The Madeiran Double Cross

by Sally Spencer

  “Maybe the gang wanted you to think they were Portuguese,” Mason suggested.

  “Yes, that would make sense, especially as Pedro was the only one who spoke during the entire robbery. But if they really wanted us to believe they were Portuguese, why would they leave all that British gear in the getaway car?”

  “No eye for detail?”

  “Oh no, Frank, there was nothing but an eye for detail on this job.”

  “Then I’m stumped.”

  “Another point. Why did Arnie the Actor …”

  “Arnie the Actor?”

  “You don’t like me using his name. All right, why did someone – as yet unidentified, but calling himself Arthur Blake – why did he hire all three cars for the robbery? And why hire three cars anyway? You only needed two – one for the actual job, and the other for Pedro to make his getaway in later.”

  “Beats me,” Mason said. “You’d have thought two cars would be enough for anybody.”

  “And why did the driver go into the bank?” Gower continued. “Drivers just don’t do that. They sit outside, keeping the engine running. If the job needs four men inside – and this one didn’t – then you get yourself an extra lad. But whatever happens, the driver stays in the car.”

  “So I’ve read,” Mason said dryly.

  “What would you say, Frank, if I told you about some other bloke who was planning to pull a job, and who took on, as one of his crew, an old lag whose nerve was completely bloody wrecked? What if I added that although this planner sent the forward man – Arthur Blake – in on a fake passport, he and the rest of the gang used their real ones. And what if I said, for good measure, that the gang had a meal together the night before the robbery, and actually drew other people’s attention to them by having a very loud and somewhat physical argument? What would you say about all that, Frank?”

  “That they were complete idiots, and a disgrace to the criminal fraternity.”

  “Or …”

  Mason smiled. “Or they were deliberately going out of their way to get caught.”

  “Oh, you did your best to get caught, Frank,” Gower said. “That’s why you sent Linda to hang about near the Banco de Lisboa. You wanted that cashier feller – Reis – to notice her and remember all the questions she’d asked him about the bank’s business last time she was here. And you wanted him to report it, so that the police, checking up on her, would be led straight to you. I’m not boring you with all this, am I, Frank?”

  “No,” Mason said. “Carry on.”

  “Of course, as important as it was for the police to find you, it was even more important that Pedro got caught. Pedro was the fall guy. Pedro was the one who was meant to go to jail.”

  “Pedro’s really not a very nice bloke,” Mason said mildly, “but still, if he had been working on a job for me – which he couldn’t be because I haven’t pulled one – and he’d got caught in the process, I would have seen to it that he got his share of the haul. He’d have made more money by going to prison for a while than he’s ever seen in his life.”

  “Pedro was the fall guy,” Gower repeated. “Why did Arnie rent the Escort that was used as Pedro’s getaway car? Why didn’t Pedro rent the car himself, like he’d rented one the day before?”

  “I can see you’re bursting to tell me,” Mason said.

  “So that even the bloody stupid Portuguese police would be able to connect the Escort with the robbery – which would make it easier for them to find Pedro. But you didn’t expect them to get on to him as quickly as they did – and they wouldn’t have, if he hadn’t crashed the Policia Florestal’s roadblock. You didn’t know about that, did you?”

  “No,” Mason admitted. “I haven’t had time to nip out and buy a paper today.”

  “Anyway, because the police got on to him so soon, they were able to work out roughly where he’d hidden the rucksack. And that definitely wasn’t planned for. Oh, don’t get me wrong – you wanted the police to know the rucksack existed. That was an essential part of the plan. But what you were crapping yourself about was the thought of us getting to it too soon.”

  “Too soon, Mr. Gower?”

  “While the harbour and airport were still closed. You knew that once we had the robbers in custody – and thought that we knew where the money was – that tosser Silva would open the airport again, and your accomplices could get the money out. That’s why Linda insisted on taking a walk, a couple of hours ago, isn’t it? She needed to check that things had returned to normal – that your accomplices had had time to get away?"

