Reap the Whirlwind

by Mark Timlin

  ‘Well,’ I replied. ‘You can forget about that. I don’t do dangerous things any more, and that sounds dangerous to me. My life is chasing debts, finding missing persons and delivering writs. That’s it. I just want a quiet life.’

  ‘Don’t we all?’ he said. ‘Well, if that’s your last word, I suppose I’d better leave you to finish your drink and enjoy your quiet life.’ He consulted the expensive-looking watch on his wrist. ‘Time I was going. Thanks for yours. Time that is. Oh I nearly forgot.’ He reached into his jacket again and pulled out an envelope and slid it across the table to me. ‘Another two hundred pounds for your trouble. And don’t mention this meeting to anyone, there’s a good chap.’

  It’s been a long time since anyone called me that. ‘Fine,’ I said, and pocketed the dough.

  ‘I’ll take that,’ he said, nodding towards the envelope with the receipt inside. ‘I’ll make sure it gets delivered.’

  I passed it over. He picked it up, rose, leaving his beer, and with a good-natured ‘Cheerio for now’, he left me to finish mine. Which I did. Then I headed for the Japanese restaurant where, as I ate my Japanese sliced steak, my Japanese crunchy noodles and my Japanese hot sauce, and drank my Japanese cold beer, and where the air conditioning was on high too, I figured that I hadn’t been fed such a bunch of bullshit for a long time. But I didn’t let it spoil my appetite. After all, I thought, as I sat on the bus home, what could he do to me? I didn’t have to wait long to find out.

  3

  In The Jailhouse Now – Jimmie Rodgers

  Two days to be precise.

  Two days wondering what the hell this DI Spencer had really wanted from me, and why. It was like a nail in my shoe, or a nagging toothache all weekend. On the third morning, Monday, I had some business to do with a local lawyer about an old case I’d worked on. Nothing dramatic. No dead bodies littered about. I’d put on a suit and presented myself at his office, then back to mine.

  Another boiling morning, jacket on a hanger, shoes off, tie pulled down. Another Silk Cut smouldering in the ashtray, the same CD in the same stereo, the same electric fan slowly moving the hot air from one side of the room to the other, and the current account a little fatter, when my buddy Li who ran the tiny Vietnamese restaurant just up the road popped in for a natter. Now, just understand with Li there was no lookee, lookee, Charlie Chan bullshit. Li was shirt for Lionel, and he spoke English better than me. Not that that was anything to go by. So did lots of people. Li was second generation immigrant. His grandparents had done a runner in the fifties to get away from the regime and somehow got here and settled in Herne Hill. Li’s father was one of a tribe of kids. He’d married a local girl and Li was the fruit of his loins. The son had gone to catering college, then opened his restaurant in a shop next to the station, barely large enough to swing a proverbial. Li made the wickedest hot and sour soup I’d ever tasted. Hot and sour enough to bring tears to the eyes. But the taste!

  ‘Morning Nick,’ he said, as he stood in the doorway, leaning against the jamb. ‘Hot enough for you?’

  ‘Too bloody hot,’ I replied. ‘But not sour.’

  That would soon change.

  ‘Me too,’ he said.

  ‘You’re kidding. With your ancestry out in the paddy fields, I would’ve expected this sort of weather suited you down to the ground.’

  ‘I’ll ignore that possible racist slur on my ancestors and remind you of my mother’s delicate constitution regarding heat. She’s a child of England’s bloody cold.’

  ‘So why do you stand in that tiny kitchen all day sweating your bollocks off cooking red hot chilli curry?’ I asked.

  ‘Because I have to earn a crust just like you. But looking around there’s not much sign of discreet enquiries, or for that matter, enquiries of any kind.’ He was referring to the motto on my business cards. I shrugged. ‘Quiet time of the year,’ I said. ‘But up here.’ I tapped my temple, ‘it’s all action.’

