In the boathouse there were gaps between the floorboards and holes in the roof. The water was murky and clogged with weeds and debris. Wilcox eased the doors shut and put on an overall to start work.
When Driscoll returned he was carrying two takeaway hamburgers, two cartons of soup, and coffee.
“You took your bloody time. This other one’s rusted to hell and back too,” Wilcox muttered, as he scraped then peered under the speedboat’s steering column.
“I got you a cheeseburger,” Driscoll said, handing him one, then sitting on an old orange box.
“This engine’s been hammered into the ground, but I’m tuning it and it’s sounding better.” Wilcox opened his cheeseburger box, then looked at Driscoll slumped on the crate.
“You okay? Tony?”
Driscoll shook his head.
“What’s happened? You get bad news?”
“No more than five hours; no, six. I only told her six fucking hours ago. It’s unbelievable. She’s even taken the fucking toilet-roll holder. The kitchen’s like a war zone, all these fucking wires hanging out. I was selling it fucking furnished!”
“What are you talking about?” Wilcox asked as he stuffed the food into his mouth.
“Nikki. I went back by the apartment. I just wanted to make sure she was okay. She must have got a bloody furniture removal van there before I got the bleeding front door shut. She’s cleaned the place out, the bitch!”
Wilcox couldn’t help grinning, and Driscoll became irate. “What’s so funny?”
“Well, you going on about this lovely redhead and now she’s a bitch. Maybe she’s gone with it all to her mother’s.”
“What? With a whole furniture van full of gear?”
Wilcox made his face straight and went over and patted Driscoll’s shoulder. “Good riddance and better you find out now. If she had been around when you got the cut from this little job, she’d have screwed you over even worse, right? Best it happened now.”
Driscoll sighed. He felt foolish and totally humiliated. It had been bad enough finding his wife with her trainer, now Nikki had betrayed him too.
“I tell you something, next woman I get is gonna be one hundred percent special.”
“Hello?” Pamela’s throaty, theatrical voice floated in to them, and she appeared at the door. In an oatmeal-colored coat, low-heeled fawn shoes, and a white silk shirt, she was looking much smarter than usual.
“What are you doing here?” Driscoll asked.
“Bringing you the mooring permits from our lord and master.” She tossed over a large manila envelope.
“You look different,” Wilcox said as he sipped his soup.
“I’ve been buying my wardrobe for the opening performance. I’m the perfect lady-in-waiting.”
“Apart from the fag hanging out of your mouth,” Wilcox joked, and she laughed, turning to leave.
“See you later, I suspect. Have a lovely day out on the river, boys!”
Driscoll checked his watch. “We should be going to the barn soon. How long you gonna be?”
“As long as it takes to fix the engine and see what gears it’ll need. You go on ahead. I’ll see you there.”
When Driscoll entered the barn, he was still chilled from the river and blew into his hands. “Will somebody get those bloody heaters on?”
“You’re in a pleasant mood,” Pamela said, opening a bottle of water to fill the kettle.
“Yeah, well, I’ve had a bad day.”
“Let’s have a cup of tea and maybe you’ll feel better.” She opened the box of tea bags and looked around. “Have you heard from his lordship? He was supposed to be here before me.” She lit a cigarette.
On cue the door opened and Westbrook entered. He smiled wanly, began to unbutton his coat, then keeled over onto the ground.
Driscoll stood above him. “Christ, is he pissed?”
“No, he’s sick. Help him up. He gets these headaches that make him faint.”
They assisted Westbrook to a chair. He sat down, shaking, and gripped his head. “I’m so sorry. Feel rather poorly today. Be okay in a while.”
Driscoll turned away. It was fucking ridiculous. What a choice for the heist!
Pamela fussed over Westbrook, fetching him water, searching his pockets for his pills, and standing over him as he sipped. Then she helped him to the back of the barn, where he lay down on some sacking. “Will you marry me?” His voice was racked with pain.
