Tom Pettifor - One Last Job

Published by Mirror Books,
an imprint of Trinity Mirror plc,
1 Canada Square,
London E14 5AP, England

www.mirrorbooks.com
twitter.com/themirrorbooks

Executive Editor: Jo Sollis

Editor: Robin Jarossi

Art Director: Julie Adams

Image Production: Paul Mason

Mirror Books 2016

The rights of Nick Sommerlad & Tom Pettifor to be identified as the authors of this book have been asserted, in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

ISBN 9781908319678

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

First paperback edition

Every effort has been made to fulfil requirements with regard to reproducing copyright material. The author and publisher will be glad to rectify any omissions at the earliest opportunity.

Front cover images: Mirrorpix/Getty iStock

About the Authors

TOM PETTIFOR is the Chief Crime Correspondent at the Daily Mirror where he has covered many of Britains biggest cases, including the murders of Stephen Lawrence, Milly Dowler and Anni Dewani. He began his career reporting at the Old Bailey and specialises in investigating police corruption and organised crime. His work exposing the cover-up of child sexual abuse in Lambeth, south London, led to several Scotland Yard probes and formed part of a national public inquiry. This is his first book.

NICK SOMMERLAD is the Investigations Editor of the Daily Mirror where he has spent several years doorstepping crooks and conmen. He has worked undercover at an immigration detention centre, been attacked by a baseball bat-wielding fraudster and had tea with an illegal betting kingpin. He has been shortlisted five times at the British Press Awards, winning the Hugh Cudlipp Award in 2010. This is his first book.

Dedications

Tom Pettifor dedicates this book to TC, DJ and TP.

Nick Sommerlad dedicates this book to DE, MJ, KR, IR and EA.

Prologue

Tuesday April 7, 2015

The glittering steel and glass towers rose up from the banks of the River Thames like giant totems to the wealth that had created them. Canary Wharfs skyscrapers had been a fixture in the life of security guard Kelvin Stockwell as he made his way to work over the previous decade. Kelvins home, almost in the shadows of the towers, was five miles east of his destination, the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Ltd.

It was his first day back after the Easter Bank Holiday as the chief guard of the vault in the heart of the capitals jewellery district. Sharp-suited young bankers were sipping cafe lattes in the early spring sunshine while cleaners finishing their night shifts headed home. It was barely 7am and the Tube trains were already full of office workers.

For Kelvin, April 7, 2015, had begun like any other working day. The nation had enjoyed the hottest Easter for four years and the temperature that morning was above average and rising. He did not know it yet, but it was going to get a lot hotter for Kelvin that day. The papers were full of coverage of the forthcoming general election, which they said was too close to call. In the international news pages, The Times reported that Kenyan warplanes had bombed two camps belonging to Islamic extremists in neighbouring Somalia in response to a horrific attack on a university.

The chaos and destruction of the world seemed a long way from Hatton Garden that morning. As normal, a street cleaner swept the pavement and jewellers were beginning to open up their shops. George, a muscular security guard with huge hands, was at his usual spot in a shop doorway eyeing the people coming and going. Everything appeared just as it always did when Kelvin arrived for work just after 8am. He let himself in through the black wooden main door of the HGSD building. It housed around 60 business tenants, most of them jewellers, over seven floors. In the basement was the vault. Built in 1948, it held 999 locked safety-deposit boxes that were entombed in a layer of steel, 20-inches of reinforced concrete and protected by a two-foot-thick Chubb door that weighed 10 tonnes. The custom-made portal had two combination locks and a key. Just to reach the vault door you had to pass through five locked doors and two sliding iron gates. Not to mention the state-of-the art CCTV system and digital alarm linked to a central headquarters that was programmed to activate within 60 seconds of a break-in. There was good reason why the vault had never been penetrated in all of its 67 years.

Kelvin shut the front door behind him before punching in the four-digit code to the glass sliding doors that led to the unstaffed lobby. Waiting for him was his colleague, fellow security guard Ronald Kamara, who did not bother with formalities. I think weve been burgled, he blurted out. It was no longer just another Tuesday morning for Kelvin.

He dashed across the grey marble floor and opened a door beside the lift, which led to a descending flight of stairs into the basement. At the bottom, to the left, was another wooden door, with a mortice deadlock. Kelvin immediately noticed the top lock was missing. He peered through the hole where it should have been and saw the vault had been ransacked. The lights were on and the bars of a second security door had been cut and forced up, apparently to let someone in. Kelvin turned and ran along the corridor to a fire exit that led to a yard outside the basement. He slid back the two bolts on the door and pulled out his phone to check if he had a signal as he dashed into the open air. At exactly 8.10am he dialled 999 and told the operator on the emergency police line that there had been a burglary at the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Ltd.

Jamie Day was the first detective on the scene. The quietly spoken 43-year-old was measured and watchful. But Detective Constable Days relaxed demeanour masked an implacable determination that had helped him to get a job in Scotland Yards elite Flying Squad. The team had a distinguished history and Day wore the navy-blue tie bearing the squads logo of a descending eagle with pride. The raptor was a fitting symbol of the way the Flying Squad worked, quietly watching their criminal quarry, unseen and from above, before striking without warning.

Day arrived to find Kelvin waiting outside on the pavement along with a local uniformed officer who had evacuated the building. The anxious security guard explained what he had found and Day cautiously descended to the basement vault area and peered through the broken lock. The corridor was covered in dust and debris and the floor was strewn with papers, crowbars and power tools, including an angle grinder and a huge diamond-tipped drill. The metal lift shutter had been forced open wide enough to let someone squeeze through. Next to the huge, locked vault door, between a grey office chair and a black coat stand, was a neatly drilled hole that had given the raiders access to the vault. Inside the strongroom, empty safe deposit boxes had been stacked almost to the ceiling in one corner by the thieves. Ransacked paper jewellery packets, envelopes, letters and plastic shopping bags lay scattered around the floor. Also left behind were a collection of war medals. Whoever did this was not callous enough to steal those treasured items. Some of the boxes appeared to have had the locks smashed off, while others had been jemmied open, apparently at random. A brass plaque on the wall warned customers: NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR PERSONAL PROPERTY .