  I don’t know anything about that, Mr. Gower,” Mason said. “I didn’t even know that Linda had been for a walk. I haven’t seen her since we were arrested.”

  Gower snorted.

  “But if it had happened that way,” Mason continued, “wouldn’t it have been a bit of a Pyrrhic victory?”

  “A what?”

  “A Pyrrhic victory. Named after Pyrrhus, King of Epirus. He fought the Romans and won – but his army got so much shit kicked out of it that he might as well have lost.”

  “Read a lot, do you, Frank?” Gower asked sarcastically.

  “When I get the chance. What I mean about a Pyrrhic victory is that we’d get the money off the island, but we’d end up in jail for twenty years. Money’s no good to you in jail.”

  “That’s where you were smart,” Gower said. “And I have to admit, Frank, you were very smart. You knew that if you pulled a job on this island, you’d get caught. There was no way round that. So you decided not to pull a job.”

  “Say what, Mr. Gower?”

  “Let’s go back to the robbery. Remember, the robbers used two cars instead of one; the driver want into the bank instead of staying in the getaway car; and Pedro was the only one who spoke. I’ll tell you why all that happened – why it had to happen that way. You used two cars to prevent Pedro from seeing any of the rest of the team without their masks on. That’s why the driver had to go into the bank, too – he couldn’t very well sit out in the car with a ski-mask over his head. And nobody else spoke so that Pedro wouldn’t hear their voices. All that, just so that the poor little plonker wouldn’t know who he was working with.”

  “But surely,” Mason said, “he already knew who he was working with, Mr. Gower.”

  “He thought he did, but he didn’t. The robbers had the same build as his friends Frank, Tony and Harry, but they were different people entirely. Who’d you use to play you? Sid Cranshaw? Terry the Bolt? Jack Sodbury?”

  Mason didn't speak. Gower hadn't expected him to.

  “So, they pull the job, you set yourselves up and are arrested, and they make a clean getaway by public bloody transport. Once they’re clear, Linda comes up with your alibi. You were on an all-day coach tour round the island when the robbery happened, and you can produce thirty reputable witnesses, including, I shouldn’t be surprised, a couple of bleeding vicars.”

  “When did Linda tell you about this?” Mason asked innocently.

  “After she’d spoken to her lawyer,” Gower replied, walking into the trap. “About half an hour ago.”

  “And when did she first ask for a lawyer? As soon as she was arrested? Were you as deaf with her as you were with me?”

  Despite himself, Gower let his head nod slightly.

  “So, if you hadn’t had wax in your ears – if you’d given her a lawyer right at the start – you’d have known about our alibi while the airport was still closed. In other words, you’d have known about it while the money was still on the island.”

  It wasn’t true. Gower knew it wasn’t. If they had been given lawyers the day before, they’d have come up with another excuse to stall. Still, the throbbing band of pain was back round Gower's chest.

  “Don’t push your bloody luck, you bastard,” he warned.

  “Aren’t we moving away from the script, Mr. Gower, sir?” Mason asked, prodding him further. “Shouldn’t you say something like, ‘You've been very clever, Frank, but you made one fatal mi
stake’?”

  Gower saw red. He stood up, knocking the metal chair to one side. Mason smiled slightly, but made no attempt to move.

  The chief superintendent’s hands were bunched into tight fists. He wanted to pulverize Mason, crush his skull, see his blood trickling down the wall. He was already on the point of taking a swing when he was hit by an unfamiliar emotion. He had the force of the law behind him no longer, it was just him against Mason – and he was afraid.

  He let his arms fall impotently to his sides.

  “You’ve got away with it this time,” he said. “But you’ll pull another job eventually. And when you do, you bastard, I’ll be waiting. And God help you when I get my hands on you.”

  Mason smiled again. “There won’t be any more jobs, Mr. Gower. I’m going to retire.”

