Gangsters Wives (10 page)

It was easy. She asked to see a manager at the cash window, told him the number and password, and he did the rest. She was shown downstairs to the safety deposit room. He had a duplicate key, they both turned theirs in the locks, and when he tugged the drawer out of its slot, she was left alone in a small room with the box. It was heavy, and when she opened it she knew why. Inside were three handguns that looked brand new, neatly boxed, illustrated, and trade marked GLOCK 19. Inside each of the boxes was a little booklet. Underneath them, was what she recognised from all the gangster movies she and Eddie had watched together, as a machine pistol. An Uzi. She left two of the pistols inside the box, putting the third in her handbag along with the booklet. She was amazed how light it was. Nothing like she'd imagined. More like a toy than a real gun. But if Eddie had obtained them, she knew they'd be real enough. She relocked the safety deposit box, had it returned to its home and left.

Inside the next bank she found the ammunition. Hundreds of brass jacketed rounds, slotted into the kind of thick white foam that previously she'd only seen protecting domestic items in their packaging. Each box contained fifty bullets. The boxes were all marked 9 MILLIMETRE, with the name of the manufacturer from some Middle American state. At the bottom of the box were four ammunition magazines. Three were short and looked like they fitted the Glock hidden in her bag. The fourth was longer, and she guessed that one belonged to the Uzi. She took a box of fifty rounds and put them in her bag too. She realised with all that she'd found she could start a small war, and maybe that's what she would have to do to get out of trouble.

Bring it on, she thought.

Inside the third bank she discovered the plan Eddie had told her about. It was printed out on A4 paper and neatly bound in clear plastic. Trust him, she thought. If he hadn't turned to a life of crime he might have been a good pen-pusher.

When she left the bank the folder was under her arm, and the deposit drawer was empty.

She went back home, made herself a drink and sat down to read the book. But before she did, with the help of the instruction manual she worked out how to load the Glock's magazine, although it cost her a slice out of one of her fingers, and how to work the trigger mounted safety catch. She loaded a shell in the chamber and put the gun, which was a lot heavier when loaded, on the table next to the sofa where she sat, feeling pleased with herself.

Whilst Sadie and Kate were otherwise engaged, Poppy and Niki had become firm friends. Previously, they'd never really chatted without Sadie and Kate being there, but a mutual addiction to nicotine had thrown them together often outside the Bailey whilst Eddie's brief trial had been going on inside.

They had agreed to meet afterwards, even though Niki assumed Connie would object, and told Poppy so. But Eddie's incarceration seemed to be weighing on his mind, and he just dismissed her with a grunted ‘whatever' when she told him, which she took for a yes.

The two women's homes were equal distance from Canary Wharf, so they started to get together there and spend their days window-shopping. Poppy spent Joseph's money prolifically, and couldn't understand why Niki was on such a tight budget. ‘Connie doesn't like me having my own money,' Niki explained on their second meeting over coffee in one of the many little restaurants inside the wharf.

‘Why not?' asked Poppy.

Niki shrugged, a uniquely Russian shrug that said a lot without words. ‘He's worried I might run away I suppose. He bought and paid for me.'

‘That's disgusting. It would serve him right if you did, tight arse.'

Niki laughed. ‘Tight arse,' she said. ‘I like that.'

‘Joe doesn't care what I spend,' said Poppy. ‘Doesn't care much about what I do these days.'

‘Why not?'

Poppy told Niki about her impossibility of conceiving and about Joseph's baby mother and child.

‘And you put up with it?' asked Niki.

‘You put up with Connie.'

‘I suppose so.'

‘I'd like to kill that bitch, and her bastard, and Joseph for that matter,' said Poppy, the bitterness inside her spilling out like bile.

‘And I dream of Connie being dead,' said Niki. ‘A life of my own…'

‘But it'll never happen,' said Poppy.

‘I could kill Joseph,' said Niki.

‘You,' said Poppy, laughing. ‘You're just a little slip of a girl. I've seen Joe take three or four men on. And win.'

It was Niki's turn to laugh as she shared her story of the three thugs she'd taken on in Millwall Park.

‘You're kidding,' said Poppy. ‘You do martial arts?'

‘My daddy and grandpapa taught me well. They were soldiers. Russian soldiers. The best in the world. Cossacks. Wild men. Grandpapa was at Stalingrad. You know about Stalingrad?'

Poppy shook her head.

‘It was a famous battle in the Second World War.'

‘I didn't go to school much,' said Poppy. ‘I'm ashamed about the things I don't know. Tell me.'

Niki explained about the long, cold battle for the city, that defeated Hitler's mighty army, and helped win the Second World War for the Allies.

‘They were starving,' said Niki. ‘Inside the city. They ate the dead when the rations ran out. Can you imagine that?'

Poppy shook her head in disgust.

‘But my grandpapa killed a hundred Germans. He was a shooter. A sniper. He taught me to use weapons. But he also taught me to kill silently using just my hands and feet.'

‘Christ,' said Poppy. ‘Have you ever killed anyone?'

Niki smiled. ‘None of your business.'

‘You have. Jesus.'

‘Jesus had nothing to do with it.'

‘So tell me.'

‘Two men tried to rape me,' said Niki. ‘Back home. I was sixteen. They drove the roads where I lived, and found women alone. Any woman, any age. It was a famous case, but the police were useless.'

