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  “Right,” said Mouse, addressing the guards, and lighting a cigarette simultaneously. “We’re going into that vault, and you know the combination lock, so get it open, now.”

  The smell of petrol coming from both men had put such fear into them both that their injuries sustained in the assault of a few moments previously were causing them little discomfort. Mouse flicked his ash across the room towards the pair.

  “Well fucking get going then” he barked. At that moment Tony Black arrived for work and walked through the door from the reception foyer right into a body blow from Bones Logan, who, despite his small frame, floored the third man immediately. Of course as Tony Black had been expecting it he had taken the precaution of adding several layers of clothing when he dressed earlier that day knowing this was where he was going to take the blow.

  “Right,” said Mouse, “we know you have the other half of the numbers for the combination so unless you want the petrol treatment, get to work.”

  Tony had not known his two colleagues were going to be doused in petrol, and showed genuine alarm as he faced them. This had been anticipated by Mouse, which not only demonstrated his sadistic nature but his cleverness as well; the fact was Mouse had instructed Bones to mix the petrol with water, so the likelihood of the guards catching fire was remote - not that in any way he was a compassionate man, he just didn’t want the smell of burning flesh hampering the robbery. The other three gang members were elsewhere in the building busily de-activating the alarm systems, made considerably easier by the inside man, Tony Black. As Mouse lit another cigarette perilously close to the two guards, he was anticipating what three million pounds would look like and what denominations they would be in. The previous night he had met with Black, who had informed him that the money was indeed going to be in the vault for a few hours that morning before onward shipment. Unknown to Black, and indeed anyone present, was the fact that five extra vans had gone in that weekend, one from Johnson Matthey the bullion merchants containing three tons of gold bars, the others were from the Diamond Trading Company carrying one thousand carats of diamonds and the other from Citibank with $250,000 of travellers cheques.

  The door to the vault opened. Although Jim Wade had suffered a loss of memory initially, a lighted match close to his testicles soon restored it, and the three robbers walked in. Mouse was the first to speak:

  “What the fuck?” was all that came out.

  Confronting them were seventy six cardboard boxes all stuffed to the top, containing a total of 6,800 gold bars with a total weight being three tons, also two boxes of diamonds. All six robbers were now in the vault, mesmerised by the gold. Mouse’s brain was racing and so was his pulse; not much flustered him, but he realised what lay before him represented the biggest haul to be taken in the history of major crime. Mouse didn’t know the weight of the gold but as he lifted the first shining bar to his lips, quickly realised the transit van outside would not cope with the gold bars.

  Danny Gallagher was parked discreetly round the back of Stanwell Moor; it was 6.15 am and he was confident if he was challenged he could just say he was waiting to pick up a cargo from one of the warehouses that surrounded the airport. He was contemplating being a hundred and fifty thousand pounds better off in a couple of hours, secretly hoping that Mouse had been misinformed about the haul and maybe it would be four or even five million. In any case, his hands told him he was back at work, as he continually wiped the perspiration off them. It wouldn’t do for the Mouse to see him in anything other than a state of calm, and that should be anytime now. His CB radio suddenly cackled into life.

  “Alpha one, alpha one, this is tango one are you there?” he heard Mouse calling. Great thought Danny, bang on time. The call signs they had agreed on were hardly original but any radio ham listening in on the ‘pilot’s chit chat as they come into landing would not give it a second thought and probably not even recall hearing the message if asked; another smart move,

  “Alpha one receiving what’s your ETA tango one?” enquired Danny. The answer was not what he had been expecting

  “Alpha one, change of plan the party’s not over, get yourself round here pronto, over and out.” Danny’s heart missed a beat. What the hell’s happened? he thought, as he floored the throttle. They can’t have been sussed, or Mouse wouldn’t have called. The adrenalin rushed through Danny and he felt the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. Six and a half minutes later Danny was parked next to the transit that had arrived forty five minutes earlier with its cargo of six armed robbers. He made his way through the doors to rendezvous with the others.

