Tea in the Library (20 page)

The Dragon Lady was of course the opposite personality of big, cuddly Toddles. However, the writing was on the wall for Todd too, mainly because I had hired him at a salary way beyond what the business could support. In fact, in our initial discussions, Todd had said that he would probably only stay with us for a year; and to give all the credit where it is definitely due, once the sorry state of the sales figures became apparent, Todd told me he would understand if we could no longer support his salary. He stayed on a bit longer after that discussion, but eventually I told him that we would have to dispense with his services, and he worked out another four weeks, made plans to travel, and had farewell drinks with us. An amicable parting! Our first!

So where did that leave us? Perhaps with her judgment clouded by relief at Renee's departure, Kate decided this time to give the café supervisor job a shot, and Emma stepped up to the plate to take on bookshop supervisor. The girls were a great team, keen if inexperienced. Optimism returned. I gave them both a pay rise (which was not affordable), we hired Damien, another junior bookseller, and gave it another shot.

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen … Daniel continued to turn out good food, yummy scones, a few excellent additions to our menu (lobster linguine!), and a certain amount of
frisson
among the female staff. Daniel's life story (as told to our credulous Team) was that he had a wife and three little children, currently living in Queensland, from whence he had returned to Sydney to seek better work. He was living with his mother (terribly chaste) and his family would soon join him. He was a lively personality, and “calm” would not be the first word you'd think of if visiting our kitchen. But generally he was cheerful and playful, rather than aggressive. As far as I know.

Apart from the meaningful glances exchanged with Renee, and his attempts to “take over” (i.e. sort out) Jo's kitchen, the first real concerns I had about Daniel began to niggle when he rather often requested an advance on his salary. Then we began to miss the odd $50 note from the till (which we could very ill afford), and after worrying about correct end-of-day totting up, etc., I must admit to entertaining doubts about Daniel's honesty.

At this point, I pause to describe Tea In The Library's abundant 
—
although flawed
—
security systems. First, each book was protected with a security “sticker”, which had to be de-activated by staff at the till when purchased, or else a loud “beep” would sound when the book was walked through the security sensor at our exit door. I had gone to a great deal of trouble over this. The book staff were instructed to tag every book, but it wasn't until later that I found that they were rather lax in this regard. Nevertheless, the most important point
—
from a deterrent point of view
—
was that any “beeping” that occurred should result in an approach to the “beep-ee”. Lessons were given to everyone on how to firmly but politely challenge anyone whom they were not absolutely sure had genuinely purchased their book before departing the shop. Despite whinges that the de-activator wasn't working, or that they were too busy, or that customers would be “put off”, I insisted on this procedure. I must say that we never suffered any real depredations on our book stock. Our location down a set of stairs possibly made it a bit more difficult for a would-be book snatcher to make a quick get-away. I was warned by other booksellers early on, not to put the
Lonely Planet
travel guides by the exit
—
apparently these were known to be grabbed by the armful by thieves, to be re-sold for a quick $20 on the streets. Ours were carefully placed far from the entrance.

In addition to book security, we had five cameras in the ceiling, trained on the three tills and the back corners of the shop. The images from these cameras were visible on a small TV screen set up behind the front counter. The idea was that everyone who came in would know that “we were watching”. Except of course we probably hardly ever were. The images gathered by these cameras were recorded and kept for a short period on video tape. We did try looking at the tapes when the $50 bills began disappearing, but there were many flaws in our set-up. For a start, the cameras on the tills were trained straight down, and thus gave excellent views of people's hands, but not their faces. We also were lacking a lucid system of dating and retaining the tapes.

So much for protecting our hard-earned takings from stick-up artists or dishonest staff. We also had to think about protecting the premises from outside break-ins after-hours. Our three exit doors were fitted with sensors, and there were movement sensors inside the shop. This alarm system was turned on each night by the staff who locked up, and was monitored by a back-to-base alarm company. The way it worked was if the security company became aware of any disturbance, or indeed of the alarm not being turned on when it should have been, they called. As to who they called, the staff were allocated to a list
—
there were usually three or four people who might be called before it defaulted to me. Since most of the calls were because the place hadn't been properly secured or the alarm hadn't been turned on, the staff were the ones who had to make the after-hours visits to fix the situation.

From time to time we might decide that the alert didn't require a visit. The security company might advise that the disturbance was inside, but the outer doors were still secure (a spider walking on the sensor?) Or they might report a disturbance to the back door, which nevertheless remained secure (tramps in the back lane?) Another option, especially late at night when there had been a possible breach of an exit door, was to have the security company send around a guard to check on the place. This usually resulted in no news being good news. The security company charged a monthly rate, and the guards' visits, if requested, were an additional charge. In all, considering our location in the heart of the city, it was not overly expensive, and I believe worth it.

