Writing for Fun
May 2019
The Proposal - Jeff Kebbell
I am a cat burglar (defined in Chambers dictionary as ‘a burglar who breaks into buildings by climbing walls, water pipes etc.’). That simplifies it somewhat since the training is quite strenuous and has involved me rock climbing in Wales and the Lake District in the summer and scaling the back walls of our large house. Old fashioned pennies have holes drilled in the middle and bolted to the wall with a small gap twixt penny and wall. Climbing up and along the wall, just holding on to the pennies by one’s fingertips, is good practice for rock climbing as well as my profession. I served an apprenticeship with a special security group and have a degree in electronics.
Dad is a master locksmith who worked for Chubb for twenty years and can pick any lock on any safe you might come across in this country. With my sister, an accountant and Mum a forger, we are very successful antique dealers and are associated with an international cartel who will obtain any antique on demand and offer us a very lucrative commission when we accept some of the more difficult jobs they are given. We do not use violence, carry weapons or steal from ordinary people who may own a precious object. Our victims are the mega rich who often amassed their wealth on the back of people like my grandparents and before.
Did you know that there is a second ‘Mona Lisa’? It is kept in an air conditioned cellar in London and owned by Swiss and American businessmen. Well, my father and I broke into the building, replaced it with a forgery - courtesy of my mother. When the cartel who gave us the commission offered to sell them the original for less than the insurance money, they invited an expert in who declared my mother’s painting was the original and refused to pay. The eventual sale of the Mona Lisa to some Arab sheiks meant our family all became millionaires overnight. What a super wheeze!
A family conference decided we could afford to legitimise our profession as money ceased to be the main objective so we broke into the Ministry buildings where M15 and M16 were housed and took a stack of files from the safes and left a trail leading to our house and awaited results.
One night a tinkle on the unit strapped to my wrist woke me and the lights came on and I sat up in bed. A young public school type wearing a tweed suit and a small moustache and holding a pistol sat at the end of my bed. At the same time the fitted wardrobe behind him rolled silently to the side revealing my father with a sawn off shotgun. The young man sitting on the bed was completely unaware of this. I spoke to him and said, ‘Hi! You wanted to see me?’
‘I’m afraid you have done one too many robberies and I’m here to stop it. Sorry and all that.’
My hand slipped into the mattress and I pulled out a revolver but not so that he could see it, I said, ‘I’m glad you found the paper trail that led you here and I want to make you a proposal.’
‘It’s a bit late for that old man. Just tell me where the files are and I promise you I’ll make it quick and painless.’
‘I think you misunderstand the situation,’ I said. ‘If you shoot me, my father will blow your head off your shoulders.’ He turned quickly round and I pulled my gun out. ‘Or I will shoot you if you kill him and end the promising career of a young man.’ This was the crucial moment. Brainwashed he may shoot or being sensible try to compromise.
‘Put the gun down son,’ said dad, pulling the levers back with an ominous double click.
Realising the job wasn’t worth his death he laid his gun on the bed. I continued, ‘We have the files over there on the table. They haven’t been looked at or copied. Now my proposal. We will keep the ‘Monet’ and ‘Lowry’. We have removed them from your hallway as a gesture of good faith on your part. Please take the files, then come back with a contract that will pay us to remove private papers from other embassies that are likely to embarrass your company in the future.
He shook his head and chuckled. ‘I can hardly believe this is happening but I know my head of department will welcome you to our side. Do you know I’ve always believed the Monet and Lowry were originals and one day I would like to meet the person who copied them.’
We had a bottle of Chateau Lafitte and he left - with a new chapter starting in our lives.