Acton
2:30 PMCharlie stood outside the pub with a cigarette in hand. The talk inside was nonstop final. The half that weren’t talking about the game were talking about the robbery. He declined to join in either side, instead sitting at the bar and working on his pints. He wore a small smile the whole time, listening to a couple of old geezers within earshot talk up the job. From the audacity of it to the millions that were probably stolen. It was quite the ego boost.
He froze mid-cigarette puff when he saw Red. He stood at the edge of the corner across the street, hands in his pocket. The look on his face and the redness of his eyes were all Charlie needed to know. He’d found out about Cecil. Whether or not he knew the real story, Charlie couldn’t tell. Instead, he finished taking his drag and waved as Red cross the street.
“Let’s go,” Red said, not stopping as he spoke. “We’re having a meeting.”
***
King’s Cross
2:45 PMThe man they called “Hanky” cocked open the jacket of his three piece suit and stared down at his pocket watch. He had eighteen minutes until his train arrived. Harry had wasted no time booking the first ticket out of London once he’d received the call from DI Eddie Dunphy this morning. Frank Binney had talked his brothers into agreeing to keep Clubber safe on the inside. With that done, there was nothing keeping Handkerchief Harry in London.
“Jacob?” Harry called out over his Earl Grey to a passerby in an expensive suit. “Jacob Tilley, is that you?”
He climbed to his feet and paced over to the unsuspecting man, who looked every bit on his way to work. As Harry reached him, he stuck out one of his large hands and plunged it into the man’s without his consent.
“I’m awfully sorry, I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else,” the man replied sheepishly.
Harry’s mouth dropped open with faux embarrassment.
“You must be pulling my leg,” he responded. “It’s me, Geoffrey, we used to row with one another at Oxford.”
Bashful with awkwardness, the man shook his head again. “I’m sorry, you have the wrong man.”
“Forgive me,” Harry grinned. “Let’s both pretend this encounter never happened, shall we? I’ll let you get on your way.”
They exchanged polite nods and Harry returned to his seat outside of the small cafe. He watched the man striding off towards his platform. Once he was out of view, Harry pulled free the wallet he’d lifted from the man’s jacket and thumbed through it. There was enough in it to keep Harry well fed for a few days.
After cheerfully making his way through a second cup of Earl Grey, Harry slid his fingers along his pocket watch. He felt a dull ache in the nubs of his little fingers as he touched it. Bill Kane had severed the top two digits on each of Harry’s little fingers two years ago. The memory alone was enough to shake Harry out of his self-congratulatory mood. He plucked some money from the stolen wallet, left it beneath the cup, and made his way to his own platform.
“Farewell London,” he muttered under his breath as he the train pulled into the station. “For now.”
***
Merton
3:02 PM“Dad, someone’s here to see you.”
Coach picked himself up off the couch and shuffled across the living room towards the front door. The knock hadn’t surprised him a whole lot when he first heard it. Coach hadn’t bothered to move an inch from the couch and the telly. He figured it was one of the children down the street coming to play with his kids. Nobody ever knocked on the door looking for him. It was a Sunday, after all, the only day of the week he took off. He couldn’t afford a typical weekend like most people. A day off was a day he was losing money. But now with his cut of the heist, he could hopefully scale back to five days for the foreseeable future. At least until the money ran out.
Coach stopped short when he saw Red and Charlie at the door. His son looked between the two of them and Coach with wide eyes. They’d never been to his house. Hell, he thought they didn’t know where he lived. The fact that they were here in the flesh spooked him something fierce. How long had they known?
“We need to talk,” said Red.
“What’s going on, Dad?”
“Just some boys I drive hack with,” said Coach, a false note of confidence in his voice. “We gotta talk business. Watch your brothers and sisters for me, yeah? I’ll be back in a little while.”
