‘Well you won’t mind me coming in to have a look then, will you?’ implored Deansy, sensing as he gently wormed his way in that this was going the same way as every other visit he had made.
‘Help your fucking self.’
As he walked into the hall, Deansy was met by a five-year-old girl, dressed in all her festive finery and looking like a little angel. Her sweetness and innocence seemed to be in spite of, rather than a consequence of, her upbringing. She stared up at him with her bright blue eyes, smiled and gently asked, ‘Are you looking for my daddy?’
‘Yes, I am, sweetheart,’ replied Deansy, feeling faintly optimistic.
As if giving away a game of hide and seek, she pointed and her voice dropped as she giggled, ‘Oh, he told me not to tell you but he’s hiding in that cupboard.’
The look of fatherly love was distinctly absent as the runaway was dragged unceremoniously from the under-stairs closet and off to the cells.
Gus Chiggers was a careful chap. He knew that crime was everywhere and opportunist thieves were not terribly choosy who they targeted. He also knew, despite being from South London, that Brighton had a certain reputation. If you didn’t want to become a victim there, you really couldn’t be too cautious.
One Monday lunchtime in late July 1990, PC Paul Norlund was enjoying a reasonably peaceful shift, riding shotgun in the city centre response car. The usual band of shoplifters, nuisance beggars and domestics had been dealt with and dispatched with relative ease. He and his colleague Sam, a gentle fellow whose quiet manner thugs often misread to their cost, were parked in a police bay close to the main shopping mall, Churchill Square. Both had the end of the shift in their sights and were hoping to catch some rare summer sunshine in just over an hour’s time.
Paul was one of those sickening people: tall, athletic, an all-round accomplished sportsman and far too handsome for his own good. Add to that his natural skill at picking out wrong’uns in a crowd, his innate easy style with all manner of people and the fact he was great company, humbled us lesser mortals.
‘Any unit for an armed robbery Lloyds Bank North Street?’ crackled the urgent call over the radio.
‘Bloody hell. I suppose that will be us then,’ he remarked to Sam. ‘Yep, Charlie one zero one, we are just by the Clock Tower now. ETA about a minute. Have you got any more details?’
‘Not much but it seems that the offender has been detained by staff,’ came the controller’s reply.
Sam put his foot to the floor and they raced towards the iconic Victorian memorial that marks one of the busiest road junction in Brighton. As they crossed it, lights flashing and sirens wailing, the more astute pedestrians and motorists cleared a path for them. All except a startled French student, equipped with language school rucksack, frozen astride her pushbike in their path. As Sam swerved to her left, saving her from certain death, Paul bellowed something less polite than ‘Please give way to emergency vehicles with their sirens on.’
They hardly got out of second gear as they raced the short distance down the hill to the bank in question.
Partly frustrated that their afternoon plans had been scuppered they were nevertheless fired up with the adrenaline now surging through them in expectation of the drama that lay ahead. Leaping out of the car milliseconds after it came to a halt, they sprinted for the half a dozen steps that led to the banking hall.
As they did so Paul privately cursed the selfish cyclist whose bike was locked to the lamppost as he clipped his leg on its back wheel on his way past.
Bursting into the public area, the scene that greeted them was surreal. It was packed, not wholly surprising given it was a summer lunchtime, but business seemed to be carrying on as normal. Was this a hoax call? They had said Lloyds Bank, hadn’t they? Their finely tuned ears had never before misheard a location, even in the heat of the moment.
Having quickly closed the bank’s doors to prevent any witnesses or suspects slipping away, Paul became aware of a bundle of bodies on the floor close to the quick tills – the unscreened counters where people could make transactions up to £200.
As he made his way over, he heard a plaintive cry of ‘Help’ coming from somewhere near the bottom of the pile. ‘Help me. Get them off.’
‘Let me through,’ Paul ordered in his lilting Geordie tone.
As the heap of people started to untangle, he realized that at the bottom was a very frightened-looking young man.
‘OK, what’s going on?’ Paul enquired as Sam, guarding the doors, watched on.
