Phil Letts, his assistant guard, tightened the strap on his blue crash helmet and glanced across at him. Bob nodded. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘It’s all clear.’ Both men got out of the vehicle and crossed the cold, wet pavement at a brisk pace. A sleety wintry shower was drawing an evening curtain of darkness down behind it. At least the building society was warm. Stovell and Letts smiled courteously at the staff and knocked on the door of the cash office at the far end of the shop. Rose, the shop manageress, let them in. She smiled at both, but held Phil Letts’s eyes the longest.
‘Roll on Christmas,’ she said. ‘We need something to cheer us up.’
‘Christmas, Rose?’ said Stovell. ‘Blimey, we’ve only just had summer, ain’t we?’
‘It seems a lifetime ago,’ Rose replied dreamily. ‘Where did you go, anywhere nice?’
‘I took the wife and kids to Benidorm. Phineas Fogg here went to Butlin’s in Bognor Regis.’
‘Bognor!’ Rose laughed. ‘I thought you’d be getting those big strong legs brown in the sun, Phil. Does your wife like Butlin’s?’
‘I’m not married.’
Rose smiled, noting his embarrassment. ‘That’s a waste,’ she said. ‘So, any other pick-ups to do today, boys?’
Bob Stovell nodded. ‘One more but we’re running half-hour late, bloody traffic’s a nightmare. And I’ve got to get the kids from their gran’s on the way home.’
Rose glimpsed at Letts. ‘Never mind, eh? Soon be home in the warm, then out on the pull no doubt.’
Letts blushed, aware of the older woman’s interest but uncertain how to respond to her. ‘Just four ten-grand bags to go,’ she said, offering Letts the form to sign. Rose then handed him four sealed red bags. All the bags they used were colour coded. Red was £10k, yellow meant £5k and green bags were £20K. As custodian, it was Phil’s responsibility to sign for the money. He then placed all four bags into an empty, larger bag that he had been carrying under his arm.
‘Right, we’ll be off then,’ said Bob Stovell. ‘See you Friday.’
He never felt like small talk when they had the money. Rose smiled. ‘See you then,’ she said. The two security guards hurried through the customer area of the shop. Stovell opened the exit door and looked up and down the street. He nodded to Letts, who was holding the money bag, and they stepped out briskly and turned left towards the security van.
As they emerged, a figure rushed at them from the far side of their vehicle. He was dressed all in black and wearing a motorcycle helmet with a darkened visor. In his hands was a double-barreled sawn-off shotgun. Bob stopped in his tracks. His right arm shot out to stop Letts. Now, a second helmeted figure jumped from the rear doors of a white Ford Transit van parked on the pavement to their right. This man, also dressed in black, was armed with a sawn-off pump-action shotgun. Both were running at them. ‘GIVE US YOUR FUCKIN’ MONEY!’ yelled the first robber. ‘Or I will BLOW your FUCKIN’EADSOFF!’
The second man was screaming too. ‘Give him the money or I’ll fuckin’ DO YA!’
Both guards froze. The first man rammed Phil Letts in the face with the butt of his shooter. Letts felt his nose crack as the claret exploded. Stovell was luckier – he only had his legs kicked away from under him. Before he hit the ground, the bag was gone and both assailants were heading for the tranny. Phil Letts was screaming, ‘STOP THEM!’ but nobody responded. No one wanted to know. The men were into the back and the van doors were closing as it pulled away. The whole blag had taken under twenty seconds. ‘Cunts,’ said Letts, who was holding a handkerchief to his nose. Bob Stovell said nothing. He had shit himself again.
* * * * *
Three days later a similar scene was acted out in nearby Maidstone. This time £65,000 was snatched by four armed men dressed in black and all wearing motorcycle helmets with darkened visors. Again, a security guard was smashed in the face. He had his nose and cheekbone broken. Although both crimes were in Kent, the Sweeney took charge of the investigation. The name derived from Sweeney Todd, Cockney rhyming slang for Flying Squad; a section of top Metropolitan Police detectives set up specifically to take on the violent elite of armed robbers – blaggers! – who were plaguing the capital. London banks and building societies had suffered almost twenty similar robberies over the previous three years. The perpetrators operated in teams of between three to six, depending on the size of the job. In each case, the custodians had been hit returning to security vans or Post Office remittance vans.