***
Department of Health
3:33 PMTerry Morgan had a mountain of paperwork in front of him. The little cubicle had folders upon folders stacked on the desk, so many that it threatened to topple on top of the detective. Why did this wanker have the last name of Jones? The department had three hundred Cecil Jones' living in the UK, each of them with their own files that tied to files and paperwork on other family members. Even with the ages narrowing it down, there were still fifty some odd blokes who could be their man.
The office manager was not pleased to be brought in on a Sunday morning to dig up files, but the warrant cards and mention of a murder inquiry at least got her to begrudgingly cooperate. Now here he was, seeing double and on the point of collapse. The files were all starting to blur together, the information never-ending. Finally, after eight hours of non-stop searching, he had the file of the Cecil Jones in question. Nothing out of the ordinary. No criminals in his family. Not really much of a family to speak of. Morgan shuffled papers before finding a thick folder with the MoD logo stamped on it. It made him curious.
Inside the folder was all the information the Department of Defence had on Roger Jones, Cecil's uncle and a military veteran. Or at least he had been a military veteran. He died in Korea nearly sixteen years ago. Cecil was little more than a boy when that happened. There wasn't much of a link there. Morgan rubbed his mustache and stifled a yawn.
Fuck it. He'd collect everything he had on Cecil, his family -- uncle included -- and anything else that the Sweeney could use. Working the case was important, but he needed rest. Even at his best he wasn't on par with the Super and the Inspector, and this knackered even Chapman was smarter than he.
"Pardon me," he said, looking up over the cubicle divider at the office manager. The old man looked up from her crossword puzzle with raised eyebrows.
"I need to box this stuff up to go."
***
Polish Ex-Combatants Association
Hammersmith
4:21 PMOne of General Andrzej Jarosiewicz’s ghostly white hands plunged into the hold-all and pulled free a wad of notes. He eyed it suspiciously for a few seconds before flicking through it. The breeze blew the bushy, black monobrow perched above his nose about. Bobby watched on, trying to stifle the sense of pride he felt at the size of the haul he had laid before Jarosiewicz.
“<This is a very generous donation, Bohdan. I hope there was not too much trouble along the way in acquiring it.>”
“<No,>” Bobby fired back with a shake of the head. “<No trouble at all.>”
Jarosiewicz tossed the wad of cash onto his desk. It landed with a thud. There was none of the contentment in the General’s eyes Bobby had been expecting. His scarecrow-like arms swung up past his hips and rested on his bony rib cage, barely obscured by the ever-present military uniform. He let out a sigh as he eyed Bobby.
“<What is wrong?>” Bobby asked.
“<It’s nothing.>”
It was a clear lie. One the General was doing a very poor job of concealing. His brow furrowed, each tiny movement of it made more exaggerated by the thick black offering above it, until finally he broke his silence. His Polish was thick, heavily-accented, unbroken by living in London for the past twenty years.
“<You are not meant for this life, Bohdan.>”
Bobby shrugged.
“<I don’t understand.>”
“<Of course you don’t understand. How could you? You are still young.>”
The General stepped towards the edge of the grand table at the centre of his office. Beside it was an ornate globe that looked older than the General himself. He placed one of his pallid claws on it and spun it gently. Bobby watched as the nations of the world blurred into one dark, mess.
“<This struggle of ours will go on long after I am dead. Perhaps even long after
you are. When your father and I fled Poland we believed that we would return home within five years. It has been twenty – and we are no closer to going home than we arrived.>”
“<What are you saying? That we should just … give up?>”
The General halted the globe’s revolutions with one hand. He leant across the desk and fingered the wad of notes across the table towards them. Picking it up, he shook it slightly as if chiding Bobby with it gently, and it became clear to Bobby that the size of the donation had taken the General aback. Up to this point no questions had been asked between the two of them. What Bobby did, he did for his country – as the General and his father had done before him.
For the first time, the General spoke to Bobby as he would his own son, not his general.
