The Camberwell Raid (20 page)

‘And think about what I mentioned ages ago, about buyin’ a house and not renting one all your life,’ said Sammy. ‘Renting’s hard-earned money down the drain. And don’t forget to arrange yourself in the position of being Cassie’s better half.’

‘Believe me, I won’t forget,’ said Freddy, ‘but the thing is, Cassie might do some of her own arranging.’

‘I sympathize, Freddy, I sympathize,’ said Sammy, and left.

IT WAS TWENTY-EIGHT
minutes past three in the afternoon, and the bank in the Walworth Road was about to close its door to customers. The last one had just left. The last, that is, except for two persons sitting at the table that was provided for depositors to write out a cheque or fill in a pay-in slip. They looked like professional gentlemen in suits of clerical grey and smart bowler hats worn over dark hair. Both also wore glasses and fine kid gloves. The broader gent had a thick black moustache, the other a neat black one. The latter was taking time to write out a cheque. The former had a long flat item wrapped in brown paper beside his chair, and a brown Gladstone bag on his lap.

One of the two cashiers ventured to say the bank was closing any moment. The person with the thick moustache got up and said, ‘Oh, we’ll close it for you.’ Which induced the other person to rise swiftly and to approach the counter with the cheque, while Dusty Miller of the thick moustache walked smartly to the door and put the catch down.

‘Excuse me,’ protested the cashier, and his colleague frowned.

‘Don’t say a word or ring any bells,’ said Dusty Miller. Both cashiers gaped then, for a revolver with a silencer was suddenly in chilling evidence. Ginger Carstairs was pointing it through the grille at the
elder
cashier, a slightly balding bank employee. ‘See what I mean?’ said Dusty, and executed an excellent leap that took him up onto the counter, from where he looked down on the cashiers. He dropped the Gladstone bag in the lap of the balding clerk, now ashen-faced. ‘Fill it with all you’ve both got in your tills,’ he said, ‘and fill it fast, or you’ll get your face blown in. And not a word to mother, eh? Right, get filling.’

Temporary paralysis came to an end, and both cashiers opted for safety first in the face of the steady and wicked-looking revolver. Cold eyes stared at them from behind horn-rimmed spectacles as they emptied their tills of banknotes, wads of them, most neatly banded in units of a hundred pounds.

‘Faster, you buggers,’ growled Dusty Miller, poised on the counter and looking down on the hasty but fumbling transfer of the banknotes from tills into the Gladstone bag. Ginger Carstairs said not a word, but concentrated on frightening the cashiers to death. The tills were quickly emptied. ‘Right, hand it up,’ said Miller, and it was lifted to him. Behind partitions and walls was the faint sound of the rest of the bank staff at work. ‘Now, keep your mouths shut for five minutes before you yell for mother, or you’ll still cop a packet. Understood?’

The shaken cashiers nodded. Miller leapt down with the Gladstone bag, Carstairs backed from the counter, revolver still aimed, and picked up the slat of wood that was wrapped in brown paper. Miller made for the door, released the catch and opened it, at which point Freddy appeared.

‘Thanks,’ he said, ‘thought I’d left it too late.’ He slipped past Miller, but Carstairs clubbed him
with
the revolver. Luckily, haste made it a glancing blow that struck the side of his cap first, but it staggered him and sent him to the floor. Out went Carstairs in the wake of Miller, who turned and pulled the door shut. Carstairs, revolver tucked away, slammed the wrapped slat of wood into position. The door handle broke through the wrapping, and Dusty then pushed a long nail through the slat at a point marked with a blob of ink. Ginger drove it into the door with one solid whack from a hammer. Then, the hammer pocketed, they turned and walked side by side at a brisk pace, the Gladstone bag swinging, their grey suits and bowlers giving them the appearance of City gents who had found a reason to do a bit of financial business in Walworth.

Two CID officers, a detective-inspector and a detective-sergeant, were travelling in a new Austin police car delivered only that morning to their Camberwell station. The supply of cars to facilitate and expedite police work was increasing. The officers, who had been out on a test run, were now heading back to Camberwell along the Walworth Road.

