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  'Hitch a lift to the next station and phone the police. Sixteen, seventeen minutes they have been gone. They can't have got far.'

  Bruce Reynolds had the VHF radio tuned to the police as they rumbled through slumbering villages and hamlets, taking their tortuous route back to the farm. There had been nothing on the airwaves, no mention of the robbery, and as they got closer to their hideout, Bruce's sense of euphoria grew. It wasn't over yet, so he forced himself to keep a cap on it. They had to unload the lorry, get the vehicles undercover, count

  the money, and divide it into whacks and drinks. Hours of work.

  Good work, though. The very best kind of work.

  It was the type of job that would be spoken of with admiration for years to come, growing in the telling, knocked around in seedy pubs, clubs and spielers across London. It would be like Olivier in Henry V: 'And gentlemen in England now abed, Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon St Crispin's Day.' Although no doubt someone would come up with a better name for this day than that. The Big Train Job or some such. But one thing was certain about those stories: he wouldn't be around to hear any of them. He would be long gone.

  Bruce turned to the rear of the Land Rover, to where a group of tired but happy men had shed their masks and unzipped their coveralls. He grinned at them and began to whistle one of his favourite songs. Tony Bennett. Second only to Sinatra in his estimation.

  It was a moment before they recognised it, and collapsed into laughter: 'The Good Life'.

  Commander George Hatherill's first job of that day was to stay calm and try to make sense of the rumours and counter- rumours flying around Scotland Yard. He stayed in his office with the radio on and asked for the wilder speculations – the train was full of diamonds! – to be filtered out before they reached his desk. He had got into the Yard at seven-thirty. Three hours later he was given a copy of an exceptionally early edition of the Evening Standard that would go out that morning. The robbery had come too late for Fleet Street dailies; the Standard and the News had sensed a way to make

  a killing by jumping into the breech. ROBBERY SPECIAL! it screamed.

  £1,000,000! the headline thundered. BIGGEST EVER MAIL ROBBERY.

  'Get Tommy Butler in here,' he instructed his secretary over the intercom.

  'Sir.'

  'And get me the Chief Constable of Buckinghamshire on the line.'

  'Of course.'

  He went back to the newspaper. The reporters had done a fine job, he thought begrudgingly. Midland, Lloyds and National & Provincial had all admitted to having money – 'many thousands' – on the train. The hacks had also contacted the Postmaster General, Reginald Bevins, who was on holiday in Liverpool – who on earth went on holiday to Liverpool? Hatherill wondered – and badgered the man into declaring a ten-thousand-pound reward. Well, it was a decent sum, enough to bring some rats out of the gutters.

  There was a side-panel interview with David Whitby, twenty-six, the fireman, with another headline: 'IF YOU SHOUT I WILL KILL YOU', I WAS TOLD.

  Hmmm. Perhaps he was. But someone ought to stop witnesses talking to the press before they had been properly interviewed. Otherwise the public might start believing whatever the scribblers made up in preference to the truth.

  The phone rang and he was told it was Brigadier Cheney, Chief Constable of Buckinghamshire, on the line.

  'Hello, John. How are you coping?'

  'Us country bumpkins, you mean?'

  Ouch. Sensitive. 'No, John. Just wondered if you needed any help. Takes a lot of manpower, this sort of thing.'

  Cheney sighed. 'I don't think we need many more at the scene just now. There's our lads, the British Transport Police and GPO Investigation Branch. Quite a bunfight.'

  Hatherill hesitated. 'You know they'll be London lads, don't you, John?'

  'That's yet to be established, George.'

  Oh come on, he wanted to say. How many hardcore robbers come out of Leighton Buzzard? 'Well organised, though. Suggests London.'

  'I've already had Glasgow on the line, claiming it must be someone from their patch.'

  'Could be, John, could be. But my waters tell me London.'

  'I'm not moving things down to you.' The man sounded uncommonly tetchy. The political manoeuvrings had started already.

  'Of course not. I'm not trying to take over, John.'

  'I've also had the government on.'

  'The government? The funny hats?'

  'No, not those buggers. The PM's office.'

  'The PM? Why?'

