Desmond Bagley - The Freedom Trap

‘It doesn’t matter, perhaps it’s for the better. You’re a clever thief, Rearden; that’s why you’ve stayed out of trouble. How many times have you been inside?’

I grinned at him. ‘Once — for eighteen months. That was a long time ago.’

‘Indeed it was. You change your methods and your aims, don’t you? You don’t leave any recurring statistics for a computer to sort out — no definite modus operandi to trip over. As I say — you’re a clever thief. I think that what I have in mind will be just up your street. Mrs Smith thinks so, too.’

‘Let’s hear about it,’ I said cautiously.

‘The British GPO is a marvellous institution,’ said Mackintosh inconsequentially. ‘Some say ours is the best postal system in the world; some think otherwise if you judge by the readers’ letters in the Daily Telegraph , but grousing is an Englishman’s privilege. Insurance companies, however, regard the GPO very highly. Tell me, what is the most outstanding property of the diamond?’

‘It sparkles.’

‘An uncut diamond doesn’t,’ he pointed out. ‘An uncut stone looks like a bit of sea-washed bottle glass. Think again.’

‘It’s hard,’ I said. ‘Just about the hardest thing there is.’

Mackintosh clicked his tongue in annoyance. ‘He’s not thinking, is he, Mrs Smith? Tell him.’

‘The size — or the lack of it,’ she said quietly.

Mackintosh pushed his hand under my nose and curled his fingers into a fist. ‘You can hold a fortune in your hand and no one would know it was there. You could put diamonds worth a hundred thousand pounds into this matchbox — then what would you have?’

‘You tell me.’

‘You’d have a parcel, Rearden; a package. Something that can be wrapped up in brown paper with enough room to write an address and accept a postage stamp. Something that can be popped into a letter-box.’

I stared at him. ‘They send diamonds through the post !’

‘Why not? The postal system is highly efficient and very rarely is anything lost. Insurance companies are willing to bet large sums of money on the efficiency of the GPO and those boys know what they’re doing. It’s a matter of statistics, you know.’

He toyed with the matchbox. ‘At one time there was a courier system and that had a lot of disadvantages. A courier would personally carry a parcel of diamonds and deliver it to its destination by hand. That fell through for a number of reasons; the couriers got to be known by the wide boys, which was very sad because a number of them were severely assaulted. Another thing was that human beings are but human, after all, and a courier could be corrupted. The supply of trustworthy men isn’t bottomless and the whole courier system was not secure. Far from it.

‘But consider the present system,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘Once a parcel is swallowed into the maw of the Post Office not even God can extract it until it reaches its destination. And why? Because nobody knows precisely where the hell it is. It’s just one of millions of parcels circulating through the system and to find it would not be like finding a needle in a haystack — it would be like searching a haystack for a particular wisp of hay. Do you follow me?’

I nodded. ‘It sounds logical.’

‘Oh, it is,’ said Mackintosh. ‘Mrs Smith did all the necessary research. She’s a very clever girl.’ He flapped his hand languidly. ‘Carry on, Mrs Smith.’

She said coolly, ‘Once the insurance company actuaries analysed the GPO statistics regarding losses, they saw they were on to a good thing providing certain precautions were taken. To begin with, the stones are sent in all sizes and shapes of parcel from matchbox size to crates as big as a tea chest. The parcels are labelled in a multitude of different ways, very often with the trade label of a well-known firm — anything to confuse the issue, you see. The most important thing is the anonymity of the destination. There are a number of accommodation addresses having nothing to do with the diamond industry to which the stones are sent, and the same address is never used twice running.’

‘Very interesting,’ I said. ‘Now how do we crack it?’

Mackintosh leaned back in his chair and put his fingertips together. ‘Take a postman walking up a street — a familiar sight. He carries a hundred thousand pounds’ worth of diamonds but — and this is the interesting point — he doesn’t know it and neither does anyone else. Even the recipient who is eagerly awaiting the diamonds doesn’t know when they’ll arrive because the Post Office doesn’t guarantee delivery at any specific time, regardless of what they say about first-class post in their specious advertising. The parcels are sent by ordinary post; no special delivery nonsense which would be too easy to crack open.’

I said slowly, ‘It seems to me that you’re painting yourself into a corner, but I suppose you have something up your sleeve. All right — I’ll buy it.’

‘Have you ever done any photography?’

I resisted the impulse to explode. This man had more ways of talking around a subject than anyone I had ever known. He had been the same in Johannesburg — never talking in a straight line for more than two minutes. ‘I’ve clicked a shutter once or twice,’ I said tightly.

‘Black-and-white or colour?’

‘Both.’

Mackintosh looked pleased. ‘When you take colour photographs — transparencies — and send them away for processing, what do you get back?’

I looked appealingly at Mrs Smith and sighed. ‘Small pieces of film with pictures on them.’ I paused and added, ‘They’re framed in cardboard mounts.’

‘What else do you get?’

‘Nothing.’

He wagged his finger. ‘Oh yes, you do. You get the distinctive yellow box the things are packed in. Yes, yellow — I suppose it could be described as Kodak yellow. If a man is carrying one of those boxes in his hand you can spot it across a street and you say to yourself, “That man is carrying a box of Kodachrome transparencies.”‘

I felt a thrill of tension. Mackintosh was coming to the meat of it. ‘All right,’ he said abruptly ‘I’ll lay it out for you. I know when a parcel of diamonds is being sent. I know to where it is being sent — I have the accommodation address. Most important of all, I know the packaging and it’s unmistakable. All you have to do is to wait near the address and the postman will come up to you with the damn thing in his hand. And that little yellow box will contain one hundred and twenty thousand quid in unset stones which you will take from him.’

‘How did you find out all this?’ I asked curiously.

‘I didn’t,’ he said. ‘Mrs Smith did. The whole thing is her idea. She came up with the concept and did all the research. Exactly how she did the research is no concern of yours.’

I looked at her with renewed interest and discovered that her eyes were green. There was a twinkle in them and her lips were curved in a humorous quirk which smoothed out as she said soberly, ‘There must be as little violence as possible, Mr Rearden.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Mackintosh. ‘As little violence as possible commensurate with making a getaway. I don’t believe in violence; it’s bad for business. You’d better bear that in mind.’

I said, ‘The postman won’t hand it to me. I’ll have to take it by force.’

Mackintosh showed his teeth in a savage grin. ‘So it will be robbery with violence if you get nabbed. Her Majesty’s judges are hard about that kind of thing, especially considering the amount involved. You’ll be lucky to get away with ten years.’

‘Yes,’ I said thoughtfully, and returned his grin with interest.