Since 1984, the villains had racked up in excess of three-quarters of a million pounds.
There had been plenty of nods from the detectives’ snouts but no one really knew who the team was. Grasses grassed, the same old faces had their front doors spanked in and the usual suspects were lifted but the Sweeney kept drawing a blank. Whoever these villains were, they were as discreet as they were ruthlessly efficient.
DI Andy Martin had served as a DC and a DS on the Sweeney and now felt honoured to be running his own Flying Squad team. He was a squad man through and through, proud to wear the Sweeney’s distinctive ‘club tie’ – a swooping golden eagle, talons like daggers reaching down to grab the unsuspecting robbers. Martin’s team had been tasked with the seemingly impossible mission of identifying these bad boys and putting them away. The sheer scale of the robberies was causing the Met serious embarrassment, which meant the pressure from above was unrelenting.
Martin lit an Embassy and sank back in the chair in his tiny Barkingside office. On the desk in front of him was a half-drunk cup of strong black coffee and every report on every crime the mystery ‘crash helmet team’, as they had been dubbed by the press, had ever pulled off. There were several common features: the gang’s attire, the words they used, the ruthless use of unnecessary violence and the fact that the getaway vehicles were always abandoned near a footbridge over a railway line or river. All the getaway vehicles had been stolen and professionally ‘rung’ to another vehicle of the same make and colour. All of the real vehicle identities had been obtained from cars on car-fronts from other parts of England, lessening the chance of a real owner spotting a clone of their own motor. Martin read the reports over again as if hoping for some small piece of fresh info that could trigger a revelation. His head began to droop forward as exhaustion set in. He was an inch away from dozing off when his desk phone rang.
‘DI Martin,’ he said gruffly.
‘Hello, guv, DS James – Peter James from SO11. I’m told by the CO that you’re dealing with the series of blags in London and the home counties with the fellas in crash helmets.’
Martin lit another cigarette. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Go on.’
‘Well, the Central Drug Squad were doing some photographic work in Essex when they snapped a known felon called Lenny Richards out of South London looking around the car-front they were watching. They weren’t happy with him and their surveillance team followed him back up into the Smoke, where they got him pulled by uniform. The motor he was driving was a ringer, and in his pockets he had a list of various vehicle numbers, what makes they were, and a list of identical vehicles that all seem to be on car-fronts in the Essex area.’
The information was aural caffeine to Martin, who snapped wide awake.
‘Go on.’
‘So, he’s well nicked and it tops up he’s on a bender for conspiracy to steal cars. So he’s asking to talk to someone from the Flying Squad but he won’t say why.’
‘Where’s he banged up?’
‘Kennington. They were gonna run him to a drum but got jumpy that he’d clocked ’em, so they got him tugged. He’s given his home address as “no fixed abode”.’
‘Thanks Peter. Who’s dealing at the local factory?’
‘Uniform were, but an ex-regional DC, Wally O’Reilly, has got hold of it and battened down the hatches awaiting your call.’
‘On the case.’
Fifty minutes later Martin and his DS Pat Goddard were sitting across the table in the Kennington nick interview room staring at the prison
er, Lenny Richards.
Andy Martin took a sip of black coffee and spoke. ‘I’m DI Martin, this is DS Goddard. You wanted to see us.’
Richards stared down the table, deep in concentration. His shoulders were hunched, his arms crossed. Beads of sweat began to form on his temples as he weighed up his choices one more time. He could give it all up for self-preservation or he could do the right thing – take the rap and do time. Martin took his time. This was just as difficult for him. If he came on too strong he could push Richards the wrong way, but he wasn’t going to roll over and beg. Finally he said, ‘Well, are you going to fucking talk to me or waste my time and sit there looking sorry for yourself all night?’
