Stealth

by Stan Mason

’You know,’ he returned. ’I think I’m going to enjoy my early retirement there.’

  ‘Me too!’ she added sweetly, turning to smile at him.

  They arrived at his house and he removed the cap and apron, finding a trilby to place over the bandages on his head. Then he picked up his suitcase, looked around the rooms for the very last time and telephoned for a taxi to take them to the railway station. There may have been a slight blip in the plan but it was currently running like a Swiss watch. They were on their way to Buenos Aires in the Argentine to start a new life together. By now, he could not envisage life without Paula. She was a solid companion, a good organiser, and someone who would keep him in line. Perhaps there was a slight emulation of the domination of his mother within her but he was willing to come under that spell. It was true he was not ready for a full relationship with her at the present time, but he was satisfied that it would eventually come to fruition.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Despite Crozier’s harsh words to his subordinate, concerning any course of adverse action against Waverley, Abbot, had the bit between his teeth and he was refusing to let go. In his mind, it was like a battle in the history of the Crusades, where Christian knights fought the Infidels, and he actually relished every moment of pursuit during his dull banking career. He had been employed by the bank for a number of years but he had seemed to make his mark with anyone. He had passed all his banking examinations but somehow failed to impress anyone at senior level mainly because he was so impetuous and over-enthusiastic that he tended to scare them. Nonetheless, he had always been a legend in his own mind whereby he saw himself as a leader, a champion and an icon for other people beginning their career in banking. However, despite the way he saw himself, he was a weak young man with an impetuous attitude yet he recognised nothing of his weaknesses an ploughed on regadless, much to the dismay and disappointment of many other staff members of the bank who tried to avoid him like the plague.

  When a friend telephoned to tell him that Waverley had collapsed in the banking hall of the branch, Abbott’s eyes lit up. There was every chance that the banker had suffered a fatal heart attack which could affect every person in the line of promotion. He asked for the name of the hospital in which the banker had been taken and decided on his own initiative to follow it up. He arrived at St. Mary’s Hospital shortly, only a few moments after the banker had left the hospital with Paula, and he went directly to the Receptionist.

  ‘I’m here to see Mr. Neil Waverley,’ he told the woman.

  ‘Visiting hours are from two to four o’clock,’ she told him bluntly. ‘Are you a relative?’

  ‘Not really,’ replied Abbott naively. ‘Is it possible for me to speak with his doctor?’

  ‘Can you tell me who you are, sir?’ enquired the Receptionist firmly but politely.

  ‘I’m Duncan Abbott,’ he informed her, producing a business card. ‘I’ve been sent by Prescot Bank to find out his condition.’

  The Receptionist took his card and read it, before pointing to a seat a short distance away. ‘Take a seat over there,’ she commanded. ’I’ll see if his doctor’s available.’

  Abbott sat down as the Receptionist paged the doctor. Shortly, the physician arrived and introduced himself.

  ’I’m Dr. Markham’’ he said curtly. ‘I understand you’re enquiring about the condition of Mr. Waverley.’

  ‘I’m his colleague at Prescot Bank. We work together,’ the young banker told him. ‘We, at the bank, simply want to know whether the injury is serious and when he might be able to return to his duties at the bank.’

  ‘My goodness!‘ echoed the doctor. ‘Is his work so essential that the bank is chasing him when he’s suffered an injury? What on earth is the world coming to when duty comes before health? It’s a matter of waiting to find out as one would expect.‘ He paused to stare at Abbott‘s face for a few moments before continuing. ‘He was struck on the head with a blunt instrument which caused him to go into a momentary coma’

  ‘How long will it be before he recovers?’

  ‘How long is a piece of string,’ returned Markham, shrugging his shoulders aimlessly. ‘It’s very difficult to say. He’s actually come out of the coma but we need to watch him carefully.’

  ‘Will there be any long-term effects? I mean will he be able to continue his work normally?’

  ‘I would think so. Give him a week to recover and he should be back at work again,’ came the expected reply. ‘You can rest assured that he’s comfortable and we’re taking good care of him. If there’s any change, we’ll let you know.’

