The Man Who Stole Statues
ACT I
The statue of the goddess Minerva was enclosed in a courtyard water garden in which nothing grew but weeds and Chinese vines, tangled around fallen stone lanterns and the remnants of an ornamental pond.
Henry balanced in the courtyard entrance, high in the vaulted ceiling. His dark eyes were hooded, as if he concealed some secret knowledge, and as he peered down he saw the crystalline structure sparkle in the September moonlight.
It was three in the morning, not a usual time for people to be out on the street. Nonetheless, a diminutive woman, dressed in black with ghostly wisps of blonde hair protruding from a hat, pressed her face against the courtyard railings and perused the garden. She left as suddenly as she had appeared and the place was deserted again.
After a few minutes, as Henry readied himself for the descent, a fox crossed the street, slipped through the railings and stood motionless in the courtyard. The fox looked at the goddess Minerva for a moment and then hopped up onto the wall at the back of the courtyard and disappeared. Henry allowed himself a wry smile. ‘Of all the nights for Minerva to get an audience,’ he thought, before lowering himself into position.
Concentration and determination were etched on his face. A face that had watched his father animated as he told stories of a hundred such crimes; memories of a childhood illuminated at times with moments of immaculate brilliance, but otherwise cast in the shadow of his father, whom he both admired and loathed with equal measure. Henry never wanted to become like his father, but fate had other plans.
Six weeks had passed since the accident, and each day he found it harder to bear. ‘Must be strong. There will be time enough for tears,’ he kept telling himself. Henry did not want time to think, or reflect, or even hope. The days were ghastly to him. Light became cold reality that seeped into his bones. Especially at the hospital, where children played and people came and went. A revolving door of life through which he feared to look. The past consuming all.
The nights, though, were better for him. In some strange way, the physical darkness softened the hard truth that battered his senses for most of the time. Here, above this neglected garden; looking down on this decaying statue; forgotten deity, he remembered when life surrounded her; when the sun shone about her. When it seemed that, like Icarus, he would get too close to her radiance and burst into flames.
It was better, though, that he did not dwell on anything; the past or future, which is why Henry spent a great deal of time planning, organising, and executing nightly sorties against a dozen targets; all sculptures and statues. He had three on his shopping list tonight. He had already taken The Matador, a small marble and bronze sculpture depicting a bull fighter, head cast to beseech the Gods and muleta, concealing a sword, draped over his arm. Henry marvelled at the intricate detail and wondered how such animation could be fashioned out of rock and metal. He had put The Matador in one of the two large industrial holdalls he carried with him and left it in a safe place behind the courtyard water garden.
After Minerva he would take Mujoe, a small bronze statue of three Korean children dancing. If all went according to plan, Henry would be home for breakfast. He worked fast, efficiently to, and, like his father before him, who was a master safe breaker, Henry had had a sense of presence, almost like a sixth sense that allowed him to recognise security flaws and dismantle surveillance systems so he could slip in and carry out his work undetected.
Henry had the body of an acrobat, the mind of a mathematician and the heart of a bullfighter. A welder by trade, he was a master at several disciplines — tool making, machining and metal work. He always acted with the utmost care and respect, when removing sculptures and statues, priding himself on never inflicting any damage to the work of art or the surrounding infrastructure. And he aways left a calling card; a brass tag, half the size of a postcard, engraved with the words “Borrowed, not stolen. Will return ASAP.”
The statue of the goddess Minerva stood a metre tall and weighed 20kg. By the time the night was over, together with the two statues, one sculpture and assortment of tools, Henry, a diminutive, wiry man well into his early fifties, would be lugging over 70 kilos. By the time he got to his van, his arms would be falling off.
He crouched next to Minerva and ran his gloved hands over her head, down her back and legs until he felt the outline of the bronze footplate and the anchor points that set the statue into a concrete base reinforced with steel rods. She was held in place with a concealed all-thread, a threaded rod with no head at either end and dowelled into the base with anchoring adhesive, a super epoxy stronger than concrete.
Removing sculpture and statues required an arsenal of tools and Henry had invented many of his own, including a lightweight alloy drilling and cutting rig that could bore and slice through the strongest metal and concrete, and a battery-powered arc welder, all concealed in a military style backpack.
