‘Everything go off all right?’ Rogan said.
‘I parked it at the back of that ruined barn. Sure and there won’t be a soul about on a day like this.’
Rogan eased back against the side of the van and lit a cigarette. He tossed the packet across to Fletcher who sat opposite, strangely formal in his navy blue uniform. The big man extracted a cigarette with hands that shook slightly.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ Morgan demanded. ‘Wetting yourself?’
‘Why don’t you get stuffed?’ Fletcher leaned back and blew out a cloud of smoke with evident satisfaction. ‘It’s going to be all right, I can tell.’
‘What did you do, write to Gypsy Rose?’ Morgan asked sarcastically.
Fletcher turned, one gnarled fist balling and Rogan cut in sharply, ‘Knock it off. You can cut pieces out of each other from tomorrow on as far as I’m concerned. Until then, I’m in charge.’
A few minutes later, they started to move through Kendal and he glanced at his watch. ‘A quarter of an hour.’
He could see beads of sweat lining the folds of skin that draped over the back of Costello’s collar and the old man pulled down his cap with a hand that shook slightly. Fletcher showed no apparent emotion and Morgan grinned.
‘Nothing quite like it, is there?’
Rogan didn’t reply, but he knew exactly what the man was getting at. The hollowness in the stomach, the tightness in the chest, the difficulty in breathing properly. It wasn’t fear exactly, but something rather more subtle. A strange mixture of excitement and apprehension. A feeling he had known many times before that lasted until the exact moment that you made your first decisive move. After that, there was never time to think of anything but the job in hand.
The van moved along the narrow lane between high hedges and then, quite suddenly, they were turning into the parking space outside Rigg Station. Hannah braked to a halt, and reversed in one smooth motion until the back of the van was no more than a foot from the loading bay. Rogan opened the door, stepped out and moved into the booking hall.
A silk scarf was already knotted at the back of his neck and he pulled it over the lower half of his face and jerked down the peak of his old tweed cap. He opened the door of the stationmaster’s office and stepped inside.
Briggs stood at the fireplace, one hand icaching for the kettle, a pint pot in the other. He started to turn and Rogan took the Colt automatic from his pocket.
The old man’s face was a study in bewilderment. He opened his mouth as if to speak and his jaw went slack as the shock of what was happening hit him with the force of a physical blow.
Paddy Costello moved inside quickly, opened the other door and passed into the baggage hall. As Rogan heard
the outer doors open, he said to Briggs, ‘Do as you’re told and you won’t get hurt. Take off your cap, jacket and waistcoat and put them on the desk.’
The old man stood there staring at him, frozen by fear, his mouth open. Rogan stepped forward in one quick movement and touched him between the eyes with the cold barrel of the automatic.
‘Now, not tomorrow.’
His action had exactly the psychological effect that he had hoped. Briggs put his pint pot on the mantelpiece and hurriedly took off his jacket. When Costello came back into the office, Briggs was standing by the fireplace, his shirt sleeves rolled above the elbow, one arm only half the thickness of the other, badly disfigured by the jagged distinctive scars of old shrapnel wounds.
‘Where did you pick that lot up?’ Rogan asked.
Briggs seemed to come to life a little and his head went back. ‘The Somme, 1916.’
‘It you got through that bloody lot, you’ll survive anything. Lie on the floor and close your eyes.’
He nodded to Costello who moved forward quickly, a coil of rope in his hands. Rogan went into the baggage hall. Outside, the wheels of the old Morris van skidded on the loose gravel as Hannah drove away. Fletcher dragged in the fourth mailbag and Morgan closed the door.