‘Now why didn’t you do that when I first asked?’ said Miller.
‘Well, it takes a bloke time to think straight in this kind of set-up,’ said Tommy. ‘I’m not used to seeing my fam’ly ’aving to entertain people like you.’
‘That’s it, make me cry my eyes out,’ said Miller. ‘Now see here, we can all be reasonable. And you can afford to be, can’t you? It seems to me you’ve got money in the bank. Well, look at this place. Very handsome. Suppose you don’t get the car back, suppose it ends up in a Scottish bog? You can buy yourself another, I’d say.’
‘That’s where you’re takin’ it, are you, to Scotland?’ said Tommy.
‘Slip of the tongue,’ said Miller. It wasn’t, of course. A mention of Scotland by this family to the police would cast a very convenient red herring. ‘You be reasonable and we won’t take goody-two-shoes with us.’ He nodded at Alice. ‘Any hard stuff in the house?’
Tommy wished Boots, Sammy and Ned were at hand. He knew he could do little by himself. In any case, he had to avoid the kind of action that would provoke these buggers into taking it out on Vi and the kids. His brain began to work, to make him think straight.
‘You mean whisky?’ he said.
‘Thanks for the offer,’ said Miller, ‘we can do with a snifter. It’s been a bit tiring, looking after your wife and your brats, and we won’t be motoring off just yet. Your wife can bring the bottle and two glasses. You sit down with your kids.’
The gun gestured. Tommy sat down between Alice and Paul, putting an arm around the boy. He was thinking very straight now. Lilian Hyams had a wireless set in her design office. She liked to listen to the music programmes while she was working. Tommy, passing by after a short visit to the shop floor, heard the newsflash. Lilian’s door was open. He went in and they listened together to the account of the Camberwell bank robbery. He remembered now the description given of the crooks. Bloody hell, they were here, in his house, in their bowlers, spectacles and grey suits, and there was a Gladstone bag on the floor by the door. One man was tall and thickset, the other thin, but there was no difference in their stony looks. Bowler hats, grey suits and glasses, thought Tommy. City gents. Some hopes.
Vi went to fetch the whisky and the glasses from the cabinet in the living-room. Miller went with her. Tommy gritted his teeth.
‘Listen,’ he said to the thin dour character with the gun, ‘if you’re here to clean us out of what valuables we’ve got and then scarper, why don’t you get on with it? We’ll stay quiet, me and me fam’ly.’
‘Shut up,’ said Ginger Carstairs in a low-pitched, irritable growl.
Vi returned with the bottle of whisky and three glasses not two. Miller followed her, closing the door behind him, and the family felt locked in again.
‘I brought an extra glass,’ said Vi, and Tommy marvelled at her courage and her lack of hysterics. Could she possibly know these were bank robbers? Had she heard the news on the wireless? The set had been silent when he came in. ‘You’d like some whisky too, wouldn’t you, Tommy?’
‘You bet I would,’ said Tommy.
Miller glanced at Carstairs. Carstairs nodded.
‘All right,’ said Miller to Vi. ‘You pour.’
Vi put the glasses down on a table, then drew the cork from the whisky bottle.
Paul, gulping, said, ‘Could I have something, Mummy?’
‘I’ll get all of you some sherbet drinks,’ said Vi.
‘The kids can ’ave that, can’t they?’ said Tommy to Miller, and Miller glanced at Carstairs again. He received another nod.
‘Okay,’ he said, ‘but the whisky first.’
Vi poured a good measure into each of two glasses, and Tommy noted the slight tremble of her hand. Miller took up the two glasses and put one into Carstairs’ left hand. Vi poured a smaller measure for Tommy. Unlike Boots, he hadn’t yet acquired a taste for whisky, and Vi knew just a few mouthfuls would be as much as he wanted. If she was suffering, she felt he was suffering even more, simply because he was the man of the family and was responsible for all of them. The fact that he was as helpless as she was would be crucifying him.
‘There you are, love,’ she said, and handed him the glass. Tommy looked up into her eyes.
‘That’s my girl,’ he said. They’d had years of marriage, and Vi, because she was undemanding, had never had tantrums or complaints. In Tommy’s eyes, she was the best of the Adams wives. ‘Bless you, Vi,’ he said, and took a mouthful of the whisky. It fired his blood.