  He looked over his shoulder and said, ‘Well, I reckon it’s going to get noisier in a minute. And action-packed if I’m not mistaken. There’s two blokes clocking your place from across the road, and I smell pork. And not of the sweet and sour variety. See ya.’ And with that he legged it back the way he’d come. He didn’t like cops any more than I did, and certainly had a nose for the boys in blue, even in plain clothes. And he was never wrong. I knew as soon as I saw the pair of them fill the doorway he had just vacated. ‘Nick Sharman,’ said the one on the right.

  ‘That’s me,’ I replied, the picture of innocence.

  ‘Good,’ said the other one, and they both moved into the room, closing the door behind them. That’s when they showed ID, and introduced themselves. The one on the right was DS Burke, the one on the left DI Dixon. I didn’t make any jokes about Dock Green.

  Burke was wearing a suit well above his pay grade, and a watch with more dials than strictly necessary. You could probably tell the time in Nicaragua, and the metal strap could tug a charabanc. He was polished as a Rolls-Royce, and twice as slippery. Dixon, on the other hand, looked like an old fashioned door kicker in trousers worn shiny in the backside. Put them together and they spelled big trouble. Dixon took the client’s seat, Burke turned off the stereo and leant against the wall. Dixon said, ‘Yesterday morning, you paid three hundred and sixty pounds in new, sequential twenty pound notes into the Tulse Hill branch of HSBC.’ As soon as he said that I knew what was coming. I should have tucked that dough under the mattress.

  ‘Correct,’ I said.

  ‘Well, those notes were part of the money stolen from the Knightsbridge branch of the National Bank on the 30th May this year.’

  ‘You don’t say,’ I said. So Spencer had stitched me right up.

  ‘Oh, I do,’ said Dixon. ‘Can you explain how you came by them?’

  Well I tried. I told them the story from A-Z, and the more I told it, the worse it sounded.

  ‘Very good,’ said Dixon. ‘And you expect us to believe that rubbish?’

  ‘It’s what happened.’

  So then we started to go round the Mulberry Bush. There was no Spencer involved in the case. They hadn’t heard of Stowe-Hartley, or some deceased old woman dying under suspicious circumstances in a care home. They wanted an alibi for the bank holiday weekend. I remembered it well. Just me, my DVD player, and a bunch of old films.

  ‘No one to back it up?’ asked Burke, speaking for the first time. I shook my head. ‘Nicky no mates,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Shame.’

  I could only agree. ‘But I did have takeaways on that Sunday and Monday night,’ I said. ‘Vietnamese on the Sunday, Pizza Express Monday. They’re bound to have records.’

  ‘Vietnamese from the establishment of that young gentleman who just ran up the road?’ asked Dixon.

  ‘Correct,’ I said.

  ‘Then maybe you do have mates after all,’ said Burke. ‘But not for the daytimes, they’re what matter.’

  ‘It won’t wash,’ said Dixon. ‘Whatever your story, we’ve got you for receiving. There are officers outside with a search warrant for here, your car, and your flat. Keys please.’

  I handed them over, then they told me to stand, nicked me for suspicion of robbery of the bank, and receiving stolen goods, read me my rights, handcuffed me, and took me out to their car. At least they let me put my shoes on.

  As we drove away, I saw Li standing in the road watching the sorry saga.

  Before we go any further, let me remind you of the robbery in question. It was big news that bank holiday week. No wars, no terrorist attacks, no rock stars OD’d. No female film star got out of a cab showing her lack of underwear. So the robbery at the main branch of the National Bank in Knightsbridge got all the headlines.

  What happened was, the bank was cuddled up close to a low rise office block that had an advertising agency as its one tenant. The office was shut for the long w
eekend. No security apart from an occasional drive-by. After all, who wanted to steal an advertising campaign for feminine hygiene products?

  Come the Friday evening about eight, two shiny vans bearing the livery of an upmarket executive decorators that didn’t exist pulled up. Witnesses saw maybe half a dozen, maybe more, maybe less, workmen in clean overalls unload ladders, buckets, paint pots, tools of all shapes and sizes. One of them bumped the front door in less time than it would take to unlock it, fixed the burglar alarm, and took the kit inside. Once in situ, they all left, only to return on the Saturday at six am, and the subsequent Sunday and bank holiday Monday at the same hours. There was hardly any noise all weekend, certainly not enough to upset the few residential neighbours.