Richards raised his head and stared straight at Andy Martin, the guy who could bury him for three years or keep him out of a cell stinking of shit, piss and desperation. Richards was small and wiry with ferrety eyes, thin lips and a narrow, bony nose. He ran his left hand through his greasy, straggly hair and thought some more. Martin noticed that his top teeth were biting tight into his lower lip. Finally he nodded gently to himself and gave a sigh so deep it sounded as if his life-force were leaving his body.
‘I’ve got a missus and two kids, boss. That’s what I’m mulling over. I need help, there ain’t no denying that.’
‘So, what’s the problem? You help me and I’ll get them and you off the plot.’
Richards sat up straight. ‘No bird for me and a new ID for all of us,’ he said.
‘Could happen. Depends what you’re offering up.’
‘You wouldn’t be here unless you had a fair idea.’
‘Only you can set the ball rolling, Lenny. What’s the problem?’
‘Four six-foot-deep holes in the ground, I’d call that a problem.’
‘Well, you’ve just gotta trust me.’
‘No,’ Richards barked back like a wounded dog. ‘I ain’t gotta trust you or no one. That’s the point. I either sell my soul to the devil or I don’t.’
‘Mate, there ain’t no brimstone here, though you wouldn’t know it drinking this shit. This all comes down to trusting me to be an honest Joe and keeping any deals we make.’
‘Oh yeah, the famous Sweeney promise of looking after the grass.’
Martin scraped his chair backwards and began to stand. ‘Well, I’m wasting my time here. You asked to see me, Lenny, not vice versa.’
As he turned to walk away, Richards crossed the start line.
‘OK, OK, sit down. Let’s dance.’
Martin sat, pulled out his packet of Embassy and rolled one across the table to Richards. DS Goddard produced a lighter. Richards dragged in the smoke and held it in puffed cheeks for four or five seconds, then exhaled a blue-grey stream up towards the ceiling before he stubbed it out.
‘I gave up two years ago, but that still tastes sweet. I reckon I could be doing a lot of smoking over the next few years.’
‘Ball’s in your court.’
‘Here goes then. You lot have been disappearing up your own arseholes for a few years now looking for the little team who’ve been running riot with the security companies’ cash, right? The crash helmet mob who hit the Transit vans.’
Martin nodded.
Richards went on. ‘You heard of the Nelsons out of North London?’
‘No.’
‘Six brothers but one of them ain’t involved, he’s off the manor over in Essex somewhere through the pipe. There’s Nicky, he’s a vicious, spiteful bastard, I think he’s the oldest. Charles, never Charlie, David, Georgie and Richard. I forget the name of the straight one. They’re all in their late twenties, early thirties. Richard gets called the Indian ’cos he’s got a dodgy ticker. Anyway, the old man’s well known to your lot. Buck Nelson – ring a bell? He’s still up there with the top firm but don’t get his hands too dirty no more, and he is well connected through the funny handshake brigade to your lot. He holds what they call provisional grand rank or something. Word is Buck has got some top Scotland Yard bod in his lodge, and in his pocket.’
‘Well, I’m not on the square and neither is Pat.’
‘Thing is, guv’nor, these people are like spiders with big webs. My name gets out and what I’m saying and bosh, that’s it. Goodnight, Vienna. You can kiss my skinny white arse goodbye.’
‘Lenny, you have my word, this thing will be tighter than Minnie Mouse’s minge.’
Richards smiled. ‘There’s a couple of others on the firm, or was. Fella called Paul Wellings from Chatham, but he was killed in a motorbike accident in the Algarve three or four months ago, and the face you will know is Stevey Whale out of Stockwell.’
Richards paused. Martin and Goddard were looking at him blankly.
‘Fucking hell,’ said Richards. ‘I thought you were the Sweeney. You don’t know Steve Whale? He’s been going over the pavement for years. I think he’s the only one who’s done proper bird.’
‘Never mind us. You keep talking, Lenny. You’re doing a good job.’
