I raced from behind my desk, grabbed a pen and notebook and pulled my jacket from the coat stand. I threw it across my back and ran in circles down to the stair well. Robin was quick on my heels and then we raced into the elevator and I pressed the button marked GA and we started to go down. "The Crime scene is on the other side of town," she explained. "Do you want me to phone him to arrange for us to have a look?"
"Yes. You can phone him on the way."
"Most cabs won't let you talk on the phone in them nowadays."
"Whoever said we were going in a cab?"
The door creaked open and the room they stepped into was empty accept from a desk with a man sat behind and a rack full of keys behind him. He had a register on the desk and when I went over to him, he busily tidied his papers and then handed over a key.
I then led Robin through a passage way and through several cars to a rusty red series one land rover. I pulled open the door, climbed in and gestured for Robin to climb in the other side. Once she had, I accelerated out of the underground car park and onto the streets of Glasgow.
Robin pulled out her phone and dialled Lodsbury. "Hi Lodders. Yeah it's me Robin. No not the Robin from Barbados, Gabriel's friend. Yeah that one. Look, I'm in the car with him and we're heading up to the crime scene. What do you mean you didn't know he had a car? Yes I am sure he's Gabriel. Yes I am very sure. Look, we need to have a look at the crime scene of that case we were discussing yesterday. Are you sure you understand? Yes? Right. We'll see you there in twenty minutes. And for the hundredth time, I am sure this is the real Rathbone! Now go sort stuff out! Bye!"
Robin hung up and spoke to me, "We need to go pick him up."
"Where from?"
"The dogs."
"And there was me thinking he had got over his obsession with racing."
"Is he a big gambler?"
"Oh no. He owns one of the dogs."
Twenty minutes later:
We pulled up outside the race tracks and I asked her to text him. A few seconds later and Lodders was bounding out with Sarrison, his chalk board coloured greyhound. Once Sarrison had climbed into the back, Robin shifted to the middle seat and Lodders sat on the far seat from me. Lodders directed us and half an hour later we pulled up outside a bank. The air was fresh with the smell of freshly baked biscuits and I noticed that across the road from the bank was a biscuit factory. There was a section of the road portioned off and three police men with power drills were breaking through the road. Lodders turned to me, "They're attempting to drill through to the bank vault which had the apparent break in."
"How long have they been on it?" I asked.
"Three days they've been working there. They haven't even hit the outer shell yet. According to the bank, that's the weakest point according to the architect."
"Can I have a look inside?"
"Yes."
Lodders pulled the door open and led them to the back of the bank room. He opened the door, led down a stair case and into a room decorated with secure doors. I got some pictures on my phone and then went to the door at the end. I pulled it open and, once Robin and Lodders were in, journeyed across the threshold myself. The room was about twelve foot long and eight foot high. There was shelves lined with notes and at the end of the room there was about one inch of gold bars with the banks seal engraved on each one. Obviously this bank had some exceptionally rich customers.
I took some more photos and then had a peer around. "Tell me what you know, Lodders. Robin, make notes."
"Every day- for the past five nights- at twenty three minutes past nine at night, the alarms have been going off. The first night the security guards put it off as a failure of the system and so they rebooted it. The next day the same thing had happened at the exact same time. The guards then had a new system put in. Exact same problem happened that night. So they decide to connect this high security vault to the same system as the other vaults. That night all the vault alarms go off. They separate them again and the original vault goes off. They call the police. We have guards put above and in front of the vault and still the alarm goes off. It's ridiculous! We can't find anything at all!"
"Well impossible crimes are my area. I'm sure I'll find something." I replied hopefully.
We spent the next hour searching for clues and when we found nothing, we left. As I've pointed out, there was a biscuit factory on the other side of the road so I took Robin across to it and we bought some biscuits. I talked to the guy behind the counter about a new scheme by the owners for delivery of different baked goods in the morning. I signed up for a loaf every morning and then me and Robin returned to my flat to go over notes. I have only said this twice so far in my detective career but there's a third time for everything: I'm stumped.
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