It was now nearly eleven in the morning. One of her least physically demanding clients was known as the ‘bishop’, Arnold Stephens. He claimed he was aged eighty-seven and said he was once the cleric of Church of England parish in Nuneaton. He always appeared in public, dressed all in black. His distinctive attire consisted of black breaches with knee-length-boots buttoned up at the side and a black shirt with a dog collar, a three-quarter-length frockcoat and a black Homburg that set off the clerical image – an attire unseen with modern-day churchmen.
He rarely spoke to other residents. When he did, listeners could detect a mild Midland’s accent. He spent his time creating, what he described as, his memoires on a laptop computer. He was one of the few residents with a telephone landline and access to the internet.
He declared that the blonde lady, who came to see him Tuesday’s and Thursday’s every week, was his publisher giving him advice on his memoires.
The reality was that he had a strange non-physical predilection. Two mornings a week, at ten-thirty to eleven, Sylvia visited him. They never spoke. He always opened the door to his flat, wearing a white, silk dressing gown. He went into the bedroom and she into the living room. She quickly undressed, displaying her ample charms. She unpinned her waist-length, blonde locks and let them drop. She picked up the Bible and a white envelope. She placed the envelope on top of her clothes and walked into the bedroom, where the bishop’s corpulent frame lay naked on the double bed. Sylvia’s caring service were of a special kind.
He was only wearing his dog collar as he lay with his eyes closed, his hands apparently clasped in prayer. She pulled up a chair next to the bed, crossed her legs and opened the St James’ version of the Bible. He’d placed a stick-it note on the page, on which he’d scribbled the passage (or passages) he wanted her to read. Her long, blonde stresses did little to cover her two, prized assets or other parts. He didn’t open his eyes. Sylvia had little idea why he chose any verse from the Bible. They usually condemned bondage, evil or sins of the flesh. Over times, she could almost recite the verse as he wanted it repeated so many times.
Today, she would start with Deuteronomy, thirteen-five.
And the prophet, or the dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death;
Because he hath spoken to turn you away from the LORD, your God,
Which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out
Of the hose of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way, which the
Lord, thy God, commanded thee to walk in. So shall thou put the evil
Away from the midst of thee.
Sylvia had no idea what all this meant. It was a strange way of earning a few quid and doing nothing physical for it. She told friends in the same line of business. She turned to the next bit he wanted her to read excerpts from Palms 5.
For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness, neither shall evil dwell with thee.
The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: though hates all workers of iniquity.
Though shalt destroy them that speak leasing: the LORD will abhor the bloody and deceitful man.
The following readings were from Isiah 24:13 and Luke 18:11. Over the weeks, she realised she was repeating these verses for, at least, the fourth time.
When she had finished reading her text he’d outlined, she dressed, checked the contents of the envelope and left without a word spoken between the two. This was the arrangement every time.
Sylvia had little idea of the bishop’s ‘ecclesiastic’ background. She was soon to discover. She constantly wished she could return to her first love as a dancer, even aged fifty-eight.
Lenny said several times at the beginning of their stay that he thought he knew the man everyone believed was a retired bishop but couldn’t recall when and where. But he was sure he’d met someone like him whilst banged-up in one jail or another. He likened him to one of the fictional characters in the church comedy, All Gas and Gaiters, about ecclesiastical matters. Having never seen the television show, none of the others challenged him. Dim he may be, but his knowledge of old TV programs was never challenged.
Chapter 7
THE COLONEL had been remarkably quiet for a few days, cogitated as to what steps he had to take to legitimately top-up his meagre financial resources. He walked along the south bank of the River Crabbe, stopping to watch the swans heading up stream and the coots scuttling across the water to hide in foliage in the opposite bank. He pondered the reason why so many men sat on the river bank. Many obscured by their tents were trying to catch fish that had no desire to commit suicide.
By midday, he’d thought of many ideas and then dismissed them. Finally, he headed for the Talbot to meet the other three, whom he called ‘his team’.
