by R. W. Hughes
‘That was very precise Wilson. Well done! Who was the victim?’
‘The patient at the hospital is the guy we had at the station earlier in the week over the forged notes. We eventually charged him with receiving stolen property. He was a big lad called Sidney Locket. I don’t think I have ever, in my entire career, seen a bloke take a beating like that and survive.’
The sergeant pondered for a few moments before replying. ‘Well, from what you say constable, he may well not survive and that will be another murder that’s landed on our plate. In the meantime, arrange for a police guard to be placed at his bedside as a precaution also, issue a ban on any publicity.’
While Constable Wilson went to carry out his superior’s instructions and type up his report, the sergeant analysed in his mind the events up to present. First, the man at the hotel now down as Mr. X was carrying forged £20 notes and some he had used at the hotel and for his taxi fare. The reference to the plates also seemed as if he had these in his possession for printing the notes. These had been lifted when he had his briefcase stolen; some of the forged money had been used after he had lost his briefcase outside the railway station, obviously by the thief, who had also taken several of his mates into the city paying the returning taxi with a forged note. The owners of the plates were not very happy at losing their merchandise. Mr. X was clearly a carrier and he had paid very dearly for being rather sloppy in carrying out his duties. It was obvious he had been in possession of some cards, possibly credit cards. He knew, from the detective’s reports he had just read, that the electricity board men who had been working nearby had been approached by Mr. X and two of his associates the following day. According to one of the workmen Mr. X seemed to be a very frightened man. The two men were possibly involved with the death of Mr. X and also with the beating up of this young thug, Sidney Locket. They had obviously been informed that this Locket was under suspicion for stealing the briefcase. Sergeant Robinson was now convinced that Locket was not involved; it had been a savage case of mistaken identity. And these men had obviously got contacts in high places. A lot of the information he came across in this case would from now on only be shared on a need to know basis. He would pull in the other three members of this Locket gang and interview them again. In view of what had happened to their mate, they may now be more talkative.
*
On his return from work on Tuesday night, Sooty briefed Geoff, who had not left their digs all day. What he had to say sent cold shivers up and down his spine, leaving him weak at the knees, so much so that he was forced to lean on the kitchen table to support himself.
‘Two detectives interviewed me and my work mate about the three men who’d approached us trying to trace the stolen briefcase. They said they were now engaged in a murder enquiry. The bloke dragged out of the river was the same guy who’d lost his briefcase!’
That evening, Derek Bolton turned up at the bed-sit on his own. The first few rings on the doorbell sent Geoff into a panic attack, until the remainder of rings followed the secret code agreed amongst them. The look on Derek’s face as he entered the bed-sit told Geoff that he was also the bearer of bad news.
‘Our kid won’t come out in the dark so he’s staying in the digs and he’s locked and bolted the door. He heard in the garage today that hard case Locket had been beaten to a pulp. He’s in intensive care in the city hospital, under police guard.’
At the name of Locket Geoff jumped with a start.
‘Is that the Locket we knew at the school who drove the lorry on the storage warehouse job?’ he said feeling the panic attack returning.
‘The very same!’ came back the instant reply.
‘I saw him at the railway station with several of his cronies when I lifted the case but I don’t think he saw me.’
‘Well! I don’t think he’s going to see many people for a good while, if at all, according to our kid,’ continued Derek in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘He’s in a bad way and from what they were saying he won’t pull through. Even if he does, he won’t be bullying anybody else for a good while. Oh, before I forget, I checked out that list of figures on that paper I took to work. They’re all bank account numbers and the language is German, well, Swiss German really. If that says to you what it says to me Geoff, I reckon we are up the creek in a sinking boat without a paddle, and in bloody deep water.’
Sooty had been listening to his two mates talking but not understanding a lot of what was being said so he decided to put the kettle on. ‘Don’t make me a drink, Sooty,’ continued Derek.
