Blood Brothers (28 page)

Grim-faced, Jackson rang down to the CID room and asked DS Vic Copeland to come up. ‘Are you still tailing Harry Barnard?’ he asked as soon as the sergeant put his head round the door.

‘Not now,’ Copeland said. ‘You didn’t say you wanted me to carry on.’

‘Well I want him brought in,’ Jackson said. ‘It looks as if he’s running around for Ray Robertson, causing mayhem in the City. AC Amis wants him charged and remanded. He’s got to the end of his rope and now we haul him in for good.’

‘W
e need to get out of London for a bit,’ Harry Barnard said flatly. They were drinking coffee again the following morning at the breakfast bar in Barnard’s flat. ‘This thing isn’t going to go off until there’s another wages delivery due. It’s not just his brother that Georgie Robertson and his mates will be looking for, it’s you. If something so big is going down they won’t want to leave any loose ends and you are very definitely a loose end after working with Carter Price. They’ve had one go at him and they won’t give up easily. I hope the City force is keeping an eye on Price while he’s in hospital. They’ll certainly know by now that they didn’t kill him, and even if they’ve got some of your prints they’ll know there are negatives somewhere.’

‘Where can we go?’ Kate asked uneasily.

‘How about the seaside?’ Barnard asked. ‘It’s the wrong time of year, of course. Might be a bit chilly. But at least there’ll be plenty of hotels with rooms.’

Kate sighed. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll need to go back to my place to pick up some clothes. And I’d really like to see Carter again before we go. Do you think that would be safe?’

Barnard frowned. ‘I’ll run you down to the hospital before you go to your place,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to go inside but you should be OK on your own. And there’s a call I want to make before we go. I contacted someone at the security company to find out how these wages drop-offs worked. Told him I worked for the City force and we wanted to increase security in the light of information received. Oddly enough he believed me. I’ll just check that the next one is happening next Thursday.’

But it wasn’t. When he’d finished his call Barnard looked slightly shell-shocked. ‘It’s Monday,’ he said. ‘When there’s a bank holiday coming up the unions make sure everyone is paid early – on Tuesday instead of Thursday. I said I wasn’t sure my boss knew that so could he make double sure that everyone was clued up. Jesus wept. Graveney must have spelt out to Smith just how ramshackle the arrangements are.’

‘And when the presses are running you could march an army in there and no one would hear a thing,’ Kate said. ‘And Graveney seems to be in charge of them.’

They looked at each other, horrified.

‘Come on,’ Barnard said. ‘I’ll drop you off at Bart’s, then at your place and we’ll head off. Where do you fancy? Brighton maybe? It’s the traditional place for a naughty weekend.

‘Just don’t tell my mother,’ Kate said with a grin.

But when Kate came out of Bart’s Hospital an hour later she was not smiling. She got into the Capri looking sombre. ‘You won’t believe this,’ she said.

‘Is Price OK?’ Barnard asked anxiously.

‘Oh yes, he’s OK. Seems much better. He actually had a phone call from a contact of his. He can’t chase it up, obviously. He wants us to do it.’

‘Oh yes?’ Barnard sounded sceptical.

‘He said he asked a contact to root around in Masonic records to see if there was a connection there between Reg Smith and Mitch Graveney. And there is. They’re in the same lodge in south London. But that wasn’t all. The worshipful master of the lodge is John Amis. Assistant Commissioner John Amis. Is that a big enough coincidence for you?’

Barnard looked at her in astonishment. ‘Jesus wept,’ he said. ‘I wonder just how close he is to Reg Smith.’

‘Price wanted me to ring the Yard and ask him,’ Kate said.

‘You must be joking,’ Barnard said. ‘That would really be putting your head into a lion’s mouth. Whether he’s involved with Smith or not he wouldn’t want the suggestion to get out. Come on. Let’s get out of here and see exactly what, if anything, happens on Monday.’

Kate and Harry Barnard were back in Fleet Street by eight on Monday morning. Barnard parked the Capri well away from the
Globe
building, close to Holborn Circus, and they walked south to Fleet Street in silence. The area at the back of the newspaper building was already a ferment of activity with the delivery vans already waiting for the bundles of the first edition of the
Star.

