Signal Red

'No more sponsorship? Doesn't he need a nice Duckhams sign painted on his car?'

This train job goes off, Roy won't need to go cap in hand to Duckhams, Bruce thought. 'Not yet. But the cash will come once he gets his name in the paper a bit more. They'd be daft not to invest in him. He's going places.'

Ronnie sniffed, as if suddenly a little nervous. 'Talking of investing, I was wondering, Bruce – you know, if you were interested in helping me set something up.'

Bruce waited. The sentence was ambiguous. It could mean lots of things.

'I mean something on the straight and narrow.'

'Not motors, I hope?'

Ronnie's last three-year stretch had been for a bungled car theft. It had been a harsh sentence, Bruce thought. Cars were so easy to steal, he wondered why everyone didn't do it. You could make a key that worked out of tinfoil for older models; newer ones had the serial number written on the dashboard or on the collar of the ignition lock. And when you went to get a key made, nobody ever asked you if you actually owned the car you wanted it for. Which, of course, made it tragic that Ronnie was caught for something that should have been child's play. He just wasn't a born thief.

'No. Painting and decorating. I've been doing this bungalow in Eastbourne. Seems to me, those seaside places need painting more than any other, what with the wind and the salt. Lots of demand for painters, but most of the blokes do a terrible job. Slapdash. No stripping back to bare wood, no filling. It's criminal.'

They both laughed.

'Ronnie Biggs, the decorator you can trust?' Bruce asked.

'Well, as long as you don't leave too much lying around.'

'What do you need?'

'I reckon one or two grand. Enough to cover a van, leaflets, adverts in local papers and all that.'

Bruce drank while he thought. Part of the plan he had spent the week putting together involved lorries, which would need disguising, with new plates and new colour schemes. 'A few hundred is the best I could manage right now, mate. Had some expenses. We might have a painting job for you, though.'

'We? You mean you and Fran?'

'Nooooo.' He let the word draw out. 'Me and some of the chaps.'

Ronnie shook his head vigorously. 'Look, Bruce, if it's anything not quite on the level, best count me out. Charmian said she'd have my bollocks on the mantelpiece next time.'

'Fair enough. But I might be in a position to help you out in a couple of months.'

'A couple of months? That long? Must be a big one, eh?'

'Just being careful. You know how it is. I don't think Franny wants to see me across a metal table again.'

He could see curiosity in Ronnie's eyes, the conflict of a man who wants to know more but is scared to ask. It would be like describing a gourmet feast to a starving man, so Bruce just said, 'Another?'

When he returned with the refills, Bruce asked: 'You OK for the moment though?'

'Scrabbling a bit. Working for this old geezer. Hasn't got a lot of money. House is in a right state. He pays me half in cash and half in bloody kind at the yards. Actually, you should bring your Nick down. Both the boys could have a go. The two Nicks.'

Like Bruce, Ronnie had called his son after Nick Adams, the Hemingway character. A love of Papa was something else, along with the jazz, which they shared. Hemingway, Miles, Brubeck, Orwell, Jamal, Fitzgerald, Mingus, Cheever, Dexter, Capote – it was their common language.

'Have a go at what?' Bruce asked.

'Driving the train.'

Bruce slopped a mouthful of beer onto his slacks. 'Shit.' He took out his handkerchief and blotted the mark on his thigh. 'What train?'

'That Stan Peters I was talking about – the bloke whose bungalow I'm doing up. Well, he's getting on a bit so he only- does some of the shunting once or twice a week now. But he takes Nick along on the footplate sometimes. Lets him do the horn, everything.'

Bruce couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. 'Footplate?'

Ronnie was puzzled and slightly alarmed at how Bruce's demeanour had suddenly changed. His body had become taut, as if he'd received an electric shock, his eyes were bulging and a pulse was throbbing visibly in his temple.

'So this… Stan,' Bruce asked, leaning forward, the pressure in his chest meaning he could only take shallow breaths. 'He's what, exactly?'

'I told you. A train driver.'

Thirty-five

Cornwall, June 1963

The headless corpse had been transported to Truro and examined there by the local Home Office pathologist. In fact, as Billy Naughton discovered, it wasn't just headless, there was precious little of the rest of it left on the slab of the overlit mortuary. The internal organs had mostly disappeared as well as one arm, and the remaining limbs looked like sections of a barrage balloon, all bloated and blue.

It was so far from being the body of a young woman that Billy found he was almost able to distance himself from it as having once been human. He could look upon the remains dispassionately, as if it really were just flotsam, albeit of organic origin. Only the rich chemical brew that infused the room's atmosphere made him feel nauseous.

Norman Carter, the pathologist, was wearing a double- breasted suit with a hospital gown thrown carelessly over it, as if he had rushed in from lunch.

'Well, of course, if we had got it when it was first spotted, we might have had more luck,' said Carter, who had travelled from Bristol for a second time to go over his findings and was clearly none too pleased with having to venture so far from home again. 'As it is, the saltwater immersion has ruined the fingerprints. There is, of course, no face.'

'What do you mean, if you had got it when it was first spotted?' asked Hatherill. They had only arrived the night before and were billeted in a pub near the beach where the body had been washed up. He had read through the preliminary reports on the finding, but none had mentioned a delay in contacting the authorities.

'You don't know the background?' asked Carter, looking over his half-moon spectacles.

Hatherill ignored the slight sneer in Carter's voice. 'I thought we had better see our victim first, and get your reaction. I've read the report of PC Trellick who found her.'

'The bobby might have found her, but she was seen on that beach a good week before – when she still had two arms and, I'll wager, all her internal organs.'

'Bloody hell,' said Billy. 'So why wasn't she brought here then?'

'Good question, lad. She lay on that beach for eight days.'

'Where is the head?' asked Billy.

The pathologist shrugged. 'Missing in action. As I said in my notes, there appear to be saw-marks on the cervical vertebrae that remain.'

'Saw-marks?' Hatherill asked. 'You sure?'

'Well, there are striations. You want to take a look?'

Hatherill stepped forward and Carter swung a magnifying lens over the stump of the neck. Billy held back, not wanting to see the gore in any greater detail. Hatherill made grunting noises.

'Sir, isn't it an offence not to report a dead body?'

Carter looked up at him with pity in his eyes. 'Have you been to Cornwall before, son?'

'No.'

He gave a wan smile. 'You'll learn.'

Hatherill clapped his hands together. 'Right. Can you try and get us some dabs?'

'Off this?'

Hatherill gave a flattering smile. 'Well, you pathologists have your methods, I know.'

Carter thought for a few moments, stroking his chin as he did so. 'I could dissolve away some of the tissue on the fingertips, see if I can get an impression of the underlying ridges then – if you don't mind me removing the hands and taking them back to Bristol.'

'I don't, and I think she is past caring. Don't you, Detective?'

'Sir,' Billy agreed.

'And palm prints?' Hatherill asked.

Carter tossed one of the hands back and forth, like a flipper. 'They might be easier to obtain, yes.'

The Old Man turned to Billy. 'People forget palm prints. They're just as distinctive though, as any fingerprints. So, DC Naughton, any thoughts?'