Inside the bank, Freddy climbed shakily to his feet, his painful head of very little account in comparison with his rage. One could have said Freddy was an amiable young man who let the world go by without exhibiting any desire to muck it about. But if anything could make him turn primitive, it was vicious bullies or people who perpetrated grievous bodily harm in pursuit of villainy. He knew he’d have been out cold if the blow had landed squarely. The morale-shattered cashiers were raising the alarm now, and out came
the
chief clerk, rushing at the door. It couldn’t be opened, it was stuck fast.

‘Phone the police, phone the police!’ he shouted, the bank now alive with outraged staff.

‘Where’s another way out?’ bawled the furious Freddy.

‘Here, this way,’ called a clerk, and Freddy, not bothering to nurse his bruised head, dashed through the door that had been opened by the chief clerk, who called after him.

‘Wait, wait, who the devil are you?’

‘They hit him,’ called the balding cashier, as shaken as Freddy was bruised, ‘and it’s upset him. He’s after them and he’ll recognize them.’

Freddy, shown the way, emerged into Cadiz Street. As he did so, a baker’s van, dark blue, passed him, going towards the Walworth Road. With the driving section of the vehicle open on both sides, Freddy gaped. Bloody hell, there they were, as large as life, one at the wheel, the other with the Gladstone bag on the floor behind his legs. Freddy noted the baker’s name, ‘Joseph Roberts’, then shook his aching head, ignored what it did to him, and pounded after the vehicle. It turned left into the Walworth Road, filtering into the traffic. Freddy reached the corner at a moment when it was passing by and a very pretty girl was waiting to cross the road. She might have diverted him, for she was a little like Cassie, but he was too insane in his rage, and he wanted to bawl at the driver of a slow-moving tram, ‘Follow that van!’

He saw the vehicle move to the centre of the road, indicating it was going to make a right turn. It slowed. Oncoming traffic was against it. Freddy guessed it was intending to turn into John Ruskin Street, a little
way
on from Fielding Street. Precisely at that point in the event, the police car reached Cadiz Street, slowing up because of the tram, which had halted and was letting passengers off. The chief clerk arrived then, having gone after Freddy in the knowledge that he was an important witness. He saw the police car, now at a stop, and he rapped urgently on the passenger window. Freddy put himself beside him. The window was wound down, and the plainclothes detective-inspector barked, ‘What’s the trouble?’

‘The bank’s been robbed by two men, we’re ringing your people, and this young man—’

‘They’re in that baker’s van, the blue one, name of Joseph Roberts,’ interrupted Freddy, with the chief clerk listening.

‘What van?’

Freddy took a look. The van had made its distant turn and had disappeared. Freddy pulled open the rear door of the police car and threw himself in.

‘John Ruskin Street,’ he said, ‘they’ve just turned into John Ruskin Street. Would you mind gettin’ after them fast? I can point their van out for you. They’ve hurt my bloody head with a revolver, and I want them caught.’

The inspector, turning in his seat, took a quick shrewd look at Freddy, then said to his sergeant, ‘Go, man, go.’

Traffic behind, held up by the stationary police car, was getting impatient. A horn sounded. The police car shot away then, its bell clanging.

Freddy said again that the name on the van was Joseph Roberts, that he’d seen it when it was passing him in Cadiz Street.

‘Sod it, street kids,’ hissed Miller as Carstairs drove
along
John Ruskin Street at a steady speed. The governing tactic was not to burn up the road, not to rush like the clappers and draw attention to themselves. A baker’s van, proceeding steadily, would attract no curious glances. It would, probably, hardly be noticed. But there were too many street kids about for Miller’s liking, all the same. Some schools had broken up for Easter. While there was no need to scorch along, they couldn’t afford to dawdle. Miller growled his current dislike of street kids.

‘Calm down,’ said Carstairs, ‘we’re on course.’ Nevertheless, the kids had to be watched. They were playing their games and mucking about all over the place. ‘Kids don’t bother me as much as traffic jams. Walworth Road can be a curse when you’re in a hurry. We’re right for time, even—’

‘Watch out!’ breathed Miller, cursing the possibility of an accident that would ruin the day for them.

Carstairs swerved around a saucy boy kid who was yards from the pavement and who put his thumb to his nose as the van went by. Miller, hiding his temper, managed to wink at him through his spectacles.

‘I’ll get that one when he’s older,’ said Carstairs, thin lips hardly moving. ‘What was I on about? Yes, even though that interfering sod in the cap could have messed up our timetable, we’re where we should be right now.’

