The Camberwell Raid (23 page)

Miller and Carstairs waited. Tommy’s family waited. The minute hand crept slowly on.

When it came, the sound of the front door opening, Alice and David both visibly quivered, and Alice’s teeth took a tight hold of her bottom lip. It was only David who spoke.

‘That’s our dad,’ he said.

‘Call him,’ hissed Miller to Vi.

Vi got up. Carstairs opened the door. Vi, swallowing again to prevent her voice from cracking, called.

‘We’re in here, Tommy.’

Tommy, hanging his hat on the hallstand, walked through the hall into the sitting-room and found himself looking at a silencer fixed to a steely-blue revolver. Above it, icy grey eyes stared at him through spectacles. The children gasped at the sight of the revolver, and Vi’s blood ran cold.

‘Glad you got here at last, mister,’ said Miller.

‘What the hell are you two doin’ here, what’re you up to?’ asked Tommy. ‘And take that thing away,’ he said to Carstairs. ‘You crazy, or what? Vi, what’s been ’appening?’

‘Tommy, they—’

‘Shut up,’ said Miller.

Tommy’s jaw tightened. He had never looked into the vicious threat of a revolver before, but that did not disturb him as much as the fear and fright now undisguised on the faces of his wife and children. A cold but controlled fury took hold of him.

‘I wouldn’t be in your shoes if you’ve done anything to hurt my wife and kids,’ he said.

‘Don’t be a squirt, mister,’ said Miller, ‘your wife knows there’s been no trouble, nor will there be unless you get an idea you can be a hero. Heroes make me throw up. Is your car outside?’

Tommy gave him a ferocious look. Vi sensed the extent of his fury and the effort he was making to keep it under control. She prayed for him, for all of them. He glanced at Ginger Carstairs, a plain-faced
character
with thin lips, a jutting nose and a small moustache.

‘What’s it to you where my car is?’ said Tommy to Miller. ‘And what’s Charlie Chaplin’s cousin wavin’ a gun about for? What is he, a cowboy comic?’

A flicker of rage momentarily distorted the hitherto expressionless countenance of Ginger Carstairs.

‘He’s not waving it, mister, he’s holding it nice and steady, and it’s aimed right between your eyes,’ said Miller. ‘You just make sure it doesn’t go off bang, if you see what I mean. For a start, he won’t like you saying he looks like Charlie Chaplin.’

‘Well, let him speak for ’imself,’ said Tommy, brain working rapidly as he played for the time he needed to make up his mind about what to do. ‘Or has he got a gummed-up north-and-south?’

Carstairs’ thin lips tightened, and Miller scowled. What a pair of odd-looking misfits, thought Tommy, but I don’t need to be told they’re bloody dangerous.

Miller said, ‘Did I ask you, mister, if your car was outside? Yes, I did. So answer up.’

‘You leave my dad alone,’ burst out David.

‘Shut your mouth, kid,’ said Miller, and Tommy gave David a reassuring look.

‘The car’s outside in the drive,’ he said.

‘That’s better,’ said Miller. ‘Well, it’s like this. See my friend there? Yes, that’s him. The two of us need the car. Don’t mind if we borrow it, do you? Makes no difference, of course, if you’re going to raise an objection, we need it and we’ll be taking it. Keys?’

‘Well, I’m a reasonable bloke,’ said Tommy, ignoring the threat of the revolver, ‘but as I’ve got a feelin’ I might not get the car back, I’d like to know what you want it for. I mean, is it for an
emergency
, like drivin’ your mothers to hospital for operations? Only you could get an ambulance for that, and use me phone to call one up.’

Miller’s stony look took on an extra ugliness. Oh, my God, thought Vi, they’ll kill Tommy in a minute if he keeps talking like that.

‘Mister, we don’t appreciate jokes,’ said Miller, ‘we’re after serious chat. Any more funny stuff, and you’ll get clouted by my friend. It’ll hurt. I asked for your car keys, so divvy up.’

‘You can tell me what you want the car for, can’t you?’ said Tommy. Carstairs gave him a vicious dig in his chest with the revolver. Alice uttered a little cry of distress, David clenched his fists, and young Paul gazed dumbly. Tommy, chest bruised, said, ‘That’s bein’ serious, is it? See what you mean.’ He fished the car keys from his pocket and handed them to Miller.

‘Now why didn’t you do that when I first asked?’ said Miller.

‘Well, it takes a bloke time to think straight in this kind of set-up,’ said Tommy. ‘I’m not used to seeing my fam’ly ’aving to entertain people like you.’

‘That’s it, make me cry my eyes out,’ said Miller. ‘Now see here, we can all be reasonable. And you can afford to be, can’t you? It seems to me you’ve got money in the bank. Well, look at this place. Very handsome. Suppose you don’t get the car back, suppose it ends up in a Scottish bog? You can buy yourself another, I’d say.’