Pamela stroked his head, which was glistening with perspiration. “I would have done like a shot, dear, once, but I’m too old for all that now. The best thing for me now would be retirement in the Bahamas. You could always be my houseguest.”
“I’d like that,” he said, hardly audible. Pamela watched over him until he drifted off to sleep. He didn’t stir when Wilcox came in and banged the door. He was disheveled and freezing cold, and went straight to the heater to rub his hands.
Driscoll passed him his rubber gloves and nodded to Westbrook. “He fainted, flat on his face.”
“Is he gonna be all right?”
“He’s sleeping,” Pamela said, as she put the kettle on the burner.
“Oh, that’s brilliant,” Wilcox said. “He’s a fucking liability.”
“Don’t you swear at me, Jimmy, because I won’t take it,” Pamela said. “Tony is popping antacid tablets like mad, and you’re not exactly a choirboy, so the pot’s calling the kettle black, isn’t it?”
Wilcox became irate. “I’m clean. What about you? Top yourself up with gin before you came, did you?”
“Stop it,” Driscoll snapped at Wilcox. “Just shut the fuck up! Any problems we’ve got, we put before the Colonel and let him sort them out. Bickering’s a waste of time and energy.”
De Jersey stood outside the door, listening, choosing his moment. Eventually, he stepped forward and they saw him. “Problems?”
Wilcox pointed to where Lord Westbrook was sleeping. “Did a pratfall when he came in. Couldn’t stand upright.”
De Jersey went to the back of the barn, sat on his heels, and looked at the sleeping man. Westbrook’s eyes opened. “I will not let you down,” he said. “I’ll make sure of it. I’ll take the tablets before I go, not wait as I did today. It’s just that I have to test how long I can go between these wretched attacks.”
“What do they feel like?” de Jersey asked.
“Excruciating migraine, dizzy, sick. But my pills sort me out, really they do.”
De Jersey patted his shoulder. “Okay, old chap, I believe you. Just rest here a while, and when you feel up to it, come and join us.”
“Thank you.”
De Jersey began to confer with Wilcox and Driscoll about the look-alike. “We take her straight to the Aldersgate warehouse. Try to keep her calm, maybe even let her think that that’s where we’ll be filming. Not until we have her secure inside do we give her the details. We need her standing by earlier to be sure, I’m thinking now maybe six o’clock, seven at the latest, so we can prime her. Meanwhile we need to get to her husband fast. There’ll be no need for any rough stuff.”
Pamela broke in. “If the Queen becomes troublesome, what should I do?”
“She won’t if we’re threatening her husband.”
Driscoll snorted. “If it was me and you had my wife, I’d tell you to keep her!”
Later that evening, when everyone except Wilcox, Driscoll, and de Jersey had left, de Jersey asked them for their opinion. He believed he had come up with a solution to the panic alarms. He opened the diagrams he’d printed off from the CD. “The power source for the alarms is located here, in what would have been the old coal chute.” He pointed to a spot on the diagram. “The on-street chute access has been cemented over, so the only way into it is from inside the house.” De Jersey marked it as he spoke.
“How the hell do we get in there?” Driscoll asked.
De Jersey opened his cigar case and offered it to Driscoll and Wilcox, who shook their heads.
“Have another look at the info
rmation on the CD,” he said. “The warehouse where we’ll be is just a hundred yards from the safe house, but its cellar extends beyond the actual warehouse space. It’s almost next to theirs. All these properties were supplied with coal using the same chute. If we enlarge the small chute door in our warehouse’s cellar, we’ll have access to the room at the bottom of the chute. At the other side there should be a similar door leading into the safe house’s cellar. We open up our side and gain access to their cellar through this coal chute. We can’t do it any other way. Marsh tells me they test the alarms every day at nine. After that we disconnect the lines. We will have only a short time because we’re moving out the convoy at ten twenty-five, but at least we’ll know that anyone pressing a panic button is not going to worry us. What do you think?”
“It might be the only way,” said Wilcox.