‘Bless you too, Tommy,’ said Vi. It was their favourite exchange.
‘Bless us all,’ said Alice bravely.
‘Give it a rest,’ said Miller sourly.
‘Can I get the sherbet drinks now?’ asked Vi.
‘I’ll get them,’ said Tommy.
‘You won’t,’ said Miller, ‘she will.’
He again accompanied Vi out of the room, and again Tommy gritted his teeth.
David muttered, ‘They’re ugly, that’s what they are, ugly.’
Vi came back with the glasses of sherbet water on a tray. And she’d been allowed to pour a glass of cold water for herself, her body stiff because the thickset man had stayed close to her all the time, hard eyes taking in the undulating lines of her figure.
Chapter Fourteen
AFTER SUPPER THAT evening, Sally dropped in on Cassie before going round to see Horace. Cassie and her dad knew about the bank robbery, but not about the incident involving Freddy, which Sally related to her. She listened with her eyes wide open, then put aside the pillow cases she was embroidering, and fled to see Freddy, leaving Sally with her dad.
Reaching the Caulfield Place house in the dusk, she let herself in by the latchcord as usual. Well, Freddy’s home had been her second since first meeting him and becoming his best girl mate. Into the kitchen she swooped.
‘Freddy!’ It was a cry from the heart, delivered in dramatic fashion, one hand pressed to her bosom in the manner of Ellen Terry doing Lady Macbeth.
‘What’s up, lost your titfer?’ said Freddy. Cassie was bareheaded.
‘Oh, Freddy, your poor head,’ breathed Cassie, ‘Sally’s just told me how you suffered from being ’eroic.’ Mr Brown strangled a cough. Mrs Brown murmured placidly. Freddy grinned. ‘Freddy, you’re not still hurtin’, are you?’
‘Only me loaf, and only a bit,’ said Freddy. ‘The rest of me is in order, Cassie, which Mum says is a relief to all concerned.’
‘Oh, it’s a relief to me too, Freddy love,’ said Cassie. ‘I nearly died while I was listening to Sally. Oh, your poor head, Freddy, you shouldn’t have put it where those criminal hooligans could hit it. Sally said you’ve got an awful lump. Let me see.’
She leaned over the seated Freddy and searched his thick hair with gentle fingers. Mr Brown looked on in some amusement, Mrs Brown with a smile. Those two, Cassie and Freddy, she thought, they’d been the soul of togetherness for years, and Freddy’s lasting complaint that they’d been years of being sent barmy had died a death these last few months. They’d make a good marriage, Freddy and Cassie. Their kind did make good marriages, a lot better than the upper classes with their dubious goings-on and their divorces.
‘You’re there, Cassie,’ said Freddy.
‘Crikey,’ breathed Cassie, ‘what a lump. Oh, ’elp.’
‘Put me head out of shape, has it?’ said Freddy.
‘Oh, your hair hides it, Freddy, you’ve got nice hair,’ said Cassie. ‘The hurt won’t stop you comin’ to the weddin’, will it? I’d drown meself in the Serpentine if we ’ad to put it off.’
‘Oh, I’ll be able to walk, Cassie, don’t you fret,’ said Freddy. ‘I’m all right everywhere else. Did I mention that?’
‘Yes, you did say. Oh, thank goodness. Freddy, tell me everything about what ’appened.’
‘Let’s talk in the parlour,’ said Freddy.
‘Yes, you do that, Freddy,’ said Mr Brown, accepting that a family parlour should be exclusive to courting couples w
henever it was only right and natural. Over the years their own parlour had been exclusive in turn to Susie and Sammy, then to Will and Annie, and now to Freddy and Cassie along with Sally and Horace, although at different times, of course. Mr Brown remembered moments in the parlour of Mrs Brown’s parents. Very nice moments, those had been, even if Bessie had blushed a bit.
‘Yes, you can use the parlour, love,’ said Mrs Brown.
‘Come on, Freddy beloved,’ said Cassie, not a girl whose shyness had ever come between her and what was acceptable among courting couples. Freddy had been totally admiring of her natural demonstrations of affection, even if they had made him dizzy.
In the parlour he recounted exactly what had happened when he arrived at the bank with the two wedding cheques, and when he went with the police in an attempt to catch up with the van. Cassie said even if the crooks hadn’t been caught, Freddy was still a hero. Not many girls marry heroes, she said.
