“I’m sure there is!” replies the other. “I’m sure indeed. Can you still dance, though, Liam? You danced the foxtrot with Caro once, in the Primrose Hill house.”
“Blow me!” replies Liam Doyle. “I’m sure I did! I would have danced anything in those days! Well, I’ve no idea. I haven’t danced in … oh, well …” And his voice trails away.
But before it can become maudlin, Liam’s friend says “I bet you’ve still got it!” And Liam says it’s true, he has, of course! Of course he has. And then it’s “Hullo, Simon, I know that’s you, my God, is this your wife? How superb, I swear, she looks like a queen, and I’m not talking about our bloody queen, God bless, I’m talking Titania! Yes, I am! May I kiss the bride?” And he does, planting a smacker on the gentle, homely face and grinning as if he’s won a prize. “And Big Douggie! I see you there! Come off the bench, man! You remember Douggie, don’t you, Simon?” And Simon does, in fact they had a brawl back in the day, and bloody Hell, if Douggie wasn’t the toughest bastard ever threw a punch, I swear to you, Douggie, I still dream about it, seeing that fist on its way!
“Well,” says Douggie, “I don’t mix it up, now. I teach the young ones. But, well, every now and again I show them a thing or two, for laughs. I think they go easy on me, mind …” And he grins, gap-toothed, and everyone thinks Not if they bloody want to get out of the ring alive, they don’t. “How about you, Simon?”
“Oh, well,” says Simon, a bit sad, “I’ve moved on a bit. I still follow the boxing, or … I used to …”
And once again the whisper of regret. So many things we used to do. So many laws we used to break and laugh at. And now we creep around and make more money and what are we, if not crooks?
Well, rich, of course, and happier for it.
Happier, absolutely.
Around and around it goes. Joe has the touch, the memory for every face, and there’s a fire in him, a rich desperate longing for days everyone had forgotten about, and the strength in his arm to make you believe. Behind him goes the whisper: that’s Joe Spork. He’s putting a job together, and he’s going to ask us to help.
It must be some job.
He will ask, won’t he?
Sure he will.
And finally, when the nerves and the nostalgia are about ready to boil over, Joe climbs up on the back of an extremely expensive Italian leather sofa in his workman’s boots, and he says:
“I expect you’re wondering why I asked you all here this evening!”
They are. Of course they are.
“I may have misled you a bit, in a way. I think I told Jorge I was planning a big job. Well, I’m not.” He grins, a naughty-boy grin, Mathew’s face staring over a mustard polo neck and a tan bullhide coat, superimposed on the weathered, blockish features of his son. “I’m not planning a big job. I’m planning ten. Or a hundred. However many it takes to make the point. I’m talking about the brass ring. I’m talking about robbing every bank in London and half of Hatton Garden, hitting the payroll and the Mint and everything in between.
“Now I know, because I’ve seen you, that you don’t do those things any more. I know, at least, that that’s what you think. And I also know, because I’ve seen you, that when you see the Bond Street caper, with those lads lifting a hundred grand a pop and busted by the end of the week, or the Heathrow diamonds, or the Millennium Dome, you look at those sorry jobs and you think to yourselves: I could have done that twice as fast and taken twice as much and I’d be sitting in bloody Duke’s Bar when the Lily came and nothing to say I was ever anywhere else. Because those jobs were grand, but they had no exit, and they were brassy, but they had no class. And you’ve got class.”
The Old Campaigners grin at one another. Sure enough, they have class. They know the importance of balls, for sure, but also of smarts and timing, and above all, of getting away with it. Robbing is easy. Robbing clean is hard—but that’s what separates the men from the boys, isn’t it?
“I remember, don’t I, how it’s done? I remember when the Boldbrook delivery was taken by person or persons unknown, and the police were swarming the Crespind Club because they’d had a tip-off the place was a brothel. Which it unquestionably was. But when they got there it was all awash with bigwigs in their drawers, so when the same fellow called in a robbery at Boldbrook—ten minutes before it happened—they told him to stick it in his ear, and then of course when Boldbrook himself called they told him the same thing. And no one ever told a bloody word of how it was done, not the cracksman nor the lookout nor not a one of them, because they were men of the life. Women of the life. (I won’t name names, but I could. We all know who they were. And not a one of us has ever told, have they?)