After some ten minutes of mono-symbolic conversation and still nursing his first pint, Reg tentatively enquired, "You alright?
You’re very quiet."
“No, no, everything is just fine. Doin’ some thinkin’.”
“Oh, that’s alright, then. Just thinkin’. Anything important, like?”
“Yeh, me future.”
“You ain’t got much of that left,” Lenny muttered.
“Maybe not,” the Colonel stood up with an empty pint jug in his hand. He looked at others’ almost-empty glasses. “Same again? It’s a choice. Stay honest and be miserable, or try one last heist, get banged up and see out me days in an environment I understand, or I find an honest way of earnin’ a few quid. Simple as that.” As the Colonel headed for the bar to get another round of drinks, Lenny questioned Reg.
“Ere, Reg, what’s an envirymunt thingy?”
"Well, yer know, environment, somewhere nasty or nice.
Yer surroundin’ and all that."
Lenny’s expression showed he wasn’t any wiser.
The Colonel returned, followed by the barman who delivered the drinks.
Jock opened the conversation with a slight chuckle to his voice. “Ye, tellin’ us that you’re thinkin’ about one last blagging and get banged up or yer take on somethin’ honest fer the first time in yer life.”
“That’s about spot on Jock,” the Colonel replied. He looked crestfallen when they all laughed. There was a short period of silence. Then, they chuckled at Lenny’s quip. “Good grief can society cope with an ’onest Colonel. Anyway, I’ve got an idea.” Reg was standing ready to leave. "Shock, horror, drama.
Lenny’s bin thinkin’ and’s gotta an idea."
Both the Colonel and Jock laughed at this outburst.
Unperturbed, Lenny continued, “What we need is a disguise. Somethin’ that’ll confuse ’em all.”
The Colonel queried, “OK, smarty. What’s this great idea? Pray tell us.”
Lenny took a deep breath. “We dress up as a bunch of gorillas, yer know, heavily disguised. No one would think it were us.”
Jock was the first to say anything, “I suppose you’ve got some gorilla gear ready for action.”
“Got five gorilla suits.”
The other three looked at each other until the Colonel took a deep breath and quietly asked, "You’ve got five gorilla suits?
Where did you get five gorilla suits from, the African jungle?
“Bought ’em from that music shop.”
Later, they walked into the Retreat. Lenny stopped. "Colonel, what about the robbery? Yer really plannin’ on goin’ honest, are yer?
“If we can’t do a decent blaggin’, then I’ve gotta another plan.”
“Cor, what a turn-up! You goin’ honest.” Lenny shook his head as he entered his flat.
The Colonel plotted the heist. Gorilla costumes bugged him. As he settled down and watched an afternoon repeat TV, an ambulance arrived, and the two-person crew helped an elderly man into the Retreat. They were met by Mary, who let them into the flat on the ground floor. Percy Planter was back after some weeks spent in a psychiatric hospital, better known to musical hall fans, holiday camp visitors and the early days of TV as ‘Flasher – the Mystery Man’.
Mary read his file and moaned, “Oh, no! Another problem.” How prophetic her words would become as the ninety-five-year-old settled in!
As Percy was helped into the Retreat by two ambulance personnel, a large, long-haired, ginger cat looked on imperiously at the activity.
Chapter 8
LIFE went on in the Retreat with the four doing their best to antagonise Mary, the warden, and Martha, the ‘Bint’ Samuels, the latter enjoying her efforts to bring the four, and particularly Jock, into line. She began planning her own campaign to make him number-six in her collection of discarded lovers and one ‘husband’. Jock began ways of annoying her and keeping her out of his life.
The four old lags spent their lunchtimes and most early evenings gracing the bars at any one of Crabby’s many pubs, usually the Talbot. Martha began to implement her plan to ‘capture’ him. It was, at this stage, a very one-sided love affair which began to develop.
Sylvia continued to read excerpts of the Bible to the bishop. It was an easy way of earning a hundred pounds a time just to read a few extracts from the Bible.
