'One more thing. British Rail has ordered three new HVPs for the Glasgow service. They are steel-lined, triple-locked, like mobile safes. You would have to cut into them. Now, they are due into service later this year. So, choose a Bank Holiday – a Scottish Bank Holiday, mind. And you'd better look carefully at your Letts Desk Diary, and do it sooner rather than later, before these Wells Fargo jobs come on line.
'Well, that is the proposition. I appreciate you would like to discuss this matter further. Perhaps you'll let me know your decision within the week? Perfect. Nice meeting you, gentlemen.
Twenty-nine
Glasgow Central station, May 1963
Spring had yet to make much of a mark on Glasgow and, as he felt a creeping dampness invade his bones, Buster Edwards cursed that he had drawn the short straw of coming north. Bruce had given him detailed instructions, and after a few drinks in the station bar, he had spent the last half-hour acting like any commuter waiting for his stopping service home, pacing up and down to keep warm. The mail train had been there as he had been told to expect, platform 6. He had watched stacks of mailbags being transported onto the platform by red Post Office vans and unloaded under the beady gaze of uniformed policemen. A team of porters then conveyed them, by trolley, to the appropriate carriages. He couldn't actually see the HVP, thanks to the curve of the track obscuring the front portion of the train, but certainly some sacks – the bright crimson ones – were treated with more respect than others.
Now the doors had been slammed, the porters dispersed and the transport cozzers were standing, hands folded, eyes on their watches and their hopes on an early-evening pint. Which didn't sound too bad to Buster. He was booked on the sleeper back down south, which gave him a couple of hours to kill in the city.
The train gave a single powerful jerk, there was a synchronised clanking as couplings took up the slack, and the Night Mail moved forward, taking its haul of letters, postcards, coupons and cash to London. Cash. Bruce hadn't said how much, but those initials, HVP, caused Buster's heart to flutter and his palms to sweat. There were a lot of readies in this one, he could feel it, smell it. He knew people who had been stopping trains on the Brighton line – Roger Cordrey, Bobby Welch from the Elephant – netting a few good grand at a time. But this was different, this was clearly big money. Life- changing money. That had been promised at Weybridge, but he had never believed in that the way he did in this.
Buster Edwards rewrapped the scarf around his neck as he watched the rear lights of the Travelling Post Office disappear around the curved track of Central station.
Godspeed, my son, he thought. For tonight, anyway.
At Euston, two hours later, Roy James watched the West Coast Postal, a second Night Mail, again with an HVP as the second coach, prepare to slide out of number 3 platform and head north. Sorters had been arriving for the best part of ninety minutes, and work had already begun inside each carriage, placing letters and parcels in the appropriate pigeonholes. There were no passengers. Apart from the train crew, every man aboard was a Post Office employee.
Roy, situated at the end of platforms 1 and 2, was loaded down with the railway books he had bought at Euston's Collector's Corner and was scribbling in a notebook. His platform ticket had permitted him to walk right out adjacent to the Travelling Post Office, enabling him to examine the great brute of a slab-faced loco, the parcel carriage and, behind that, the HVP. He scribbled down the number on the engine: D326/40126.
'English Electric Class Forty,' said the voice over his shoulder.
'What?'
It was a young lad, sixteen or seventeen, but a good head taller than Roy. A good-looking boy, marred by his skin: his face was positively ablaze with spots, mini-volcanoes all, some already erupted. He was wearing a school blazer, scarf and grey flannel trousers. The boy held up his own notebook, filled with dense writing in different coloured inks. 'You should do columns. Date. Station. Platform. Engine Type. Number. Makes it easier.'
Roy smiled at him. 'Yeah, thanks. I'm new to all this. I mean, I used to do it when I was your age but I'm out of practice.'
'You'll get ribbed for it. Specially a grown-up. People will take the mickey.'
'That what your mates do?'
'Sometimes.'
'Fuck 'em.'
The lad grinned. 'Yeah. Fuck 'em.' He said it as if he was trying the obscenity for the first time. It can't be easy, thought Roy. Blighted by acne and out trainspotting, when he should be chasing girls. He pointed at the pages in the lad's book. 'What do the colours mean?'
'Steam, diesel or electric,' he replied. 'I'll show you.'
The sudden burst of enthusiasm, and the wild look in the lad's eyes at finding a fellow spotter, unnerved Roy, and he recalled Bruce's warning about not getting yourself noticed. 'No – no, thanks,' he said hastily. 'I only do diesel, me.'
'Diesel?' The kid's blotchy face twisted with scorn. 'That's really boring. A lot of them don't even have names.'
'Yeah, well,' said Roy with a shrug, shuffling away. 'Takes all sorts, eh?'
Jimmy White poured a cup of Bovril and passed it to Tony Fortune, who was behind the wheel of a Vauxhall Velox, sitting in the overflow parking area just off Mill Road. This asphalted area was higher than the main car park, affording them a better view of the activities on some of the over-lit platforms of Rugby railway station. Unfortunately, most of the activity seemed to be happening beneath the cantilevered canopies that blocked their view. Still, they weren't worried about that.
It was coming up to two o'clock in the morning, stars pin- sharp in a clear sky, and both men were sleepy. Jimmy was supposed to do this by himself, but he had felt sorry for Tony after the Jag foul-up. He had expected a decent drink and what did he get? An empty garage. And, apparently, an earful from his missus about missing paydays.
Jimmy had cleared bringing Tony along with Bruce, of course, and Bruce had said OK. They might still need a driver for the job he had in mind, and Roy had told him that Tony could handle a motor.
'Thanks,' said Tony as he took the Bovril.
Jimmy poured himself a second cup. He held it in both hands and blew across the surface. 'Love this stuff. Bloody Army marches on it. Well, the Paras do. You all right?'
Tony had only been lending half an ear. He felt more at ease with Jimmy than he did many of the others. Certainly more than Gordy and Charlie. With them, he felt that the least wrong word would land him a right hook or worse. There was always an air of crackling tension about them, as if an electrical storm could break out at any moment. 'What? Yeah. Just thinking. You don't want to buy a Hillman Husky, do you?'
Jimmy laughed. 'Nah. I like Land Rovers, me. They go on for ever.'
'Husky's got a heater.'
'You poof,' chuckled White. 'A heater? Only sissies need a heater in their car. You'll be telling me it has suspension next.'
'And you don't need an airfield to turn it round in.'
'Greengrocer's car,' sneered Jimmy. 'Not your sort, I would have thought.'
'Brother-in-law's,' Tony admitted. 'Ah.'
Marie had beseeched him – there was no other word – to take the Hillman Husky off her brother, Geoff, who was boracic. He'd done so, and paid him cash, over the odds. Now it was stuck at the back of the showroom, embarrassing him. 'I got myself right stitched up. Wife's up the duff, you see. Hard to say no to her.'
'Congratulations. First one?' Tony nodded. That explained why she had been disappointed in him, Jimmy thought. Broody women have big plans. 'This'll come in handy then.'
'What will?'