2 The Imposter (17 page)

Joseph chuckled at his discomfort. “Stop being so bloody flighty,” he said once they had put the station behind them. “It’s been a week."

It wasn’t
that
that Edward was worried about. He knew that they were in the clear there but he would allow Joseph to think that he was anxious. He would expect that of him, surely. “Policemen always make me feel guilty,” he explained. “But it’s not normally with reason.”

“We’re not getting caught. Nothing’s happened, has it?”

“No––not yet. But––”

“So we’re fine. Old Bill don’t know nothing. Relax, Doc––we’re in the clear.” They walked on a few steps and Joseph reached into his jacket pocket. “Look, it’s natural to be nervous. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t put me on edge, too. But you know it was worth it, don’t you? Here––this is for you.”

He reached across and handed Edward a thick, brown envelope.

He peeled back the seal of the envelope. A thick wedge of banknotes was inside. “How much?”

“Three hundred.” Joseph said it with a wide grin. “Not a bad little tickle for your first job, eh?”

Edward could hardly believe it. “You said a hundred, maximum.”

“It was worth more than I thought.”

Edward put the envelope into his pocket. “Capital,” he said.

“Not bad for half an hour’s work,” Joseph said.

Joseph had arranged a series of appointments for them: a tailor, a shirt-maker, a cobbler. The first appointment was at Dege & Skinner. They were greeted deferentially by a tailor and showed inside. The shop was as quiet as a library and redolent with the dry smell of fresh fabric. There was barely enough space on the wall behind the counter to display the Royal Warrants. George V had been a regular customer, the Duke of Windsor had continued the family tradition and Clark Gable and Tyrone Power represented Hollywood’s royalty. It was impossible not to be impressed.

“Good morning, gentlemen. What can we do for you today?”

Joseph said he was going to buy three suits: one off the rack, to wear immediately, and another two that were to be made bespoke. The cost would be around forty pounds, the tailor said, before asking Edward whether he would be ordering the same. He gaped: forty pounds? The most expensive item of clothing he had ever bought was a suit for his interview at Trinity, and that had cost a fiver from Selfridges in the Christmas sales.

“I don’t think so,” he said.

Joseph intervened, “No, he’ll have the same.”

“Joseph…”

“You can’t wear that thing for another minute more. It’s a monstrosity.” The tailor must have noticed his awful suit too but he was too discrete to mention it. Joseph tapped his breast pocket knowingly. “We can afford it. Treat yourself.”

“Sir?” the tailor prompted.

“Go on, then,” Edward said, unable to prevent the self-indulgent grin that broke out across his face. “The same, please.”

Another tailor appeared from the back and the two fussed around them, taking measurements and flicking through a book of fabric samples. When they were finished, he chose a suit from the rail, added a new shirt, cufflinks and a pair of shoes, and took it all into the changing room to try on. He shut the door and shrugged off his old jacket, catching sight of the top of the envelope in his inside pocket. He tried on the suit. It was a little long in the leg but adjusting it would be simple. He stepped outside and turned before the big, floor-length mirror. Joseph was waiting for him. They stood alongside and regarded themselves in the glass. His suit was single-breasted, cut from a heavy grey flannel with a waistcoat in a similar colour. It was a traditional English cut, with that combination of style, cutting and craftsmanship that flattered the figure and communicated substance. The shirt was brilliant white and thickly-starched. The brogues were polished to such a high sheen that they reflected the face of the tailor as he knelt down to adjust the fall of the trouser. Joseph took a ninepenny handkerchief, folded it into a neat square and slid it into Edward’s breast pocket. He took a grey trilby from a nearby shelf, placed it on Edward’s head and adjusted it carefully.

“There,” he said. “You look like a new man. What do you reckon? Better?”

Edward turned side-on and regarded himself. He pulled the brim of the trilby down a touch. He amused himself in the mirror. He had always had a malleable face, one that he seemed able to mould to fit the impression that he was trying to portray. He fancied that he looked like an American gangster, the sort of role James Cagney would play in the pictures. He imagined himself with the suitcase full of money and a pistol in his pocket, not long removed from a heist. He liked the way the clothes and the hat made him look.

