The Madeiran Double Cross

by Sally Spencer

  It wasn’t just that she was sure he was seeing other women. It was that he was ... incomplete. She was glad now that he had deserted her that night – because he wasn’t special enough to share a New Year with her.

  She realized that this last thought was almost revolutionary for a quiet little mouse like her – and that it would never even have entered her head before she’d got to know Frank.

  Meeting him had been a bit like seeing the sea for the first time, she decided. When she’d been a kid, she’d thought Accrington was the whole world, and she’d been happy with it – or, at least, not too miserable. Then her mam, by saving and scraping, had managed to get enough money together for a day-trip to Blackpool. And once she’d splashed her feet in the water and run along the sands, her hometown had never looked quite the same again.

  And that was what Frank had done to the way she saw people. She’d noticed something special about him the first time they’d met – when he hadn’t wanted her to go with them to Madeira. But it hadn’t been until after the police released them that she’d really come to appreciate how marvellous he was.

  *

  They are in a nightclub, celebrating their release from jail. Everyone else seems ecstatically happy, but Susan is incapable of joining in the general mood. She feels cheapened – humiliated – by all the things that horrible policeman said to her. And the worst thing, from her point of view, is that she’s beginning to suspect he was right.

  She’d really thought she might learn to love Tony, but it simply hasn’t happened. Yet she’s come on holiday with him and shared his bed. So what is she, after all, but ‘Tony’s whore’?

  Tony is the life and soul of this party – knocking back drinks like water, dancing with Linda and Mrs. Snell. He’s asked her to dance, but when she said she didn’t want to, he didn’t even seem to notice how low she felt.

  But Frank has noticed.

  “Have you got the blues, darlin’?” he asks. “What you need is a breath of fresh air. Let’s go for a walk.”

  “No,” she protests. “That wouldn’t be right. This is your night, Mr. Mason.”

  “This doesn’t matter,” Mason replies, gesturing around him at the club and all its glamorous trappings. “None of it matters.”

  He takes her by the arm and walks her along the promenade. He doesn’t speak, and neither does she. She hears the insects in the grass, and feels the sea breeze blowing through her hair – and she starts to feel better.

  “I’ll see you back to your room,” he says.

  And he means that literally.

  As he closes the bedroom door – with them both inside – she almost says, “I don’t want to sleep with you, Mr. Mason. I don’t think I want to sleep with anybody – ever again.”

  But the expression on his face tells her that he has no intention of seducing her, and so she says nothing.

  “Your best plan is get straight into bed,’ he says. “Would you like me to ring room service, and ask for a cup of hot cocoa?”

  “No, thank you,” she says. “I don’t want anything.”

  He stares at the wall while she is undressing, and it is only when he hears her climb into bed that he turns around again.

  He walks over to the bed, and takes her small hand in his big one.

  “I’m sorry,” he says.

  “What for?”

  “For getting you involved in all this.”

  “It was my choice,” she says. “We all make our own choices.”

  “Yes, we do,’ he agrees. “But for some people – people like you and me – there’s just not too much to choose from.”

  Then he kisses her lightly on the forehead, and is gone.

  *

  The memories of Madeira faded, and she was back in her shoddy bed-sit again.

  She realized the chiming had finished, the New Year had arrived – and the Babycham had gone flat.

  “I won’t see Tony Horton ever again,” she said, squaring her jaw. “I won’t, I won’t!”

  TWENTY-ONE

  As he sat warming his feet before the fire, that cold morning in early January, Ted Sims felt vaguely troubled.

  It was a little disturbing that Elsie – his one and only child – had visited him nearly every day since Christmas, because while he was flattered by her attention, he couldn’t help being a little suspicious of it as well. She was asking a lot of questions, too – and that wasn’t like her.

  “Read anything interesting in the papers today, Daddy?”

  “Got something on your mind, Daddy?”

  Which was strange, because there was something on his mind – quite apart from her behaviour.

