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Joe Spork’s putting a job together .

What, Joe the Clockmaker?

Yeah, but not any more. They say it’s the biggest ever. I heard Mathew planned it before he died .

Of course, Douggie says yes.

Dizzy Spencer runs the Carnaby-Royce School of Motoring, teaching older ladies who have never learned how to navigate the Congestion Charging zone. She does a roaring trade with recently arrived Saudi royals. In Mathew’s time—when she wasn’t under the sofa with the Honourable Donald—she was the best getaway driver between Shoreditch and Henley. She’s bored out of her mind and ready to pop.

Joe Spork’s putting a job together .

Dizzy doesn’t hesitate for one second.

Caroline Cable—Aunt Caro—designs locks for the company no one’s heard of which makes the locks you actually can’t crack with a tensioner and a number three pick. The simplest one is the best: there’s no keyhole, just a drawer you put the key into and a handle. Key goes inside, you shut the drawer and turn the handle, the key fits the lock and the door opens. If the key doesn’t fit, no dice. No way to access the mechanism when the drawer’s closed, no way to turn the handle when the drawer’s open. Thank you and good night.

Poacher turned gamekeeper, and she hates every penny of it.

Joe Spork—

“Hell, yes,” Caro Cable says.

Paul McCain, of the Grantchester McCains, missed the high days and wishes he hadn’t. His dad ran with the great ones: Mathew Spork and Tam Coppice and the others. They nicked a dinosaur from the Natural History Museum once, bespoke, for a certain Indian gent who had a space for it in his house in Goa.

Honestly. Nicked a dinosaur. They don’t do crimes like that these days.

Paul says yes, and feels as if he’s won the lottery.

Word spreads, and London’s crooks are not immune to sentiment. The fun’s gone out of the life; it’s a little professional, a bit grey. People have accountants now, and tax consultants, and Lily Law has them too and you don’t want to be investigated by that lot, not even a little.

But here’s the thing: Joe Spork is putting a job together.

And that has to mean fireworks.

And then there are the others: the ones who went pro and made good, who don’t like surprises or displays. Dave Tregale, who can shift money around the globe, into the white economy and out of the black and back again; Lars the Swede, once Joe’s teacher in basic personal defence, who can have you removed from circulation in seven languages; Alice Rebeck, of unknown origins, now a retriever of lost journalists from foreign lands, and—so it is whispered—vanisher at need of over-curious investigators. Half a dozen others, names to be mentioned with circumspection, if at all.

These, too, receive the invitation from Jorge, from Tam, from a new law firm titling itself Edelweiss Feldbett, or by signs and portents unknowable.

Joe Spork is putting a job together .

These are not people who are used to receiving instructions any more, not men or women who take kindly to midnight pre-emption. They do not enjoy fireworks. Still less are they comfortable with one another’s company, here, in—of all places—the grand hall of the Pablum Club (to the Hon Don’s most strenuous sotto voce discontent). But where, after all, would you be less likely to look for a gathering of serious crooks, than in a very exclusive members’ club in St. James’s?

The hour comes, and a little after, and this great, gathered mass of criminality grows restless. Sure, they’ve renewed some old acquaintances and seen some people they always thought there might be some chemistry with, back in the day, and met some new people there might be some with now (ho ho!) and of course it’s always nice to hear what everyone else is up to, even in the most guarded terms, and work out where there might be an opportunity, perhaps even the possibility of collaboration. But still and all (murmur black suits and serious faces, pinstriped ladies and elegant dames) time is money, after all. And Big Douggie and Caro and Tony Wu, sitting at the edges and in the shadows, feel out of place and very straight-laced, and wish they were somewhere else.

And then a man comes in by the east door. He comes in quietly, as if they weren’t all waiting for him. He grins and shakes hands and waves, and lets the rumour make him bigger. He flings wide his arms and embraces a respectable geezer whose bank specialises in discretion.

“Liam!” the fellow says. “As I live and breathe! Liam Doyle, of all the things, they said you were dead!”

“Not me,” cries the oldster, much delighted, “I haven’t gone on yet, and bollocks to those as wish I would! There’s cash yet in the old cow!”

“I’m sure there is!” replies the other. “I’m sure indeed. Can you still dance, though, Liam? You danced the foxtrot with Caro once, in the Primrose Hill house.”

“Blow me!” replies Liam Doyle. “I’m sure I did! I would have danced anything in those days! Well, I’ve no idea. I haven’t danced in… oh, well…” And his voice trails away.

But before it can become maudlin, Liam’s friend says “I bet you’ve still got it!” And Liam says it’s true, he has, of course! Of course he has. And then it’s “Hullo, Simon, I know that’s you, my God, is this your wife? How superb, I swear, she looks like a queen, and I’m not talking about our bloody queen, God bless, I’m talking Titania! Yes, I am! May I kiss the bride?” And he does, planting a smacker on the gentle, homely face and grinning as if he’s won a prize. “And Big Douggie! I see you there! Come off the bench, man! You remember Douggie, don’t you, Simon?” And Simon does, in fact they had a brawl back in the day, and bloody Hell, if Douggie wasn’t the toughest bastard ever threw a punch, I swear to you, Douggie, I still dream about it, seeing that fist on its way!

“Well,” says Douggie, “I don’t mix it up, now. I teach the young ones. But, well, every now and again I show them a thing or two, for laughs. I think they go easy on me, mind…” And he grins, gap-toothed, and everyone thinks Not if they bloody want to get out of the ring alive, they don’t . “How about you, Simon?”

“Oh, well,” says Simon, a bit sad, “I’ve moved on a bit. I still follow the boxing, or… I used to…”

And once again the whisper of regret. So many things we used to do. So many laws we used to break and laugh at. And now we creep around and make more money and what are we, if not crooks?

Well, rich, of course, and happier for it .

Happier, absolutely.

Around and around it goes. Joe has the touch, the memory for every face, and there’s a fire in him, a rich desperate longing for days everyone had forgotten about, and the strength in his arm to make you believe. Behind him goes the whisper: that’s Joe Spork. He’s putting a job together, and he’s going to ask us to help.