He shot his cuffs and flexed his shoulders. “Much better,” he said.

They took a taxi to the Ritz. Edward had been once or twice, before the war, and had always loved it. He knew all the stories from the newspapers he had read as a little boy: how the Prince of Wales and Mrs. Simpson had dined in The Palm Court, how Charlie Chaplin had needed a retinue of forty policemen to negotiate a passage past his screaming fans, how Anna Pavlova had danced there and how the Aga Khan had permanent suites. He was relieved to see that little had changed. The doormen, dressed in their spotless uniform and with box hats on their heads, ushered them inside with extravagant good manners. “Good afternoon, Mr. Costello,” one of them said with a deep tip of his head. Joseph smiled broadly at the recognition and Edward was impressed. They passed through into the Ritz Bar, the gloriously art deco room whose beautiful furnishings and glamorous patrons reminded Edward of an entirely different kind of life. The Merano chandelier gave off a soft, golden light that burnished the tortoiseshell walls and picked out the details in the glistening emblems etched into the Lalique glass. The bar was long and narrow, with the tables arranged as if in the dining car of a particularly opulent train; it had always put Edward in mind of the Orient Express. Joseph took the menu from the bar and handed it to Edward. He scanned it, his eyes widening as he remembered the stratospheric prices that were sensible only if money was of no consequence.

“I don’t know about you,” Joseph said, “but I’m pushing the boat out.”

Edward reminded himself: money was not of so great a consequence today as it had been yesterday and he could afford to be extravagant.

Joseph ordered a Negroni. Edward had ordered one himself, many years earlier, although his had been authentically Italian, ordered in the same Caffé Cassoni bar where Count Camillo Negroni had asked his Florentine bartender to strengthen his Americano by adding gin rather than the normal soda water. The memory promised to lead to others that he preferred to recall alone and so he did not mention it and, instead, ordered quickly for himself. He selected the Cesar Ritz, a cocktail made with Courvoisier l’Esprit, Ruinart Blanc de Blancs champagne and Angostura bitters. The bill for both drinks was two pounds and they were delivered to their table by a tail-coated waiter who fawned over them as if they were royalty or Hollywood stars.

“This is the life,” Joseph said, reclining into the generously padded chair. “Ain’t it?”

“I’ll say it is,” Edward agreed.

He looked around at the other patrons. Money was everywhere, almost tangible. The furnishings, the clothes, the exquisite drinks and food, the tiny details that were evocative of the very best quality, he closed his eyes for a moment and allowed himself to sink into it all.

“Are you alright, Doc?”

“Never better,” Edward said with a smile. This was what he wanted, he thought. All of it and everything. He wanted it more than anything else in the world.

23

THEY HAD PARKED THE CAR a hundred yards away from the entrance to the depot. It was a stolen drag, taken from Islington earlier that day. Jack McVitie had slipped a flexible strip inside the space between the window and the frame until he found the lock and popped it open. Easy. He had picked up Billy Stavropoulos earlier and now both of them sat waiting, their hands gloved and with their balaclavas in their laps. They were in Dalston, parked beneath a gaslight. Billy was staring at his Pools coupon, referring to the newspaper he had spread across the dashboard, “competitors’ hints,” his forehead creased with concentration and indecision. What a mug, McVitie thought. Those things never pay out.

“Look at this place,” Jack said, glancing out at the desolate streets. “I weren’t born too far away from here. What a bloody awful hole. I couldn’t wait to get out.”

Billy put the coupon down. “It’s no bloody good. I can’t concentrate.”

“Still thinking about him?”

“He’s a liability.”

Jack chuckled hopelessly.

“Ain’t funny. Why’s Joseph bringing him out for this?”

“You can’t deny he’s been better.”

“You keep defending him!”

“I’m not, I’m being straight––he’s been better.”

“Ah, bollocks.”

“He has. Admit it, Billy, it won’t kill you. I don’t know why you’ve got such a thing for him. He’s hardly a bad chap.”

Billy grunted. He wasn’t going to admit any such thing. He took off his gloves, took a cigarette from the packet on the dash and lit it.

“I reckon we were a bit harsh on him,” Jack said. “He’s alright. Can’t argue he’s a bit square. Quiet type. But he’s not a bad bloke.”

