The Sunshine Cruise Company

by John Niven

  Susan and Julie looked at each other. Susan said, ‘We’ll be really well prepared?’

  Nails sighed and shook his head. ‘Nah. It’s this – you pair are most definitely not the usual suspects. Ain’t no one even gonna be thinking about putting the feelers out for a couple of nice old ladies – no offence, girls. Yeah, I’d say a mob like you could get away clean.’

  ‘So you think we could do it?’ Susan asked.

  ‘I didn’t say that now, did I?’ Nails said, leaning forward again to re-examine the photographs. ‘Look at what you got here. Small-town bank, low security, fewer customers – that’s all sweet. On the other hand, high street, pedestrianised, weak escape routes. Plus, these days, you got CCTV up the bloody Ronson, faster response times from the cop shops and all that …’ Nails rubbed his silvery stubble, thinking. ‘At the same time, one thing ain’t changed from my day.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Susan asked.

  ‘If you’re sticking a facking great shooter in some tit’s face, you’re getting the dough. Pardon my French, love. There’s one other thing. You gotta know when to hit it. I remember we did the old Barclays on Kingsland Road, in Dalston, back in ’72 or ’73. We only went in on the day after they had their takings collected. Got about three hundred quid between us. I’ll tell you – that wasn’t worth two and a half years. Not by a long chalk. Not even in 1972. You gotta know when –’

  ‘I know,’ Susan said. They both looked at her. ‘The last Tuesday of every month. Just after two o’clock in the afternoon. They get all the takings from the big supermarket in. That’s got to be a lot.’

  Nails looked at her. ‘How do you know that, love?’

  ‘The manager told me,’ Susan said. ‘Just before he told me they were taking my house.’

  ‘Impressive, love. Very fucking impressive.’ Nails took a quick snort of oxygen. ‘OK. So there’s that. Now then, who’s on your team?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Julie said.

  ‘Your team,’ Nails said. ‘Your firm. Your crew.’

  ‘Well.’ Susan looked at Julie, then back to Nails. ‘Just us.’

  ‘Two of you? Are you out your facking trees?’

  ‘Well, how many were you thinking?’

  ‘Job like this it’s five man minimum. Two for crowd control, two to deal with the staff and get the dough, one driving.’

  ‘But we haven’t got five people,’ Julie said. ‘There’s only two of us.’

  ‘Three of us, you mean,’ Nails said.

  Julie and Susan both took him in. The liver spots. The egg-stained pyjamas. The Zimmer frame. The oxygen tank. They looked at each other, nervously. Julie spoke first. ‘Ah, Nails, the thing is, are you sure you –’

  Nails’s eyes narrowed. ‘Are you two trying to cut Nails out?’

  ‘No!’ Susan said. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Cos you’re gonna need a few tools of the trade. And I don’t know where you’re gonna track them down without old Nails. I know what you’re thinking – if he tries to squeeze a fart out he’s gonna have a brain haemorrhage. Listen, he may be eighty-nine, but old Nails can still drive a fucking car, don’t you worry about that. But trust me, we’re still gonna need a couple more bodies, or doing that place is a one-way ticket to the bum-palace.’

  ‘The what?’ Susan said.

  ‘Prison, Susan,’ Julie said.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘All that said, done right, it’s the perfect sunshine cruise, innit?’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Susan asked.

  ‘A sunshine cruise, love. One last job before retirement.’

  ‘Right,’ Nails said, getting to his feet with some difficulty. ‘Nails is gonna go strap on the collar and tie and we can discuss this further over the old prawn cocktail and steak and chips. How about that?’

  ‘That … well, that’d be lovely,’ Susan said.

  Nails toddled off across the room on his walking frame.

  ‘When do Tom and Clare leave?’ Julie asked.

  ‘Tomorrow morning. Two more people? Where on earth will we find two more …? I mean, I’ve got one idea.’

  ‘Who?’ Julie said.

  Just as Susan was about to answer they were interrupted by a loud mechanical noise. A buzzing, a grinding of gears. Both women turned to see Nails – he was sitting expressionless in an electric stairlift that was, very slowly, spiriting him upstairs.

  As soon as he was out of sight Susan turned to Julie and whispered, ‘Yes. It’s not exactly the A-Team so far, is it?’

