Elephants can't hide forever Read online

  “Apart from our lives,” observed Herbie.

  “Well, how about I go to Hatton Garden, make a couple of enquiries and then make a decision?” asked Eric.

  “Agreed,” was Herbie’s hesitant response.

  It was soon after this clandestine meeting that Danny received his summons. It came in the form of an official envelope, and although Danny knew the contents he still felt desperate. The envelope contained a Visiting Order from Her Majesties Prison Parkhurst, with Danny’s name on. He was requested to visit John Illes, currently holidaying on the he Isle Of Wight, and the invitation was for the following Tuesday. This was the first word Danny had heard from Mouse since the arrest, and he had been just starting to hope Mouse had resigned himself to his fate, but obviously this was not the case, and ominously Mouse was not the type of bloke to send out a Visiting Order because he was lonely. So it was with trepidation that Danny travelled to the Island that next Tuesday. He was sitting in the visitor’s room, feeling sick with the smell of the prison that all old lags hated so much, when Mouse was escorted in. In all fairness, Mouse didn’t look too bad - unusually for prison life he hadn’t lost weight and he was yet to develop the dead eyes so common with lifers. After the usual pleasantries, Mouse spoke in a lowered tone:

  “Danny, I’m being burnt. Word is the two safecrackers have already sold the gold they were holding for me. Logan and Sparks have contacted the Hatton Garden contact and three of the other guys who you don’t know have suddenly become very wealthy. What do you know? What have you heard?”

  Danny replied, “It’s true, I know the gold’s on the move because half the fucking country is wearing it. I heard rumours about the sale of the stuff to the sweats, but nothing about Bones or Herbie jacking it in.”

  Danny could only tell the truth, he was still sitting on his pile and at this particular point very thankful he hadn’t touched it. However, he wasn’t expecting what came next.

  “Listen to me very carefully,” said Mouse “I have no choice here, and I’m sorry it’s you Danny, but you’re the only one I trust.”

  That was a compliment Danny didn’t want to hear, and he dreaded the next words.

  “So what you have to do,” Mouse whispered, “is have those bastards dealt with, and by that I mean permanently.”

  “Who exactly are we talking about here?” asked Danny, his throat dry as the Sahara desert.

  “The fucking lot of them,” snarled Mouse,” when you leave here today that screw by the window will escort you out, he will slip you a piece of paper with the names of four people, the first three are the thieving bastards who stole my gold, which you don’t know, and the fourth is the man you need to contact who will deal with them.”

  “So you want me to arrange a hit on these three guys?” Danny asked.

  “Seven of the bastards in total” replied Mouse.

  Danny left the prison feeling faint with fear; he had done some bad things in his time but he had just unwittingly agreed to assist in the murder of seven men. Two of them, Eric and Herbie, he could almost call friends. Momentarily he considered leaving the gold in Epping Forest and getting the hell out of Blighty for good, but he knew this ball was rolling and if he did that Mouse would assume he had also ripped him off and that would make him number eight. No, he would organise the hitman, then organise himself one last job, and leave Mouse’s money exactly where it was and get well and truly lost.

  Now, on the eve of the final chapter of this saga, Danny was a lot happier than he had been that day he walked out of the prison. Several years had passed; there had been no comebacks on the murders of those that had double- crossed Mouse, and in all fairness very little heat from the old bill at all regarding the violent end of seven turncoats. ‘Good riddance’ was the unofficial stance the Met took when villains inevitably turned on themselves. Danny had been to see Mouse the previous week. He had told Mouse his plans, and he had explained that the gold was still buried in Epping Forrest and that if Mouse was ever released, or needed access, Danny would ensure he was available to retrieve it. Danny was fearful that Mouse would think he was lying and making off with the swag, but Mouse trusted him and granted him absolution. Mouse had thanked Danny and wished him luck for his imminent escapade. All was well.

