The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 10

by Maxim Jakubowski

  The young lady was already heading down the steps towards us, with Mr Adewole a few prudent paces behind her. Somewhere in the distance you could just make out a police siren - probably a squad car off to deal with a bad outbreak of graffiti, but it was enough to make up the mind of the guy with the gun. He was back in the purple Honda, which took off with a vicious roar of the engine and a screech of tyres - an event common enough on the Holloway Road not to draw much comment from passers-by.

  The stocky guy could probably have hung on to the small bank robber all day if he’d had to, but the police were there within a minute of the alarm going off. They handcuffed the robber and then they wanted statements from the rest of us. Under the circumstances it seemed best that I come up with a false name and address, though the rest of my account was much as I’ve just told you. The stocky individual, who gave an address in Preston, proved to be called Shuttleworth. He was just visiting London and had expected Holloway to be a bit like that. Shuttleworth didn’t seem the sort to lie about his name or anything else. He seemed pleased enough with his day so far, unlike the bank robber who shot me a glance before he was led away.

  Mr Adewole, the Assistant or Deputy Manager of the bank, had congratulated us several times and then, possibly feeling mere words were inadequate, had issued a general invitation to tea in his office. I thought it might look a bit suspicious to say “no” and so said “yes”. Shuttleworth, having as clear a conscience as need be, declined both tea and any suggestion that his had been more than a supporting role in the proceedings. I was, he said, the only hero and it had been his privilege to assist me. The way I’d landed that punch! Wow! He’d help me again, if I would just state where and when he would be needed.

  I watched him depart with a degree of envy and proceeded to Mr Adewole’s office, where we were joined by the young lady (Vicky? Martha? Faith?) and by the police inspector, who was taking a brief break from his questioning of staff and customers. The young lady had a nice smile. The police inspector didn’t. I sat in one of the plastic chairs and pushed my bag under the seat as unobtrusively as I could.

  “It was terrible,” the young lady said. (Alis? Bubbles? Storm? Something like that.) “The two of them came running into the bank with stockings over their faces, yelling at the tops of their voices. Then the big one pulled a gun out of the holdall he was carrying.”

  “Did he?” I said.

  “Yes,” said the young lady. She frowned. “It was a bag ... a bit like that one under your seat.”

  “Like mine?” I said.

  “Very much like yours,” said the young lady. “I can’t quite see it now you’ve moved your legs, but, yes, almost identical. They stuffed the money in it afterwards.”

  “Funny coincidence,” I said. “He probably bought his bag in the market, where I got mine. At least, that’s what I’d imagine. Small world.”

  “And do you know how much money?” asked Mr Adewole, uninterested in probability and coincidence.

  Mr Adewole obviously wanted to impress me, so I guessed low. “Five thousand?” I suggested, as if I thought that was a whole heap of cash.

  “Seventy-five thousand,” said Mr Adewole. “That’s what you saved us, Mr Smith, by your quick action. Seventy-five thousand pounds.”

  “He should get a reward,” said the young lady, who not only had a nice smile but was clearly generous with the bank’s money. I was beginning to like her.

  “I’m sure he will,” said Mr Adewole, slightly more cautiously. “Unfortunately we can’t give you cash now to take away in your bag.” He laughed.

  “Shame,” I said. I took another sip of tea. It was in a Charles and Diana Engagement mug - goodness knows where that had hidden all these years.

  “I bet,” said Mr Adewole, “that when you got up this morning you didn’t expect you’d be preventing a bank robbery.”

  “No,” I said. “Nobody told me to expect that. It would have been helpful if they had.”

  “In fact, a funny thought has just occurred to me,” said Mr Adewole, who was quite chatty for a Deputy or Assistant Manager. “Maybe you too have a sawn-off shotgun in your bag, Mr Smith. Maybe you were coming in to rob the bank, as the other two gentlemen were coming out. That would be terribly amusing.”

  He was easily amused.

  “Ha,” I said.

  “What is in your bag?” asked the police inspector, speaking for the first time. He put his own mug of tea down on Mr Adewole’s desk. He’d got a yellow one marked “BOSS” in big red letters, possibly Mr Adewole’s own, though he was really assistant or deputy boss.

  “In the bag? Oh ... er ... this and that. Bits and bobs. Various stuff,” I said, in a way that should have convinced even the most suspicious and untrusting of policemen.

  “I didn’t really mean ...” Mr Adewole began. He looked from me to the inspector and back again. We weren’t finding his joke as funny as he had hoped.

  “Maybe you could just open the bag, Mr Smith, and let me have a look inside,” said the inspector. “I’d better check it, just so that I don’t look a total plonker if Mr Adewole is right.”

  I smiled to show that I understood he was only kidding and the heroes were not required to open their bags and justify what was inside.

  “Now, please, Mr Smith,” he said.

