Robbery with Malice

by Barrie Roberts

  She sipped the hot liquid and the frown relaxed a little. ‘Why doesn’t Grady’s confession match Glenys Simpson’s evidence?’

  ‘Good question. They can’t both be telling the truth, can they?’

  ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘She says that Billy and the boys planned and executed a whole string of bail-ups. He says that Belstone Lane was a one-off. Somebody’s lying.’

  ‘Maybe both of them,’ I suggested.

  ‘But how did a jury convict both of them on this rubbish?’ she demanded.

  ‘Quite easily,’ I said. ‘Glenys Simpson said that she knew all about the planning of the job by her husband and his mates. Peter Grady was interviewed and admitted that he was involved and implicated the others. Bingo!’

  ‘But didn’t anyone draw attention to the differences in court? Were the defence barristers asleep?’

  ‘I don’t suppose so,’ I said, and dug into one of the document boxes, pulling out a plain blue notebook.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘This’ll be the note of the evidence that Walton’s solicitor kept during the trial.’

  I thumbed through it until I found Glenys Simpson’s name, then looked for a note of the cross-examination by the defence. Solicitors’ clerks don’t usually write shorthand, they use personal variations on what used to be called ‘telegraphers’ code’ and nowadays is ‘reporters’ shorthand’. It looks like gibberish.

  ‘Look,’ I said, and showed Sheila the relevant note:

  *

  Nt spkng out f make

  Nt fr any rwrd

  Bcse its rt — wntd t til trth t 1st

  1210 hrs.

  Xd (Walton)

  Kn G mde stmnt to pol.

  Dnt kn f its dffrnt t mine

  (Given G stmnt t read)

  Y — dffrnt

  Dnt kn why — wsnt thr whn G sd it

  Y— I hrd B & co tlkng abt lots f robbrys

  Y— G sys nly 1

  G lyng — there was mre

  F in Gs sttmnt is FH

  (Prosn. appls to keep FH out — J agrs)

  *

  ‘What’, Sheila demanded, ‘is this nonsense?’

  ‘The clerk with Walton’s barrister is noting the evidence. He’s not keeping a complete transcript — he’s not fast enough — but he’s mixing question and answer together in his note, to get the gist of what was said and the sequence of questions. This page has the end of the prosecutor examining Glenys — that’s called “evidence in chief” — and at the top of the page he’s wrapping her story up tidily with a last assurance that she’s only there out of her high regard for the truth. Look, it says, “I’m not speaking out of malice — It’s not for any reward — Because it’s right — I wanted to tell the truth at last.” Then he notes the time when she finished her evidence in chief and it goes on, “1210 hrs. Cross-examined for Walton — I know Grady made a statement to the police — I don’t know if it’s different to mine” — then she’s given Grady’s statement to read, then “Yes, it’s different — I don’t know why, I wasn’t there when Grady said it — Yes, I heard Billy & Co talking about lots of robberies — Yes, Grady says only one — Grady’s lying — there was more — Freddy in Grady’s statement is Freddy Hughes.” And at this point the prosecutor leaps up and points out that Grady hasn’t said in his statement that Freddy is Hughes, that it’s not for Glenys to say what Grady meant and that there is no witness or defendant called Freddy Hughes and it would be far better not to confuse the jury. The judge agrees — of course.’

  ‘But I thought you said that Grady’s confession wasn’t evidence against Walton?’

  ‘Quite right — that’s what the law says. But put yourself in the place of that jury. They’re trying what seems to be a particularly callous crime, murder and maiming by a gang intent on stealing cash. They’ve seen those bloody photographs. They’ve seen the surviving guard give his evidence from a wheelchair. Then Mrs S stands up — the frightened wife, now prepared to ease her conscience by telling all — she’s easy for a jury to believe. Then Grady has his confession shoved in his face and says he never made it, that the police faked it. Well, as a famous whore once remarked, he would say that, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘But Alan Walton never confessed — never admitted anything,’ she persisted.

