by Stan Mason
‘For Heaven’s sake, Neil. Don’t be such a prude. My goodness you were married for years! Did you never see the naked body of your wife?’
‘I’m sorry,’ he apologised profusely. ’I thought you were dressed.’
‘Sit in the chair until I’m ready!’ she ordered sharply ‘If you want to look at me just do so. I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of!’
He sat down and watched her put on a lovely blue dress. She then sat in front of the dressing-table mirror to use some lipstick, place a pair of ear-rings in her ears, and touch her lovely dark hair to ensure that it would stay in place.
‘You’re certainly not shy,’ he uttered in a quiet tone.
‘You know what a naked woman looks like,’ she countered. ‘We’re all the same except perhaps in shape and size. So what is there to be shy about?’ Why pretend? I’m may be on the skinny side but I’m the same as any other woman.’
‘I’m not commenting on your figure,’ he told her, almost biting his tongue because the words came out differently to what he actually meant.
‘There’s no reason to be prudish. Don’t look shocked if you see me naked next time.’
He shook his head slowly. In the light of things for the future, it was extremely unlikely that he would ever have the opportunity to see her in the nude. Not that he ever wanted to... but, as far as he was concerned, it was never going to happen!
Chapter Six
Sam Everett, one of the bank robbers, lived at his father’s house in the East End of London. It was directly in the centre of a large sprawling slum-stricken area. The buildings had been erected some one hundred-and-eighty years earlier and the bricks on the outside of the house had been worn by the wind and rain and were crumbling as they showed their age. The front door had seen far better days having been knocked down in anger on occasions especially when money lenders came to collect the debts that were due only to be denied. To make it worse, the lintel above the door had dropped slightly so that it was not possible to close it properly. There were two windows in the front of the house displaying a number of small window panes. Those that were not broken were covered with dust and dirt indicating that they had not been cleaned for ages. Added to this was the fact that their broken sash cords needed replacement. Subsequently, they were never opened and the stench inside the rooms grew mustier each year.
Sam’s mother had left her husband many years earlier after he had been sent to jail for a very long period. In any case, there was every reason for her to do so because her husband often came home drunk and started to beat her. She stood the punishment until Sam was fourteen years if age and then, after the judge had sentenced her husband for consistent burglary, she sought tenderness in the arms of another lover. Sam’s father fell seriously ill and was released from prison early. In fact he was so bad, suffering liver and kidney failure, that he became an invalid laying in bed practically every day in one of the upstairs rooms of the house. Sam took care of him, cleaning his commode and feeding him, but he left him most of the time to his own devices.
As far as the condition of the furniture and hygiene was concerned, it was seriously outworn, dirty and damaged but the cleanliness that should have prevailed was far less than satisfactory. Old newspapers were strewn all over the place. Empty cans of beer littered the room. The remains of food on a number of dirty plates were scattered about unwashed, and the place was in a real mess.
The gang had never been there before but the warehouse became less than hospitable with the cold and dampness so Sam invited them to come to his home to discuss the plan for their next robbery. Brad had brought a shotgun with him although he was the getaway driver and never needed to handle a weapon. Nonetheless, he started to clean it vigorously as though his life depended on it. Wilson sat on the old torn settee which was long past its sell-by date, tapping his fingers on the uncut mocquette seating beside him. He was waiting for Sam to bring back the daily newspaper and his impatience seemed to be stretched to the limit every minute of the delay.
‘Where the hell is he?’ he grunted to Brad. ‘The newsagent’s only just down the road.’
‘He’ll be here in a minute,’ returned his colleague, still polishing the shotgun with an old rag.
‘A one-legged man would be faster,’ complained Wilson bitterly.
He began to rant and rage angrily however a few minutes later his colleague returned to the house with a doleful expression on his face.
‘Can’t find anything in here about the robbery,’ Sam informed him miserably.
‘For just over two hundred quid I’m not surprised,’ snapped Wilson glumly. ‘It would be worth the paper it’s printed on. I mean it’s not what you’d might call sensational, is it?’
‘It was still a bank robbery,’ claimed Sam unhappily, passing the paper across to his colleague believing that it was important enough to print as news.
Wilson snatched it and ran through the pages quickly scanning the headlines of each item. When he came to the sports pages, he tossed the paper on the floor in disgust.’
Ginger, who was playing with a football rattle which had been annoying the others to distraction earlier on, turned to the leader with a perplexed expression on his face. ‘I wonder where that bank manager was. I couldn’t find him.’
‘You bloody-well could have tripped over him and you still wouldn’t have found him,’ criticised Brad harshly. ‘You’re bloody hopeless!’
‘That alarm almost scared me to death,’ continued Ginger ignoring the insult.
‘Everything went wrong from start to finish,’ muttered Sam miserably. ‘We didn’t get anything right. Not even with the getaway car!’
Wilson looked towards Brad sternly. ‘You’d better get that fixed for next time,’ he warned. ‘I’m not going to risk getting caught because the bloody car won’t start.’
