by Mark Timlin
They were both wearing long macs, and we were each issued with balaclavas, that, rolled up, worked as watch caps.
Two cars were waiting, a big Jaguar, and an equally big Mercedes. Both automatic, both gassed up, both presumably stolen, presumably with false number plates. I didn’t ask. The skinhead showed me how to pop the boot lid of the Jag from the driver’s seat. ‘Use it,’ he said.
Before we left, with the skinhead driving the Mercedes, Itchy tapped me on the shoulder with his gun. ‘Don’t fuck up,’ he said.
And that was almost all he said to me the entire morning. Twitchy on the other hand never shut up. Itchy must’ve been used to him. We mounted up and headed north like the wild bunch, all ready to kick arse, but actually more like the gang who couldn’t shoot straight.
44
Crosstown Traffic – The Jimmy Hendrix Experience
We went as a convoy through the rush hour traffic. Even though it was Saturday, and early, the traffic was still heavy and it took an age. How commuters did the journey daily I couldn’t comprehend. It would have sent me postal. Itch and Twitch sat in the back. Twitch kept up a running commentary. I put on Capital Radio. It was as crappy as always, but it drowned out Twitch a bit. I hate DJs.
The skinhead had told me we’d do a dry run.
I followed the Merc round the back streets of Waterloo. Itchy leaned forward and whispered in my ear. ‘Don’t look now, but that’s the place.’
Of course, I looked. It was a scruffy office building, dating I guessed from around WWI. It certainly didn’t look like the sort of place to house millions in easily converted jewels. Maybe that was the idea.
We cruised down the street, left into the Cut, left at the lights again by the Ring public house, over Blackfriars Bridge, into the city and on towards the London Hospital.
Part of the journey covered what had been my beat when I was a young police constable stationed at Kennington nick, the rest where I’d spent part of my misspent youth. I knew it like the back of my hand.
The area might’ve changed cosmetically, skyscrapers springing up everywhere, but the streets remained the same.
We stopped in the Sainsbury’s car park opposite the hospital. It was pay and display, and we bought four hours for the Mercedes.
The skinhead handed me the keys to the Merc and went off without a word in the direction of the tube.
We went back to the Jag, and I did a reverse of the trip from Waterloo. Itch and Twitch sat in the back as usual. Itch was still playing with his gun like it might have an orgasm soon. Or him.
We spotted a cafe that was open, parked the Jag on a meter and went inside.
It was the usual deal. Full English all day breakfast, and roasts for lunch. We couldn’t eat. Just ordered teas. Itch and Twitch sat at one table, I sat on my own, looking through the steamy window at an ever darkening sky. The tea was stewed, and I figured you could track my recent life through greasy spoons and dodgy boozers. One thing was that there was a vintage Rock-Ola jukebox buzzing in the corner. I checked it out, and for fifty pence got ‘Crosstown Traffic’ by Hendrix and ‘Hard Work’ by John Handy?
A few minutes after the music stopped, Itchy’s phone rang. I guessed it was the inside man, and I was right. ‘It’s on the move,’ he said to me. ‘Let’s go.’
So we went.
We went back to the car, and I drove slowly into the street housing the target building. There was a vacant parking meter maybe fifty yards opposite the front door. ‘God’s smiling,’ said Twitch, as I drove in.
We sat for fifteen minutes, then a Ford Granada passed us and pulled over to the far side, bang outside the door. Both front doors opened, and two blokes in dark suits exited. They walked to the back of the car on opposite sides, and the driver keyed the boot open.
Itchy and Twitchy were out of the Jag fast, just closing the near side door without catching the latch. ‘Open the door for us when we’re done,’ said Twitchy, as he followed his mate outside. They walked fast across the road as the two from the Granada hitched two cases from its boot. Cases larger than a briefcase but smaller than suitcases. One of the blokes blimped the pair heading their way, but too late. Itchy cracked him one on his head and he went hard against the body of the car. Twitchy tugged his shooter from under his coat, said something I didn’t catch, and the other bloke put his case on the ground.
Started the engine, popped the boot, leant back and pushed the near side door open as Itch and Twitch headed my way, each carrying a case. I pulled over beside them.
