Header image: a reconstruction of Cambridge St Deli based on the surviving building and my recollections. Some details, including the soft-drink umbrella branding, are approximate.

Three armed robberies in less than three weeks.

That was what it took to drive me out of Cambridge St Deli, on Cambridge Street in Perth. By the end of it, I wasn't thinking about turnover, stock or what the business might be worth. I was thinking about getting out before somebody was killed.

The first two hold-ups

I wasn't there for one of the robberies. Two young women were looking after the shop, including Linda. The robber made her lie face down on the floor while he emptied the till.

She was terrified. Understandably so. Nobody goes to work in a deli expecting to find themselves on the floor wondering what an armed stranger might do next.

On another occasion, I was behind the counter when a man came in with a machete. Apparently, it was the same fellow. He wanted the money and came around behind the counter to get to the till.

I wasn't going to argue with a machete.

We called the police after both incidents. They came out, took the details and said they would follow it up. For a while, I heard nothing further.

Meanwhile, we still had a business to open each day.

That was the horrible part. The robbery ended, but the feeling didn't. Linda was badly shaken, and so was I. Every evening brought the possibility that he might walk through the door again.

Waiting for him to return

I became frightened enough to do something that tells you rather more about my state of mind than I would once have admitted.

I had a .30-calibre semi-automatic carbine. On the evening of the third robbery, I had been sitting just inside the coffee shop with it loaded across my lap.

I was expecting another attack. At the time, I believed that if someone came at me with a machete, or something worse, I would shoot to protect myself.

That is an uncomfortable thing to remember. I had gone from running a deli to sitting in it with a loaded rifle, waiting for somebody to come through the door.

We closed at about nine, as I recall. As closing time approached, I began to relax a little. Perhaps we had got through another evening after all.

I put the carbine out the back, around the corner near the freezers, and started closing up.

Then he came in.

This time, a revolver

He came through the front door shouting for money. This time, he had what looked like a revolver.

He seemed to know his way around. He pushed past me towards the cash register, and I tried to get the money out.

There was less in the till by then. After the earlier robberies, I had told the staff to take larger notes out and keep only a small float. It wouldn't prevent another hold-up, but at least there would be less to lose.

As this was happening, he kept pulling the trigger.

Click. Click. Click.

Those sounds have stayed with me.

Looking back, I have wondered whether it was an unloaded gun or a replica. I don't know. The clicking alone doesn't settle that question, and at the time I had no way of knowing whether it could fire.

It looked like a gun. He was right there with it. That was quite enough.

A heavy torch was on the counter, a couple of steps beyond my reach. For a moment, I thought about grabbing it and striking him. But he was agitated, looking around, and I was afraid he would see me move and shoot.

So I didn't.

He took the small amount of money and pushed his way out again.

Afterwards, I was furious with myself: for having put the rifle away, for not reaching the torch, for having stood there while it happened again.

That was how I felt then. Fear and anger were thoroughly tangled together. I had survived the encounter, but in those first moments I was concentrating on everything I thought I should have done differently.

Starsky and Hutch on Cambridge Street

I called the police again.

This time, the response was extraordinary. Within what seemed only a few minutes, a helicopter was flying low overhead and cars were coming up Cambridge Street at speed.

The first pulled up sharply outside the deli. An officer jumped out and came running in.

It was like something out of Starsky and Hutch.

I remember about three cars: two unmarked and one marked police car, although I wouldn't swear to the exact number or which unit the officers belonged to. They took details, examined the premises and looked for fingerprints. There was a great deal happening, and the response impressed me.

There was also one detail that still strikes me as peculiar.

Later that night, perhaps around half past nine or ten, I was preparing to go home. I collected the carbine from the back room, carried it out and put it in my small hatchback.

With police still around the premises, not one officer questioned me about it.

Whether nobody noticed, or whether they assumed something about who I was, I have no idea. I simply remember thinking it very odd.

I wasn't going to live like that

By then, I had had enough.

Overnight, I decided to get rid of the business. I wasn't prepared to spend my evenings wondering who might come through the door, or to keep living in the state of fear that had put a loaded rifle on my lap.

I arranged another trade deal and was out of the business within a week.

At the time, I had lost a good deal of faith in the place around me. I was angry that someone could threaten people's lives for the contents of a till. I wanted distance from all of it.

Singapore was familiar to me, and that was where I decided to begin again. Later came Kuala Lumpur and Malacca, but those are other chapters.

For the moment, my thoughts were considerably simpler.

Singapore, here I come. Bye-bye, Perth.

Three hold-ups in less than three weeks were enough.