  ‘What about amnesia... loss of memory. Do you think that might be the case?’ pressed Abbott persistently.

  ‘I don’t think so,‘ returned the medic narrowing his eyes with suspicion. He could not believe that anyone could be so callous as to drive the man back to work before he had recovered from a blow to hise head. ‘What Mr. Waverley has currently is an exceedingly bad headache but that will ease and disappear in time.’

  The young banker screwed up his face with disappointment. He had expected Waverley’s condition to be much worse. He had hoped that the man had suffered a severe heart attack but that wasn’t the case at all. He had collapsed in the banking hall yet he seemed to be recovering pretty well according to his physician.

  ‘Well thank you for your time, doctor,’ he uttered politely. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

  He left the hospital wondering what to make of the episode. He was already suspicious that Waverley was up to no good, especially when he found the banknote wrappers in the man’s waste-paper basket. Now he had been struck on the back of the head with a blunt instrument. Who would have done such a thing?. Matters of this kind did not relate to normal banking practice... so what was going on? And what would Mr. Crozier say about the new development with regard to the man of whom he wished to rid himself? It was almost like the incident concerning King Henry the Second, who had problems with a priest, Thomas a’Becket, when he said to his knights: “Who will rid me of this troublesome priest!” and shortl afterwards he was found dead. It was a defining moment in British history whereby the King denied having made such a comment.

  Abbott went directly to Crozier’s office, standing outside the door, believing that someone was in the room with him because he could hear voices. However it was only the banker trying to create a new poem, reading out the words out loud to himself.

  ‘Oh, you treacherous Queen of desire, whose senses set my heart on fire,’ he uttered loudly. ‘Quench me with your precious eyes, Raise me higher than the skies.’ He paused to reflect the words admiringly. ‘That’s brilliant! Brilliant! I must get that down on paper before I forget it!’ He started to write down the words repeating them slowly as his pen touched the paper. ‘Oh, you treacherous Queen... of desire... whose senses... set my heart on fire...’ There was a loud knock on the door. ‘Damn! Nothing but interruptions to stem inspiration. Pagans... that’s what they are! What is it?’ he called out loudly.

  ‘It’s me, Mr. Crozier... Abbott! May I have a brief word with you? It’s very important!’

  ‘What could be more important than creative poetry?‘ he told himself irately. ‘Very well, come in! What do you want?’

  Abbot burst into the room and went to the desk so enthusiastically that the senior banker moved back in his chair to avoid a collision. ‘I’ve go some interesting news about Mr. Waverley,’ he said loudly.

  Crozier stared at him with a glum expression on his face. ‘What kind of news?’ he enquired still annoyed at having been interrupted in the prime of his poetry day.

  ‘He’s in hospital having just come out of a coma. Someone hit him over the head with a blunt instrument.’

  ‘Not before time,’! uttered the senior banker unsympathetically.’

  ‘I tell you he’s up to no good. Why would anyone want to club him senseless?
It doesn’t make sense! I reckon he’s been robbing this bank and that the robbers knocked him senseless to take all the money instead of splitting it up.’

  ‘You have a superb imagination, Abbott, but it does you no good. You need concrete roof before you make such allegations.’

  ‘I’ve spoken to his doctor. He’ll be out of action for a while. He might even decide to take the voluntary retirement that’s being offered. You may yet be in line for promotion.’

  Crozier’s eyes lit up at the prospect. Lady luck was looking in his direction at last. He was so elated that he began to recite a poem that he had not yet written. ‘Promotion is a wondrous thing... ambition at its greatest. Oh Waverley where is they sting, with news that is the latest.’ He stared at his subordinate and smiled. ‘What a talent I have, Abbott. Sad that its all wasted being condemned to this damned bank.!’

  His subordinate stared at him bleakly not knowing what to say and then he recalled a comment from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. He looked directly at the senior man and said: ‘He jests at scars who never felt a wound!’

