by R. W. Hughes
There were two glowing lit cigarette ends indicating that there were at least two occupants in the driver’s cab. As soon as the vehicle had passed, the boys left the cover of the trees and ran up the lane as fast as they could, pushing their bikes in front of them.
It was only when they reached the road that they stopped panting for breath, looking, listening and trying to hear to make sure they were not being pursued. It was only then that their panic started to subside.
They did not turn on their bicycle lights until they had pushed their bikes well away from the lane and they had started to peddle along the road.
Before mounting his bike and following the other three lads who were going hell for leather down the road, their bikes’ faint headlamps bobbing up and down the tarmac in the process, Geoff turned and looked back down the lane, the rear lights of the lorry were still on and he could see that the vehicle had parked where the electric board gang had finished the previous day. This was the exact spot where the Bolton brothers had returned the wheelbarrows, leaving them lying on top of an empty tarpaulin and the few remaining scraps of copper wire.
The following morning Geoff had a problem trying to get Sooty out of his bunk. The big lad was exhausted; he had worked harder the previous night than all three of them put together. ‘We have to turn up Sooty. Even though you just go through the motions, you have to be there, if we aren’t it will look suspicious and we don’t want to attract any attention to ourselves.’
Eventually he succeeded with threats and shouts at the big lad, but they had missed their breakfast. They were also late for the van and received an abrupt telling off from the foreman in charge of the gang of workmen; he used some choice language and words that Geoff and Sooty even in the remand centre, had never heard before.
It was several minutes after the gang of workmen had arrived that the wheelbarrows were found to be missing, along with the tarpaulin and several spades, shovels and picks that had been taken from the cabin where the locked door had been forced.
Geoff and Sooty were sent with the team of workmen to finish the last stretch of overhead power cable while, in the meantime, the foreman contacted his head office who in turn informed the local police.
It was later on that day, in what was a wet afternoon, while Geoff was cleaning up the inside of the large van after the afternoon tea break, when a plain-looking car pulled in alongside him. Two men in raincoats left the car and, seeing Geoff, came to the rear of the vehicle.
‘We’re looking for the foreman Mr. Mottershed, Mr. D Mottershed. Do you know where he is?’ asked the tallest of the men, looking at Geoff.
‘He’s coming down the lane now, he must have seen your car arrive, he’s the one in the yellow waterproofs,’ said Geoff, pointing with his brush in the direction of a man hurrying down the lane towards them. The two men went to meet the foreman.
All three stopped, huddled in deep conversation for about a quarter of an hour, they were just too far away for Geoff to eavesdrop on the details of their discussion, even though he kept close to the open door, brushing the same area of floor over and over again.
It was at the end of the following week that the talk in the van amongst the group of engineers was of the tinkers that had been caught trying to sell the two wheelbarrows and the tools still with the feint initials of the electricity board stamped on their sides under a coating of cheap paint, but there was no sign of the copper cable even though all the scrap yards in the area had been searched by the police.
It was John Bolton who brought up the question that was on the other lad’s minds while they were in the local café where the group met at weekends.
‘What do we do with all that wire Geoff? We need a van to move it and none of us know anyone we can trust who has one.’
‘You don’t need to worry,’ replied Geoff, smiling. ‘That wire’s worth several hundred pounds and it’s as safe as houses where it is. It’s even better than having money in the bank. That graveyard is our security and, anyway, it doesn’t pay to have all your eggs in one basket. Also, not having a van has worked in our favour. When we do eventually get rid of the merchandise, the police won’t be looking for it anymore.’
The Bolton brothers looked across at Geoff. Sooty looked down at the café table top and shook his head slowly then began to laugh quietly to himself; life was definitely not boring being associated with Geoff Larkin.
Sooty’s giggling was infectious; soon their uncontrollable loud laughter was attracting sideways glances from the proprietor and the rest of his customers in the café.
*
It was several months later. The Bolton brothers had left the school and were staying in a young workers’ hostel. Geoff and Sooty had also left the school and were still on the scheme with the electricity company, both sharing a small bed-sit arranged by social services.
Derek Bolton was still working in the computer shop but it was John Bolton who came up with a solution for moving the copper cable. John had so impressed the garage proprietor he been taken on permanently at the premises where he had been on work experience, also he had recently passed his driving test after taking driving lessons from the garage owner. Geoff, in the meantime, had approached a lad they knew from the remand centre who was working at a depot that stripped and then crushed badly damaged and scrap cars.
For an equal cut, he was prepared to take and dispose of the scrap copper wire, but it had to be delivered on a Saturday morning between ten and eleven o’clock when he was in charge of the yard. John Bolton and Geoff had taken the opportunity to borrow the garage’s 1500 weight van very early one Saturday morning while the garage proprietor had been laid up in bed with a serious bout of flu. He had given John Bolton the keys to open the garage just to answer the phone and take down any messages until he was fit again to come back to work in a few days’ time.
On their way out of town they had also picked up Sooty and John Bolton. On arrival at the graveyard they reconnoitred the area to see that it was all clear, and then as Geoff and Derek quickly dragged the cable from under the gravestones Sooty and John dragged it to; then loaded the heavy copper wire into the van.
