Billy Rags (18 page)

I'll be coming to see you on Saturday,

Love,

Mother

In the badminton yard, at ground level, there was a wide ventilation shaft, six foot square. It was surrounded by a seven-foot-high wall. The shaft was covered by a horizontal grille. Padlocked. Occasionally the shuttlecock would drop down the shaft and we'd have to fish it out with a weighted hook. But when we'd gone fishing nobody ever realised that this shaft connected up with Tommy's tunnel, the one that led from the cellar. The tunnel was four foot high, and you would have to crawl about fifteen feet along it to get to the ventilation shaft in the badminton yard. The entrance from the cellars to the tunnel naturally was barred. Not padlocked. Just barred. And now it didn't matter how many padlocks and bars there were en route. We had a way out. Padlocks and bars were beside the point. So we'd go from the shower to the cellar and along the tunnel and up the air shaft and out into the badminton court.

The badminton yard had a roof.

The roof was high, vaulted. Plastic, fibre-glass type transparent roofing. Far too high to get at from the court. But once on that roof you could drop down and it was just a rope's throw to the top of the outside wall.

The roofing was a tight fit all round the yard. But at one point the inverted peak of the roofing ran across the face of the library window. The library so-called was just a cell with wooden shelving to hold the books and a small barred window the same as in every other cell. But this was the only window on the wing that gave any kind of access to the edge of the plastic roofing in order to make a hole in it. Which was what we planned to do. Rip a hole in the roofing, suspend a sheet rope from the library window down in to the badminton yard, up the rope, through the hole in the roof, across the office roof where it backed on to the wall, swing the hook to the top of the wall.

And over.

“The padlock's no sweat,” I said. “We can bust that any time. What we need is a hacksaw for the bars in the cellar. The only way is to get one of the others to fetch one out of the shop, sod it.”

“No sweat,” said Tommy. “I've already got one. I've had it ever since the island. I brought it up hidden in the folds of the box I carried my gear in.”

I could have kissed the bastard.

“So we don't even have to row in Walter for that,” I said.

“No,” said Tommy.

I lit a cigarette.

“Have you noticed how Walter's been sticking close to us the last few days?” I said.

“He's been living up our arseholes.”

“Right. He knows something's on. So he's got to be scotched. And what better way than by bringing him in?”

“How do you mean?”

“What I say. We tell him everything. We tell him about the tunnel, the shaft, exactly what we're going to do. Except we leave out the hacksaw. We go to him and we say, Wally, it's bloody lovely, we'll all soon be over the wall and it'll be fucking not wanking but there's just this one snag, we need a hacksaw. Now as you spend a lot of time in the machine shop we reckon that one's down to you, Wally, all right? And then while Wally's figuring out how to get us the hacksaw, we've already sawn through and whenever we choose to go it won't matter. Wally won't be able to believe it. He'll still be in hospital next Christmas. What do you say to that, Tommy?”

“Fair,” said Tommy. “Quite fair.”

“Fair?” I said. “It's bleeding brilliant.”

“So there it is, Wally,” I said. “Almost there. All we need is the saw.”

Walter pursed his lips and folded his arms and generally got himself comfortable: all set to do the big thinker bit.

“Just the bars you say, Billy,” he said.

“That's right, Walter. The padlock's a doddle. The important part is the bars. Everything rests on getting through them.”

“Mm,” said Walter. “A hacksaw. Won't be easy.”

“I know, Walter. But that's what we need. That's what you've got to get us.”

“Difficult,” he said.

“I know.”

“Getting one out of the shop. If they tumbled, then we'd never get out.”

“Risky.”

“Might be safer bringing one in.”

“Could be.”

“Gearing's brother might do it.”

“Why not ask Gearing?”

“I might do that. That might be best. I'll have a think about it.”

“Thanks, Walter.”