‘This bloke just tried to rob us,’ a suited gentleman wearing a Lloyds Bank name badge replied.
‘What, him?’ Paul queried incredulously.
‘Yes, he tried to rob one of the quick tills. We jumped on him as he walked away. He had this.’ The gentleman suddenly brandished what was clearly a toy gun, the red stopper in the muzzle giving it away. Paul grabbed it.
‘Bloody hell,’ Paul muttered as he pulled the crushed robber to his feet.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked, sensing he was not dealing with a top-level gangster.
‘Gus Chiggers,’ came the frightened reply.
‘Well, Gus Chiggers, I’m arresting you on suspicion of armed robbery.’ Following the caution, the hapless gunman was handcuffed.
By now back-up had arrived and Paul’s colleagues had started to identify witnesses, close off the till area and secure CCTV. Paul took the opportunity to search Gus and the holdall lying at his feet.
The bag was heavy and from the feel of it contained an object that seemed to have a long barrel-like structure.
Cautiously, Paul unclipped the flap and peered in. Firstly he saw a Tesco carrier bag that seemed to contain a few handfuls of 1p and 2p pieces.
‘Whose is this?’ asked Paul.
‘It’s what they gave me,’ said Gus.
‘Who?’
‘The bank.’
‘Is that it?’ queried Paul.
‘Yes, they said they didn’t have any more money as they had a rush on.’
Paul held Gus’s gaze in disbelief then gently removed the structure he had felt from the outside, still not guessing its identity.
‘That’s my bike seat,’ volunteered Gus just as Paul was inspecting it.
‘Your bike seat?’ asked Paul, now aware that he could be the target of an elaborate Candid Camera stunt. ‘Why is your bike seat in your bag?’ he continued, fearing a bizarre answer.
‘It’s off my getaway bike,’ Gus explained.
‘Your getaway bike? You’ve got a getaway bike? Why isn’t the saddle on this getaway bike, then?’
‘It might get stolen.’
‘What, the saddle?’
‘No, the bike. There’s a lot of crime in Brighton and it’s a nice bike. I’ve padlocked it outside and taken the saddle off so no-one nicks it.’
‘Won’t that slow your getaway down?’ Paul could hardly believe he was having this conversation.
‘Not as much as if it was nicked,’ came the obvious response.
‘Right, out to the car, you,’ demanded Paul, tightening his grip on Gus’s arm.
As they emerged into the blinding sunlight, watched by dozens of onlookers, Gus pulled back slightly.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Paul, fearing an escape.
‘That’s my bike,’ announced Gus proudly, indicating the very machine that Paul had nearly tumbled over on his way into the bank. ‘Can you look after it? I don’t want it stolen.’
‘For God’s sake. Yes, yes, get in the car,’ muttered Paul, realizing how bad he must have been in a previous life to deserve this.
Back at the police station, DC Peter Smith and I were the only detectives available as there had been a major incident in East Sussex and everyone else had been seconded over there just hours before. We were gutted that we had been told to stay back and hold the fort.
Word had reached us about an armed robbery at a major bank in the city centre. We were salivating with excitement, hoping this would
help us get over our disappointment at being left behind. With an arrest already made, this was not only looking interesting but also, with luck, a nice little overtime earner.
Paul, who would later become a fine detective in his own right, was usually able to talk up any job to get the CID to take it over but, for once, the look on his face took the wind out of our sails.
The fact he was starting with an apology didn’t bode well and as he recounted the whole story a feeling of ‘why us’ engulfed me. I was still in my first year in CID but even I knew this was never going to be an investigation to tell my grandchildren about.
Reluctantly Smith and I took the job on and sloped off to the bank to take some statements and seize what evidence there was.
Despite the seriousness of the offence, Gus’s modus operandi just got more comical the more people we spoke to.
Gus had entered the bank about ten minutes before he struck. It was, as we had already established, incredibly busy. The queue for the quick tills was almost out of the door. Not wishing to upset anyone, Gus did the British thing – he stood at the back of the queue and patiently waited his turn.
As he shuffled his way towards the counters he drew no-one’s attention. After all, he was behaving like everyone else, quietly queuing in line.
