Driscoll turned away. It was fucking ridiculous. What a choice for the heist!
Pamela fussed over Westbrook, fetching him water, searching his pockets for his pills, and standing over him as he sipped. Then she helped him to the back of the barn, where he lay down on some sacking. “Will you marry me?” His voice was racked with pain.
Pamela stroked his head, which was glistening with perspiration. “I would have done like a shot, dear, once, but I’m too old for all that now. The best thing for me now would be retirement in the Bahamas. You could always be my houseguest.”
“I’d like that,” he said, hardly audible. Pamela watched over him until he drifted off to sleep. He didn’t stir when Wilcox came in and banged the door. He was disheveled and freezing cold, and went straight to the heater to rub his hands.
Driscoll passed him his rubber gloves and nodded to Westbrook. “He fainted, flat on his face.”
“Is he gonna be all right?”
“He’s sleeping,” Pamela said, as she put the kettle on the burner.
“Oh, that’s brilliant,” Wilcox said. “He’s a fucking liability.”
“Don’t you swear at me, Jimmy, because I won’t take it,” Pamela said. “Tony is popping antacid tablets like mad, and you’re not exactly a choirboy, so the pot’s calling the kettle black, isn’t it?”
Wilcox became irate. “I’m clean. What about you? Top yourself up with gin before you came, did you?”
“Stop it,” Driscoll snapped at Wilcox. “Just shut the fuck up! Any problems we’ve got, we put before the Colonel and let him sort them out. Bickering’s a waste of time and energy.”
De Jersey stood outside the door, listening, choosing his moment. Eventually, he stepped forward and they saw him. “Problems?”
Wilcox pointed to where Lord Westbrook was sleeping. “Did a pratfall when he came in. Couldn’t stand upright.”
De Jersey went to the back of the barn, sat on his heels, and looked at the sleeping man. Westbrook’s eyes opened. “I will not let you down,” he said. “I’ll make sure of it. I’ll take the tablets before I go, not wait as I did today. It’s just that I have to test how long I can go between these wretched attacks.”
“What do they feel like?” de Jersey asked.
“Excruciating migraine, dizzy, sick. But my pills sort me out, really they do.”
De Jersey patted his shoulder. “Okay, old chap, I believe you. Just rest here a while, and when you feel up to it, come and join us.”
“Thank you.”
De Jersey began to confer with Wilcox and Driscoll about the look-alike. “We take her straight to the Aldersgate warehouse. Try to keep her calm, maybe even let her think that that’s where we’ll be filming. Not until we have her secure inside do we give her the details. We need her standing by earlier to be sure, I’m thinking now maybe six o’clock, seven at the latest, so we can prime her. Meanwhile we need to get to her husband fast. There’ll be no need for any rough stuff.”
Pamela broke in. “If the Queen becomes troublesome, what should I do?”
“She won’t if we’re threatening her husband.”
Driscoll snorted. “If it was me and you had my wife, I’d tell you to keep her!”
Later that evening, when everyone except Wilcox, Driscoll, and de Jersey had left, de Jersey asked them for their opinion. He believed he had come up with a solution to the panic alarms. He opened the diagrams he’d printed off from the CD. “The power source for the alarms is located here, in what would have been the old coal chute.” He pointed to a spot on the diagram. “The on-street chute access has been cemented over, so the only way into it is from inside the house.” De Jersey marked it as he spoke.
“How the hell do we get in there?” Driscoll asked.
De Jersey opened his cigar case and offered it to Driscoll and Wilcox, who shook their heads.
“Have another look at the information on the CD,” he said. “The warehouse where we’ll be is just a hundred yards from the safe house, but its cellar extends beyond the actual warehouse space. It’s almost next to theirs. All these properties were supplied with coal using the same chute. If we enlarge the small chute door in our warehouse’s cellar, we’ll have access to the room at the bottom of the chute. At the other side there should be a similar door leading into the safe house’s cellar. We open up our side and gain access to their cellar through this coal chute. We can’t do it any other way. Marsh tells me they test the alarms every day at nine. After that we disconnect the lines. We will have only a short time because we’re moving out the convoy at ten twenty-five, but at least we’ll know that anyone pressing a panic button is not going to worry us. What do you think?”
“It might be the only way,” said Wilcox.
Heartened, de Jersey outlined how long it would take and what equipment they would need, and both men agreed the idea was workable. They would use a high-powered laser gun to cut soundlessly through the cement, but as they would have to go brick by brick, their nights from now on would be busy. All he had left to work out was how to disconnect the alarms without them going off once they were inside. For this he would need Marsh again.
They turned to the getaway plan-they hadn’t yet worked out the fine details of their own escape. They had to get rid of the Royal vehicles, then get themselves and the jewels away from the scene as quickly as possible.
By late evening, they believed they had a plan, but they wouldn’t know until the day of the robbery whether it would work.
Christina was in the kitchen sorting through some of her mother’s old letters and photographs when the phone rang.
“Could I speak to Edward de Jersey, please?” said an unfamiliar voice.
“He’s not here. Can I take a message?”
“Where is he?”
“Who is speaking?”
“Sylvia Hewitt. Who’s that?”
“Christina de Jersey. Do you want to leave a message?”
“When do you expect him back? I need to see him.”
“In a few days. Does he have your number?”
“Thank you, and yes. Sorry to have bothered you, Mrs. de Jersey.”
Christina hung up. She didn’t know why, but the call unnerved her. She’d never met Sylvia, but she knew she was Helen Lyons’s sister. She had been so abrupt, almost rude. She jotted down the message on a yellow Post-it and stuck it on the phone.
Liz Driscoll had just returned from a manicure when the phone rang. She picked it up. “Hello?”
“Could I speak to Mr. Driscoll, please?”
“He’s not at home. Who’s calling?”
“Sylvia Hewitt. Do you know when he’ll be back?”
“He’s out on business.”
“When do you expect him?”
“Sometime this evening. Do you want to leave a message?”
“Just say I called. I think he has my number. Sorry to disturb you.”
Liz hung up. This was the second time she’d taken a call from the woman, and if Tony was up to his old tricks again she’d really have it out with him.
Marsh was pleased with the new equipment. He had spent thousands in computer stores across London. The skimmer was well worth the five thousand he’d paid for it. He’d given his wife carte blanche to go shopping at Harrods with the fake credit cards he’d had a pal create using several numbers he’d got from the skimmer, and she had departed, leaving him to take care of their child.
De Jersey had traveled by public transport to Marsh’s house. It was almost five thirty when they met. They discussed the phone conversations between Scotland Yard and the safe house. Marsh was still confident they would have no problem in gaining the IRA code word for the second of May. He played the tapes he had recorded of numerous IRA informants calling in to give the day’s code word. It was usually an odd name, sometimes a place or object. The tapes reassured de Jersey that Marsh was as good as his word, and they played them again so that de Jersey could practice an Irish accent. Marsh also confirmed that there had been no changes in the Queen’s official diary and the fitting date remained fixed. The Royal party was to depart from Buckingham Palace at ten that morning.