There were grunts as several of them remembered the disappointing haul from the Heathrow job.
'What we have to do is stop the train somewhere between Rugby and North London. That's where Roger comes in.
The crucial thing is, where do we stop it? So this week's little task, gentlemen, is for some of us to scout the line from Watford northwards, looking for places where we have easy road access.'
'And a signal gantry,' said Roger.
'Roger will tell us what to look for in a moment. He and I will take one section, Gordy and Jimmy another, Roy and Tony a third. All right?' He pointed at Buster once more. 'The HVP and the rest of the Mail Train must be shunted somewhere during the day. I want to look inside it, see what we are up against. Buster, Jim Hussey, Tommy, I want you to look at all the shunting yards and sidings. Roger has a list. We also have to decide how big this firm will need to be. There are about eighty people on that train, but only five in the HVP. If we can isolate that HVP, we are quids in. On the other hand, moving a hundred mailbags at double- quick time is going to need a lot of hands. I am open to suggestions for extra bodies, but, you know, keep it in the family, eh lads? Roger and Jimmy have some ideas.'
'Tiny Dave Thompson,' said Jimmy White. 'Another ex- Para.'
There were a few murmurs of agreement. Tiny Dave had kept his head when the arrests were happening after the London Airport job. Harry and Ian, the other two musclemen, had lost their bottle and left town.
Bruce said: 'Good idea. But I'll make the approaches – agreed? This has to be tighter than a duck's arsehole. That's me done for now. We meet again at the end of the week. Clapham Common, five-a-side. Bring your boots, your Dextrosol and your liniment. Any questions?'
Gordy asked: 'When are we aiming for, Bruce?'
'Our man tells us the most cash is carried after a Bank
Holiday. The one that stands out is August the fifth. It's a Scottish one, before you ask. Now, we don't do it on August the fifth, 'cause the money is still in the banks. So we are looking at the night of Tuesday the sixth, morning of Wednesday, August the seventh. A little over two and a half months away.'
Someone whistled. All they had so far was a vague idea of what they were going to do and when. Not how. And when it came to robbing trains, the how was the big ask. Ten weeks was no time at all when it came to planning that kind of job.
'So we best get to it.' Bruce stepped aside. 'Roger will now read from the Big Chief I-Spy's Book of Train Signals'
Roger Cordrey, florist by profession, train robber by inclination, stood up. Next to some of the muscle gathered in the room, he looked just like a flower-seller. But he had specialist knowledge, which was always respected in the business, and most of the men carried on puffing their cigarettes and listening intently as he prepared to give them a chat about the difference between dwarf and home signals.
' Britain has seventy-three TPOs, Travelling Post Offices,' he began, just to show they weren't the first firm to have noticed all this money moving around the country on rails. 'They have been running since 1830…'
Buster Edwards, suddenly transported back to school, began to roll up pieces of Rizla cigarette paper to flick at Gordon Goody's ears. Whatever the division of labour, Buster was fairly sure he wouldn't be part of any technical team. Not while he still had his spring-loaded cosh.
DC Billy Naughton arrived back at the section house tired and dishevelled. He had spent too many hours chasing after the man Duke was convinced was a criminal mastermind only to discover he was a bloody scribbler. Colin Thirkell. Waste of time.
Well, not entirely. On the bright side, he had been bunged a fiver by some guilty poof who had thought that he was going to run him in for gross indecency. The man had leaned over the porcelain dividing wall of the urinals to take a good look at his tackle. The Liberace had a neck like a bloody flamingo. Billy, outraged at this invasion of his privates, had slapped the man around a bit, then flashed his warrant card, and the terrified queer had reached for his wallet. Billy guessed it wasn't the first time he had bought his way out of scandal.
Maybe he shouldn't have settled for a fiver. The man was well-dressed – a City type or solicitor, perhaps. Probably married. Just like the plot of that Dirk Bogarde film, a man with VICTIM written right across his forehead. Billy had little against queers, other than the usual disgust at what they got up to, but the need to carry out their perversions in public toilets – what was that all about? Maybe if they had to hand enough fivers over to policemen they would start thinking twice. Which made 'fining' them a public service, didn't it?
In the tiny, overheated box room that he called home, Billy yanked off his tie and stripped off clothes that stank of booze and fags and threw them into the corner. Remembering what was in his pockets, he retrieved his trousers and fished out the fiver the pillow-chewer had bunged him. In only his underpants and socks now, he fetched the dented Oxo tin from the suitcase under the bed and opened it up, intending to simply stuff the fresh cash inside. Now, though, the assorted ten bob-, pound- and five-pound notes sprang out onto the swirly nylon carpet.
So much, he thought. How did it get to be so much in such a short time?
He stood up and turned on the Dynatron transistor radio that sat next to the bed. It was still tuned to Radio Luxembourg, trotting out the inevitable plug for Horace Batchelor's failsafe Infra-Draw Pools method. Once the drone was over ('That's Keynsham: kay, ee, why…') on came Rockin' To Dreamland with Keith Fordyce, who announced he was playing the best new music from Britain and America, starting with the surf sound of the Beach Boys.
Billy upended the Oxo tin on the bed and began to sort the notes into piles according to denomination. He nodded his head to 'Surfin' Safari' as he did so, the harmonies interrupted periodically by the atmospheric whistling that was one of Radio Luxembourg 's specialities.
He didn't notice the song end, or the next irritating advertisement break for the stupid pools system. He was busy looking at three hundred and thirty-three pounds and ten shillings. And that was just crumbs, picked up here and there. He had more than three hundred pounds, yet he was still living in a station house, listening to music on a cheap transistor and eating meals in a police canteen.
Billy carefully repacked the cash, thinking about a better hiding-place, before deciding he should put it in the Post Office or a building society. It was, perhaps, time for Billy Naughton to move up in the world. And if the drinks, backhanders and tips weren't entirely legal, then so what? It wasn't as if he didn't put the hours in – and did anyone ever mention the word 'overtime'? Was there ever talk of time-and-a-half or double time? No. A fifteen-hour day got you twelve and sixpence subsistence pay. Subsistence if you ate at the Wimpy every day, that was.
The Dynatron's signal drifted to interference, white noise interspersed with the snap and crackle of ghostly voices captured from the radiosphere. It reminded Billy of an electronic seance when that happened, like he was eavesdropping on ancient wireless broadcasts. He half-expected an ethereal voice to emerge from the static: We are receiving reports that something has happened to the Titanic…'
Billy reached up and switched the radio off, then placed the box back into the suitcase and pushed it deep under the bed. He resolved to ask Duke where the best place to keep his money was. It shouldn't be under the Dunlopillo mattress. Not in a room with no lock on the door, as was still the rule in London station houses. It should be somewhere secure and legit, somewhere it could grow. After all, it wasn't as if he had done anything wrong, was it?
'This is it, then?' Bruce asked Roger, as they sat on a locked toolbox in the shadow of the concrete hut and watched a passenger service rattle by on one of the four lines. It had been easy to hop over the fence and walk down the embankment to the little depot, with its hut and toolshed. Both men wore donkey jackets over blue boiler suits, and they looked like any team of gangers taking a break, watching trains go by in bright sunshine.