  Danny’s thoughts drifted back to the meeting with the unnamed American, whose number he had been given by the bent warden. He had known that when he made the call he would now become an accessory to murder, and he reconsidered his options hoping there was another solution, but soon realised when he had made that commitment back in his brother’s bar to team up with Mouse, that his bridges had been burnt. He made the call.

  No details were discussed on the phone; the meet was arranged for the following day at the entrance to Brighton Pier.

  Danny was told to carry a small bunch of flowers and he would be contacted. As hard as Danny was, he was shitting himself; this was so far out of his league his mind was racing. This could go tits up, what if the would -be assassin was the filth? What if the assassin was some Mafiosi type who would do the hits then rub him out? As he stood there pondering the outcome, a very ordinary, slim built man walked past and then turned in surprise, “My God, its Danny Gallagher” said the man with an American accent “it must be 15 years.”

  Danny was just about to tell the stranger to fuck off when it dawned on him this was the meet, and that this was the man who was going to murder the seven guys, who had once been part of, the team that Danny had worked with. Hell’s Teeth, thought Danny, he looked so ordinary. Both men instantaneously stretched out their left hands, shook and slapped each other on the back, as old friends might. Danny was surprised that the man in front of him was so unassuming and nothing like the person he had imagined, but of course Mouse always insisted on the best so this guy was hardly likely to have any impediments which would draw attention to him. Danny felt better, and the American suggested they walk along the sea front and catch up on the lost years. As soon as they were out of earshot the American spoke:

  “Right, Danny, I need names, locations if possible but not essential, a time frame, and you mentioned on the phone you had more than one car for sale, how many?”

  “Seven” replied Danny.

  The American blew through his teeth. “Jesus” he said.

  Danny then explained the reasons for the multiple executions, including the fact that the two safe crackers were currently in unknown areas of the world didn’t appear to worry the American, who spoke very precisely:

  “Ok, then here’s the deal, this is a huge job, number one, these people will have to be taken out over a period of time, probably at six monthly intervals at best, or the British police will start making connections. Number two, before each hit; I want fifty percent of the fee up front. When the job is done I will send you proof, and when you receive that proof, no more than five days later I want the balance of the money paid into the account that will accompany the evidence of the hit. Do you foresee any problems so far?”

  Danny swallowed. Was he really hearing this?

  “This is our first and last meeting” the American hitman continued. “The payment is fifty big ones for each of the guys whose whereabouts you give me, and a hundred large for the two who are on the run, and lastly in which order would you like me to start?”

  Danny couldn’t believe that in ten minutes he had just signed the death warrant of seven men. He could see each of their faces clearly in his mind, and he thought about the last question.

  “Right,” he replied, “I agree to everything you’ve said, you had best take the guys out who were on the initial job first, that will get the message out that no one fucks with Mouse and gets away with it.”

  “Good thinking,” replied the American assassin. The ten minutes he had allowed himself to spend with his client were up.

  “It was lovely bumping into you after all these years, now I’ve got to hit the road, so get those lovely flowers to Madge before they wilt” he said, and with that he
was gone, leaving Danny wondering how the anonymous American had known his wife’s name. He shuddered, and not because of the cold Brighton air, he looked around and he was on his own.

  Six weeks later, just as Danny was starting to convince himself it had all been a bad dream, he received his first instructions: to deposit twenty-five thousand in a bank account in Pennsylvania, USA.

  Eric Logan had done well, he now owned a pub and a thriving mini-cab business, and he was convinced his future was secure; there had been no fallout over his treachery and he was on the up, with two legitimate businesses to his name. The world was all well with him as he locked up his office on the last night of his life, and he didn’t even see the lone gunman who walked up behind him and fired two bullets into the back of his neck, leaving his brains pebble dashing the front door of his newly painted office.

  The next letter Danny got was a cutting from the London Evening Standard describing the shooting of a South London businessman, with known underworld connections. The letter also contained the name and account number of a bank in Oregon, USA. Danny didn’t wait five days to pay the money into the American bank, he did it that afternoon.

