'Well, can I have some bubblegum, then?'
The woman put the knife back in the window and took a packet of gum from a shelf. 'Six pence.'
Billy offered his handful of money, and the woman took some coins.
'Thanks,' Billy said. He went out into the street and opened the packet. He liked to put it all in his mouth at once. He walked on, chewing with enjoyment. For the moment, he had forgotten where he was going.
He stopped to watch some men digging a hole in the pavement. The tops of their heads were level with Billy's feet. He saw, with interest, that the wall of the trench changed color as it went down. First there was the pavement, then some black stuff like tar, then loose brown earth, then wet clay. In the bottom lay a pipe made of clean new concrete. Why did they put pipes under the pavement? Billy had no idea. He leaned over and said: 'Why are you putting a pipe under the pavement?'
A workman looked up at him and said: 'We're hiding it from the Russians.'
'Oh.' Billy nodded, as if he understood. After a moment he moved on.
He felt hungry, but there was something he had to do before he went home for lunch. Lunch? He had eaten a packet of biscuits because Pa was up the hospital. That had something to do with why he was here in Bethnal Green, but he could not quite make the connection.
He turned a corner, looked at the road name on a sign tacked high up on a wall, and saw that he was on Quill Street. Now he remembered. This was where Tony Cox lived-at number nineteen. He would knock on the doorNo. He didn't know why, but he felt sure he ought to creep in by the back door. There was a lane behind the terrace. Billy walked along it until he came to the back of Tony's house.
All the taste was gone from his bubblegum, so he took it out of his mouth and threw it away before quietly unlatching the back gate and walking stealthily in.
27
Tony Cox drove slowly along the rutted mud track, out of consideration for his own comfort rather than for the owner of the 'borrowed' car. The lane, which had no name, led from a B-road to a farmhouse with a barn. The barn, the empty, dilapidated house, and the acre of infertile land surrounding them, were owned by a company called Land Development Ltd., which was in turn owned by a compulsive gambler who owed Tony Cox a lot of money. The barn was occasionally used to store job lots of fire-damaged goods bought at rock-bottom prices, so it was not unusual for a van and a car to draw up in the farmyard.
The five-bar gate at the end of the lane was open, and Tony drove in. There was no sign of the blue van, but Jesse was leaning against the farmhouse wall, smoking a cigarette. He came across to open the car door for Tony.
'It haven't gone smooth, Tony,' he said immediately.
Tony got out of the car. 'Is the money here?'
'In the van.' Jesse jerked his head toward the barn. 'But it never went smooth.'
'Let's get inside-it's too hot out here.' Tony heaved the barn door open and stepped in. Jesse followed him. A quantity of packing cases occupied one third of the floor area. Tony read the labels on a couple: they contained surplus Forces uniforms and coats. The blue van stood opposite the door. Tony noticed that trade plates had been tied over the original license plates with string.
'What have you been playing at?' he asked incredulously.
'Oh, blimey, Tony, wait till you hear what I've had to do.'
'Well bloody tell me then!'
'Well, I had a prang, see-nothing much, just a little bump. But the geezer gets out of his car and wants to call the police. So I pisses off, don't I. But he stands in the way and I hits him.'
Tony cursed softly.
Now fear showed in Jesse's face. 'Well, I knew the law would be looking for me, didn't I. So I stops at this garage, goes round the back to the khasi, and nicks a set of trade plates and these overalls.' He nodded eagerly, as if to lend his own approval to his actions. 'Then I come on here.'
Tony stared at him in amazement, then burst out laughing. 'You mad bastard!' he chuckled.
Jesse looked relieved. 'I done the best thing for it, though, didn't I?'
Tony's laughter subsided. 'You mad bastard,' he repeated. 'Here you are, with a fortune in hot money in the van, and you stop'-his chest heaved, and he wheezed with renewed laughter-'you stop at a garage and nick a pair of overalls!'
Jesse smiled too, not from amusement but out of the pleasure of a fear removed. Then he became serious again. 'There is proper bad news, though.'
'Gorblimey, what else?'
'The van driver tried to be a hero.'
'You never killed him?' Tony said anxiously.
'No, just knocked him on the head. But Jacko's shooter went off in the fracas'-he pronounced it frackarse-'and Deaf Willie got hit. In the boat race. He's bad, Tone.'
'Oh, balls.' Tony sat down suddenly on an old three-legged stool. 'Oh, poor old Willie. Did they take him up the hospital, did they?'
Jesse nodded. 'That's why Jacko's not here. He's took him. Whether he got there alive…'
'That bad?'
Jesse nodded.
'Oh, balls.' He was silent for a while. 'He don't get no luck, Deaf Willie. The one ear's gone already, and his boy's a mental case, and his wife looks like Henry Cooper-and now this.' He clicked his tongue in sorrow. 'We'll give him a double share, but it won't mend his head.' He got up.
Jesse opened the van, relieved that he had managed to convey the bad news without suffering Tony's wrath.
Tony rubbed his hands together. 'Right, let's have a look at what we got.'
There were nine gray steel chests in the back of the van. They looked like squat metal suitcases, each with handles at both ends, each secured by a double lock. They were heavy. The two men unloaded them, one by one, and lined them up in the center of the barn. Tony looked at them greedily. His expression showed an almost sensual pleasure. He said: 'It's like Ali Baba and the forty bloody thieves, mate.'
Jesse was taking plastic explosive, wires and detonators out of a duffel bag in a corner of the barn. 'I wish Willie was here to do the bang-bangs.'
Tony said: 'I wish he was here, full stop.'
Jesse prepared to blow open the chests. He stuck the jellylike explosive all around the locks, attached detonators and wires, and connected each tiny bomb to the plunger-type trigger.
Watching him, Tony said: 'You seem to know what you're doing.'
'I've seen Willie do it often enough.' He grinned.
'Maybe I can become the firm's peterman-'
'Willie ain't dead,' Tony interrupted gruffly. 'Not so far as we know.'
Jesse picked up the trigger and, trailing wires, took it outside. Tony followed him.
Tony said: 'Drive the van outside, in case of the petrol going up-know what I mean?'
'There's no danger-'
'You've never done a peter before, and I'm not taking the risk.'
'Okay.' Jesse closed the rear doors and backed the van into the farmyard. Then he opened the bonnet and used crocodile clips to connect the trigger with the van's battery.
He said: 'Hold your breath,' and pressed the plunger.
There was a muffled bang.
The two men went back inside. The chests stood in line with their tops hanging open at odd, twisted angles.
'You done a good job,' Tony said.
The chests were neatly and tightly packed. The bundles of notes were stacked twenty across, ten wide, and
