Wasted Years (12 page)

The Granada was reversing towards the front of the van, two wheels on the pavement, two on the road. A second car, a gray Volvo estate, swerved around the corner and headed towards the rear of the van fast. Before it had come to a standstill, three men, wearing track suits and costume masks, had jumped out.

The security man inside the van had started to leave, one leg over the tail, and now he was back inside, struggling to lock the doors. A blow with an iron bar fractured his wrist, a second, across his shins, fetched him to his knees.

The man in woman’s clothing forced the guard to walk backwards into the center of the bank. Two masked men sprinted past them, heading for the safe. The cashier nearest to them was barged aside.

“If anyone tries to be a hero, they can be the second to die. After this one here.”

Shotgun forcing back his head, the guard kept both eyes clenched tight.

Inside the security van, both men, helmets removed, back to back, had their mouths and eyes taped shut.

The contents of the safe were being emptied into double-strength polythene sacks.

By nine-nineteen it was over: a yield, per person, somewhere in excess of three thousand pounds per minute.

Resnick was on his way to a meeting with the Home Office pathologist. The remains of a middle-aged man’s body had been found in some woods northeast of the city and the possibility was that they might correspond with a missing person case Resnick had been working on. They were almost there when the news came over the radio. He leaned forward and touched his driver on the shoulder, instructing him to turn round. Parkinson and his corpse would have to wait.

“Boss, you want Kev and me back out at the Meadows or what?” Divine was on the first landing of the police station, eager and open-mouthed.

“Get a couple of uniforms round there,” Resnick said, hurrying past. “You’ll be needed on this.”

In the CID room phones were ringing, some being answered. The furniture had been replaced, the boards—save those in Resnick’s office—had been relaid. It was as cold as before, if not colder.

Lynn Kellogg rose from her desk to intercept him. “Just had a call from the hospital. Harry Foreman, seems he’s out of danger.”

The concern that had leaped to Resnick’s eyes faded almost as fast. “Thankful for that, at least. Make a note to get out there and take a statement.”

“Today?”

Resnick was already moving on. “I doubt it.”

Reg Cossall appeared alongside him in the long corridor, matching Resnick step for step. “What I hear, this is the same team, buggers’ve changed their MO. Christ knows what we’re dealing with now. Bunch of bloody transvestites wearing Mickey Mouse masks. Next we know, sodding students’ll be putting their hands up, stunt for charity. Rag week. Awareness of tossing AIDS.”

Resnick pushed open the door to the incident room and let his fellow Dl enter before him. Most of the chairs were already taken and the air was thickening with smoke. An officer was pinning Polaroids of the two abandoned cars, the Granada and the Volvo, to the board on the side wall, beside the map showing the route of the gang’s escape—that which was certain, that which was conjecture. On a second map the location of the robbery had been newly flagged, joining the five others.

Out front, Malcolm Grafton was shuffling through his desk of six-by-four cards prior to the briefing. Alongside him, Jack Skelton was rehearsing what he would say in front of the TV cameras in an hour’s time, wondering if he had made the correct decision in going with the double-breasted blazer instead of the suit.

The door opened again and Detective Inspector Helen Siddons came into the room, acknowledging both Resnick and Cossall with a nod, before moving towards the far end of the rows of chairs.

“Looking for a bloke in drag,” Cossall muttered, “there’s our man.”

Malcolm Grafton coughed a few times and brought the meeting to order. Jack Skelton got to his feet and began to speak.

“Hundred and twenty thousand,” Darren said. “More, depending which version you heard.”

Keith’s face showed no understanding; his skin was the color of old putty and his eyes were glazed over.

“What’s up with you?” Darren said. “Don’t you ever listen to the news?”

Keith shook his head: not quickly, not far.

“Over a hundred grand in the time it takes you to wipe your arse.”

Across the kitchen, Rylands turned his head, but decided to say nothing. He hadn’t taken to Darren the first time he set eyes on him, less than five minutes ago when a hammering had brought him to the front door, Darren standing there like a skinhead with a serious personality problem.

“Hey, look,” Darren said now. “You got a radio over there. Switch it on, bet there’s some bulletin. Something new.”