  PART THREE: AND SINKER

  December 1986-January 1977

  Thro’ all the drama – whether damned or not

  Love gilds the scene, and women guide the plot.

  Sheridan: The School for Scandal.

  TWENTY

  Elsie heard him turning the key in the lock and opened the door from the inside. She was wearing a pink dressing gown, and her hair was in curlers. The expression on her face would have melted down the Eiffel Tower.

  “Your Christmas dinner’s on the table,” she said, “but you’re three days late, so it’s probably cold by now.”

  It wasn’t a joke. Elsie didn’t make jokes. The Christmas dinner was where she said it would be – the gravy congealed into a grey hardness, the roast potatoes like rock, the turkey sad and withered.

  Mason launched into his prepared story.

  “Sorry, darlin’,” he said. “I ran into Jack Sodbury in Liverpool. We had a few drinks to celebrate, got into a bit of a fight and ended up in the nick. The courts only re-opened today. They fined us a hundred quid each.”

  “‘Don’t make yourself conspicuous,’ I said,” Elsie replied bitterly, hands on hips. “And you get yourself arrested by the police. Well, that buggers up any chance of pulling a job in Liverpool for the next five years, doesn’t it?” She paused. “At least, it would bugger it up if I believed one word you’d said.” She walked over to the telephone. “I think I’ll just give Jack a buzz. What’s his number?”

  “He’s not at home,” Mason said, as Elsie’s finger hovered impatiently over the dial. “He stayed up north. He’s on the look-out for likely prospects for his next job.”

  “Jack Sodbury – planning a job!” Elsie sneered. “He doesn’t plan jobs. He works for people like you – and you work for people like me. Do you really think I’m stupid enough to believe a story like that – especially since I know what you were really doing?”

  She stormed out of the lounge. He heard the bedroom door slam behind her.

  Mason looked around the room, his gaze finally settling on the coffee table. The Evening Standard lay open, and an article at the top of the page was circled with lipstick – angry bright red lipstick.

  Even from a distance, Mason could read the headline:

  *

  Britons Released!

  It was datelined Lisbon. There was a picture of Gower looking as if he wanted to hit the photographer. Beneath it, there was a brief summary of the previous day’s report, and a statement from the Madeira Police that the six unnamed Britons, arrested on the 23rd, had been released, and now only the Portuguese national was still in detention.

  He had been foolish ever to hope that the story would not appear in the London papers. Britons abroad were always news, especially at Christmas, when there was a dearth of other stories.

  So Elsie knew!

  But she couldn’t have told her father yet, because if she had, Sims’ heavies would have been waiting for him at the flat.

  She would tell him, though – there was no doubt about that.

  He had two choices, Mason thought.

  He could grovel to Elsie now, admit what he had been planning to do, and beg her to take him back. And she probably would – because she’d like having that kind of power over him.

  Or he could go into hiding, and gamble on Ted Sims not finding him before the money arrived.

  Yet what were the odds of Sims not tracking him down, given the old man’s vast net of criminal contacts? Probably about fifty to one, he estimated.

  He looked at the cold Christmas dinner on the table and pictured spending the rest of his life with Elsie. He would risk the second option, he decided.

  Elsie returned, her hair freed from its imprisonment, the dressing gown exchanged for a new lambs’ wool coat.

  “Oh, reading about the robbery, are we?” she asked. “When I first saw it, I thought for a minute it might be you, especially when I read that the robbers turned out to be so bloody useless that the police arrested them in no time at all. But then I saw that they’d let the robbers go,” she added, even more cuttingly, “so I knew it couldn’t be you. I said to myself, ‘My Frank hasn’t got the brains to get himself out of jail’.”

  “I was in jail,” Mason persisted. “In Liverpool. I told you.”

  “Yes, yes,” Elsie replied in a bored – but still vicious – tone. “Of course you were.” She smirked. “You can’t fool me, Frank. You picked up some bloody little tart, didn’t you?” She checked her hair in the mirror. “I’m off to see Dad now. I may or may not mention your little Christmas fling. It depends how the mood takes me. But if I was you, I wouldn’t get too fond of my kneecaps.”

