A true tale of disorganised crime
Noise, confusion, lots of shouting. We had one of the boxes, the young guard had put his hands up right away, sensible boy, but the other guard, older, fat, stupid, was holding on to his. Brian had the other end, shouted at him as they did a mental dance around it “Let go ya fat prick”. Stevie had the gun – his gun, wouldn’t let anyone else touch it – and now came running. Before anyone else could react, he shot the guard in the stomach. He let go then all right, went down in a bloody heap as we all stood rooted. Silence for a minute, then: “Go, go go”.
Into the car, waiting at the entrance to the yard, a black Mazda something. Tommy had taken off his crash helmet, said he couldn’t drive properly with it on, and we were off and away.
You could feel the fear leaving us, turning into elation, the adrenaline rush still there, but the elephant, no, the zeppelin in the car was what Stevie had done. Was the guard dead, would we all be hunted down? Why had he done it? Why did we let him take his stupid toy with him?
Stevie was busy compounding his earlier stupidity right now, in the front passenger seat “Let’s see what we’ve got here” as he turned the box over, looking for the catch, lock or whatever. “Don’t try to open it Stevie, it’ll have that smoke stuff in it”; the words coincided with a loud click as the box opened and the car instantly filled with evil-smelling, heavy blue smoke. We all coughed retched, swore at Stevie; Tommy jammed on the brakes, slowed the car down to a crawl, unable to see where we were going, aware that we’d been approaching a narrowing of the road as it passed under the railway.
He powered the window down, stuck his head out, just as the wing mirror made contact with the bridge abutment and snapped off. His head made contact too, knocking it backwards into the window frame; he swore, which at least meant he was still conscious, shook his head, spraying blood around the inside of the car, and stalled the engine. Still swearing, he managed to start it up, and drove on, slowly, turning down an alleyway to the right, tucked the car into a little inshot. We piled out, all but Tommy still in our crash helmets.
“Scatter, guys. You ok to walk Tommy?” He was, just. We put the boxes into Tesco bags – the one bit of foresight that Stevie had contributed to the mission – me taking the still smoking one from Stevie’s grasp. He tried to hold on to it. “You’ve got the gun, Stevie, give me the box. We’ll meet on Saturday, as arranged.” The smoke had reduced to a trickle now. I turned on my heel, speed-walked in the general direction of away, not really sure where we were. A couple of corners later I had my bearings, had taken my helmet off, ditched it in a bin and slowed down to rapid walking pace. My heartrate started to come down as I walked. I could feel a thin layer of sweat over my whole body, and I just knew that I would look suspicious and guilty as hell to anyone that saw me. I was convinced that the whole street, the whole town, could smell the guilt on me. I forced myself to breathe steadily, and eventually it worked.
After a few turns I was on the High Street, the cheap end with Poundland, empty shops, places that will buy your gold for you, doing you a favour. Twenty minutes more and I was at my front door, nobody in thank christ, up to the bedroom, threw myself down on the bed, still not made from this morning, than had to get back up almost immediately to throw up in the bathroom.
I felt slightly better after that, and started to think a bit more rationally. If the fat guard died, the police wouldn’t let it lie as they would have if everything had gone to plan – everyone knows they don’t try too hard if it’s just a couple of money boxes, that was the theory anyway. But now it was different. Where to hide the box? It was on the bedroom floor, amongst the discarded jeans and shirts, not the best hiding place in the world. And my t-shirt had blood on it.
I stripped off and stuck everything in the washing machine, programmed a hot wash, and got some clean stuff on. Then I took the box out to the back garden and planted it next to a big bush in the flowerbed in front of the living room window. That done, I cleaned myself up, put the kettle on, and – with hands that only trembled slightly – put some Nescafe in a cup. Then the doorbell rang.
It was Stevie, white as a sheet and looking scared and panicky. He still had the gun with him, the eedjit, in the ubiquitous Tesco bag. “I need to come in, man. Sheila’s at home, I cannae go there. Let us in.” He pushed past me into the hall. I was stunned; this was so not what we had agreed, but then neither was the shooting.
I took him into the kitchen. “You have to leave, right now. We can’t be seen together, not after what happened.” I could hardly look at him, and I was starting to shake again.
He dropped the gun on the kitchen table – god it was heavy, made a solid clunk when it landed and the rickety old table actually shook. “I don’t know where to go, man. Cannae do home, cannae go to Peter’s or Sam’s, they’re gonnae be looking for me!”
“You can’t stay here, they’re sure to come round here soon. I don’t care where you go, you shouldn’t have shot the guy.” I was shouting now, furious and scared. I just wanted him to go, anywhere, as long as he wasn’t in my kitchen. The thought of the police calling got to him. He looked up, shocked. “I need to get out of here. Lend me some cash, I’ll get a train somewhere.” I couldn’t believe my ears; he’d shot someone, fucked all our lives, and he was stinging me for money! But it was worth it to get rid of him. I took whatever was in my wallet, threw it at him. “Now fuck off.”