  If I could give you a second piece of advice it’s that you have to know when the game is well and truly up. My wife always says to me: “Benny,” she says, “your face gives you away every time. There’s no point in getting mixed up in any dodgy stuff because your normal expression is that of most people when they’ve just murdered their grandmother and cut her up for cat meat. My brother could lie his way out of anything and usually does. But not you. You have a naturally guilty conscience. Call it a curse. Call it a gift. But if you ever get caught, just own up. It’ll save everyone time in the long run.”

  I opened the bag very slowly. The inspector looked inside and gave a low whistle.

  “That’s top of the range, that is,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said. “Blu-ray, built-in hard drive - only just in the shops.”

  “Good picture quality?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  The inspector looked at the unboxed DVD player in my bag, and frowned.

  “I’m just returning it to Davies Brothers department store, down the road,” I said. “I bought it there a couple of days ago and it doesn’t seem to be working properly. I’m taking it back to check what’s wrong. Probably I just can’t programme it properly.”

  “You got kids?” asked the inspector.

  “No,” I said.

  “Shame. They always know how to do these things. It’s about all they’re good for, but they do have that advantage.”

  He bent down and zipped up the bag for me.

  “Thanks for the tea,” he said to Mr Adewole. “I’d better finish what I was doing. Your people will want to get home.”

  “Me too,” I said, seizing the moment. “I’d better get back. Home sweet home.”

  “Where is it you live?” asked the inspector.

  “Close by,” I hedged.

  “Me too,” said the inspector. “We’ll bump into each again other soon, like as not. You’ll probably have to give evidence at the trial, of course.”

  “Yes,” I said. But only if they could find me. However much I might be to blame for what had occurred this afternoon, at least I’d not be giving evidence at the trial - a small blessing but one to be counted all the same.

  “And there’s the reward,” said Mr Adewole again. “We’ll be writing to you about that. A nice fat cheque, I should imagine.” He smiled. He too had decided he could risk being open-handed with the bank’s money. It was less of a risk than he imagined.

  I wondered for a moment if there was any way of finding out what fictitious address I’d given, then going round there to intercept the cheque somehow and pay it into an account in the name of Smith ... No,
maybe not. There is a limit to how far you should try to push your luck and I’d ridden mine quite nicely so far.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “And, Mr Smith, I do apologize if you thought we were in any way accusing you of being a bank robber. It was merely an inappropriate joke on my part. Neither I nor Fauzia would have wished to imply anything of the sort.” (Of course, not Lillwen or Arabella - Fauzia, that was it.)

  “No offence taken,” I said to Mr Adewole.

  “You’re a hero,” said Fauzia. “A have-a-go hero. You should get a medal.”

  I gave her a sort of regretful smile that might have meant anything. A medal too was something I’d have to pass on.

  “You had better go to Davies’s, before they close,” said Fauzia helpfully.

  “Yes,” I said, though the store would be open for another two hours at least. “I’d better dash, hadn’t I? Time and tide.”

  “And sorry about the robber thing,” said Mr Adewole again. “Just a joke.”

  “I’ve already forgotten about it,” I said.

  ~ * ~

  In the banking hall everything was back to normal. People were queuing and paying in cheques. People were getting cash without the help of shotguns. People were being sold ISAs. Nobody gave me the slightest glance as I crossed the floor, which is how I like things. I walked through the doorway and out on to the street. I breathed a big sigh of relief. Davies Brothers was a couple of hundred yards down on the right and that’s where I headed.

  Oh, yes, I had something on my conscience but for once it wasn’t dodgy gear that I was fencing for my brother-in-law. I wouldn’t be fencing anything for him for ... let’s say, five years less time off for good behaviour. No, what I was worrying about was what I would tell my wife when I got home. Maybe I should just begin: “Funny thing, Tracey, I bumped into your brother coming out of the bank this afternoon.” She’d laugh when I told her. Hopefully.

  <>

  ~ * ~

  LAPTOP

  Cath Staincliffe

  I

  ’d been boosting laptops for a couple of years but never with such bloody disastrous consequences. Up until then it’d been easy money. Two or three a week kept body and soul together and was a damn sight more conducive to the good life than temping in some god-awful office with all the crap about diets and Botox and endless squabbles over the state of the kitchen. Shorter working week, too. Eight maybe ten hours, the rest of the time my own.

  I always dressed well for work - part of the scam, isn’t it? People are much less guarded if I’m in a designer suit: something smart, fully lined, along with good shoes, hair and make-up. Helps me mingle. Looking like an executive, some high-flying businesswoman, gives me access to the most fertile picking grounds: conference centres, business parks, commuter trains, the best restaurants and coffee bars. And, after all, if someone nicks your laptop who’s going to spring to mind? Me with my crisp clothes, my detached air, snag-free tights ... or some lad in a beanie hat and dirty fingernails?

  So, that fateful day, as I came to think of it, I was working at Manchester Airport. I do it four or five times a year; the train service is handy and with all the business flights I’ve plenty of targets to choose from.

