by Robert Ryan
'Cannon Row, Charlie. Just for a chat.' Although Tommy Buder knew it was likely to be Aylesbury before the day was out.
Charlie slipped his arms into his tweed jacket and kissed Pat goodbye. 'Give my brief a call,' he said. 'He'll have me back home for tea.'
'Mrs Wilson, some of my officers will be around later with a search warrant. Please don't disturb anything in the meantime. Come on, Charlie. Gently does it.'
As they walked to the cars, Butler held tightly to Charlie's upper arm. He should have cuffed him, but there was no point in winding up a man like Charlie Wilson. They tended to respond best to a little respect. 'You know what this is about, don't you, Charlie?'
'Is it the gas bill?'
'Not unless you ran up one for two point six million.'
Charlie smiled at that. 'I suspect someone has made a right balls-up.'
'One of your pals?'
'No, one of yours. You're wasting your time. I've got nothing to do with that. Never been there.'
'Then you have nothing to worry about.'
They reached the car, the door opened and a hand pushed Charlie's head down and folded him into the rear seat, where another detective waited. He produced a pair of handcuffs and snapped them over Charlie's proffered wrists. Tommy Butler leaned in. 'But I think it's you who have been wasting your time, Charlie. I don't think you'll be home for tea any time soon. About fifteen years, unless I am mistaken.'
Bruce Reynolds knew something was up as soon as Franny came back to the flat. She didn't bother to remove her coat; she simply strode up and turned the TV off. She tried to speak, but only tears came, coursing slowly down her cheeks.
Bruce stood. 'What is it? Is it Nick?'
She walked back to the hall and brought in the evening paper. Bruce felt a jolt when he saw his own face staring back at him. Yard name men wanted in connection with Great Train…
He read the rest in silence. When he reached the end he almost spat his words. 'It's a fuckin' liberty, putting the pictures in the paper. They never do that till after the trial. How can
you get a fair hearing when your face is all over the place, saying you was the bloke who done it? This is bloody Butler.'
He threw the paper down onto the floor.
That was it. It wasn't only the police who would be after him now – every last crook would be milking him for every penny. He was on the run, good and proper. Which meant the rent on any safe house would be enormous, and anyone who knew where he was would demand lots of little 'loans' for their silence. Plus there would be endless 'drinks' for their minders to do some fetching and carrying. It was sheer fucking extortion.
He walked over and gave Franny a hug, wiping away her tears. 'We knew it might come to this. Game's not over yet.'
She found a handkerchief and blew her nose. 'What do we do now, Bruce?'
'Stop using that name for a start.' It was time for new identities, a change of appearance. He glanced in the mirror, wondering what he could do. He stroked his upper lip. A moustache would help. Then he would need new clothes and passports, travel documents. Suddenly a hundred and fifty grand didn't sound like a lot. 'And think of a new one for you, too.'
'What then?'
'Start packing, love. That's what.'
'Where for?'
What did it matter where for? But he could see she was close to tears again, her lower lip quivering. Bruce said the first country that came into his head. 'Mexico.'
Roy was hammering the Mini Cooper back towards London when the news came on the radio. The last song played before it was 'Four Feather Falls' by Michael Holliday. The Bing
Crosby-like voice always triggered a loop of his 'I'm going well, I'm going Shell' jingle in Roy's brain. However, the first line of the bulletin banished the tune immediately.
'Police today arrested Londoner Charles Wilson in connection with The Great Train Robbery of two weeks ago. Scotland Yard says they are also keen to interview Bruce Reynolds and Jimmy White. They expect to be able to release further names within the next two days. Meanwhile Jack Mills, the driver…'
Roy switched the radio off. His hands were slick on the wheel, but his throat had dried. The A3 was clear ahead, reeling him back into London. And what? Butler or one of his crew, for sure.
He took his foot off the accelerator. An ERF coal lorry beeped him, and pulled out to overtake. He felt the slipstream buffet his little car, watched the black fallout from the sacks settle on his windscreen. He pulled over and rolled to a halt in a lay-by. He needed time to think. After all, he was a man on the run now. They all were.
'And where is the Weasel now?'
'The who?'
'Roy "the Weasel" James.'