From arriving at the church to being back on the lane leading to the road took them just thirty minutes. Sooty and Derek Bolton were exhausted, their shirts showing large dark patches where the material had absorbed the sweat from their overworked bodies. They were lying flat out on top of the cable bouncing about in the back of the van while Geoff and John Bolton sat in the front cab.
‘I’ve never worked so hard before,’ gasped Derek from his perch on top of the wire, ‘I’m shattered, absolutely bloody shattered.’
‘Watch that guy with the dog John!’ shouted Geoff as the van swung out of the church yard just missing a man taking an early morning walk with his dog.
All that could be heard as they made their way to the scrap yard was the gasping for breath of the four young men along with the squeaking from the springs of the overloaded vehicle
‘What if that guy reports us,’ shouted Derek from the rear of the van.
‘Don’t you worry Derek, John has made some false number plates in the garage while his boss was off ill; we fitted them first thing this morning in case anyone saw us acting suspiciously in the churchyard.’
Geoff had a driving licence which he had taken from the wallet of one of the workers’ coats that had been hung in the cabin, it was from the same man who had been constantly provoking them with his sarcastic remarks about their stay in the remand centre: this was to be used for identification at the scrap yard when they signed for the money, if there were to be any comebacks – it covered their contact there.
As they turned off the main road into a side street the rear nearside wheels of the van hit the kerb with a crunch. ‘Steady. Slow down, John!’ shouted Geoff as all four lads were bounced in the air as the rear wheel went on to the high pavement and then dropped back into the gutter.
‘OK behind!’ shouted Geoff as he looked throu
gh the rear mirror, the last thing they wanted was to be pulled over by a roving police car, or attract undue attention by changing a burst tyre in the centre of the town.
After the weigh-in of the copper cable Geoff was paid cash, then forged the signature in the scrap yard pay in book using the stolen drivers licence as proof of identity, they then took the van back to the premises where John Bolton worked.
Once in the safety of the garage they removed the false number plates, it was only then that they felt they could relax, sitting around on a variety of odd chairs. ‘Put the kettle on Sooty and make a brew,’ shouted Geoff light-heartedly.
While Sooty quickly went to make a pot of tea Geoff placed the money from the scrap yard on the kitchen table.
‘I’ve never seen so much money,’ said Sooty as he brought in four cups and a steaming pot of tea, as Geoff proceeded to divide the wad of £20 notes into four piles.
‘£890 in total,’ said Geoff, ‘that’s £220 each and £10 for John to put some fuel in the van so nobody’s the wiser.’
‘Great!’ said John Bolton whistling through his teeth. Derek Bolton was trying to say something but said nothing, just opening and closing his mouth.
‘Well, what are you going to do with all this cash?’ said Geoff to nobody in particular but to the group in general. There was a silence; none of the young men had thought that far ahead.
‘Me and our kid can’t leave the cash at the hostel. It would be gone within a couple of days cos they’re a pack of thieving robbers there, nothing in that place is safe!’
There was a long silence. The others started laughing, it suddenly dawned on John what he’d said, and he too joined the others bursting into laughter, which all helped to relax what had been a very tense several hours.
‘Will you look after mine and our kid’s share in your digs, Geoff?’
‘OK! I’ll act as banker, I’ll let you have your money as and when you want it.’
‘That’s fine by us,’ agreed the Bolton brothers.
‘I’ll go along with that,’ ventured Sooty.
‘Right that’s done,’ said Geoff. His hiding place was in the high level WC cistern in the bathroom of the bed-sit, he knew it was reasonably safe there.
Full of confidence after the copper wire job and the easy money it had made them all, Geoff started to look around for another opportunity to boost the cash intake for the benefit of who he now considered to be his team.
*
The electricity board depot was on the edge of an industrial estate. Running parallel was a row of houses that were the start of a council estate with a chain link fence separating the two. Payday for the electricity board employees was Friday. As some of the men started work very early in the morning the wage packets were delivered from head office on Thursday afternoon then kept in the site manager’s safe overnight.
The pay clerk arrived early on a Friday morning in order to give out the wages when the workmen called at the site manager’s office before leaving on their various jobs. It had been from here on Fridays where both Geoff and Sooty had collected their money when on the work experience scheme.
Geoff had noticed that the safe, which was much smaller than an average domestic gas cooker, was against the back wall of the office. On the other side of this wall was a lock-up in which signs were kept: ‘Men at Work’, ‘Danger! Overhead Cable’, and various others. The previous week he had been given the menial job of knocking a small hole through this wall for a new waste pipe from a wash hand basin in the office into a drain in the storage shed. He had expected the white, painted wall to be concrete but was surprised to find it was just a form of clinker block, which his masonry chisel went through quite easily. The shed door had a heavy padlock on the outside, which was opened first thing in the morning by the night watchman. The door was then left loose, the padlock with the key left in the office hanging on the rear wall above where Geoff had to knock through the wall, this was until the night watchman closed and locked the door again at night. Geoff had purchased a similar looking lock and replaced the existing one, leaving himself with a spare key.