  Herbie Sparks had panicked- word had spread like wildfire after Bones Logan’s untimely death, that retribution was coming for those that had been stupid enough to think Mouse was impotent in his prison cell. Herbie hightailed it out of London and relocated to the wilds of Derbyshire; he took over the local Post Office, assumed a new identity and began to sleep again at nights. It was not enough. As he sat in the saloon bar of his now local pub six months later, at last starting to feel a little easier, a motorcyclist walked into the pub and asked if there was a Mr Sparks in tonight. Herbie, caught totally unaware, replied “That’s me, mate,” upon which the black clad gunman pulled out a pistol, shot Herbie between the eyes twice, and marched briskly out, leaving the yokels stunned and terrified.

  Danny received the newspaper cutting from the Derbyshire Evening Post two days later. ‘Innocent drinker murdered in sleepy village pub, publican in state of shock’, was what he read; also in the letter was the name of a bank account in Lyon, Southern France.

  And so the killing continued, until all seven had been snuffed out. Danny wondered if his turn would come. Although he had stayed loyal to Mouse, probably out of fear for his life, he couldn’t be sure, and so here he was. In a few hours he would be out of it for good. He slipped into a fitful doze for what remained of the night.

  Chapter 14

  The Bank Robbery

  At 5.30am the next morning Danny rose from his bed, now fully focused on the day ahead. Both he and Madge had decided she should open up the stall as normal. When the police started taking statements from all those in the vicinity of the raid it might look suspicious if their stall was not functioning. As always, Madge was already awake and busying herself. They quickly covered the plans of the day and the rendezvous at Maidstone for the hundredth time and said their goodbyes. Madge took the van, and headed north for the Nine Elms fruit and veg market and Danny took Madge’s five year old Honda, less conspicuous than the 750 series BMW that he had recently taken charge of. Danny’s accomplices were three in number. His brother Sammy was going in first, armed with a sawn off shotgun, his brief was to blast open the security door that separated the staff from the public, and get them all on the ground before anyone hit the panic button. Providing the panic button wasn’t hit, they had estimated they had five minutes before the general alarm was raised. If some lucky bastard got to the button they had three minutes. Danny, over the period of time he had been watching the bank and calling in with regular deposits, had worked his timing out to a second; if everyone did exactly as they should, they could be in and out in two and a half minutes, worst case scenario they could do the bank if the panic button was hit. The other two blaggers were faces Danny knew and trusted, unusually for London gangs, who kept themselves to themselves, territorially at least, the two Danny had chosen were Essex lads who ran a scrap business down the A13. Danny felt he needed new blood on this one, there was too much history south of the water, and furthermore once it was over and everyone had assumed their normal lives, these boys lived and operated very close to Epping Forrest, which meant they might prove useful at a later date. Neither of them knew any of the history of the Brinks Mat apart from what the papers trawled up every so often.

  Like all East End villains, Ugly Dave Johnson and Tommy “the fly” Payne had their roots going back to the heyday of East End crime when the Krays and Richardson’s ruled the roost. Ugly Dave and the Fly were part of this folklore, some true some not, what was true was that Dave Johnson had acquired the additional forename Ugly following a brutal beating, which necessitated sixty stitches to his face, from officers of the West End Vice Squad following his refusal to grass up a couple of his mates who were holding a large quantity of smack, which the Vice Squad boys required.

  As is the code of villainy, a man who takes a good hiding is classified as all right, and his reputation is secured. Tommy Payne earned his moniker shortly after him and Ugly moved to the scrap yard. Tommy, a fearless bastard, decided to rip off the Essex pikies with a series of cons involving a number of top end motors, and the pikies fell for the ruse, mainly because they considered themselves untouchable, certainly anybody with a modicum of respect for their lives would steer well clear of these Irish tinkers. So the pikies named Tommy ‘the fly’, like the fly on the end of a line to tempt and cheat the great trout in the Liffey. They did of course, after discovering they had been conned, also deliver one hell of a beating to the East End wide boy, and all parties lived in a state of truce thereafter.