There was no need for us to go down into the cellar again. The next time we went we wouldn't be coming back up. But we kept the shower hole open to stash the things we'd be taking out with us. Tommy had already cut through the bars to the tunnel and done the padlocks. All they needed was bending back. Everything was perfect. On his travels in the cellar Tommy had even found half a step-ladder that would come in handy for when we went up the shaft. I'd knocked up two sheet ropes, one for dangling out of the library window, the other for getting on the wall. I tied this rope to a broom handle which I'd attached to one of the five pound weights from the weight lifting gear. It would fix to the top of the wall a treat. But just the same I hadn't forgotten Burnham and with Tommy minding I tried out the pendulum on the brick partition walls in the showers, just to get the feel of it.

Like everything else, it was just perfect.

“How's the hacksaw coming, Wally?” I said.

“Gearing saw his brother on Saturday. He's bringing one in next weekend.”

“Next weekend?” I said. “Christ, the screws might have tumbled the hole by then.”

“Well, what else can I do?”

“Dunno, Wally. But we can't do anything till we get that hacksaw.”

“What do you want me to do? Bring one out of the shop and get us all bleeding rumbled?”

“Dunno, Wally. The hacksaw's your department. We knew it'd be dicey. That's why we gave the job to you.”

“Well, all right, do you want to try and bring one out of the shop?”

“Better wait for Gearing's brother, Wally. Don't want us all getting nicked at this late stage, do we?”

“For Christ's sake, that's what I've just been telling you!”

“So you did, Walter,” I said. “And you know what? You were dead right, as usual.”

The library was just another cell with shelves. It was never kept locked. I was always using it so there was nothing suspicious about being in there.

I walked over to the window and looked out. The plastic roofing butted up perfectly to the window's brick surround. I got up to the window and felt the plastic. It was very brittle stuff. The hole had to be made before we went. Breaking through it would make too much noise at night, when the nick was quiet. It had to be done now. This was our biggest risk. Tommy was minding outside the library for me, so that part was covered. The danger was a screw just off-chancing it into the badminton court below.

Feeling the roof I realised that I had to make the hole in one go. Two shots at it and we'd be dead: people hear a strange noise and they wait for it to happen again and when it doesn't they usually dismiss it. But that doesn't apply to a nick. The screws sniff at anything. So I had to make the hole in one then run like fuck. They might discover what had made the noise but they certainly weren't going to discover me standing next to it.

I stuck my arms through the bars and flexed my fingers on the material. I concentrated all my power into my wrists. Then I twisted.

The roofing made a sound like machine-gun fire. The noise racketed round the well of the badminton court and bounced all over the roofing.

I hurtled out of the library. Tommy had already gone.

I found him down in his cell.

“Christ, Billy,” he said. “I thought Gabriel had farted.”

We waited.

Nothing happened. We'd pulled another one.

The Wolseley veers right and crashes into the side of the van. In front of us the Standard makes the sandwich. The bang of vehicle on vehicle echoes up the street. The car doors burst open and some of us go to work with the coshes and the handles while two others belt the back doors of the van with hammers. But two of our boys go down and the wages boys pick up their sticks and start laying into us. Two more down and the back doors are still holding. Then beyond the traffic sound comes the noise of the bell. The two at the back of the van drop their hammers and race back for the Wolseley. I shout at them to stay but then the others start to take flight too and there is only me, staving off the blows from the wages boys with a handle. The police car sways into view, in front of the Wolseley. The Wolseley is moving towards the police car. The police car swings round broadside on, leaving no room for the Wolseley to get by. The Wolseley reverses. Policemen pile out of the police car and chase after the reversing Wolseley. The Wolseley clouts the wages van. Doors fly open and everybody scrambles out again, taking off past me in the opposite direction and as they pass I get a bar over my head and I fall to the ground, spewing all over. Hands grasp my clothes and haul me to my feet and I begin to get a real fitting up but the next moment the hands release me and the punching stops and everybody stands stock still. Somebody has started exercising a shooter. Two shots. One of the coppers is rolling around on the deck, trying to hold his kneecap together, gurgling, part scream, part vomit. The other coppers make for the nearest cover, behind the wages van. Two more shots. Screams up the street, women trying to cram through shop doorways. The boys are away. I smile. Then the next thing is I get the handle over my head again and it's all over.

