Signal Red (20 page)

Bruce looked at the group of men gathered for a kick-about. Some, like Roy, had gone to town with their kit. He looked like a pocket-sized Roy of the Rovers. Buster, on the other hand, in his long black gym shorts and vest, looked more like Alf Tupper, the Tough of the Track. Most were somewhere in between.

'Right, let's get the important bit over first. Gordy, pick your men. I'll have Roy and Tony.'

'Oh no, you don't,' said Gordy. 'Two fast wingers, I bet. You can have one of them.'

In the end, it was Bruce, Roy, Buster, Jimmy White and Charlie to take on Gordy, Tony, Ralph - a friend of Bruce's who would help with the signals if need be - Tommy and Roger. Brian Field, the solicitor, opted to stay on the sidelines. 'I'll peel the oranges at half-time,' he said with his cheeky grin.

'You can buy the pints at fall-time,' said Buster, pointing towards the Plough.

'Before we get started,' said Bruce, looking at Roger. 'I may have solved the problem of moving the train.' He suddenly had their complete attention, and felt like Alf Ramsey giving a pep talk. 'Ronnie Biggs knows a driver.'

'Will he let us at him?' Roy asked.

'No. It's his shout. I said I'd bring Ronnie in.'

Buster gave a loud sniff. 'None of us have worked with him. Not really.'

'I told you. He's reliable.' said Bruce, with feeling. He'd seen Ronnie beaten by screws till his testicles were like purple rugby balls, and he hadn't given an inch. 'He's keen.' The truth was, once Ronnie had realised the scale of the job, all his concerns about upsetting Charmian went out of the window. She wouldn't be miffed when she saw a heap of fivers on the bed. When he and Franny had left, Biggsy had given him a clear message. No Ronnie, No Stan the Engine Driver.

'He can be very useful,' Bruce went on. 'Ronnie's a big strong lad. Once we get the train to that bridge, we are going to need to get the bags down to the lorries.'

'Lorries?' asked Roy, dismay in his voice.

'I'll come to that,' said Bruce. 'And besides, Tony has worked with him before, haven't you?'

All eyes turned on Tony, but Tony examined Bruce's face. He had never even met Ronnie Biggs, let alone worked with him. 'Yeah. He's all right.'

'I can drive the bleedin' train,' said Roy, with a hint of petulance.

'What? You bought a Hornby Dublo?'

Roy glared at Buster. He had bought a train set, but hadn't told anyone about it yet. Besides, it was a Triang. 'No, I haven't got a bloody Hornby, but I've got the Railwayman's Handbook. Looks easy enough. I drive a racing car - how hard can a train be?'

Bruce flicked from face to face, gauging the mood.

'It would be nicer to keep it tight,' said Gordy. 'And not bring in too many outsiders.'

Bruce knew that wasn't going to be an option. On paper he had worked out they needed eighteen people to do this; sixteen at a stretch. They were still short. 'Well, we'll see if you can,' Bruce said to Roy.

'How do you mean?' asked the wheel-man.

'We'll go and find a train to drive. You lot have been doing the yards. You must know ways in.'

Several of them nodded. 'Security's piss poor,' added Gordy. 'Pair of overalls, you can walk right in and out, no questions asked.'

'And we've found the mail train,' said Buster with a grin, unable to keep the news to himself. 'Up near Wembley, in the sidings. As your man said, the HVP is not connected to the rest of the train by a door or corridor. It's self-contained.'

'Good. But I'll need to take a look for myself,' said Bruce. All they had to do then was figure out how to unhook it from the body of the train. But, as Roy would say, how hard could that be? Stan would know. If they brought Stan and Ronnie in, that is. 'And then we can let Roy play choo-choos.'

'Fuck that. Are we going to play football or what? It's going to rain soon.' It was Charlie who, as usual, had been listening without saying much. 'I paid two guineas for these.' He pointed down at his shiny new Puma Pele Signature boots.

Bruce picked up the ball. 'You're right. That's enough villainy for now. Twenty minutes, then half-time, another chat about the transportation we'll need, and change ends. OK? Right - my lads over here. I want to give you a proper talk without those dirty bastards overhearing.'

When Tony Fortune walked up the stairs to the flat, he was fully expecting a bollocking. Although he had changed after football - 4—2 to Gordy's team - his face was still mud-streaked and he smelled of sweat and beer. There had been two pints in the Plough and then most of them had adjourned to Bobby Welch's place in Camberwell for an after-hours session. Charlie, Bruce and Buster were still there. Tony, his head swimming with alcohol on an empty stomach, had headed back, no doubt to a ruined, cremated lunch.