Brad simply shrugged his shoulders, making a mental note to do something about it before the next raid. ‘I think I’ll steal a van,’ he told them as though it was a simple thing to do./ ‘I know where there’s a white van not being used.’
‘What are we gonna do for dough?’ asked Sam. ‘I’ve run out of the fifty quid we each got and there’s nothing for more beer.’
‘I haven’t spent mine,’ stated Ginger. ‘You can have a tenner if you want.’
‘If you don’t have bread, you’ll have to eat cake,’ declared Brad without looking up.
‘What are you talking about?’ asked Wilson vacantly.
‘That’s what Marie Antoinette told the French peasants when they asked for bread. She said ‘let them eat cake!’’
‘Where’s all this coming from, Brad?’ enquired Sam with a puzzled expression on his face. ‘I’ve never heard of the man.’
‘Marie Antoinette was a woman, you idiot!’ came the sharp reply. ‘Didn’t you learn nothing at school?’
‘I was expelled for being a regular truant. I never went much to school,’ returned Sam candidly.
‘No wonder you never made your mark in life,‘ came the response from the getaway driver.
‘Huh!’ retorted Sam sharply, ‘look who’s talking, Mr. High-and-Mighty!’
‘Why aren’t we talking about the next job?’ asked Ginger before the squabbling became more iniquitous.
‘From the mouths of babes and sucklings,’ uttered Wilson slowly. ‘That’s what we should be doing instead of blaming each other for failing to get a real stash. Look at it this way. It can only get better next time.’
‘Unless we get caught by the cops,’ cut in Ginger. ‘Then it’ll be worse.’
‘Thank you for that,’ returned Wilson sarcastically which was lost on his colleague who believed it to be a compliment ‘Robbing banks is far more complicated than burglary. It’s got to be thought out much more clearly. We really have to work out every single detail or we’ll always end u
p with nothing.’
‘My woman said we were dysfunctional,’ intervened Sam quickly.
‘You have no idea what that means, do you?’ criticised Brad.
‘Not a clue,’ came the reply. ‘She’s much too clever for me.’
’Yeh... it’s because she went to school,’ continued the getaway driver caustically. ‘Talking of money, did you hear the one about the married couple who were always arguing. One day, when they were blasting each other off, he said: ‘What would you do if I won the lottery?’ She looked at him and said: ‘I’d take half and leave you.’ That Saturday evening, he came home and asked her if she’d meant what she’d said earlier in the week. ‘That’s right,’ she went on. ‘I’d take half and leave you.’ He took some money from his pocket and told her: ‘Here’s a fiver... now buzz off!’ He burst into laughter at his own joke but the others failed to be amused.
‘It’s about time you coughed up for some beer,’ suggested Sam critivcally.
‘I usually wait until I get my unemployment benefit at the end of the month,’ stated Brad with disinterest.
‘Life sucks,’ uttered Sam miserably. ‘I hope they don’t stop your benefits when they find out you’re robbing banks.’
Brad ignored the comment and looked at Wilson noticing the serious expression on the man’s face. ’What’s up with you?’ he asked.
’Security systems,’ returned the leader slowly. ’They so bloody complex. I don’t know how we’re going to get around them.’
’We need someone else to cope with that,‘ forwarded Sam. ‘Someone with some nous.’.
’That much I know,’ retorted Wilson sharply, ’but who do we know with that sort of expertise?’
Brad and Sam shrugged their shoulders aimlessly without saying anything further. Neither of them could offer any assistance in that direction.
’Hold on,’ commented Sam eventually. ’I’ve got a couple of contacts who might be able to help.’
’Get in touch with them’ responded Wilson with an element of hope in his voice.
‘I don’t know where they live but I know their names. There’s Bill Hamilton, Jim O’Brien, Trevor Simpson...’
He failed to continue as Wilson took off his cap and swiped Sam around the head with it.
‘You gormless idiot!‘ he shouted angrily. ‘I don’t want to hear names! I want someone who knows his way around banking security systems!’
Sam shied away from him as Wilson calmed down. ’Look... we need to sit down and really go through this idea of robbing banks. It all seemed so easy when we started. All we had to do was to go to a bank with guns and demand the money which they would hand over. No one was to get hurt and it would be very profitable. But, somehow, it’s far more complicated. There’s security systems, double keys and safe codes, resistant bank staff, safety shields for the cashiers... and so on.’
’You’re making too much of it, Fred,’ stated Sam easily. ’You go into a bank with a gun...’
’Shut up!’ intervened Brad edgily. ’Just keep it zipped up, Sam!’
His colleague looked somewhat miffed at the rebuke and picked up the newspaper from the floor, starting to read it as though he was uninterested in becoming further involved in the discussion.
‘I’ve just had an idea,’ cut in Wilson sitting upright.
‘Oh yeh,’ returned Brad dryly. ‘What’s it this time?’
‘Why don’t we rob the same bank?’ suggested Wilson earnestly. ‘Next time the Manager will be there and we could blow the safe if we have to. No one would believe we would rob the same bank again. In any case, it’s so small, the security system is minimal.’
‘Is minimal big or small?’ asked Ginger, dropping the football rattle as he became interested in the proposition.
