Robert Ryan - Signal Red

Bobby slumped into an armchair. 'I wasn't in on it. I was just looking after that money.'

'I have no doubt lots of people are looking after lots of money as we speak.' The policeman looked down at the contents of the envelope. 'You know we didn't get many serial numbers from that job. But the ones we did get were all one- pound notes, Like these. Must be, what, four or five hundred here? Odds are good we'll have a number. Very good.'

It was a lie, but Bobby Pelham wasn't to know that the recorded serial numbers had been scattered at random between the ten-bob, one-pound and five-pound notes.

'These are from the job, aren't they?'

'What if I say yes?'

'Depends how you came by them.'

'Like I said, I wasn't in on it. Honest. I was just…'

'Yeah – looking after it. A cush, eh?' A cushion he meant, money for James to fall back on in an emergency. Bobby nodded his agreement, his head heavy, like a lead weight. 'If what you say is true, then it's receiving. A few months inside at most. Perhaps a caution, depending on what's on your docket.' Slipper knew the mechanic had no form.

'Nothing.'

'I can't promise anything, but if I can say you co-operated…'

Billy came back from the kitchen with a glass of water. He stumbled over a pile of Autosports and Motoring News left in the middle of the floor. 'Shit. This place could do with a tidy, Bobby.'

Bobby took the glass and gulped half of the water down. 'It's from the train robbery.'

'And it was given to you by Roy James?'

He bit his lower lip before he spoke. 'Yes.'

'And you will make a statement to that effect?' Bobby didn't answer, just stared at the floor in shame. Slipper repeated the question.

'Yes.'

Slipper turned to Billy. 'Get on to the Yard, will you? Tell them we can release Roy James's picture to the press immediately.'

The voice on the line was muffled and urgent. 'Hello? Can I speak to the Train Squad?'

'Who is this?'

'Is that the Train Squad?'

'No, this is the Scotland Yard switchboard.' The operator wrote down a word on the pad. Irish? 'I need a name from you, sir.'

'Put me through or I'll hang up. And they'll never know what they are missing.'

The slightest pause, followed by a sigh. 'Very well, hold on, sir.'

There was a delay of ninety seconds before anyone came on. The man sounded bored. 'Detective Sergeant Leonard Haslam.'

'Is that the Train Squad?'

'It is. Who am I speaking to?'

'Black Horse Court, Southwark.'

'What about it?'

'There's a phone box. If you get someone there within ten minutes, yer man might find something of interest.'

'Stay on the line, sir.' A hand went over the mouthpiece. 'Who have we got near Southwark? Phone box at Black Horse Court. Get a car there. Now!' He came back on loud and clear. 'Sir? Hello? Sir? Oh, bugger.'

In the Squad room, Len paced up and down while he waited to hear from the car sent to the phone box. Billy was in charge of noting that morning's calls – there were always at least a dozen – and Len went over the conversation with the anonymous caller while Billy logged it. They were turning into station cats, shiny-arsed coppers who never left the factory, and Len didn't like it. But so much information was coming in it had to be processed and ranked or they would drown.

'Nothing in on Goody?' he asked when they had finished.

'No, for the fifteenth time.' It was strange how each detective seemed to have adopted their own personal betes noires among the suspects. Len was on Goody's case, of course, while Jack Slipper had been keen to pin something on Ronnie Biggs. Once it transpired that Charmian had blown a wedge of cash in Bond Street and Ronnie's prints had cropped up on a bottle of ketchup and a Pyrex dish at the farm, Biggs was bang to rights. Slipper was in Aylesbury that morning, charging him. Next, Slipper said, he would concentrate on bringing in Roy James.

Millen, though, had a thing for Jimmy White, because they had history going back some years. Frank Williams wanted Buster Edwards because he knew him, had drunk with him over the years, liked him. He thought it would be a friendly gesture to be the one who collared him. Keep it in the family.

Butler had his sights set on Bruce Reynolds, whom he considered the prime mover in the whole affair. The fact that there hadn't been a sniff of him in the past few weeks made him even more of a prize.

There was another character irritating Len. One they still couldn't put at the farm. Even his brother-in-law hadn't given him up. All they had was the anonymous tip-off. 'Can we spin Fortune's drum again?' he asked.

'I'm sure.' Up to a dozen search warrants a day were being issued. The normal caution with such briefs had been thrown to the wind where the robbery was concerned. You only had to mention that the warrant was in connection with Sears Crossing to get your chit signed.

Len bent down and opened a desk drawer. He passed Billy a small plastic phial. Billy went to hold it up to the light but Len grabbed his wrist. 'Keep it down.'

'What is it?'

'Flakes of paint.'

'From what?'

'The lorry at the farm.'

Billy looked at him with uncomprehending eyes.

'Look, I've done enough. Best if I'm not near. It's your turn.'

'For what?'

Len shook his head at Billy's denseness. 'Find some shoes, trousers, whatever, to put them on. Take them to forensics.'

'Len-'

'Fortune was at that farm – you know it and I know it. Whoever the bird was who got Reynolds right also gave us Fortune. Remember?'

'But we have Reynolds's prints. That's watertight. There's none of Fortune's prints at Leatherslade.'

'Gordy never left any prints either. Careful, see?' Len hissed. 'And I reckon most of the prints were left after the robbery – when they got money-struck and sloppy. And we are sure Fortune was there before the take, not after. Put the paint in your pocket. Go on – get onto it. Right?'

'DS Haslam, Line Five!'

Len loped over and took the call and came back rubbing his hands together.

'What?' asked Billy.

'Money.'

'In the phone box?'

'Two potato sacks. They've just done a quick count.' Len clapped his hands with glee. 'We've just got about fifty thousand pounds back.'

Gordon Goody was going stir crazy. The small room above the pub on the river near Tower Bridge seemed to shrink by the day. Here he was, rich at last – and with the money well hidden – and he was like some kind of laboratory rat in a shoebox. Now and then he went down to the pub and worked behind the bar, but it was risky. He was a big man, not the kind of character you would forget in a hurry. And he could never stop himself flirting with the girls. Couldn't be helped. Skirts were shorter, tops tighter, eyelashes, for the batting of, longer.

But he couldn't risk a bird up in that room. So far he had been very, very careful. The reason that his smudge wasn't

plastered all over the front of the Daily Sketch was because they had no dabs at the farm. He had never, ever taken his gloves off. The others had been unlucky. A palm print from where his fabric glove had shrunk got Jim Hussey bang to rights. And Bruce? Mr bloody Sheen himself managed to get dusted. There was something fishy there, Gordy thought. Bruce with his prints on a ketchup bottle? Pretentious sod only ever used Lea & Perrins. Which suggested the Fewtrells and Butlers of this world would stop at nothing to bring them in. The job had proved too big to ignore, too much of a poke in the eye with a blunt cosh. Bloody Buster and his cosh and that daffy cunt Tiny Dave. If that driver had not been thumped, the hue and cry would be that much less intense. But now they were baying for them.

Gordy looked at his watch. Not yet eleven. The day was crawling by. The pub would open soon and he would hear the noise of the customers through the floor, braying and shouting. He never served at lunchtime. Different crowd, all male, even some lawyers and coppers.