You might have noticed in this description of our little Fort Knox that I have omitted to mention security for cash overnight. A safe was one of those items I was planning to get “later”, and in the mean-time the overnight cash was locked in a filing cabinet in the office. Since our takings were far from impressive, and the staff were under instructions to bank every afternoon, there was usually only a few hundred in change and petty cash floats to be locked away.

Of course, you can tell that I am leading up to a disaster story! Yes, one evening at about 7.45 pm, I received a call from the security company. I cannot recall now why I was the lucky one
—
all the others must have been uncontactable. Oh, how I loathed those security calls! At best, they meant a decision to “wing it” and a sleep-less night worrying that all was well. At worst, a trip into the city at night to check on the premises. At least, I thought that was as bad as it could get.

This particular call advised that a breach had been detected of the front door
—
a bit unusual. Our tramps usually hung around the back door. I was just getting into my bath, and asked the security company to send around a guard. After a quick but pleasant soak, I was toweling myself off when a second call told me the guard had discovered a true break-in through the front door. Dressing quickly, I hopped in the car and drove into town. About 30 minutes later I joined the guard, “Steve”, on the city sidewalk outside the wrought iron gates which bar our front landing at the street line. These gates are locked with a heavy padlock, but nevertheless a nimble person could climb over them quite easily
—
although you would think someone on a busy city street would notice. I unlocked the padlock, and Steve and I ventured gingerly onto the landing above the front stairs. “Stand back!”, said Steve, in a reassuringly authoritative voice. He wanted to make sure that the perpetrator wasn't still with us. I duly stood back, but could clearly see that the front doors of our little shop had been physically smashed open. The glass panes weren't broken, but the wooden frame of the door had splintered, loosening the lock. When Steve gave the all clear, I dashed in and turned off the alarm with the code, and we surveyed the damage. This was confined to the office, where the very drawer of the very filing cabinet where our cash was stashed had been wrenched open (bare hands, presumably
—
it was a fairly flimsy lock). The cash was of course gone. A quick check showed that nothing else had been snatched
—
not the glossy books, not the small tin of café petty cash, not the liquor, nothing else, in fact. Steve warned me “not to touch anything
—
fingerprints!”, and called the police.

While waiting for the boys in blue to arrive, I phoned around to my intrepid staff. Paul had been the last to leave, locking up at about 7.30 pm
—
must have been moments before the daring robbery. The girls
—
Emma, Kate and Chloe
—
were co-incidentally having a drink in their favourite down-market pub around the corner, and dashed back to the shop when they heard the news. There was much umm-ing and ahh-ing over the thrilling development, and much speculation about “what could have happened.” For my part, I didn't need my credentials of having read every Agatha Christie to see that it was fairly obviously an “inside job”. The thief had gone straight to our little cache of cash, grabbed nothing else and high-tailed it out. It was disturbing to think that it must have been “one of us”. I don't know if the others were thinking what I was thinking, but it wasn't long before all eyes turned to the only “clue” we could see
—
a chef's jacket tossed on the floor beside the busted filing cabinet, perhaps used to strengthen the thief's hold on the cabinet, or to disguise fingerprints. Hmm … Hercule Poriot would have solved this one in an instant.

The boys in blue arrived eventually, although they turned out to be two extremely young police women. They took down particulars, and asked us not to touch the cash drawers and broken cabinet, saying they would send the fingerprint boys tomorrow. Meanwhile, security guard Steve had been saving our bacon by considering the question of how to secure the premises overnight. He went off for a while to places unknown, and returned with a piece of board and some strong nails. He hammered the door frame back into place so that the front doors would lock, and we all went home. I think the girls went back to the pub for a steadying drink. It was quite a bit of emotional excitement for us!

As for me, I was feeling like a complete idiot for not having a safe installed. This I remedied the very next day, with a solid little number that bolted to the cement floor of the office. I also had the front door strengthened with two enormous bolts, and metal reinforcing in the door jamb. The camera security people were called in, and we aimed our cameras at useful sections of the premises (like the front door
—
duh!) I also had a siren installed outside so that in the event of a break-in it would sound loudly to both alert others and scare the intruder. It was, in all, an exemplary exercise in closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.

A further annoyance
—
if that is not too limp a word
—
was that the banking had in fact not been done for two days, so our loss was close to $2000. The good news is that my insurance covered this eventuality, and I recovered a large percentage with an insurance claim (finally
—
I'd done something right!) 

And so the episode of the Thief In The Library draws to a conclusion
—
with just one more detail to add. The chef didn't turn up for work the next day, and we haven't seen him since.