As he reached the front the tannoy announced that cashier number five was now free. So, with his hand in his bag he stepped up to the counter. With no hint of drama, he slipped his red-stoppered pistol from the satchel and pointed it at the young man waiting to serve him.
Terrified, wondering what was going to happen next, the cashier discreetly pressed his alarm button under the desk and waited for the demand to be bellowed at him.
Silence. Gus just stood there.
The young man sensed this was not the normal type of stick-up he had been trained for.
‘Are you robbing me? Would you like some money?’
Gus nodded.
Recognizing the dissipating threat, the cashier took a chance.
‘I haven’t got very much left. I’ll give you what little I have. Have you got anything to put it in?’ he asked, spotting some senior colleagues closing in. A scrunched-up Tesco bag was placed on the counter into which he put some small change. Gus stepped away, still not having said a word, whereupon he was pounced on by the waiting crowd.
Back at the nick, we were so looking forward to the interview. Surely Gus had a reason for being such a cautious, considerate, polite robber. Perhaps this was some kind of social experiment, albeit one which would certainly see him jailed.
Peter, being the more senior detective, took the lead. With a wicked personality, he was a vivacious joker. Having a sense of humour drier than the Gobi Desert and being infinitely better than me at keeping a straight face were two other reasons why he was best placed to ask the big questions.
We implored Gus to get a solicitor but he thought we were a nice couple of blokes and would help him if he got stuck – we were and we would, of course.
Any chance he had of finding a psychiatric excuse for his peculiar behaviour was dashed by his incredibly lucid, detailed and consistent explanation. He said he needed some money, treasured his bike, didn’t want to upset anyone in his native London so came here and then wanted to make as little fuss as possible. On hearing this, despite his eccentricity, no doctor would have certified him as mentally ill.
We had no choice but to charge him with robbery and a number of other linked offences and let him take his chances in court.
True to form, in front of His Honour Judge John Gower, a fearsome but fair man I had crossed previously, Gus pleaded guilty at the first opportunity. Peter and I did not feel the need to attend court as there seemed nothing contentious about the case, but word soon reached us that our presence would be required at the sentencing hearing a few weeks later.
‘I want the officers to bring the gun along so I can determine a proportionate sentence,’ the judge commanded.
Well, this should go in Gus’s favour, I thought as I entered Lewes Crown Court on the day the prisoner would learn his fate. He was a poor excuse for a robber, he had admitted the offence at the very first opportunity, he had stolen just pennies and no-one really believed he would harm them. Although armed robbery was very serious and attracted long prison sentences, Gus must pose a comparatively low risk.
As the judge entered, I duly handed the toy gun up to His Honour. He examined it carefully from all angles, paying particular attention to the red stopper. I wished the ground would eat me up. Surely I was in for another roasting, this time for bringing charges against this inept villain.
‘Stand up, Mr Chiggers,’ ordered the judge.
Gus stood.
The judge then went through the horrors that befall people faced with armed gunmen and how some never recover. He took into account the early guilty plea, the crackpot getaway strategy, the paltry amount gained and the robber’s demeanour throughout. He then turned to the gun.
‘I can clearly see that, by this red stopper, this gun is nothing but a toy; incapable of harming anyone.’
Here it comes, I thought. I put on my best sheepish look.
‘However neither I nor you know how other people would react when such a weapon is pointed at them. You are lucky that the person you chose to rob did not fall for it. Others might have. Therefore I judge this to be a most serious offence carried out in a crowded place in the middle of the day. Despite all the mitigation, I have no option but to sentence you to four years’ imprisonment. Jailer, take him down.’
I saw the confused look in Gus’s eyes and the whispered apology as he went down the steps. I spared him some sympathy, conscious that only then had he grasped the stupidity of his actions.
Farcical as Chiggers’ escapade was, Judge Gower was right of course. Not even a highly trained firearms officer will claim to be able to determine a fake gun from a real one at a glance. Sometimes they have to make a split-second decision whether or not to shoot someone brandishing a weapon.
