The Vault

by Mark Dawson

  He locked the door and crossed the room to close the cur­tains. He took off his jacket and shirt and stuffed them into a black bin liner that he had brought with him. He took off his trousers and reached into the front pocket. His fin­gers found the sharp edges of the un­cut stone that he had taken from the first box that he had opened. He knew a friendly jew­eller in Hat­ton Garden and had de­cided that he was go­ing to ask him to make an en­gage­ment ring for Isa­bel. They had been to­gether for ten years and she had stopped drop­ping hints about how she would like to get mar­ried in the sus­pi­cion, per­haps, that Jimmy would never ask. Now was the right time, though. A big job like this would see them straight for months. He had been mean­ing to go straight, do some­thing on the up-and-up with his life, and maybe now was the right time to do it.

  He shoved his shoes, trousers and pants into the sack, knot­ted the bag and left it by the door with his gear. It would go into a land­fill on his way home once he was fin­ished here.

  He went into the tiny bath­room and stepped into the shower, ig­nor­ing the mil­dew that had grown over the panes of glass and across the dirty tiles. The flow of wa­ter was as in­sipid as might have been ex­pec­ted given the state of the prop­erty, but it was suf­fi­cient. Jimmy stood un­der­neath it for ten minutes, scrub­bing him­self clean with soap. He turned off the flow, wrapped a towel around his waist and went to the sink. He had bought a tub of Swarfega and he opened it now, scoop­ing out a small amount of the dark green, gelat­in­ous sub­stance that al­ways re­minded him of his uncle Barney. He worked it onto his dry skin and then wiped it off. It was ubi­quit­ous in gar­ages and ma­chine shops and was much more ef­fect­ive than soap at re­mov­ing grease, oil, ink or other per­sist­ent dirt from the skin. He wanted to make ab­so­lutely sure that no traces of the equip­ment that he had used to cut into the safe could sub­sequently be de­tec­ted.

  He went back into the bed­room, dressed into the clean clothes that he had brought from home, and checked that he was good to leave the room. He looked fine: clean and tidy, dressed in de­cent clothes, noth­ing to sug­gest that he had just been re­spons­ible for burn­ing his way into a safe and ran­sack­ing the con­tents.

  He picked up the bag of equip­ment and the bin bag, locked the room be­hind him and made his way down to the street to where his Ford Capri was parked. He put the bags in the boot, opened the driver’s door and got in­side. It was a second-hand 3.0S Ghia Mk II with auto­matic trans­mis­sion, painted sil­ver, just the same as Bodie’s car in The Pro­fes­sion­als. Jimmy slot­ted the De­peche Mode cas­sette into the player and looked at his watch. It was el­even-thirty and he had prom­ised to be home for mid­night. He was go­ing to watch the fire­works on the TV with Isa­bel and Sean. He had planned to dump the bag in a land­fill, but he didn’t have time to do that if he wanted to be back for the New Year. Jimmy ground his teeth in frus­tra­tion; he hated to leave him­self more vul­ner­able than he had to, even if the risk was in­fin­ites­imal, but he hated dis­ap­point­ing his fam­ily more.

  Get­ting rid of the bag could wait un­til to­mor­row.

  He star­ted the car and set off for home.

  11

  Jimmy drove back to Valentine Road. He lived in a mid-ter­raced house, with a base­ment and two storeys above it. The house had been in a dread­ful state be­fore they had pur­chased it, but its de­crep­itude was the only reason that they had been able to af­ford it. Jimmy had spent six months lick­ing it into shape: he had in­stalled two new bath­rooms and a new kit­chen, had stripped and pol­ished the floor­boards, and had cleared the jungle that had been al­lowed to grow in the back garden. The house was nice now. It was the best on the street, al­though that wasn’t say­ing much; the house to the left was a squat, the house on the right was an oc­ca­sional brothel, and one of the houses op­pos­ite was used to sell heroin.

  It was a rough street and there had been fric­tion when Jimmy had moved in. The brothel had been a little too loud and the cli­en­tele had dis­turbed Sean’s sleep. Jimmy had knocked on the door and ex­plained why it was in every­one’s best in­terests to show some neigh­bourly con­sid­er­a­tion. The muscle who over­saw the place was un­im­pressed, and so Jimmy had broken his nose. The man’s boss had been un­im­pressed, too, but Jimmy had made him see the good sense of ad­opt­ing friendly, neigh­bourly re­la­tions. There had not been any prob­lems after that.