The night watchman was an old electricity board employee who was just working off the years before he retired permanently. Geoff had discovered by some discreet enquiries that the watchman also threw darts for the local pub on the council estate. On darts night, which was Thursday, he would slip off the site for a couple of hours to participate in his favourite sport.
Geoff had called a meeting at his digs and was putting his proposition to the rest of the team. There were only two chairs in the small bed-sit so when he called a conference they assembled one of the fold-up beds to form two more seats.
‘You mean, Geoff, we remove this rear wall to get at the safe?’ asked Derek Bolton.
‘Yes!’ answered Geoff. ‘The alarms are fitted to the door and the windows of the office. We remove just a sufficient amount of this crappy wall to slide out the safe and then we take the safe to where we can open it at our leisure.’
‘Yeah, but won’t someone hear us banging? Even if the wall is crap there will still be a lot of noise,’ added Derek’s older brother, John.
But Geoff had got everything planned. ‘The night watchman won’t be there and people living nearby are used to men working at night to repair some of the big machinery. There shouldn’t be any problem. We park at the far end of the compound and all we have to do is enter the compound using the same gap as the watchman uses to go to the pub. If it goes pear shape we disappear out through the same gap in the fence, which is the farthest point from the offices. We carry the safe back to John’s van and we’re off, nobody’s any the wiser until they open the office early on Friday morning.’
Whatever obstacles the rest of the team came up with, Geoff had an answer. So after a lot of mumbling it was reluctantly decided that the following Thursday night they would put his plan into action.
Everything started off well on their chosen night. Derek driving his brother’s work’s van, taking the opportunity to improve his driving skills before his forthcoming driving test in several days’ time. They parked the van in a quiet lay-by while they fitted the false number plates, waiting until they saw the watchman leave through the gap in the fencing.
Giving the watchman sufficient time to get out of earshot, all four slipped out of the van into the compound. Geoff, using his spare key, unlocked the store; they quickly removed some signs to give them a clear access to the rear wall.
Sooty was given a sledgehammer then pointed in the direction of the wall. A few well-directed blows from the hammer removed several large pieces of clinker block, the sound of the demolition echoed and vibrated within the confined space of the small store room. This panicked John, who was on watch at the store room door. ‘Quiet! It’s too noisy!’ he shouted.
‘You be quiet, you’re making more noise than any of us with your shouting,’ came back the angry retort from his brother, Derek.
‘Shhh!’ whispered Geoff loudly. The last thing he wanted was a shouting match between the two brothers. They all stood still for several minutes but there was no sign of any alarm from the occupants of the nearby council houses.
The hole allowed access for a crowbar to remove several more loosened blocks, leaving a larger opening and exposing the office safe. Slipping a rope over the large metal box Sooty attempted to drag it into the storage shed. But for all the big lad’s straining the container stayed stationary.
It took the effort of all four lads to eventually drag inch by inch the heavy lump of metal into the storage shed. ‘Each one of you takes a corner. OK! Lift!’ Geoff directed. The combined effort of all four managed to lift the safe about nine inches clear of the floor.
‘I can’t hold it, it’s slipping,’ gasped Derek and the corner of the safe slowly slipped from his grasp, landing across the boot of Sooty and his own footwear. There was no problem with Sooty because he was wearing his steel toe capped working boots but Derek was wearing ordinary, soft sneakers
.
He gasped out a scream, ‘AHHH!’ as Sooty stifled his shout of pain with a big hand over his mouth. Geoff used the crowbar to ease the pressure and Derek released his trapped foot from under the safe. He then proceeded to hop around the confined space in the store shed, cursing loudly, ‘Shit! Shit! Shitting Shit!’ Banging into the road signs, they crashed to the floor sending a cloud of fine choking dust into the air.
This brought another loud, ‘Shhh!’ from Geoff. The situation was too much for Sooty who burst into a fit of uncontrollable nervous giggling.
Geoff just managed to restrain John Bolton as he made a bolt for the open door at the same time Derek burst into a fit of sneezing no doubt caused by the dust.
For several minutes the group stood perfectly still, looking at one another in expectation of someone nearby raising the alarm. There was no noise from outside the compound. Slowly they relaxed a little as everything seemed to be normal. ‘We’ll never carry this across the compound Geoff,’ voiced a panting Sooty as he gave up trying to move the safe.
‘OK!’ said Geoff, making a decision. He had never imagined that something so small could be so heavy that the four of them could not carry it. ‘We’ve still got plenty of time. Let’s split up and see if we can find something to move the heavy sod.’
They returned after twenty minutes of desperate searching of the depot but none of them had found anything that would carry the safe.
‘Where’s our kid?’ said John Bolton, with the hint of panic in his voice as he realised his brother was not with the group.
‘He’s hobbling across the compound now,’ said Geoff from the doorway. ‘Hang about, he’s pushing something. He’s found something to move the safe.’
Derek had found something to try and move the safe but not from in the compound, he’d noticed it while waiting for the watchman to leave. It had been at the side of one of the nearby council houses.