Part 17 (1/2)

'Should've, could've. It's all the same. After the win at Aintree, I should have dropped all the grifting, forgot about the train. Just concentrated on the car.'

'Hindsight,' was all I could think to offer by way of consolation. 'Wonderful thing, Roy.'

'So's foresight, Tony.' Roy looked down at the pistol in his hands. I wondered whether to make a lunge for it, but not for long. It wasn't only in movies that guns went off in tussles.

'We should go outside, Roy.'

'Not yet.' He looked up at me, tears in his eyes. 'They'll take the kids now, won't they?'

I didn't know what to say. Of course they would. Shooting and pistol-whipping rarely went down well in court. 'For a while, I dare say. Best thing to do is plead a temporary moment of madness.'

'It's all been a bleedin' temporary moment of madness.' He sniffed loudly. 'You know I split my life into BT and AT. Before the Train and After the Train. Like BC and AD. And just like Jesus, we got f.u.c.kin' crucified.'

'What about another cup of tea?' I asked, trying to s.h.i.+ft the mood. 'Then we'll go out together.'

'Fair enough.'

There was a banging on the door, fist on wood, and Roy raised the gun, hands shaking slightly.

'Steady on,' I said. 'The Gun Squad tend not to knock.'

I crossed the gloomy hall, undid the latch and opened the door a crack. What I saw caused my chest to constrict, more in shock than anything else. For a second I had trouble speaking.

'Put the kettle on. It's bleedin' freezing out here.'

I stepped back. It was getting on for thirty years since I had last seen him in the flesh. Back then, he was in his element, dressed in SAS uniform, a swagger in his step and victory in his eyes. Now, he was gaunter and greyer, a little stooped perhaps, but the coat was cashmere and the spectacles Chanel. 'h.e.l.lo, Bruce,' I managed to stammer.

'h.e.l.lo, Tony,' replied Bruce Reynolds as he hurried inside. 'Drop of scotch would be nice, too.'

'Kitchen,' I muttered, pointing down the hallway. 'Past the stairs.'

As we entered the room, Roy struggled to his feet, looking every bit as nonplussed as I felt. I could see the new arrival staring at the gun in Roy's hand. I wondered then if Bruce remembered that thirty years ago he had blamed me for the whole f.u.c.king fiasco.

Thirty-three.

Fulham, West London, June 1963 'Sir, sir, Mr Reynolds, sir. I have a question, sir.' Buster Edwards was bouncing up and down like Jimmy b.l.o.o.d.y c.l.i.theroe, the eternal schoolboy.

Bruce turned away from the blackboard that was the source of the ribbing, to face the group of men, their faces shrouded in smoke from half-a-dozen cigarettes. 'p.i.s.s off, Buster.'

Bruce was tired. He had been living this for two weeks now, and he had become short-tempered. The previous night he had consumed a whole bottle of Veuve Cliquot and a third of Glenfiddich, and ended up chasing Franny around the house threatening her with a toilet brush.

It had taken a lot of making up that morning.

He tapped the board to get their attention and then found himself smiling. 'Although you f.u.c.kers do look like the Bash Street Kids,' he said. He pointed his chalk at Buster. 'Which makes you Plug, you ugly b.a.s.t.a.r.d.'

Buster pulled a hideous face.

'OK, just some quick formalities. This is Roger, the Flowerpot Man.' Roger Cordrey nodded, although most had been introduced to him informally as the party had gathered at Roy's flat. 'He's worked with Buster.' This was the equivalent of references; 'worked with' meant he was a stand-up bloke. In truth, Roger didn't look like one of them. Small, self-effacing but with sly, s.h.i.+fty eyes, he reminded Bruce of a vicar with a guilty secret - embezzlement, perhaps - in an Ealing comedy.

'Tommy Wisbey, I think most of you know.' Tommy was a bookmaker who hired himself out as a frightener. 'Bonehead', they sometimes called him, because he was as daunting as the bloke who played that character on kids' TV. He wasn't anything like as daft, though.

'Jimmy White, same, and next to him that's Tony Fortune. Let's hope that's a lucky name, eh? Roy says he's almost as good a driver as him. Which, as you know, is like a blessing from the Pope. By the way, Charlie, you quite finished?'

