by Jack Probyn
‘Where did the dad serve?’
‘Afghanistan. I don’t know which regiment exactly, but I know he dealt with explosives of some description.’
Jake nodded. ‘That explains where the collar came from.’
‘That thing Danny created is a technically difficult device to conceive of, let alone make. I’m surprised he managed it.’
‘You and I have got very different philosophies on praising people. How do you know it was him that made it?’
Freddy rolled his eyes. ‘He never shut the fuck up about it when we were working together. All the time. How he wanted to build something – do something – that would make him one of the most notorious armed robbers in existence.’
‘Where did he get the idea from?’
‘Not me, if that’s what you’re insinuating. I wanted nothing to do with it. Besides, I haven’t seen them boys in years. Not even a letter or anything.’
‘I’m sure they’ve got their reasons. Least of all trying to lay low. As soon as they come to visit you, the first thing someone’s going to do is arrest them.’
‘But not even a letter?’ Freddy rolled his right sleeve higher up his wrist. ‘They could have done it anonymously. I kept them safe while I’ve been in here. Protected them. When I was interrogated, they offered me a shorter sentence in exchange for information. But I didn’t give it. I gave my life for those kids. I kept quiet. And now look at the thanks I get.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Jake said. ‘We’ll catch them.’
‘I’m not worried about you catching them. I’m more worried about them doing something stupid. Before, we liked to keep things simple. Rush in, get what we needed, and then get back out again. But this time’s different. This is the first time Danny’s been in charge of a raid, and it follows none of the patterns from our previous ones. He’s gone rogue. I mean, they’ve fired shots, they’ve spent cases, something we never did when I was in charge – you can vouch for that.’
Jake nodded. He could. He recalled the time he and Freddy had been locked inside the HSBC bank in Oxford, Freddy holding a shotgun to a door and explaining why he’d needed to pull the trigger for the first time in his life. Up until today, the only thing The Crimsons had shot was an unsuspecting inanimate object.
‘Danny’s gone more sadistic,’ Freddy continued. ‘And I doubt they’re following the post-heist protocol either.’
‘Which was?’
Freddy leant forward in his chair. Two feet separated them now. Face to face. The smell of warm stale breath assaulted Jake’s senses.
‘Have you got a map?’ Freddy asked.
Jake looked at him, perplexed. When he and Bridger had arrived at the prison, they’d been forced to hand in all their possessions – including phones and wallets. ‘I don’t have my AA map with me unfortunately.’
‘Well, you’re going to need one,’ Freddy said.
Exhaling deeply, Jake lifted himself out of his chair, hurried over to the door and spoke with the prison officers standing guard outside. He ordered them to bring him a map, and within minutes, they returned. As Jake scurried back to the desk, he was already unravelling the pages. He set the map of England down on the table and placed his hands on the corners to stop it from folding over itself.
‘Our first hit was here.’ Freddy pointed to Newcastle. ‘And then we moved down to Leeds, Leicester, Oxford and now Guildford.’ Freddy pointed to each corresponding location as he went through the list. ‘For each hit, we had designated extraction points, and a series of cars to get us there – a trail of automotive breadcrumbs, if you will. We’d leave cars all over the place so that we could chop and change. None of the reg numbers were legit, and we always had several changes of clothes. Then, once it had all died down, we’d just slip out of the city and move to the next, staying in hostels and hotels and rented places. You’d be surprised how many people are willing to turn a blind eye to criminals staying in their property when it comes to a large chunk of cash.’
‘Sounds like you had a solid plan.’
‘We were meticulous. I was meticulous. But if that didn’t work then we always had extra help.’
Jake’s ears perked up. The air temperature seemed to drop suddenly. ‘Extra help?’
Freddy slid the map back to Jake and made a pig noise. The sound reverberated around the walls.
Jake said nothing; his face fell flat, bemused.
‘Come on, Jake,’ Freddy began, ‘you didn’t seriously think we could get away with it all on our own? All those years. All those robberies. Never a single arrest.’
‘I…’
‘We had help from the inside every single time. Someone working against you. But when it came to Oxford… well, we could never account for you. There was a cock-up with our contact. He got delayed and then you decided to be a hero and get in the way. He didn’t know how to handle it in time. Never found out what happened to him.’
‘What about now?’ Jake asked. ‘Have Danny, Michael and Luke got someone helping them?’
A smile grew on Freddy’s face. He snorted and wiped his nose with the back of his hand, leaving a green trail of snot behind. ‘I don’t know. This hit was organised after I got sent down. Chances are, yes. Someone in your band of little merry men is working against you, helping them escape. Couldn’t tell you how, couldn’t tell you who – it changes every time.’
Jake felt the knot in his stomach return, and this time it wasn’t like the first day nerves that had wracked his body earlier; it was something more malicious, more volatile. The fear of someone betraying himself and the rest of the team. That someone was helping Danny, Michael and Luke evade capture, evade justice, evade the murder of an innocent person. Jake felt like he needed a moment to comprehend what Freddy had told him, but time was a commodity he couldn’t afford to waste, and there was a treasure trove of answers he needed to unearth.