  TWENTY-TWO

  ‘YOU MUST BE out of your mind,’ Jill said. ‘I know you’ve been through a lot lately, Susan. That’s it. Grief. I think grief has quite simply bent your mind.’

  ‘It hasn’t. Honestly, love. I … I’ve just had enough.’

  They were sitting in Jill’s car, at the end of Susan’s drive. Susan had allowed Jill to give her a run home from rehearsals, which was ordeal enough: Jill made even a tame driver like Susan look like Ayrton Senna on crack cocaine. And all for nothing – Susan had gone over everything twice now. There was nothing else for it; she only had one route left to try. ‘Look,’ Susan said, ‘I hate to say this, but with your Jamie, this might be –’

  ‘Don’t you dare, Susan Frobisher! Don’t you dare bring that boy into this! To use his innocence to try and justify your … your crimes.’

  ‘OK, OK. I’m sorry.

  ‘You’ll all end up in prison of course. Or worse.’

  ‘OK, Jill, you’ve made your point. The whole thing’s nuts and it probably won’t work. But please, can I beg you not to tell anyone?’

  Jill looked at her. ‘I should tell someone, you know. Get you locked up before you do something really stupid. But anyway, it’s not even worth talking about, is it? Because you’re going to go inside and have a good night’s sleep and wake up tomorrow morning and forget about the whole thing. Aren’t you?’

  ‘Probably, yes. But if, if I don’t …’

  Jill stared straight ahead through the windscreen. ‘No. I won’t tell anyone.’

  ‘Thanks, Jill.’

  ‘Please, don’t go through with this, love. Have a think, eh? It’s just … it’s just crazy.’

  ‘Well,’ Ethel said. ‘Well, well, well.’ They were at the top of the hill in Wroxham Park, where Julie took her for their weekly afternoon walk, before Ethel insisted on ‘just looking in’ at the Brewer’s Arms on the way back for a couple of her ‘liveners’: triple gin and tonics.

  ‘It’s just … nuts. Isn’t it?’ Julie said.

  ‘Oh yeah. It’s nuts all right.’

  ‘We should just stop this before it gets out of hand, shouldn’t we?’

  ‘God, no.’

  ‘Sorry, Ethel?’

  ‘Seems better to me than the alternatives.’

  ‘The alternatives?’

  ‘Finding some other poxy job like the one you just had. Do I get a gun?’

  ‘A gun? I … well, I suppose so.’

  ‘What kind?’

  ‘I don’t know! Look, we’re not going to hurt anyone.’

  ‘Just threaten them?’

  ‘Well, I suppose we’ll have to, yes.’

  ‘Really threaten them?’

  ‘If we have to, yes.’

  ‘Brilliant. I’m in. Now come on. Sun’s over the yardarm and all that.’

  Ethel turned her wheelchair away from the bench and started trundling off in the direction of the pub. Julie watched the wheelchair-bound octogenarian she had just enlisted to join forces with the Zimmer-frame and oxygen-assisted octogenarian in an armed robbery heading down the hill. She got up to follow and sighed to herself. ‘I must be losing my mind,’ she said.

  Jill Worth woke up the next morning to a ringing phone. It was a full minute before she could get Linda calm enough to get the words out. ‘Oh, Mum. It was the worst yet. We had the ambulance out at three o’clock this morning. I thought this was it.’ She collapsed into heaving sobs. ‘The doctor in the A&E, he started
talking to me about “facing certain realities”!’

  ‘What realities?’ Jill said.

  ‘In terms of “time frame”. Oh, Mum, he’s going to …’

  And Jill did what she always did. What she’d been doing these past few years. She made her reassurances and said all the things she knew how to say. And when the call was over, and her daughter had calmed down a little, Jill Worth put her head in her hands and wept for her grandson. Then she got up and crossed the hallway to the kitchen, to where she had left her Bible by the radio. She often picked it up and opened it at random when she was in need of guidance or inspiration. She did this now and got Proverbs 11:14 – ‘Without good direction, people lose their way; the more wise counsel you follow, the better your chances.’

  Jill thumbed on. Stopped again. James 1:3 – ‘For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.’

  Meh. Best of three.

