The Brief Read online

  ‘I don’t know, Charlie,’ she said softly, in answer to his unspoken question. ‘I wish I did.’

  He pulled her gently towards him, wanting to put his arms round her, but she resisted, shrugging her shoulders and shaking her head. She ran from the room. Charles listened to the rustle of her dress and the sound of her feet flying down the stairs, and then the slam of the front door. He didn’t hear her crying as she drove away.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘Three…two…one…GO!’ screamed Sands.

  Plumber’s foot stamped on the accelerator and the two of them were pressed back into their seats as the Rover surged forward down the narrow path.

  ‘Faster!’ bellowed Sands.

  ‘I can’t control it any faster than this,’ shouted Plumber. ‘It’s the surface.’

  The vehicle bounced and shuddered as it hit another pothole and Plumber braked hard. The wheels locked, but he controlled the skid, the car sliding to a halt in a cloud of dust and pebbles, knocking a dustbin flying. He rammed it into reverse, and they shot backwards for a few feet and then, with the tyres screaming, he turned sharp right. Garden gates, wooden sheds and dustbins flew past them in a blur. They emerged after a few seconds into a garage area behind a block of flats, shot across its face, and out onto the road. Plumber slowed the car to a normal speed.

  ‘This’ll never do Derek.’

  ‘Look, Robbie, you got me in on this ‘cos I’m a driver. I’m telling you, there ain’t a fucking police driver in Britain that can take that alley quicker. We’ve only got about six inches clearance on each side in any event – why do you think I took off the wing mirrors? Any faster, and when we hit a wossname we’ll go straight into the side. How long was it anyway?’

  Sands checked his watch. ‘Thirty-five seconds.’

  ‘Then what are you complaining about? You asked for thirty. That ain’t bad for the first go.’

  ‘Aye, first and last go. We daren’t risk another. One’ll be put down to kids on a joyride. More’n one equals practice, and I don’t want the local constabulary wondering what for.’

  ‘That’s fine with me. I’ll get five seconds off on the day anyway. Always do; it’s the nerves. Nice car. I always go for the 3.5; where d’ya get it?’

  ‘Outside Deptford station.’

  Plumber turned to look at Sands in astonishment. ‘Ain’t that a bit close to home?’

  ‘Look, it was the right car, and it was left unlocked. Well, more or less unlocked. It was asking to be nicked.’

  ‘But it’s only a hundred yards from your front door!’

  ‘I know, but then half a dozen cars go from my street in one night. One more won’t be noticed.’

  ‘Robbie, this is a P5 Rover 3.5. It’s a luxury car! Ain’t the Prime Minister got one? You should’a nicked something less conspicuous. The Old Bill aren’t fools. Even with false plates, they’ll work out where it was nicked, and then start wondering who lives nearby.’

  ‘You dinnae think I gave ma real name now, do you? I’m Jock Stein to my landlady.’

  ‘Oh, you gotta be jokin!’

  Sands smiled. ‘She’s no heard of him. She doesnae follow football.’

  Plumber shrugged. ‘Well, for God’s sake keep it in the lock-up till the job. Where to now then?

  Sands looked at his watch again. ‘Wembley Station.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We’re gonna see a man about a dog. A gundog, you might say.’ Sands’s thin face screwed up in a grin of appreciation at his joke. His pale blue eyes almost disappeared behind slitted lids, and the scar pulled taut across his cheek.

  ‘What, already?’ asked Plumber, looking concerned. ‘The longer you keep those things, the more risk you’re in. You want to pick them up on the day of the job and dump them straight after.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Well, then?’

  ‘We’re picking them up tonight, ‘cos the job’s tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow? You’re joking! Why so soon?’

  ‘Cos it’s to our advantage Derek. There’s a new Tesco’s opened up ten days ago, and they’ve not paid their milk bill for all that time. There’ll be at least fifteen grand more’n usual tomorrow.’

  Plumber thought about that. ‘How is it you know all about this Robbie? You got a wossname? Inside man?’

  ‘Never you mind your wee head about that. Your share won’t be affected. Straight over the roundabout.’

  ‘I know where Wembley Station is.’