‘I imagine the plan is to hijack the security van and drive it off. The other vans will let it through without any difficulty. They’ll all be used to seeing it come and go. And if they do it that way it means the gang can arrive quietly without anyone noticing. On foot possibly. They won’t try to bring a getaway car up into this narrow space. God knows what they’ve got in mind for the security guards though.’

‘If they shot them you wouldn’t hear anything if the presses are running,’ Kate said.

Barnard nodded grimly. ‘If they really have Georgie Robertson with them I wouldn’t be surprised at anything.’

They stood watching the activity inside the print room from a doorway on the opposite side of the road for a few minutes.

‘If we’re going to call the cavalry we need a phone box,’ Barnard said glancing around the street which was now lined on one side with delivery vans, most of the drivers relaxing with their
Globes
and
Mirrors
as they waited for the presses to start rolling. A hundred yards down the narrow side street he spotted the familiar red box.

‘Go down to that call box,’ he said. ‘I’ll stay here and watch. When the bad guys arrive, I’ll give you a thumb’s up and I want you to call DCI Jackson and ask him to get the City police down here at the double. It shouldn’t take them more than five minutes – Snow Hill nick is just round the corner. They’re doing this right under the bloody noses of the City police. They must be very confident. Put your call through as soon as you see me signal. Once the van’s here the rest won’t be far behind. They won’t have much time to hijack the van before it’s unloaded. Tell the DCI the robbery’s in progress. Here’s the number. OK?’

‘Be careful. They might see you.’

‘I’ll be careful,’ he said. ‘Now go. We can’t do this on our own. We’re going to need help fast.’ He kissed her quickly on the cheek and then pushed her away towards the phone box. She walked slowly down the pavement towards Fleet Street and the call box which she could see was empty, went inside and tried to see what was going on back at the
Globe.
Almost as soon as she had closed the door she saw the heavy security van inching past the newspaper delivery vans towards the bay where it would unload. And close behind two men strolled nonchalantly along the pavement within inches of her beyond the thick glass and she immediately recognized Georgie Robertson and Reg Smith wearing blue printers overalls as if they were innocently on their way to work. Without waiting for Barnard’s signal she dialled the number he had given her and asked to be put through to DCI Jackson.

When Kate explained where she was and what she was witnessing there was a sharp intake of breath.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked sharply.

‘One hundred per cent sure,’ she said angrily. ‘I know Georgie Robertson and he’s within yards of a security van fully loaded with cash. You need to get someone down here before Harry Barnard tries to stop him all on his own and gets killed.’

‘Right,’ Jackson said crisply. ‘We’re on our way.’

As Robertson and Smith approached, Barnard turned away, making as if to light a cigarette in a doorway out of the wind. When they had crossed the road he glanced back and saw Kate already coming out of the call box and heading towards him. Behind him he could hear the roar of the presses starting up.

‘Are the cavalry coming?’ he asked Kate as they met.

‘So your DCI says.’

‘Good,’ Barnard said. ‘Well done. You can get out of the way now. Go down to Fleet Street and pick up a bus. I’ll call you at the agency later when this is all over.’

‘And what are you going to do?’ Kate asked.

‘I want to keep an eye on what’s going on,’ he said.

Kate put a hand on his arm. ‘You mean try to stop it if the cavalry don’t turn up on cue?’

‘They’ll need witnesses to pin these bastards down,’ he said.

‘Then they can have me too,’ Kate said, her expression adamant. ‘I owe that to Carter Price.’

Barnard sighed. ‘We keep our distance? Right?’

Kate nodded and they both walked slowly back towards the
Globe
where the thundering sound of the presses seemed to be shaking the very structure of the building and the vibration could be felt on the pavement through the soles of their shoes. The back of the security van could be glimpsed through the open end of its bay but it was impossible to see more until two things happened almost simultaneously. The van began to reverse slowly out of its parking place and a police squad car screamed round the corner from the direction of Holborn and slammed to a standstill across the narrow entrance, blocking the van in place. Except that whoever was driving the van now was having none of that. Instead of stopping he put his foot down and reversed hard into the side of the patrol car, pushing it across the narrow street and into the wall on the opposite side making it impossible for the officers inside to get out. The hijackers must have thought they could get away until they realized that the squad car was only the first of several and that there were more sirens blaring from the direction of Fleet Street, blocking their escape in that direction.

