Robert Ryan - Signal Red

Buster pulled a hideous face.

'OK, just some quick formalities. This is Roger, the

Flowerpot Man. ' Roger Cordrey nodded, although most had been introduced to him informally as the party had gathered at Roy 's flat. 'He's worked with Buster.' This was the equivalent of references; 'worked with' meant he was a stand-up bloke. In truth, Roger didn't look like one of them. Small, self-effacing but with sly, shifty eyes, he reminded Bruce of a vicar with a guilty secret – embezzlement, perhaps – in an Ealing comedy.

'Tommy Wisbey, I think most of you know.' Tommy was a bookmaker who hired himself out as a frightener. 'Bonehead', they sometimes called him, because he was as daunting as the bloke who played that character on kids' TV. He wasn't anything like as daft, though.

'Jimmy White, same, and next to him that's Tony Fortune. Let's hope that's a lucky name, eh? Roy says he's almost as good a driver as him. Which, as you know, is like a blessing from the Pope. By the way, Charlie, you quite finished?'

Charlie looked puzzled. As usual he had said very little, just gazed at the ceiling while he waited for the proceedings to begin. 'With what?'

'That new hobby you have.' Bruce allowed a theatrical pause to build. 'You know the one. Setting fire to cars in Bethnal Green.'

There were some sniggers, just like naughty schoolkids. Bruce should have been annoyed, but he had to be careful. He was the man at the front with the chalk. There had to be a leader in these situations but he mustn't overstep the mark. A lot of these chaps were in the game because they despised any form of authority. Even from a fellow villain.

Charlie's eyes narrowed. 'I think I might have got that out of my system, yes, Bruce.'

There was a steely undertow to the words, but Bruce ignored it. 'Good. Because from now on, we keep a low profile. Not get our names plastered over every pub and club. Nobody should be at it. I mean all of you. Whatever you are working on, ditch it. It'll be peanuts compared to this. Understood?'

A few nods.

'Still, now Charlie has laid down a few ground rules for them, I don't think we need worry about any other firm treading on our toes, eh?'

That seemed to placate Charlie, who took it as a compliment. Bruce didn't really object to Charlie's refusal to let the pricks who took the Jags go unpunished. After all, it was going to be hard to keep the train job quiet, but the thought of what Charlie might do to anyone who flapped his lips would help keep a lid on things.

'Now. Glasgow.' He tapped the top of the board, on which was a primitive outline of the British Isles with a few key places chalked in. Now he pointed further south. 'And Euston. Our Man in the North seems to have steered us straight on this. Every evening at five past six, give or take ten minutes, the up Travelling Post Office leaves Glasgow, stopping at Carstairs, Carlisle, Preston, Crewe, Tamworth and Rugby. By the time it leaves Rugby it is fully loaded – next stop Euston. The train consists of twelve or thirteen coaches. The second coach is always the High Value Packet carriage. It's that we want. It will contain between seventy and two hundred bags, depending on how fortunate we are. You've all heard the figures, but we take those with a pinch of salt. We've all been there, eh?'

There were grunts as several of them remembered the disappointing haul from the Heathrow job.

'What we have to do is stop the train somewhere between Rugby and North London. That's where Roger comes in.

The crucial thing is, where do we stop it? So this week's little task, gentlemen, is for some of us to scout the line from Watford northwards, looking for places where we have easy road access.'

'And a signal gantry,' said Roger.

'Roger will tell us what to look for in a moment. He and I will take one section, Gordy and Jimmy another, Roy and Tony a third. All right?' He pointed at Buster once more. 'The HVP and the rest of the Mail Train must be shunted somewhere during the day. I want to look inside it, see what we are up against. Buster, Jim Hussey, Tommy, I want you to look at all the shunting yards and sidings. Roger has a list. We also have to decide how big this firm will need to be. There are about eighty people on that train, but only five in the HVP. If we can isolate that HVP, we are quids in. On the other hand, moving a hundred mailbags at double- quick time is going to need a lot of hands. I am open to suggestions for extra bodies, but, you know, keep it in the family, eh lads? Roger and Jimmy have some ideas.'

'Tiny Dave Thompson,' said Jimmy White. 'Another ex- Para.'

There were a few murmurs of agreement. Tiny Dave had kept his head when the arrests were happening after the London Airport job. Harry and Ian, the other two musclemen, had lost their bottle and left town.

Bruce said: 'Good idea. But I'll make the approaches – agreed? This has to be tighter than a duck's arsehole. That's me done for now. We meet again at the end of the week. Clapham Common, five-a-side. Bring your boots, your Dextrosol and your liniment. Any questions?'

Gordy asked: 'When are we aiming for, Bruce?'

'Our man tells us the most cash is carried after a Bank

Holiday. The one that stands out is August the fifth. It's a Scottish one, before you ask. Now, we don't do it on August the fifth, 'cause the money is still in the banks. So we are looking at the night of Tuesday the sixth, morning of Wednesday, August the seventh. A little over two and a half months away.'

Someone whistled. All they had so far was a vague idea of what they were going to do and when. Not how. And when it came to robbing trains, the how was the big ask. Ten weeks was no time at all when it came to planning that kind of job.

'So we best get to it.' Bruce stepped aside. 'Roger will now read from the Big Chief I-Spy's Book of Train Signals'

Roger Cordrey, florist by profession, train robber by inclination, stood up. Next to some of the muscle gathered in the room, he looked just like a flower-seller. But he had specialist knowledge, which was always respected in the business, and most of the men carried on puffing their cigarettes and listening intently as he prepared to give them a chat about the difference between dwarf and home signals.

' Britain has seventy-three TPOs, Travelling Post Offices,' he began, just to show they weren't the first firm to have noticed all this money moving around the country on rails. 'They have been running since 1830…'

Buster Edwards, suddenly transported back to school, began to roll up pieces of Rizla cigarette paper to flick at Gordon Goody's ears. Whatever the division of labour, Buster was fairly sure he wouldn't be part of any technical team. Not while he still had his spring-loaded cosh.

DC Billy Naughton arrived back at the section house tired and dishevelled. He had spent too many hours chasing after the man Duke was convinced was a criminal mastermind only to discover he was a bloody scribbler. Colin Thirkell. Waste of time.

Well, not entirely. On the bright side, he had been bunged a fiver by some guilty poof who had thought that he was going to run him in for gross indecency. The man had leaned over the porcelain dividing wall of the urinals to take a good look at his tackle. The Liberace had a neck like a bloody flamingo. Billy, outraged at this invasion of his privates, had slapped the man around a bit, then flashed his warrant card, and the terrified queer had reached for his wallet. Billy guessed it wasn't the first time he had bought his way out of scandal.

Maybe he shouldn't have settled for a fiver. The man was well-dressed – a City type or solicitor, perhaps. Probably married. Just like the plot of that Dirk Bogarde film, a man with VICTIM written right across his forehead. Billy had little against queers, other than the usual disgust at what they got up to, but the need to carry out their perversions in public toilets – what was that all about? Maybe if they had to hand enough fivers over to policemen they would start thinking twice. Which made 'fining' them a public service, didn't it?