Jake lowered his gaze to the table, turned his attention to the map and ran his finger down the country. As his finger fell over Oxford, an idea popped into his head. He glanced up at Freddy.
‘All of your heists… each one got further and further south.’
‘Exactly. Why do you think that is?’
Jake shrugged. He didn’t appreciate the belittling, being treated like he was a schoolchild, but he was under Freddy’s power at the moment, so there was nothing he could do save suck it up. ‘Because there’s more money down south?’
Freddy brandished his middle finger and aimed it at Jake. ‘Think bigger. Think differently. You’re an intelligent guy – I’m sure you can work it out.’
Jake looked at the map again. His eyes ran along the south coast of England from right to left. Brighton. Portsmouth. Southampton. Bournemouth. Back to Portsmouth. Dozens of thin blue lines ejected from the city in a spider’s web that stretched across the Channel.
‘Port,’ Jake said slowly, the cogs in his brain beginning to whir. ‘They’re heading to a port. Portsmouth Harbour?’
‘Distinction. Top of the class. Well done. When we started, we made a pact. We decided that we would head down the country, taking more and more money with us, taking bigger and bigger risks, and then we’d get the fuck out of here like a whore in the night. Your boys, if there’s nothing else they’ve made good on, won’t be staying still. They’ll be on the move. They’ll be heading towards a boat that’ll ship them out of the country as soon as possible. And then you’ll never see them again. How much did they take in Guildford?’
‘I don’t know. Couple hundred thousand? Half a mil? Maybe more. I have no idea. It was a jewellery store.’
Nodding, Freddy said, ‘Add that to what we took in our previous hits and they’re going to be smuggling over two million out of the country. Easy.’
‘How? How are they going to smuggle that much?’
Freddy smirked. ‘You’re so naïve, Jake. You’ve got a lot to learn. I can tell the past couple of years have taught you nothing.’
‘Just tell me how, Freddy.’
>
‘A few ways: the friends in high places, the friends in low places and the friends in middle places. They’ll have contacts who can facilitate the expatriation of all that money. They’ll be looking to export a lot of bags out of this country.’
‘Where are they going?’ Jake asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘It’s true.’
‘Come on, Freddy. You expect me to believe that you never discussed where you would end up after all this was done?’
Freddy started picking at his nails, unearthing the dirt and grime from beneath them and wiping it on his trousers. ‘We discussed it, yes. But we never settled on anything – or anywhere – concrete. They could be going to Australia for all I know.’
‘Would they have booked the tickets under their own name?’
Freddy shook his head. ‘Unlikely. We all had fake passports – purchased them from a guy called Mick the Mandate – just in case you guys did manage to identify us.’
‘What were your aliases?’
‘They’ve changed by now. You’ve got to give them some credit. We had a rule that if one of us was caught or anything happened to us, we would change everything like that’ – he snapped his fingers – ‘in an instant, just in case someone grassed to the police.’
Jake hung his head low.
‘I know it’s not the breakthrough you were looking for, but it’s all I can give you.’ Freddy twisted his head left and right, clicking the joints in his neck. ‘But there is one silver lining…’
Freddy let the comment hang in the air.
‘Go on…’
Freddy cleared his throat before continuing. ‘If there’s one name they would’ve changed it to – at least one of the brothers – it would be their mother’s maiden name.’
‘Which is…?’
‘Harrington.’
CHAPTER 34
OVERACTIVE IMAGINATION
The muscles in Carl’s body clenched, his hand wrapped around the steering wheel as he tore through the seventeen miles of Surrey countryside that separated Waverley Abbey from their next destination: Dunsfold Aerodrome, the home to one of television’s most popular series, Top Gear. The clue had taken some time to decipher, but with a little help from the internet and Smithers – who’d been looking out of the window the whole journey as though he’d never seen grass before – Carl had managed to crack it.
He pulled off the main road and into the runway’s entrance, a narrow, unmade path barely wide enough for a single car, framed by an archway of brambles. Carl slowed the car to a stop, rested his chest against the steering wheel and gawped at the hangar in front of him. Aviation had always been a hobby of his, a second love – behind the job and before the wife – but he’d never possessed the ability to become a pilot, thanks to an eyesight problem that rendered him almost blind at the age of nineteen. Now, with the help of modern technology, he was able to see, but his flying days were behind him. As he gazed out at the hangar, he revelled in the history of it, at the aircraft, the lives of the individuals that had flown inside it, the engineers that had worked on it, the care and attention to detail that had been executed on the magnificent feat of machinery that it was.
‘Are we going?’ Smithers asked.
Carl didn’t appreciate the intonation in the young man’s voice, but he was too excited to reprimand him for it.
He slipped the car into gear and followed the signs towards the car park. Rolling down the path, a thin row of bushes began to thaw out, gradually revealing the vast expanse of runway tarmac, and Carl was immediately hit with the stark reality of the task in front of them. Dunsfold wasn’t on par with Heathrow or Gatwick certainly, but if their search was for a key the size of a thumbnail, they would be there for days – and there was just the two of them. It would take a small army to sift through the cracks in the tarmac and patches of weed-covered concrete.