“<I am saying that you are cleverer than this, Bohdan. I do not know exactly how you acquired it. I am not sure that I want to. But I know there was great risk involved, greater risk than ever before. It may be that I am getting old, sentimental even, but … were your father here, I believe he would tell us that the time has come for us to stop fighting yesterday’s war and to start living.>”
They embraced. For a few minutes, they spoke of other things. Though he had complained about the football during Bobby’s last visit, Andrzej had watched the final – and been more than pleased by the outcome. If only to save poor Mieczysław another beating.
Finally Bobby took his leave. He stopped by the reception, mindful of Andrzej’s advice, and spoke to the receptionist for a few moments. Klaudia. She was older than him, but pretty enough. They traded compliments and Bobby, no better at flirting in his native Polish than in English, suggested the two go for dinner some time, only to be gently rebuffed by the older woman. Content the attempt, Bobby made his exit.
“Hello, Bob,” a familiar voice called out to him.
Red was stood on the steps to the Ex-Combatants Association with a cigarette hanging loosely from his lips. Bobby noticed the redness around Turner’s eyes. He wasn’t sure whether he had been crying or drinking. Either was bad news.
“Something is wrong?”
“Not here,” Red murmured.
Turner took one last pull of his cigarette and threw it to the ground. He nodded towards the corner of the road and Bobby looked up. There sat in a car he’d never seen before were Coach and Charlie. Both men looked nervous. Bobby felt it. Before he had a chance to say another word, Red was breaking towards the car at some speed. Bobby followed after him, unsure of what would come next.
***
Soho
5:34 PM“After you, Albie.”
“No, Alan, I insist.”
“Ladies first, Albie.”
“Age before beauty, my son.”
“Just fucking go, you bloody cunt!”
The Binney Brothers begrudgingly started to climb the steps of the third-story flat. After them came the armed guards that always followed in their wake. The armed guards who came before them had already ventured into the top floor room to make sure the people who waited for them were not ambushing the brothers.
“There’s my favorite guys!” Came a jovial American voice.
“Joey, how’s America?” said Alan.
“It’s turning into a shit show. I blame the British.”
“How’s that?” asked Albie.
“The Rolling Stones and those fucking moptop muppets came over to the country and all the young people started losing their goddamn minds. Smoking dope, growing their hair out. I swear. It’s the end times.”
“We’re just trying to get back what we lost when you lot left the Empire,” said Alan. “Can’t blame us, can you?”
“You’d look rather fetching in a red coat, Joey,” said Albie.
Joey laughed warmly and invited the brothers to sit. What Joey, the Binneys, or their bodyguards did not know is that the ceiling of the Soho flat had a tiny hole drilled into the drywall. Holes like that that were peppered all through the flat. Inside of each cavity was a microphone that broadcast the entire goings on of the building to a van three blocks away.
Three men sat in the back of the van, hanging on every word spoken in the room with the headphones strapped to their ears. Two of them were London born and bred, coppers who became part of the Flying Squad and looked the part in their cheap suits and stubbly faces. The third man was immaculate, in a three-piece suit that cost more than the two coppers salaries combined. His hair was coiffed perfectly and his face clean-shaven, per the general orders of Mr. Hoover. He leaned forward and listened, his heart racing while the men spoke.
Special Agent in Charge Sam Nelson had been after Joey Campisi for nearly ten years now and could never get the bastard to open up about his criminal dealings while at home. But here, thousands of miles away and under the assumption he was safe from the FBI, Campisi began to speak.
“We’ve got a connection in France. A guy who knows what the fuck is up with poppies and shit in the Middle East. He’s just a smuggler, and I don’t trust the fucking French any more than I can throw ‘em. The war taught me that. So we need help on the distribution of things as far as Western Europe is concerned. My bosses like the way you do business here. They think you handle yourselves well. How would you boys like to get into the dope business?”
The two Flying Squad cops perked up at the mention. Nelson shared a look with them and smiled. He didn’t give a shit about the Binney Brothers and what they did in London. But if he could use them to pulverize the Campisi Crime Family into smithereens, then they would be the tool he used.