Sometime after moving in, the four old lags had suffered what they perceived as an ‘indignity’. All Four had failed to pay there fifty-pence each, for tea and cakes one morning, resulting in Mary Murphy rarely stamping her authority as the warden. At five-feet-one-inch tall, calling her short and plump was an understatement. It was said that if she ran into a brick wall, there was little danger she would damage her pert, little nose. She regarded her weight gain as lack of work-outs at the gym and not being a busy, working, female pugilist. She threatened the four with banishment from all social events if they tried to avoid payment again.
Her stand against the ‘subversive’ four was considered brave. They took little notice of the threat of reporting them to the Probation Service.
Mary was married to the five-feet-two-inch tall vicar of All Saint’s, the little church opposite the Retreat. He had belonged to a group protesting about the ‘heathen practice of female boxer’s. They’d met when she was still ’working’ with the All Ladies Boxing Circuit and was part of a demo outside a Birmingham venue.
Now in her new vocation, she struggled in her efforts to bring the Four into some sort of social acceptability. So far, her efforts had failed. She told her ever-understanding husband that problems with the four faded into insignificance to those created by the ‘Ogre’. It was her title for Martha Samuels.
The vicar, showing no indication of his calling, met the bishop for the first time when he made a rare appearance at a tea and coffee morning. He was baffled by his story that he was a retired Church-of-England clergyman from Nuneaton and named a church he knew didn’t exist in the town.
He called his elder brother, a senior police officer, in the town’s division of the West Midland’s Force. He sent him a snatched picture of the so-called bishop.
Two hours later, the vicar took a call from his brother. "That chap you say is a mystery vicar or bishop. Well, he ain’t. He’s Arnold Slater. His home town is a small village in Warwickshire. He’s a conman, and the prison chaps would like him back. He was serving five years for defrauding old ladies out of their savings by masquerading as a Christian missionary and claiming he needed money to get out of a grotty African jail merely because he was a Christian and wouldn’t convert to be a Muslim.
"He never explained which jail he was in or how he was able to send begging letters by e-mail or make phone calls whilst banged up in an Addis Abba jail. Investigations established he’d never been to Ethiopia or any other African country. We uncovered several bank accounts usually made out to a charity, of which he was the sole beneficiary.
"Many sent him cheques, anything from five pounds to one hundred. He’d amassed a fortune. We discovered some gullible folk would put anything from a few pounds to a hundred or two in cash and post the gift to a Leicester address. He hadn’t banked a lot of it, and we found many of thousands in ones, fives, tens and twenties in unopened envelopes. There were the odd fifties. It was quite a task returning the cash and tracing all the donors. He did nothing to help. He’s probably got a lot stashed away in some secret account somewhere.
"He would get the names and addresses from publication of inheritors of estates, and any lottery winners. He would send them begging letters. You wouldn’t believe the amount of money he scammed. As I remember, the Crown Court was told of some two million pounds. Where much of it is, now remains a mystery. We were sure he had accounts with banks and building societies in other names. We never found ’em. It’s him, alright. The prison authorities would like him back. The prison let him out on a day release half-way through his sentence. He never went back.
"We’ll liaise with local plod and have him picked up. By the way, his age is sixty-odd; he just looks older. It’ll be interesting to see what he’s been up to for the last few years.
“Anyway, that aside, everything going OK? How’s Mary?”
The vicar replied, “Still only have three regulars. Mary’s fine. She’s getting a grip on the home. She’s got a strange mix of old folk in resident. Keep in touch. God Bless you.”
Later, the vicar tells his friend, Sergeant Wallace, about the bishop and his past. The sergeant commented, "God there’s some weirdoes in the Retreat. First, there’s the four ex-robbers, the lady shoplifter who, it turns out, she’s just ‘borrowing’ the goods from Tesco’s. Then, the two former brothel keepers. Even a retired police chief we know has a habit of appearing nude in front of women care-workers. Then, of course, we mustn’t forget the old, rural rogue, who did much the same thing until, rumour has it, he got a dose of iced water spilt on his nether region. Now, we discover the so-called bishop is, in fact, an absconder from
Leicester jail. Jesus, what a lot!"