  She slammed the front door behind her.

  Elsie didn’t see the obvious truth because she had got so used to underrating him, he thought. But Ted didn’t underrate him. If Ted read about the robbery, and pieced it together with the whisper he had heard about Frank working with Pedro, then Mason’s kneecaps would definitely go – but only as part of a longer, much more painful process.

  He wondered where the money was now.

  *

  The money was in the carefully crafted hiding place in the Seaspray – the same hiding place which had been used to conceal the shotguns on the voyage out. It was no longer in the form of banknotes with funny words on them, but had been changed – by a shady but reliable character in Las Palmas – for good honest British ten-pound notes.

  The Seaspray itself had just sailed around the southern side of Fuerteventura and was heading for North Africa.

  They would have to hug the coast all the way home, Nigel had said. December wasn’t the best time of the year for sailing in the Atlantic Ocean, and storms had been predicted. It could all take some time.

  *

  Susan was really looking forward to New Year’s Eve. After years of being stuck at home with her ailing mam, and watching the scene on television, she was actually going to be in Trafalgar Square – the very heart of London – when the chimes of midnight struck.

  A new year – a new life.

  Tony was waiting for her in a pub on the Charing Cross Road. The place was packed with revellers – shouting, telling jokes, breaking into impromptu dances – but Tony did not seem to share the general mood. There was little warmth in his welcoming smile, and the kiss he gave her was no more than an apathetic peck. As she talked, he shredded beer mats, breaking off only to glance at his watch.

  At nine o’clock, he suddenly stood up.

  “I’ve got to make a phone call,” he said.

  The phone was in the corner, but she could see his face reflected in the mirror behind the bar – troubled at first, then spreading into a wide, almost ecstatic, grin.

  “Sorry about this,” he said, carelessly, when he returned. “I’ll have to leave you. I’ve got a bit of business to do.”

  “Business? On New Year's Eve?”

  He shrugged.

  “That’s the way it is. You can always go on your own, can’t you?”

  She couldn’t! Not after all the years of waiting – of dreaming that someday she would have someone special to share the moment with.

  She was bitterly disappo
inted, but she didn’t let it show.

  “I’ll be all right,” she said – though she could tell that he didn’t actually care one way or the other.

  When he had left (with a definite spring in his step), she bought a couple of bottles of Babycham – “the genuine champagne perry”, as they said in the adverts – and took the underground back to her lodgings.

  At five to midnight, she was in her sordid little bed-sit, a blanket over her legs to ward off the cold. She switched on the radio.

  “The crowd is really thick around Nelson’s Column now,” the announcer said. “And some of people at the fountain haven’t even waited for midnight before taking a dip.”

  They sounded happy, all those cheering, shouting people. She opened a bottle of Babycham and poured it into her glass.

  “It’s a special night, New Year's Eve,” the voice on the radio said. “A night to be with the one you love. Are you with the one you love? If you are, then when the clock strikes, I want you to give them a big kiss from me.”

  Susan felt a tear running down her cheek.

  “And all of you whose loved ones are far away tonight, I want you to close your eyes and imagine they’re right there with you.”

  She closed her eyes – and was surprised to discover that she was thinking of Frank Mason.

  But why should she be surprised? she asked herself. Frank was kind and considerate. Frank was like the dad she’d never had.

  Yet there was even more to him than that. She sensed a different kind of love inside him, a love that was going to waste because he had no one to shower it on.

  She’d never met his wife, but she didn’t think Elsie made him happy. Linda didn’t make him happy, either – at least, not happy in the right way

  ‘Dong!’ went the chime on the radio.

  She wouldn’t see Frank again – ever – she resolved.

  ‘Dong!’

  She had no right to judge his private life. What did she know?

  ‘Dong!’

  But she would finish with Tony – definitely.