“We spent hours up at that railway bridge too. And it wasn’t Eddy’s idea about fixing the signals, it was mine.” Wilcox lit a cigarette.
“But he worked out how to move the mail train into a siding.”
This annoyed Wilcox. “You owe me just as much. I agreed to split that cash three ways as well. Look, you just did the route for that. Anyway, I don’t call twenty grand in cash a big deal or any reason to feel you owe him for the rest of your life.”
“All I’m saying is, he didn’t always have to cut it three ways.”
“Just think about his reasons. The others got thirty years apiece, right? And when they questioned us we could have put him in the frame with them. We were lucky they thought we were just dumb kids.”
“Not that dumb. We got away with it.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. And here you are, Christ knows how many years later, bleating on about how much you owe him. That’s why he always did a three-way cut.”
“What do you mean?”
“So we’d feel indebted to him,” Wilcox snapped.
“So you do feel you owe him, then?” Driscoll asked, surprised.
Wilcox sighed with exasperation. “No. We all took the risks. It was only fair to cut three ways.”
Driscoll opened a bottle of gin from the minibar and yanked out the ice tray. “Not the same on the last caper, though, was it?”
Wilcox tensed and opened another bottle. “I was up for it,” he said shortly.
“Yeah, but the last time it was a big number.”
“All right, I hear you.”
“Yeah, stealing fucking gold bullion, Jimmy. If we’d been copped that would have been thirty years. Without Eddy we’d never have got away with it. It wasn’t you or me that found out how to launder the cash.”
“And it was almost a fuckup. He didn’t have any idea how much there was.”
Driscoll laughed. “Three tonnes of gold. Worth twenty-five million pounds. Damn right we owe him.”
Wilcox reclined, his eyes drifted upward. Most of the gold had been melted down and moved abroad fast with the assistance of de Jersey’s friend’s helicopter and yacht. The robbery had been almost effortless, but moving that volume of gold had been a nightmare. De Jersey had deployed everyone he could think of to melt, move, carry, and shift the bars. Some were melted in a private kiln in a jeweler’s garden; others were buried around London, carried out to Spain in suitcases, or even left in safety-deposit boxes. De Jersey shipped some to Africa, then brought it back into England after purchasing a smelting plant; there he altered the hallmarks and later sold it on the open market. The largest amount, however, had been stored in a small jeweler’s workshop in France.
There was a rap at the door, and Driscoll got up to take in the hamburgers. He handed one to Wilcox and unwrapped the other.
“He moved those gold bars around,” Driscoll said. “Turned them into cash.”
“I don’t know how he bloody did it,” Wilcox said.
“He used assumed names and identities. He told me he’d worked out a system of depositing cash into high-street banks, in amounts as large as eight hundred grand.”
Wilcox unwrapped his hamburger.
“It wasn’t just us he took care of. Those ‘soldiers’ who were picked up, he looked after them. They never put any of us in the frame.” Driscoll tried to open his ketchup packet; he swore as the ketchup spurted over his T-shirt.
Wilcox remained unimpressed by the argument. “Well, they wanted their payoff when they came out of the nick.”
Driscoll peered at his hamburger. “You know Scotland Yard officers recovered eleven melted-down bars in 1985. None of the remaining stolen ingots has ever been found. Have you got a raw one? This is like old leather.” Wilcox passed over his untouched hamburger, opening another miniature vodka instead.
The two men fell silent, Wilcox drinking, Driscoll stuffing french fries into his mouth.
Under de Jersey’s orders, Wilcox and Driscoll had split up and moved to Canada, then to Los Angeles. De Jersey covered their tracks; he had given them fake passports and instructed them to be constantly on the move-and apart-until all was quiet. They were not due to receive the big payoff for another few years. They showed how much they trusted their “colonel” by their patience. The laundered money eventually ensured that all three men could lead a life of luxury. By now they had growing families and flourishing businesses. De Jersey himself emerged as a racehorse and stud-farm owner.
Driscoll looked up suddenly. “Why did you come here, Jimmy?”
“Thinking of writing my memoirs,” Wilcox replied.
“You’re here because you’re worried about what he’s gonna suggest, right?”
“Well, you keep saying how much you’re in debt to him, so I guess whatever he suggests, you’ll be up for it.”
“And you don’t feel like you owe him?”
“Like fuck I do. It was his idea to back that Internet company.”
Driscoll opened a half bottle of white wine.
“Okay, let’s be honest with each other.” He sat back, watching Wilcox open another miniature. “Reason you’re here is that you’re scared shitless.”
“Listen, I’m not scared of anything; I’m just being realistic. No way do I want to spend the rest of my life in some nick.”
“Yeah. I’ve got a wife and two kids. I feel the same way.”
“You do?”
“I can get by, like I said. I’ll have to sell off everything. Liz will go bananas, but hell. Ain’t gonna starve.”
“When we meet what are you gonna say? We should get it worked out between us.”
“I know.”
“But whatever he suggests we both walk away from, and this time we don’t let him wear us down. If we stand up to him together… Tony?”
Driscoll took a gulp of wine, then another, draining the bottle. “I agree,” he said. “I hope they serve better stuff than this at the Ritz, because I know I’m gonna need a few drinks to face him.”
“Yeah, but if we do it together it’ll be better.”
“It’s agreed, then?”
“Yeah.” They shook hands, but neither could meet the other’s eyes. They felt as if they were somehow betraying de Jersey.
Liz sat, surrounded by boutique bags, when her husband reeled in. “Do you know what time it is?” she asked, buffing her nails.
“I do, my love. I’ve been out on the golf course.”
“No, you haven’t. Your golfing shoes are still in the wardrobe.”
“Well, I lied. I’ve been at the Pink Flamingo bar,” he said as he tottered off to their bathroom.
“Who with?”
“Brad Pitt, and if you think I’m plastered you should see him.”
“Tony!” she yelled, but he slammed the door behind him.
Driscoll knew it was going to be very hard for him to say no to the Colonel. It would be even harder for Wilcox. He remembered Wilcox’s face when de Jersey had insisted they all have no further contact with each other. Since leaving Sandhurst, Wilcox and de Jersey had hardly been apart. Wilcox could not believe that his friend really meant it. He’d joked that maybe they could at least have a drink sometime.
“No, Jimmy,” de Jersey had said. “When I walk away, that is it. You don’t know me, we never meet up again. It’s the only way we will protect each other.” Then de Jersey had hugged Jimmy tightly. After he’d gone, Wilcox was in tears. “I feel like I just lost my brother,” he said.
Driscoll had felt sorry for him. “He’s just looking out for us Jimmy, like he’s always done.”
“Yeah, yeah, good-bye then.”
“Good-bye, Jimmy. You take care now.”
So they had all gone their separate ways. They had each been lucky and enjoyed a good life.
He sighed, sitting on the toilet looking down at his feet and his leather sandals. They reminded him of the ones he had worn when he was a kid. Outside the bathroom his wife was dripping with diamonds, and she had no doubt spent a fortune at the boutiques. The good life had softened both men, and Wilcox was obviously as afraid as he was of being drawn into another robbery. They would have to say no.