Billy Rags (33 page)

“What time shall I come to where you are?”

“About seven o'clock tonight,” I said.

We talked a little while before I put the phone down but I didn't tell her about the job. I'd tell her about that tonight, in the flat, when it was over.

I sat in the car and looked out of the window. The side street was empty. Next to me the driver, George, flexed and closed his hands over the steering wheel, regularly, monotonously. On the corner, about ten yards away from us at the end of the street, Mickey waited for the van to round the corner of the street that formed the junction to the street where we were parked.

I looked at my watch. Approximately two minutes to go. I felt the pick-handle that lay across my knees. Above us light fluffy clouds drifted across the deep blue sky.

Then, at the end of the street, Mickey turned and began to walk towards us. George and I pulled on our stocking masks. George slid off the handbrake and the Jaguar began to move forward. I leant back over my seat and opened the back door for Mickey. Mickey got in and George put his foot down.

“She's here,” said Mickey, putting on his mask. “Vince and Dave are right behind her.”

George swung the Jag round the corner and there it was, the Post Office van, trundling down the empty street towards us, the Dormobile in tow right behind.

They must have known. The minute the Jag pulled out, they must have known. But there was nothing they were going to be able to do about it.

George wrenched the wheel over and pulled the Jag broadside on in the path of the van. The driver of the van pulled on his wheel, too, but there was no chance. The van hit the Jag between the nearside front door and front wheel. The Jag twisted round, carried on the path of the van, but came to rest when the van ploughed into the side of the empty warehouse. Almost before the van had stopped we were all out of the Jag, making for the driver and his mate. I heard the sounds of Vince and Dave going to work on the van's rear doors.

George and Mickey took one of the front doors. I took the other. As I pulled it open and yanked out the driver I saw his mate anticipate the door opening on the other side: he kicked out at the door with both feet. I heard George cry out as he got the full force of the door in his face, but Mickey grabbed the legs of the mate and pulled him out of the cab so that his head cracked against the bottom of the doortrip and again on the pavement.

My one was easy. I didn't even use the pick-handle. I just dragged him out and slung him against the side of the van and gave him a couple round his head and he sank to the floor, no fight in him. I left him where he was and ran round to the back of the van. Vince and Dave had got the doors open and were already shifting the sacks into the Dormobile. I began to help them. Mickey appeared from the other side of the van, supporting George. George's mask was soaked with blood. Mickey pulled the mask from George's head and almost immediately George sank down to his knees and was sick. The blood was still pouring from his nose.

“Get him in the back, quick,” Vince shouted at Mickey. “You'll have to drive now.”

Mickey got George to his feet and shepherded him round to the back of the Dormobile and bundled him in.

“Right, that'll do,” Dave said. “Let's get going, sharp.”

The driver began to get up.

Mickey got in the driver's seat and Dave got in beside him. Vince and I got in the back with George. Mickey reversed the Dormobile and began to swing it out so that we could get past the Jag.

“What did I tell you,” shouted Vince over the noise of the engine. “A doddle! A fucking doddle!”

I looked through the rear window. There was a car rounding the corner behind us.

It began to slow down. Then it stopped. The driver got out and ran halfway to the van and looked at the men lying in the road. Then he looked down the road towards the Dormobile.

“We're spotted,” I said.

Dave twisted round in his seat. The man ran back to his car and got in and reversed back down the road until he got to a spot where he could turn round.

“Fuck him,” Dave said. Then to Mickey: “Get moving, son, we're red hot for the next couple of minutes if that bastard tips the law.”

Mickey put his foot down. He turned right, then left, then left again. Now we were in a main thoroughfare. There was no other way to get to where the clean cars were parked. We only had to be on it for a couple of minutes, but now it was dicey, now we'd been spotted.

The traffic couldn't have been worse. Ahead of us, traffic lights were reducing the flow of vehicles to a snail's pace. Pedestrians were moving faster than we were.

“Fucking Jesus,” Vince said. “Let's bleeding move it.”

The traffic ahead of us started up and we moved a few more yards before stopping again.

In the opposite lane, traffic going in the opposite direction was flowing much more easily.

“For Christ's sake,” Dave said. “Make a U-turn.”

“That'll take us away from the cars,” said Vince.

“We can make it another way. Let's for Christ's sake get off this street. We're like fish in a barrel.”

“What do you want me to do?” Mickey said.

“Make the bleeding turn.”

Mickey threw the van into reverse to give him the space to begin the turn. But as he did that the lights changed and the traffic began to move again.

The car behind went straight up the Dormobile's arse.

“You fucking idiot,” screamed Dave.

