Charlie Spark - Villain Extraordinaire

by J M S Macfarlane

  "This isn't a Crown Court grovelling session. Do you think I'm silly enough to swallow all of that ? If I hadn't already decided to press on regardless of what's happened, you'd be heading for the Accident & Emergency at King’s College Hospital. Unfortunately, I need you to make this plan work – and you are not going to back out – so, I'll give you one last chance – and only one – but if you mess it up…"

  "We'll get you," chimed in the choreographed wrestlers.

  "And when it's time to share out the wodge, if we get that far, you are going to pay a premium, old son, for endangering the entire operation. So think on it."

  And after the headmaster's admonition, the bouncers left and crab-clawed their way up the street, both attempting to walk abreast on the same footpath, although one of them was half in the gutter. Charles, feigning a look of humility, signalled his respects to them in reverse victory-signs behind Sir Harry's back.

  Chapter 19

  Execution

  When the group had transplanted itself to the deserted bar at the back, the villains meeting was called to order. Although the bar was fairly roomy, they all had to squeeze their way in at the same time to grab chairs and re-arrange the tables which ended up in a tussle.

  Finally, when the ruck was over and they’d got their drinks and lighted their cigars and cigarettes, Bob King presented the recruits to Sir Harry, at the same time ordering Taffey to leave off about chickens and that Griffey keep his distance.

  "Right, 'Gentlemen'," said Sir Harry with mock politeness, "let's get on with this blasted exercise . Some of you I know already.…ha, worse luck,” (glancing sourly at Spark) “and others I've never seen before but you’ve obviously seen the inside of a nick or you wouldn't be here."

  All told, there were more groans than laughs. All of them instantly twigged his accent : like Spark, they despised the upper classes, especially the legal fraternity who lorded it over them. When it suited them, they were proudly working class – unless there was money involved or something to their advantage which would prompt a lightning betrayal. Beneath all the guile, they were really part of the underclass – through choice – and only looked out for themselves.

  "By nine o'clock tomorrow evening, we could be on the way to a fortune – and there is money, big money in this – big enough to set you up for the rest of your lives. Now do I have your attention ?” said Sir Harry in an undertone.

  All of them were silent and listening intently.

  “What I have to say is this – it will involve each of us acting a part – and our audience, rather than observing us from the stalls, will be right there beside us, up on the stage, without even knowing it. And if you want to know how we'll do it, I'll tell you – but first, a word of warning. Once we start, we can't afford any wideness, braggadocio, showers or prima donnas," and glaring at Spark,"…understand ? Oherwise chaps, we'll be dining on buckets of baked beans and bromide for a good twenty years inside Wandsworth nick. And if any of you fail to follow orders – or thinks he can cheat me because I’m older than you, he’d better think again because I'll hammer him...now – does anyone want to back out ?" demanded Sir Harry as he scanned the perplexed looks around the table but not a syllable was heard.

  Griffey stared at a row of empty whisky bottles standing on a ledge above them.

  "You can rely on me one hundred per cent, sir."

  "What are yer sayin’ ? This isn’t the army," said Mick Riley.

  Above them was a haze of smoke which drifted around the overhanging lamp.

  All of them wanted to hear the plan and began clamouring for more jugs of beer but the door to the main bar remauined closed.

  Despite the distractions, Sir Harry pushed on.

  "Right then, you’re all in. I take it you already know something of what’s on the cards. Because of where we’re going, it's crucial that you always call me by my proper title and always refer to me as Sir Harry. Right then. Spark, you and Bob King will need to come up with a cheque book with several credit cards – some of the flash ones please. Also, all arrangements, bookings, tickets, hirings, dischargings and ‘front’ will be managed by the three of us. For that you're going to need money – I’ll let you have a briefcase later with five thousand pounds in tenners and fivers – fake ones, of course."

  Sir Harry drained half of his whisky soda and whiffed a trail of cigar smoke. "The rest of you, apart from Charlie Spark will have to deck yourselves out in servants uniforms – you can get them from a shop just off Jermyn St and I'll tell you shortly what each of you will need…"

  The mere suggestion that they should become lackeys produced a storm of outrage, hysteria, guffaws and political rantings which clean-bowled him ; he hadn’t seen it coming but should have been ready for it.