'Marie,' he shouted as he came in, his nostrils twitching. Lamb. And it wasn't burned.

'In here, luv.'

His wife was in the lounge, watching television. 'Sooty?' he asked as he walked in, dumping his kit, just in time to see Harry Corbett get a squirt of water in his eye.

'Just waiting for Oliver Twist to come on.' She struggled to her feet, her belly weighing on her now.

'Sit down. Sorry I'm late.'

'Knew you would be. Didn't put dinner on till late. Be ready about six.'

'Lovely.'

'Shall I run you a bath?'

Even in his slightly befuddled state, Tony sensed something was up. A campaign was under way. 'What is it?'

'What's what?'

'Whatever it is that you have to tell me.'

She smiled at him, showing too much gum. 'Oh nothing, Tony. It'll wait. I'll run you a nice hot bath. There's a pale ale in the kitchen, if you fancy.'

He didn't really want the beer, but he dutifully sat in a soapy bath cradling it, going over what had happened that day. Although things had developed in fits and starts, some kind of shape was taking place to the tickle. Jimmy White was quartermaster, to source any gear needed for what Bruce was calling 'the mission'. Roy was, perhaps, to drive the train. Brian was to explore the possibility of establishing a base near the spot where the train was to be stopped, but not too near. Charlie and Gordy were to come up with ways to move more than a dozen men around without attracting attention. Roger was to go back and check the timings of the TPO mail trains and that the signals would present no unforeseen problems. And Bruce? Bruce was going to pull it all together.

'More hot water?'

His wife came in and turned on the Ascot, which ignited like one of the Americans' space rockets, spitting steam before a thin stream of scalding water came out.

She sat on the edge of the bath as it roared away. 'I have been thinking, Tony.'

Here we go.

'I've been thinking we should move. I know we were joking about the doctor saying we need a bigger place, for the baby. But it's true. A garden would be nice, wouldn't it?'

Well, he couldn't say he hadn't seen that one coming. She had been talking about a nursery for the boy or girl, been collecting colour cards from Woolworths. 'Y'know, when business picks up . . .' he began.

'Thing is, my sister Alice has heard about this place for sale.'

'For sale?' He sat up, sending water slopping over the rolltop, and switched off the Ascot. 'I can't afford to buy anywhere.'

'You could get a mortgage.'

'Not once they have seen the books. It's been a bad six months.'

Her voice hardened. 'Oh, I'll tell the baby that, shall I? "Sorry we are living in a shit-hole with a gas heater that might kill us all one day and one bedroom with a nasty patch of damp in the corner. Been a bad six months, see".' Her long-lost Irish accent always surfaced when she was angry. He saw her touch the bump and grimace slightly.

Tony blew out his cheeks and slumped back, sliding down until the water was up to his chin.

'I'm trying. Trying to make it right.'

She leaned forward, so her face was level with his. 'I know you are. I'm not daft. I know you have something in the works, something I am not to know about. Since when did you play football? On a Sunday? And go drinking with the lads?'

'It's all right. I'll knock it on the head. There're dozens of blokes who would kill for a sniff of this.'

She swirled her hand in the water. 'Don't be too hasty.'

'What?'

'I said, don't be too hasty. About knocking it on the head.'

'What about all that "I don't want my baby growing up with his father in pokey" stuff.'

'Well I don't, it's true. But maybe he won't. Maybe it's something worth taking a chance on.' She flicked some suds at his face. 'Is it?'

Tony suspected a trap. She was waiting for an admission of guilt, and then she would bring the house down around his ears. He kept quiet.

'Come on, I'm your wife. Shouldn't this be a joint decision?'

All he offered was a shrug.

'Look, this place, it's nothing too grand. Off the Holloway Road, not far from Alice. But she'll be able to help with the baby, and the landlord is willing to rent it for six months till we have enough of a deposit saved . ..'

'You've seen it?' he asked.

'Yes. You know those nice roads, on the left as you go down towards the cinema?'

He did. They were expensive, for that area at least. Neat

Victorian terraces with, as she said, gardens, albeit small ones. 'So who's keeping secrets now?'

'I was just waiting for the right time to bring it up, Tony. Just like you were waiting for the right time to tell me.' Her hands plunged into the water and he felt her grip his testicles and give a light squeeze. 'It's something big, isn't it?'