  Jimmy un­locked the door and went in­side.

  Isa­bel met him in the hall. “It’s five to twelve. I thought you were go­ing to miss it.”

  “I prom­ised the wee man I’d be here,” he said, “and I am.”

  “How was it?”

  “Good. We got lucky.”

  “How lucky?”

  He took out the thick wad of notes he had taken from the safe and gave it to her.

  “Je­sus,” she breathed. “How much is that?”

  “Three grand. You still want to go to Ben­idorm?”

  “Ser­i­ously?”

  “Let’s book it when they open to­mor­row,” he said. “Two weeks, not one—all right?”

  Isa­bel reached for his face and pulled him down so that she could kiss him. “I still don’t ap­prove.”

  “I know, darling.” He changed the sub­ject, too tired for an ar­gu­ment about his chosen pro­fes­sion. “Where’s the wee man?”

  Isa­bel in­dic­ated the lounge with a nod of the head. “Asleep.”

  Jimmy and Isa­bel had agreed to let their son stay up to see in the New Year. He had been ask­ing all week and had told them that all his friends would be awake for the fire­works. It was about to be 1989, he said, nearly the end of a dec­ade. Jimmy and Isa­bel had teased him, say­ing that he couldn’t, be­fore bar­gain­ing with him: he could watch the chan­ging of the year with them if he prom­ised to clean his room. He had quickly agreed to their stip­u­la­tions.

  Jimmy looked in at Sean. “How long did he last?”

  “Till just be­fore el­even.”

  “Bless him.”

  Little Sean was seven years old and the apple of his father’s eye. He and Isa­bel had struggled to con­ceive and had al­most given up hope; Sean was the mir­acle that they thought they would never re­ceive. There had been no second preg­nancy and they had settled for what they had. Sean was everything they had wanted and more.

  Jimmy went into the sit­ting room and tip­toed over to the sofa.

  The phone rang in the hall. “I’ve got it,” Isa­bel said.

  Jimmy knelt down and brushed the blond fronds of hair away from his son’s face. He was bois­ter­ous when he was awake yet, when he slept, he looked so fra­gile and help­less. Jimmy looked at him and felt the catch in his heart.

  “It’s for you,” Isa­bel said.

  He stood. “Who?”

  “Smiler.”

  Sean star­ted to stir and Jimmy went into the hall. Isa­bel handed him the re­ceiver.

  “What is it?”

  “Where are you?”

  “Home. About to wake up my wee lad for the fire­works on the telly.” Jimmy knew the ques­tion was a di­ver­sion; Smiler had called for some­thing else. “What is it?”

  “We’ve got a prob­lem.” He soun­ded agit­ated.

  “What kind of prob­lem?”

  “A Fa­bian prob­lem.”

  “Can it wait?”

  “What do you think?”

  “What’s wrong with him now?”

  “Not on the phone, Jimmy.”

  “For fuck’s sake,” Jimmy muttered. “When?”

  “He says it’s got to be now.”

  Isa­bel had gone into the kit­chen and now she re­turned with a bottle of cham­pagne and their two best glasses. She saw Jimmy’s face. “What is it?” she mouthed.

  Jimmy shook his head. Isa­bel knew him too well; she saw his con­cern and looked at him, an eye­brow cocked. He put his hand over the phone. “It’s noth­ing,” he said, hop­ing
that his smile might per­suade her not to worry.

  Isa­bel handed one of the glasses to Jimmy, then sat on the sofa and whispered softly to Sean. The lad stirred, turned to look at his mother and smiled.

  “You’re in your jam­mies, Mummy,” he said.

  “It’s al­most mid­night. We’ll watch the fire­works and then we’ll go to bed. It’s been a long day.” She placed a fin­ger on Sean’s nose, mak­ing him smile.

  Jimmy loved that smile. He lived for it.

  “Jimmy?” Smiler pressed.

  He sighed. “Where are you?”

  “Charlie Chan’s.”

  Isa­bel sensed him tens­ing; she turned to­ward him, dipped her head and looked at him over the rim of her glasses.

  “I need you here,” Smiler said.

  Jimmy sighed. “I’m go­ing to watch the fire­works with my lad first. Give me twenty minutes.”

  He hung up the phone be­fore Smiler could protest.