  ‘Fair enough. But the jury have heard Grady’s statement, saying that Walton was deeply involved. Oh yes, the judge will have warned them that anything Grady said about Alan wasn’t evidence against him, but do you imagine for a moment that the jury could consider the case against Walton without recalling Grady’s statement? Of course not!’

  ‘It’s a swindle!’ she said.

  ‘Sure it is, but it looks good on paper. Go to the Court of Appeal and say that they should have been tried separately and they’ll say, “But it clearly shows in the transcript that the trial judge warned the jury in the strongest terms that Grady’s statement wasn’t evidence against Walton.” ’

  She frowned again. ‘You’re in a dirty business, Chris.’

  ‘You think I don’t know it? You got any nice jobs in Oz? Something decent and well-paid, like digging ditches or humping boxes?’

  She grinned and squeezed my biceps. ‘I don’t know about digging ditches,’ she said, ‘but let’s have a trial run at the humping.’

  19.

  It was still snowing in the morning and I tried to persuade Sheila that she really didn’t need to go to London for her research. She insisted, announcing that if the snow hadn’t broken by tea-time she’d stay overnight in London. I tried to dissuade her by reminding her of the threatening call.

  ‘I’m not going to get mugged in the Public Records Office,’ she grinned, ‘except by some other researcher who wants what I’ve got.’

  ‘Just take care,’ I said. ‘That threat was against you as well as me. Don’t take any stupid chances, OK?’

  I went into the office with a list of things to do. I had no morning appointments so I called John Parry and told him about Saturday night’s threatening call. He came over and listened to the tape.

  ‘And you don’t know the voice?’ he asked, when he had heard the recording twice.

  ‘No. I think the accent is somewhere around the Potteries, north Staffordshire.’

  He nodded. ‘And what do you propose to do about it?’

  ‘Isn’t that what I’m supposed to ask you? Except that I know that there’s not much you can do about it.’

  He looked at me expressionlessly. ‘There’s nothing the police can do until someone tries to implement the threat apart from advising you.’

  ‘And what are you going to tell me? I can’t give up the case. I can’t stop working in this office. I can’t stop going to courts. I can’t change where I live.’

  ‘He sounded serious,’ said Parry, looking at the cassette. ‘Nothing melodramatic, just a straight threat.’

  ‘After last summer,’ I said, ‘you don’t have to teach me to take threats seriously, but what can I do?’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you’re not going to give up the case, so you’ll have to be extra careful — keep away from lonely places, stay in company if you can, maintain security here and at your home.’

  ‘This place was resecured after last year’s adventures,’ I said. ‘The house could do with a bit of thought.’

  ‘I’ll come and look it over,’ he said, ‘make a few recommendations.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. Tell me, John, where do you think that threat comes from?’

  ‘You want the theoretical answer? Logic says that, if someone’s cage is rattled by you reviving Walton’s appeal, then Walton may be innocent. If he is then there’s someone out there who got away with murder and robbery. That’s who threatened you?’

  ‘And who might that be?’

  He shook his big head. ‘Now you’re asking, boyo. You say that headquarters screwed up the appeal hearing, so it looks like someone in the force has got an interest in it, but you know us — we don’t
go about issuing anonymous threats. We issue official threats and then lock you up if you upset us.’

  I knew too damned well — that was exactly what Saffary had tried to do to me last year.

  ‘The Payday Gang?’ I said.

  He pursed his lips. ‘Why should it be? On the face of it they didn’t do Belstone.’

  ‘What about the other three who were tried for conspiracy to rob the Mantons van?’

  He looked blank. ‘Who were they?’

  ‘Three clients of David Lyon’s who were done in the autumn after the robbery. Charged with conspiracy only.’

  ‘Really?’ he said. ‘I’ve never heard of that before. What happened to them?’

  ‘Lyon got them off.’

  ‘Who were they? Do you know?’