  'Oh, not him personally. Some lackey. Just very keen to stress that Mac is concerned that this reflects badly on the whole Establishment. That not even our money is safe now.'

  Macmillan's government had been reeling under a variety of scandals, from Profumo to continued fallout from Burgess, Maclean and Philby. There was also, Hatherill knew, anxiety about Mac's wife's own affair with Bob Boothby coming to light, perhaps through some juvenile, muck-raking magazine like Private Eye or even the scurrilous TV series That Was The Week That Was, which lampooned Mac mercilessly. And now, after all the attacks

  on the political establishment, the fiscal system had been whacked with a crowbar by opportunist footpads.

  'What did our young man from the PM's office suggest?'

  'The slimy little sod suggested that perhaps this was too big for a provincial police force. Matter of national importance, he said.'

  That explained the prickliness. Cheney had been ordered to bring in the Yard and had resented the phone call from Hatherill, thinking it was a two-pronged attack. 'They haven't been on to me, you know,' Hatherill said. 'Mine was a genuine call. There's no civil servant poking me up the arse with a sharpened brolly.'

  Finally, the Brigadier laughed and Hatherill could feel the irritation leaving him. 'Pleased to hear it.'

  'Who have you got on this, John?'

  'Detective Superintendent Fewtrell is in charge. Good, solid copper, you'll like him. But he's on his way to London. There will be an all-party conference at the GPO this afternoon. I'm sure you would like to attend.'

  'Absolutely. But, John, this happened in your backyard, not mine. We'll bring it all to you.'

  'I appreciate that, George.'

  There was a knock at the door and Tommy Butler put his head around it. Hatherill beckoned him in. 'Anything you need for the minute?'

  'Talcs.' He meant fingerprint officers with their dusting powders.

  'I'll get some over,' Hatherill said.

  'Thanks. The briefing is at two p.m. – I'll send details across.'

  'Thanks, John.'

  Hatherill cradled the receiver and looked up. Butler was

  standing, as impassive as ever, hands crossed in front of him. The Commander explained the gist of his conversation.

  'He'll need more than some dusters,' Butler grunted.

  'I know, Tommy, but let's give our country cousins their day in the sun. Although if this job wasn't put together from down here I'll eat my gold watch.'

  'What about Glasgow?'

  'Doubt it,' Hatherill said. 'If that was a Glasgow firm they'd still be mopping the blood off the rails.'

  Butler thought this over and nodded. The Scottish lads prided themselves on sudden, explosive violence, often of the most vicious kind. Razors and chains and coshes filled with wet sand for starters. And lately, guns. 'They won't be able to keep a million quid quiet, will they?'

  'Unlikely. Look, no matter what happens at the conference, I want you to set up a team for this. Can you do that today?'

  'Me?' Toes would be trodden on: Millen, Williams. 'Not Ernie or Frank?'

  'I think this is your kind of dance, Tommy.'

  Butler allowed himself a small, satisfied grin.

  'Let me deal with how the hierarchy will work out. Tap every snout and snitch. Now it's all over the papers, you bet there'll be people saying, "Well, I could have been in on that, they asked me b
ut…", and who knows, one or two of them might even be telling the truth. I'm also going to prepare a press release saying that there is a newly formed London Train Robbery Squad and that Tommy Butler is to head it.'

  'Why release that?' Hatherill didn't normally shout about internal reorganisations or promote individual personalities. Apart from his own.

  'Let's not beat about the bush, Tommy. When they hear

  Fewtrell is heading the team against them, they'll shrug. When they hear it's you who's after them, they'll shit themselves.'

  Bruce had gone to bed before the count was finished. The room was crowded and airless and, coupled with the release of the tension that had gripped him for so long, his body felt like rubber. He had stayed long enough to see about half the 120 bags ripped open, to know that most of it was good gear, with non-sequential numbers, and that only a small proportion were clearly damaged notes destined for destruction. And there were relatively few Scottish ones.

  He wriggled into the sleeping bag and lay down, his head swimming with fatigue for a moment, but he plunged over the edge into a dark chasm almost immediately.