He made no mention of the strange doctor.
The vicar responded, “I don’t think the Good Lord could be blamed for the mix. Many were there when Mary took over. You don’t know half of the problems Mary has.”
It would be, sometimes, before the wheels of justice ground into action, and the so-called bishop was apprehended and returned to the penal system.
Meanwhile, the fifty-penny episode was the catalyst of future-plans. It began the scheming of the ‘great escape’. From being a fantasy, the idea was now becoming possible. The Colonel had gone quiet on his scheme to ‘go honest’. All Four had decided that her Majesty’s care was preferable to living in a south coast residential home under the thumb of a diminutive tyrant, such as Miss Murphy and the virtually daily haranguing from Martha Samuels. Thus, began the planning of the last heist, blag a bank or post office. There were no banks in Crabby, and the building societies were in a pedestrian precinct – not good for a getaway. They would have to choose an out-of-town target. He told the others, "We’ve gotta make it look pukka. Make it easy for ’em to catch us but make it look fer real. Got it?
They all nodded their heads in agreement.
“A spell back inside would suit them till their dying day,” the Colonel reasoned. At least they would be among many ‘friends’ and fellows blaggers. He repeated, “It’s gotta look right. We had to do it and make it look good but make it easy for ‘plod’ to solve the crime.” He emphasised by punching the air.
“Right, mums the word, no idle chit-chat,” he added. To him, planning a heist was a serious business. The fact that all his criminal activity had been discovered with a few days of the crime hadn’t deterred him from his desire to be classified as a ‘mastermind’ of the criminal underworld. He waved his walking stick about.
At the beginning, the last heist plan was just habitual thinking. Now, as the weeks elapsed and the problems with Mrs Murphy and Samuels intensified, the ‘great plan’ was taking shape.
Lenny spoke, “Long’s no gets hurt, then OK.”
“Quite right,” Reg said. “Just follow the KISS principle.”
Before he could say much more, Lenny queried, “And, what the chuff is that when it’s at home?
”
The Colonel was quick to interject and said, “Keep It Simple, Stupid.” Not that his plan was that simple.
Lenny pursed his lips, and said, “Yer don’t have t’ be rude t’ me.”
No one’s being rude to yer. It simply means keep things simple," the Colonel replied.
“Yeh, we’ll keep it simple. Sounds good t’ me.” Lenny responded with a grin.
The Colonel continued and turned to Lenny, “Any chance we can see the gorilla garb. Your idea might just be what we need.”
“Yeh, sure. I’ll dig ’em out,” he replied enthusiastically.
At this point, all conversation about future robberies ended with Lenny, Reg and Jock nodding their heads.
Meanwhile, Martha was thinking how she could ensnare Jock. Being friendly and flirtatious, she thought, was the solution. She told a friend she liked the ginger-haired men and was determined to find the truth of what Scotsmen wore under their kilt, particularly Jocks.
For the first time in his life, Lenny considered his mode of speech ‘wasn’t quite proper’ and his ability to chat-up classy chicks was failing him. He’d deduced that modern woman didn’t take to ‘bits of rough’, and his ability to write good English also hindered his desire to rid himself of the taint of criminality.
This realisation hit him one lunchtime, in one of Crabby’s classier bars. With the verbal dexterity of his South London social roots, he approached four attractive women with the opening question, “Wotcha darlings, new here, eh?” It was met with a disdainful look from one of the elegant blondes, whose upper parts had difficulty remaining captured in her flimsy dress.
She responded with a contemptuous look and said rather loftily, with a faint hint of a non-English accent, “Go away. You’re a dirty, old man. We don’t talk to foreign trash.”
As she waved her hand in dismissal and strutted away with her pals, a photographer arrived, smiled, and said, “I see, you’ve met the formidable Andrea. You’re wasting your time. She only beds men who are younger than her.”
The Final Heist Page 5
