Robert Ryan - Signal Red

There was a side-panel interview with David Whitby, twenty-six, the fireman, with another headline: 'IF YOU SHOUT I WILL KILL YOU', I WAS TOLD.

Hmmm. Perhaps he was. But someone ought to stop witnesses talking to the press before they had been properly interviewed. Otherwise the public might start believing whatever the scribblers made up in preference to the truth.

The phone rang and he was told it was Brigadier Cheney, Chief Constable of Buckinghamshire, on the line.

'Hello, John. How are you coping?'

'Us country bumpkins, you mean?'

Ouch. Sensitive. 'No, John. Just wondered if you needed any help. Takes a lot of manpower, this sort of thing.'

Cheney sighed. 'I don't think we need many more at the scene just now. There's our lads, the British Transport Police and GPO Investigation Branch. Quite a bunfight.'

Hatherill hesitated. 'You know they'll be London lads, don't you, John?'

'That's yet to be established, George.'

Oh come on, he wanted to say. How many hardcore robbers come out of Leighton Buzzard? 'Well organised, though. Suggests London.'

'I've already had Glasgow on the line, claiming it must be someone from their patch.'

'Could be, John, could be. But my waters tell me London.'

'I'm not moving things down to you.' The man sounded uncommonly tetchy. The political manoeuvrings had started already.

'Of course not. I'm not trying to take over, John.'

'I've also had the government on.'

'The government? The funny hats?'

'No, not those buggers. The PM's office.'

'The PM? Why?'

'Oh, not him personally. Some lackey. Just very keen to stress that Mac is concerned that this reflects badly on the whole Establishment. That not even our money is safe now.'

Macmillan's government had been reeling under a variety of scandals, from Profumo to continued fallout from Burgess, Maclean and Philby. There was also, Hatherill knew, anxiety about Mac's wife's own affair with Bob Boothby coming to light, perhaps through some juvenile, muck-raking magazine like Private Eye or even the scurrilous TV series That Was The Week That Was, which lampooned Mac mercilessly. And now, after all the attacks

on the political establishment, the fiscal system had been whacked with a crowbar by opportunist footpads.

'What did our young man from the PM's office suggest?'

'The slimy little sod suggested that perhaps this was too big for a provincial police force. Matter of national importance, he said.'

That explained the prickliness. Cheney had been ordered to bring in the Yard and had resented the phone call from Hatherill, thinking it was a two-pronged attack. 'They haven't been on to me, you know,' Hatherill said. 'Mine was a genuine call. There's no civil servant poking me up the arse with a sharpened brolly.'

Finally, the Brigadier laughed and Hatherill could feel the irritation leaving him. 'Pleased to hear it.'

'Who have you got on this, John?'

'Detective Superintendent Fewtrell is in charge. Good, solid copper, you'll like him. But he's on his way to London. There will be an all-party conference at the GPO this afternoon. I'm sure you would like to attend.'

'Absolutely. But, John, this happened in your backyard, not mine. We'll bring it all to you.'

'I appreciate that, George.'

There was a knock at the door and Tommy Butler put his head around it. Hatherill beckoned him in. 'Anything you need for the minute?'

'Talcs.' He meant fingerprint officers with their dusting powders.

'I'll get some over,' Hatherill said.

'Thanks. The briefing is at two p.m. – I'll send details across.'

'Thanks, John.'

Hatherill cradled the receiver and looked up. Butler was

standing, as impassive as ever, hands crossed in front of him. The Commander explained the gist of his conversation.

'He'll need more than some dusters,' Butler grunted.

'I know, Tommy, but let's give our country cousins their day in the sun. Although if this job wasn't put together from down here I'll eat my gold watch.'

'What about Glasgow?'

'Doubt it,' Hatherill said. 'If that was a Glasgow firm they'd still be mopping the blood off the rails.'

Butler thought this over and nodded. The Scottish lads prided themselves on sudden, explosive violence, often of the most vicious kind. Razors and chains and coshes filled with wet sand for starters. And lately, guns. 'They won't be able to keep a million quid quiet, will they?'

'Unlikely. Look, no matter what happens at the conference, I want you to set up a team for this. Can you do that today?'

'Me?' Toes would be trodden on: Millen, Williams. 'Not Ernie or Frank?'

'I think this is your kind of dance, Tommy.'

Butler allowed himself a small, satisfied grin.

'Let me deal with how the hierarchy will work out. Tap every snout and snitch. Now it's all over the papers, you bet there'll be people saying, "Well, I could have been in on that, they asked me but…", and who knows, one or two of them might even be telling the truth. I'm also going to prepare a press release saying that there is a newly formed London Train Robbery Squad and that Tommy Butler is to head it.'

'Why release that?' Hatherill didn't normally shout about internal reorganisations or promote individual personalities. Apart from his own.

'Let's not beat about the bush, Tommy. When they hear

Fewtrell is heading the team against them, they'll shrug. When they hear it's you who's after them, they'll shit themselves.'

Bruce had gone to bed before the count was finished. The room was crowded and airless and, coupled with the release of the tension that had gripped him for so long, his body felt like rubber. He had stayed long enough to see about half the 120 bags ripped open, to know that most of it was good gear, with non-sequential numbers, and that only a small proportion were clearly damaged notes destined for destruction. And there were relatively few Scottish ones.

He wriggled into the sleeping bag and lay down, his head swimming with fatigue for a moment, but he plunged over the edge into a dark chasm almost immediately.

Ronnie woke him in the early afternoon with a cup of tea. He looked done in, too, his hair plastered to his forehead by sweat. Ronnie had worked like a demon, mainly because he felt bad about Stan. He wanted to make sure he had properly earned his whack by the day's end.

Bruce took the tea in his hands, still encased in leather gloves. 'Thanks, mate. All done?'

'Yeah, just about. Lot of ten-bob notes nobody seems to want.'

Bruce shuffled upright, the lower half of his body still in the bag. 'Too grand for ten-bob notes, are they now? Fuckin' idiots. It's all money. I'll have them.'

He heard a burst of laughter and whooping from downstairs, and asked, 'What's that?'

'Buster's organised a Monopoly tournament.' Ronnie smirked. 'They're playing with real money.'

'Cunts,' Bruce laughed. 'They still got gloves on?'

'Few of them took them off to count. It's not easy, you

know. Don't worry, they put Elastoplasts over their fingertips.'

'I hope so. So what's left to do?'

'We have to divide it into the whacks. Decide what to ditch. You know, which notes are too damaged or too Scottish. Thought you ought to be there for that.'

Bruce took a sip of his sweet tea, feeling his teeth tingle. Too much sugar.

'Bruce?' 'What?'

'Sorry about Stan. He was down to me, and-'

Bruce waved a gloved hand at him, dismissing the words. 'I wasn't there. I don't know what went on in the cab. The train arrived at the bridge. We got the money. That's all that matters. What are they saying on the radio?'

'"Vicious cosh gang robs train of one million and gets clean away".'

Bruce balked at the description. That was wrong. They weren't thugs, they were thieves. Having to hit the driver was a pity, but perhaps he had been playing the hero. Bruce would wager he would be now, milking it for all he was worth. It wasn't as if it was his bloody money. It was theirs. 'How much is the count?'