  Ronnie woke him in the early afternoon with a cup of tea. He looked done in, too, his hair plastered to his forehead by sweat. Ronnie had worked like a demon, mainly because he felt bad about Stan. He wanted to make sure he had properly earned his whack by the day's end.

  Bruce took the tea in his hands, still encased in leather gloves. 'Thanks, mate. All done?'

  'Yeah, just about. Lot of ten-bob notes nobody seems to want.'

  Bruce shuffled upright, the lower half of his body still in the bag. 'Too grand for ten-bob notes, are they now? Fuckin' idiots. It's all money. I'll have them.'

  He heard a burst of laughter and whooping from downstairs, and asked, 'What's that?'

  'Buster's organised a Monopoly tournament.' Ronnie smirked. 'They're playing with real money.'

  'Cunts,' Bruce laughed. 'They still got gloves on?'

  'Few of them took them off to count. It's not easy, you

  know. Don't worry, they put Elastoplasts over their fingertips.'

  'I hope so. So what's left to do?'

  'We have to divide it into the whacks. Decide what to ditch. You know, which notes are too damaged or too Scottish. Thought you ought to be there for that.'

  Bruce took a sip of his sweet tea, feeling his teeth tingle. Too much sugar.

  'Bruce?' 'What?'

  'Sorry about Stan. He was down to me, and-'

  Bruce waved a gloved hand at him, dismissing the words. 'I wasn't there. I don't know what went on in the cab. The train arrived at the bridge. We got the money. That's all that matters. What are they saying on the radio?'

  '"Vicious cosh gang robs train of one million and gets clean away".'

  Bruce balked at the description. That was wrong. They weren't thugs, they were thieves. Having to hit the driver was a pity, but perhaps he had been playing the hero. Bruce would wager he would be now, milking it for all he was worth. It wasn't as if it was his bloody money. It was theirs. 'How much is the count?'

  'I thought you'd never ask. Give or take…'

  Bruce could tell from the tone it was going to be a surprise. 'Go on, spit it out.'

  'Two point six million.'

  The size of the figure hit him like the diesel loco they had just hijacked, driving the wind from his body. A pain started in his chest, as if the ton and a half of money was pressing down on it. Two point six mil? Bruce struggled to his feet and put his glasses on. 'Well, that'll do us, I suppose.'

  A thought rattled through his brain and was gone, like a passing express. He registered it and tucked it away, but not before he allowed himself a little shiver. Two point six million. It's too much money.

  Forty-seven

  Headley, Surrey, May 1992

  The sweet, pungent aroma of dope filled Roy 's kitchen. I wondered if the fumes were affecting my higher centres, if my hearing was hallucinating. I realised my jaw was almost touching the floor.

  'What?' I asked. 'Bruce, you can't be serious. I know I let you down…'

  He took another hefty toke and passed the joint back to Roy. 'I know you did, too, Tony.'

  'But I didn't grass you up, mate.'

  'So you say.'

  I found I didn't feel frightened, despite the ominous turn events had taken. If it had been Charlie, Gordy or Buster with the gun, then I might have thought there was a chance of being shot. But I was fairly certain Roy wasn't going to blast me. And it certainly wasn't Bruce's style. If he had asked Charlie to top me – and I only had Roy 's word for that – it might have been a figure of speech.

  'I wish I'd been on the track that night.'

  'Do you?' asked Roy.

  'I don't think there're many people would swap places with any of us,' said Bruce. 'Oh, to begin with maybe. That morning, when we got back to Leatherslade, fuck, I'll never forget that feeling when we realised how much we had.'

  'The news came over the radio,' said Roy. 'At… what time was it the police first mentioned it?'

  'About four-thirty, quarter to five.'

  '"They've stolen a train", they said. "Got a million quid".'

  Bruce laughed. 'It was Ronnie's birthday. He started singing "Happy Birthday to me…"' His face dropped. 'That was the high point, I'd say. Then look what happened to us. Roy? Promising career pissed away.'

  Roy flinched, but there was no arguing with the assessment. When Roy had come out he had tried to pick up where he had left off out on the track. But a dozen or more years had gone and so had his reactions, although his nerve was still intact. But three drives, three crashes, the third breaking his leg, demonstrated what prison had robbed him of.