  Ever since his talk with his son-in-law some months earlier – when he’d mentioned the rumours he’d heard that Mason was planning a job – he’d had an uneasy feeling that somehow Frank had conned him.

  And the whispers still persisted –

  Mason had got a team together.

  Mason was pulling a job soon.

  Mason was pulling a job abroad.

  So he’d been disturbed when he read about the robbery in Madeira. Frank and Elsie had been there for their holidays – and maybe Frank really was working with Pedro.

  He’d told himself that it was always like that with ‘abroad’ – if you had a cousin living in Australia and you read about a bush fire, you were sure (even if he lived in Melbourne and hated the bloody outback) that he was one of the victims.

  But despite the rationalization, the nagging doubt still wouldn’t go away.

  If only the papers had given some bloody names.

  “Seen Portuguese Pedro recently?” he asked the short broad heavy who served as his butler-minder.

  “I can’t say I have, Mr. Sims.”

  “See if you can round him up for me.”

  The heavy nodded.

  “And another thing … I want the names of the blokes behind this Madeira job. Is Toad Gower still as bloody lily-white as he was – or is he accepting contributions to his retirement fund these days?”

  “He’s the same as ever. For some reason, he doesn’t like villains, Mr Sims.”

  “So who can we get at?”

  The heavy shook his head doubtfully.

  “It’s got more difficult since the last clean-up of the Met. I suppose there’s a couple of chief inspectors and a few DIs who might be willing to help us if the price was right.”

  “Get on to them, then,” Sims said. “See what names they can come up with.”

  “Right away, Mr. Sims.”

  *

  A cruiser like the Seaspray can weather most storms by reefing the sails and heading straight into the wind – but it is a tiring process, and not to be repeated too often. Besides, even though the crew were shaping up well, they were still inexperienced, and Nigel thought it wiser to put into port whenever the meteorological forecast was too threatening.

  So they made steady – but slow – progress up the coast of Morocco, stopping off at Agadir to wait out one storm, and at Rabat to let another pass. But once they were out on the open sea, storms simply had to be dealt with – and the one that hit them unexpectedly off the coast of Portugal forced them to put in to Oporto for essential maintenance.

  Thus it was that by the time Ted Sims started to get ideas about the Madeira job, they were crossing the Bay of Biscay and hoping to Christ that the weather had no more surprises in store for them.

  *

  It had taken a great deal of self-discipline – and three Babychams – before Susan had been able to pluck up the courage to ring Tony’s doorbell a week after that terrible New Year’s Eve, and when he didn’t answer she was tempted just to write a note and go home. Then she remembered her mam used to tell her that if you were so ashamed to say something that you had to do it by letter, then you shouldn’t be saying it all.

  Mam was right. She had nothing to be ashamed of – she was just going to tell Tony that it was all over between them.

  She reached into her plas
tic handbag, took out the key that Tony had given her, and unlocked the door.

  Once she was in the flat, the drink started to affect her. She didn’t feel dizzy or sick – just very, very tired, as if she could sink down into the floor and just keep on sinking.

  She didn’t know when Tony would be home, and she was too exhausted to sit in the armchair, so she went into the bedroom and lay down – intending just to rest her eyes for a while.

  She was awoken abruptly by the front door being slammed closed. She got off the bed, searched drowsily for her shoes, and was just about to enter the living room when she heard a female voice saying her name.

  “Have you seen Susan since you dumped her on New Year’s Eve?” Linda asked.

  Tony, on the point of opening the cocktail cabinet, suddenly tensed up.

  “No, I haven’t,” he said guiltily.

  He opened the whisky bottle, poured himself a shot, and knocked it straight back.

  He was drinking too much these days, Linda thought, and she suspected that if she hadn’t been with him he’d have taken it straight from the bottle.

  “Have you slept with her since we got back from Madeira?”

  “I don’t want to. I can’t. I’d just be thinking of you.”

