Paid and Loving Eyes

“Watch, son.”

His quiet voice woke me faster than a yell. I’d seen nothing, but then my instinct’s for survival. Gobbie’s seemed entirely outside himself. Maybe it’s because I’ve so much guilt, that unsleeping guardian of morality.

“Where?”

“Nothing yet.”

Nothing wrong with dropping off, but then I was tired. Old folks seem to nap like babies, in and out of sleep any old time.

“Glad I don’t own a Range Rover, or a big Nissan.” They get nicked for robberies like the one we’d come to see.

“There goes one.” A Citroen, innocuous and plain, drove sedately down the night road, clearly somebody late back from the theatre. “The scout,” Gobbie explained, sussing my wonder at his certainty, “otherwise he’d have slowed a bit just before the traffic lights. Everybody does, unless he’s trying to look casual.”

See what I mean? Only a veteran would think of that.

Mall-mashers, ramraiders, are a particularly English variant of the smash-and-grab. It’s a dark-hour job, though of course you can change the batting order, like the most famous one, the 1990 Asprey ramraid that proved the landmark of its type. (They backed a truck through Asprey’s window with wonderful precision—just off Piccadilly, would you believe—to snatch diamonds from the stove-in window.) It’s a Newcastle-upon-Tyne speciality, averaging one major ramraid a day now, many of them hitting the same retail shops and malls time after time. They’re exciting to watch.

“Here it comes, son. Wake up.”

“Which way?” I was asking blearily when it happened.

Two vehicles drove up, glided to a stop in the centre of the road. One reversed gently into position, then accelerated with a roar and simply drove into the antique-shop front. Glass sprayed everywhere, clattering and tinkling around. One or two shards even rattled musically on our roof. While I was watching, astonished and thrilled, the other was already hurtling into the next window. Neither had lights on. They reversed out, tyres crunching glass. Four hooded blokes dived from the motors and leapt through the openings. Each carried a baseball bat. It was a hell of a mess. I moaned at the thought of the antiques within, but what could I do? I’d warned the one girl I’d fallen for, Claire Whatnot.

The motors pulled to wait against the kerb, engines running.

“They got walkie-talkies, son,” Gobbie said quietly. “See?”

Well, no I didn’t. A couple of small vans came round the corner, dousing their headlights as they settled nearby. Two men to a van, I saw. Admirable organization. They ran the scroll gates up. No lights inside save a red direction node borrowed from some theatre stage.

“Christ!” I almost shrieked. Somebody opened our car door. A mask peered in, our courtesy bulb lighting to show his red eyes.

“Just watching, mate,” Gobbie said quickly. “Good luck.”

“Fuck luck,” the hooded bruiser said. He held a club the size of a tree in his hands. “Who’re you?”

“I’m Gobbie. Lovejoy. Your tyres okay? Don’t pull a spud.”

I thought. I don’t believe Gobbie. Why didn’t the stupid old sod simply gun our engine and scarper? Instead he makes introductions, pulls the ramraider’s leg. Spud’s the latest slang for a ballsup, after the catastrophe (or success, whichever way you look at it) of Continental raiders who’d tried to emulate our Geordie rammers in Amsterdam. Hoods nicked twenty Dutch Impressionists worth untold zillions from the Van Gogh—including Vincent’s own The Potato Eaters, hence “spud”. The loot sat meekly in the getaway motor which had a flat tyre. I could hear the blokes shouting, things smashing in the antique shops. God knows what heirlooms they were destroying.

“I heard of you bastards,” the bruiser said. “Clear off when we do, right?”

“Different direction,” Gobbie said amiably.

The bloke disappeared, putting our car door to quite gently. The pandemonium along the parade of antique shops was increasing. The lads were rushing out small antiques. The first wave would snatch tom —jewellery, precious items such as miniatures, handies that could be scooped up. Then furniture, paintings. But only the ones that had been earmarked.

“Why’d he cuss us, Gobbie?” I asked, narked.

“He knows our scam, son. He doesn’t like it.”

“He what?” A visiting ramraider team knows our scam?

“There they go.”

The first van slammed itself shut. The blokes piled in. It roared away, the Range Rover tearing after. The second slammed, the Nissan barreling round to leave the way it had come. The main van raced off, and that was that.

We drove away, taking the first left. I wondered if they’d battered through into the next-door place, which was Claire’s, or whether they’d had orders not to.

“Gobbie,” I said, thinking hard as he dropped me off in the night near the square. “He knew? Really knew?”

“Mmmh. You can always tell.” He paused, I paused, everybody paused. “Son? Is your scam going to finish up with them antiques they just nicked?”

“Eh?” I’d not thought of that. “You mean, they were pinching them for us?” I’d nearly said Troude and Marimee.