would keep him to it.
She saw her husband walking along the pavement towards the car and waved. Jonathon got in and kissed her cheek. Trish slipped her hand round his neck and pressed her lips to his, kissing him deeply. He kissed her back, with passion, and slid his hand down to cup her breast. 'That was nice,' he said, as she released him.
You deserve it,' she said.
'For what?' He started the engine and revved the accelerator, as he always did, boy-racer style.
'For being such a good husband.' She stroked his thigh. She wasn't going to tell him yet, not until the time was absolutely right. The food was in the boot, all the ingredients for his favourite meal, and a bottle of wine. She'd only have a sip to celebrate and that would be the last alcohol she'd touch until the baby was born. She wasn't going to do anything that might remotely jeopardise the health of her child. Their child. The child they'd been waiting for for almost three years. Their doctor had insisted there was no medical reason for her inability to conceive. She was fine. Jonathon was fine. There was no need yet for intervention, they just had to keep trying. They were young, fit and healthy. Jonathon's job meant he was under a lot of stress, but other than that all they needed was lots of sex and a bit of luck. They'd had lots of sex, all right, thought Trish, with a smile. It had always been great, from the very beginning.
'What are you smiling at?' asked Jonathon, putting the car in gear and driving away from the kerb. He pushed his way into the traffic without indicating, and waved a careless thanks to a BMW that had had to brake sharply to let him in.
'Nothing,' she said. She wanted to tell him there and then, but she wanted it to be perfect. She wanted it to be a moment they'd both remember for ever.
'Come on, come on,' muttered Jonathon. There was a set of traffic lights ahead. Jonathon groaned as they turned red. 'See that?' he said. 'Now we're stuck here.'
'There's no rush,' she said. She looked across at him. He was so good-looking. Tall, broad-shouldered, with a mop of black hair that kept falling across his face. Perfect teeth- a toothpaste-advert smile.
He grinned at her, the grin of a mischievous schoolboy who had never grown up. 'What is it?' he asked.
'What?'
'You. You're smiling like the cat that got the cream.'
She wanted to tell him. She wanted to grab him and kiss him and hug him and tell him he was going to be a father. But she shook her head. 'Nothing,' she said.
A large black motorcycle pulled up next to them. The pillion passenger leaned down so that he could look into the car. For a moment Trish thought he wanted to ask directions. Then she saw the gun, and frowned. It was so unexpected that for a few seconds it didn't register. Then time seemed to stop and she saw everything clearly. The gun was a dull grey automatic in a brown-gloved hand. The pillion passenger wore a bright red full-face helmet with a black visor. The driver had a black helmet, his visor also impenetrable. Men without faces. The driver revved the engine. The passenger held the gun with both hands.
Jonathon turned to follow her gaze. As he moved, the gun kicked, the window exploded and cubes of glass splattered across Trish's face.
The explosion was so loud that it deafened her and she felt rather than heard the next two shots. Her face was wet and she thought she'd been cut, but then she realised it wasn't her blood: her face and chest were soaked with her husband's and she screamed as he toppled forward on to the steering wheel.
There were eight of them in the minibus, all wearing blue overalls, training shoes and baseball caps with the logo of the pest-control company above the peak. As the minibus stopped at the gate a bored security guard with a clipboard waited until the driver wound down the window, then peered at the plastic ID card clipped to his overall pocket. He did a head count and made a note.
'No one off sick tonight, then?' On a bad night there'd only be four in the squad. Eight was a full complement and, with the company barely paying above minimum wage, they were usually at least one man short. No women. The work was unpleasant and physically demanding, and while sex-discrimination laws meant that women couldn't be refused a job, few made it beyond the first night.
'New blood,' said the driver. 'Still keen.'
The security guard shrugged. 'Yeah, I remember keen,' he said wearily. He was in his late twenties but looked older, with hair greying at the temples and a spreading waistline. 'Okay, gentlemen, hold your ID cards where I can see them, please.'
The men did as they were asked and the security guard shone his torch at the cards one by one. He was too far away to check that the faces of the men matched those on the cards, but even if he had studied them he would have seen nothing wrong. Time had been taken to ensure that the ID cards were faultless. The van was genuine, as were the overalls and baseball caps, but its original occupants were in their underwear in a disused factory in east London, gagged, bound and guarded by another member of the gang. He would stay with them until he was told that the job was done.
The faces that looked back at the security guard showed the bored resignation of men about to start eight hours of tedious night work. Three were West Indian, including the driver. The rest were white, all aged under forty. One of the youngest yawned, showing a mouthful of bad teeth.
The security guard stepped back from the minibus. He waved across at his colleague and the white pole barrier with its STOP sign rose. Two uniformed policemen, wearing bullet-proof vests and cradling black Heckler and Koch automatics, were standing at the gatehouse. They watched the minibus drive by, their fingers inside the trigger-guards of their weapons. The driver gave them a friendly wave and drove towards the warehouses. Overhead, a British Airways 747 swooped low, its landing gear down, wheels ready to bite into the runway, engines roaring in the night sky.
The man with bad teeth ducked involuntarily and one of the West Indians laughed and slapped him on the back.
'Don't fuck around,' said the man sitting next to the driver. He was wide-shouldered, in his late thirties, with sandy brown hair cropped close to his skull. He scanned the darkness between the warehouses. He wasn't expecting trouble: virtually all the security was at the perimeter of the airport.
In the rear of the minibus, the men were pulling sports bags from under their seats.
'Right, final name check,' said the front-seat passenger. His name was Ted Verity and he'd been planning the robbery for the best part of three months. 'Archie,' he said. He opened the glove compartment, took out a portable scanner, switched it on and clipped it to his belt.
'Bert,' said the man directly behind him. His real name was Jeff Owen and he'd worked with Verity on more than a dozen robberies. Owen pulled a Fairy Liquid bottle out of his sports bag. He sniffed the top and wrinkled his twice-broken nose.
Verity took a second scanner from the glove compartment, switched it on and placed it on the dashboard.
'Charlie,' said the man next to Owen. He was Bob Macdonald, a former squaddie who'd been kicked out of the army for bullying. Verity didn't know Macdonald well, but Owen had vouched for him and Verity trusted Owen with his life. Macdonald pulled a sawn-off shotgun from his holdall and slotted a red cartridge into the breech.
'Doug,' said the man next to Macdonald. He shoved a clip into the butt of a handgun and pulled back the slider. He was the youngest of the West Indians, a career criminal who'd graduated from car theft and protection rackets to armed robbery after a six-month stretch in Brixton prison. That was where Verity had met him and spotted his potential.
The alphabetical roll-call continued. A to H. The young guy with the bad teeth was Eddie. He had a revolver in his right gloved hand and a stun gun in the left. He pressed the trigger of the stun gun and blue sparks crackled between two metal prongs. The high voltage charge was enough to disable a man without causing permanent injury. The tall, lanky West Indian next to Eddie was Fred. He had a twin-barrelled sawn-off shotgun. A thirty- something Glaswegian, with a shaved head and football tattoos hidden under his overall sleeves, was sitting on his own in the back cradling a pump-action shotgun. He was George and he had an annoying habit of cracking his knuckles.
The West Indian driver was Harry. Verity didn't know Harry's real name. Over five years he'd worked with him on a dozen jobs but had only ever known him by his initials, PJ. He was one of the best drivers in London and claimed to have been Elton John's personal chauffeur. Verity nodded at PJ, who brought the minibus to a halt.
'Anyone uses any name other than the ones you've been given and I'll personally blow their head off,' said
