商业周刊:火车模型劫持案(6)

Emmerson and an equally bulky man smoking a cigarette deliver cups of coffee and tea on a tray.

埃默森和一位抽着烟的体型同样高大肥胖的男人一起，用托盘上送咖啡和茶。

In the four months since the theft, the club, aided by roughly ￡6,000 in donations from sympathetic locals, has mostly recovered.

盗窃案发生后的四个月里，该俱乐部在当地人的支持下筹集了大约6000英镑的捐款，基本上帮助他们恢复了常态。

They'd welded all the shipping¹ container doors back on, were installing security alarms,

他们把所有的集装箱门重新焊接起来，安装了安全警报，

and, at the police's recommendation, had planted prickly brambles and dense² stinger nettles³ at the rear fence as a natural deterrent⁴.

并在警方的建议下，在后栅栏上种了带刺的荆棘和密集的刺荨麻，作为一道天然的威慑。

Filley and a few members had lugged⁵ away a heap of heavy stones to make room for alarm cables.

费利和几名成员拖走了一堆沉重的石头，给警报电缆腾出空间。

"I'm not some little woman putting the kettle on," she says, sipping⁶ coffee from her Pudsey Bear mug.

“我可不是什么烧水的弱女子，”她一边说，一边啜着帕德西毛绒熊杯子里的咖啡。

Despite the good humor, members are still bewildered by the theft of the four locos, collectively worth ￡25,000 (or about $32,000).

尽管有着良好的幽默感，但会员们仍然对这四辆火车机车的失窃感到困惑，四辆机车总共价值为2.5万英镑（约合3.2万美元）。

Citing the trains' weight and distance from the getaway car, GMMES Chairman Richard Lightle wrote in the club's newsletter, From the Smoke Stack,

格雷芬德海洋与工程模型协会主席理查德·莱特尔在俱乐部的时事通讯《烟堆》中，引述了火车的重量和与逃跑用车子之间的距离。

that "the thieves must have been built like the Hulk."

他写道，“窃贼一定是像绿巨一样。”

Boiler⁷ tester Ben Healey and his wife, Marion, theorize that it might have been a group of random⁸ visiting tourists ("scumbags," Healey calls them),

锅炉测试人员本·希利和他的妻子马里恩推测，可能是一群偶然来访的游客（希利称他们为“卑劣之人”）。

who'd taken photos of trains and asked about their monetary⁹ value.

他们拍摄了火车的照片并询问过它们的货币价值。

In any case, he's certain that whoever the thieves were, they must have cased the joint¹⁰ carefully to avoid being captured on the CCTV cameras.

不管怎样，他肯定不管窃贼是谁，一定是小心地把头套上了，以免被闭路电视的摄像机拍到。

"We were targeted—they knew exactly where to look," he says. "They were well tooled up."

他说，“我们是目标，他们知道到哪去找，他们装备精良。”

I'd assumed a club consisting mostly of septua-genarians (one of whom matter-of-factly mentions he hasn't been a member "that long, only since 1994") would have struggled to respond to such a crime.

我以为，一个主要由九旬老人组成的俱乐部很难应对这种罪案，其中一位老人提到一个事实，他成为会员的时间“并不久，从1994年才开始”。

But the opposite was true: The club is already surprisingly secure,

但情况却恰恰相反：这家俱乐部已经被严密把守，这令人感到意外。

and Filley, whose father was "an ex-copper in the rough area of Gravesend," meticulously¹¹ documented the robbery via a day-by-day timeline of events and labeled photos of every unearthed¹² clue.

费利的父亲以前曾是“格雷芬德粗糙山地的一名警察”，他通过每天的事件时间表精心记录了这起抢劫案，并贴上了每一张能揭露线索的照片。

Although the case has gone cold, she's been spreading the message in the press and on social media, at auction¹³ houses and model-train shops, in hope of attracting fresh leads.