  Inside, they rigged up a huge drill, tough enough to break through concrete, and drilled through from the office basement to the main vault of the bank. Inside were nicely wrapped brand new five, ten, twenty, and fifty pound notes waiting to be distributed to the bank’s smaller branches. Three million sterling if you were counting. Every last Lady Godiva was loaded into the decorators vans and spirited off God knows where. Not a trace of the dosh, or the robbers, had been seen since. That is, not until those twenties turned up in my bank, screwed, blued and tattooed. That was me.

  4

  I Got Stripes – Johnny Cash

  Not much was said on the short drive to Denmark Hill nick. They wanted me on tape. Dixon asked if I wanted a brief. I declined. I figured I’d let this run its own course and end up where it would. But it didn’t look like it would end well from where I was sitting in the back seat of a police car that smelt of stale McDonald’s.

  At least it gave me time to think. Paranoia was on the rampage. I was being set up. But why? Was it some kind of karma? Where had the cash from the robbery come from? Or was it all an elaborate plan to help the cops get Stowe-Hartley? Maybe that money wasn’t from the robbery at all. I only had Burke and Dixon’s word for it. I sat in the back of the cop car where the air con wasn’t working properly, just bubbling some faint memory of a chilly draft from when the motor was factory fresh, watching the pedestrians on the street going about their usual business. Lucky them.

  Downstairs at the cop shop smelt even worse than the car. Shit and cheap disinfectant. They took my photo front and side then put me in a bare room with just a table and four chairs, all bolted down. On the table was the recorder. The lights were fluorescent and too bright. But at least it was cooler than outside, although the walls were leaching something nasty and toxic.

  The two detectives joined me with coffee, informed me I was still under caution, unwrapped two cassettes and started. We three identified ourselves for the tape, and Dixon asked me again if I wanted a solicitor present. I declined again.

  Then they began. I could have done a no comment interview, but where was the fun in that? I was innocent. At least of these charges, and wanted them to know it. This is how it went.

  Dixon: ‘Mr Sharman, about the money that you paid into your bank that has been identified as part of the cash stolen from the National Bank in Knightsbridge on the spring bank holiday weekend this year. Can you explain how you came by it?

  All around the Mulberry Bush again.

  Me: ‘I’ve already told you. I got a call from a bloke calling himself Martineau. He asked me to deliver some papers to a lawyer in Holborn. The fee was two hundred quid in cash. It came in the post with the papers. I did the job and he was waiting for me outside. Flash dresser. I told Burke they would probably have got on. He then identified himself as DI Spencer. Bought me a drink and asked what I thought of the solicitor, then gave me another two hundred to keep quiet.’

  D: ‘Which you’re not.’

  Me: ‘Then I didn’t expect to end up here.’

  B: ‘And why would the Met care what a scrote like you would think of anyone?’

  Me: ‘That’s rude. And I don’t know. He just did. Then he told me this solicitor was a fixer. Architected jobs including the bank job.’

  D: ‘Alright. The name of the solicitor again.’

  I told him. Burke left the room. Dixon and I stayed. Five minutes later Burke came back.

  B: ‘There’s nothing on the solicitor. Clean as. No DI Spencer on the bank job.’

  Me: ‘Look, I don’t know where Spencer came from. I don’t know where he went. All I know is, he was there, and everything I’ve told you is the truth.’

  D: ‘But most interestingly, how did he get money from the bank? No money has been recovered.’

  Me: ‘Don’t ask me. I’m completely in the dark. Not for the first time.’

  D: ‘I think we’ll leave this for now. Let’s see what the searches to your home, office and car turn up.’

  All I added before they locked me up again was that, if four hundred quid was my cut from a robbery that had netted three million quid according to the reports I had read at the time, I had to be a low man on the totem pole. Although I read once that the most important figures depicted were the ones at the bottom. Funny the things you remember.

  Anyway, after we’d done wasting each other’s time, they sent me to a cell where I was fed a cold egg mayo sandwich and a warm cup of tea.

  The one good thing was that there was nothing to find at my flat, office, or in my car. Not anymore. At least that was what I thought.