‘Maybe the Manager will be back and I could get the keys of the safe,’ suggested Sam, looking up from the newspaper.
‘And maybe pigs can fly,’ uttered Brad, turning his attention back to the shotgun and rubbing the barrel fiercely with the rag in his hand.
‘Pigs have wings?’ There was a surprised expression on Ginger’s face. ‘I didn’t know that. I’ve never seen one with wings.’
Brad continued to clean the shotgun shaking his head slowly. As far as he was concerned, it was all a farce and he considered opting out of the gang and returning to burglary. It was patently clear that they didn’t have enough experience to rob banks. It was on the cards that, at some stage, they were going to be caught by the police if they didn’t plan thre next robbery accurately. He wasn’t willing to go to prison for the measly sum of just over fifty pounds and he recalled the words of Jesus Christ as he was pinned to the cross as he stared at the Romans who had crucified him. ‘Forgive them, for they know not what they do!’
Wilson pondered over his idea before throwing it open to the others. ‘What do you say?’ he ventured. ‘Do we go for the same bank?’
They all began to talk at once and the fiasco continued until Brad clapped his hands and held them up for silence.
‘Why don’t we all go back to burglary,’ he said meaningfully. ‘We were so good at that and it gave us a living. We’ve got two good fences to sell the goods to. Surely that should be enough.‘
’You think so,’ uttered Wilson in a tone which indicted that he disagreed fiercely with the other man,
‘We could do that,‘ intervened Sam quickly, ‘except that we’ve ran out of places to rob.’
‘Well I’ve got a new one for you,’ suggested Brad earnestly. ‘We start burgling the best houses in the district only taking bigger items next time, such as televisions, hi-fis, washing machines and fridges.’
‘Why the hell should we do that?’ asked Wilson with a perplexed expression on his face.
‘Well,’ continued Brad. ‘Those sorts of houses always insure their contents. We steal their goods and wait for three months, then we go back again.’
‘I don’t understand what you’re talking about,‘ cut in Sam with a puzzled expression on his face. ‘Why should we do that?’
‘Because the insurance company replaces all the goods as new for old after a few weeks so we can go back and steal them all again. It’s a double whammy.’
‘But then we’re need a lorry and we’ll have to work out the times when the occupants are out. It’s a big change in the operation taking larger goods.
‘Not only that,’ intruded Ginger, ‘but it’s heavy work!’
‘And I suppose robbing banks isn’t?’ came the rhetorical question from Brad acutely.
‘There’s one question I want to ask,’ submitted Ginger meekly. ‘What happens if one of the customers turns bolshie? Do we shoot them or what/ There’s always someone who’ll chance their arm,’
Silence flooded the room as no one felt like answering him. Indeed, there was always a chance that one impulsive man or woman would resist the robbers physically in an attempt to become a hero. It was a very fair question but no one knew dared to state what they would do. There was a great deal of muttering until the subject passed into obscurity with Wilson expressing the view that no one would be foolish enough to resist banks robbers holding loaded guns in their faces. After that, the four men sat around opening up their last cans of beer thinking deeply about the situation. There were so many things to think about and they were incapable mentally to cope with all of them. Brad was the only educated one amongst them and he preferred to go back to burglary where the odds were always in his favour. Robbing banks was a risky business for a number of reasons and he truly did not wish to be a part of it. As they sat in relative limbo, each member of the gang considered that the task in hand placed them between a rock and a hard place... and it was true, in their minds for that’s exactly where they were!
Chapter Seven
At the Charnley Wood police station, Frazier was se
ated at his desk in his office working on his lap-top. There were two minor crimes that were under investigation in the area. The first was a mugging in the High Street when someone had snatched a woman’s handbag and ran off with it before anyone could stop him. The other was a domestic incident which was likely to occur again because the husband always became violent when drunk and continually beat his wife. Frazier screwed up his face and shook his head as he surfed through some records as Marley entered the room.
‘What are you working on?’ asked the senior police officer inquisitively.
‘I‘m going through Fred Wilson’s history,’ came the casual reply. ‘It’s nearly as long as the Magna Carta. I’m trying to find the names of any of his associates or anyone connected t him..’
‘I think you’ll find he’s very much a loner. He’s been in prison so many times that no one wants to know him socially. He’s not married if you’re looking in that direction.
‘So far, I’ve come up with the name Bradley Coverley, a small-time criminal who’s been apprehended for burglary and theft. I don’t get it. You’d think if he stopped banging his head against the wall, he’d realised that the pain would stop. Some people never seem to learn.’
Marley stared over the other man’s shoulder at the lap-top screen. ‘They just keep making the same mistakes,’ he returned thoughtfully, his eyes taking in the information quickly. ‘It’s in their genes. All these petty criminals are a hopeless bunch. I reckon it has to do with their environment that makes them cross the line.’
‘They keep us in business,’ stated Frazier with an element of humour in his voice, ‘and, let’s face it, they don’t do anything too harmful to people. There’s one good thing about it. They never harm anyone.’
‘Have you ever come home to a house that’s been burgled?‘ demanded Marley seriously.