  His first sight was of the three security guards huddled in the corner and looking in a very bad way. His nose soon picked up the smell of petrol and human excreta as two of the guards had by now lost all self control.

  “Danny, start loading these boxes now,” ordered Mouse. Danny had not noticed the boxes now stacked up by the exit, and when he saw them and what they contained his eyes nearly popped out of his head.

  “Yeah”, said Mouse, reading Danny’s mind, “It’s gold, and it’s worth millions. We, Danny boy, are going to be rich,” he grinned.

  “But what the fuck are we going to do with it, and where shall we keep it?” enquired Danny. Mouse had already worked it out.

  “We are going to bury it under a ton of concrete for five years, but as for now it goes to the original destination. Now get a move on for Christ’s sake,” said Mouse, wondering if he could actually sit on this for five years; after all the heat would never stop on this one.

  Two hours later the seventy eight boxes of gold and diamonds had been unloaded into a lockup just off Sidcup High Street, the robbers had dispersed agreeing that they would sit tight, not contact each other, and wait for Mouse to make a decision.

  As Mouse sat in the living room of his modest home in Bromley, contemplating his options, his eyes flicked to the television in the corner; the announcer was telling his audience of the breaking news that what may have been a huge robbery had taken place at Heathrow a few hours previously. He went on to say that this area had, over recent years, been dubbed Thief Row due to the large number of thefts that had taken place since the 1960s. However, he continued, the difference with this raid was that it seemed to be of particular interest to the Flying Squad of New Scotland Yard. The whole industrial state that contained the Brinks Mat warehouse had been cordoned off and the police were arriving in huge numbers.

  Mouse had been thinking for several minutes, and eventually he made up his mind, one of his many associates knew all about gold and how to disguise it; he picked up the phone. He needed to move fast.

  Chapter 9

  Central criminal court December 3rd 1984

  The central criminal court better known as the Old Bailey, sits between Holborn Circus and St Paul’s Cathedral. Its former existence in the 16th century was as Newgate Gaol, a popular place in those times for the folk of London to come and watch the miscreants of the day hanged for such heinous crimes as stealing a loaf of bread. It was destroyed in the great Fire of London, and eight years later rebuilt with one side left open to the elements in the hope of preventing the spread of disease that the accused usually carried. In those days the black cap that the presiding judge would place on his head, and which preceded the handing out of the death sentence, was cheered by the watching gallery, and the betting would soon start as to how long the condemned man or woman would take between the opening of the trapdoor and the rope going taut around their neck and the final spasm indicating life had left the unfortunate person.

  Nowadays the only black caps in the courtroom were those worn, usually in reverse, by family members of the accused sitting in the public gallery. All judges at the Old Bailey are addressed as “My Lord” or “My Lady,” and the most senior permanent Judge is known as the Recorder of London, and his deputy has the title of Common Serjeant of London. So it was that this afternoon of December 3rd 1984, the Common Serjeant of London, Judge David Tudor, was
preparing to deliver sentence on John Illes, a builder from Bromley, and Brian Robinson, a motor dealer from Sidcup, after a four week trial in which three men had stood accused of masterminding a simple but spectacular armed robbery at the Brinks Mat warehouse at Heathrow airport a year earlier. The Jury of seven women and five men had, after three nights locked in a secret location, delivered their verdict of guilty by a ten to two majority the previous day, that day being Sunday. It was the first time the court had ever been convened on a Sunday, signifying the establishment’s seriousness towards the crime. The Jury had been asked to consider verdicts on the three people accused, and so when the foreman of the Jury had delivered verdicts of ‘guilty’ on both Robinson and Illes he was also asked how they had found Eric Logan, and he had replied, “not guilty.”