‘I better get back and join our John. He’s not feeling too good. He’s a bag of nerves. I think he’s cracking up. He’s jumping at the slightest noise. He’s even frightened of his own shadow. I’ll bring him around tomorrow and we’ll all have a long talk to see where we’re going from here, if there’s anywhere for us to go!’ he said gloomily.
After Derek had left the bed-sit and they’d heard the door close at bottom of the stairs, Geoff sat with his mug of tea, going over in his mind the events of the last few days. What had started off as a simple opportunistic snatch of a briefcase had turned into a serious threat to all their lives. Not only were the police making serious enquiries, they were also being hunted by a gang of psychopaths. They had already killed one man and nearly killed another. It was only through good fortune and a case of mistaken identity that they’d avoided being on the receiving end. Geoff came out in a cold sweat at the thought of it. It could have been him in the hospital or, more likely in his case, in the morgue. Instead, it was the bully from the reform school, Sidney Locket.
The gang looking for the contents of the briefcase must have made enquiries locally to come up with the information that it was Sid Locket and his gang that operated around the railway station. So not only would every small-time crook be trying to get some information but it was likely that the gang had contacts in the local police force as well. It would only be a matter of time before someone remembered and came forward, because of either the police enquiries or the enquires made by the gang of thugs working for an organisation amongst the local underworld, and this would be the more dangerous of the two. It only needed for someone to say that he, Geoff Larkin, was in the area that afternoon or if they connected his flat mate Harry Sutton, the worker on the compressor, to Geoff. Then it would be like one of Sir Reginald’s favourite sayings; ‘It’s all over bar the shouting’ or, in this case, bar the screaming. As far as Geoff could see they had two options: to keep a low profile and try and sit it out and hope it would eventually all blow over, or all four of them to do a runner and attempt to start a new life somewhere else. The prospect of both options frightened him, leaving him with an awful empty feeling in his stomach. It was him that had got his mates into this situation so it was up to him to somehow get them out of it, preferably, all in one piece. He did not fancy the first option. It would only be a matter of time before they were rumbled.
If a hard case like Sid Locket couldn’t defend himself against this gang of heavies then there was no chance for the likes of them. This was not a game any more like the other scams he’d pulled. This was serious, life-threatening business that he’d got himself and the others involved in. He decided that even though it was very late he would slip out and make a phone call. He preferred it while it was dark because when he went out in the day he felt everybody was looking at him, whispering behind his back, plus he wanted to follow up a thought that had just occurred to him.
He desperately needed some options, some possibilities to put to the lads at the meeting he’d called for the following night. John Bolton was another problem that was playing on his mind; he was obviously very frightened and a weak link in a very fragile chain.
*
The following morning Sooty went to work as usual. Geoff thought how lucky he was as he watched the big lad finish off his fourth round of toast and marmalade, gulp the remains of his mug of tea then thump his way heavily down the stairs in his slipper-covered feet. He was co
mpletely unaware of the danger that the group were facing.
A short while after Sooty had left; the buzzer went in the bed-sit. Outside the front door of what had once been an elegant Georgian town house were the push bells to the individual bed-sits. Geoff stiffened. It was not Sooty coming back, he had his own key, and it was not either of the two Bolton brothers as they used a signal of buzzes. He stayed where he was, frozen to the spot, his imagination running away with him. Seven times the buzzer sounded.
‘Go away! Go away! Why don‘t you go away?’ he said to himself loudly.
He heard the door open from the old lady’s bed-sit below him.
‘NO! Don’t open the door, Mrs. Oaks. Don’t let them in!’ He heard the front door open and the faint sound of a male voice in conversation from the bottom of the stairs.
Then he heard the door close. Followed shortly afterwards by the closing of Mrs. Oaks’ door. His heart, which a few seconds ago was racing like a steam hammer, started to slow down as he relaxed, whoever it was had gone. There was a loud knock on the bed-sit door.