'Nobody calls him the Weasel. He had some French-' Bobby Pelham stopped himself. 'Look, he's not called the Weasel, all right?'
Jack Slipper had it on good account – from George Hatherill, no less – that James's nickname was the Weasel, but he let it pass. 'Let's just stick with Roy James then, shall we? Where is he?'
As he spoke, Slipper walked around mechanic Bobby Pelham's first-floor flat in Notting Hill. The carpet was threadbare and stained; the furniture sadly mismatched and he could smell chip fat. On the wall was a poster for the Monaco Grand Prix 1932, a garish print of an Oriental woman and the centre pages from an ABC Film Review, of Ursula Andress rising from the sea. It was clearly a single man's abode. From outside, he could hear the clash and clanging of Len Haslam and Billy Naughton sorting through the yard which was full of discarded motor parts and oil cans.
Slipper stopped at the wooden mantel above the gasfire and picked up one of the trophies. It was for a second place that Roy had achieved at Thruxton.
'Shame about his career. To throw it all away like that.' He looked up at Bobby as there came the thump of something heavy being dropped below them. 'They going to find anything down there?'
'Well, if they find the Weber carb I'm missing I'd be grateful.'
'Don't be funny, Bobby,' said Slipper, rising to his full ramrod-straight height. 'It isn't a matter for levity any more. We almost had him yesterday, you know. Arrived ten, fifteen minutes after you two had left Goodwood. And he didn't say where he was going?'
'No, Mr Slipper.'
'Missing a big race today, too. You know, Roy will probably be the second most famous no-show in Goodwood's history.'
'How's that?'
'David Blakely, Easter Monday, 1955, didn't turn up for his event. He's the most well-known no-show.'
Jack Slipper could see Bobby was struggling to place the name. 'He practised on the Saturday at Goodwood and Ruth Ellis shot him on the Sunday outside the Magdala pub, Hampstead. Last woman to hang, of course. At least we won't do that to Roy.'
'Guv.' It was Len Haslam, his face streaked in grease, his white shirt spotted with sump oil. He was holding out a thick envelope. 'It was hidden in a spare tyre in the yard.'
Bobby licked his lips like a nervous reptile. The colour had gone from his face. 'Mr Slipper…' he croaked.
'Shush.' Slipper knew what was coming next. 'You going to say you never saw it before? That we planted it? But your prints will be on it, Bobby. You know we can get them off the envelope. We can even get them off mailbags, you know. Oh, yes. You bake them in the oven, so Maurice Ray told me. The material goes rock hard and you can lift the dabs off. Ingenious. You look like you want to sit down. Ah, Billy. Fetch Mr Pelham a glass of water, will you?'
Bobby slumped into an armchair. 'I wasn't in on it. I was just looking after that money.'
'I have no doubt lots of people are looking after lots of money as we speak.' The policeman looked down at the contents of the envelope. 'You know we didn't get many serial numbers from that job. But the ones we did get were all one- pound notes, Like these. Must be, what, four or five hundred here? Odds are good we'll have a number. Very good.'
It was a lie, but Bobby Pelham wasn't to know that the recorded serial numbers had been scattered at random between the ten-bob, one-pound an
d five-pound notes.
'These are from the job, aren't they?'
'What if I say yes?'
'Depends how you came by them.'
'Like I said, I wasn't in on it. Honest. I was just…'
'Yeah – looking after it. A cush, eh?' A cushion he meant, money for James to fall back on in an emergency. Bobby nodded his agreement, his head heavy, like a lead weight. 'If what you say is true, then it's receiving. A few months inside at most. Perhaps a caution, depending on what's on your docket.' Slipper knew the mechanic had no form.
'Nothing.'
'I can't promise anything, but if I can say you co-operated…'
Billy came back from the kitchen with a glass of water. He stumbled over a pile of Autosports and Motoring News left in the middle of the floor. 'Shit. This place could do with a tidy, Bobby.'
Bobby took the glass and gulped half of the water down. 'It's from the train robbery.'
'And it was given to you by Roy James?'
He bit his lower lip before he spoke. 'Yes.'
'And you will make a statement to that effect?' Bobby didn't answer, just stared at the floor in shame. Slipper repeated the question.