  “And don’t you know that I’m only thinking of you when I’m with Frank?” Linda asked. “But we have to do it, just for a little while longer, so they don’t get suspicious.”

  Tony poured himself another drink.

  He was getting very difficult to handle, Linda told herself. She had seduced him both mentally and physically, and like an ex-virgin the morning after, he was subject to regrets.

  Frank had been good to him, he’d told her. Why didn’t they treat him fairly in return? Couldn’t they just take their share of the money and go away? They would still have each other.

  She couldn’t tell him the truth, which was that he wasn’t enough for her – wasn’t even the main thing she wanted. It was the money that really mattered, and he was just a pleasant little bonus – like a free corkscrew with a good bottle of wine.

  She understood that she could keep control of him and his scruples only by maintaining his addiction to her body – and right now it was time to give him a fix.

  “Forget about Susan, forget about Frank,” she said. “Let’s do it! Let’s do it here and now.”

  And as she spoke, she began slowly to unbutton her blouse. Tony stood gaping, as he always did.

  She opened her blouse slightly, giving him a glimpse of her marvellous, wonderful breasts, and then slowly, sensuously, peeled it off. She walked over to him, rubbing herself against his chest as she undid his trousers and slid them down to his ankles.

  “Lie down,” she said huskily.

  He lowered himself on to the living-room carpet.

  She stood over him, so that he was looking up at her – up at her legs, disproportionate from that angle but even more beautiful because of it; up at her breasts, firm and promising; up at her wide generous mouth. Slowly she slipped out of her skirt, then let her panties fall to the floor.

  “We’re going to have the best of times,” she said, lowering herself on to him.

  He groaned as she started to move – slowly, rhythmically, teasing.

  “It will always be like this,” she said, “always this wonderful. We’ll never get bored with it, will we? Never!”

  “No,” Tony moaned. “No.”

  “We can have a wonderful time with money, Tony – but we have to have all of it.”

  “Yes, yes!”

  She had achieved her aim, at least for a little while. She surrendered to sensation, immersing herself in the sex as deeply as Tony. Neither of them heard the soft footfalls on the carpet, or the soft click of the front door closing.

  *

  “I had to tell you, Frank – I just had to.”

  Susan was crying as she spoke, but not for herself. She was crying for Mason, who was sitting in an easy chair – his hands clutching the arms – like a man half-dead.

  He was already under pressure – waiting for the moment Elsie told her father about his disappearance over Christmas and Sims, putting two and two together, sent his men round.

  And now this! He felt a pain far beyond tears.

  He had lost Linda. That hurt, but deep down he was not really surprised. He had never been able to handle women. Far worse was that Tony – the son he had never been allowed to have – was plotting behind his back.

  And the betrayal was not just of him, but everybody who had been involved in the operation. Even poor old Pedro wouldn’t get his severance pay if Linda and Tony’s plan – whatever it was – worked out.

  “You’re terribly upset, Frank, I can see you are,” Susan said softly.

  She walked over to him, placed one hand on his shoulder and began stroking his hair.

  “There, there,” she said, just as she had so many times to her sick mam. “It seems bad now, but it will get better.”

  As she stroked, he felt the tension drain out of him, as it had done at the outdoor iron kiosk in Madeira. He turned and faced her, and before he knew what was happening, he was holding her in his arms and kissing her.

  *

  Ted Sims’ usually reliable sources in the Metropolitan Police had come up with nothing on the Madeira job.

  “So push harder,” Sims told his minder. “Offer them more money. And if that doesn’t work, remind them that we’ve got enough on them to land them in the shit any time we feel like it.”

  “It wouldn’t make any difference, Mr. Sims,” the minder replied. “They all told me the same thing – Toad’s a changed man since he got back, and he won’t talk about the bank robbery at all. They say it’s almost as if he’s embarrassed about what went on in Madeira – which they find amazing, because none of them can ever remember him being embarrassed about anything before.”