“What you thinking, Albie?”
“I don’t know, Alan, but so far I don’t object to what I’m hearing.”
***
Putney Heath
6:12 PMRed made Coach drive through central London for the best part of an hour and a half before he was convinced they weren’t being followed. That done he directed Coach past the gang’s usual hideout in Fulham, passed the Ex-Combatants Association in Hammersmith where they had picked up Bobby, and then broke out into decidedly leafier parts of West London. Finally Red made Coach bring the car to stop by Putney Heath, a short walk from where he’d grown up.
They walked in silence past the old cricket ground where he’d scored a double century at fifteen and finally came to a stop by a small pond. There wasn’t much around. Trees as far as the eye could see and a few distant church spires visible above them. Red gestured to Coach and Bobby to take a seat on the bench beside the pond and Charlie perched, hands in pockets, on the edge of it.
Finally content that they were alone, Turner looked towards his crew calmly, his once-sweaty palms now cold and dry, and shared with him the news that had wrought his world asunder this morning.
“Cecil is dead.”
Coach’s mouth dropped, Bobby shook his head in disbelief, and Charlie silenced a profanity that slipped out of his mouth by shoving a cigarette into it.
“He killed himself last night.”
“Killed himself?” Coach asked as a look of bewilderment flashed across his face. “He just made a small fortune for opening a bloody gate. It doesn’t make any bloody sense.”
“There’s more,” Red added coolly. “The job didn’t go as smoothly as first thought. There was a girl named Iris working in the counting room. Cecil and her were … sweethearts of a sort, I guess. She took a knock to the head during the heist and didn’t wake up afterwards.”
Coach cast a suspicious eye in Charlie’s direction. “A knock to the head?”
“It was an accident,” Charlie shot back through gritted teeth.
An awkward silence hung over proceedings. Red could tell that Coach was seething. He didn’t blame him. Accessory to murder was not a part of the plan. He should have told Coach and Bobby about Iris when he’d told Charlie. He should have rallied the troops then and had the talk they were having now then. But what was done was done and all he could do now, all they could do now, is try to mitigate the damage.
They couldn’t bring Cecil or Iris back but they could damn well make sure that they didn’t end up in a dark, deep hole because of it.
“The Sweeney lent on Cecil hard when they took him in. Broke the news to him right there and then in the interrogation room. When I stopped by his flat in Acton that night, he was a complete mess. He was blubbering so much I could barely understand him. He kept on and on about the girl.”
A flicker of indecision appeared on Charlie’s face. “Any idea how he did it?”
“Word is that he slit his wrists in the bathtub.”
“Christ on a bike,” Coach mumbled in disbelief. “He was still a kid.”
They both were. Red had killed before, he’d seen and done things in Korea that were burned into his memory until this day, but this was different. The guilt he felt was suffocating but he dared not not show it in front of Charlie, Coach and Bobby. He was, and had been, their fearless leader – in moments like these they looked to him for answers.
Almost as if on cue, Charlie came looking for them. “Well, what the hell do we do now? Old Bill are going to be breathing down our necks twice as bad now we’ve got two bodies on our rapsheet.”
“We do nothing,” Red responded nonchalantly.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Charlie said with a shake of the head.
“It’s the only thing we can do. We were already planning to go underground, so that’s what we do. Though this time we need to be even more careful than normal.
Full radio silence. No flashing the cash around, no ponies, no new motors, absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.”
Turner shot an apologetic look in Coach’s direction as he remembered the cab driver had earmarked his share of the take on a trip abroad. “That means no holidays either, I’m afraid.”
“I’ve spoken with Ms. Ambrose and she knows we won’t be needing the use of her back room anymore,” Red said, as he began to list towards the pond. “I suggest the rest of you … go back to your normal lives and keep your heads down until Old Bill decide to stop nosing around.”
