'I see. But you don't pay tax, do you?'
'No, but we put the money back into circulation pretty damn quick. You buy a motor, drinks, nice clothes.' He recalled how fast a few thousand could dwindle to nothing. 'Nobody can accuse us of hoarding.'
'Is there any form of criminality you wouldn't indulge in?'
'Poncing,' Bruce said quickly. 'I don't know why, I think that's pretty low. I don't like anything that is parasitic, you see. Blowing a peter or a wages snatch, a good clean job, that's what I enjoy. I always say, "Never steal from anyone who might go hungry". Well, I think Cary Grant said it first.'
Thirkell pursed his lips, thinking, before he framed the next question. 'And the police? What do you think of them?'
'I don't think about them. They have a job to do. I mean, you could argue that without us they would have no job, couldn't you? They need us more than we need them. To be frank with you, I don't mind them, I even get on with some
of them. We're like pilots in the Battle of Britain, the RAF and the Luftwaffe. They had to shoot each other down, but there was a kind of respect there. I tell you, I'd rather have a drink with a copper than a member of the public. At least they understand us and we understand them. Ordinary people, well, they are like another species, aren't they?'
'And the violence that comes as part of your profession. How do you defend that?'
Bruce finished his pint, pushed the glass away and pulled the scotch towards him. He found his temper was rising. 'I don't have to defend it. I don't like it, but it has to be there sometimes. But I don't have to justify it. The thing is, it's never against outsiders, not if you can help it. Those kids that shoot or cosh members of the public? Scum. I don't like threatening shopkeepers or club owners or toms for money, although I admit I mix with those that do.' He pointed at the bar, just to make his point. 'But when you confront a bloke who has a bag of wages, it's part of the game and he has the choice. Give it up or take a whack. He knows that. Nine times out of ten he gives it up and we're all happy.'
'But you don't think it's wrong that you don't work for a living?'
Bruce had to laugh at that. 'Don't work? What you on about? You think being a thief is an easy choice?' He was tempted to explain what he had been doing for the past few weeks, but held his tongue. 'There is a lot of effort goes into the job, a lot of risks, a lot of tension. And everyone thinks it's all about big scores – diamonds, wages snatches, banks. It pisses me off. Yeah, you try those sometimes, but you aren't above breaking open the odd cigarette machine or fronting some hooky Milk Tray. We work, all right. You know, Colin, thieving might even be a bit harder than writing for a living.'
That got him a wry grin from Thirkell. 'And what about guns?'
'Guns? Guns are for maniac kids. Scared kids who have seen too many movies. The thing is, you go up to someone with an iron bar or a cosh, then the other fella knows there's a good chance he'll get a tap if he doesn't do as he's told. With a gun, it's different; the psychology is different.'
There was a glint of excitement in Thirkell's eyes, as if he was close to the motherlode now. 'Go on.'
Bruce took a deep breath, gathering his thoughts. Some of the chaps thought his insistence on no firearms was a weakness. He rarely explained himself to them, just told them it was part of the Colonel's ground rules. Now he had to lay out his philosophy, and do it logically. 'It isn't just because you get longer sentences with a shooter, although that might be part of it for some people. I suppose I do take that into account. For me, though, it runs deeper than that. I pull a gun on you now, a few things will go through your mind. One, is it real? Iwo, am I man enough to pull the trigger? Three, if I do, will I hit you? So you start thinking the odds might be in your favour. So you do something stupid. And next thing we know, bang, you are dead. Now we are both fucked.'
'So there are no circumstances under which you would use a gun?'
Bruce thought about that HVP carriage, the sorters who would look up as they burst through the doors, the reaction if he were to pull a pistol or a pair of nostrils, otherwise known as a sawn-off shotgun. And he thought about one of them deciding Bruce didn't look like he had the bottle to use it. He spoke firmly. 'No. Never.'
Len Haslam was on his fourth pint, talking to a jobbing actor and stuntman called Beefy Bob Atkinson, who had just landed a role on Z Cars as a DS. Beefy Bob did have knowledge of the law, but it dated back ten years, when he was involved in chiselling the back off obsolete safes. Up till now his roles had involved wearing a stocking over his head or leaping from a burning car as it went over a cliff. This was his big break.
For a small fee and a bellyful of bitter, Len was meant to be briefing him on how to behave as a Detective Sergeant in the CID, to help him get 'the method', as Beefy Bob said. But Duke's eye kept wandering over towards where Bruce Reynolds was sitting. The thief's jaw was going thirteen to the dozen and the bloke opposite was listening intently, nodding now and then. Duke was well aware of what he had promised Frank Williams, but he was certain that Reynolds was at it. And at something pretty big, judging by the intensity of the pitch he was making and the hand gestures going on. But who was the bloke Reynolds was talking to? Not a face from the Elephant, Peckham or Camberwell, that was certain.
He told Beefy Bob to get him another drink and he would tell him how they really interrogated suspects, then headed for the Gents. As he crossed the room he rummaged in his pocket for coins for the phone box out there. He would call Billy Naughton and get him down to put a tail on the unknown man. Duke had promised to leave Reynolds and the others alone. That did not include new faces on the block that were clearly up to no good.
As he walked out of the Star pub and towards Hyde Park Corner, where he would catch a cab into Soho, Bruce Reynolds mused on what a very strange man Thirkell was. The conversation had begun as a straightforward interview, but after a while Bruce got the idea he was being auditioned. It was only towards the end of the session that he got an inkling of what the bloke really wanted. He wanted to steal part of the Elgin Marbles from the British Museum, as a show of outrage at the original looting from the Parthenon.
The writer had wanted him to put up a firm to rob something, not for money, but for a principle. He said he could pay expenses, not much else. But it would be righting a great wrong.
Bruce chuckled to himself. He could just imagine selling that one to the chaps. Had Janie said he might do it? Maybe she had. Perhaps it was time to move her a few paces back. Her putting his name in the frame for a bit of altruism, that just wasn't on. At the end of the day, Bruce Reynolds had just one favourite charity. Himself. Anyone who thought otherwise had lost another kind of marbles altogether.
Thirty-one
From Motoring News, June 1963
JAMES TRIUMPHS AT AINTREE
Driving a Brabham BT 6, rookie Roy James won the twenty-lap TJ Hughes Trophy at Aintree last Sunday, at a new record average speed for FJ of 89.4mph. James, whose car seems to have taken on a new lease of life – and pace – since its last outing, was followed home by Dennis Hulme in a second Brabham and Peter Proctor (Cooper). After an exciting race in which the lead changed hands no fewer than five times, there was less than six seconds between the final trio at the flag.
Further back in the field a fierce battle was waged between Jo Schlesser (Ford/France Brabham) and Bill Moss (Gemini), the two cars circulating nose to tail for much of the race, until Moss left his braking a little too late on the 90-degree Cottage Corner and lost some 15 seconds in the process.