Robert Ryan - Signal Red

Marie walked in and leaned over the table. She was dressed in the dark jacket and skirt she wore to work at the Midland Bank. She stabbed at the enormous ring of keys of various shapes and sizes.

'Twirlers.'

Well, it was true there were some skeleton keys among them, but most were legitimate. 'You know what it's like. People always losing their keys and need the car opening.'

'And people always need cars "opening" when the owner's not about.' She blew out her cheeks, making the freckles stand out even more. Marie had long red hair and the palest of skins that betrayed her Irish roots. Her enormous, extended family was in the business – the ducking and diving business – working the north-west of England. She had deliberately distanced herself from them – apart from her brother Geoff, who turned up like a bad penny every few months for a handout – but she had been around enough car thieves to recognise a professional key-set when she saw one.

When they had met, at a dance in Kilburn, she had known who Tony was and what he was. A ringer. A man who took stolen cars and turned them into something else: unrecognisable, untraceable stolen cars. In order to move the relationship on, he had been forced to renounce the ringing game. It was something he had never regretted, not really. But it had its moments, which you couldn't say about running a showroom in Warren Street.

Marie had her hands on her hips, her 'fierce' pose. 'There are coppers who would arrest you just for having those things.'

'There are coppers who will arrest you for being in possession of a tongue in your head,' Tony shot back. 'It's a regular tool of the trade.'

'What are you up to, Tony?'

'What do you think I'm up to?'

'What am I supposed to think when you come home at all hours stinking of thinners?'

He laughed at that. The splashes of cellulose thinners on him were legit. He'd been respraying a Standard van for a local joinery firm. 'I'm not at it,' he said with all the conviction he could muster.

'Because I have a job in a bank now,' she reminded him. 'But how long do you think I'd keep it if they thought my old man had friends who were partial to the balaclava.' She rubbed her stomach. 'Look what you've done.'

She walked over to the old-fashioned metal kitchen unit, pulled down the drawer and rummaged for some Alka- Seltzer. 'You give me indigestion. I shouldn't wonder if I've an ulcer.'

He stood up, crossed over and put his arms around her. She let a hand rest on his crotch, saying, 'I swear if you go bogey on me I'll pull it off.'

He turned away from her slightly, just in case she was considering a warning shot across the bollocks. 'You really know how to win a man's heart.' He kissed her neck.

'I can still smell the thinners.'

'I'll cover it up with a splash of Old Spice.'

'Not now, Tony.' She moved his arms aside with that practised combination of sharp elbows and a quick wiggle that women perfected at an early age. 'One of us has a real job.'

'So have I.'

'How many cars you sold recently?'

Tony bristled. 'As it goes…' He pulled the roll of notes from his pocket, undid the elastic band, and let the cash flutter onto the linoleum floor.

'What's all this?' She knelt down and he could see her stocking-tops. He didn't bother to help as she gathered up the five-pound notes. She was laughing as she did so, until she realised how much there was. The laughter died and the smile faded soon after. 'What's this from, Tony? It's a-'

He waited for her to make a joke on their surname. None came. This was no laughing matter.

'A quick turnaround yesterday,' he lied. 'Car came in, gave him a ton for it. Customer walks in half an hour later. Cash on the nose.' 'What car?'

He hesitated, sticking as close to the truth as he dared. 'Some nice old Jag.'

She stood up and handed him the sheaf of notes. He wrapped the band around it again. 'Can't have been that old. There's a hundred and fifty quid profit there.' 'Give or take.'

Her eyes flashed with amusement. 'A hundred and fifty dead. I count that stuff all day long, remember. You sure it's bona?'

'As my dick is long.'

She slapped his shoulder. 'Don't be crude.' He could see she was already thinking about what the cash could buy. A refrigerator. A decent television. A holiday.

'Sure we can squeeze a meal at the Carousel out of it.' She smoothed down her skirt and straightened her jacket. In one deft movement she tied her hair back and became every inch the severe bank cashier. 'I have to go. Love you.' 'When I give you money.' A smirk. 'Take it or leave it.'

The guilt at lying only kicked in after she had gone, while Tony made himself a fresh pot of tea. Well, it was a one-off. Just repaying a favour. There was no way on God's earth that Tony Fortune was going to get involved in any tickle for Bruce Reynolds, that was for sure.

They had ringed the two Jags in part of a disused bus garage in Camden, not far from the Met's Stolen Car Squad at Chalk Farm. Tony didn't do much apart from changing the plates and swapping the vehicle ID plates over. He also put a Webasto sunroof in the burgundy model, which would throw anyone looking for the original car, and changed the wire wheels on the metallic-blue one for regular steel disc wheels. He could sell on the wires, no problem.

Mickey Ball ventured up north to help drive the cars south from Camden to where Roy wanted them – in Battersea, within walking distance of his garage and the shop where he sold antique silverware. He and Tony took different routes. It didn't do to be going around in convoy, just in case some copper put Mk 2 and Mk 2 together and got a sniff of something.

Tony went via Westminster Bridge and made it there first, and as he bumped down the track that punctured a scruffy row of terraced houses, he spotted Roy waiting at the garages, with the doors to both open. He chose the nearest one, waited until he had cleared the rutted access alley and accelerated. He roared past the lock-up, slammed on the brakes, engaged reverse and propelled the Jag into the dark interior, stopping it with an inch to spare before the bumper engaged with the tool rack at the rear.

As Tony squeezed out of the driver's door Roy was making exaggerated waves in the air to clear the dirt the tyres had kicked up. 'Done that before, have you?' he smirked.

'Once or twice.'

'Wait till you see Mickey. He goes in like a mum trying to park her pram.' He closed the garage doors and engaged the clasp lock. 'You done any driving?'

Tony knew what kind of driving he was talking about. 'Not the way you mean. Not serious.' A couple of high-speed chases after he had been spotted in a wrong 'un was the closest he had ever come to being a wheel-man. And that was six, seven years ago.

'Stoppin' for a drink?' Roy asked.

'Best get back,' said Tony.

'Give you a lift somewhere?'

'The Tube. Cheers.'

'Just wait for Mickey.'

'Right.' He offered Roy one of the new Embassy Filters, which Marie had started buying, saying they were better for you than unfiltered.

'Nah. I don't. Stopped the booze, too.'

'Why?'

'Slows you down. For the racetrack.'

Well, Bruce had said he was serious about his racing. Tony lit his cigarette from a Colibri lighter. He smoked in silence for a while.

'Bruce wondered if you wanted to stay on.'

Tony looked down at Roy, who was a good four inches shorter than him. 'Stay on?'

'Get involved, like. In the job. It needs a sizeable firm. Room for one more on top, as they say.'

The next step was, he would have to ask what exactly the job was. That was as good as saying 'Yes, count me in.' You didn't tyre-kick with these lads. If you said you were interested, it meant you were interested. Not merely curious. Curious was bad.