Twenty yards ahead, at the end of the road, was a booth. Inside sat a man dressed in black with a radio attached to his hip. Poor sod, thought Carl. Bet he’s sweating his bollocks off.
After seeing the car rolling towards him, the security guard slipped out of the booth and sauntered towards them, like he wasn’t in any rush.
‘Good thing there isn’t a murder and robbery investigation going on,’ Carl whispered to Smithers. ‘Oh… wait.’
The security guard, thumbs hooked into the belt straps around his waistline, stopped by Carl’s window. Carl unwound it.
‘Sorry,’ the guard said, ‘no visitors.’
‘We’re not visitors,’ Carl replied.
‘Do you have crew passes?’
‘No, but—’
‘Then in my book you’re visitors. You’ll have to reverse your way out.’
Without looking, Carl grabbed Smithers by the shoulder and yanked him over into his lap, bringing him into view. ‘Does he look like a visitor?’
At the sight of Smithers’ fluorescent clothes, the guard’s eyes widened.
‘Is there an issue, officers?’
‘We need to gain access to the runway. We’re searching for a key that may have been left here this morning.’
‘I’m sorry, but nobody’s been here this morning. The premises are closed for the week.’
‘Are you sure?’
The guard nodded. ‘I’ve been here overnight and all morning. My shifts ends at four.’
‘Is that legal?’ asked Smithers.
Carl realised the young officer was still in his lap and thrust him back into his seat with a force that almost strained his ageing shoulder muscles.
‘It’s a slog but someone’s got to do it,’ the guard replied.
Carl had to intervene before the conversation descended fully into unnecessary chit-chat.
‘Are there any other access points to the runway?’ he asked.
‘None. It’s all surrounded by ten-foot barbed wire and a line of trees. Plus, we’ve got CCTV all over the place, so if someone set foot in here, I’d know about it.’
Carl considered for a moment. He surveyed the guard – the minutiae of the man’s face – and then told him to wait back by his booth. He pulled his phone from his back pocket and dialled Pemberton’s number.
‘DCI Pemberton…’
‘Boss, I—’
‘What do you want, Carl? We’ve just had direct contact from The Crimsons.’
‘What did they say?’ He sensed the urgency and dread in her voice. Even though he’d been in the job a lot longer, he respected her seniority and rank.
‘Where are you?’
‘Dunsfold, ma’am,’ he said. ‘With Smithers. We’ve spoken to the security guard posted by the entrance and he said nobody’s been in or out all morning.’
‘You won’t find anything,’ Pemberton added. Her voice went hoarse as she said it. ‘I have reason to believe the final key isn’t where the instructions say it is. I believe Danny Cipriano has it.’
‘What makes you believe that?’
‘The fact that he told me over the phone… Bomb squad found a mobile inside the collar device which means it can be detonated remotely. Danny has both the phone and the key. The Crimsons never intended for us to save her.’
‘It was all a distraction?’
‘Yes.’ Pemberton’s voice sounded weak.
‘Where are they? Did they tell you where they’re headed?’
‘We set up a trace on the call, but we lost it as soon as the call ended. The number disappeared – he must have switched the phone off. I’m told the last ping from the cell tower was somewhere near Portsmouth.’
‘Maybe they’re trying to smuggle themselves out of the country, ma’am.’
Pemberton had barely put her phone inside her blazer pocket before it rang again. If that’s you, Carl, I swear to God, I’m going to—
‘Hello?’ she answered with her telephone voice, the one that she found almost everyone had – the higher pitch, the joviality, the sense that she was happy to
be interrupted in such a way.
‘Guv,’ the voice on the other end replied. ‘I think there’s something we should be worried about.’
Something caught Pemberton’s eye. ‘Oh yeah?’
‘I think we need to be careful around Jake.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘How do we know he’s not in with them? I mean, think about it. The first time he comes across them is on their last robbery in Oxford, and he sets one of them up to take the fall. I read the paperwork on the case after it happened, and in the report he never explained what really happened inside that bank. How do we know they didn’t plan something together? Freddy took the rap so Jake could get out free and become the new leader of the gang. It worked out perfectly. Now Jake’s getting cosy with us while working on the side with The Crimsons for today’s hit.’
‘You have an overactive imagination.’
‘Think about it, Nic – he rocks up today on his first day with us. And, on the same day, The Crimsons strike. Seems like too much of a coincidence to me.
A long silence followed. Pemberton sucked breath through her nostrils, held it there, and then let it fall slowly back out again.
‘What do we do?’ she asked.
‘I say we keep an eye on him. Keep him close. He knows something he’s not telling us.’
‘I… I just can’t see it happening.’
‘It’s the people you least expect to hurt us that do.’
‘And if you’re wrong?’ she asked.
There was a brief pause and the sound of the phone passing from one ear to the other.