Geoff grasped the side of the kitchen table as a mist seemed to pass in front of his eyes and he suddenly felt dizzy, having a mental picture of Sid Locket’s badly beaten face and a corpse being pulled out for identification on a trolley in the morgue. He looked in vain around the room. There was no other way out of the bed-sit, apart from the door, and the only window in the place had a wooden block screwed in place, which allowed it to open only a few inches.
The second volley of knocking on the door sent further spasms of fear through Geoff’s shaking frame; these were followed by a shout from outside in the hall.
‘Are you there Geoff? It’s me, Mr. Lovett.’ Geoff gasped a deep sigh of relief; Ian Lovett was his probation officer.
‘Right, Mr. Lovett, just give me a minute,’ he shouted, as he quickly took off his trousers and replaced them with his pyjamas. Geoff opened the door to face a slightly panting overweight middle-aged, slightly balding, probation officer.
As he stepped back into the room Mr. Lovett followed him into the bed-sit.
‘I’m sorry I missed the interview, Mr. Lovett but as you can see,’ giving a false sneeze, ‘I’m made away with the flu. I’ve been laid up in bed for five days.’
‘Yes, that might well be the case, Geoffrey,’ replied the probation officer, stepping back a pace and placing a clean, white handkerchief over his nose and mouth. ‘But you know you should inform me if you think you cannot keep the appointed interview, for whatever reason. It makes my job much more difficult than it already is. You realise I may have to report you for this breach in your agreement.’
Geoff apologised again between bouts of forced coughing. He knew that Ian Lovett was a softie at heart and, for all his threats; it was very unlikely that he would be reported.
‘How are you anyway? You look very pale and you’re shaking all over.’ This last sentence from his probation officer nearly caused Geoff to burst into laughter, more with a sense of relief than merriment.
‘I was a lot worse a short while ago than I am now,’ he replied with a smile.
‘Well, as long as you are getting better. I’ll be in touch as soon as I fix up another interview,’ said Ian Lovett as he backed off towards the open door, still holding his handkerchief to his face.
‘Oh, Mr. Lovett,’ said Geoff, ‘I had a friend in school, Dave Higgins, and he’s still in the area so, for old times’ sake, I’d like to look him up when I get the chance.’ Mr. Lovett took his hand off the door handle.
‘Yes, he lives in the block of flats at the other end of the town. I have his address here. I’ve got to see him tomorrow so I’ll remember you to him.’ He then scribbled an address on a scrap of paper and passed it over to Geoff.
‘Thanks, Mr. Lovett but I would appreciate if you didn’t as I’d like him to be surprised when he hears from me.’
The probation officer nodded as he left the room.
Geoff watched him make his way down the stairs, closing the door to the bed-sit at the same time as Ian Lovett pulled the front door to the property behind him on his way back out into the street. Geoff sat on the bed, deep in thought. He would not be able to cope with all this pressure and the uncertainty every time someone rang their buzzer or when they were approached by a stranger in the street. They would definitely have to move and very soon. If he could not persuade the rest of the gang to go he would have to look after number one. Much as he knew he wouldn’t like leaving them, he would have to go it alone, leaving the other three to their eventual unpleasant fate at the hands of the forgers.
*
That same day at the police station, little progress was being made on the murder enquiry. Sidney Locket was still under police guard and still on the danger list at the hospital. No more forged notes had turned up in the town. Sergeant Robinson had sent two detectives to all the businesses in the area that had security cameras that still had films of the day the briefcase theft had taken place. They had instructions to obtain all these recordings. The team would check to see if anything of any relevance was available for around the time of the unreported theft.
The detectives he had sent to the hotel had also drawn a blank. Mr. X had been collected at the station by a local taxi and brought to the hotel. They had traced and interviewed the taxi driver who said that Mr. X had paid with a £20 note but the driver had given it to a customer later in the day in his change from a £50 note. So, if that twenty was a forgery, it was still floating about somewhere in the system.