  The gallery burst into cries of laughter and astonishment. Eric Logan, who had spent nearly the entire previous year behind bars and who had always maintained he had been fitted up by the police, thanked the Jury and left the courthouse,. having been what seemed most reluctantly awarded several thousand pounds compensation by the Common Serjeant of London, for wrongful imprisonment. The senior police officers who had worked on the case had picked up rumours during the trial that a firm of villains from North London had been commissioned to knobble the Jury; the utmost precaution had been taken ever since the Jury were sworn in. The twelve Jury members had been under constant surveillance, likewise with their immediate families. However it was incomprehensible that Logan could be given the not guilty verdict without some skulduggery. Eric Bones Logan would be a major target for the serious crime squad from here on out, that was for sure.

  Judge David Tudor Price, in his summing up of the trial, informed both defendants that the sentence must be very heavy to indicate that robberies of this kind were not worth it He said that there was no distinction between the two men, and so uttered the final words of the trial:

  “You will both serve twenty five years in prison, with no remission, take them down bailiff.” At their age, he may as well have put a black cap on.

  Chapter 10

  The investigation

  Whilst Mouse was making his call to the man he figured could move the gold, Scotland Yard Flying Squad Chief Commander Frank Carter was being appointed to lead the hunt for the robbers. It was a very good choice by the big wigs from the yard, as Frank was unorthodox but got results, and he was also very knowledgeable about the criminal fraternity that inhabited the area known as greater London. He also knew that this heist could only have been undertaken by a selection of men from a pool of no more than thirty who were capable of such daring escapades.

  As Frank Carter surveyed the scene of the robbery some seven hours after the gang had left, he was rapidly drawing to the conclusion that this blag was too precise to have been pulled off without inside information, certainly in his considerable experience the bigger the crime the more likely the robbers were to have an insider and this was as big as it got. As far as Frank was concerned the hunt should be for the inside man- find him, and you find the Blaggers.

  During the immediate weeks that followed the raid, the great wisdom that Mouse had shown in laying low and burying the gold until the heat had died down, and generally resuming a normal life had totally evaporated. In fact almost the total opposite had occurred. Both Mouse and Brian had now left their humble abodes in South London and were both the proud owners of two estates in rural Kent paid for in cash. As if that wasn’t enough to alert the Squad, Mouse had purchased two huge Rottweilers to guard his estate and named them Brinks and Matt respectively.

  In the meantime, Frank Carter, head of the Sweeney, had narrowed down the list of potential suspects and both John Illes and Brian Robinson figured very highly on that list. Frank was still ruminating on the likelihood of an inside job when he got his first break; it was, as always, purely by accident that he found himself sitting in the manager’s office at the Brinks Mat warehouse, waiting to go over things for the twentieth time, when the manager had been called into the warehouse, leaving him alone staring at a paperwork strewn desk. Frank, being a copper, was idly thumbing through the stacks of paper on the desk, when he picked up the three medical reports that related to the three guards who had been assaulted the morning of the robbery. All three were still on sick leave and unlikely to return in the near future, if indeed ever Casually Frank began reading the report on Tony Black; he arrived at the bottom of the report where the box labelled ‘additional comments’ was, and his heart skipped a beat. The box read: “The strange thing about Mr Black’s injury is that whilst there is some minor bruising around the solar plexus region, the actual force used in subduing Mr Black is not conducive with that which was used on the other two; that is to say whilst Mr Shaw and Mr Wade both suffered serious injuries due to the force with which they were hit Mr Black appears to have been very lucky in only sustaining minor injuries.” This was signed and dated by a Dr Samantha Pope.

  Frank’s intuition kicked in. Lucky my arse” he thought. The depot manager returned as Frank Carter put the medical report down.

  “I want,” he said to the manager, “every single piece of information you have on Tony Black, and I want to meet Dr Samantha Pope, and I want both these things now.”

  As Samantha was being summoned and the file of Tony Black being dug out of personnel, Frank had called his immediate number one, Will Peck.