She was smiling, but even so, he slapped her arm away. 'Yes. Yes, it is.'

'Good.' She stood up and brushed the suds from herself. 'Dinner's almost ready. You can tell me all about it over a nice Sunday lunch.'

Fuck a very large duck, thought Tony. Wonders would never cease. 'Tell the wives nothing,' Bruce had advised. Easy for you to say, Tony thought. You don't have one like Marie.

Thirty-six

Cornwall, June 1963

The boy who had been first to spot the woman's torso was eleven years old, but looked younger. He had a head that was too large for his skin-and-bone body, saucer eyes and a scalp almost shaved clean but for a ridge of hair running along the apex of his skull, like a wayward privet hedge. Or someone from The Last of the Mohicans who had been left out in the rain, thought Billy.

He lived with his parents in a low granite-and-slate cottage on the edge of the village. The interview took place in the kitchen, where a blackened range heated a pot of what, from the smell, was fish stew and a kettle, boiling for tea. The sinewy parents sat either side of the boy, reassuring him he had done nothing wrong.

'Bull's-eye?' offered Hatherill. From his suit pocket he produced a crumpled bag of the boiled sweets and offered one to young Harry Bone.

'Go on, son,' said Harry Senior.

The boy reached out a grubby hand and took one. Hatherill offered them around the table and, when there were no takers, popped one into his own mouth. There was silence, apart from the sucking of the bull's-eyes and the building urgency of the kettle.

'So, Harry,' slurped Hatherill, 'do you remember when you first saw the body?'

'Didn't know it was no body,' the lad said truculently.

Harry Senior flicked the boy's shaved head with a bony finger. 'Sir.'

'It's all right. He can call me George. That OK, Harry? Good. Now, I appreciate it could have looked like any old bit of driftwood or flotsam. But when did you first see it?'

'Would have been a Saturday,' he said. 'I know 'cause I had helped Dad at the garage in the morning and then walked down to the beach. Saw it then.'

'Which Saturday would this have been, Harry?'

'It would have been the fifth,' said Mrs Bone as she got up to make the tea.

'So about two and a half weeks ago.'

'Suppose. Yeah.'

'And what did you think when you saw it?'

An exaggerated shrug. 'Nothing.'

Hatherill worked on his bull's-eye some more. 'Well, not nothing. You never think nothing. But did you think: "That's nothing important" or "Oh look, there's what looks like a body, but it can't be"?'

'Dunno.'

'You have to understand,' said the dad, in his thick accent, 'that we get lots washed up here on the Cornish coast. Used to it, y'see. Not worth making a fuss over.'

Even a dead body? thought Billy.

'Tell you what. How about we have a nice cup of tea, we grown-ups, and then you take me down to the beach and show me what you saw and when.' He looked at the parents. 'How would that be?'

Twenty minutes later the trio - Billy, Harry and George - were traipsing across the sand of the bay, with the boy four paces ahead. Gulls wheeled overhead, screeching as if complaining about being denied their human flesh to feed on. The tide was coming in, the sea docile, the sun trying to break through. It was a beautiful long stretch of beach, framed by black rocks, moulded into fascinating shapes. Nice holiday spot, thought Billy. Or, at least, he would have thought so if he didn't keep seeing that ruined torso, flopping about on the foreshore, being poked and pulled by the waves.

'You are wondering how you can ignore a body, aren't you?' the TM asked Billy.

'It crossed my mind.'

'Think of what this place was. Treacherous coast. Lots of shipwrecks. Not all of them natural. Wreckers, you know? Luring ships onto rocks . . .'

'I thought that was all, you know, stories.'

Hatherill simply raised an eyebrow. 'Put it this way. There is nothing remarkable about a body washing up on the beach hereabouts.'

Billy pointed at the boy. 'Not even for a nipper like him?'

'Especially not for a nipper like him.' He raised his voice. 'Where was it, Harry?'

'Over here.'

They swerved to their right, and Harry took them to the sea's edge, close to a cluster of three jagged, seaweed-encrusted rocks. The boy indicated a spot in front of them. Billy looked around. It was possible the outcrops had hidden the corpse from most people's view.

'And what was the tide doing?' asked Hatherill, lighting a cigarette. He looked slightly comical in his tweed suit and shiny black brogues, peering through his thick glasses at the lad, the sea edging closer to his feet with each lap of the waves.