“But I look at you, and I see one more thing. I see talent going to waste. I see skills like no one ever had before or since. I see the long con and the short, I see high-score planners and forgers and dippers and smugglers and high-wall men and strong arms and gunhands and lead-footed getaway drivers and what have you done for us lately? You’ve let crime get white-collar and dull. You’re rich and you’re dying of respectability. I see you, Boy Reynolds. I see you with your arm in a sling! Crashed a souped-up Mercedes into a sand dune at one hundred and eleven miles an hour between Paris and Dakar.
“Because you are bored. You are so bored you could die of it.
“You’re all respectable and safe. And not one of you is having any fun.
“Well, I’m in deep shit. I touched something I wasn’t supposed to. I know things I mayn’t. I’m at war with Brother Sheamus of the Ruskinites and Mr. Rodney Titwhistle of the Legacy Board, and what they will do to me if they get me doesn’t bear discussion. I’m on the run from the law, and these days that’s a short course. They’ve had me once: not again. No more white rooms and torture for this lad. Not again.
“They’ll have SO19 out there, anyway, so no matter. God help any poor bugger caught outside in a fedora this month!” Joe grins again, and this time it’s the wolf grin, the wartime grin, the Englishman’s inner barbarian, which every one of them keeps close at hand for the dark days.
A flash of Argyle socks as Joe shifts his weight and opens his arms to them again.
“And I’ll tell you, people. I’m having more fun than I have ever had in my entire, safe, taxpaying life!
“What’s it all about? I’ll tell you. There’s a wicked sort who wants something he can’t have. He can’t have it because if he gets it he’ll likely kill us all. He’s a lunatic and a bad egg. He’s not a crook, he’s a devil, and that’s all there is to it. I mean to put a stop to him. I mean to stop him dead. And if I don’t, well, it’ll be down to you lot anyway, because he’s bought the government or some such thing, and is sheltered in their breast. If I don’t do the job, my lords, ladies, and assorted crooks, we shall all go down six feet. Think of him as a mad bugger who wants to test a nuclear bomb in Trafalgar Square. He doesn’t, but it’s as good as. But here, you leave that to me. I’ll take care of the Opium Khan. All I want you to do … is steal every blighted thing that isn’t nailed down and preferably most of what is!
“I am going to raise unholy Hell. The Tosher’s Beat is going to ring again to the sound of escaping felons. The rooftops will buzz to the sound of our circular saws, and all across the mighty city of London things of enormous value will be liberated from vaults of veritable impenetrability. We will remind everyone on Earth that London’s crooks are the best there have ever been.
“And in the process, we will save the world.
“And if that doesn’t sound like fun, you rotten lot, you have forgotten the meaning of the word! So all those in favour …” he makes calming motions with both hands, as if holding them back. “All those in favour can signify by acclamation. My name is Joshua Joseph Spork. But you can call me: Crazy Joe! So let’s hear you say it. If you raise the roof of this place, we’re on, and we’re away.
“Now, then: what’s my name?”
There’s a roar of laughter and applause, and a lot of
glasses raised.
From the back, a woman’s voice says: “Crazy Joe!” and then a man’s from the far corner: “Crazy Joe!” And then Big Douggie growls it out and Tony Wu, and even Dizzy Spencer, and then the great, too-cool, too-professional black-suited multitude are chanting it in a gathering wave of noise which breaks over Joe Spork and seems to set him alight, and he roars like a great ape and swears to God he will embrace every one of them, all at once, and it seems he will really try, and then his arms are full of a small, sassy, dark-haired beauty with outrageous toes, and as he raises her into the air for a passionate, demonstrative kiss, no one remembers or cares that Polly Cradle was the first to call out his name, or that her brother was the second.