  “Will, I think we’ve got something, I want you and whoever else you need to get up the arse of Tony Black, he’s one of the guards who got clobbered here and maybe he’s our inside man, so right away” he commanded.

  “On it Guv,” came the reply.

  For the next three days and nights Will Peck had been camped in the tree lined street in Crayford named Chestnut Avenue. The house occupied by Tony Black, his girlfriend Shelia Robinson, and her three children was a modest three bed semi-detached. Will had watched the comings and goings of the family, and was rapidly coming to the conclusion that this was just a normal family going about its normal business, he knew the governor was rarely wrong when it came to hunches but there was nothing out of the ordinary occurring; in fact he was figuring out how he was going to tell the boss he felt he was wasting his time. Just at that moment the passenger door of the Ford Granada Will was using that day opened and Frank Carter eased into the seat next to Will.

  “What’s happening Will?” asked Frank.

  “Well,” replied Will “To be honest, fuck all, sometimes he takes the kids to school, when he does I stay here watching the house, and Jim Mason follows him, but nothing, he always comes straight back, never a detour, nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “What about the phones then?” asked Frank. He had pulled a favour from one of his mates in Special Branch and they had a van parked round the corner where they were monitoring all incoming and outgoing calls-highly illegal without a magistrate’s agreement and inadmissible as evidence if it ever came to court, but Frank would get round that if and when.

  “Nothing there either” said Will. “The woman who’s his girlfriend, Shelia Robinson, calls her mum once a day and that’s about it.”

  “What did you just say?” Frank asked,

  Will repeated that the woman rang her mum. “No, what did you say her name was?” rasped Frank.

  “Shelia Robinson” was the answer.

  Frank thought for a couple of seconds. “Will,” he said, “It just may be a coincidence, but ten quid says it’s not, that she’s in fact related to Brian Robinson.”

  Will’s stomach turned over; he knew Brian Robinson was a south London blagger, but just hadn’t put two and two together, Robinson being such a common name, but that was no excuse.

  “Fucking hell boss, I missed it” he said in an apologetic voice.

  Frank was out of the car and twenty seconds later in the back of the Special Branch van.

  “You look like the cat that got the cream,” said his old mucker, from the Branch,

  “Get on that phone of yo
urs, get hold of Central Criminal Records, and get me the low down on Brian Robinson’s family. I want to know if there’s anyone associated with that clan by the name of Shelia,” Frank said breathlessly. The man from Special Branch put the call in and made it absolutely clear this was priority one, it had to be immediately or sooner.

  The three men didn’t have long to wait. The man from the Branch took the call through his headphones and then set them down and looked Frank dead in the eye.

  “Brian Robinson has a daughter by the name of Shelia, lives in Chestnut Avenue, with her three kids and partner Tony Black, somewhere near here I think,” he said grinning from ear to ear. Frank was over the moon, he had his breakthrough, and two hours later he was at Bow Street Magistrates Court in front of the beak and a search warrant was issued.

  At 6.30am the next morning two Transit Vans pulled up outside the semi-detached house in Chestnut Avenue; having obtained a warrant of entry and arrest the previous afternoon. Frank now wanted to put the fear of Christ into Tony Black. He needed to unsettle him as much as possible before the first interview that he had scheduled with him for that afternoon.

  So it was that on that frosty morning that John Dawes, a resident of Chestnut Avenue for twenty years, was just leaving home for his early morning dog walk, when to his astonishment he stood mesmerised as eight burly police officers in full riot gear and a battering ram tipped out of the two vans, charged up the steps of the semi detached home opposite, smashed the door right off its hinges, piled into the private home of his neighbour and not three minutes later reappeared dragging the naked form of a man handcuffed and hooded, bundling him into the first van and then disappeared, leaving a woman and three children standing at the hole in the house where the front door had been locked and bolted a few minutes earlier. John Dawes let himself back into his own house, made a cup of tea for his wife and took it upstairs.