“Hey,” Yvonne Williamson said as she brought two mugs of coffee into the room, and put one down next to her husband as he sat at the table, “what are you looking at?”
“Work,” Mark said as he turned over a page, and nodded.
“Work work or WORK WORK?”
“The latter,” Mark said as he picked up his mug and took a drink. “A very lucrative piece of work as well, if we can complete it.”
“Oh, and who are you thinking of?”
“Sir Mark Hewton.”
Yvonne let out a low whistle. “Very lucrative indeed – will Mrs McPhee be needed?”
“Not for this one – his kids have all grown up and left home.” Mark showed Yvonne a picture of a grey haired man with a younger woman with light brown hair, cut short and with a hint of grey in her temples.
“Sir Mark and Lady Emma Hewton – she’s ten years younger, but that’s not an issue in their relationship. Married twenty five years – four kids, youngest just turned nineteen.”
“Well, no need for my help then,” Yvonne said as she sat next to him. “So where are the kids?”
“The boys are twenty four and twenty two – the oldest is married with two kids, a two year old boy and a baby girl. The other lad is engaged, and they both work with their father – so no issues there. The oldest girl graduates this year, and the youngest is in the first year.”
“All Oxford?”
“Oh yes – brains and money,” Mark said with a smile. “Anyway, Sir Mark is away on business, so Lady Emma is alone in the house with the maid – until Saturday night.”
“So let me guess – you visit Saturday afternoon, entertain the wife and maid, and then ask him to transfer some funds that night?”
“That’s right – easy and simple, no problems whatsoever.”
“Don’t say that Mark.”
“Why not?”
“Because you know what happens when you say that...”
Saturday lunchtime, especially just after Christmas, meant the car park at the out of town mall was packed – so nobody noticed the three men in overalls as they walked to the non-descript grey van and got in the back.
“Afternoon Gentlemen,” Jay Edwards said as the last of them closed the door, “my thanks for joining me today.”
“Always a pleasure Jay,” one of them said as he pulled the rim of his hat down, making sure the balaclava covered his face, “will Mrs McPhee join us today?”
“I don’t think so, no – no kiddies today, so no need. We have two women to keep company until later, and I presume that will not cause a problem? There’s also a safe to empty if you wish to keep occupied.”
“Nice – so when do we head off?”
“Right now,” Jay said as he went to the front of the van, pulling the divider across as he removed his balaclava, and set off.
As he approached the entrance to the Hewton house, Mark looked up the driveway and frowned. The car he knew Emma Hewton drove as there, but there was also a larger car, one he did not recognise.
“Are we here Jay,” he heard one of his associates say behind him.
“Yes, but I need to make sure the coast is clear,” he said as he pulled the van up a small lane at the side of the house, making sure it was far enough away from the road to be seen.
“Oh? What’s wrong?”
“I’m not sure,” Jay said as he stopped the van, opened the glove compartment and took out a set of binoculars, “I don’t think it’s a major issue, but you three stay in there for a few minutes. I won’t be long.”
Getting out of the van, Mark pulled himself up a tree that stood outside the wall that surrounded the house, and then climbed as high as he could. From the vantage point, he could see into the rear of the house, and as he looked through his binoculars he got the shock of his life.
He could see through the windows on the ground floor, and there were two men, dressed in boiler suits and wearing balaclavas, emptying the contents of the wall safe into a canvas bag,
“Well, that’s a first,” he said to himself, “and unfortunate. I wonder where the people who should be in the house are?” He looked through the other windows, but there was no sign of them.
“Probably secured in a room at the front,” he said to himself as he looked through the lower window again, and saw a third masked man talking to the other two. All three disappeared, and then two minutes later he saw the third man in an upstairs window.
The masked man looked round, and then pulled his mask off, wiping his brow before he pulled the mask back on again, but that was enough for Mark to recognise him.
“Well, that’s interesting,” he said to himself, “Donald Turner.”
The Turner family were on one of his files – Donald worked for a local bank as a senior clerk, with access to the vaults and the accounts. Married, two girls aged 9 and 11, he had been on the possible visit lost for a while.
Mark sat for a moment – part of him said to put Lady Hewton and her maid through another robbery on the same day was wrong, but also he had planned this for too long – and the potential gains were too big to ignore.
He then heard the front door open and close, and climbed back down.
“Well Jay,” the associate said as he got back in.
“Apologies for the wait, gentlemen,” he said as he started the van, “but we are good to go now. Get ready.”
Jay drove to the end of the lane, back round and into the tree lined driveway, the car having left, and parked as he pulled the balaclava down, and got out, the three men walking with him as he opened the front door.
“I think the lady of the house and the maid won’t give us any trouble,” he said as he opened the door to the main room – and then stopped for a moment.
Lady Hewton was there, as well as the maid and a young woman, no older than nineteen or twenty – but all three were tied at the ankles, legs and wrists, with rope around their stomachs as well, and gagged with strips of tape.
The really surprising thing was the young girl behind Lady Hewton, looking at Jay as she stopped trying to untie the ropes, and the other young girl holding the telephone.
Jay looked round the room, and then at the girl holding the telephone before he said “Put the phone down, lass. “You know I’m not going to hurt you or your friend, but you need to do as I say.”