  Crozier looked at him angrily. ‘There’s no room for two poets in this bank, Abbott,’ he snarled. ‘You’d better keep such ideas and put them on the shelf. His junior had no intention of invading the other man’s territory. He simply hoped that Waverley would leave the bank so that he could rid himself of the yoke of the other man entirely. However there was hope on the horizon for at that moment a letter was on its way to Crozier stating that he was one of the people who the bank had chosen to make redundant. He had no more than three more months of duty to carry out within the bank before he left. It meant that he would be able to spend all his days creating new poems! However, it was doubtful whether he would appreciate the time to do it! In the meantime, he was struggling to find a word that would rhyme with ‘orange’. At present, it was the sum of all his thoughts!

  ***

  After the bank robbers got back to Sam’s father’s house, they were met by old man Everett who barred the way at the front door.

  ‘You’re not bringing that loot into this house!’ he told them adamantly. ‘When the police come round here, I want to be in the clear.’

  ‘Come on, Dad,’ returned Sam, trying to reason with his father. ‘;It’s only for tonight. We’ll split the money up in the morning and be on our way.’

  ‘No, son. I’m not blotting my copybook,’ came the answer. ‘Take it to the warehouse and keep it there. I don’t want it here.’

  The gang muttered some uncomplimentary remarks and clambered back into the van before Ginger drove them off to their new destination. When they arrived there, they unloaded the large plastic boxes from the van and carried them inside quickly, laying them on top of each other in the centre of the room. The members of the gang then let themselves go, whooping, laughing and shouting with glee, with Ginger dancing around the large plastic boxes joyously. Sam went back to the van and returned with a full bottle of brandy. He handed out tea mugs to the others inviting them to fill each one to the top. This was a time for rejoicing for, as far as they were concerned. They had all come into money and were set for life. One bank job of this kind was equal to five hundred burglaries.

  ‘Well we did it!’ gloated Wilson happily.

  ‘We sure did,’ returned Brad, sipping his brandy.

  ‘You didn’t have to hit that guy so hard,’ chided Sam, blaming the other man for his actions. ‘He was only there to help us.’

  ‘When I was a kid,’ related Brad glumly, ‘my dad stood me on a chest about three feet high and told me to jump. When I refused to do so, he promised that he’d catch me. So I jumped and he let me fall to the floor. “Let that be a lesson to you, son,” he said. “Never trust anyone!”’

  So I made sure the guy in the bank wouldn’t do anything to harm us. I mean he may have informed the police because he wanted to be known as a hero... putting all of us away behind bars.’

  ‘But everything was arranged,’ cut in Ginger. ‘It was a done deal!’

  ‘I carry my own insurance,’ stated Brad with determination in his voice, patting his back pocket which contained the cosh. ‘In that way, I’m never disappointed.’

  ‘Let’s open the boxes and count the money,’ suggested Ginger.

  ‘Leave it where it is for the moment,‘ riposted Wilson, wishing to enjoy the moment a little longer. ‘We’ll share it out later and you can do what you like with your share.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ asked Sam. ‘It’s all ours to spend anyway.’

  ‘I said that,’ explained the leader sullenly, ‘because in some cases the banks have a record of all the note numbers. They sometimes track down the thieves who spend them willy-nilly and arrests are made. I don’t think we need to worry about such things but it’s best to warn you about it.’

  ‘I still can’t understand why that bank guy didn’t want a share of the loot. There’s something fishy about it, I tell you.‘’

  ‘Why worry about that now?’ enquired Wilson shrugging his shoulders aimlessly. ‘You’re reading far too much into it, Brad.’

  ‘He said he wanted revenge on the bank,’ intervened Sam.

  ‘It’s a hell of a way to take revenge... getting a gang of people whom he doesn’t know to rob it for him,’ retorted Brad. ‘And I’ll tell you another thing. The guy who came to Sam’s house to tell us all about the raid was the same one who gave us the keys and codes to the safe.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ asked Ginger.

  ‘Shaving lotion. They both wore the same shaving lotion. Now Don’t you think it’s strange? A man who works in a bank helps us to rob it for nothing. It don’t make any sense!’