One of the cleaning maids remembered watching from a bedroom window as Mr. X walked down the lane to the main road and was collected in a black car. She didn’t know the make or model of the vehicle and it was much too far away to see the number plate. She was only looking through the window for a few moments but she did think that it was a little odd that the car did not come to the hotel entrance to collect him, especially as it was raining quite heavily at the time. Unfortunately, she never gave it another thought until she was interviewed.
It was much later the same day that Constable Wilson, who was assigned to checking the films from the speed cameras, rang Sergeant Robinson and asked him if he was free to view a section of film that was quite interesting. What the film showed was a motorcyclist who had been recorded exceeding the speed limit at the time of the theft. Caught on the camera was a pedestrian crossing the road behind the cyclist.
‘As you can see sergeant,’ said Constable Wilson, unable to hide the excitement in his voice, ‘from the position of the pedestrian in relation to the position of the motorcyclist at that time, he would have had to walk either in front or behind the taxi that was dropping off Mr. X in front of the railway station.’
‘You’re right there, Wilson, that’s spot on! Well done! This is a pretty good breakthrough even though I say it myself. Mind you these are lousy pictures though. Can we get any clearer details of the pedestrian?’
‘They’re with the lab now. They’ll be in touch as soon as they’ve something to show us,’ Wilson responded
‘You go and chase them up Willie; this is important and pretty vital information.’ Constable Wilson went off to follow the sergeant’s instructions, feeling quite pleased with himself. To be called by his first name by the sergeant was praise indeed.
*
The police station did not have the facilities to modify the film themselves so it had to be sent to a specialist firm and that involved obtaining an order and request form which, in turn, needed signing by a superintendent or a higher-ranking senior officer. This all took time and a lot of explaining, especially, if the senior officer was not involved in that particular case.
It was late afternoon before Constable Wilson had obtained all the necessary paperwork forcing him to make his way to the industrial estate at the far side of town just as the rush hour was beginning. When he eventually arrived at the photography and printing firm, they informed him that it would be the following morning, at the earliest, befo
re they could analyse and possibly improve the film. This information did not go down very well with the sergeant when Constable Wilson reported back to him at the station that evening.
Sergeant Robinson was coming under severe pressure from the superintendent, who in turn was under pressure from the chief constable, to get some results on this high-profile murder.
*
It was a very sombre group that met that night at Geoff and Sooty’s bed-sit. It was John Bolton who eventually broke the long silence.
‘I’ve been a bag of nerves at the garage all day. Every time a strange car pulled up outside I hid in the back of the garage breakdown truck.’
Derek Bolton was also suffering the same. ‘Every time someone entered the shop I went into the work area at the rear of the premises, especially after I’d used the shop’s computer to track down the list of numbers and the names written in German that had turned out to be bank accounts.’
Geoff said he had experienced the same feeling when Ian Lovett had called that afternoon.
Sooty said that he felt fine and couldn’t understand what their problem was.
‘I think, if you want my opinion, we have got to leave,’ stated Geoff. ‘I think we have got to go tonight. If we stay here any longer we risk being either caught by the coppers or by the gang of fraudsters.’
‘How do you mean leave here tonight, Geoff?’ a surprised Sooty responded. ‘What about our jobs and the digs?’ he continued, quite bemused.
‘Never mind the jobs, what about all our lives?’ quipped Derek Bolton.
‘Where will we go?’ echoed his brother.
‘We’ll go to the city,’ said Geoff. ‘We’ve got enough money to see us through for the next few months. The problem is we can’t give the cards, the money, the plates or the bank numbers back because we don’t know who to give them back too! We’ll just have to lie low in Manchester and hope that, in time, it all blows over.’
What he did not tell the rest of the team was that he had made a phone call that afternoon talking to his old associate Jock the Fence, to see whether it was possible and how much it would cost for him to obtain four forged passports. But one thing at a time, his survival instinct was screaming for him to get as far away from this area as quickly as possible.