and travel home without remembering to empty their things. And in both scenarios, and many others besides, the hotel staff need to be able to open the safe.
They can do this by using a reset code. Every safe manufacturer has them, and they usually issue them on cards to the person who purchases their equipment. But if you know where to look, you can find the code for pretty much any cheap brand on the market.
The code for the safe in front of me was fairly average, in that it was twelve characters long. It consisted of numbers and asterisks and hash symbols. I punched in the sequence and the safe whirred and hummed and had a good think about what I’d done. Then the locking mechanism buzzed and retracted and the door bounced open.
The good folks at the safe factory had thought of everything, and a handy lamp came on to aid my search. Alas, there wasn’t much to look at. Just three items, in fact. The first was a bundle of cash, held together with a bulldog clip. I took the bundle out and counted it. Just short of five hundred euros. The second item was a charm bracelet made of solid silver, and the third was a pair of pearl earrings in a tiny velvet-lined box. The earrings were a timeless choice, and the bracelet was desirable in a quirky kind of way, but I didn’t think they were what Freddy had hired me to find. You’ll know it when you see it simply didn’t seem to apply.
I suppose I could have swiped the jewelry for myself, but I’m a softy at heart, and I guessed the charm bracelet, in particular, might hold some special significance for Ms. Parker.
Naturally, I took the cash. I might be a good thief, but I’m not that good, and the money was likely to come in handy.
I closed the safe back up and locked it with a code of my own devising, and then I shut the cupboard door and had a think about what to try next.
Next was Jane Parker’s luggage. There was a suitcase down on the floor between the bed and the wall of glass tiles. Soft brown leather. Quality stitching. Not too big. Not too small. Distinctive enough to be recognizable on an airport luggage carousel but not so distinctive as to be gaudy.
I got down on my knees and flipped back the lid and shined my torch inside. There were clothes, a pair of training shoes, a paperback novel—again, not one of mine—and a three-pin adaptor plug.
There were a couple of additional zipped compartments. One of them contained a glossy magazine, but the rest were empty. I poked, pinched, and prodded the lining, just to be sure there were no secret hiding spots, and then I put the suitcase back just as I’d found it and turned my attention to the bed.
I unrolled the duvets and rolled them back up again. I felt beneath the pillows and inside the pillowcases. I lifted the mattress and shined my torch underneath.
I tried the drawers of the bedside cabinets. One of them contained a Bible. The other was empty.
Hmm.
Location two really wasn’t looking very promising, and that was before I moved into the bathroom. I didn’t stay there for long. The floors and the walls were covered in yellow mosaic tiles. There was a shower over the bath, a toilet, and a sink. There was a stack of fluffy white towels, a modest collection of hotel toiletries, and a handy disposable kit for cleaning your shoes. The only sign of habitation was a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste that were resting in a glass tumbler, a hairbrush, a scattering of makeup, and a wash-bag hanging very neatly from a hook beside the mirror. I checked the wash-bag and found nothing out of the ordinary.
There really wasn’t much left to search. That’s the good thing about hotel rooms. You can be in and out of them within minutes if you know what you’re doing. I cast my torch around the room, checking for anything I might have missed. There was just one thing.
The desk.
I rolled aside the leather chair in front of it and opened the central drawer. The drawer contained a few sheets of hotel stationery, a
They can do this by using a reset code. Every safe manufacturer has them, and they usually issue them on cards to the person who purchases their equipment. But if you know where to look, you can find the code for pretty much any cheap brand on the market.
The code for the safe in front of me was fairly average, in that it was twelve characters long. It consisted of numbers and asterisks and hash symbols. I punched in the sequence and the safe whirred and hummed and had a good think about what I’d done. Then the locking mechanism buzzed and retracted and the door bounced open.
The good folks at the safe factory had thought of everything, and a handy lamp came on to aid my search. Alas, there wasn’t much to look at. Just three items, in fact. The first was a bundle of cash, held together with a bulldog clip. I took the bundle out and counted it. Just short of five hundred euros. The second item was a charm bracelet made of solid silver, and the third was a pair of pearl earrings in a tiny velvet-lined box. The earrings were a timeless choice, and the bracelet was desirable in a quirky kind of way, but I didn’t think they were what Freddy had hired me to find. You’ll know it when you see it simply didn’t seem to apply.
I suppose I could have swiped the jewelry for myself, but I’m a softy at heart, and I guessed the charm bracelet, in particular, might hold some special significance for Ms. Parker.
Naturally, I took the cash. I might be a good thief, but I’m not that good, and the money was likely to come in handy.
I closed the safe back up and locked it with a code of my own devising, and then I shut the cupboard door and had a think about what to try next.
Next was Jane Parker’s luggage. There was a suitcase down on the floor between the bed and the wall of glass tiles. Soft brown leather. Quality stitching. Not too big. Not too small. Distinctive enough to be recognizable on an airport luggage carousel but not so distinctive as to be gaudy.
I got down on my knees and flipped back the lid and shined my torch inside. There were clothes, a pair of training shoes, a paperback novel—again, not one of mine—and a three-pin adaptor plug.
There were a couple of additional zipped compartments. One of them contained a glossy magazine, but the rest were empty. I poked, pinched, and prodded the lining, just to be sure there were no secret hiding spots, and then I put the suitcase back just as I’d found it and turned my attention to the bed.
I unrolled the duvets and rolled them back up again. I felt beneath the pillows and inside the pillowcases. I lifted the mattress and shined my torch underneath.
I tried the drawers of the bedside cabinets. One of them contained a Bible. The other was empty.
Hmm.
Location two really wasn’t looking very promising, and that was before I moved into the bathroom. I didn’t stay there for long. The floors and the walls were covered in yellow mosaic tiles. There was a shower over the bath, a toilet, and a sink. There was a stack of fluffy white towels, a modest collection of hotel toiletries, and a handy disposable kit for cleaning your shoes. The only sign of habitation was a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste that were resting in a glass tumbler, a hairbrush, a scattering of makeup, and a wash-bag hanging very neatly from a hook beside the mirror. I checked the wash-bag and found nothing out of the ordinary.
There really wasn’t much left to search. That’s the good thing about hotel rooms. You can be in and out of them within minutes if you know what you’re doing. I cast my torch around the room, checking for anything I might have missed. There was just one thing.
The desk.
I rolled aside the leather chair in front of it and opened the central drawer. The drawer contained a few sheets of hotel stationery, a