Billy screwed up his nose. “He’s a stuck-up bastard.”

Jack laughed. “That’s a bit unfair.”

“He is. That
attitude
.”

“He’s just quiet––what you’d call a thinker. You can tell.”

“He’s a thinker, alright––thinks he’s better than the rest of us. His head’s right up his arse. You know he was at university before the war?
University
.” Billy mouthed the word as if it were something distasteful. “Makes sense, though, don’t it? He’s got that way about him, the way he looks at people like us like we’re something to be scraped off the bottom of his shoe. All high and mighty and all that.”

Edward was the first bloke Billy had ever met who’d been to University. Like Jack and Joseph, he’d only stayed in school as long as he absolutely had to and, even then, he’d bunked off more than he was there. Life wasn’t all about books and blackboards and exams, least not his kind of life. He’d given himself a proper education, taught himself the things he needed to know: how to dip a wallet from a man’s pocket without him knowing; how to hide a razorblade in the peak of your cap, how to use it to slash at a man’s face; how to smash a window without making a sound; the best way to hoist gear from a shop.

Billy slipped his gloves back on and squeezed the wheel. Fabian. The cowson had been involved in the plotting and planning of this particular job ever since Joseph had suggested it: checking out the route, the best time to go through with it, the fastest way back to the lock-up, mapping it out, working out the traffic lights and the bottlenecks where the traffic might get jammed. Two days solid of sorting everything out. Jack was right: Edward was one of life’s planners. Billy was more like Joseph, more of an impetuous type of fellow, the get-in-and-get-out type, more doing, less thinking. He knew his strengths, he knew his weaknesses and he was happy with where the line was drawn.

Jack wound down the window and flicked the dog-end into the breeze. “Can’t say I mind him being along. You go on a job with a thinker, you’re less likely to get pinched––simple as.”

“Don’t mean I got to like him.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Jack sighed. There was no point in arguing. The headlights of a van gleamed off the windscreen. “Speak of the devil.”

The van parked up the road ahead of them. It flashed its headlights.

“Alright, then? Let’s get started.”

The two of them went around to the boot of the car and took out a long pair of boltcutters and two crowbars. They pulled their balaclavas down over their faces and jogged briskly to the depot. It was a small warehouse, set back from the road by a narrow yard, access prevented by a solid pair of padlocked iron gates. Joseph, similarly attired, was waiting for them there. Edward was in the van. There was no need to speak; they had been over the plan and they knew what they each had to do. Jack raised the bolt cutters so that the jaws clasped around the padlock and squeezed the arms together. The lock cleaved in two, dropping to the ground, and Joseph pushed the gates apart as Jack hurried through. The depot had a shuttered door for loading and unloading goods, secured with two padlocks that were fixed to clasps on the ground. They took the crowbars and jammed them into the locks, bracing against them until they popped open.

Edward started the van and reversed it into the yard so that the rear was lined up with the shuttered doors that were used for loading and unloading goods.

“Quickly,” Joseph called.

Jack ran to the doors and took a key from his pocket. They had been given the original by the member of staff at the depot who had proposed the job––in return for a cut of the profits––and had copied it overnight. Jack unlocked the shutters and heaved them up. The depot was storing fur coats and mink stoles. The place was practically full of them. They were brand new, still wrapped in their plastic dust sheaths.

“Oi!” The shout came from behind them. “What’s your game?”

A security guard was shining a torch at Jack. He hadn’t seen the others, and so he didn’t notice as Billy stalked behind him and swung his crowbar across the back of his knees. His legs buckled beneath him and he fell backwards.

“Alright, alright,” he said, raising his hands in surrender.

Joseph knelt next to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “We’re helping ourselves to the gear here. Play nice and we’ll be on our way. Don’t be silly and you’ll be fine. There’s no need for you to get hurt.”

“I won’t do nothing,” the man said.

“That’s good. We’ll be as quick as we can.”

They hurried into action, taking the coats from their rails and tossing them into the back of the van. Twenty, then twenty-five, then thirty. Eventually, there was no more space. Billy shut the doors.

“Well done,” Joseph said to the guard. “That’s that––we’re finished.”

The man looked unhappy.