‘You copped him a blinder,’ said Miller.

‘Serve him bloody right,’ said Carstairs, avoiding all possible contact with the more devilish kids. On the van went, and it was only thirty yards from Camberwell New Road when the sound of a clanging bell reached their ears. ‘What’s that, ambulance, fire-engine or what?’

Leaning, Miller poked out his head and looked back.

‘Christ,’ he said, ‘it’s or-bloody-what, it’s a police car, it’s just turned in from the Walworth Road. Move, Ginger, move!’

Carstairs accelerated, then braked for the left turn into Camberwell New Road.

The police car, clanging, sped in pursuit, Freddy having sighted the van.

‘That’s the one,’ he said, leaning forward on the back seat.

Kids stared at the oncoming car. The van, way ahead, turned into Camberwell New Road. The police car came on fast, kids scattering out of its noisy way. It was when the car was a mere few yards from the turn that two young boys ran from the lefthand pavement into its path. The detective-sergeant braked hard, the tyred wheels screeched and the car skidded, mounting the pavement just at the corner of Camberwell Road. Freddy, thrown about, still managed to glimpse the van as it turned right into Flodden Road, but the incident had given the bank robbers an advantage they weren’t aware of.

A minute later, they entered Denmark Hill. Somewhere behind, a bell began to clang again.

‘Bugger it,’ said Carstairs.

‘Same here,’ said Miller, and swore under his breath.

‘Plan cancelled for the time being,’ said Carstairs. ‘They’ll catch us before we reach the lock-up and the station. We need a hideaway before they hit Denmark Hill.’

The police car, having been backed off the pavement and turned, had actually only just resumed
the
chase, and by the time it entered Flodden Road, under Freddy’s guidance, the van was well up Denmark Hill, Miller looking back for signs of the pursuit.

‘How the hell did it get on our tail so fast?’ he growled.

‘More to the point, how the hell do we lose it?’ said Carstairs.

Traffic was light on the hill, and there was not a single pedestrian about Carstairs saw an escape route on the other side of the road. Miller almost left his seat as the van took a sharp right-angle turn, Carstairs driving it through the open gate of a wide entrance drive, damaging a low protruding branch of one of a series of young trees forming a hedge from the top of the drive down to the bottom of the back garden. On the van went, passing the side of a large handsome house called ‘The Manor’. Carstairs braked and spun the wheel to make a tight left turn before the van launched itself into a flower border of the back garden. It pulled up on the crazy paving of a patio at the rear of the house, shuddering to a stop outside French windows.

What had been speeding up the hill one moment was out of sight the next, hidden behind the large handsome house.

Approaching the hill from Bessemer Road, the clanging police car stopped. There was a woman standing on the corner. The inspector, window down, called to her, asking if she’d seen a blue van, a baker’s van. Yes, she called back, she had.

‘Which way did it go, left or right?’

‘Right It’s gone up the hill.’

‘Many thanks.’

The car resumed the chase again, Freddy’s bruised temple aching.

Vi was ready to put the kettle on. Alice and David would be home from school soon, and, as always, she’d give them cups of tea and slices of cake. Paul too. He was poring over a picture book at the moment, his lips moving as he did his best to read large-print captions. Vi and Tommy were helping him with his alphabet and with simple words before he began attending school himself. Tomorrow, Alice and David’s school was breaking up for Easter. Vi liked Easter, it was always a kind of leap into spring, sometimes showery, sometimes breezy and sometimes lovely. She hoped it would be lovely for the weddings of Cassie and Freddy, and Sally and Horace. The Adams families had only just got to know Horace, but approval was general. He was a bit like Annabelle’s Nick, sort of vigorous and cheerful, which was bound to appeal to the Adamses. They didn’t go much on young men who were a bit like wet weekends.

A strange noise disturbed her. It seemed to begin at the side of the house and to continue round to the garden, following which silence fell. Vi went through from the kitchen to the spacious sitting-room. She stopped dead. Visible through the closed French windows was a baker’s van. A what? I’m dreaming, she thought, or I’m seeing things. A van in the back garden, on our new crazy paving? George the gardener might have had something to say about that. He always considered it was as much his garden as hers and Tommy’s, but it was his weekly half-day off.