  They continued in silence. Plumber stopped opposite the underground station, and Sands got out.

  ‘Wait here,’ he said. ‘I’ll only be a sec.’

  He walked away from the station towards a small parade of shops and entered a laundrette. Two minutes later he emerged carrying a plastic supermarket bag. He strode quickly towards the car, opened the rear door, put the bag on the floor well, and returned to the front passenger seat.

  ‘Home James,’ he said. ‘We need an early night.’

  •

  It was sometimes said of Simon Ellison by his masters at school that he had been rather too conspicuously blessed. He was tall and fair, with a “Boy’s Own” hero’s rugged good looks, and he was a brilliant sportsman – cricket, rugby, athletics, he excelled in them all. He was, however, rather less clever than he thought he was, and he was certainly not as bright as his two older brothers. Nonetheless, he went to Buckingham where he scraped a third in English Literature, again excelling on the sports field rather than in the examination hall. He had hoped that one of his father’s friends might be able to get him something in the City, but somehow that never had materialised. Instead he had resurrected the former family tradition and had joined the Guards, where he spent four happy years. He had then been injured in a riding accident. His left knee was damaged so severely that even six operations could not restore it. His excellence in sports and his army career were ended. He was changed too. The one aspect of his life in which he excelled had been taken from him.

  He had decided to go to the Bar. Two years of cramming for exams, and he was called by the Inner Temple at the relatively late age of 29. Once in Chambers his family connections, relaxed style and abundance of charm combined to ensure a satisfactory practice, but he was still not the man he had been. ‘The one thing about Scruffy’ – his mother would say of him – ‘is his temper. Ever since he left the Guards, he has had a deuce of a temper.’ And as Stanley, the senior clerk at 2 Chancery Court, was appreciating, “Scruffy” Ellison was in a deuce of a temper at that moment.

  ‘Just look at that!’ commanded Ellison, throwing down the court diary on the desk before Stanley.

  ‘What about it sir?’ asked Stanley. He had been summoned to Ellison’s room and told to sit down at one of the busiest times of the day, and he was anxious not to prolong the interview. The telephones would be ringing constantly back in the clerks’ room and although Sally and Robert were competent, he would be needed to fix fees and sort out the diary.

  ‘What am I doing tomorrow?’ demanded Ellison.

  ‘Well, nothing at the moment, sir. It’s been a bit quiet the last few – ’

  ‘But what was I doing?’ Ellison pointed to an entry against his initials which had been scored through. It had read “R. v. Mousof”.

  ‘That was a case for Richters -’ began the clerk.

  ‘Not “was” a case, Stanley. It is a case. It’s just that I’m not doing it anymore. What’s that?’ He pointed to the initials “C.H.” further down the page. His finger traced a line across the page. The words “R. v. Mousof” had been inserted against Charles’s name. ‘That suggests that Mr Holborne’s now doing the case.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘And I want to know why.’

  ‘When the brief came in I assumed it was for you, as Richters are your clients. So it went in the diary with your initials against it. But then they telephoned and asked to speak to Mr Holborne about it, and I checked. They intended it for him. So I altered th
e entry in the diary.’

  ‘Do you realise what this case is? It will probably be the best-paid case Mr Holborne does all year! Mousof is stinking rich. He’ll pay £750 on the brief, and the case will last a week. It’s worth a fortune!’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir. I did check with the solicitors to make sure there hadn’t been a mistake, but Mr Holborne acted for them on the double-hander two weeks back while you were in Wales and they were very happy with him. He does have more experience than you at crime,’ Stanley suggested gently. It was not a wise comment.

  ‘Of course he fucking does! He does all mine!’

  ‘I’d appreciate it if you didn’t swear at me, sir, please. And as for the brief, I don’t know what I can do about it when the solicitors actually ask for someone else by name.’

  ‘I’m going to tell you exactly what you can do about it, Stanley. You’re bloody well going to ring Richters again and see if you can switch the brief back to me.’

