Robert Ryan - Signal Red

'And a juror or two, of course,' said Brian reassuringly. 'And we can get to the bolt-cutter man, I'm certain. There's the security guard, but I'm not sure he's enough on his own. It all happened so fast.'

Bruce still wasn't sure about the wisdom of the whole setup, which had elements of farce about it. There was a time and place for clowning around, and the Central Criminal

Court wasn't it. However, the others seemed up for it. 'OK, give it a whirl. But you'll need someone on the inside at AD.' This was the police slang for Alpha Delta, Cannon Row's designation, a term that had been picked up by the other side.

'I could ask the Twins,' said Gordy.

Bruce shook his head vigorously at the thought of involving the heavy-handed Krays. 'No. Keep it tight. And you best stay out of it, too, Gordy. Me and Buster, we'll see what we can do.' He signalled to Alvaro. 'Ready for the mains now.'

Alvaro put on his most flamboyant act, waving his arms and gesticulating, as if a time bomb was about to go off. 'Si, of course, Signor Reynolds. Gilberto, cinque secundipiatti, tavola uno, presto, presto.'

He might be an old ham, thought Bruce, but Alvaro was the best host in London, excepting perhaps Mario at Tiberio, the sister restaurant in Queen Street, who had the edge when it came to the ladies. Mario made them all feel like Gina Lollobrigida.

Brian glanced at his watch and stood up. 'Not for me, chaps, sorry. Got work to do. Believe it or not, some of my clients are actually innocent.'

The young solicitor left them laughing at that one.

London, March 1963

Charlie knew enough to wear a royal-blue shirt to the Old Bailey, rather than a white one. The public areas of the Central Criminal Court might have been vacuumed, washed, polished and waxed daily, but downstairs some of the grime dated from the eighteenth century. He'd seen too many in the dock with smudged white shirts, looking like they'd just delivered a hundredweight of coal. Dark colours, they were best.

Charlie was led by one of the Brixton screws who did turns at the Bailey, past the squalid and crowded 'on bail' cells. One of the steel doors was open, a guard bellowing a name. Charlie glanced in, hoping for a glimpse of Gordy, but couldn't see beyond the swaying youth blocking the doorway. He'd worn a white shirt and tie, like a good boy. The effect was rather spoiled by a nose that had been split like a ripe tomato. Charlie shook his head. That would make a good impression on the jury. Still, the kid might be a nonce or a rapist and deserved it. The young offender glanced over his shoulder, back into the cell. He wasn't more than nineteen and his legs bowed and shook as he was pulled towards his moment in the dock. Nah, thought Charlie, he probably just looked at someone the wrong way.

As they approached the 'kennels' one of the prison officers unlocked the closest door and bowed, as if welcoming him to his hotel suite. Charlie remained impassive. Fuck them. The kennels – cells reserved for those on remand brought from prisons – were often worse than the 'on bails' – scorching in summer, cold in winter, no windows, just a series of holes drilled high in the wall for ventilation. No lavatory, of course, just a bucket. One shower on request, should your day drag on and your clothes and hair and skin grow rank as they absorbed the stench of your own, and everyone else's, sweat. But one shower for sixty or seventy meant you might not get a turn and if you did, the slimy, mould-tinged cubicle was hardly inviting.

'Mr Wilson,' said the screw with exaggerated politeness. 'We'll be calling you shortly.'

Charlie gave the man a thin smile, and imagined punching him hard, right between the eyes. He preferred it when they didn't speak to him. He did them that courtesy, why couldn't they just return it and keep their mouths shut? They all knew what this was: a rick of the life he had chosen. As such, he- thought of it now more like an athlete thought of a pulled tendon or a pilot his plane crashing. It can happen. It had happened.

The cell held only six other people, and one chair, occupied. The others sat on the filthy floor, cross-legged. He scanned the faces as they looked up at him. No sign of Mickey. He didn't recognise any of them. No friends here. Not much warmth either, with the winter that still ruled the country bleeding in through the ventilation holes.

The door closed behind him with a resounding clang and Charlie looked around at walls covered in graffiti and food slops and not a little blood. There was no way on God's earth he was going to lean against that. And the floor was covered in a film of dirt and piss. He looked at the man in the chair. Forty-ish, with the pallor of a life in pokey about him. Flabby upper arms, crude, homemade tattoos. Not in shape at all. Charlie had a hand on his own biceps. They were good and hard. He'd done push-ups and sit-ups morning and evening, hundreds of them, a way of numbing the pain of being separated from Pat. That was the only hard thing about being inside. Everything else was easy. The thought of five or ten years away from the family, though… but that wasn't the problem right now.

The man in the chair was reading a paper. Charlie scanned the second lead story. A 'freelance model' called Christine Keeler had failed to appear in court as a witness to a shooting by a 'coloured' man, John Arthur Edgecombe. Charlie knew Christine, vaguely, from the clubs. Hard-faced but softhearted. He wondered how long before the hacks really joined up the dots. Everyone knew who else hung out at Murray 's Cabaret, and that the group treated Cliveden as its country branch.

But the man in the chair wasn't reading that. He was groaning about how the West Indies had beaten England by ten wickets in Barbados. 'Can you believe those nig-nogs?'

Those nig-nogs included players like Sobers and Gibbs, the best off-spinner in the game, thought Charlie. Ignorant cunt. He took a step forward and sniffed loudly.

In the confined space, it sounded like a bull snorting. The long-termer in the chair looked up, then returned to his paper. Charlie took a step closer, folding his arms, feeling his worked muscles press against the fabric of his clothes. The man put down his Mirror once more. He opened his mouth to speak, saw the expression in Charlie's eyes and the honed shape of his torso, and thought better of it. He stood and stepped aside.

Charlie shot his trousers from the knee as he sat, then nodded his thanks as he held out his hand. The man hesitated and passed over the newspaper. Charlie snapped it open at an article claiming that the police needed an extra £25 million a year to fight the underworld. A White Paper called Crime in the Sixties was claiming that every aspect of law enforcement, from the probation service to the courts, was 'clearly inadequately funded' with the ever-present risk of 'crime going unpunished'.

Charlie laughed to himself. That's handy, he thought. Crime going unpunished. Maybe the day would work out all right, after all.

From The Times, 12 March 1963

MAN ACQUITTED ON £62,000 CHARGE

At the close of the case for the prosecution at the trial of the three men accused of being concerned in a £62,000 wages robbery at London Airport last November, Sir Anthony Hawke, the Recorder at the Central Criminal Court, directed the jury yesterday to acquit one of the accused on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence to justify proceeding further against him. A witness who placed the accused at the site was deemed 'unreliable', especially as another witness had insisted he was elsewhere at the time.

Charles Frederick Wilson, aged 30, bookmaker of Crescent Lane, S.W., was then found Not Guilty of robbing Arthur Henry Grey and Donald William Harris of boxes containing £62,599, the property of BOAC, while armed with offensive weapons. Wilson was formally discharged.