‘You’re not marryin’ one yourself,’ said Freddy. ‘I just got hit on me loaf of bread, that’s all.’
‘Freddy, I do hope you’re not goin’ to do a lot of arguing when we’re married,’ said Cassie.
‘Well, all right, Cassie, just a bit now and again to keep me end up,’ said Freddy. He frowned. ‘I’m still bloody puzzled about that van, y’know.’
‘Language, please, Freddy,’ said Cassie, sitting comfortingly close to him, and letting the gas mantle cast saucy light over her imitation silk stockings.
‘Can’t ’elp me language, Cassie, I still can’t make out where that van got to.’
‘Well, it turned off somewhere, didn’t it?’ said Cassie.
‘Obviously, as Sherlock Holmes would say—’
‘No, he says elementary.’
‘Does he? You sure, Cassie? Only I’ve read some of his cases, and I don’t know I ever—’
‘Freddy, everyone knows he says elementary.’
‘Well, leave me out,’ said Freddy, ‘I’m not everyone. Anyway, the police know the van must’ve turned off somewhere. It’s obvious, but exactly where?’ Freddy frowned with frustration. ‘We asked people all over the side streets and roads if they’d noticed it, and nobody ’ad. I’ve just told you that.’
‘No, I don’t mean streets or roads,’ said Cassie, ‘I mean some sort of hiding-place, like a – well, like a barn, say.’
‘A barn?’ said Freddy. ‘A barn? Don’t go off your chump, Cassie. A barn somewhere around Denmark Hill or Herne Hill? You only find barns on farms.’
‘Excuse me, Freddy Brown,’ said Cassie, ‘but kindly don’t address me as if I’m an ignorant young lady, or I’ll bite your lump. I meant something like a barn, and I said so.’
‘Oh, beg yer pardon, Cassie, so you did,’ said Freddy. ‘Good point. In fact, I think you might’ve put a clever finger on that vanishin’ trick. Cassie, you’re not always just a pretty face.’
‘I know that,’ said Cassie.
‘Mind you, I always notice your looks first,’ said Freddy. ‘I mean, who wouldn’t? Your intellect catches up later.’
‘Oh, you dear, what a nice compliment’ry word,’ said Cassie, and kissed him lovingly.
Freddy came out of that in search of air.
‘Don’t get me legless, Cassie, not just now,’ he said. ‘Only you’ve set me thinkin’ that some of the bigger and older houses around the area might still ’ave stables. Or, wait a bit, suppose a house had one of those new car garages and it ’ad been left open, suppose the owners were out?’
‘But, Freddy, wouldn’t someone have seen the van if it went in?’ asked Cassie.
‘Well, the police never came across anyone who did,’ said Freddy. ‘There’s a lot of big houses on Denmark Hill that were built years ago, but I don’t know I noticed which of them had had garages built. I think I’ll take a bike ride.’
‘What, now?’ said Cassie.
‘You’re a clever girl, you are, Cassie, you’ve hit on a way the van could’ve disappeared, because they’d ’ave closed the doors as soon as it was in. We lost the chance of bein’ right behind them up Denmark Hill when the police car mounted the pavement and skidded round in John Ruskin Street.’ Freddy went on to explain why he’d got the incident on his mind, that he was dead against crooked geezers robbing banks, that if he’d paid the cheques in earlier, for instance, they’d have got away with his and Cassie’s hundred quid on top of other people’s savings, including Sammy’s. He was also dead against any crook using a gun. Innocent people could end up dead, he said. In addition, he was still bloody vexed about being clobbered. Cassie told him again to mind his language. Freddy pointed out that being bashed by a revolver could have injured his loaf of bread so badly that he’d have missed getting married to her, which would have made any bloke use language. So he had a thing about seeing those crooks nicked, because it would have upset her if the wedding had been injured as well, and he didn’t like her being upset. He reckoned that if the crooks had gone into hiding they wouldn’t be showing themselves yet, not while the police still had a big search going on. ‘So you see, Cassie, I think I will take a bike ride and look around some of the bigger houses on Denmark Hill and Herne Hill.’
‘Not without me you won’t,’ said Cassie. ‘Suppose you get knocked on the head again? It really could stop you gettin’ married to me.’
‘I don’t think—’
‘You’re not goin’ without me, d’you hear, Freddy Brown?’