Heartened, de Jersey outlined how long it would take and what equipment they would need, and both men agreed the idea was workable. They would use a high-powered laser gun to cut soundlessly through the cement, but as they would have to go brick by brick, their nights from now on would be busy. All he had left to work out was how to disconnect the alarms without them going off once they were inside. For this he would need Marsh again.
They turned to the getaway plan—they hadn’t yet worked out the fine details of their own escape. They had to get rid of the Royal vehicles, then get themselves and the jewels away from the scene as quickly as possible.
By late evening, they believed they had a plan, but they wouldn’t know until the day of the robbery whether it would work.
Christina was in the kitchen sorting through some of her mother’s old letters and photographs when the phone rang.
“Could I speak to Edward de Jersey, please?” said an unfamiliar voice.
“He’s not here. Can I take a message?”
“Where is he?”
“Who is speaking?”
“Sylvia Hewitt. Who’s that?”
“Christina de Jersey. Do you want to leave a message?”
“When do you expect him back? I need to see him.”
“In a few days. Does he have your number?”
“Thank you, and yes. Sorry to have bothered you, Mrs. de Jersey.”
Christina hung up. She didn’t know why, but the call unnerved her. She’d never met Sylvia, but she knew she was Helen Lyons’s sister. She had been so abrupt, almost rude. She jotted down the message on a yellow Post-it and stuck it on the phone.
Liz Driscoll had just returned from a manicure when the phone rang. She picked it up. “Hello?”
“Could I speak to Mr. Driscoll, please?”
“He’s not at home. Who’s calling?”
“Sylvia Hewitt. Do you know when he’ll be back?”
“He’s out on business.”
“When do you expect him?”
“Sometime this evening. Do you want to leave a message?”
“Just say I called. I think he has my number. Sorry to disturb you.”
Liz hung up. This was the second time she’d taken a call from the woman, and if Tony was up to his old tricks again she’d really have it out with him.
Marsh was pleased with the new equipment. He had spent thousands in computer stores across London. The skimmer was well worth the five thousand he’d paid for it. He’d given his wife carte blanche to go shopping at Harrods with the fake credit cards he’d had a pal create using several numbers he’d got from the skimmer, and she had departed, leaving him to take care of their child.
De Jersey had traveled by public transport to Marsh’s house. It was almost five thirty when they met. They discussed the phone conversations between Scotland Yard and the safe house. Marsh was still confident they would have no problem in gaining the IRA code word for the second of May. He played the tapes he had recorded of numerous IRA informants calling in to give the day’s code word. It was usually an odd name, sometimes a place or object. The tapes reassured de Jersey that Marsh was as good as his word, and they played them again so that de Jersey could practice an Irish accent. Marsh also confirmed that there had been no changes in the Queen’s official diary and the fitting date remained fixed. The Royal party was to depart from Buckingham Palace at ten that morning.
De Jersey looked around the room. “You’re certainly spending the money I’m paying you. Perhaps you should slow down a bit. You don’t want to make anyone suspicious about all this equipment you’ve got. You couldn’t buy it on your wages.”
“I’m watching my arse, don’t you worry.” Marsh swiveled round in his chair and looked at de Jersey. “Come on, what is it? There was no real need for you to come and see me today. What else do you want?”
De Jersey put his hand into his pocket and took out a thick envelope. “I need your help with something. Take a look at this. It’s D’Ancona’s visual display, the alarms, the panic buttons.”
Marsh grinned. “You’re something else, man, you really are.” He took the CD and put it into his computer. “Fuck me! How did you get hold of this?” he exclaimed.
“Inadvertently via you. You set the cat among the pigeons when you tried to hack in, so they had to check all their files, and I have my contacts.”
“This must have cost.”
De Jersey smiled. “Not really.” He tapped the screen. “My problem is this. I know how to get into this area here”—he pointed to the coal chute—“and I know that’s where we can get access to the panic alarms. But I don’t know how to deactivate them.”
Marsh’s mouth turned down as he peered at the screen. He scrolled down, then back up again. “Well, it’s simple enough to unplug lines from boxes—it’s just a matter of pulling them out.”
