It was a cold winter evening in Kensington, West London. Britain’s most notorious detective Oliver Griffin generously poured himself a glass of Talisker 18 and took his seat by the fire side. 22 Chepstow Villas was his fortress of solitude, his place of retreat and isolation from the hustle and bustle of the Kensington Police Station. Times have been tough on him, especially after dealing with a series of abduction and murder cases throughout London in the past few months. The crackling and popping of the pinewood in the fireplace, the peppery oak flavor of the 18-year-old single-malt resting underneath his palate, and the aroma of a fine crafted Montecristo cigar between his fingers gave him the much-needed comfort he longed for.
As Griffin was immersed in his moment, contemplating on how he couldn’t spare time for his own family, his wife Bernadette and his daughter Joanna, in pursuit of justice for the victims of several nefarious crimes, a sudden knock on the door broke the peace and warmth of the snuggly villa. He placed his cigar on a crystal ashtray and his glass of whiskey on a small mahogany table by the fireplace, tightened his robe and walked up to the door. “Oh bollocks!” he remarked as he opened the door to see who this unexpected visitor was, “Sgt. Thomson! What brings you to my unwelcome but humble abode?”
“As always, polite enough to greet a guest with sarcasm, Detective… Pardon me for my intrusion… I am aware that this is your time, and place, of introspection and self-loathing… But I wish I had a choice… There’s been a robbery…” Thomson said as he walked in, closed the door behind him and took off his hat.
“A robbery? Have we run out of cases for me or have we run out of good lads at the station to investigate a bloody robbery?” Griffin was clearly furious as he considered investigating robberies beneath him and he was no retriever of lost objects.
Thomson’s face turned gloomy as he spoke, “This is a special case detective… It’s The Lacquer Chest Antique Store!”
Griffin was taken aback. The Lacquer Chest was owned by Bernadette’s father, Andrew Turner. It was all he had left for her when he died. The store was more than just a piece of property for Bernadette, it was a lifetime of memories, watching her daddy dearest curate and take care of the collection, amaze visitors with vivid descriptions about the history of each item in the store, and of being his little helping hand every now and then. Griffin knew he had to take this case, for Bernadette and Joanna.
“What is it that was stolen?” Griffin asked.
“A golden chalice! Believed to have graced the altar of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, until about 300 years ago. I believe you know about it. Mr. Turner had taken extra care to secure it in a reinforced show-case under lock and key. It was never up for sale, though it could have fetched him a pretty fortune. Bernadette’s mother was not quite well for a week and the store was closed for a while. You wouldn’t be aware of it, Griffin, would you?” Thomson remarked, “The young lad who has been working with the Turners for a long time, what’s his name? Jerrie something? He was hired to look after the store and keep accounts. Bernadette sent him to fetch some money from the store’s cash register this evening and that’s when he was greeted by the sight of the show-case wide open and the chalice missing. And now here I am, asking you to take charge of this case, hoping that you would consider my humble request. Would you be interested, Griffin, or should I just let one of my inspectors take care of this one? What do you want me to tell Bernadette?”
A sense of urgency gripped Griffin as he put out his cigar and said, “I’ll take this case! This is my chance to do something for the only family I have. I will not be foolish enough to let it go.”
“Just as I thought, detective! Come on now! We’ve got to find this slick burglar before it’s too late! You’re driving!” Thomson said as he stood up and put on his hat. The two got into Griffin’s 2011 Mini Countryman and they drove off to The Lacquer Chest.
Bernadette was sitting on her father’s old rocking chair by the cash counter, staring blankly at a dark corner of the store. She raised her eyes up to look at her husband standing at the door. Tears rolled down her cheek but she didn’t move. Griffin walked up and knelt by her side. He reached out to hold her hand. She looked away and said, “He used to take good care of that thing! Every week he would open that show-case and take it out, clean it, admire it, and put it back in. It was dear to him, as if it were heirloom. Of all the things in the store… Why the chalice…?”
Griffin looked at his wife for a while and stood up. “I don’t know love… But I promise you… I’m going to hunt that despicable excuse for a man down… And I’m going to bring back what’s rightfully yours…” he said.
“If only you knew how to keep a promise…” Bernadette wiped her tears, got off the chair and walked towards the stairs leading to the storeroom, glanced at Griffin and said, “If only you were here when we really needed you…”
Griffin expected this reaction, yet it broke his heart to hear his wife say these words. Nevertheless, he had set himself on a course to finding the culprit, and there was no turning back. He put on his glasses and rubber gloves and began investigating the store.
He first laid his eyes on the showcase, more precisely, on the broken lock. He noticed that the lock was not really tampered with and that it was unlocked with a key, or maybe with a lock-pick. “Crafty little bugger!” he exclaimed. It was an old iron padlock which needed four different keys, in sequence, to be unlocked. The Turners had only one set of keys and it was safely stored away in a locker at the Turner residence.