Tobin keeps coming to see me with the same dialogue.

“I know who they are, Billy. That's not important. I want to know who was carrying the shooter.”

“If you know who they are why not pull them in and ask them. Or are you afraid they might turn out to be on Wally's firm?”

“It's the shooter man I want, Billy.”

“What shooter man?”

Then one time he comes a different tack.

“You know how much you're likely to cop for this time, don't you, Billy. With your form. It's going to be the big one this time.”

“It really should have acted as a deterrent, shouldn't it?”

“Be as funny as you like. It won't change a thing. You're going down heavy. Of course you may not have to. You give me the hero with the shooter and I might be able to fix the court.”

“Oh yes. I can just see it. I give you the name and straightaway wallop the judge knows sod all about the odd few years he's supposed to be knocking off me.”

“Wouldn't be like that, Billy. Not at all like that. We could work it so you gave us the name in court, so we'd both know we're safe.”

“Why only the shooter man? Why not the rest as well?”

“Doesn't matter. The shooter man will give us the others, won't he? He'd want some time off, too.”

“And my time. What would I get off?”

“Half.”

“Half. You're joking.”

“I could get you down to, say, eight. Good behaviour, you'd be out in six at the most.”

“And you think I'd do it. You think I'd shop mates just to get myself time off?”

“You're like everybody else, Billy. You're no different. You take your chances but you don't want to do any more than you have to. Why should you? You probably didn't know the stupid bastard was tooled up, anyway. Why do time for him as well?”

“Well you know me. Never did have time for that kind of stuff. Takes all the excitement out of things”

So I let Tobin think I'm set on the idea. In court, his face is a picture when I keep buttoned up. But then it's too late to reverse the wheels. Everything's fixed and stuck fast. I get my eight years and Tobin gets fuck all. But even so, eight years is eight years. I'm outside again in six months.

I decided that Terry was the only one we could trust. The others we would leave. So when Tommy and Terry and I were together in Tommy's cell I brought the matter up and told him how far we'd got.

“It's perfect, Terry,” I said. “It can't miss. Just me, you and Tommy. What do you say?”

“I dunno, Billy,” he said. “I don't reckon it, really.”

“How do you mean? I've told you, it's going to work.”

“Maybe,” he said. “But I don't think I'll bother.”

I began to think we'd made a mistake. I began to smell Walter.

“Why not, exactly, Terry?” I said.

Terry shrugged.

“Nowhere to go, have I? No firm to go to. No bird. No family. What's the fucking point?”

“Is that right?” I said.

“Don't worry,” he said. “It isn't Wally. I just don't want to go. There's no point, that's all.”

I didn't say anything. Tommy said: “I believe him, Billy. I've seen this before.”

“So have I,” I said. “I was just wondering why he hasn't told us how he felt before.”

“Why should I?” Terry said. “I've done my bit to help. What I think's my own business.”

“He's right, Billy,” said Tommy.

“All right, so he's right,” I said. “I'm just bearing Walter in mind. You never know how he's going to pull his strokes.”

“Talking about Walter . . .” Tommy said.

I looked at him.

“What about Walter?” I said.

“I was thinking,” Tommy said. “In the light of Terry leaving himself out. It means that now we're going to have to go blind.”

“Now look . . .”

“No, listen to me, Billy. I'm right. We can do what we like when we get the other side of that wall, we can put the bar over his head in the cellar and leave him down there if you can't wait that long. But we can't go out blind. There's only Ray left and do you trust him? We may as well put Wally in and leave out the suspense.”