One case went into the boot, lid slammed shut, the other chucked in the back and they jammed themselves in beside it as I took off with a yelp from the tyres and the door closed hard.
‘Gently,’ Twitchy shouted, and I slowed, then turned into the Cut again and away. In my mirror, I saw the bloke who hadn’t been smacked pull a mobile from his pocket and start tapping the keyboard.
45
Shotgun – Junior Walker And The Allstars
We had green lights all the way to Blackfriars Bridge. Twitchy was in seventh heaven, thanking God, Jesus, Allah and probably Buddha and Hari Krishna as well. I wasn’t listening, just concentrating on getting the hell out of Dodge as the saying goes.
As usual Itchy said nothing.
As we hit the bridge, green turned to blue as a squad car peeled out from Upper Ground with a squeal of tyres and a blare from its klaxon. Blues and twos, just what we didn’t want or need. But there it was, and catching up fast.
‘Hold on tight,’ I said out loud. ‘This could get nasty,’ and tromped the kick down on the Jag hard. The car reared back then took off like the trouper I knew its makers had made it.
The motor screamed, and the river was just a silver streak as we came off the bridge, over the centre barrier with an expensive sounding bang from the undercarriage, my heart in my mouth as I poured on more acceleration and shot through the traffic opposite heading for the bridge going south. Chaos ensued, with horns blaring at us, cars bucking and sliding to avoid a collision, and pedestrians flying in all directions as we entered Queen Victoria Street more by luck than judgement, and straight up towards Mansion House, with the cops still on our tail. Then, like a bloody leviathan, a two storey block of flats on a dozen fat tyres, a bloody tourist bus, pulled out of its parking bay straight ahead. I dragged the wheel to the right and swung the Jag into the oncoming traffic. More horns, more drivers panicking at the sight of the Jag’s big chrome grille and headlights in full beam heading towards them. Inside the car Twitchy was bleating like a nanny goat and even Itchy’s face was pale when I clocked him in the inside mirror.
And still the cop car kept coming.
I slammed hard left and back into our lane leaving the bus stuck at an angle, and did a left at Mansion House tube, the police car coming up on my back bumper, so there was only one thing to do. So I did it. A handbrake turn in an automatic is harder than with a stick shift, but I’d been taught by experts. Crash the gear lever down to ONE, spin the steering wheel hard clockwise, whack on the handbrake, back into DRIVE, foot like a club on the accelerator for the kick down again and let the laws of physics do the rest. Or hope they will. And they did. The big old beauty spun round like a top, black smoke pouring off the back tyres and the last I saw of that particular squad car was two open mouthed old Bill bouncing their vehicle up on the pavement to avoid a head on, hitting the wall of an old warehouse in a shower of sparks and pieces of cop car flying left, right and centre. Next left, left again into a narrow alley with only a green garbage bin blocking the way. I kept going hard. If it was plastic – OK. If it was metal, then Christ knows what. Luckily it was the former which exploded like a bomb, and plastic and trash that covered the Jag as I hit it hard. The windscreen was covered in greasy shit and I was glad I’d learned which switch was which back at the warehouse. Then I turned left again, and right into another alleyway, and braked to
a halt between a couple of delivery vans.
The Jag was a disgrace, with all kinds of crap sticking to the bodywork, and the motor was running rough after the treatment I’d given it, and the temperature gauge was creeping up towards the red. That had been really no way to treat the beautiful lady who had got us out of the hands of the local guardians of law and order.
‘What’ve you stopped for?’ Demanded Itchy. No ‘well done’ for the superb getaway, but then, what did I expect? He stuck the muzzle of his shotgun into the back of my neck as he spoke. Fat chance he was going to blow my head off under the circumstances, so I just let it go. We were all feeling the stress. No point in making things worse. With a bit of luck this would all be over soon, and we could all get on with our lives.
‘Just laying low for a minute. Don’t fret,’ I said. Up ahead I’d seen another flash of blue light, but it moved off and all seemed serene. I gently took off again, clocked the next street right and left, and once again by luck, there we were in Old Street, bang up close to Aldgate and Whitechapel Road, exactly where we needed to be, and with not a copper in sight.
