Robbery with Malice

by Barrie Roberts

  ‘No, no, bach. You speak your piece. We have to allow a little licence for imagination now and then.’

  Claude pulled a notebook from his pocket and glanced at a page. ‘Hawkins’, he said, ‘made personal representations to the insurers that, although the loot had not been recovered, there was a point of principle — that without Glenys coming forward there would have been no convictions. Therefore they should pay a reward to discourage future robbers. So they did — to Glenys.’

  Everyone stared. Claude went on, ‘He even persuaded Mantons to fork out a bit extra.’

  Parry broke the silence that followed. ‘I apologise,’ he said. ‘So you’ve got your story. Glenys and Hawkins split the reward. What are you going to do about it now?’

  ‘Reinstate Walton’s appeal — and Grady’s.’

  ‘Fine, fine,’ he said. ‘And having put forward an explanation which, filled with lawyer’s guesses and “don’t knows” as it was, is probably what happened, what do I do about it?’

  ‘You?’ said Sheila.

  ‘Me,’ he said. ‘I am a police officer ever alert to protect society from the forces that threaten to destroy it and Christopher here has just given me a plausible outline of a conspiracy to rob and murder. You can probably make your case in the Court of Appeal — “unsafe and unsatisfactory” and all that — but where do I go, looking for evidence “beyond reasonable doubt”?’

  I smiled. ‘Try this,’ I said, and took a cassette from my pocket.

  He took it and stared at it. ‘What’s this?’ he said, suspiciously.

  ‘You remember I gave you the tape of the threatening phone call?’

  He nodded. ‘Not much use unless we had a voice to compare it with.’

  ‘There’s the voice,’ I said. ‘That’s a recording of an interview on the phone with Desmond Murphy — former Central Crime Squad officer, pal of Hawkins, he calls him “Gerry”, and erstwhile security manager for Mantons who also happens to be the man who made the threatening call.’

  Parry’s eyes were wide. ‘You’re absolutely certain sure?’ he said.

  I nodded. ‘Put that and the threatening call through a voice analysis and then go and see Mr Murphy and ask him about Hawkins and Belstone Lane. Unless he wants to be tied to the killings, he’ll talk.’

  35.

  Murphy talked. He talked loudly enough for charges to be made. Watters and Saffary were arrested and the week before the reinstated appeal of Alan Walton and Peter Grady was heard by the Court of Appeal, I walked across Jubilee Square to see the newspaper boards — ‘CENTRAL OFFICERS CHARGED’. I made a point of being in the Magistrates’ Court the next morning to see them remanded in custody and to make sure that Saffary saw me watching. I owed him at least that.

  It was only days before the Court of Appeal hearing. The arrests of the two CID officers had been a clear signal that we no longer had anything to worry about. All of a sudden life looked bright again and, as though in sympathy, the weather improved. Sleet and snow gave way to sunny days, cold but cheerful after the weeks of darkness and sludge. On Cannock Chase the last snowdrift melted away in a deep gully and exposed the remains of Eddie Poxon. The cold had preserved him, but he must have met his death very shortly after our confrontation with him in Bert’s Café. The mark of Sheila’s ‘Virgin’s One-step’ was still on him. So was the mark where somebody cracked his skull from behind. It couldn’t have been the late Gerry Hawkins, so I hoped it could be proved against Saffary and Watters.

  I insisted that Mrs Cassidy went to London for the appeal hearing and Sheila drove us down. This time they had brought Alan and Peter Grady from prison, and we knew they would not be going back.

  A court packed with reporters heard the Lord Chief deliver judgement: ‘a wicked and malicious conspiracy to deprive innocent men of their liberty — a cynical manipulation of the law by those whose duty it was to guard it — the unlawful suppression of evidence vital to the defence — the use of insurance money to reward an informant whose evidence was deeply flawed and given out of malice — the perversion of attempts to convict the real Belstone Lane killers’. So it went on, but it ended at last and we were all outside in the thin spring sunshine, struggling to keep our feet among a jostle of reporters and photographers, with little Granny Cassidy trying to kiss me and Alan Walton thumping me on the back and pumping my hand and microphones sprouting at us from all directions.

  Mrs Cassidy’s party was not till the following night, so Sheila and I had a private celebration at the Jubilee Room. On about the third glass of champagne she took something from her bag.

  ‘What’s that?’ I said.

  ‘That’s what I’ve been being mysterious about for days,’ she said and passed it to me.

  It was an old-fashioned copper penny, beaten out flat and wide and one side polished. On that side there was a decoration and some words.

  ‘It went up for auction in London. As soon as I read about it I knew I had to have it. That’s what I’ve been fixing up, raising some extra cash from the publishers and arranging for someone to bid for me, and there it is.’

  If I’d known how much trouble it was going to cause us, I’d have skimmed it out of the window then.

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  Author’s Note

  The Metropolitan Borough of Belston does not exist. If it did, it would probably be one of the so-called 'Black Country Boroughs' that lie north-west of Birmingham; since it doesn't, it isn't! All characters, events and organisations in this story are completely fictitious, with two exceptions.

  One exception is the Court of Appeal. No fiction writer could have created that; it is the work of politicians and judges. The other is the way in which a police force misleads the Court of Appeal. That also is taken from real life.