Later, when the Pablum’s function room is all but empty, a man in a black suit is left standing with Mercer Cradle, who brings him to Joe Spork in a quiet corner. He’s tall and pale and very grave. Joe Spork takes his hand.
“Mr. Spork,” the man says, “my name is Simon Alleyn.”
“Very pleased to meet you. Thank you for coming.”
The Master of the Honoured & Enduring Brotherhood of Waiting Men nods and says nothing. It’s very effective. Tool of the trade, no doubt.
“I’ve got myself into a big fight, Mr. Alleyn. I was wondering if you’d like to join me.”
“So I understand. It’s not really our kind of thing. Not even for Brother Friend, I’m afraid.”
“No.”
“No, we let the police handle that sort of thing.”
“I’m sure. But there’s something you might want to know, all the same.”
“Go on, then.”
“Billy Friend was murdered by Vaughn Parry.”
Simon Alleyn doesn’t blink. His face doesn’t change at all. And yet Joe Spork is aware of having his fullest attention.
“Should I understand, then, Mr. Spork, that Vaughn Parry has somewhat to do with all this?”
“In a way, he is at the heart of it.”
“In a way?”
“You could argue that he is … no longer who he was. That he has become someone worse.”
“Worse.”
“Very much worse.”
“And you know where he is?”
“Yes.”
Simon Alleyn studies the empty air in front of him for a moment. Then he nods. “The Waiting Men have business with Brother Vaughn. Whoever he is now.”
And then, later still, in a quiet moment, in an empty room.
“Hello?” the voice on the other end of the phone says cautiously.
“Hello,” Joe says. “You know who this is?”
“Well, I know who it can’t be. There was a chap I once sent socks to, and you sound like him—but that fellow’s been accused of all manner of frightful things. The government thinks he’s a regular walking Armageddon. Amending the Human Rights Act and passing all sorts of rather iffy laws. I don’t approve, to be honest. I think the law’s the law and it says what it says for a reason. Do you know, they sent a rather indifferent policeman up here to ask me if I knew anything?”
“I’m sorry about that.”
“Lord, it is you. How extraordinary.”
“Yes, I suppose so. I hope I didn’t cause you any trouble.”
“No, no. It was rather exciting. I told him you breathed fire and ate raw meat. He seemed to think he knew that already.”
“Oh. Yes.”
“So what on Earth are you doing on my phone? I would have thought you had Sabine women to abduct and suchlike.”
“How’s the golf coming along?”
“God, what a question. Do you know, I think I hate golf? It was never my favourite thing, but somehow now I suspect it will kill me, in the end. That and the membership. I feel I can say this to you because you’ve got larger things to worry about than telling the board of governors I’ve gone off the game. And of course no one in their right mind will believe anything you say.”
“That is quite true.”
“But with the best will in the world, I doubt you really want to know about golf. It doesn’t strike me as your biggest worry, just about now.”
“Well, no. To be honest, I wondered if you’d do something for me.”
“Highly unlikely. You’re a sinner.”
“I quite understand.”
“Not an offer I can’t refuse, or anything? No horse’s head coming my way?”
“I always felt sorry for the horse. It didn’t have anything to do with him, did it?”
“No. But I think I hate horses more than golf. My grandchildren are at that stage. It’s actually more time-consuming than a marriage, having a horse, and suddenly I have four to take care of, because there’s no question of a ten-year-old really looking after a horse by herself.”
“Oh. Well, anyway, this isn’t that sort of offer. It’s the other sort, where you can say ‘no’ if you want to. I’m actually expecting you to, but I have to ask.”
“I suppose I had better hear what you want, just so I can refuse in fullest understanding.”
“Well, I sent you a package.”
“Oh, was that you? Marvellous gallery of fancy and lies, I thought.”
“It’s all true.”
“So you say.”
“Yes. But you read it, is the point.”
“Oh, yes. Mind you, I suppose, given what’s happening with the bees and so on, it’s no more far-fetched than the official line.”