  "I’m not poncin' aroond as nay servunt," growled Bob King and was echoed by the others.

  Sir Harry stood his ground. "Look, where we're going, you lot wouldn't normally get within ten miles of it unless they got you in to clean out the sewers or move some rubbish bins or dig up the gardens and even then their securitymen and gamekeepers would be watching your every step. Oh and by the way, those of you who aren't members of the crystal ball society will have to get a haircut. And while you're about it, also tidy yourselves up..."

  Then pointing at Griffey he said, "You had better take yourself off and have a bath straightaway and use plenty of soap and hot water." A glance followed across to Taffey's waggling earrings, "You'll have to get rid of those, deary and no mistake."

  "Hold on, I’m not under regimental orders here," shouted Rooney. "This is supposed to be a blag – a bank job – not some fancy dress party."

  The entire room was in uproar.

  Sir Harry's eyes rose impatiently to the ceiling and fell down again. As the furore continued, he simply ignored them. At last, he reached into his blazer pocket and drew out a black velvet pouch which he laid on the table in front of them. From inside the pouch, he took out a small bundle tied up in a blue silk handkerchief, then unwrapped it and set out its contents for all to see.

  The row grew silent until one of the villains piped in amazement :

  "Them's sparklers."

  "Where'd yer get 'em ?"

  "Ye should nae be carrying those aroond wi’ ye, ye could easily lose 'em."

  "My mother – she looka verrra pretty in deesa t'ings."

  Griffey made a grab to examine the jewels more closely. With the speed of a drainpipe rat, Sir Harry grabbed an empty pint pot and smashed it down on the table, narrowly missing the tips of the wheelman's fingers and making the diamonds jump on their silken bed.

  "Hands off, you twerp. Now perhaps you can all see what we're going after – and before you open your stupid gullet, you over there, no it's not roosters, you were led down the garden path on that one," snapped Sir Harry looking alternately from Taffey to Spark and back again. "And this is only a sample of what I picked up from my last visit. So – finally – who is going the distance, army or no army – and who isn't ? Well ? Speak up. We haven't got all afternoon."

  For once, none of them could find any words of reply because their minds were racing from one daydream to another, digging up treasure troves, jewels and riches, plundering loot for salting away.

  During the next half hour, Sir Harry explained the outline of his plan but was faced with a general mood of uncertainty : Taffey, Valenti and Riley wanted to know about the safe and its contents. The response was derisive.

  "Do you take me for a fool ? You'll be told about it when I decide and not before – we’re all in this together. No-one is going to double-deal anyone else – and if anyone tries, I assure you, he'll end up with more than a broken watch and chain."

  "But how do we know, man, that you're not goin' to cheat us ?" asked Earls.

  Sir Harry's face grew redder with every passing moment. For the want of a Bible, he pledged his word that everyone was to get their fair share when the takings were split amongst them. They had to understand
that he was of the old school from before the war, unlike the desperadoes who used shooters these days ; his word was his bond, that was his stock-in-trade as a bookie. And after all, everyone knew where to find him – he wasn’t going to disappear. “Which is exactly what I will do,” he thought to himself.

  Remarkably, by some strange form of telepathy, the exact same thought occurred to the others.

  A further hour was spent organising their stage props : a Garrard limousine ; a Teuton limousine and a horsebox ; Paddy Rourke had to steal ten crates of champagne ; an exasperated Spark learned that four days of horse-riding lessons were set aside for him ; Griffey needed a chauffeur's uniform ; Bob King was stunned to learn that he’d be wearing a chef's hat and whites ; there were endless lists of provisions to be pinched from the Knightsbridge, Piccadilly and Oxford Street stores, from caviar to canapés ; Taffey, Valenti, Rooney and Riley roared with laughter at all of this until they heard that they would be wearing staff and porters uniforms ; Clifton Earls was given a list of sporting equipment to steal including the inevitable cricket kit.

  "Rightho, Sorr Harry, I'm up to the challenge, ‘though I've never legged it out of a shop with a case of bubbly down my trousers..." said Rourke, looking at the others.

  Sir Harry looked quickly round the table and said : "Well, there it is. You each have your own list of things to get before Thursday."