Turner knelt beside the water. For a few seconds his mind was torn back to days spent playing on Putney Heath with Daisy until their feet were sore. It was a different life then, he thought, a different time. Before everyone in this goddamn city because obsessed with money and power. That felt like a long time ago.
“How long are talking here, Red?” asked Charlie impatiently.
“Your bet is as good as mine,” Turner admitted. “It could be six weeks, could be six months, for all I know.”
Coach stood up from the bench slowly. “Could be six years.”
“Better six years on the outside than six years of porridge,” Red agreed with a nod.
Silence fell on the group again as the enormity of the challenge facing them became clear to them. They had taken on the Wembley job knowing it would be the biggest and riskiest one to date. Not in their wildest dreams did they expect to walk away from it with the lives of two kids on their conscience. All the money in the world wouldn’t wash that out, Red thought, as he and Coach traded an equally mournful look.
From behind them, Charlie slapped his knees and stepped away from the bench.
“Radio silence it is then, fellas.”
He threw what remained of his still-lit cigarette onto the green grass, gave each man a curt nod, and walked off towards the road. Mindful of the greenery, Bobby leant over and stubbed the cigarette out with the bottom of his shoe.
“Fuck your radio silence,” Coach said as he placed a supportive hand against Red’s back. “If you need anything, you give me a shout. My missus cooks a mean roast dinner on Sundays and it would be nice to have another adult around the table, what with the kids and all.”
Red and Coach shook hands warmly. The elder man patted Bobby’s shoulder paternally as he took off from Putney Heath in an altogether different direction from Charlie.
Red glanced at the young Pole sat alone on the bench. He hadn’t said a word since they picked him up in Hammersmith. Of all of them, it was Lewandowski that Turner had worried about telling the most. He wasn’t much older than Cecil.
Red smiled at him probingly. “You alright, Bob?”
“In Polish, we have a saying: stara miłość nie rdzewieje,” Bobby nodded wistfully. “
True love never grows old. Wherever he is, I am sure that Cecil is with the people that love him the most.”
With that the young Pole rose from his seat and made his exit. Turner stayed a while, staring out across the green expanse, trying desperately to clear his mind of Cecil’s voice by flooding them with childhood memories. It was no good. Wherever Cecil was, Red had sent him there – and something told him he’d pay the price for that one of these days.
***
Scotland Yard
8:31 PMChapman and Morgan were both busy looking over paperwork at the cubicle they shared. McEntyre sat on the other side of the room from them head down on his work. Brown watched them all diligently working from the doorway of his office.
“Lads,” he announced.
They all looked up at the sound of his voice. Brown walked into the squadroom, hands in his pockets and a sheepish look on his face.
“You’ve done great work today. What happened yesterday we couldn’t stop, and that eats at me. But you all working to the bone won’t change what happened. You’re tired. I’m tired. We keep pushing and we’re going to get sloppy and miss something.”
Brown stopped by Chapman’s desk and put a comforting hand on the man’s shoulder, squeezing it gently.
“It’s Sunday, gents. You should at least get a few hours with your families before you come back tomorrow.”
They all mumbled their agreements and started to pack it up. As Brown walked away, Chapman took the stack of files on his desk and stuffed them into the cardboard box by his feet. The box, labelled “C. JONES MISC”, contained what information they could gleam from Jones’ personal life and any acquaintances attached to it.
“Let’s start with fresh eyes,” said Brown. “You said that you heard a rumor Cecil liked the ponies, Chapman?”
“That’s the word the street, guv.”
“Start on that in the morning.”
“Will do.”
“Night, all.”
Brown started back to his office. They’d be calling it a night, but he would not be. As Chapman went to get his coat, he accidentally kicked the box at his feet. Unbeknownst to Chapman or the Flying Squad, there was a file at the very bottom of the box with the Department of Defence stamp upon it. Inside held every bit of information about the military career of Sergeant Alfred “Red” Turner.
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