He took the gun, went towards the front door. “Not that way, out the back.” There was a lane behind the house, and he loped through the garden, through the gate, leaving it open, and down the lane. Out of my house and out of my life, for good, I hoped. I still felt sick to my stomach. I made my coffee, went into the living room and turned on News 24. After the usual updates on the middle east and the latest mince from some old Etonian Government jerk about education, or defence or something, there it was: a wages snatch, a shooting, a security guard critically ill in hospital. The police spokesman telling the world that they had found the getaway car, felt confident that an arrest was imminent. Then he asked for anyone that had seen anything to contact them; that was a good sign, surely? Meant they don’t know all they thought they needed to. Detective Superintendent Orr was a seriously scary looking guy, though – businesslike and tough looking, spoke in the same way I did, not posh, schooled. Not someone who looked a pushover.
“We’re convinced the criminals who carried out this appalling act are amateurs. They have already made a lot of mistakes and I’m confident that we’ll have some good news to give you soon. Rest assured we will get them – they’re clearly a trigger-happy bunch and they can’t be allowed to do this sort of thing again.” He looked straight at the camera as he said the last bit. His eyes seemed to bore into me through the screen. I was scared; my hands started shaking again.
I took a deep breath, let it out slowly. Despite what the cop said, we’d be ok, wouldn’t we? We’d all worn motorcycle crash helmets and gloves; the car had been stolen weeks ago and kept in a garage; we’d never done anything this big before, just some minor stuff (Orr got that one right). They would probably turn up at some point, fishing: my name and three of the others were on their database. Not Tommy, luckily – if they matched him to the blood in the car we were finished. The biggest thing in our favour was that we had no previous involving guns; we’d always talked Stevie out of bringing it with him before. I realised that I had taken my gloves off when I buried the box, but I was pretty sure nobody would go digging up my garden looking for it.
The doorbell again. My stomach tightened as I went to the door, expecting to be met with the diamond-hard glare of DSI Orr, but it was only old Bob, my next door neighbour, a genial old duffer who always had a shirt and tie on, even tough he’d been retired forever. “Hiya Jamie, wasn’t sure if you were in, but I’ve just seen a suspicious looking guy running through your back garden. He was carrying a bag, looked like it had, well, a gun in it. Mebbe I’m just being paranoid, but I just heard on the wireless that there’s been an armed robbery not too far from here. Anyway, I phoned the police and they said they’d send someone round. Here, that looks like them now, that was quick.” He turned to face the police car was drawing up outside the house, two uniforms getting out. Not Orr, thank christ.
“Hello officers,” said Bob, puffed up with the righteous pride of a citizen doing his duty, the old prick. “I’m Bob Reid, it was me that phoned you. Want me to show you where I saw the man? This is Jamie, he lives here.” Thanks Bob, that was nice.
The two cops looked me up and down; one of them, the older one, recognised me, I was sure. “If you’d be so kind, sir” he said to Bob. “May we?” This to me, and then they were in the house. Bob was prattling away, about
what the bag looked like, could have had a gun in it, perhaps it was something else, but it looked heavy. I could gladly have strangled him at that moment. We all went out of the back door and stood looking at the open gate to the lane while Bob took us all through his busybody activities , how he’d been putting something in his bin, looked up, saw a young chap he didn’t recognise, clocked the strangely shaped bag he was carrying.
“And did you see where this chap came from sir?” asked the older cop. “From the house perhaps?” Bob, luckily, hadn’t seen him until he was half way across the garden, so told them that he could have come round the house, taking a shortcut to the lane at the back. He had it all figured out.
“Thanks very much sir, if you wouldn’t mind waiting next door we’ll be round shortly to take a statement.” Bob looked a bit disappointed, but did as he was told. The two of them went to the gate, had a good look down the lane, then got weighed in: had I seen anything, had I been in all morning, was I aware of anyone on my property, etc etc. That last one was clever, saying property rather than garden, following the possibility that the mystery man had come through the house.
I told them the story I’d made up in my head: out of work, nothing to get up for, not feeling too great (hangover). Saw nothing, heard nothing, knew nothing. We had a nice chat for about 10 minutes, standing in the garden until the rain came on, then into the living room, News 24 still on in the corner.
“Did you hear about the violent robbery that took place this morning in the industrial estate? Your neighbour’s sighting might conceivably have something to do with that.” This from the younger cop, who hadn’t said much up to now. “Saw it on the news, terrible about that guard, eh? Just wish I’d seen the guy that Bob saw, then I could have helped you a bit more. Sorry.” Why did I say sorry? Fucking stupid thing to say. I was forcing myself to breathe, and not to scream and run away, which is what I wanted to do more than anything else.
After a few more minutes, populated with growing silences – were they waiting for me to confess? –they stood up to go. I stood up too, relief flooding my body. Then they stopped and gave each other a look. The younger one moved to the door, stood there, filling it; the older one took my arm, steered me to the window. We both looked at the thin plume of blue smoke rising from the damp earth. The rain must have loosened the soil around the money box. Bloody Scotland. “Well, would you look at that, your garden seems to be on fire. I think we’d better take a look.”
scrievin 