  “To­night?” Isa­bel said with a weary sigh. “It’s New Year’s Eve.”

  “It’s only a wee bit of busi­ness, love. I’ll be care­ful.”

  “It’s New Year’s Eve,” she re­peated. “You said—”

  “I know, but it can’t be helped. I don’t want to go.”

  “So don’t.”

  “You know it doesn’t work like that. I’m sorry.”

  Sean was sit­ting up now, his legs hanging over the side of the sofa, still too short to reach the floor.

  “Right, wee man,” Jimmy said, sit­ting down be­side him. “You ready for the fire­works?”

  The little boy got up onto his father’s knee. Isa­bel put on the tele­vi­sion and pushed the but­ton for BBC One. They sat on the sofa to­gether, watch­ing the fire­works over the Thames. The broad­cast cut back to Mi­chael As­pel in the stu­dio. He wished every­one a happy New Year and the broad­cast came to an end. Sean was already asleep again. With great care, Jimmy got to his feet and walked up the stairs with his child in his arms. His wee boy. The blond bomb­shell, Isa­bel called him. A sweet kid. Sean loved his dog and his fam­ily and kick­ing a foot­ball in the nearby park. Jimmy would take him out for a game in the morn­ing. He had prom­ised him.

  He tucked his son into bed, kissed him on the fore­head and went down­stairs. He grabbed his leather jacket from the back of the chair. The na­tional an­them was just fin­ish­ing and the screen cut to the test card.

  Jimmy’s car keys nor­mally sat in a dish on the hall table, but Isa­bel had them in her hand.

  “Be care­ful,” she said, wrap­ping her arms around his neck.

  They kissed and she gave him the keys. Jimmy put them in his pocket.

  “Not that old thing again?”

  Jimmy looked down at the coat. It was battered, with scuff marks and tears that had been patched up. He thought it gave him char­ac­ter.

  “I told you I’d get you a new one.”

  “And I told you that I like it,” he said with a smile. He opened the front door. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  He went out­side, closed the door be­hind him and then zipped up the leather. The jacket had be­longed to his uncle Barney. The old man had bought it on the Crum­lin Road years ago and he had never re­placed it. Jimmy had taken it from Barney’s flat after the old man had died. It was older than he was, but he didn’t want to change it. It re­minded him of his uncle and the things that he had learned from him.

  And he had learned plenty. Barney was a le­gend in Ar­doyne, Ballysil­lan and Li­goniel. He had been a safe cracker with a series of jobs to his name that had made him a le­gend in the un­der­world and a thorn in the side of the po­lice. Wee Jimmy, as he was then, had looked up to his uncle. He had wanted to be him, to the ever­last­ing dis­may of his mother, and it had been in­ev­it­able that he would even­tu­ally walk in his foot­steps. Couldn’t fight nature.

  Jimmy made his way across the path to the end of his short garden, opened the gate, and closed it be­hind him. The night air chilled him. It was in­vig­or­at­ing. He loved the feel of cold air on his skin. He looked back at the house. It wasn’t any­thing spe­cial, but it was his. He was the first per­son in his fam­ily to own a house; even Uncle Barney had only ever ren­ted. He saw the light go on in the bed­room and knew that Isa­bel would wait up for him. He told him­self that he would be as quick as he could. He would speak to Fa­bian, fig­ure out what was hap­pen­ing and work out how best to deal with it. And then he would come home and for­get about work for the rest of the week­end.

  12

  Jimmy cruised west, en­joy­ing the rumble of the Capri’s V6, feel­ing the vi­bra­tions against his back through the sport seat. He thought about the car and the house and how far he had come. He had come off the boat with noth­ing and now this. He was mak­ing pro­gress. Slow and steady pro­gress. Barney would have been proud.