  Disputes of this nature over work were not uncommon in any set of chambers, and it was the clerk’s job to ensure that ill-feeling was kept to a minimum. On one hand all the members were part of a team, able to offer solicitors a range of experience and expertise on a particular subject, from the head of chambers to the junior tenant. On the other hand each set of chambers was a microcosm of the Bar at large; every member was in competition with every other, and the rules of the marketplace applied. Touting for work was absolutely prohibited, but there was no preventing solicitors from expressing a preference for a particular barrister if he did a better job than his room-mate. Ellison did mainly licensing work for the large casinos, but that increasingly threw up criminal cases and, if he was not available, Charles Holborne was the obvious choice. Stanley had realised over the years that Mr Ellison was rather more sensitive about his “returns” than most, and he required gentle handling. So Stanley ignored his aggressive tone and replied as reasonably as he could.

  ‘I can’t do that sir, and you know it. If you consider that Mr Holborne has done anything improper to obtain the brief you had better speak to Sir Geoffrey about it,’ he said, referring to the Head of Chambers. ‘But, honestly sir, as far as I know, Mr Holborne had no hand at all in obtaining the instructions.’

  Stanley had never before found himself in the position of defending Mr Holborne. Holborne’s practice did not fit well with those of the rest of Stanley’s “guvnors” and, frankly, he was happier clerking civil work where he knew what he was doing. He had nothing against Holborne personally but he wished he’d go to some set where they did nothing but crime, and they would both feel easier. But on this occasion Holborne had just done a good job, and had been rewarded for it by the delivery of this brief.

  ‘Now I really must get back,’ he said to Ellison as he stood to leave. He held out his hand for the diary, but Ellison did not move. Stanley picked the book up from the desk, and left the room.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Both sides of the suburban road were lined with semi-detached houses. They had been built before the First World War, at a time when few had family cars, and so most of the houses had no garages. Two-car families and the splitting of family homes into flats meant that there was insufficient room for all the cars in the street, and they lined both pavements from end to end, frost glistening on their roofs. A careful observer would have noticed an exception; one car, a maroon Rover almost at the end of the road. Indeed, the condensation on its windows indicated that it was occupied, and had been for some time. On the other side of the road, almost directly opposite the Rover, was a new block of flats, the only break in the line of identical houses. To the left of the flats was a small service road which led to a row of garages behind the block. Behind the garages however, the service road continued and then turned right to run parallel to and along the back of the Victorian houses. It eventually emerged onto the main road next to the Express Dairies, London North depot; but just before it did so, it served the Dairies’ rear entrance, which featured a tall concrete wall topped with wire, interrupted by ten-foot steel gates.

  The depot did not deal in milk; it dealt in money. Every large supermarket in the area was supplied daily with cartons of milk. The bigger supermarkets demanded such quantities that a lorry was required to make their deliveries. And once a week security guards, divided into four teams each responsible for a different area, would make a tour of the supermarkets in their area and collect what the dairy was owed. These were hand-picked men. Not for Express Dairies the retired policemen, bouncers, and assorted thuggerie often employed as security guards. They selected and employed only the best. Their men were intelligent, well-trained, and hard. Many were ex-Army. They had never been robbed successfully in the seven years since the present system had been introduced.

  Robbie Sands opened his eyes and looked at the clock on the dashboard. 5.52 am. He closed his eyes again. Plumber sat next to him, looking worried. Once again Plumber felt in his anorak pocket. The gun was heavy, bigger than he had imagined. He had examined both weapons carefully the night before and would have been unable to distinguish them from the real ones he’d used as Cpl Plumber during the war. Sands had told him that the barrels had been blocked originally but that they had been drilled out to make them look real from the point of view of someone staring down the barrel. Plumber looked, and felt, deeply uneasy.

  He checked his other pocket, also not for the first time. He could feel the cold metal of the handcuffs, four pairs, and the wool of a balaclava mask. He too looked at the clock. He reached into his inside jacket pocket and took out a chocolate bar.

  ‘What, another one?’ said Sands. ‘No wonder you’re getting so fat.’

  ‘I need it. I get all sweaty and shaky if I don’t eat. ’Specially if I’m on a job and the old wossname’s running. Adrenaline.’

  ‘Suit yoursel’.’