  Matthew 19:26 – ‘Jesus looked hard at them and said, ‘No chance at all if you think you can do it yourself. Every chance in the world if you trust God to do it.’

  Good enough, Jill thought. She dialled the number quickly, the damp tissue clutched in her trembling hand. ‘Susan?’ she said. ‘It’s Jill.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  FRIDAY, LATE AFTERNOON, an overcast mid-June day on Beecham Crescent, and inside number 23 an unlikely gathering was in progress.

  Everyone was gathered in Susan’s living room, clustered around a coffee table covered in tea things, cakes, biscuits and sweets. Nails put his teacup down and, with the usual difficulties, stood up and cleared his throat. He was wearing a double-breasted suit that would have been considered the height of fashion around 1982, which was in fact the last time it had had an outing. Behind him was a large A2-sized flip chart on a stand that Susan had bought that very morning at the big Staples up near the bypass. On the first page was a drawing of the basic layout of the bank. Susan, Julie, Ethel and Jill stopped chattering and looked at him.

  ‘Right, girls. Like a natter, don’t we? Good old chinwag. Well, unless you fancy doing all your gossiping down on the bloody cock farm I suggest you shut your faces and pay attention.’

  ‘Cock farm?’ Jill said, puzzled.

  ‘Prison,’ Susan whispered to her. ‘Anything you don’t understand probably means prison.’

  ‘First things first,’ Nails went on. ‘Job descriptions. Julie and Susan –’ he pointed to them – ‘staff and vault. Ethel and … what was your name again, love?’

  ‘Jill.’

  ‘Jill. Ethel and Jill, crowd control. Whoever is in there waiting to pay in their bloody cheques or whatever you’ve got to keep ’em shtum. No one goes out and no one comes in. Right?’

  Ethel and Jill nodded.

  ‘Which leaves old Nails here driving the motor. Now, tools of the trade. Susan love, can you clear some of this off?’

  Susan moved cups, plates and sugar bowl while Nails reached down under the coffee table and, with great effort, hauled out a large canvas holdall. It was about the size of a tent and filthy, covered with clods and streaks of earth. He clanked it down on the table, unzipped it, and began taking things out: an automatic pistol, a revolver, a vicious-looking sawn-off shotgun, a World War II Mills bomb hand grenade, all of them somewhat rusted and pitted.

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ Jill said, her hands going to her mouth.

  Ethel reached over and picked up the automatic.

  ‘Careful, Ethel!’ Susan began, but Ethel had already worked a catch or lever on the weapon with her thumb, causing the magazine to drop out of the grip and into the waiting palm of her left hand. She pulled the slide back and checked the chamber was empty before squinting expertly down the barrel and then letting the slide ratchet back into place, cocking the gun. She levelled the sights at the clock on the mantelpiece.

  ‘You got a good eye, love,’ Nails said. ‘That’s the pick of the bunch. Browning nine –’

  ‘Nine millimetre semi-automatic,’ Ethel said. ‘Standard issue sidearm to British Army officers from the 1950s onwards.’ She squeezed the trigger, dry-firing the weapon with a metallic ‘click’ as the others looked on amazed. ‘But the action’s stiff and the barrel grooving’s ragged. Leading me to believe that this is a deactivated gun that someone’s made a half-arsed job of reactivating.’ She turned to see Susan, Julie and Jill looking at her, open-mouthed. ‘It’s a hobby really,’ Ethel said.

  Nails looked at her, impressed. ‘I’ll tell you what, this old gal’s got some spunk in her, eh?’

  ‘Yes,’ Susan said. ‘I shouldn’t wonder.’

  Ethel levelled the pistol at Jill and cocked the hammer.

  ‘ETHEL!’ the women all screamed. Ethel pulled the trigger again, saying ‘BOOM!’ as she did so and cackling as Jill shrieked.

  ‘Right, enough buggering about,’ Nails said.

  Ethel laid the Browning on the table and ran a hand over the sawn-off. ‘This is a bit more my speed, I think …’ Nails was taking more stuff out of the holdall, a pair of thick metal bars, about three feet long.

  ‘What are those for?’ Julie asked.