Griffin pulled out his phone and called up on the residence land-line. Joanna answered the call and was gladdened to hear her daddy’s voice after a long time. He asked Joanna to check the locker for the keys. “It’s here Papa. Right where Mum left it last time.” the 16-year-old girl peeked into the locker and said to her father. Griffin hung up the phone and called Aiden Cook, his protégé at Kensington police station. “Aiden, I’m sending you the names and addresses of three locksmiths in the city. I need you to pay them a visit and get me a list of names of all their customers from the past fortnight and the kind of keys they got duplicated! Brownie points if you can get me information on the whereabouts of those locksmiths during this time and any house-calls they made!” Griffin ordered. He knew the lock itself was an antique of sorts and only three very old locksmiths in the city knew how to work with locks like these.
The next morning, Griffin received an email from the young officer. It had all the information he wanted, yet he was disappointed. One of the locksmiths, Anderson, had shut shop about a month ago and decided to move to the Alps with his daughter. The second one, Darcy, had died of lung cancer six months
ago. The third one, however, seemed to be a promising lead. William Collin, who had a shop not too far from Pennard Road, had worked on a similar lock 6 days ago. Griffin was on his way to the police station when he received this email. He quickly turned around and drove straight to the shop.
The furious detective stormed into the locksmith’s shop and looked at the oblivious 60-year-old William with a cold stare, and asked, “6 days ago, you made a duplicate set of keys for unlocking an old Yorkshire Iron Four Key Padlock! Who was it for?” The old man trembled as he spoke, “There’s a new antique store coming up… near Shepherd’s Bush Market Underground Station… Owned by Mr. Hugo Davis. They had an old book in their collection… Looked like an old handwritten Bible… hardbound with a padlock over it… They needed my services to unlock it… I swear to God they said they had found it themselves… Is it stolen sir?” Griffin took a deep breath and said, “We’ll find out!” He went out hunting for the owner of the new store only to find out that the old locksmith was truthful as a priest. The key was indeed made for unlocking an old handwritten Bible that a generous patron had apparently donated to the store. “Thank you for your time Mr. Davis.” he said to the store owner, “Forgive me for the inconvenience…” He noticed a Gunmetal Metallic 1965 Sunbeam Tiger parked outside the store and asked, “That’s a beautiful car out there, is it yours?” Davis left his counter and stood beside the detective, gazing at the car, and said “Yes Detective. And thank you. It’s my grandfather’s!” Griffin walked past the car towards his Mini, only to notice a nasty scratch on the front left panel of the car. “Oh you scarred little beauty… Such a shame…”
Griffin usually didn’t take the cliched path of doubting store assistants, butlers and house-maids. But this time, something made him doubt young Jerrie. He wasn’t at the store when he first came over to investigate. He never had the chance to question him. The store CCTV footage from the day of the robbery was missing. And he was aware that Jerrie boy was an old friend of Lucy, the house maid at the Turner residence who recommended him for the job. He asked Aiden to be on his tail and keep a track of his activities. At the same time, he examined the CCTV videos from the store and the common areas outside Turner residence for any suspicious activity before or after the incident. He found none.
Meanwhile, Aiden spotted Jerrie accepting a stuffed white envelope from an older man outside the Notting Hill Bookshop and walking away. Something did not feel right about this transaction. He informed Griffin about this and was asked to corner the boy before he got away. Aiden got off his car and chased the young man on foot without raising suspicion. He found an isolated corner near Colville Square Gardens, grabbed Jerrie by the shirt and pulled him to the side. “Spill the beans Jerrie boy! Someone paying you well to play Judas with the Turners? What have you got in that little bag of yours? Your share of the loot?” Aiden furiously gazed deep into Jerrie’s eyes and intimidated him. Jerrie trembled and replied, “It’s a book sir… Please don’t hurt me… I bought it for my fiancé… it’s her birthday tomorrow…” He opened the envelop and pulled out a pristine hard-bound copy of Charlotte Brontë’s classic Jane Eyre. “Lucy always wanted to read this book but couldn’t find it anywhere. I asked my cousin Ethan to hunt down a copy for me… I swear I haven’t done anything wrong with the Turners… They treat Lucy like family and I respect them for that… I wouldn’t betray them sir… I cross my heart and hope to die if I do…”
Griffin sat on his chair at the police station as he listened to Aiden’s debrief in dismay. He was running out of patience. He wanted to catch the thief and get the chalice back to the Turners as soon as he could. This may be his only chance to show his wife that he really cared. As he sat motionless, contemplating, he had a sudden epiphany. He immediately picked up his phone and called traffic control. He wanted the street CCTV footage from the day of the robbery, hoping to find some clue hidden somewhere in one of
those videos. His weary eyes were too tired to notice anything amiss. And as expected, the camera facing the store was cut off from the grid moments before the robbery took place. Griffin threw his glasses away and closed his eyes. His mind had a habit of wandering and subconsciously throwing in thoughts, doubts and ideas, while he was asleep, which he would have otherwise consciously overlooked. This nap was no different. He woke up with a jolt and rushed back to the The Lacquer Chest to examine the store and residence security footage. This time, he scanned and skimmed older videos for any suspicious faces he could spot.