It took the best part of an hour to remove the statue of the goddess Minerva and, by the time he arrived at the building where Mujoe, the small bronze statue of three Korean children dancing was located, it was almost five in the morning. He would have to work even faster, and in the half light of the new day, to capture the last item on his list and get away without being spotted.
Unbeknown to Henry, though, a police detective by the name of Gopal, was already on his trail. A week earlier, Gopal had been assigned to the case of missing works of arts; six sculptures and statues that had been taken from a variety of locations in Central London during a period of three weeks. The list included many priceless pieces and others of little monetary value.
Gopal had created a handwritten list of the missing sculptures and statues. He sat behind the wheel of his stationary white Toyota Prius, long and chic vape pen in one hand, notebook propped up on the dash. He fiddled with the radio until he found some 1980s chart music. Cars by Gary Numan filled the Prius. Gopal put on his reading glasses and examined the list.
Cupid, small sculpture, approx 50cm. Copper and gold. East Quay, Canary Wharf, investment bank offices.
Roman Chariot, approx. 100cm bronze and wood sculpture of female figure perched on a chariot. Notting Hill, art gallery.
Carved pink marble sculpture approx 70cm showing primitiveness of the female figure. Charing Cross, private residence.
Figure of an Indian tiger in buff sandstone approx 50cm. Kensington art gallery.
Corrugated metal pipe and copper sculpture of two lovers. Approx. 120cm. Mayfair art gallery.
Limestone statue of an eagle in mortal combat with a writhing snake. Approx. 90cm. Chelsea, hotel.
Gopal put the notebook away, took off his glasses, turned off the radio and eased back in the driving seat still vaping. The white Prius was parked down a side street, opposite a small private school. Behind the railings, next to the front door, there was a small bronze statue of three Korean children dancing.
Gopal saw Henry climb down from a wall into some shrubs behind the school and watched him reappear at the side of the front door, behind the statue. He was fascinated by Henry and, in some part, was full of admiration. Gopal particularly liked the calling card. He had all six and had put them in the file, which also contained photographs and drawings of the missing works of art. He was not going to apprehend Henry right now, he planned to follow the man who stole statues. Not only did he want to find out where Henry lived, he also wanted to find the “loot” as Gopal liked to call it. The detective had a hunch. There is more to this man than meets the eye, Gopal thought.
ACT II
Henry sat in a recliner, next to the hospital bed where his wife Katrina lay, and drifted in and out of sleep. He dreamt of her; remembering the first time their hands touched. They stood on a windswept hill, watching horses playing in the valley below. “Are you cold?” he said, taking off his jacket and placing it over her shoulders. “Thank you,” she said and before he knew what was happening, her hand was within his, and shock waves jolted him from his sleep.
He got up from the chair and slid down beside her and stroked her still-sleeping face. He grieved for her more than for himself. That she should be stricken in this way, a woman so kind, who through the whole of her life had denied herself; who had loved him without condition. Compared to her, he was wretched, selfish, devoid of grace. The best of him lay in her soul.
Without any warning, a cerebrovascular accident — a stroke, in layman’s terms — had taken Katrina’s brain stem out; the inseparable link between the brain and the spinal cord suddenly and brutally broken. She had been in a deep coma for 27 days and had shown faint signs of life for the past five days.
It was during this time that Henry had made several important discoveries. Firstly, he had realised, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he was still deeply in love with his wife. Secondly, and arguably of much more importance than the first, Henry knew that he would never, ever, find a heart so true, as Katrina’s was. Thirdly, somewhere in this awful madness, Henry found himself; not in some introspective, philosophical kind of way. Neither through any meditative or spiritual process. No, there was no such indulgence for Henry. Instead, he heard a loud voice, thunder reverberating in the canyons of his mind. ‘You know who you are now,’ it said. This, thought Henry, may be the only victory he would ever know.
And then, during a day when Henry had been struck with melancholy, searching through memory boxes, he found some things that had belonged to his father — some photographs, newspaper cuttings and a manila folder containing detailed technological history of safes and vaults over the centuries; a safecrackers manual.