'Yes.'
Slipper turned to Billy. 'Get on to the Yard, will you? Tell them we can release Roy James's picture to the press immediately.'
The voice on the line was muffled and urgent. 'Hello? Can I speak to the Train Squad?'
'Who is this?'
'Is that the Train Squad?'
'No, this is the Scotland Yard switchboard.' The operator wrote down a word on the pad. Irish? 'I need a name from you, sir.'
'Put me through or I'll hang up. And they'll never know what they are missing.'
The slightest pause, followed by a sigh. 'Very well, hold on, sir.'
There was a delay of ninety seconds before anyone came on. The man sounded bored. 'Detective Sergeant Leonard Haslam.'
'Is that the Train Squad?'
'It is. Who am I speaking to?'
'Black Horse Court, Southwark.'
'What about it?'
'There's a phone box. If you get someone there within ten minutes, yer man might find something of interest.'
'Stay on the line, sir.' A hand went over the mouthpiece. 'Who have we got near Southwark? Phone box at Black Horse Court. Get a car there. Now!' He came back on loud and clear. 'Sir? Hello? Sir? Oh, bugger.'
In the Squad room, Len paced up and down while he waited to hear from the car sent to the phone box. Billy was in charge of noting that morning's calls – there were always at least a dozen – and Len went over the conversation with the anonymous caller while Billy logged it. They were turning into station cats, shiny-arsed coppers who never left the factory, and Len didn't like it. But so much information was coming in it had to be processed and ranked or they would drown.
'Nothing in on Goody?' he asked when they had finished.
'No, for the fifteenth time.' It was strange how each detective seemed to have adopted their own personal betes noires among the suspects. Len was on Goody's case, of course, while Jack Slipper had been keen to pin something on Ronnie Biggs. Once it transpired that Charmian had blown a wedge of cash in Bond Street and Ronnie's prints had cropped up on a bottle of ketchup and a Pyrex dish at the farm, Biggs was bang to rights. Slipper was in Aylesbury that morning, charging him. Next, Slipper said, he would concentrate on bringing in Roy James.
Millen, though, had a thing for Jimmy White, because they had history going back some years. Frank Williams wanted Buster Edwards because he knew him, had drunk with him over the years, liked him. He thought it would be a friendly gesture to be the one who collared him. Keep it in the family.
Butler had his sights set on Bruce Reynolds, whom he considered the prime mover in the whole affair. The fact that there hadn't been a sniff of him in the past few weeks made him even more of a prize.
There was another character irritating Len. One they still couldn't put at the farm. Even his brother-in-law hadn't given him up. All they had was the anonymous tip-off. 'Can we spin Fortune's drum again?' he asked.
'I'm sure.' Up to a dozen search warrants a day were being issued. The normal caution with such briefs had been thrown to the wind where the robbery was concerned. You only had to mention that the warrant was in connection with Sears Crossing to get your chit signed.
Len bent down and opened a desk drawer. He passed Billy a small plastic phial. Billy went to hold it up to the light but Len grabbed his wrist. 'Keep it down.'
'What is it?'
'Flakes of paint.'
'From what?'
'The lorry at the farm.'
Billy looked at him with uncomprehending eyes.
'Look, I've done enough. Best if I'm not near. It's your turn.'
'For what?'
Len shook his head at Billy's denseness. 'Find some shoes, trousers, whatever, to put them on. Take them to forensics.'
'Len-'
'Fortune was at that farm – you know it and I know it. Whoever the bird was who got Reynolds right also gave us Fortune. Remember?'
'But we have Reynolds's prints. That's watertight. There's none of Fortune's prints at Leatherslade.'
'Gordy never left any prints either. Careful, see?' Len hissed. 'And I reckon most of the prints were left after the robbery – when they got money-struck and sloppy. And we are sure Fortune was there before the take, not after. Put the paint in your pocket. Go on – get onto it. Right?'
'DS Haslam, Line Five!'
Len loped over and took the call and came back rubbing his hands together.
'What?' asked Billy.
'Money.'
'In the phone box?'
'Two potato sacks. They've just done a quick count.' Len clapped his hands with glee. 'We've just got about fifty thousand pounds back.'