‘That’s where you’re takin’ it, are you, to Scotland?’ said Tommy.

‘Slip of the tongue,’ said Miller. It wasn’t, of course. A mention of Scotland by this family to the police would cast a very convenient red herring. ‘You be
reasonable
and we won’t take goody-two-shoes with us.’ He nodded at Alice. ‘Any hard stuff in the house?’

Tommy wished Boots, Sammy and Ned were at hand. He knew he could do little by himself. In any case, he had to avoid the kind of action that would provoke these buggers into taking it out on Vi and the kids. His brain began to work, to make him think straight.

‘You mean whisky?’ he said.

‘Thanks for the offer,’ said Miller, ‘we can do with a snifter. It’s been a bit tiring, looking after your wife and your brats, and we won’t be motoring off just yet. Your wife can bring the bottle and two glasses. You sit down with your kids.’

The gun gestured. Tommy sat down between Alice and Paul, putting an arm around the boy. He was thinking very straight now. Lilian Hyams had a wireless set in her design office. She liked to listen to the music programmes while she was working. Tommy, passing by after a short visit to the shop floor, heard the newsflash. Lilian’s door was open. He went in and they listened together to the account of the Camberwell bank robbery. He remembered now the description given of the crooks. Bloody hell, they were here, in his house, in their bowlers, spectacles and grey suits, and there was a Gladstone bag on the floor by the door. One man was tall and thickset, the other thin, but there was no difference in their stony looks. Bowler hats, grey suits and glasses, thought Tommy. City gents. Some hopes.

Vi went to fetch the whisky and the glasses from the cabinet in the living-room. Miller went with her. Tommy gritted his teeth.

‘Listen,’ he said to the thin dour character with the gun, ‘if you’re here to clean us out of what valuables we’ve got and then scarper, why don’t you get on with it? We’ll stay quiet, me and me fam’ly.’

‘Shut up,’ said Ginger Carstairs in a low-pitched, irritable growl.

Vi returned with the bottle of whisky and three glasses not two. Miller followed her, closing the door behind him, and the family felt locked in again.

‘I brought an extra glass,’ said Vi, and Tommy marvelled at her courage and her lack of hysterics. Could she possibly know these were bank robbers? Had she heard the news on the wireless? The set had been silent when he came in. ‘You’d like some whisky too, wouldn’t you, Tommy?’

‘You bet I would,’ said Tommy.

Miller glanced at Carstairs. Carstairs nodded.

‘All right,’ said Miller to Vi. ‘You pour.’

Vi put the glasses down on a table, then drew the cork from the whisky bottle.

Paul, gulping, said, ‘Could I have something, Mummy?’

‘I’ll get all of you some sherbet drinks,’ said Vi.

‘The kids can ’ave that, can’t they?’ said Tommy to Miller, and Miller glanced at Carstairs again. He received another nod.

‘Okay,’ he said, ‘but the whisky first.’

Vi poured a good measure into each of two glasses, and Tommy noted the slight tremble of her hand. Miller took up the two glasses and put one into Carstairs’ left hand. Vi poured a smaller measure for Tommy. Unlike Boots, he hadn’t yet acquired a taste for whisky, and Vi knew just a few mouthfuls would be as much as he wanted. If she was suffering,
she
felt he was suffering even more, simply because he was the man of the family and was responsible for all of them. The fact that he was as helpless as she was would be crucifying him.

‘There you are, love,’ she said, and handed him the glass. Tommy looked up into her eyes.

‘That’s my girl,’ he said. They’d had years of marriage, and Vi, because she was undemanding, had never had tantrums or complaints. In Tommy’s eyes, she was the best of the Adams wives. ‘Bless you, Vi,’ he said, and took a mouthful of the whisky. It fired his blood.

‘Bless you too, Tommy,’ said Vi. It was their favourite exchange.

‘Bless us all,’ said Alice bravely.

‘Give it a rest,’ said Miller sourly.

‘Can I get the sherbet drinks now?’ asked Vi.

‘I’ll get them,’ said Tommy.

‘You won’t,’ said Miller, ‘she will.’

He again accompanied Vi out of the room, and again Tommy gritted his teeth.

David muttered, ‘They’re ugly, that’s what they are, ugly.’

Vi came back with the glasses of sherbet water on a tray. And she’d been allowed to pour a glass of cold water for herself, her body stiff because the thickset man had stayed close to her all the time, hard eyes taking in the undulating lines of her figure.