  ‘All in good time, love …’ Nails rummaged around in the bottom. ‘Ah, here we go. Right, pass these out, pick one and stick with it.’ Susan took from him a pile of black woollen balaclavas. She passed them around, each of the women taking one. Julie held hers up. The word ‘HATE’ had been emblazoned across the forehead in white gloss paint. ‘Why on earth …?’ Julie said, looking around. Susan’s balaclava had the word ‘FEAR’ written in the same manner.

  ‘Two reasons, love,’ Nails said. ‘One, it makes it easier for you to identify each other. Two, if you’ve got something mental written across your forehead then that’s where they’re looking. Not at your eyes. I’ve known blokes get made from just the eyes.’

  ‘I am not wearing this.’ They all turned to see Jill holding up a balaclava with the word ‘PAIN’ on the forehead. ‘It … it’s just horrible.’

  ‘I’ll swap with you if you like, Jill,’ Ethel said cheerfully. They all turned to look. Ethel was already wearing hers. The word ‘FUCK’ was embossed across it.

  Nails looked at her admiringly. ‘Mrs Fuck. Nails likes it.’

  ‘Susan, can I swap with you?’ Jill said. ‘I’d rather have “fear” than “pain”.’

  ‘No!’ Susan said. ‘I like “fear”.’

  ‘Oh please.’

  ‘Right, shut it!’ Nails said. ‘Who gives a monkey’s what –’

  Suddenly the doorbell rang – a bright, cheerful, comical ding-dong.

  They all looked at each other. ‘You expecting anyone?’ Nails said, his eyes narrowing.

  ‘I … no.’ Susan moved towards the net curtains and peered out. What she saw caused her heart to travel half a foot up her chest and lodge in her throat. She felt her knees give.

  A police car.

  Parked right in front of her house.

  She turned back to them. ‘It … I … it’s the police.’

  Pandemonium.

  Jill started crying. Nails started gibbering. ‘Facking Jesus. The filth. Pigs. Bacon. Rozzers. Old Bill. Someone’s stitched us up …’

  ‘Everyone, just calm down,’ Julie said, looking around the room, at all the guns, the balaclavas, the flip chart and the photos of the bank.

  Ding-dong.

  ‘Dobbed us in. Shopped us. Grassed us up …’ Nails went on.

  ‘I KNEW THIS WAS INSANE!’ Jill shrieked.

  ‘Susan –’ Julie said, struggling to be heard.

  ‘How the fuck –’ Ethel said.

  ‘Can everyone please stop swearing?!’ Jill shrieked.

  ‘This is it,’ Nails said. ‘Nails ain’t going back inside. No way. Not again. FACK IT!’ He fell to his knees, grabbed the revolver off the coffee table and stuck it under his chin. ‘I’M COMING HOME, MA!’ he screamed.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ Julie said, snatching the gun out of his hand before he could pull the trigger. Nails
toppled over on his side on the carpet, hyperventilating. ‘Susan! Just go and answer the door and stall them for a minute.’

  ‘How?’ Susan said.

  Ding-dong. Ding-dong.

  ‘Just … use your bloody initiative!’

  Susan hurried towards the hall. Julie turned back to the others. ‘Jill, calm down and help me with this. Quick.’

  Susan took a deep breath and opened the front door. DS Boscombe and DC Wesley were standing there, Boscombe wearing a fixed, idiotic grin. It took Susan a moment to place them. ‘Sergeant …’

  ‘Boscombe! Yes, and you’ll remember Detective Constable Wesley?’

  ‘Afternoon, Mrs Frobisher.’

  ‘Yes, good afternoon.’

  ‘Sorry to keep ringing your bell like that,’ Boscombe continued. ‘It’s just that we saw your car and it looked like someone was in, so –’

  ‘Sorry, Sergeant, I am rather busy. Was there something in particular you –’

  Boscombe held up a clear plastic evidence bag. Inside were Barry’s wallet, watch, keys, mobile phone and loose change. ‘Your husband’s personal effects. Normally we’d call and notify you that they’re ready for collection but I thought that, given all you’ve been through lately, we’d just bring them out to you.’

  ‘Oh, that’s very kind …’ Susan reached out to take the bag. Which Boscombe immediately withdrew.

  ‘I just need you to sign a couple of forms.’ Boscombe looked past her hopefully, into the hallway. ‘If we could just …’