Gordon Goody was going stir crazy. The small room above the pub on the river near Tower Bridge seemed to shrink by the day. Here he was, rich at last – and with the money well hidden – and he was like some kind of laboratory rat in a shoebox. Now and then he went down to the pub and worked behind the bar, but it was risky. He was a big man, not the kind of character you would forget in a hurry. And he could never stop himself flirting with the girls. Couldn't be helped. Skirts were shorter, tops tighter, eyelashes, for the batting of, longer.
But he couldn't risk a bird up in that room. So far he had been very, very careful. The reason that his smudge wasn't
plastered all over the front of the Daily Sketch was because they had no dabs at the farm. He had never, ever taken his gloves off. The others had been unlucky. A palm print from where his fabric glove had shrunk got Jim Hussey bang to rights. And Bruce? Mr bloody Sheen himself managed to get dusted. There was something fishy there, Gordy thought. Bruce with his prints on a ketchup bottle? Pretentious sod only ever used Lea & Perrins. Which suggested the Fewtrells and Butlers of this world would stop at nothing to bring them in. The job had proved too big to ignore, too much of a poke in the eye with a blunt cosh. Bloody Buster and his cosh and that daffy cunt Tiny Dave. If that driver had not been thumped, the hue and cry would be that much less intense. But now they were baying for them.
Gordy looked at his watch. Not yet eleven. The day was crawling by. The pub would open soon and he would hear the noise of the customers through the floor, braying and shouting. He never served at lunchtime. Different crowd, all male, even some lawyers and coppers.
He had to do something though; he would end up topping himself if he had to watch the ceiling cracks for much longer. He reached into the bedside cabinet and found his address book. Locating the number he wanted, Gordy swung his feet off the bed, grabbed a handful of change and padded downstairs to the telephone by the Gents.
While he dialled he shouted to the landlord. 'Reg?'
The ruddy-faced Reg stuck his head out from behind the bar. 'You all right?'
'Can I borrow your car for a couple of days?'
Reg looked unsure.
'There's a n
ifty in it.'
Reg shrugged. 'Two days.'
Two days, fifty quid. Plus a monkey for the use of the room. Reg wasn't doing too badly. Even got a free barman now and then.
'Thanks,' Gordon said. Then: 'Sue? Is that you? It's me, Gordon. Right. Look, Sue, I know it's short notice, but do you fancy a get-together? Yes, that sort of get-together. At a hotel, on me. The Grand. Sounds perfect. Tomorrow? Well, dump him. You deserve better anyway. Well, me for one. Right. Tomorrow. Book it in your name, will you? And get some champagne on ice. What are we celebrating? Me seeing you again.'
Gordy put the phone down and walked through to Reg, who had unbolted the doors to open for the day's business. There were only a couple of regulars in at that time of day and they didn't even look up from their papers. Gordy's stomach rumbled as he caught the aroma of the homemade pies that the pub dished out at lunchtime. He pulled a couple of pound notes out. 'Reg, can you send your boy to Woolworths? Get me a couple of spectacle frames with plain glass in them.'
Reg took the money. 'OK.'
'And does your missus have any hair-dye?'
Reg had a traditional landlord's build, with sizeable beer belly and a florid complexion. Marjorie was whippet-thin and exuded a blowsy glamour. 'What shade?'
'Not blonde.' He pointed at his scalp. 'Darker than tin*.
'I'll ask. If she hasn't, I'll tell her to get you sonic.'
'Thanks.'
'What is it, Gordy?' smirked Reg. 'Fancy dress, Who you going as?'
Gordy smiled back. 'Clark bleedin' Kent.'
Billy Naughton stepped into the rowing boat and the lad from the hire shed pushed them off. Tony dipped the oars and pulled them away, heading out into the centre of the Alexandra Palace boating lake. It was a blustery day, with the sun piercing the cap of white cloud only infrequently. Apart from a couple of schoolboys playing truant to smoke fags, they had no company out on the water. Which was how they both wanted it.
'You know that they kept German civilians here, during the war?' Billy asked.
'No, I didn't, Mr Naughton. Is this to be a history lesson?'
'Recent history, Tony. It was your money, wasn't it?' said Billy.