  ‘No. David’s memory didn’t stretch that far, but he says that Lillington got his old file register. I’ll get him to dig it out.’

  That was my next task after John left. Graham Lillington was helpful but admitted that he didn’t know where Lyon’s old register was. He suggested that I call at his office and he would detach an articled clerk to help me search.

  I walked across the square to his office straightaway where he handed me over to an amiable young man who introduced me to their archives. If you think that solicitors are intelligent and logical, try a look at their dead-filing systems. Attics and cellars crammed with damp, dusty, disintegrating files in no particular kind of order. Graham’s clerk led me down to their cellar, and switched on the light so I could take in the scope of the problem.

  ‘Which file was it you were looking for, Mr Tyroll?’ he asked.

  ‘Not a file,’ I said. ‘The old file register from David Lyon’s firm when your boss bought him out.’

  He looked a bit more hopeful. ‘Any idea what it looked like?’

  ‘I think it was a big, old-fashioned leather-bound job. I don’t know if it had anything on the cover.’

  We peered at shelves in the light of a dusty sixty watt bulb. There were rows of old appointment diaries, shelves of out-of-date copies of Stone’s Justices’ Manual and Archbold’s Criminal Pleading, the Supreme Court Practice and the County Court Practice, a row of Graham’s post books, a Road Traffic Encyclopedia that seemed to have been run over, several volumes of the 1960 edition of Halsbury’s Laws of England and, at last, a fat leather-bound ledger with no title.

  Coughing in the dust I opened it. On the fly-leaf was a rubber stamp, ‘David Lyon, Solicitor & Commissioner for Oaths’, and underneath a handwritten title — ‘Client Files from 1st January 1975’.

  Taking it upstairs I ploughed through it in Graham’s waiting-room, looking for three robbery clients in the autumn after the Belstone Lane job. I found them:

  *

  100613Truman, Arnold Conspiracy to Rob,

  44 Mill End, Belston. (see 100614/5)

  100614Truman, Leonard Conspiracy to Rob,

  3 Park Place, Belston (see 100613/5)

  100615White, Benjamin Conspiracy to Rob,

  7 Park Place, Belston (see 100613/4)

  *

  They were bracketed together in the last column with a note, ‘Paid & Closed, February 1981’, so they would have been tried sometime around Christmas of 1980. I jotted down the details of names and addresses, asked Graham’s receptionist to thank him for me and headed back to my own office.

  Back at my own desk I looked out my scribbled slip of notes:

  *

  The Payday Gang?

  Freddy Hughes?

  Glenys Simpson?

  When/How did Hawkins die?

  Ring magazine.

  *

  Now I could add a couple of entries:

  *

  Truman, Truman & White.

  Threats with a Potteries accent.

  *

  After which it seemed like time to start doing something about them. I called in my articled clerk, Alan Reilly, and despatched him to search the files of the Evening Mail and the Express and Star for coverage of the Belstone Lane incident, the trial of Truman, Truman and White, and the trial of the Payday Gang.

  When he had gone I rang the newspaper whose Sunday supplement had said that Hawkins and Watters had been disciplined for faking interview evidence. Their chief crime reporter had written the article. He quickly set my mind at rest. From somewhere he had obtained copies of the actual disciplinary charges laid against Hawkins and Watters and he read them over to me. There was not a shadow of doubt that they had been accused and found guilty of faking a confession in the Hussain case. The standard of proof in police disciplinary matters is the same as in a criminal court — ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ — so, in effect, they had been found guilty of forgery.

  I called Claude the Phantom on his mobile and gave him a list of people to find, but not to approach — Freddy Hughes, Glenys Simpson, the Trumans, Benjamin White and, as an afterthought, any friends or relatives of Billy Simpson.

  For a few minutes afterwards I actually thought I was getting a grip on Walton’s case, but it was only a few minutes before I realised that I was simply doing things without really knowing why and without the least idea what results they might produce. I pulled some files out of my in-tray, reminded myself that I had other clients, and settled down to less complicated and more profitable matters.