  Their next meeting was to be held at Pat Rourke’s garage on a little known slip road off the Queen's Road in Peckham. Sir Harry would set in train their arrival for the first night's banquet at the Loathbery Manor House in Wiltshire. Their final rendezvous would be two or three miles from there, in the car park of the Golden Pot pub.

  The conspirators then filled their glasses and gave a toast to their benefactors. From then until closing time, the conversation grew vague until the landlord's daughter clanged the second bell for closing time. By then, each of them had had enough of bottles and schemes and began drifting out of the side door. After Sir Harry disappeared, some of them stood together on the corner opposite the Captain Thunderbolt and whispered between themselves. After a nodding of heads together, they went their separate ways.

  Chapter 20

  Procurement & Rehearsal

  Early the following morning, a soupy fog had settled over south London.

  After making their way through the back streets to their rendezvous at the stroke of nine, Charlie Spark and the Scotsman began their tour of a used car yard in Camberwell, amid rusty, worn-out old wrecks. Before long, they came across a Garrard limousine and a blue Teuton, both of which had seen better days.

  The dealer who owed a pile of unpaid bets to Sir Harry, threw himself in front of the Garrard to stop them driving it away while pleading with them not to ruin him ; when that didn't work, he tried offering them cheaper, sportier models.

  At last, Bob King grew impatient which resulted in the keys being produced. From the clattering under the Teuton’s bonnet and the clouds of exhaust from the Garrard, Spark wondered whether they'd reach Peckham let alone Wiltshire.

  At the same moment in Jermyn Street, Griffey, Taffey, Valenti, Rooney and Earls were all trying on their new suits, tweeds, hats and boots. The manager of Granthearst's Clothiers to the Nobility was ready to evict Griffey from the shop but was won over by their credit cards and how much they were spending.

  In Oxford Street, Rourke had twice galloped away with a stolen crate of champagne. The shop assistants pursuing him, almost caught up with him until he ditched the dozen bottles on the footpath and then fled into the crowd of shoppers and tourists. Eventually, he decided it would be easier to steal one or two bottles of champagne in every shop he visited rather than hare out the front door with a crate under his arm. The only problem was where to put all the bottles he collected as he went from shop to shop.

  In the afternoon, Charlie Spark met Mick Riley at Whittering's Provenders. He’d dressed especially for the occasion in a pin striped suit and blue overcoat which contained a score of deep lined pockets. As they walked about the displays, he lifted enough to fill a shopping trolley. Then he bailed up the manager with a list of items and produced one of his tennis ball cheques. Outside, the Garrard was holding up the rush hour traffic in Regent Street and they quickly made their escape in a haze of burning oil and smoke.

  For the next four days, Spark was given riding lessons by Ted Todd, a retired jockey and trainer living on an Essex stud farm which was owned by a criminal racing syndicate from Limehouse.

  Spark was taught the rules of horsemanship and started off on a couple of nags retrieved from the knacker’s yard. After he'd mastered his stirrups and spurs and could control the horse, for his final lesson he was given a sprinter that loved to gallop across open countryside.

  As soon as he was settled in the saddle, the horse suddenly took off and went bounding across the nearby fields, jumping hedges and ditches. Straightaway, Spark’s mania for speed and fast cars was awakened and he jabbed his spurs to take the runaway at full stretch, pushing the horse to go faster and faster.

  At the sight of this, Ted Todd almost collapsed in fright as the horse was worth a hundred thousand pounds. Several times he closed his eyes to avoid seeing Spark and the horse break their necks but after a while, the horse began to clear his fences less easily and headed homeward at a trot.

  Spark was then shown off the stud farm at the point of a pitchfork.

  A week later, when the group met in Rourke's garage, Sir Harry reviewed his troops before launching the forward offensive.

  All of them had had a haircut ; many were styled in a bowl shape, indicating that they'd gone to the same barber together and were probably drunk at the time. They were also clean shaven, apart from Bob King with his pirate's beard. The atmosphere around Griffey was less raw and he was told to buy more soap and to keep taking plenty of baths. After a nod of approval, Sir Harry handed them their uniforms to be worn at the Manor House and told them to get changed so that they could rehearse their new identities.