  ‘’Well what does it matter now?’ asked Wilson with an element of joy in his voice.

  ‘Yeh,’ echoed Sam raising his mug in triumph. ‘What does it matter now?’

  He stared at the plastic boxes stacked in the centre of the warehouse and pursed his lips as though tasting something really delicious. He could hardly wait to get his hands on the money... on all that money!

  As soon as the information concerning the bank raid came through to Marley at the police station, he smiled to himself expecting the glory of sending Fred Wilson to prison for the rest of his life. He gathered a small posse of policemen and, together with Frazier, they climbed into two police cars and drove off to the warehouse address in the East End of London from the information provided by Frazier when he followed Hunter. In normal circumstances, the sirens of both cars would be wailing like banshees but on this occasion Marley ordered them to remain silent because he wanted to catch the robbers unaware. The last thing on his agenda was to allow them to escape with all the money from the bank which he believed was now in their possession.

  Both vehicles stopped a short way from the house and the police crept surreptitiously towards it. When everyone was in place, Marley hammered on the door shouting ‘Police’ in a loud voice, and everyone inside the warehouse froze in their tracks.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ uttered Wilson, screwing his face up with anger and disappointment. ‘They’ve tumbled us and we’re caught red-handed. How the hell did they know where to find us?’

  ‘What do we do?’ asked Sam panicking.

  ‘Well we haven’t time to hide the money,’ stated Brad glumly. ‘We’ll just have to brazen up and say that it was here when we got back.’

  ‘They’ll never go for that!’ snapped Sam miserably.

  ‘Then we beggared,’ c0ntinued Wilson with the expectation of at least ten years in jail. He turned to Ginger with a sad expression on his face. ‘You’d better open the door. ‘

  Ginger went forward to obey him allowing allow Marley, Frazier, Trenchard and one of the policemen to enter. The senior chief officer stared at the large plastic boxes in the centre of the room and smiled at the robbers turning to Frazier w
ith a delighted expresssion.

  . ‘Well, well, well,’ he uttered. ‘What have we here? I’ll make a guess it’s money from the Prescot Bank which happens to have been raided this very afternoon. Any ideas, how it got here, fellas?’

  ‘Nothing to do with us,’ cut in Sam. ‘Somebody dumped there here by the looks of it.’

  ‘Dumped a million quid,’ snapped Marley acutely. ‘Are telling me that someone dumps a million quid in this warehouse and walks away. What do you take me for?’

  ‘I think it’s a wonderful fairy talle,‘ spat Frazier. ‘Only it’s going to end up like a Grimm Brothers story rather than Hans Andersen.‘

  ‘I’m telling the truth,’ lied Sam blatantly. ‘These boxes were here when we got back.’

  ‘And where did you get back from?’ demanded Marley, his eyes narrowing as he prepared to make the arrest.

  ‘The park,’ continued Sam. ‘We were taking care of some children there.’

  ‘Another likely story!’ cut in Frazier sharply.

  ‘Okay,’ persisted Sam. ‘They were truants... off from school.’

  ‘Why can’t you own up!’ yelled Frazier irately. ‘You stole this money from the Prescot Bank. Nothing’s going to change that. We have you on CCTV. You’ve been caught red-handed.’

  ‘But I did my job all right, ‘ admitted Ginger entering into the fray. ‘I mean we got away like a flash.’

  ‘Shut up, you fool!’ shouted Brad, angry that his colleague had made the admission. ‘That was when we came away from the park.’

  ‘Well I’m afraid lad,’ declared Marley. ‘The game’s up and you’re all under arrest.’

  ‘We don’t even know if there’s money in those boxes,’ suggested Wilson, wishing that the ground would open and swallow him up. If only he had stuck to what he knew... theft and burglary... he wouldn’t find himself in this position.

  At that comment, Trenchard opened the top box and took out one of the banknote wrappers. He tore it open and stared bleakly at the contents. In the meantime, Marley was lashing the gang with his tongue in no mean terms.