“I can tell there’s a but coming,” de Jersey said.
“There is, and it’s a big one. The second you pull any one of those plugs, all the others will activate and notify the call center. You’ll have every copper in London down there in a jiffy.”
“What do you suggest?”
Raymond tugged nervously at his cuffs. “I haven’t a clue. You’ll need to find a way to pull out all the plugs at the same moment. A fraction of a second out and it’s bye-bye Crown Jewels!”
There was a moment’s silence as the two men contemplated their predicament. Marsh clicked, and the interior of the safe house came up again on his screen. The silence was broken by his daughter, who started howling. He left the room, and de Jersey could hear him cooing and talking to her.
Then Marsh charged back in carrying the child. “I’ve got it! I think I know how we can do it—but she’s filled her nappy so I gotta change her.”
Rika had just put the twins to bed and was thumbing through the TV Times when the phone rang. She hoped it would be Jimmy. He’d been gone all day.
“Is Mr. Wilcox there?”
“No, he not back yet.”
“My name is Sylvia Hewitt. Could you ask him to call me? He has my number. Tell him it’s quite urgent, would you?”
“Who?”
“Sylvia Hewitt. Are you expecting him this evening?”
“Yes, I tell him you call. Sylvia who?”
“Hewitt. Please give him the message.”
Rika got a pen and notepad. She started to write down the message then crumpled the paper and threw it into the bin. She was sure this Sylvia Hewitt was after her man. She had spoken so rudely, as if Rika was the maid.
De Jersey left Marsh’s house grinning from ear to ear. A taxi passed him, slowing down. The inside was lit, and de Jersey saw that the blond-haired Mrs. Marsh was paying the driver. She had a vast array of boxes and bags, all with the Harrods logo. He watched until she had entered the house, and then, as the cab made a U-turn, he stepped out and flagged it down.
He asked to be driven to Wimbledon Station, and the driver beamed. “That’s lucky. I’ve just come from Knightsbridge. Didn’t reckon I’d get another fare back.” He switched on the clock.
“That was some shopping your last fare had,” de Jersey said
.
“Don’t know where they get the dosh. Took two Harrods doormen to load me up. Said her husband had made a killing on the horses. Wish he’d give me a few tips.”
De Jersey sat back against the seat as his driver gave a monologue about his lack of luck on the tracks. “You a racing man?” he asked eventually.
“No, I’m not,” de Jersey replied.
“Best way to be. It’s a fool’s game,” the driver said, then turned to glance at de Jersey. He was sitting in the shadow, his face virtually in darkness. “Not a gambling man, then, eh?”
“No.”
“Don’t take risks, eh?”
“No, I don’t like risks.” He closed his eyes.
CHAPTER
21
De Jersey was loath to do it, but he cut down on some more staff and sold six more horses. The yard was rife with rumors. All were concerned for the stable’s future and their jobs, so no one felt it odd that just as the racing season was starting de Jersey was spending more and more time away. Fleming had told them only that he was in financial difficulty. However, de Jersey was monitoring Royal Flush as diligently as ever: he was now relying on the great horse to achieve big results. Luckily he had consistently improved during training, even if his temperament in the stable had not. If he felt like it, he could fly on the flat, but he was often a slow starter, not kicking in until halfway through the run, when Mickey said he could feel the animal’s mood change. One moment he was sluggish, the next Mickey could hardly hold him. There was not a horse in the yard that could keep up with him.
De Jersey received a call from Pamela. Lord Westbrook’s health had deteriorated and she suggested de Jersey visit him. De Jersey thanked her and hung up. He swore under his breath. Just as he thought everything was under control, something else had gone wrong. Christina had mentioned a phone call from Sylvia Hewitt, and both Wilcox and Driscoll said the woman had called them.
“I had to fish the fucking message out of the bin. Rika’s convinced I’m fooling around with her,” Wilcox told them.
“Leave it with me,” de Jersey said. “I’ll go and see what she wants.”
“Maybe her money,” Wilcox suggested.
Royal Heist Page 30