He was staring at Rylands, pointing at the portable Sanyo on top of the fridge.

“It doesn’t work,” Rylands said. “Needs new batteries.”

It had needed batteries for weeks and he’d bought a fresh set, EverReadies, last time he’d been to the corner shop, but he’d be buggered if he was going to let Darren know that. Ordering him around in his own house. He wanted to find out the news, let him spend his own money, buy a paper.

“Less than ten minutes,” Darren was saying to Keith, “and they were out of there with over a hundred thousand quid. You know how come?”

Keith squinted up at him. “’Cause they planned it?”

“Course they planned it, lamebrain. That’s not what I meant.”

“Less of the names,” Rylands said.

“They got away with it,” Darren went on “because they didn’t go in empty-handed. They were tooled up. They had a gun. Shotgun. No one argues with that.”

“Who d’you think you are?” Rylands said. “You ever stop to listen to yourself? Something out of
The Untouchables?
”

“What the fuck’s that when it’s out?”

“See what I mean? Don’t even know you’re born.”

“Come on,” Darren said, moving back towards the kitchen door. “We’re getting out of here.”

“Keith’s not well,” Rylands said. “He’s not going anywhere.”

“Bollocks.”

“I am feeling rough,” Keith said.

Darren took hold of the front of his sweater and hauled him to his feet. “Let’s go.”

“You,” Rylands said. “Let him alone.”

Darren’s face tightened, eyes suddenly tense and dark—then he laughed. “C’mon, Keith,” he said, still looking at Rylands with the cocky grin the laugh had become. “We’re off.”

“Keith …” Rylands started.

“’S’all right, I’ll be fine.”

Rylands turned back to where he was washing dishes at the sink. The water was already turning cold, the surface swimming in grease. Bits of bacon rind and fragments of eggshell nudged against his fingers. If that was the sort Keith was knocking round with, no wonder he was in trouble.

“Did you hear what happened at that bank?” Marjorie Carmichael said to Lorna as she was unlocking the front door after lunch. “Shotguns and everything. We were lucky that didn’t happen to us.”

It was only then that Lorna realized who it was had come up to her the previous evening, asking if they were still open, promising that he would be back.

Eighteen

“You weren’t serious, were you? What you said before?”

“Before what?” Darren was concentrating on getting his score over eleven thousand, his previous best on this machine.

“You know, about … well, you know.”

“Look, either spit it out or stop going on and on. You’re putting me off.”

“I meant,” Keith said, “about the gun.”

“Hey! Why not yell it out a bit louder, might be a couple of blokes over the back never heard what you said.” Concentration shot, game over, Darren had been well and truly zapped. “There, see. See what you done?”

Back on the pavement, blinking at the light, Darren ran a hand across the top of his head; his hair had a nice feel to it now, not brittle but soft, a soft fuzz less than half an inch thick.

“Something you got to understand,” he said, “I’m not going to spend the rest of my life just hanging round, pulling jobs for a few quid. That’s what you want you better say so now. Me, I’m going to do something with my life. Get some money, real money, get noticed.”

With a quick hunch of his shoulders Darren headed off towards Slab Square and, after a few moments’ hesitation, Keith hurried after him.

“So what do you think, Marjorie? Do you think I should get in touch with the police and tell them or what?”

It had to be the fourth time Lorna had asked—more or less the same question, more or less the same words—fourth or fifth time in the last hour. Lorna, not wanting to appear too anxious, too nervous either. “Lorna,” Marjorie had said, “I don’t want to be rude or anything, but you don’t think you’re being a little paranoid?”

Is that what she was? Or was it the opportunity to spend some more time with Kevin Naylor that had her seeing the would-be robbery merchant in otherwise innocent people?

“It’s a shame Becca isn’t here,” Marjorie said. “She’d know what to do.”

Becca knew what to do all right: stay home, send in a sick note, and work hard for the sympathy vote. Good riddance, Lorna thought; she and Marjorie could manage the branch fine without her pernickety assistance.

No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t conjure up the youth’s face, not exactly—the hair and the nose and the eyes but not a whole face. The walk, though, she could picture that, the slow, cocky strut along the pavement—wasn’t that the same walk as the one towards her counter, only the day before?