  'And Ronnie? Fuckin' clown in Rio. The town joke. And bloody homesick, so I hear. Charlie? Shot by some pikey on a fuckin' bicycle. What's the world coming to, eh? Shot in front of his wife, too. I mean, we kept the wives out of it. There's no respect any longer.'

  I felt a flash of irritation. I knew it was the drugs making him loquacious, but still. Old gangsters telling you that the world has gone to shit, about when you could leave your back door open, coppers gave you a clip round the ear and the Krays were nice to kids and old ladies. I was surprised at Bruce – such rose-tinted sentimentality wasn't his style. It must be the dope, I reckoned.

  'Leave it out, Bruce, he was messin' with the bloody Colombians. They don't know the old rules, do they? They kill you, your wife, your kids. Charlie was out of his depth.'

  Bruce raised his eyebrows, but I could tell he agreed. Nasty in South London was not the same as nasty in Medellin.

  'Buster selling flowers.'

  I laughed. 'At least he got a movie made about him.'

  Bruce sighed. 'Didn't even recognise myself in that.'

  I knew he had been a paid adviser on the movie, Buster, but said nothing. I thought Larry Lamb had done a half- decent job of capturing him, given the quality of the script. But it made Buster out to be like Charlie Drake the comedian, whereas I remembered him as a scary little fucker.

  There was always some confusion over who coshed that driver. They claimed there was too much going on to be certain. My money, though, would be on the flower-seller and his spring-loaded cosh. Not that the movie had had the guts to show that.

  And even if he didn't land the blow, I heard it said that Buster had a 'Let Him Have It' moment in the cab, yelling for someone to clout the poor bloke. It was just one of those things where the truth had become very blurred over the past thirty years. Just like the role of a snitch.

  'You know, Bruce, maybe nobody grassed you up.'

  'Bollocks.' It was Roy. 'Why would you say that? They was on us like a ton of bricks from day one.'

  'Because of the driver,' I said. 'Because someone hit the driver.'

  Bruce laughed. 'You're kidding. If we'd coshed that driver and got a hundred grand, you think there would have been that hunt? Don't get me wrong, it was fuckin' stupid. But when they found out how much money the
re was – two and

  a half bloody million – then it was all hands to the pumps. And they leaned on every source they could.'

  He sucked the last of the life from the roach and put it out in a saucer, adding, 'Well, I suppose it doesn't matter now.'

  I realised he still had his suspicions about me. 'Fuck this.' I stood up, walked over and made to snatch the gun from Roy 's hand, but he was too quick for me. He placed it on the table out of my reach, with his hand spreadeagled over it.

  There was a pause while they wondered what I might do, and I let them ponder for a couple of heartbeats. Then I slammed my fist on the table and headed for the door.

  'Oi,' said Roy, getting to his feet and raising the pistol. 'Where d'you think you're goin'?'

  'Leave it out.' Bruce pulled him back down into a chair. 'Build us another one, Roy,' he said, passing the tin over to him.

  Roy did as he was told. I backed towards the hallway.

  'Where are you going, Tony?' asked Bruce.

  'You want to know who snitched on you? I'll get you the man who knows.'

  'Who's that?'

  'Billy Naughton.'

  Forty-eight

  GPO Headquarters, London, 9 August 1963

  DS Malcolm Fewtrell's train robbery conference took place in a stuffy, first-floor room that was too small to contain all the interested parties. Only the press was excluded; that still left the CID, the Robbery Squad, the Flying Squad, the London & Provincial Crime Squad, the Intelligence Squad, the Bucks CID, the GPO, British Rail and six banks, as well as the government in the shape of two junior ministers.

  George Hatherill had positioned himself in the second row of metal-and-canvas chairs. Tommy Butler was at the back of the room, with Jack Slipper. He had to admire the elegant Fewtrell's composure. He was dressed in a three-piece suit with a crisp white shirt and a red-and-blue striped tie, and displayed no signs of nerves as he stepped up to the dais.

  'Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.'

  Hatherill looked around. He could see plenty of gentlemen, but he couldn't spot a single lady. But then, Fewtrell had a better view of the room.