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  He told Beefy Bob to get him another drink and he would tell him how they really interrogated suspects, then headed for the Gents. As he crossed the room he rummaged in his pocket for coins for the phone box out there. He would call Billy Naughton and get him down to put a tail on the unknown man. Duke had promised to leave Reynolds and the others alone. That did not include new faces on the block that were clearly up to no good.

  As he walked out of the Star pub and towards Hyde Park Corner, where he would catch a cab into Soho, Bruce Reynolds mused on what a very strange man Thirkell was. The conversation had begun as a straightforward interview, but after a while Bruce got the idea he was being auditioned. It was only towards the end of the session that he got an inkling of what the bloke really wanted. He wanted to steal part of the Elgin Marbles from the British Museum, as a show of outrage at the original looting from the Parthenon.

  The writer had wanted him to put up a firm to rob something, not for money, but for a principle. He said he could pay expenses, not much else. But it would be righting a great wrong.

  Bruce chuckled to himself. He could just imagine selling that one to the chaps. Had Janie said he might do it? Maybe she had. Perhaps it was time to move her a few paces back. Her putting his name in the frame for a bit of altruism, that just wasn't on. At the end of the day, Bruce Reynolds had just one favourite charity. Himself. Anyone who thought otherwise had lost another kind of marbles altogether.

  Thirty-one

  From Motoring News, June 1963

  JAMES TRIUMPHS AT AINTREE

  Driving a Brabham BT 6, rookie Roy James won the twenty-lap TJ Hughes Trophy at Aintree last Sunday, at a new record average speed for FJ of 89.4mph. James, whose car seems to have taken on a new lease of life – and pace – since its last outing, was followed home by Dennis Hulme in a second Brabham and Peter Proctor (Cooper). After an exciting race in which the lead changed hands no fewer than five times, there was less than six seconds between the final trio at the flag.

  Further back in the field a fierce battle was waged between Jo Schlesser (Ford/France Brabham) and Bill Moss (Gemini), the two cars circulating nose to tail for much of the race, until Moss left his braking a little too late on the 90-degree Cottage Corner and lost some 15 seconds in the process.

  The three-mile Aintree circuit was hailed as the 'Goodwood of the North' when it opened in 1954, but recently some drivers have complained (see Letters, page four) that the course, with its taxing bends such as Becher's, Anchor and Village, is too hard on man and machine. However, Stirling Moss won the British GP here in 1955, driving for Mercedes, and has always enjoyed and defended the track layout and Roy James, too, had no gripes, telling a cheering crowd that Liverpool has 'one of the best and most challenging circuits for single-seat racing in Europe'. Runner-up Hulme added to the young man's achievements by proclaiming James 'one of the most promising drivers of the 1963 season in any formula'. James, Hulme and the other Formula Juniors will be in action again at Oulton Park next weekend.

  Thirty-two

  Headley, Surrey, May 1992

  I looked out through the heavy drapes in the living room at the western sky, hoping for a sliver of light, but there was none. Dawn was still a no-show. I replaced the curtains and walked back across the scuffed parquet and into the kitchen, where Roy was sat at the table. He looked up, his face troubled.

  'Find it OK?'

  I had been to the lavatory and taken a little tour while I was at it. 'Yeah. This is a nice house, Roy.'

  'It's too big for me. Needs money to fix it up. Someone richer than me anyway. One of today's drivers – they're all loaded. I should've been a contender for that, you know,' he said morosely.

  'Could've,' I corrected the quote before I could stop myself. 'Could've been a contender.'

  '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 fuckin' crucified.'

  'What about another cup of tea?' I asked, trying to shift 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. 'Hello, Bruce,' I managed to stammer.

  'Hello, 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 fucking 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 bloody Clitheroe, 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. 'Piss 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 fuckers do look like the Bash Street Kids,' he said. He pointed his chalk at Buster. 'Which makes you Plug, you ugly bastard.'

  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, shifty 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?'

&n
bsp; 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 sniggers, 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. Nobody 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 pricks 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 arsehole. 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'

  Roger Cordrey, florist by profession, train robber by inclination, stood up. Next to some of the muscle gathered in the room, he looked just like a flower-seller. But he had specialist knowledge, which was always respected in the business, and most of the men carried on puffing their cigarettes and listening intently as he prepared to give them a chat about the difference between dwarf and home signals.