As the night wore on, Lenny Richards gave them everything he knew about the Nelsons, their crimes and their modus operandi. He told how the blags were meticulously planned, that the firm would watch security vans as they did the same runs to the same building society branches week after week. Same days, same times. He also revealed that the security guard in Gillingham got the butt of a gun in his face just because they’d been forty minutes late and he’d kept them waiting in a freezing cold Transit van. Nicky had been right up for letting off a barrel into the guard’s legs but had thought better of it.
When he finally stopped talking, Andy Martin asked the obvious question. Where did he – ferret-faced, loose-lipped Lenny – fit in on the crime firm of the decade?
Richards swelled with pride. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Here’s the deal. I nick the motors and clean ’em up, y’know, ring ’em. Then I deliver ’em and take a nice drink for me time and effort.’
‘So you must have, what, a yard, a garage, workshop?’
‘Fuck off. I give you that and you spin it and I’m buried forever. This is the deal I’m after, drop the charges for the jam-jar I’ve been nicked in, lose the evidence and I will put them all on the pavement for you. They’re gonna do a million-pound van in a couple of weeks, East London, near a block of flats. A security wagon goes down a quiet one-way street and they’re gonna run a plated-up tipper lorry in front of it and block it in. Then a lorry with a steel girder welded on is gonna ram into the bag and burst it open. They’re putting a sniper on one of the floors of the flats in case it comes on top. They’ve got stun grenades, Russian machine guns. They ain’t taking prisoners.’
‘Who’s on the job?’
‘The bruvvas, Whaley, some bod from up North, a couple of Paddies and the shooter on the balcony.’
‘Who’s the shooter?’
‘Pass. Not me, that’s for sure.’
‘Any others?’
‘I’m a distance away on the other side of a railway line with a plated ambulance. Three of them are jumping in the back and I run them away. Plus they’ve got a couple of motors from me that some tarts are driving the rest away in. I just know my corner and what the motors are.’
‘And the location?’
‘Of course.’
‘No, I mean, what is the location?’
‘Have we got a deal?’
‘I’ve gotta ring my guv’nor for participating informant authority, but I don’t see any problems.’
‘And the motor I was in tonight?’
‘What motor?’
‘So no charges?’
‘You’ll be bailed out to us. If this is genuine, it goes nowhere. But God help you if it’s bollocks.’
Lenny Richards stuck his hands across the table.
‘It’s a deal then,’ he said.
Andy Martin shook his hand. ‘After we’ve shown you home and those front door keys in your property bag twirl in the right lock then I’d say so. Yeah.’
Lenny laughed. ‘Sweet. Your mate don’t
say much, do he?’
‘No, but he’s a fucking good listener.’
A massive covert surveillance operation swung into action. All officers on the op, code-named Goliath, were briefed on a need-to-know basis and threatened with suspension and dismissal if a word leaked out, even to other police colleagues. Surveillance was conducted mainly from fixed observation posts from empty flats and factory offices. Unbeknown to Lenny Richards, Martin had put an OP on his home address. For added security most OPs were unaware of the existence of other OPs. The only change from the way Richards had said that the heist would go was that the sniper on the flats fell through as the Nelsons honed their plans.
December 11, 1987. It was 8.15am on the button when the Secure U Ltd mobile money box rolled slowly along Radnor Road in Leytonstone, East London. It was a fairly quiet one-way street, one of the few that were not yet all Bangladeshi. There were terraced houses on the right and a railway line with a high wooden fence surround to the left. Cars were parked nose to tail along the length of the right side of the road, except, the driver noted, for a gap about one hundred yards ahead where yellow pyramid-shaped cones and roadwork signs tapered to a large articulated tipper lorry with an aluminium body. He drove slowly to avoid clipping the no-parking cones. Rumbling along about twenty yards behind the security van was a Mercedes lorry tractor unit. Up ahead, the articulated tipper began to pull out. As it slewed across the road, it began to swing back to straighten up. The security van driver had no choice but to stop and wait. There was a guard in the front with him and another in the rear. None of them were concerned by the unexpected delay.
Two Faced (Harry Tyler Book 2) Page 11