  Six months previously, Danny Gallagher had come calling to the scrap yard down the A13 with a proposition. There was a bank, in a nice quite town in Hertfordshire waiting to be robbed. Danny needed two more for the team, and he needed men who could put the fear of Christ up the arses of the staff and customers of the bank, furthermore he needed a small getaway van, ideally with a refitted engine that could deliver in excess of two hundred horses. He needed tooling up, three sawn off shotguns, three hand guns and three CS gas canisters to set off as they left the bank. Were they interested, he asked.

  “Has David Attenborough got a fucking Passport?” replied Ugly. “Course we’re interested.”

  The payout was agreed, all equal four ways, and the Essex boys could even take the swag back to the yard immediately after the job, probably best as there are a million places to hide illicit goods in a scrap yard, and most illicit goods had already been transported through that particular scrap yard on the A13.

  As dawn broke on the morning of the robbery, the big black gates of the scrap yard opened and two motors pulled out, a cut and shut Mercedes S class and a white Renault 35cwt van. Both had false number plates, one was coming back tonight, and one wasn’t. In the back of the Renault were four large canvas sports bags, and they would also be returning tonight but by then they would be full of the cash that was currently being loaded into the armoured van that was due to deliver it to St. Albans that morning. Under the bags were the shooters that Danny had ordered, as well as two canisters of CS gas, and two canisters of Mustard gas. The provider of the assorted weapons, known aptly as the quartermaster, had had great difficulty getting the gas and had warned the boys that the Mustard gas was only to be used if they were in deep shit.

  The Essex boys were soon making their way through the back lanes to Harlow, and then onward to Borehamwood, with the Fly behind the wheel of the van and Ugly Dave in the Merc.

  Sammy Gallagher was also on the move, having checked out of the Gleneagles hotel, he was returning his hired car to the Hertz garage opposite Luton Broadway station. He checked his watch, dead on time, he didn’t want to be hanging around either on the platform at Luton or outside the station at Borehamwood. As far as Sammy was concerned, the job was underway right now, and that meant precision timing from this moment on.

  In the meantime, Danny had had an uneventful j
ourney up from Kent, and he had parked Madge’s car in Arden Grove, Harpenden. This was an unrestricted street near the town centre and station where many commuters took advantage of the free all day parking, and no one would be any the wiser. Danny made his way round to the station, stopping to glance in the local estate agent’s windows, not to check out local house prices but to be comfortable he wasn’t being watched. At exactly 9.28am the Bedford to St Pancras slow train, stopping at all stations, pulled into Luton Broadway and Sammy Gallagher stepped on board carrying that day’s Daily Telegraph and nothing else. All the possessions he had had during his stay at the Gleneagles had been parcelled up and posted home the night before; the years of thieving had taught Sammy and the rest that when you were going to undertake a criminal activity, you travelled light and with no identification that could inadvertently be left at the scene of a crime.

  At 9.54am the slow train to St Pancras pulled up at platform 3 Harpenden Rail Station. Danny Gallagher stepped on board, acknowledged his brother with an upward movement of his thumb, took a seat further down the carriage and settled down. At 10.06 the train, heading towards St Pancras at a snail’s pace, pulled into St. Albans City station. Among the passengers boarding was a deeply scarred man from a scrap yard down the A13. He made eye contact with his two coconspirators, and took a seat between the two brothers.

  Half an hour earlier, Ugly Johnson had arrived in St. Albans in the untraceable Merc S class He had driven to an area just outside the city centre known as Bernard’s Heath, north of the city but only a couple of minutes drive, and the ideal spot to switch motors after the blag, unload the cash from the Renault and leave Danny to dump the van and shooters in Harpenden. Sammy and the two Essex boys would then hit the motorway and be back in the safety of the scrap yard in an hour. There were plenty of dog walkers on the Heath that morning and the Merc would not draw attention to itself for the short time it was staying.