AFTER SUPPER THAT
evening, Sally dropped in on Cassie before going round to see Horace. Cassie and her dad knew about the bank robbery, but not about the incident involving Freddy, which Sally related to her. She listened with her eyes wide open, then put aside the pillow cases she was embroidering, and fled to see Freddy, leaving Sally with her dad.

Reaching the Caulfield Place house in the dusk, she let herself in by the latchcord as usual. Well, Freddy’s home had been her second since first meeting him and becoming his best girl mate. Into the kitchen she swooped.

‘Freddy!’ It was a cry from the heart, delivered in dramatic fashion, one hand pressed to her bosom in the manner of Ellen Terry doing Lady Macbeth.

‘What’s up, lost your titfer?’ said Freddy. Cassie was bareheaded.

‘Oh, Freddy, your poor head,’ breathed Cassie, ‘Sally’s just told me how you suffered from being ’eroic.’ Mr Brown strangled a cough. Mrs Brown murmured placidly. Freddy grinned. ‘Freddy, you’re not still hurtin’, are you?’

‘Only me loaf, and only a bit,’ said Freddy. ‘The rest of me is in order, Cassie, which Mum says is a relief to all concerned.’

‘Oh, it’s a relief to me too, Freddy love,’ said Cassie. ‘I nearly died while I was listening to Sally. Oh, your
poor
head, Freddy, you shouldn’t have put it where those criminal hooligans could hit it. Sally said you’ve got an awful lump. Let me see.’

She leaned over the seated Freddy and searched his thick hair with gentle fingers. Mr Brown looked on in some amusement, Mrs Brown with a smile. Those two, Cassie and Freddy, she thought, they’d been the soul of togetherness for years, and Freddy’s lasting complaint that they’d been years of being sent barmy had died a death these last few months. They’d make a good marriage, Freddy and Cassie. Their kind did make good marriages, a lot better than the upper classes with their dubious goings-on and their divorces.

‘You’re there, Cassie,’ said Freddy.

‘Crikey,’ breathed Cassie, ‘what a lump. Oh, ’elp.’

‘Put me head out of shape, has it?’ said Freddy.

‘Oh, your hair hides it, Freddy, you’ve got nice hair,’ said Cassie. ‘The hurt won’t stop you comin’ to the weddin’, will it? I’d drown meself in the Serpentine if we ’ad to put it off.’

‘Oh, I’ll be able to walk, Cassie, don’t you fret,’ said Freddy. ‘I’m all right everywhere else. Did I mention that?’

‘Yes, you did say. Oh, thank goodness. Freddy, tell me everything about what ’appened.’

‘Let’s talk in the parlour,’ said Freddy.

‘Yes, you do that, Freddy,’ said Mr Brown, accepting that a family parlour should be exclusive to courting couples whenever it was only right and natural. Over the years their own parlour had been exclusive in turn to Susie and Sammy, then to Will and Annie, and now to Freddy and Cassie along with Sally and Horace, although at different times, of course. Mr
Brown
remembered moments in the parlour of Mrs Brown’s parents. Very nice moments, those had been, even if Bessie had blushed a bit.

‘Yes, you can use the parlour, love,’ said Mrs Brown.

‘Come on, Freddy beloved,’ said Cassie, not a girl whose shyness had ever come between her and what was acceptable among courting couples. Freddy had been totally admiring of her natural demonstrations of affection, even if they had made him dizzy.

In the parlour he recounted exactly what had happened when he arrived at the bank with the two wedding cheques, and when he went with the police in an attempt to catch up with the van. Cassie said even if the crooks hadn’t been caught, Freddy was still a hero. Not many girls marry heroes, she said.

‘You’re not marryin’ one yourself,’ said Freddy. ‘I just got hit on me loaf of bread, that’s all.’

‘Freddy, I do hope you’re not goin’ to do a lot of arguing when we’re married,’ said Cassie.

‘Well, all right, Cassie, just a bit now and again to keep me end up,’ said Freddy. He frowned. ‘I’m still bloody puzzled about that van, y’know.’

‘Language, please, Freddy,’ said Cassie, sitting comfortingly close to him, and letting the gas mantle cast saucy light over her imitation silk stockings.

‘Can’t ’elp me language, Cassie, I still can’t make out where that van got to.’

‘Well, it turned off somewhere, didn’t it?’ said Cassie.

‘Obviously, as Sherlock Holmes would say—’

‘No, he says elementary.’

‘Does he? You sure, Cassie? Only I’ve read some of his cases, and I don’t know I ever—’

‘Freddy, everyone knows he says elementary.’

‘Well, leave me out,’ said Freddy, ‘I’m not everyone. Anyway, the police know the van must’ve turned off somewhere. It’s obvious, but exactly where?’ Freddy frowned with frustration. ‘We asked people all over the side streets and roads if they’d noticed it, and nobody ’ad. I’ve just told you that.’