  As with any type of thieving, opportunity is all. The aim being to get the goods and get away with it. When I started working for Danny, he came out with me but I was quick on the uptake and after a few runs he left me to it. I’m one of his best operators but he reckons I’m lazy. You could make more, he tells me near enough every time I swap the merchandise for cash, a bit of ambition you could be clearing fifty a year, higher tax bracket. The last bit’s a joke. No one in the business pays any tax. But I’m not greedy. I enjoy the time I have. Gives me a chance to indulge my passion. I paint watercolours. Surprised? So was I when I first drifted into it. Then it became the centre of my life. It was what got me out of bed and kept me up late.

  That day when I spotted the mark I dubbed him The Wolf. He had a large head, coarse brown hair brushed straight back from his face, a long, sharp nose and lips that didn’t quite meet; too many teeth for his mouth. Like a kid with those vampire fangs stuffed in their gob. I assumed he was meeting someone as he made no move to check in and we were near the arrivals hall. He had the laptop on the floor, to his right, at the side of his feet. He was in prime position at the end of a row of seats, in the lounge where people have coffee while they wait for the information boards to change or for a disembodied voice to make hard-to-hear announcements.

  After walking about a bit, checking my exit routes and getting a feel for the atmosphere that day and the people hanging around (no nutters, drunks or surfeit of security guards), I settled myself on the end seat of the row adjoining his. He and I were back to back. I put my large bag down beside me at my left. My bag and his laptop were maybe five inches apart. On the seat next to me I put my own laptop and handbag. When I turned to my left I could see us both reflected in the plain glass of the offices that ran along the edge of the concourse. There were coloured screens behind the glass to mask the work areas so no danger of my being seen from in there.

  Timing is crucial. I watched his reflection as he glanced down to check his laptop and I moved a few seconds after, just as a large family with raucous kids and two trolley-loads of bags hove into view, squabbling about where to wait. Keeping my upper body straight, I reached my left arm back and grasped the handle of his laptop, pulled it forward and lifted it up and into my big bag. I grabbed the handles of that, hitched it on to my shoulder, collected my other things, stood and walked steadily away. Belly clamped, mouth dry, senses singing.

  Twice I’ve been rumbled at that very moment, before I’m out of range. Both in the early days. Turning, I look confused. “Sorry?”

  “My laptop!” They are incandescent with outrage, ready to thump me. Except I don’t run or resist. I gawp at them, look completely befuddled, furrowed brow. Mouth the word “laptop”? My hand flies to my mouth, I stare in my bag. “Oh, my God.” Both hands to my mouth. I blush furiously. Wrestle the shopper from my shoulder. “God, I am so sorry.” Withdraw the offending article, hand it back, talking all the time, on the brink of tears. “It’s exactly like mine.” I hold up my own laptop (case only: I’m not lugging around something that heavy all day - besides someone might nick it). “I was miles away... oh, God, I feel awful. You must think, oh, please I am so, so sorry. I don’t know what to say.” Deliberately making a scene, drawing attention, flustered woman in a state. Their expressions morph: rage, distrust, exasperation, embarrassment, and eventually relief tinged with discomfort. They just want me to shut up and disappear. Which I do.

  With The Wolf, though, all goes smooth as silk.

  Until I get the bastard thing home and open it.

  ~ * ~

  I generally check to see if they’re password-protected. Danny has a little code that cracks about fifty per cent of them, the rest he passes on to a geek who sorts them out. Danny appreciates it if I let him know which ones need further attention when I hand them over.

  So I got home, changed into something more comfortable, had lunch on my little balcony. On a clear day, to the east I can see the hills beyond the City of Manchester stadium and the velodrome, and to the west the city centre: a jumble of Victorian Gothic punctuated by modern glass and steel, wood and funny angles, strong colours. It’s a vista I love to paint. But that day was damp, hazy, shrouding the skyline. I polished off a smoked salmon salad, some green tea, then got down to business.

  Danny’s code didn’t work. And I could have left it at that. I should have. But there was a memory stick there: small, black, inoffensive-looking. I picked it up and slotted it into the USB port on my own machine. There wasn’t much on it, that’s what I thought at the time, just one file, called Accounts. I opened it expecting credits and debits, loss carried forward or whatever. Perhaps bank details that Danny could milk. Overseas accounts, savings.

  Not th
ose sort of accounts.

  ~ * ~

  12 June 2010

  She was very drunk when she left the club. Falling into a taxi, falling out at her place. I let her get inside and waited for a while before I went in the back. She was stumbling about for long enough. When I judged she was asleep I crept upstairs. I had everything ready. She woke. But I’d done it by then. The colour flooded her face and she tried to get up, jerking, but couldn’t, then the flush drained away and her eyes glazed over. I closed her eyes. She looked more peaceful that way. It was wonderful. Better than I’d imagined. A pure rush. Cleaner, brighter than drugs or religion or sex. On a different plane. I wish I’d stayed there longer now. I didn’t want to leave her but I was being cautious. Everything meticulously done. Precise, tidy. I’ve waited all my life for this. I wasn’t going to ruin it by being clumsy and leaving anything they could trace back to me.