  Jimmy had two tal­ents in life: box­ing and burg­lary. He had ar­rived in Lon­don and in­dulged both. He made his first money on the un­der­ground box­ing cir­cuit, tak­ing on all-comers in bare-knuckle bouts that were ar­ranged in un­der­ground car parks and empty ware­houses. He had de­veloped a repu­ta­tion for vi­cious­ness and, after a couple of op­pon­ents had ended up in hos­pital, he had found that it was more dif­fi­cult to set up fu­ture bouts. The money had dried up and he had gone back to the pro­fes­sion he had learned at his uncle’s knee. He star­ted with do­mestic burg­lar­ies but, as he real­ised that the pro­ceeds did not bear the risk of ac­quir­ing them, he had looked at big­ger scores. He had only one rule: he would only do a job if it could be done without hurt­ing any­one. Box­ing was one thing—both par­ti­cipants knew the risks, and agreed to them—but Jimmy had no in­terest in hurt­ing any­one in the pro­cess of do­ing a job. He had turned down big scores that in­volved vi­ol­ence; he had to go home at the end of the day and he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep his dis­com­fort from Isa­bel. He had a con­science, he loved his girl­friend and his son, and some things were more im­port­ant than money.

  He thought about Smiler and the job that they had pulled off that night. Jimmy had known him from his local pub and had quickly grown to like him. His real name was Ham­mond, al­though every­one pre­ferred his nick­name on ac­count of his mouth­ful of gold teeth. Smiler had a bet­ting shop in Hack­ney and he had found him­self in a spot of bother with a fam­ily of local hood­lums who were de­mand­ing money in re­turn for pro­tect­ing the busi­ness. An­other bet­ting shop down the road had been fire­bombed when the owner had re­fused the broth­ers’ of­fer, and now Smiler was wor­ried that he would suf­fer the same fate.

  Jimmy had offered to in­ter­cede and, all out of op­tions, Smiler had agreed.

  Barney had taught Jimmy how to con­trol his tem­per, but there were oc­ca­sions when he let the reins slip just a little. The broth­ers—Mi­chael, David and Stephen Con­nolly—were local faces with repu­ta­tions. Jimmy tracked them down: he found Mi­chael feed­ing the ducks in Vic­toria Park; David was with his mis­tress in a May­fair hotel; Stephen was in­spect­ing the un­der­side of a Fiesta XR2 that he was think­ing about buy­ing. Jimmy knew that there would be no point in ask­ing them to clear off, so he de­cided to show them why it would be in their best in­terests to leave Smiler alone. He broke Mi­chael’s nose and tossed him in the lake; he threw the na­ked David out of the first-floor win­dow of the hotel; he kicked out the jack and let the Ford drop on top of Stephen.

  Smiler had been grate­ful. His mor­als were fun­gible, and when he had real­ised that Jimmy shared the same at­ti­tude to­ward mak­ing a liv­ing he had sug­ges­ted that he might like to help him with a job that an ac­quaint­ance had put to­gether.

  The friend’s name was Ed­ward Fa­bian. Jimmy met him and Smiler in a pub in Is­ling­ton and found that they got on well. Fa­bian had had his eye on a ware­house near Heath­row where, it was said, for­eign cur­rency and dia­monds were kept after they h
ad ar­rived at the air­port and be­fore they were sent on their way around the coun­try. Fa­bian had bought off one of the se­cur­ity guards and said that he could get them in­side. The se­cur­ity at the ware­house was lax, he said, and they would be able to get in and out with min­imal fuss.

  Fa­bian had been true to his word.

  Jimmy was wor­ried now. The plan had been to meet to­mor­row. Why did he want to meet be­fore then?

  He pressed his foot down on the ac­cel­er­ator. The Capri’s en­gine growled and the car jerked ahead. He would find out what was bug­ging Fa­bian and then he would get home. He was tired and he wanted his bed.

  13

  Jimmy reached Charlie Chan’s. The nightclub was part of the Waltham­stow grey­hound sta­dium. Jimmy found a space in the car park and left the en­gine run­ning so that he could listen to the end of the last song on the al­bum. He drummed his fin­gers on the steer­ing wheel and wondered what was so im­port­ant that Fa­bian wanted to see them to­night.

  Jimmy had been re­luct­ant to take the job. He was care­ful, and that was born of ex­per­i­ence. There had been a time, back in Bel­fast, when he had ac­cep­ted a place on a crew that was plan­ning to hit a bank. Jimmy had gone on the job and had walked away with ten grand. He’d found out after the fact that the job had been put to­gether by a senior IRA man, and that the pro­ceeds had gone to fund a ship­ment of arms from Libya. Jimmy had bailed. There was talk of a second job, but Jimmy had told them no. The man had been per­sist­ent, and Jimmy had said no a second time. The man didn’t give up, and Jimmy had lost his tem­per and put the man on his arse. Not a good idea. It was the reason he had had to leave Bel­fast.