lane. As he got there, a small red Fiat with three men in it drew up at
the curb. Tony got in and sat in the empty seat in the back. The car
pulled away immediately.
The driver was Jacko, Tony’s first lieutenant.
Beside Jacko was Deaf Willie, who knew more about explosives now than he
had twenty years ago when he lost his left eardrum. In the back with
Tony was Peter “Jesse” James, whose two obsessions were firearms and
girls with fat bottoms. They were good men; all permanent members of
Tony’s firm.
Tony said: “How’s the boy, Willie?”
Deaf Willie turned his good ear towards Tony.
“What?” “I said, how’s young Billy?”
“Eighteen today,” Willie said. “He’s the same, Tone. He’ll never be able
to look after his self The social worker told us to think about putting
him in a home.”
Tony tutted sympathetically. He went out of his way to be kind to Deaf
Willie’s half-witted son; mental illness frightened him. “You don’t want
to do that.” Willie said: “I said to the wife, what does a social worker
know? This one’s a girl of about twenty. Been to college. Still, she
don’t push herself.”
Jacko broke in impatiently. “We’re all set, Tony.
The lads are there, the motors are ready.”
“Good.” Tony looked at Jesse James. “Shooters?”
“Got a couple of shotguns and an Uzi.”
“A what?”
Jesse grinned proudly. “It’s a nine-millimeter machine pistol.
Israeli.”
“Stroll on,” Tony muttered.
Jacko said: “Here we are.”
Tony took a cloth cap from his pocket and fixed it on his head. “You’ve
put the lads indoors, have you?” “Yes,” Jacko said.
“I don’t mind them knowing it’s a Tony Cox job, but I don’t want them to
be able to say they saw me.”
“I know.”
The car pulled into a scrap yard. It was a remarkably tidy yard. The
shells of cars were piled three high in orderly lines, and component
parts were stacked neatly round about: pillars of tires, a pyramid of
rear axles, a cube of cylinder blocks.
Near the gateway were a crane and a long car transporter. Farther in, a
plain blue Ford van with double rear wheels stood next to the yard’s
heavy-duty oxyacetylene cutting gear.
The car stopped and Tony got out. He was pleased. He liked things neat.
The other three stood around, waiting for him to do something.
Jacko lit a cigarette.
Tony said: “Did you fix the owner of the yard?”
Jacko nodded. “He made sure the crane, the transporter, and the cutting
gear were here. But he doesn’t know what they’re for, and we’ve tied him
up, just for the sake of appearances.” He started to cough.
Tony took the cigarette out of Jacko’s mouth and dropped it in the mud.
“Those things make you cough,” he said. He took a cigar from his pocket.
“Smoke this and die old.”
Tony walked back toward the yard gate. The three men followed. Tony trod
gingerly around potholes and swampy patches, past a stack of thousands
of lead-acid accumulators, between mounds of drive shafts and gearboxes,
to the crane.
It was a smallish model, on caterpillar tracks, capable of lifting a
car, a van, or a light truck. He unbuttoned his overcoat and climbed the
ladder to the high cab.
He sat in the operator’s seat. The all-round windows enabled him to see
the whole of the yard. It was triangular in plan. One side was a railway
viaduct, its brick arches filled in by storerooms. A high wall on the
adjacent side separated the yard from a playground and a bomb site. The
road ran along the front of the yard, curving slightly as it followed
the bend of the river a few yards beyond.
It was a wide road, but little used.
In the lee of the viaduct was a hut made of old wooden doors supporting
a tar-paper roof. The men would be in there, huddled around an electric
fire, drinking tea and smoking nervously.
Everything was right. Tony felt elation rise in his belly as instinct
told him it would work. He climbed out of the crane.
He deliberately kept his voice low, steady and casual. “This van doesn’t