The Turner residence was adjacent to the store and had an internal access door. Bernadette heard the noises from the storeroom and stormed in, armed with a crowbar. “Griffin! What in God’s name are you doing here? At this hour!” she bawled.
“Darling, come here… have a look… isn’t this Hugo Davis?” Griffin asked, “I couldn’t help but notice he’s been coming here too often lately.”
“Yes, that is, indeed, Mr. Davis, or Uncle Davis” Bernadette looked at the footage and confirmed, “He and Papa were good friends. He left for Germany when I was young and returned a few days before Papa fell ill. He’s been visiting us often to see if we need anything after Papa left us.” Griffin was pensive. He turned off the monitors, gazed at his wife for a brief moment, and left.
Griffin usually parked his car in alleyway across the street. The lights of his Mini Countryman blinked brightly in the night as he unlocked the car. That was the solemn moment when something caught his eye. The wall of the adjacent building was slightly scraped, as if by a car backing up in haste. Griffin examined the damage on the wall and noticed that the car had left a bit of its paintwork on it. It was similar to the gunmetal shade of the Sunbeam Tiger owned by Davis. Griffin’s doubts now grew stronger as he faintly recalled Davis talking over the phone about a deal to be closed early in the morning when he paid him a visit. He knew he had to rush before it was too late.
It was quarter past midnight. Griffin broke into Davis’ antique store to confirm his suspicion. He would rather sneak in, frisk the place and leave no clue of his activities behind, than have a warrant issued and do the same thing formally, giving enough time for Davis to implement counter measures. Besides, picking locks was more like a hobby to him. He proceeded with extreme precaution to make sure he didn’t move anything out of its place. He noticed a flight of stairs leading up to another room on top of the store. He carefully opened the door and stepped in. It was Davis’ office, with contemporary furnishing and décor, quite a contrast from the décor of the store beneath. The table in the center of the room had a large locked drawer on one side. Griffin picked the lock and pulled open the drawer. And there it was, the chalice, in all its glory!
“Well-well… Look what the cat dragged in! I knew you would come sniffing in here someday, Detective!” Davis said as he stood in front of Griffin, with the barrel of a loaded Colt .45 Revolver aimed at him, “I made a mistake! Too much haste! I should not have taken my car that night!”
Griffin raised his arms and said, “Mr. Turner was your friend… Why did you do it? Why the chalice?”
“Do you have any idea what it’s worth? You’re unwise enough to ask me that question, so I should figure out that you don’t really know. And neither did he! Andrew Turner! That old buffer!” Davis began bawling, “We found it together! It was not for him to keep! I wanted to sell it! We could have been filthy rich ages ago! We could have been millionaires! He was young and stupid! But I wasn’t! He locked it away. But little did he know, I had the second set of keys! And now that he’s gone, I want it all for myself! I will take what’s rightfully mine! In a few hours the new owner of this chalice will take possession of it and leave me swimming in a pile of cash! And no one is man enough to stop me, not even you, an imbecile little police officer!”
Davis was about to pull the trigger when he heard the sound of a gun clocking behind his head. “Pull that trigger and I WILL make sure you regret it!” Aiden warned Davis, “Drop the gun and put your hands where I can see them! Now!” Griffin Smirked at Davis and said, “I wouldn’t disappoint the trigger-happy Mr. Cook if I were you! Hugo Davis, you are under arrest for breaking and entering, robbery, and threatening a police officer with a lethal weapon! You do not have to say anything unless you wish to do so, but what you say may be given in evidence.” Davis dropped the pistol on the floor and raised hands up to the back of his head, sulking all along. Aiden handcuffed him and escorted him to his car.
The doorbell rang at the Turner residence early in the morning. Bernadette opened the door to see her visibly tired and weary husband waiting for her outside, hiding something behind his back. “I’ve got something for you,” Griffin said as he held out a white box before his wife. Bernadette opened it and she was overwhelmed with joy. She clasped the chalice in the palm of her hand and hugged her husband like she never hugged before. “You really did it!” she whispered into his ear. “I kept my word… my promise to you…” Griffin said. After five years of being apart, Bernadette’s eyes, most with tears, gazed deep into Griffin’s, filled with the warm affection that had gone missing all these years. The gentle morning breeze engulfed the two in a heart-warming moment. Her lips touched Griffin’s as she kissed him, for all that he had done, for being there for her when she needed him the most, for coming back home, for the love rekindled.