Men jumped out of the van on both sides, a couple heading towards Holborn, running wildly, and three into the roaring print labyrinth behind them.

‘That’s Smith and Georgie Robertson,’ Barnard yelled.

‘And Mitch Graveney,’ Kate yelled back. ‘He’ll know his way around in there.’

‘Come on or we’ll lose them,’ Barnard said and set off at a run into the overpowering noise of the rolling presses where newspapers were already spewing off the conveyor belts and being loaded into the first of the waiting vans. Very few men had turned towards the collision in the street outside, no doubt because they had not heard the impact or the frantic knocking on the windows of the police car from the furious officers trapped inside.

Kate and Barnard could see the fugitives, Graveney in the lead, racing up a metal stairway close to the thundering presses and then along a catwalk obviously intended to be used only when the machines were not in action. If the machine minders, all in earmuffs, even noticed what was happening they took no interest, presumably because their supervisor looked as if he was in charge.

Barnard led the way cautiously up the stairs and along the catwalk, with Kate close behind. About halfway along Georgie Robertson glanced behind and realized for the first time that they were being followed. He grabbed Graveney’s arm and gestured at their pursuers and the three men stopped and began to move to block the narrow gantry. It was only then that Barnard realized that Georgie Robertson had a gun which he was pointing firmly in their direction. No one, he knew, would hear anything at all if he shot them both.

Graveney must have taken in the look of horror on Barnard’s face because he spun round and knocked Robertson’s arm upwards so his shot went harmlessly into the ceiling but as Robertson lunged in his direction Graveney lost his footing, teetered for a moment against the low guard rail before crashing, arms and legs flailing, into the roaring, rolling machinery below. If he screamed as he fell no one heard and it was a minute before his body arrived below, covering the morning’s news with blood, and someone switched the presses off.

In that minute Robertson had moved forward and grabbed Kate, pressing his weapon against her head.

‘Stay there or I’ll kill her,’ he said in the sudden disorienting silence which had fallen. And Barnard, dumbfounded, stayed where he was as Robertson and Smith dragged Kate onwards towards a narrow passageway and disappeared. Gripping the guard rail, his knuckles white, Barnard glanced down to where a group of men were clustered around what must surely be the body of Mitch Graveney. He was gripped by a wave of sheer fear and stayed where he was until a file of uniformed officers climbed up to the catwalk and surrounded him.

‘Georgie Robertson and Reg Smith,’ he said to the uniformed inspector who put a non-too-friendly hand on his arm. ‘They’re armed and they’ve got my girlfriend with them,’ he said.

‘Which way did they go?’ the inspector asked and Barnard waved a hand towards the end of the catwalk which seemed to terminate at a door. ‘This must lead into the main building. We just followed.’ The inspector waved his men on towards the door but when Barnard went to follow he shook his head.

‘DCI Jackson wants words with you,’ he said. ‘He’s on his way. You wait down below and leave the rest to us.’

Barnard ran a desperate hand through his hair. ‘I need …’

‘Downstairs, sergeant,’ the inspector snapped. ‘Your involvement ends here.’

Kate sat in the back of Reg Smith’s Bentley with Georgie Robertson’s gun pressed against her ribs. They had left the catwalk above the presses and found themselves in an empty stairwell in the main part of the
Globe
’s offices. The two men had hurried her downwards to ground-floor level where they forced open a fire door and found themselves in a quiet back alley where the mayhem they had left behind them seemed to have not so far disturbed the peace. The two men had hustled her towards busier streets, Georgie with his weapon hidden in his pocket but firmly pressed into her side, where they found Smith’s car parked unmolested at the kerb. Robertson pushed Kate into the back seat while Smith accelerated away.

‘Stick to the plan?’ Smith asked quietly.

‘Oh yes,’ Georgie said. ‘Pity that little enterprise turned out like that. But we’ve still got time for lots more. I’ve got scores to settle, but after that we’re all set, just as we planned. Even now they won’t come near us while we’ve got this little lady with us, will they?’ He leered at Kate and she shivered.