‘Now look, Cassie—’
‘I don’t mind you bein’ a hero once,’ said Cassie, ‘but twice is once too much.’
‘All right,’ said Freddy, ‘you can borrow Sally’s bike and ride with me.’
‘Yes, I’ll do that,’ said Cassie, ‘because you’re not goin’ without me.’
‘We’ll just tell Mum and Dad we’re goin’ for our last bike ride as an unmarried couple,’ said Freddy. Cassie made a face. ‘What’s up?’ he asked.
‘I didn’t like you saying our last bike ride.’
‘Only as single people,’ said Freddy.
‘I still didn’t like it,’ said Cassie.
Freddy put a hand under her chin and kissed her.
‘If there’s one thing you can be sure of, Cassie,’ he said, ‘it’s that we’re not goin’ to lose each other. I’ll see to that You’ve sent me off me chump at times, and I can’t say you ’aven’t, but girls like you don’t come ten a penny, Cassie.’
‘Freddy, you do say quite nice things sometimes,’ said Cassie.
‘There’s no charge,’ said Freddy, headache getting better.
For the time being, Carstairs was in sole charge of the family, and the revolver had become an ever-present menace. To add further to Vi’s intense worries and Tommy’s agonizing, Alice wasn’t with them. For some reason, the other ratface was exploring the house and had taken Alice with him. As insurance, Tommy suspected, against a successful attempt to turn the tables on his partner. Tommy, rage close to the surface, might have considered taking on the challenge, for compared to himself, the slim sod with the gun was a runt. To create an opportunity would only need a distraction. That this blank-faced crook could keep that revolver in sight in the presence of children was sheer evil-mindedness, and Tommy would have taken great pleasure in laying the bloke out cold. Unfortunately, there were too many ifs and buts, including the possibility that the gun might go off in front of Vi, Paul and David.
David was stiff-bodied because of the absence of his sister. Paul was sitting on Vi’s lap, cuddling close. Tommy kept meeting Vi’s eyes. Hers looked cloudy. His tried to be reassuring.
The large handsome house seemed unnaturally quiet, as if ugly silence was smothering it.
Carstairs was in a cold temper because of the disrupted plan, the plan that should have put them aboard a cross-Channel ferry by now. Miller had been silently swearing under his breath ever since they realized that somehow the police had got on their tail.
He returned at last from his exploration of the house, bringing
Alice into the room with him. Alice was pale, her mouth quivering. But she refused to cry. The man had said nothing to her during his tour of the family home, but had kept his hand on her shoulder throughout. On his way round the place, he found a large ball of strong cord in a cupboard. He picked it up and when they came down the stairs eventually, he placed it on the hallstand. Now he gave her a little push that sent her on her way back to the settee, where she sat down next to her father. Tommy put an arm around her.
‘That’s my treasure,’ he said.
Carstairs glanced at Miller, and Miller nodded to indicate he had found a room suitable for incarcerating the family. Carstairs returned the nod. Miller picked up the bottle of whisky and his empty glass from the table. Carstairs glared at him and mouthed an imprecation.
‘Okay, later,’ said Miller, and put the glass and bottle back on the table. ‘Right,’ he said to Tommy, ‘we’re all going upstairs. On your feet, you and your wife and kids.’
‘If you don’t mind,’ said Tommy, ‘we’ll stay here. You’ve got the car keys, the car’s in the drive, and you can both shove off as quietly as you like. We obviously can’t stop you.’
‘Are you simple?’ said Miller. ‘Or d’you think we are?’
‘I don’t know what I think,’ said Tommy. ‘In fact, I don’t still know if I can think at all. It’s the circumstances, if you take my meanin’. They’re new to us. How’d you get here, by the way, and what made you pick this house for whatever it is you’re up to?’ He knew from what he had heard on the wireless that they’d been using a baker’s van, but he couldn’t recall seeing it in the drive when he arrived home.
‘Dad, there’s a van outside the French windows,’ blurted David.
Carstairs showed a spasm of irritation, and Miller said, ‘Kid, why don’t you shut up?’
Jesus, thought Tommy, so that’s what they did, drove the van round to the back of the house, where it couldn’t be seen from the road.
‘What’s my son mean, a van?’ he asked. ‘Is it yours? If it is, what d’you want my car for?’
The Camberwell Raid Page 19