‘Trust me, boys, ‘I said. ‘All is well.’
Just a slow run past the London Hospital on the right and the street market on the left, then there was Sainsbury’s on the corner of Cambridge Heath Road. The sky was blacker than ever as we want into the supermarket car park. We all got out, I left the keys in the car as ordered, and we headed towards the Mercedes and freedom, Itch and Twitch carrying a case of tom each. Trouble is, something was wrong. It was like the earth had stopped spinning. It was quiet, too quiet. Just like they used to say in old western movies. No pedestrians on what would normally be a busy Saturday shopping hour, or a lunchtime rush for drinks and sandwiches. Itchy noticed too, and pulled his shooter from under his coat as armed coppers appeared as if by magic from behind parked cars and vans, and from the entrance to the store, machine guns at the ready, and red dots appeared on all three of us big bad robbers’ clothes.
‘Armed police,’ came the cry from several mouths. ‘Drop you weapons.’
Itchy lifted his shotgun, I yelled, ‘no’, and dropping the car keys from my hand hit the ground face down, arms spread. I knew the drill. I shut my eyes, expecting to hear the sound of shots fired, but instead both Itchy and Twitchy dropped their weapons and the cases they were carrying, and joined me on the floor.
And then the heavens opened.
46
Rain – The Beatles
First of all, it was huge warm drops that made the off-white concrete where we stood dark, then sheets of water that turned cold, then freezing. We were all soaked in seconds. Police and thieves all equal under God’s sky.
Drains filled and overflowed fast, until the car park was like a lake, and I had to turn my face sideways to avoid being drowned. Twitchy wasn’t so lucky. He was yapping so much, the copper next to him put his boot on his neck and forced his face into the flood. He came up coughing and retching, but at least he shut up. Officers appeared behind us, we were dragged to our feet, cuffed and read the old, old story of what we could and couldn’t do, and what we had been arrested for, then each of us was put in the back of different unmarked cars, which sped off in different directions, with the jewel cases stuck in the back of a van. I never saw either of them again. Someone had grassed us up. I wondered who.
I ended up in Mile End nick.
I started to say something to the officer next to me en route but was told to shut up and wait to be questioned.
The temperature had dropped like a rock down a coal mine, and I was shaking like a shitting dog in my wet clothes by the time we arrived at the station. The desk sergeant at the nick was in a bit of a flap when we arrived. ‘He’ll have to share,’ he told my copper. ‘Bloody place is flooded downstairs. Sodding weather. Always a famine or a feast.’
At least I was given some dry clothes, a sweat shirt and pants from the homeless and nutters’ box. Musty, but warm. When I was changing, the sergeant noticed the plasters on my legs. ‘Cut yourself shaving?’ he asked.
‘Something like that,’ I replied.
Then, after I’d surrendered all my belongings for the umpteenth time recently, I was escorted to a cell which already had one customer.
He was in his sixties, with long grey dreadlocks surrounding a saucer-sized bald spot. In my opinion, dreads on white folks don’t work. Some say it’s stealing black culture. I couldn’t care less about that, considering white culture in this country seems to me to be six penn’oth of chips and Gerry and the fucking Pacemakers. He was wearing a cowboy shirt, a leather waistcoat, blue jeans faded to white and leopard skin cowboy boots held together by gaffer tape. On the bed next to him was a straw cowboy hat. Fucking Tom Mix, I thought. ‘Hey, man,’ he said, when the door was closed behind me. ‘Got any straights?’
‘Sorry, mate,’ I said. ‘They cleaned me out.’
‘Me too. Nothing else I suppose?’
‘Not a sausage.’ I took a seat next to him on the thin mattress, covered in blue plastic to let the piss roll off, on the hard bed attached to one wall. I took a look round. I might have to get used to places like that. Miserable as shit, with one grubby commode in the corner.
‘Bastards,’ he went on, as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘They took all my rings, my turquoise, and my axe.’ I think he meant his guitar.
‘It’s a bad deal,’ I said.