  *

  It had been years since Sims had not got exactly what he wanted, precisely when he wanted it, and this stonewalling was starting to feel like a personal insult. He would discover exactly what had gone on, he promised himself, and if he couldn’t find out from Gower, he would challenge Frank directly.

  But before he did that, he would talk to Elsie.

  He chose his moment carefully. They were both in his study – him sitting at his desk with the more salacious of the morning papers, her arranging the large bunch of lilies she had brought for him.

  “You remember when you wanted me to sniff around, and see if Frank was planning to pull a job he’d not told you about?” he asked.

  “Yes?”

  “Well, I’m beginning to think that not only might have been planning one, but that he’s actually pulled one off – that bank job in Madeira, over Christmas.”

  Elsie took a pair of sharp scissors and neatly snipped the ends off a number of stems. Then she placed the flowers in a Chinese vase and fussed with their composition.

  “That couldn’t have been Frank, Daddy,’ she said dismissively. “He’s too thick to pull a job on his own in England, let alone abroad.”

  “I like my ideas to be taken seriously,” Sims said, and there was a hard edge to his voice which would have made most men soil themselves and caused even his darling daughter a little concern. “I’ve got used to being taken seriously.”

  “Yes, Daddy. Sorry, Daddy,” Elsie said.

  “You don’t give Frank enough credit,” Sims continued. “I’ve always said that.”

  “You’re quite right, Daddy,” Elsie said contritely. “When was this job in Madeira?”

  “The twenty-third of December – when Frank was supposed to be in Liverpool.”

  “He was in Liverpool,” Elsie said. “I saw him catch the train myself.”

  “When was that?”

  “On the nineteenth.”

  “Four days before the robbery! So what was there to stop him catching a flight to Madeira from Manchester?”

  Elsie frowned. “Nothing, I suppose. And, come to
think of it, I rang Tony several times over the next few days – and I got no answer. So maybe he was in Madeira, too.”

  “If Frank’s pulled a job behind both our backs, I’ll have him hurt in ways he’s never even dreamed of,” Sims growled.

  “Quite right, Daddy, it’ll be no more than he deserves,” Elsie said. She paused. “But wait a minute – I thought I’d read that they caught the robbers.”

  “They did, but they had to let them go again on Christmas Eve.”

  Elsie laughed lightly. “Oh well, it couldn’t have been Frank. He was back home again by then.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Sims asked suspiciously.

  “Of course I’m sure,’ Elsie replied. “I’m not likely to forget that we had Christmas dinner together, now am I?”

  TWENTY-TWO

  “It’s tonight,” Mason said over the phone.

  “Tonight?” Tony replied. “But he wasn’t supposed to arrive for another couple of …”

  “Tonight,” Mason reiterated. “He’s made better time than he expected, and the weather report’s good. I’ll pick you up at five.”

  The line went dead.

  Had there been a cold edge to Frank’s voice? Tony wondered.

  Hadn’t he sounded more as if he was talking to a casual acquaintance than to a close friend?

  “But then I’m not a close friend, am I?” he whispered. “I’m a traitor – a back-stabber.”

  If only he could convince himself that Frank would do the same to him if their situations were reversed, he thought. But he knew Frank would never let him down – Frank would never let anybody down.

  He walked into the bathroom and flicked the switch over the mirror. The lights picked out his face as clearly as if he were on the stage – or under an interrogator’s lamp.

  “I am double-crossing Frank,” he said to his reflection. “I am double-crossing Frank.”

  The image which mouthed the words silently in time with him was the one he was accustomed to seeing – clear eyes, healthy, glowing skin, the face of a man who looked younger than his years.

  “So why do I feel so rotten inside?” he asked his reflected self.

  He returned to the living room and surveyed it as if he were seeing it for the first time – the comfortable sofa, the sheepskin rug, his beloved record collection. After that night’s work, he could say goodbye to all of it.