetly.
I saw Victor give me a smile, his eyes lingering on me just a little too long for comfort before turning away. I didn't know why, but I didn't like this man very much.
I hauled myself upright like a gymnast and unhooked my legs before dropping lightly to the floor.
"What's this for?" I asked looking at the palm sized keypad jutting from my improvised climbing frame.
Victor wasn't the biggest man, a little weedy, but I was tiny and I felt intimidated as he stood over me, suddenly keen to engage me.
"Now pay attention. This kind of knowledge will be important one day. It needs a code to work."
I wasn't sure I was happy with the way Victor pulled me in close. I was twelve and didn't want cuddling like a child. But I was interested in the secret behind his codes. Codes were like puzzles and I loved puzzles.
"If I ignore the zero at the bottom it's a square and I need seven numbers. I always draw a Z. So one, four, seven, five, three, six nine. Or I can go across the top first, or start at the bottom. I change it around occasionally but I'll always remember it in one or two goes this way."
His hand was on my bare leg and I really didn't like that. I froze, wanting to tell him to get off. But at the same time frightened to challenge an adult.
"I'll let you into a secret. I use the same pattern on the shop alarm. But always a different start point so the two aren't the same."
His voice had grown lower until he whispered it into my ear. So close his breath blew my blonde hair and tickled my neck.
I think dad saw my discomfort.
"Come along Gracie." He said with an uncustomary sharpness.
"Victor's a busy man."
I pulled away from Victor's grip and went to my dad, grateful for the excuse to escape.
"Thanks. Now I can come back and rob you."
Victor laughed at me.
"Think your dad needs to teach you a lot more before you can do that.
She's a bright girl Bob. Think you can keep her in the family business?"
I knew dad was a crook. To me it was normal even if my friends at school might have disagreed. Not that it was something I shared with them. It'd been impressed upon me for as long as I could remember never to tell anyone. It was probably what made me a bit of a loner. I'd learnt to keep things to myself and I found it easier to say nothing rather than lie.
"We'll see. Gracie is doing well at school so hopefully she'll have a better life than me."
My future? I only cared about today. The future was away in the distance. It was a land as foreign as Europe or China.
Victor ruffled my blonde hair smiling at me, again like I was six.
"Can we go to the harbour now?"
I'd had enough of it here. It was boring and I didn't like this man touching me.
"Come on then.
Let us out Victor."
"Perhaps Gracie wants to do it?" Victor suggested.
Suddenly excited again I looked at the keypad. What had he said? A Z shape. Well starting at one was too obvious. I went for three, then to six and finally ending up at one. The lock released and I pulled it open with a sense of great satisfaction.
"See dad. I can do break in's as good as you." I grinned proudly.
"You know she'll never forget that Victor. An eidetic memory her teacher called it. She recalls everything perfectly."
Strange as it seemed, this had been my first lesson in crime. Soon dad would teach me how to pick locks, open safes, disable or fool alarms and avoid camera systems. Most kids my age were playing on their Xbox or spending time with friends. While some of the girls at school began to discover makeup and boys, I obsessed over Chubb locks and how to cut glass without breaking it.
I found the gaming world too fake and shied away from activities involving other people. For me a lock became a puzzle every bit as challenging as any computer game.
Whenever I visited the shop Victor would show me jewellery, explain about gold weights and how to tell natural and synthetic gemstones apart. I absorbed it all, wanting to help my dad with his work. Morally I knew it was wrong, but at the same time it fascinated me and bonded us together. He was my dad, and my only friend.
Victor was a different ball game altogether. Knowledgable, helpful, but always with the touchy feely hands. I think dad knew Victor was partial to young girls. Or maybe it was just me. Either way dad would discretely step in when he got too close or tried to sit me in his lap.
Within a year or two I'd matured enough to know what was right and wrong. I learnt quickly how to keep Victor at arms length. I also developed the skill of teasing just enough to get what I wanted without risking my dignity. A skill that would serve me well when events conspired to intrinsically link my future survival to Victor.
I didn't know it as I left the shop then, but I was only a few years away from that day. Cancer was an awful thing. It appeared from nowhere and took those special to us. He wasn't just my dad, he was my best friend. The only person I trusted implicitly to keep me safe and I was just a few short steps from having him torn from me forever by that cruel disease. Just three years and I would be alone in the world, and reliant on Victor.
But not today. I was still carefree.
"Can we go for ice cream."
I squinted against the bright sun that warmed my skin. Dad took my hand and started down main street towards the harbour.
"Ice cream it is.
Pistachio?"
I loved the Bay Area. The sound of the ocean, gulls squawking, and the general mill of carefree people. If you listened closely you could even hear the creak of wood from the tied up boats as they bobbed in cool water while simultaneously heating in the sun.
For as long as I could remember this place had been part of my life. The sounds, the smell of burgers and fish mixed with the salt carried on the breeze. Nowhere else had this atmosphere. Even just a few miles inland where we lived and it was a different world.
I just loved it here. But recently my visits had brought new confused thoughts to my head. The boys that hung around the diners had caught my attention. Loud, full of energy and so good looking in their tight denims and tee shirts. This was what attracted the other girls at school and I was finding it hard to dismiss their obsessions as the same feelings invaded me like a virus occupied a host cell.
Compared to those girls I suffered a disadvantage though. I didn't mix so well. Always a daddies girl who wouldn't talk easily, or join in the games, I had a self imposed barrier. At school I was the one in the corner with a book while my contemporaries mastered the magic of eyeshadow and challenged the rules by seeing how short their skirts could be before mom got a phone-call from the Principle.
"Over there."
Dad had been talking but I hadn't been listening. I looked where he pointed.
"What?"
"See the cut of her clothes, how she carries herself. She stands out. Tells you those earrings will be real gold. Her husband, he has the same confidence. I can tell you from here his watch will be a Rolex or a Cartier."
In a flash my mind zoomed in on the couple, focusing on the deportment that marked them out from the others. It wasn't that they were more attractive than anyone else, or that their clothes flashed designer labels. It was in their poise, and clothes that just seemed to hang a little better. There was a quiet certainty about them that wasn't present in most people.
"Good breeding?" I asked using words my dad would use.
"Exactly. They'll drive a European car and live in one of the big houses out to the north of the county. They're the sort of people who put the food on our table."
"The kind you steal from." I said it for what it was.
"They don't want for money Gracie. Jewellery, just possessions to them. Easily replaced by an insurance check."
I took a bite from my ice cream and let it melt in my mouth. It was cooling, sweet and slightly nutty. I watched the couple walk by hand in hand. As a child it was hard to guess their age, everyone grown up seemed old. But I went for thirties. The man was slightly plump. The woman slimmer, toned as though she spent time running or in a gym.
"Wouldn't it be easier to rob a shop. Like Victors?"