‘And the weather. Rain. Had to happen. It’s Glastonbury next week. You going?’
‘Mate, I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere for a long time.’
He looked interested. ‘What did you do?’
‘Nothing. But they’ve got me for armed robbery and I’m out on bail for a bank job.’
His eyes widened. ‘Heavy duty.’
‘You can say that again. You?’
‘Begging, vagrancy. Just because I don’t have a regular crash.’
‘That’s tough.’
‘Yeah, man. When I think of the places I’ve lived. Trouble is I’ve always been one for the ladies. Cost me fortunes. I used to be famous… for a while, anyway.’
‘Famous?’
‘Yeah. I was lead guitar in the Skittles. Three top tens in 1966. Top of the Pops. Ready, Steady, Go. The works.’
‘Christ,’ I said. ‘I remember them. I saw you on Top of the Pops one week.’
‘You must’ve been in short trousers.’
‘Not really. I’m older than I look.’
‘Me, too.’ And he laughed. ‘We recorded it at Abbey Road. The Beatles were in studio two recording Revolver. We were in some pokey little studio down the corridor. One night the door opens and there’s George Harrison. He says that he’s broken an e string, and his man Mal has gone off with the others. Have I got one he could borrow? He’s a fucking Beatle, man. Says he’d buy one off me, but he doesn’t carry cash. I give him the string, and he says he’ll get me one back, but never does. That’s life, eh? When you don’t need anything, people queue up to give you stuff. If you’re broke, you can go get stuffed. Life, man.’
‘It’s a bitch,’ I agreed.
‘You know, it used to be easy. Grow your hair, buy a tight black suit, a skinny tie, a pair of Anello Cuban heeled boots, and a red Fender. Take some speed, drink a lot of booze, get the ladies. Then, grow your hair longer, wear a flowery shirt and flared pants and furry moccasins. Take different drugs, drink loads of booze and get the ladies. Someone once said that if you write a hit song it’ll earn you money for years, and it don’t talk back. I wrote hits. Lots. And boy did I get ripped off. And what hurts most it was by people I counted as my friends. Crap. The more they said they loved me, the more money they stole. Not just money, mind. My talent. That’s what really hurts. I just rolled another joint and signed any bit of paper they put in front of me. When I asked for my dough, all I got was a solicitor’s letter. It was easier to let t
he fuckers win. See, whatever money they got off me, whatever lies they told, deep down inside they knew they were traitors, robbers, failures. They knew, I knew, and I knew they knew.’
‘Did that make you feel better?’
He shrugged. ‘Not really. But I don’t sign anything any more.’
‘I thought it was all peace and love in those days,’ I said.
He snorted. ‘Peace and love. What a bunch of crap. Same old, same old. Free love still got you the clap. Thank Christ for penicillin.’
‘And you’re telling me this, why?’ I asked.
‘Sorry if I talk too much. But this is like karma. You and me. Normally, we’d never meet. Me a beggar, you a bank robber…’
‘Actually no,’ I interrupted, but what was the point? ‘Go on then,’ I said.
‘We changed the band’s name to the Purple Frenzies. More hits. More shit. Top of the Pops. Late Night Line-Up. The works. All over again.’
‘I remember them too.’
‘A fan.’ I thought this geezer had definitely taken too many drugs. He was talking to me like we’d known each other for years. But then, in another karmic lifetime, maybe we had. And it was better than dwelling on my own predicament.
‘And do you know how much I made out of all the hits? Hits I wrote, or part wrote?’
I shook my head.
‘Fuck all, mate. Alright, I had clothes and posh grub. Flats and cars. None of them my own, and we paid top dollar for everything. We got ripped left, right and centre. All we made was playing live, and even then the managers took half. Except when we played the Kray Twins’ club. Afterwards, we got asked to the office and the pair of them are sitting there with four stacks of cash on the desk. Our manager expects to get the dough, but one of the Twins says, no, they played, they get the money, and he lobs us two hundred and fifty notes each. Christ, we were rich. The manager asked for it back, but we told him to sod off. And he did. Happy days.
He shut up then, but just for a minute. Eventually, he asked, ‘Do you remember Woodstock?’