“No.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“Well, I’m going to steal a plane, and I wondered if you wanted to fly it.”
“Definitely not.”
“Right.”
“In fact, I’m going to come down there and refuse in person. Where shall I meet you?”
“I’ll have someone pick you up.”
“As long as you understand the answer is absolutely no.”
“I do.”
“I’ll bring my flight suit, just to rub it in.”
“Right.”
“What kind of plane am I refusing to fly here?”
“A Lancaster, I thought.”
“Good choice. If I was mad enough to do anything of the kind for you, I’d appreciate your sense of history. Save the world, eh?”
“I’m a madman. Everyone says so.”
“Hah. Well, I don’t think I could argue with that even if I was going to help you. You better have someone meet my train, I always get frightfully lost in London.”
On the roof of the Pablum Club, Joe Spork lies on his back and stares into the endless sky. The felons and free spirits have gone home, and the plan—call it one plan, though in truth it’s about a thousand plans, all jumbled together in a tangle of criminal behaviour so bewildering as to make even his eyes water—is in motion. Everyone else’s bit, at least. His own remains to be begun, let alone accomplished. The clock is ticking, and he can hear it in his head, imagines the tiny wings of Frankie’s bees on their way home. When the circle closes, he must be ready, or it won’t matter how good his plan was. On the other hand, if it’s not good enough, he’ll never get to where he needs to be. And yet, as he looks up and up and up, he finds that he is not worried about that at all. The things he will do over the next twenty-four hours—attack, fight, live or die—are the right things. The best things he could be doing.
A moment later, he hears a step on the asphalt, and feels the warmth of Polly Cradle lying next to him. Soon they must get up, and travel, and do gangster’s work. But these stolen moments are theirs alone.
XVIII
Lovelace;
Misrule;
showdown.
Eighteen hours later, in the cave beneath the hill, the Ada Lovelace broods and grumbles. Arc lights burn and shadows jump on the walls. Joe Spork’s shoulders are covered in soot and grime, and his hair is matted. From time to time, he dips his whole head in a vat of water and lets the run-off cool him. It is too hot, too smoky, too choking, too metallic.
It’s perfect.
The Ruskinites—Ted Sholt’s Ruskinites—left clear instructions for waking the Lovelace. Joe is following a handwritten guide, step by step, the pages open on a barrelhead. He has opened the drive cavity, cleaned and oiled the gears and replaced them. He can smell the grease on his skin.
He works, and in between times, when something must cool or set, he sits with Frankie’s list, her off-switch, and reads them again and again. His hands twitch and twist in the air. Eyes closed, he can feel the outline of the Apprehension Engine, knows Frankie’s clever clips and catches, the route through the wires and coils from the beehive shell to the heart. He commits it to memory, and makes Polly Cradle test him. For each correct answer, he gets a kiss. For each wrong one, a frown.
On a length of discarded rail Joe pounds red-white metal, folds and flattens, replacing a control lever in the floor of the driver’s cab. There can be no weaknesses, not today.
The technique is called Mokume-gane. He laughs, suddenly, loudly, and it echoes through the enclosed space. Of course. If one were to do this with gold and iron, and then immerse the result in nitric acid, the iron would dissolve. A truly subtle metalworker—a genius—might fold the metal in leaf-thin layers, an origami so carefully executed that the resulting mesh of gold would flex like cloth, would appear to have been woven.
He takes the washed steel rod and quenches it, then—obedient to the requirements of the instruction manual—fits it and cools it again in place. There is a brief, high sound, like a chime as it settles into the mechanism. He hesitates.
“Try.”
The Lovelace growls again, and this time whines as well, and the engine—decoupled, for the moment, from its massive load—shifts slightly on the track.
All night and much of the day he has worked like that, and he is not tired. It is as if twenty years of sleep and certainty have stored themselves up in him for discharge in a time of need. The Lovelace is ready.
Polly Cradle catches him around the neck and drags him up into the driver’s cab. On the floor of the engine she makes love to him, skin slick with transferred grime.