  The grey winter afternoon passed away. Neither Claude nor Alan reported in, but Jayne looked in at closing time to say goodnight and to tell me that Sheila had phoned from a call box in London. The snow was letting up down there and the trains were more or less on time so she was coming home. That cheered me up. I decided to finish the job I was doing, dump the rest back in the in-tray and go home to prepare a warm welcome for my guest.

  The square was quiet outside and it must have been about seven when I switched off my dictation machine. Pulling on my overcoat and grabbing my briefcase, I went down the internal stairs to the rear door of the building. After being fire-bombed and broken into last summer I had taken sterner security measures. Now there was an alarm system that could be set from the front or rear doors. I usually set it at the back door, because the lock on the ponderous Victorian front door was clumsy and stuck sometimes.

  I punched in the security code and watched the warning light come on. Somewhere above me I heard a phone bleeping, but I couldn’t be bothered to answer it. Stepping out through the back door, I pulled it shut, heard the lock click shut and turned around. As I did so I had the sudden vague idea that something was out of order. I wasn’t quick enough in tracking down the thought.

  With the alarm system I had installed security lamps on the rear of the building. They were triggered by movement or body heat and they should have come on as I stepped out of the door, but I had walked out into a pool of darkness.

  Out of the darkness something large and darker lunged at me and I felt a savage blow to the side of my head. I barely managed to keep my footing but I grasped my heavy briefcase and pushed it hard at my attacker. There was a satisfying grunt and whoosh of breath as it made contact, and I took a pace forward. He grabbed the case and tried to wrench it away. I immediately let go and his momentum threw him into a twist, he lost his balance on the sludge underfoot and sprawled full length, cursing.

  The yard was walled and almost pitch dark apart from odd glimmers of snow patches. I wasn’t about to fight a pitched bout with someone larger than me on that ground — not when he might be armed as Eddie Poxon had been. I was going to kick him hard and then run for the street. I took a pace forward and raised my foot.

  That was a mistake, because another shape came at me out of the shadows to my left and something hit me hard across the belly, doubling me up and leaving me gasping. A moment later a heavy blow struck the back of my head and I went right down, collapsing into the trampled sludge. A boot slammed into my face and another into my ribs. I was rapidly losing consciousness when a light flashed and I heard a strange sound. I had another feeling that something was out of order, but this time I never
got to work out what it was. Everything went red and then black and I passed out still wondering.

  20.

  I came round in a cubicle at the General Hospital. My head ached furiously, my vision was blurred, there was a pain in my left side and the right side of my face felt like a balloon. Two nurses were working on me, one cleaning up my face and one applying strapping to my ribs. I tried to speak but it came out somewhere between a blurt and a mumble.

  As my eyesight began to settle down I realised that I could see Sheila and Claude peering anxiously over the nurses’ shoulders. I tried to grin reassuringly at them but one of the nurses told me not to and anyway I couldn’t work my grinning muscles.

  The nurses finished their work and covered me up. Sheila and Claude came forward into the cubicle.

  ‘What happened?’ we all asked at once, though in my case it came out as ‘Wa oppened?’

  Sheila clasped my hand and sat beside the trolley. ‘I came over from the station,’ she said. ‘I rang home from the call box and you weren’t in, so I rang the office. I guessed you must be just leaving, so I came across.’

  ‘I’d just parked outside,’ Claude said. ‘When Sheila came along, we saw your light go out, so we walked around the back to meet you and there you were — brawling with a couple of heavies.’

  A memory returned. ‘What was the noise and the light?’ I said. ‘Just before I passed out?’

  Claude grinned. ‘That was Sheila,’ he said. ‘I flashed my torch, but she pulled out a screamer alarm and went straight in.’

  I looked at her admiringly. ‘A screamer alarm?’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We had a bit of trouble with prowlers on the campus at home, so the Uni shop started selling personal alarms. It seemed like a good idea to get one.’