Perfect Heist

Chapter Three

As life went by day after day, Serena began to feel she was making some progress. The money in her savings account was gradually going up and she was full of pride every time she added more to the total. It was still laughably short of what she actually needed, but it was a start - and she was doing it on her own. That was the important thing. In a year's time (or three years...or whenever) she'd be able to tell her father she was returning to Vienna and he would have had nothing to do with it. It would be all her own work.

She returned home one evening looking forward to watching a film on her big widescreen TV. The flat she was renting was unfurnished, so she had bought all the furniture she needed from a nearby charity shop warehouse. It had all cost next to nothing and she was very pleased with every item, especially the television which looked like a small cinema screen. It was her main source of entertainment and company when she was home, a friend in the sitting room that would always be there to take her away from her lonely and humdrum everyday life. "Oh, I don't believe it!" she exclaimed out loud as she switched the set on and nothing happened. "It was perfectly all right yesterday." She tried changing the batteries in the remote, but that didn't work, and neither did replacing the fuse in the plug. The TV had clearly stopped working and, just as her father had warned her during one of their now-weekly telephone chats, buying second-hand was a false economy. Buying new was the only option. So she splashed out on the smallest and cheapest set she could find in Argos.

The following Saturday, returning from a run around Battersea Park, she discovered soapy water tricking out of her front door. Her washing machine had broken down mid-cycle and flooded the floor. Luckily there was no carpet to ruin, but there was a lot of mopping up to do and the flat smelt damp for days to come. More importantly, the machine was clearly beyond repair and she had to buy a new one of these as well. When the matching kettle and toaster, which looked so good in her tiny kitchen and were vital to her at five o'clock in the morning, packed up within a day or so of one another, Serena knew she was fighting a losing battle. By the time she'd replaced all these essential items, it had made a big hole in her savings and there was no knowing what other unavoidable expenses would crop up in the future. She felt very depressed. She was working as hard as she could for nothing and there seemed no way to change her misfortune. This long hard road would go on forever and not lead anywhere.

The clocks had now gone back and it was cold and dark early. Serena had taken to catching the bus back from Central London to Battersea. There was a stall near the bus stop where an old man sold the evening paper to the home-going crowds and he still shouted out the headlines, like someone from an old black-and-white film. "Raid on Bond Street jewellers shop," he bellowed. "Diamonds stolen in daring daylight heist. Latest news. Read all about it..."

Serena's curiosity was roused, so she purchased a paper to read on the bus which was due in a few minutes. Gems worth many thousands of pounds had been taken and she couldn't help feeling a pang of jealousy that whoever was responsible for this crime could live in luxury as a result. Then something flashed into her brain and was quickly replaced by an opposing thought. No, Serena! Your father and Joyce raised you not to steal. Imagine how disappointed they would be to discover you were stealing for a living!

Most of the perfume in the department store cost between fifty and a hundred pounds a bottle - and that was only the everyday stuff. Many other brands cost infinitely more and were kept in a locked display cabinet that she was often asked to refill. If she slipped the occasional very expensive bottle into the pocket of her tabard, nobody would notice... and nor would they miss a few items from the volume sales that flew off the shelves every day. She could sell the stolen perfume at the pubs and clubs around her area and felt sure there would be a ready market for such up-market goods sold on the cheap. It was a great plan that would undoubtedly go a long way to solving her financial problems.