‘Most police are,' said Poppy.

Niki nodded agreement. ‘One afternoon I was walking home from school, when they found me. They were strong. They hit me from behind and I woke up in the back of their car. I heard them talking, and knew they were the men who had been doing those terrible things.'

‘Weren't you scared?' asked Poppy.

‘Terrified. But I knew terror was… How do you say it. Not productive.'

Poppy nodded, engrossed in the story.

‘They drove into the woods near my home. It is a terrible place. Dark and cold. No one goes there. It's like a forest in a fairy story where the bad fairies live.'

Poppy was mesmerised.

‘They dragged me out of the car, and one held me down whilst the other dropped his pants. He pushed up my skirt, and was going to pull down my underwear when I kicked him in his balls. He screamed like a girl, and the other one let me go and pulled out a knife. I didn't tell you, but the other women were all stabbed and killed. Stabbed in their privates. A terrible thing.'

Poppy remained silent as the business of the Wharf went on around them.

‘I like knives,' said Niki. ‘Grandad had a collection. I took the knife off the man easily. You see he couldn't believe a young girl in school uniform could hurt him. He must have thought the kick I gave his friend was just luck. Anyway, I took the knife out of his hand like taking a lollipop from a child. Then I stabbed him. In the heart. He was dead as he fell.'

‘What about his friend?' Poppy could hardly catch her breath.

‘I cut off his cock and put it in his mouth. I left them both there and walked home. It wasn't far. Months later some woodcutters found them. It was in the papers.'

‘What about the knife?' asked Poppy.

‘It's at home,' said Niki. ‘I brought it with me from Russia. I smuggled it here, and one day I will cut Connie's cock off too and stuff it in his mouth, just like that bastard who tried to rape me. Do you want me to go?'

‘Why?' asked Poppy.

‘Because.'

‘No love,' interrupted Poppy. ‘I feel safer with you around.'

The plan that Eddie had prepared was a blueprint for the perfect crime. That night, as Sadie sat in her lonely house, the only light came from an angle-poise lamp next to her, illuminating the dull sheen of the loaded pistol on the table below. She read the book twice. Once, quickly, to get the gist of the robbery, and then again slowly, absorbing all the details.

The plan was simple: Every month, regular as clockwork, an armoured truck left the headquarters of one of the major banks stuffed with worn out bank notes due to be incinerated at a furnace in Kent. Well, not quite clockwork. More as irregular as a Rolex manufactured in Taiwan. The cargo went on different days of the month. Different times. Different routes. Even different amounts of money. Sometimes as much as thirty-million quid, sometimes as little as ten. But one thing was certain. The notes had to be destroyed as they simply took up too much room at the bank. And nothing else but burning would do. That was the Treasury rules. No shredding, no pulping. The money, and more importantly, the special paper it was printed on, had to be destroyed. The first problem for anyone wanting to have a pop at this prize was finding out how much was going to be on board. If an attempt at a hijack was going to be made, it had better be a bumper bundle. Next, when exactly that particular truck was going to be on the move. They were all identical. Based on the chassis of a long wheel base Ford Transit, the bodies were steel lined, and the driver and his mate had no way of opening the rear doors. The third problem was the crew. That was vital, because Eddie needed someone on board who could be forced, by hook or by crook to work with the gang. Someone with a family, which Eddie intended to take hostage on the day of the robbery. Very risky. But it had been done before. The fourth was the actual route. And finally, what to do with a truckload of filthy dirty cash once you'd got hold of it. Even though the notes were thin and worn, that much cash wouldn't go into a suitcase.

Eddie had the answers to all of these dilemmas. Somehow, he'd got an inside man. He called him Deep Throat, after the Watergate whistle blower. Sadie had no idea Eddie had such a sense of humour. No actual name for the inside man was mentioned. Sadie guessed that by coercion, bribery, threat, or possibly all three, Eddie could find out the details of the drop. Next, a friend of a friend as Eddie called him, once again nameless, would take the cash at fifty pence to the pound no questions asked, with transport to be supplied by the purchaser.

There were just a few other snags. All the bank's trucks were fitted with the latest state-of-the-art satellite tracking system, and of course sophisticated communication between the vehicle and base. So anyone on the rob had to get inside the thing and disable all comms. That was why Eddie needed an unwilling accomplice on board.

Blimey, thought Sadie, not easy. But quite a coup if someone could get away with it.

The actual rip off was simplicity itself. When the route was known, which would be the day before, two JCB heavy-duty mobile earth moving shovels would trap the money truck front and back, the crew would be removed from the vehicle and one JCB would smash open the rear doors. The money that had been counted and bagged up at the bank, then put into cages would be removed and transferred to the gang's truck, the JCBs would be torched on site, and everyone would be a great deal richer.

End of story.

It was an audacious plan. If it worked it would net a lot of money, and if it failed… Well, nothing was perfect.

Sadie put down the book that Eddie had so carefully prepared. It was a four man job, and Sadie knew exactly who would be involved. But who would be the fourth man, now Eddie was banged up tight?

Right chaps, she thought. Time for a meet I think.

The next day she got in touch with Connie and told him they needed to get together, but gave no details.

He grudgingly agreed, as if Sadie was on the borrow, which in a way she was. She wanted the robbery to go ahead, succeed, and get Eddie's cut as the architect.