  ' Britain has seventy-three TPOs, Travelling Post Offices,' he began, just to show they weren't the first firm to have noticed all this money moving around the country on rails. 'They have been running since 1830…'

  Buster Edwards, suddenly transported back to school, began to roll up pieces of Rizla cigarette paper to flick at Gordon Goody's ears. Whatever the division of labour, Buster was fairly sure he wouldn't be part of any technical team. Not while he still had his spring-loaded cosh.

  DC Billy Naughton arrived back at the section house tired and dishevelled. He had spent too many hours chasing after the man Duke was convinced was a criminal mastermind only to discover he was a bloody scribbler. Colin Thirkell. Waste of time.

  Well, not entirely. On the bright side, he had been bunged a fiver by some guilty poof who had thought that he was going to run him in for gross indecency. The man had leaned over the porcelain dividing wall of the urinals to take a good look at his tackle. The Liberace had a neck like a bloody flamingo. Billy, outraged at this invasion of his privates, had slapped the man around a bit, then flashed his warrant card, and the terrified queer had reached for his wallet. Billy guessed it wasn't the first time he had bought his way out of scandal.

  Maybe he shouldn't have settled for a fiver. The man was well-dressed – a City type or solicitor, perhaps. Probably married. Just like the plot of that Dirk Bogarde film, a man with VICTIM written right across his forehead. Billy had little against queers, other than the usual disgust at what they got up to, but the need to carry out their perversions in public toilets – what was that all about? Maybe if they had to hand enough fivers over to policemen they would start thinking twice. Which made 'fining' them a public service, didn't it?

  In the tiny, overheated box room that he called home, Billy yanked off his tie and stripped off clothes that stank of booze and fags and threw them into the corner. Remembering what was in his pockets, he retrieved his trousers and fished out the fiver the pillow-chewer had bunged him. In only his underpants and socks now, he fetched the dented Oxo tin from the suitcase under the bed and opened it up, intending to simply stuff the fresh cash inside. Now, though, the assorted ten bob-, pound- and five-pound notes sprang out onto the swirly nylon carpet.

  So much, he thought. How did it get to be so much in such a short time?

  He stood up and turned on the Dynatron transistor radio that sat next to the bed. It was still tuned to Radio Luxembourg, trotting out the inevitable plug for Horace Batchelor's failsafe Infra-Draw Pools method. Once the drone was over ('That's Keynsham: kay, ee, why…') on came Rockin' To Dreamland with Keith Fordyce, who announced he was playing the best new music from Britain and America, starting with the surf sound of the Beach Boys.

  Billy upended the Oxo tin on the bed and began to sort the notes into piles according to denomination. He nodded his head to 'Surfin' Safari' as he did so, the harmonies interrupted periodically by the atmospheric whistling that was one of Radio Luxembou
rg 's specialities.

  He didn't notice the song end, or the next irritating advertisement break for the stupid pools system. He was busy looking at three hundred and thirty-three pounds and ten shillings. And that was just crumbs, picked up here and there. He had more than three hundred pounds, yet he was still living in a station house, listening to music on a cheap transistor and eating meals in a police canteen.

  Billy carefully repacked the cash, thinking about a better hiding-place, before deciding he should put it in the Post Office or a building society. It was, perhaps, time for Billy Naughton to move up in the world. And if the drinks, backhanders and tips weren't entirely legal, then so what? It wasn't as if he didn't put the hours in – and did anyone ever mention the word 'overtime'? Was there ever talk of time-and-a-half or double time? No. A fifteen-hour day got you twelve and sixpence subsistence pay. Subsistence if you ate at the Wimpy every day, that was.

  The Dynatron's signal drifted to interference, white noise interspersed with the snap and crackle of ghostly voices captured from the radiosphere. It reminded Billy of an electronic seance when that happened, like he was eavesdropping on ancient wireless broadcasts. He half-expected an ethereal voice to emerge from the static: We are receiving reports that something has happened to the Titanic…'

  Billy reached up and switched the radio off, then placed the box back into the suitcase and pushed it deep under the bed. He resolved to ask Duke where the best place to keep his money was. It shouldn't be under the Dunlopillo mattress. Not in a room with no lock on the door, as was still the rule in London station houses. It should be somewhere secure and legit, somewhere it could grow. After all, it wasn't as if he had done anything wrong, was it?