Charlie looked puzzled. As usual he had said very little, just gazed at the ceiling while he waited for the proceedings to begin. 'With what?'

'That new hobby you have.' Bruce allowed a theatrical pause to build. 'You know the one. Setting fire to cars in Bethnal Green.'

There were some sn.i.g.g.e.rs, just like naughty schoolkids. Bruce should have been annoyed, but he had to be careful. He was the man at the front with the chalk. There had to be a leader in these situations but he mustn't overstep the mark. A lot of these chaps were in the game because they despised any form of authority. Even from a fellow villain.

Charlie's eyes narrowed. 'I think I might have got that out of my system, yes, Bruce.'

There was a steely undertow to the words, but Bruce ignored it. 'Good. Because from now on, we keep a low profile. Not get our names plastered over every pub and club. n.o.body should be at it. I mean all of you. Whatever you are working on, ditch it. It'll be peanuts compared to this. Understood?'

A few nods.

'Still, now Charlie has laid down a few ground rules for them, I don't think we need worry about any other firm treading on our toes, eh?'

That seemed to placate Charlie, who took it as a compliment. Bruce didn't really object to Charlie's refusal to let the p.r.i.c.ks who took the Jags go unpunished. After all, it was going to be hard to keep the train job quiet, but the thought of what Charlie might do to anyone who flapped his lips would help keep a lid on things.

'Now. Glasgow.' He tapped the top of the board, on which was a primitive outline of the British Isles with a few key places chalked in. Now he pointed further south. 'And Euston. Our Man in the North seems to have steered us straight on this. Every evening at five past six, give or take ten minutes, the up Travelling Post Office leaves Glasgow, stopping at Carstairs, Carlisle, Preston, Crewe, Tamworth and Rugby. By the time it leaves Rugby it is fully loaded - next stop Euston. The train consists of twelve or thirteen coaches. The second coach is always the High Value Packet carriage. It's that we want. It will contain between seventy and two hundred bags, depending on how fortunate we are. You've all heard the figures, but we take those with a pinch of salt. We've all been there, eh?'

There were grunts as several of them remembered the disappointing haul from the Heathrow job.

'What we have to do is stop the train somewhere between Rugby and North London. That's where Roger comes in.

The crucial thing is, where do we stop it? So this week's little task, gentlemen, is for some of us to scout the line from Watford northwards, looking for places where we have easy road access.'

'And a signal gantry,' said Roger.

'Roger will tell us what to look for in a moment. He and I will take one section, Gordy and Jimmy another, Roy and Tony a third. All right?' He pointed at Buster once more. 'The HVP and the rest of the Mail Train must be shunted somewhere during the day. I want to look inside it, see what we are up against. Buster, Jim Hussey, Tommy, I want you to look at all the shunting yards and sidings. Roger has a list. We also have to decide how big this firm will need to be. There are about eighty people on that train, but only five in the HVP. If we can isolate that HVP, we are quids in. On the other hand, moving a hundred mailbags at double- quick time is going to need a lot of hands. I am open to suggestions for extra bodies, but, you know, keep it in the family, eh lads? Roger and Jimmy have some ideas.'

'Tiny Dave Thompson,' said Jimmy White. 'Another ex- Para.'

There were a few murmurs of agreement. Tiny Dave had kept his head when the arrests were happening after the London Airport job. Harry and Ian, the other two musclemen, had lost their bottle and left town.

Bruce said: 'Good idea. But I'll make the approaches - agreed? This has to be tighter than a duck's a.r.s.ehole. That's me done for now. We meet again at the end of the week. Clapham Common, five-a-side. Bring your boots, your Dextrosol and your liniment. Any questions?'

Gordy asked: 'When are we aiming for, Bruce?'

'Our man tells us the most cash is carried after a Bank Holiday. The one that stands out is August the fifth. It's a Scottish one, before you ask. Now, we don't do it on August the fifth, 'cause the money is still in the banks. So we are looking at the night of Tuesday the sixth, morning of Wednesday, August the seventh. A little over two and a half months away.'

Someone whistled. All they had so far was a vague idea of what they were going to do and when. Not how. And when it came to robbing trains, the how was the big ask. Ten weeks was no time at all when it came to planning that kind of job.

'So we best get to it.' Bruce stepped aside. 'Roger will now read from the Big Chief I-Spy's Book of Train Signals'