Signal Red

He heard the sonorous ringing of the bucket as Billy relieved himself.

'Here, keep the bloody noise down, will you? It's like Big Ben going off.'

'Sorry. Christ, I needed that.'

Duke wrinkled his nose. 'Put the cover on it, will you?' There was another clang as Billy dropped the tea tray that acted as a lid onto the receptacle. 'Quietly!'

'Let's have a look.'

Len handed the bins over to Billy, and helped himself to some stewed tea from the Thermos, trying to ignore the smell of hot piss still wafting from the bucket, despite its lid.

So, Duke continued to muse, do we go in whenever the consignment or vehicle Reynolds is waiting for arrives, or see what develops? Jam today or tomorrow? There were times when he wished they had a bloody Whirlybird, a helicopter to track the buggers from the air.

'He's gone back in, Len,' said Billy.

'How did he look?'

'Very smart. Nice suit.'

Duke sighed. 'His face, you prick. What was his expression?'

Billy smirked to let him know he'd been pulling his plonker. 'Didn't give much away. Concerned, maybe.'

'Like he was expecting something?'

'Yeah.'

Charlie Wilson and Gordon Goody, perhaps. That would be a result. Duke picked up the radio. It was time to wake up the others. However it went down, here or at some as- yet-unknown tickle, Bruce Reynolds and his mates were going to be spending some time at a not-so-friendly nick that day.

Opportunity fuckin' Knocks, he thought, and the clapometer swings to 100 per cent.

Jimmy White waited until Tony caught up with him. He put out his hand and they shook. 'All right?'

'Yeah,' replied Tony, with a confidence he didn't feel.

'Where you parked?'

' Effingham Road.'

'Good. OK, they are in the end ones,' he said, indicating along the row of multi-coloured, up-and-over metal doors. Jimmy gave Tony a sidelong glance, something in the new boy's demeanour unsettling him. 'You sure you are all right?'

Tony shrugged. 'You know…'

Jimmy put a hand on his shoulder. 'Yeah, I know. Be all right. You're with the big boys now.'

'Don't worry about me, I'll do my bit.'

'Sure. Here. Take the green one.'Jimmy handed over a set of keys with a Jaguar leather fob, the metal disc featuring a close-up of the snarling cat. Tony took them, hoping Jimmy wouldn't see how sweaty his palms were.

'And this is for the garage. Number thirty-one. The one on the right.' He produced a second set of keys and tossed them to Tony.

They lined up in front of their respective metal doors, bent down and turned the keys in the locks, then twisted the handles. 'One, two, three,' said Jimmy, as if they were waiters about to lift their cloches in unison.

There was a rattle and rumble as the concrete counterweights slid down their runners, and the doors yawned open, to reveal the space within. And that was all there was. Space. No Jaguars. Just the empty, oil-stained cement floors where they had once stood.

Tony turned to Jimmy, open-mouthed, a baffled shock mixed with a cowardly streak of relief. White had already seen the hole in the roof where the robbers had gained initial access and discovered the cars. As a key-man, he knew how easy it was to start a Jag, almost as simple as picking and then resetting the locks in the garage doors' handles.

'They've gone,' said Tony.

Jimmy's face darkened, his lips twisting, but then, unexpectedly, he laughed. It was a coarse, frightening sound, although there might have been a hint of admiration in there as he shook his head in amazement. 'The thievin' bastards.'

Twenty-eight

New Scotland Yard, May 1963

Frank Williams, Ernie Millen's deputy, barely glanced at the reports on his desk before he looked up at Duke and Billy. He ran a hand over his thinning hair, his expression like someone sucking on a lemon. 'Fuckin' shambles,' he said quietly. 'A right fuckin' shambles.'

Len Haslam shifted his weight from leg to leg uncomfortably. 'We were sure they were at it…'

Williams's face closed like a fist. 'Of course they were bloody at it. But what were they at, Lennie boy?'

Duke shrugged. Williams reached over and took a sip of his tea. 'You are lucky Ernie or Hatherill haven't seen this, or they'd be having you back on the Big Hats. You know that, don't you?' No response was required.

Williams leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. His jacket flapped open to reveal a spreading gut – one of the hazards of the job at his level; there was deskwork and there was boozer time and little in between. Frank still believed the best way to catch villains was to mix it up with them, to spend time in the spielers and drinking clubs. He knew Ernie Millen distrusted this method of thief-taking, but he wasn't changing it now, not after all these years. He had too many valuable contacts.

'I'm not sure I shouldn't move young Billy here to the guidance of someone with more of a future in the Squad.'

Both junior officers remained mute. They jumped when Williams came forward with a crash. 'The thing is, it was Surrey.'

'What was?' asked Len.

'Whatever your lads were up to. Down Surrey way. No idea what. Not yet.'

Williams was enjoying this, thought Duke, the smug bastard. He still had a good network of snouts out there, and guarded them like an attack dog.

He let his revelation – that he was one step ahead of Duke – hang in the air while he fixed himself a cigarette. He didn't offer them around.

'But what we do know is that Charlie Wilson is running around like a bull with its bollocks in a vice.'

' Wilson?' asked Billy. 'We didn't see him.'

'No. As I said, down Surrey way, apparently,' Williams told them, with all the deliberation of a primary school teacher. 'He was at the business end – unlike you two. Now, Charlie is knocking heads together to try and find out who might have come into the possession of two nice three point four Jags, and when he finds them, he's going to fuck them in the ear then take them out on one of the Bovril boats and dump them in the North Sea.'

Bovril boats were the slurry ships that sailed from Beckton, full of London 's human waste, reduced to a thick oil-like liquid. It was released somewhere away from the English coast, in designated dumping grounds. Rumour had it that, for a consideration, some of the crews wouldn't mind taking a little extra waste – suitably weighted – and disposing of it.

'I don't get it,' said Billy.

Now, for the first time Frank Williams smiled, creasing his face into deep furrows, and Len Haslam allowed himself a little smirk.

'It means,' Duke said to his young apprentice, 'that some cheeky fuckers went and half-inched the motors our lads had nicked to do their job in Surrey.' Now he began to laugh. 'Which is why Reynolds was standing there looking like someone who'd just put his finger through the lavatory paper.'

Williams chortled at that.

'Fuck me,' said Len, 'what I wouldn't have given to see the faces on the boys who discovered someone had robbed the robbers.'

'Priceless,' Williams agreed. 'Absolutely priceless.' Then his face resumed its previous seriousness. 'But look, lads, it's Keystone Cops and Ealing bloody Comedies all round, isn't it? Meanwhile, N Division is wondering what happened to their support from the Yard. We are not the Don't Give A Flying Fuck Squad. I know you were pissed off about the airport fiasco. Who wasn't?' He picked up a pencil and pointed it at each in turn. 'Let it go. They'll pop up again. They're thieves. Stand on me, Len, we haven't heard the last of them. All right?'

'Yes, skipper,' said Duke.

'All right, then.' Williams seemed to relax a little. 'Then fuck off and catch me some real villains.'

Bruce Reynolds downed the last of his pint and said quietly, 'Leave it out, Charlie.'

Charlie Wilson ground his teeth at the thought of leaving anything out. 'We look like cunts.'