  Plumber demolished his bar in two bites and folded the wrapper carefully before putting it in his pocket.

  ‘That’s better,’ he said.

  ‘Okay. Time to move,’ said Sands, opening the passenger door and stepping onto the pavement. He looked up and down the road. It was deserted.

  ‘Shut the door,’ pleaded Plumber. ‘It’s friggin’ freezing.’

  Sands closed the door quietly, and walked to the vehicle in front, an inconspicuous white Commer van. He opened the door and sat inside. His breath came in white clouds, and within seconds the inside of the windows were covered in condensation. He reached forward to wipe them clear, and then stopped. There were footsteps approaching from the far end of the road. Sands slipped down in his seat and held his breath. A young man wearing a duffle coat and a long green scarf appeared, walking towards the two occupied cars. He stepped off the pavement three cars up from where Sands sat and crossed to the far side of the road. He approached the service road. He was out of Sands’s vision, but Sands heard the sound of his footsteps change from sharp clicks to the crunch of gravel as he left the pavement.

  Behind Sands’s vehicle Plumber turned the ignition key and the Rover engine coughed into life. Plumber’s hand delved into his left pocket and drew out the balaclava. He pulled it on, the wool scratching his face and neck, and saw Sands in the Rover doing the same. Plumber signalled his readiness and Sands half-turned and reached underneath his seat, pulling out a plastic bag. He fumbled inside with one hand, and drew out a short, heavy gun with a wooden stock. It had two barrels, sawn off about eight inches from the stock. He slipped it inside his jacket, took out the imitation revolver and put it beside him on the seat, turned to wave again at Plumber, and pulled away from the pavement. Plumber moved off behind the van. They turned into the service road. The van passed the flats and bounced across the bumpy forecourt of the garages. Plumber caught sight of the man in the duffle coat just as he disappeared around the turn in the bend in the service road. Sand’s van accelerated hard, slid sideways as he took the corner slightly too fast, but corrected well enough and barrelled towards the man, who spun round. Sands drove str
aight at him, and he scrambled backwards until his back was flat against the wall of the depot. Sands braked hard and leapt out. He grabbed the man’s hair with one hand, and shoved the revolver under his chin.

  ‘No’ a peep outta you, sonny, or you’re dead meat!’ he snarled.

  The man turned as green as his scarf and twisted his head away from the gun as far back as it would go. Plumber drew up behind the van in the Rover.

  ‘Keys!’ demanded Sands.

  ‘In… in my coat… left pocket,’ stammered Duffle Coat. Sands reached in and took them out. He handed them to the man.

  ‘Open up!’ Sands ordered, whirling him round, and shoving him towards the gates, a few feet away down the road. He did as he was told. Sands pushed him through the gates, and propelled him across a tarmacked yard towards the door to the building. A featureless brick wall faced them, broken only by a short open flight of metal steps leading to a flush steel door.

  ‘You’re gonna unlock that door for us, and then you’re gonna turn off the alarm, right?’ There was no response. ‘Right?’ shouted Sands, giving him a further hefty shove in his back that sent him sprawling onto the bottom steps. Sands reached down and grabbed the hood of the duffle coat, and dragged the man to his feet. He had grazes on his face and chin and there were tears in his eyes. He looked terrified.

  ‘Yes, okay, okay, okay! I’ll do whatever you say, but please don’t shoot me!’

  ‘I’ll no’ shoot you if you do as you’re told. But if you mess with me, laddie, I’ll blow your fuckin’ head off, and that’s a promise.’

  Sands pushed him up the remaining steps to the door. Duffle Coat’s hands shook violently as he tried to get the key into the lock.

  ‘How many locks?’ demanded Sands.

  ‘Two – plus the combination.’

  ‘Do them!’

  Plumber’s Rover had followed them into the yard and Plumber parked it by the wall in one of the parking bays. He slammed the door shut and raced back into the service road. He dived into the van and drove it past the yard entrance and further down the road. He parked it in a bay next to some dustbins and ran back just in time to follow Sands into the building. Duffle Coat was crouched just inside the door, turning a key in the alarm. Sands yanked him to his feet.