At the New Scotland Yard Crime Museum, the curator, an ex-detective himself, put Peter James through a test. Standing just ten feet away he pulled a gun from inside a box on Peter, calling ‘Real or fake?’ There was a one-second pause. ‘You’re dead.’ No time to decide. No way of telling. That was play-acting, but cops have to decide in real life. And they take no chances.
5: BAD BUSINESS
Never underestimate the power of the criminal mind.
Crime can realize profits that would shame many FTSE 100 companies. With the international drugs market worth an estimated £320 billion per year, it’s no surprise that disrupting and dismantling organized crime has been one of the most enduring challenges and priorities for governments across the world in recent times.
Major league criminals operate on a truly global scale. Grace finds himself reflecting, while waiting for Amis Smallbone to emerge from a pub full of old-world villains in Not Dead Yet, on how local criminal rivalries in Brighton had been surpassed by the pressure brought by faceless yet ruthless overseas mobsters.
A huge number of people amass fortunes through top-level crime. It would be foolish, however, to assume that comes from next to no effort. Far from it. Only the strong survive. Weak, lazy criminals wither into oblivion, jail or an early grave thanks to turf wars and smarter opposition.
To be a successful criminal requires acute business acumen worthy of any multinational conglomerate’s boardroom. A forensic understanding of profit margins, risks, opportunities, markets and one’s competitors is the lifeblood of all successful entrepreneurs, on whichever side of the law they operate.
Business guru Alan Deutschman coined the oft-repeated catchphrase ‘Change or Die’. Indeed, in 2007 he published a book on this philosophy. Never has this been taken quite so literally as in the criminal world. Villains who fail to adapt to keep one step ahead of the law, to have the edge over their rivals or to capitalize on new opportunities are never far from a cell door or an early grave.
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Brighton and Hove has always been a nest of enterprising speculators. The vibrancy of the place, coupled with a ubiquitous can-do attitude, means that if you can’t make it here, you can’t make it anywhere. There is a reason why it features in the www.startups.co.uk list of the ‘top twenty places in the country to start a business’.
The knocker boys were probably the first criminally minded modern-day chancers to get rich in the city, but many have followed in their footsteps.
David Henty and Clifford Wake could never be accused of being small-time crooks. Friends from school, they had a hunger that burned inside them. Their desire to accumulate colossal wealth was matched only by their antipathy to taxes. They felt that faceless government bureaucrats had no right to fritter away the money they earned through the sweat of their brows. No, only they should decide how their profits should be spent.
Both in their early thirties, Henty and Wake had served long and mainly successful apprenticeships climbing the greasy pole of Brighton’s criminal underclass. Henty had been brought up in Moulsecoomb, a compact council estate, developed after the First World War as a site for ‘Homes Fit for Heroes’. It is a warren of narrow streets with rows of small semis crammed along its pavements. Henty used to be sent out from there by his father on burgling errands. He learned to trust no-one, though, as even his own dad would short-change him.
They would try any scam from antique theft, stealing and selling on cars to manufacturing forged vehicle documents. They knew how to spot the chance to make a fast buck. Henty came from a family who were well known in the antique and art world, hence his expertise and reputation preceded him. Both, though, were only too aware that rivalries, capture and incarceration were all occupational hazards.
But beneath all this, they were businessmen. They carefully weighed up the risks, forecast their turnover and took their decisions based on cold, calculated assessment. Was the gain worth the pain?
Grace has to deal with people from across the sociological spectrum. In Looking Good Dead, he considers the various layers – mainly defined by wealth – that make up the diverse bulk of the city. He reflects on the contrast between the genteel retired set whiling their days away watching Sussex play cricket at the County Ground to those of a similar age who by day beg for their next meal, and by night bed down in windswept seafront shelters. He has also been around long enough to know that the criminal classes range from subsistence thieves who melt into the background at the first sign of a police car to the ones at the top of their game living a life of faux respectability in their mansions behind security gates and high-walled perimeters in the Dyke Road Avenue area. Henty and Wake made it their life’s ambition to claw their way up this ladder, and no law was going to stop them.
Death Comes Knocking: Policing Roy Grace’s Brighton Page 8