People on the pavement stopped, staring. The door of the car behind opened and the driver began to get out. Mickey screwed the steering wheel right over and pulled out into the opposite lane. A Cortina, travelling at about thirty, was headed straight for the nose of the Dormobile. The Cortina braked but it carried on skidding towards us. Dave and Vince screamed at Mickey. Mickey put his foot down and tried to complete the turn, get the van straight to avoid the Cortina, but instead of straightening up, the van mounted the pavement and ploughed into a news-stand. Magazines and papers scattered everywhere and slapped up at the front window.

“You cunt!” Dave screeched.

And as he screeched the Cortina hit us, shuddering the rear of the van along in its path until the Dormobile was almost pointing the way we'd been travelling in the first place.

Dave and Mickey slid open their doors. I kicked at the rear doors and smashed them open and slid out over the sacks. Women were screaming and the traffic had stopped completely. I straightened up and found myself staring in the windscreen of the Cortina. The driver was lying back in his seat, stunned, blood pouring down his face. I ran round the corner of the van, on to the pavement, and collided with Mickey.

“George,” he said. “Help George.”

George had rolled out off the sacks and was leaning against one of the rear doors, looking round him as though he couldn't quite comprehend what had happened. Mickey went to him and grabbed hold of George's lapels and began to shake him.

“Come on, George,” Mickey said. “Get a grip. We'll get you out of it.”

I looked down the street. Vince and Dave had already taken off, charging away from us down the pavement through the crowds of lunch-time shoppers. I looked at Mickey and George. There was nothing I could do by staying, other than to make sure three of us got nicked instead of just the two. So I took off after Vince and Dave. I ran along the pavement and above the racing wind I could hear Mickey's voice screaming after me to go back.

I didn't know the area. I knew the name of the street where the cars were, but that was all. I had to stick with Dave and Vince if I wanted to make it by car. I could have stayed on my own, tried to make it alone, but making it by car was safer.

Dave and Vince turned right before they got to the traffic lights. I did the same and found myself in a side street similar to the one we'd been in earlier. Dave and Vince were about twenty yards ahead of me. The street was empty but for the three of us. Away in the distance I could hear the Hee-Haw of police cars. Dave and Vince took a left turn and again I followed. Then left and right again and we were there, in the street where the cars were parked.

The street was a new development. Where there'd once been nineteenth-century workers' dwellings and warehouses, now there were clean new flats down one side and a low modern school on the other. The cars, a Zephyr and a Rover, were parked twenty feet apart, facing in different directions, by the school railings. The playground was full of kids, chanting and running and playing.

Vince reached the Zephyr and Dave carried on running towards the Rover. Vince got in and gunned the engine of the Zephyr. The car began to pull away from the curb. Dave was almost up to the Rover. Vince's car accelerated towards the Rover but suddenly he slewed the car across the road and jammed on his brakes.

A police van had rounded the corner of the school and manoeuvred itself broadside across the road.

I stood stock still in the middle of the street. Vince jumped out of the Zephyr and began running back towards me. Uniforms began to pile out of the police van. Children were running towards the railings to get a better view. Dave was in the Rover by now and had started the engine. The Rover accelerated forward and made for the gap between the Zephyr and the railings. There was just enough space for the Rover to get through. Vince ran past me, careless of Dave's Rover. Sheer panic was making Vince's decisions for him.

I ran towards the gap between the Zephyr and the railings. Dave would have to slow down as he went through the gap. If he stopped for a second I'd be able to get in. It was a chance I had to take. I'd get nowhere taking off like Vince.

I stood poised by the boot of the Zephyr. Kids were crammed against the railings, eyes wide. One of the uniforms shouted to the kids to get back but they didn't take any notice. The Rover mounted the pavement. But it didn't slow down. I stared into the windscreen. Dave's face was set with concentration. He was going to try and go through the gap without slowing down. I stepped out into the space and waved my arms at him. But the expression on Dave's face didn't change and the Rover didn't slow down. He must have been doing fifty.

I threw myself out of the gap and landed face down by the Zephyr's rear wheel.

Then there was a crash as the nearside wing of the Rover connected with the boot of the Zephyr. I heard the screams of the kids as the two cars hit.

Then I heard another scream and felt a terrible weight crushing down on the small of my back. The weight was only present for a second. Then it was gone. At first I wasn't sure what had happened. I tried to move my head but when I did that I felt the pain and the scream sounded out again. I could see the Rover racing away from me. I swivelled my eyes and I saw the kids re-grouping at the railings, staring down at me. And between me and the kids was one of the Zephyr's rear wheels. That was what had happened. The collision had bounced the Zephyr's rear wheel across my body.

I tried to move again and again I screamed. The scream was echoed in the crowd of kids. There was the sound of footsteps, coming at a run. I thought of Sheila and Timmy on their way to the flat, getting there, waiting. And among the hubbub in the playground I thought I could hear my own voice, as a child, challenging Bas Acker to a fight, to see who was best.