尽管案件已经告一段落，但费利一直在媒体和社交媒体、拍卖行和火车模型店传播有关这件事的信息，希望能发现新线索。

The professionals, on the other hand, have essentially¹⁴ given up.

而另一方面，专业人士基本上已经放弃了。

The Kent Police initially¹⁵ declined repeated interview requests, offering a series of ever-changing reasons.

肯特警方最初拒绝了多次采访请求，给出的是一系列不断变化的理由。

1 shipping   

n.船运（发货，运输，乘船）

参考例句：

• We struck a bargain with an American shipping firm.我们和一家美国船运公司谈成了一笔生意。
• There's a shipping charge of ￡5 added to the price.价格之外另加五英镑运输费。

2 dense   

a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的

参考例句：

• The general ambushed his troops in the dense woods. 将军把部队埋伏在浓密的树林里。
• The path was completely covered by the dense foliage. 小路被树叶厚厚地盖了一层。

3 nettles   

n.荨麻( nettle的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• I tingle where I sat in the nettles. 我坐过在荨麻上的那个部位觉得刺痛。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard. 那蔓草丛生的凄凉地方是教堂公墓。 来自辞典例句

4 deterrent   

n.阻碍物，制止物；adj.威慑的，遏制的

参考例句：

• Large fines act as a deterrent to motorists.高额罚款是对开车的人的制约。
• I put a net over my strawberries as a deterrent to the birds.我在草莓上罩了网，免得鸟歇上去。

5 lugged   

vt.用力拖拉（lug的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• She lugged the heavy case up the stairs. 她把那只沉甸甸的箱子拖上了楼梯。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They used to yell that at football when you lugged the ball. 踢足球的时候，逢着你抢到球，人们总是对你这样嚷嚷。 来自辞典例句

6 sipping   

v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• She sat in the sun, idly sipping a cool drink. 她坐在阳光下懒洋洋地抿着冷饮。
• She sat there, sipping at her tea. 她坐在那儿抿着茶。

7 boiler   

n.锅炉；煮器(壶，锅等)

参考例句：

• That boiler will not hold up under pressure.那种锅炉受不住压力。
• This new boiler generates more heat than the old one.这个新锅炉产生的热量比旧锅炉多。

8 random   

adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动

参考例句：

• The list is arranged in a random order.名单排列不分先后。
• On random inspection the meat was found to be bad.经抽查，发现肉变质了。

9 monetary   

adj.货币的，钱的；通货的；金融的；财政的

参考例句：

• The monetary system of some countries used to be based on gold.过去有些国家的货币制度是金本位制的。
• Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means.荒凉地区的教育不是钱财问题。

10 joint   

adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合

参考例句：

• I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤，肩膀脫臼了。
• We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。

11 meticulously   

adv.过细地，异常细致地；无微不至；精心

参考例句：

• The hammer's silvery head was etched with holy runs and its haft was meticulously wrapped in blue leather. 锤子头是纯银制成的，雕刻着神圣符文，而握柄则被精心地包裹在蓝色的皮革中。 来自辞典例句
• She is always meticulously accurate in punctuation and spelling. 她的标点和拼写总是非常精确。 来自辞典例句

12 unearthed   

出土的（考古）

参考例句：

• Many unearthed cultural relics are set forth in the exhibition hall. 展览馆里陈列着许多出土文物。
• Some utensils were in a state of decay when they were unearthed. 有些器皿在出土时已经残破。

13 auction   

n.拍卖；拍卖会；vt.拍卖

参考例句：

• They've put the contents of their house up for auction.他们把房子里的东西全都拿去拍卖了。
• They bought a new minibus with the proceeds from the auction.他们用拍卖得来的钱买了一辆新面包车。

14 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

15 initially   

adv.最初，开始

参考例句：

• The ban was initially opposed by the US.这一禁令首先遭到美国的反对。
• Feathers initially developed from insect scales.羽毛最初由昆虫的翅瓣演化而来。