Henry’s father had amazing physical strength and acrobatic ability and for a short time performed in a circus, but in order to obtain some money, he became a burglar, specialising in robberies involving climbing up external rope pipes to gain entry to premises. He also developed skills in picking locks and safe-cracking with explosives. He eventually spent more time behind bars than outside, and was married during one of his spells out of prison and the couple had a baby son; Henry.
While he was serving a sentence, he was told that his young son was quite ill. He was refused permission to attend the hospital and his sense of justice was outraged. So he made the first of many escapes from the prison. During his all too short periods out of prison, he was as good a father to Henry as any man could have been, but persisted in his life of crime into his old age before collapsing in prison and dying shortly after in hospital.
Henry’s mother died of a broken heart and Henry swore he would never be like his father. So he became an engineer. And he got married to a sculptress, Katrina. And things were good for a while, but they drifted apart — emotionally and mentally — and then the accident happened.
The last discovery Henry made was Katrina’s notebook, including a bucket list of sculptures and statues; many beautiful and wondrous works of art that Katrina wanted to see. It was at that time, that a plan came to Henry’s mind.
ACT III
Katrina did not fully awake until the middle of October. After she finally surfaced, following long spells of drowsiness, she had been moved, at Henry’s request, from the general hospital in London to a large, light filled room at a private hospital, in manicured grounds, lined with immaculate beech hedges and alabaster statues, close to the Thames, in south Buckinghamshire.
Katrina had ‘locked-in syndrome’. Paralysed from head to toe, her mind intact, she was imprisoned inside her own body, unable to speak or move. Blinking her left eyelid was her only means of communication.
On the deep window sill, bathed in soft autumn light, stood a row of extraordinary objects; a cupid, a female warrior driving a roman chariot, an abstract female nude, a tiger, an eagle fighting a snake, a goddess, a matador, two lovers and dancing children.
“Can you see them?” he said.
She blinked.
“Do you like them?” he said.
She blinked.
He took the goddess Minerva from the window sill and took it to Katrina. “I don’t know whether you can feel this,” he said, gently lifting his wife’s hand and placing it on the statue. “I love you more than life itself,” he said and kissed her on the lips. She blinked and a tear suddenly rose in her eye.
“There is one more, the angel, to get for you,” he said. “And then, when the magic power of these objects speeds your recovery, I will return each one, just as you are returned to life.”
That night, as she slept, Henry drove to London to steal Dina, a small angel statue, carved from marble, from a private residence in Kensington. On the way, he called at his house to collect his tools.
A month and a half has passed since Gopal watched Henry take the small bronze statue of three Korean children dancing. The detective still could not sleep at night if he thought of Henry. Ocasionally, after a series of sleepless nights, he would be up until dawn watching Henry’s house. As luck would have it, this was one of those occasions.
He waited in his Prius, eyes heavy, contemplating returning home; wishing he could forget about this case. And then a car passed in front of Henry’s house and struck the shape of the Prius with its headlights. Gopal ducked down. After a few seconds, in which darkness returned, Gopal decided to check for himself.
He saw Henry, backpack over his shoulder, carrying a small bag in his hand. Gopal thought the bag looked heavy as he watched Henry juggle with a set of keys before opening the front door of his house and disappearing inside.
Gopal picked up his mobile phone and called it in.
ACT IV
After the sentence, Gopal visited Henry in prison several times. Henry never said much. He had started smoking roll-ups. “I bet Katrina does’t approve,” Gopal said, waving a long and chic vape pen in the direction of Henry.
“I’m quitting when I get out,” Henry said.
“Next week, right?” Gopal said. Henry nodded.
“How is Katrina doing?” Gopal said.
“Good,” Henry said, “she is working again.”
“Wonderful,” Gopal said. “I wish you both a happy life.” They both took a hit. Henry stood up and looked out of the window across the yard.
“What about the case?” He said.
“I’m closing the case,” Gopal said.
“Did you find Minerva?” Henry said.
“You know I didn’t,” Gopal said, smiling. “Anyway the insurance company paid up. Half-a-million.” He looked at Henry for a reaction. There was none.