  I kicked my heels in the cell all afternoon, then Dixon appeared and told me the search of my flat had turned up another eighteen grand and change in new notes. Same sequence. In the freezer of all places. How original.

  So Spencer had really done a number on me. But why? But I had a horrible feeling I would soon find out.

  I was released on police bail later that afternoon after agreeing to surrender my passport, which the cops already had from the search.

  They kicked me out at six o’clock, handing me back only my keys and a copy of the interview cassette. What I was supposed to do with that, Christ knows. It was hardly Abba’s greatest hits. Luckily, I had my Oyster card to get the bus home, which was full of commuters sweating their bollocks off. The inside of the bus smelt nearly as bad as the cop shop. I was sweating mine off too when I got back to my flat, which looked like a bomb had hit it, so I spent the evening putting Humpty back together again and decided to leave seeing what they’d done to my office until morning.

  5

  Dinner with Drac – John Zacherle

  But first I needed to speak to my old best of enemies, Detective Inspector Jack Robber.

  I called him on my land line as the cops had also nabbed my mobile. Not that there was anything incriminating on it. Not as far as I knew, but I hadn’t known about the cash. I hoped the most interesting would be the Russian ladies looking for a date, a free ten quid go on the Mirror bingo, and a special offer on blue jeans from the Levi’s site.

  He answered after three rings. ‘Robber.’

  ‘Hello Jack, it’s me, Nick.’

  ‘Oh Christ! What the hell do you want?’ I knew he’d be glad to hear from me.

  I explained what had happened and he laughed out loud. ‘Jesus, but you attract trouble like shit attracts flies. Burke and Dixon. I know them. One’s Burke by name, Burke by nature. The other one couldn’t find his dick in a light fog. Burke and Hare more like.’

  ‘They found me.’

  ‘You’re easy to find.’

  It’s always nice to be compared with shit and a copper’s penis.

  ‘So what do you want, as if I didn’t know?’ he asked.

  ‘If you hear anything…’

  He laughed out loud again. ‘What are you like? The National Bank job. You are coming up in the world.’

  ‘It’s not funny, Jack.’

  ‘It is from where I’m sitting.’

  ‘So will you listen out?’

  ‘Course I will. I wouldn’t miss out on this for the world. We’d
better meet. Same time, same place. Tomorrow.’

  My heart sank. That meant seven thirty at the Dog and Dart public house in Loughborough Junction. Or, as I called it, the dog it was that died. A boozer that stuck to the old school idea of the perfect pub. No music, fruit machines or karaoke. Where the idea of fine dining was two slices of white doorstep bread, a slab of orange cheese, and a pint of bitter, and the most miserable landlord unhung. ‘No Fackin’ Kids’ Robber would growl. That probably meant anyone under forty. So, while all around, pubs were going sport, gastro or being converted into flats, the Dog and Dart proudly faced the past.

  ‘I’ll be there,’ I said.

  ‘And bring money. But nothing that can be traced.’ He laughed again and cut me off. Always nice to catch up with an old friend. I knocked up a quick fried egg sandwich for my dinner, then made yet another mistake in a week that seemed to be full of them. I phoned my ex-wife and asked to speak to my daughter. ‘She’s not here,’ came the reply.

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘She’s horse riding.’

  ‘Blimey. When did that start?’

  ‘A while back.’

  ‘I didn’t know anything about it.’

  I think she wanted to say it was none of my business, but didn’t. Instead she said pointedly, ‘If you called more often, she might have told you herself.’

  She was right, of course. ‘So why didn’t you consult me?’ I asked.

  ‘Why should I?’

  I was halfway in a hole, and should have stopped digging. ‘What happens if she falls off and hurts herself?’

  ‘She’s a big girl now, Nick. Children grow up faster these days. And she has an experienced rider with her.’

  ‘And I suppose it’s expensive?’

  ‘We can afford it.’ By we, she meant her and Louis, her new husband.

  ‘So that’s it, I suppose,’ I said, retiring hurt from the fray. ‘Tell her I called, will you? And ask her to give me a bell.’