Here, fill that. Don’t keep me waiting.

Well, call in another time, eh?

“I’m going to do it,” Lorna said, and reached for the phone. The number was on the card that Kevin Naylor had given to her.

“I’m sorry,” Lynn Kellogg said, responding to the call. “He’s not here at the moment. Can I take a message?”

“Yes,” Lynn said, when Lorna had finished. “I’ll be sure that he gets it. I can’t promise when he’ll be able to get back to you, though. It’s pretty hectic here today.”

Lorna put down the receiver, looked into Marjorie’s fleshy, inquiring face, and forced a smile. “Well, that’s that. Nothing else I can do now.”

Naylor had been thinking about his conversation with Divine, Mark sitting there in the car, giving advice for all the world as if, where relationships were concerned, he knew something about it. And then parading this scuzzy list of one-night stands and knee tremblers as some kind of proof that he understood women. What Divine knew about women could be written on the inside of a toilet door and usually was.

“Be hard,” Divine had said. “Stand firm, it’s the only way. Whatever you do, don’t let on you care.”

Yes, Naylor thought, and see where that’s got you.

The longest relationship Divine had ever had with a woman came in short of ten minutes.

It seemed likely that after abandoning the Volvo and the Granada, the gang had doubled back on themselves, possibly using as many as four other vehicles. The only one not wearing a mask was variously described as a slim male, aged between eighteen and twenty-five, and an attractive young woman wearing rather heavy eye shadow and with the faintest suggestion of a moustache. The masks the others had worn had been stolen from a party wear and fancy dress shop the night before and comprised Mickey Mouse, Michael Jackson, the Amazing Spiderman, and the Sheriff of Nottingham. The charred remains of what appeared to be several track suits and trainers, together with what could previously have been polystyrene masks, had been found on a patch of waste ground close to the A60, north of Loughborough. The ashes were on their way to the forensic laboratory without a great deal of hope attached.

The possible identity of the young villain not averse to disguising himself as a woman was currently testing the resources of the Home Office computer.

When Resnick came into the CID room, the remains of a toasted ham and cheese sandwich in the paper bag clutched in his left hand, Graham Millington was slumped back in his chair, overcoat on, hat on, feet on his desk, asleep. Even the first two rings of the telephone failed to wake him.

“Resnick. CID.”

Of all the people it might have been, one of the last he would have expected was Rylands.

“No,” Resnick said, after listening for several moments. “No, that’s okay. I’ll come to you. Half-hour to an hour. Yes. Goodbye.”

When he set the receiver down, Millington was stirring, embarrassed to be discovered asleep.

“Sorry, I don’t know what …”

“Doesn’t matter, Graham, one of those days. Why don’t you get off home? Nothing much else any of us can hope for tonight.”

Millington, who, one way and another, had been on duty since before four that morning, didn’t need to be asked twice. “Reg Cossall said to pass on a message, reckoned you know what it was about. Bloke you were talking about the other night, word is, he’s likely to get his parole.”

Well, so Resnick had been wrong.

“Bad news?”

“Maybe not,” Resnick said. “I’m not sure.”

Millington resettled his trilby on his head. “Get back now, might be able to watch a bit of snooker before the wife gets back from Russian.”

“Taken against it, has she?”

“Not that so much. She’ll have me taking off the tiles in the bathroom. Reckons on changing them for that Italian blue.”

“G’night, Graham.”

Resnick rustled around for what remained of his sandwich, listening to Millington’s whistling the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy,” fading and off-key.

The pub used to be crammed full of medics from the nearby hospital, laughter and large gins and well-honed accents that cut through the ambient sound like scalpels. Now the health authority had shut the place down and sold the site to a consortium of developers whose plans ranged from high-income architect-designed flats to a covered piazza. It not only left the pub quieter, it made it quicker to get in a round of drinks.

Lynn Kellogg’s turn, spotting Naylor enter before she’d finished her order and asking for an extra pint.

“Message for you,” she said, passing Naylor his Shipstone’s. “Lorna Solomon. The building society raid. Will you get back to her. Here, she left her home number as well.”