  In the space of ten minutes, the entire garage reverberated with roars and cackles. Griffey and Taffey hooted at the poker-faced Spark in his black and white penguin suit while Rooney and Clifton Earls were doubled up at the sight of Bob King's chef's hat which seemed at least two feet long and kept bobbing against the overhanging light.

  As each made his entry, the others howled with laughter – Sir Harry's gasometer paunch carpeted in tweed ; Griffey's chauffeurs uniform with grey jodhpurs and leather boots ; Taffey's morning coat and striped trousers mistakenly put on back to front ; Pat Rourke in a bold green and red tweed which made him scratch all over ; Riley, Rooney and Valenti in spiv blazers and Clifton Earls looking absurd in his horse trainer’s trilby.

  Viewing them all together, it seemed inescapable to Sir Harry that they looked like villains in fancy dress. Their size alone raised questions about them, the gaps in their teeth, their scars and assorted broken noses, cauliflower ears and weightlifter biceps.

  But it was too late to worry – the scheme was in play and they were expected the next day. Somehow, they’d have to keep out of sight at the Manor House. Easier said than done.

  Sir Harry imagined what zoo-keepers would do to control ten orang-utans, on the loose in a stately home in the country. Yes…an interesting thought…and one which he’d ignore until the moment arrived. With a fair wind, it might never happen or at least, not until he was in the first class lounge of an England Airways flight to Belize via Guatemala, Cuba and the Bahamas, a glass of champagne in one hand and a cricket almanac in the other, his right foot resting on the pigskin valise, full of loot swiped from his hosts – and his accomplices.

  This was what he hoped would happen. But bobsledding on the downhill run, at any moment a crevasse might appear. Or perhaps, gentle reader, you’re in a cafe and – where’s the breakfast you ordered an hour ago ?

  Chapter 21

  The Loathberys

  Deep in the Wiltshire countryside sat the stat
ely mansion, known from the time of Henry VIII as the ‘Manor House’.

  In two hundred acres, it was originally a monks cubicle where the price of refreshment to Canterbury pilgrims was a groat. Over the centuries, it had been added to and improved so that it was now at its heart, a Dark Ages outhouse surrounded by Tudor extravagance, Georgian expansiveness, Victorian superabundance and twentieth century meanness.

  On winter evenings when the rain ran down the window panes like pitch and the fog dissolved all external forms, the ancient oaks encircling the house would murmur disapprovingly at events within.

  In nearby Lashem, the villagers never ventured near the place, not because of some horror but to avoid being mistaken for a servant and conscripted as a lackey.

  On a blustery Wednesday morning, yellow light shone from the Tudor drawing room in the west wing where the Right Honourable Piers Loathbery was taking breakfast.

  The chimes had already struck eleven as the breakfast cutlery and china waited to be cleared from the table, along with the remains of toast, a kipper and the share prices in the newspaper.

  Loathbery the younger, at twenty five, kept himself busy, spending his father's money on sport, gambling and hedonism while trying to outwit the croupiers in West End casinos or screaming at the winning post for his horse to run faster.

  In October and November, he tramped the Scottish moors in search of grouse, small game and anything else that moved and could be blasted. In the early months of each year, he ploughed the ski fields of Austria and enriched the winter casinos. In May and June he fished for trout in Spain and seldom won at the Madrid baccarat tables (to the delight of the professional players). During summer, he travelled anywhere his fancy took him, from Novosibirsk to Bora Bora but wherever there was horseracing, dog racing, bingo, backgammon, draughts, lacrosse, quoits or curling and where there was someone sharper than him to take his bet. Christmas and New Year were reserved for Wiltshire with the rest of the Loathbery clan or with one of his floozy girlfriends. It was no accident that his resemblance to a rodent had earned him the name ‘Squeak’ (although the West End casino managers called him 'Willy the Weasel' because he was known to cheat). Loathbery was a fixture at Ascot, Henley or Cowes as part of a set of hangers-on who buzzed around the biggest money-bags like flies around a dustcart. He was part of an entourage of parasites and sycophants attached to the gentry who ignored and detested them. For most of the time, he parroted his father’s views on life and politics and was unrestrained in his opinions.