Chapter 9
Liverpool, England, October 1977
Wayne Doolan stood in the weak autumn sunlight and blinked. As he experienced freedom for the first time in twenty months his first thought was they had it wrong in the films. They always showed the big front doors clanging behind the prisoners when they entered and left the prison, but that wasn't right.
In his case he had arrived in a enclosed Black Maria and hadn't seen sight or sound of the prison door, just a fleeting glimpse of the inner yard as he was taken in through the door to the reception area. Not that this reception area had any resemblance to the image those words would conjure up to anyone who have never been inside prison. This reception area was a row of showers opposite a long wooden counter that was faced with wire netting that had one small opening let into it. Into here had gone his civilian clothes and in return he had been issued with some well-worn, blue, prison denims. He had never heard the big front doors slam in all the time he had been there and he doubted if they ever opened it as they even released prisoners through the side door.
He pulled at the crotch of the expensive grey woollen slacks that had become almost a size too small since he had last worn them, the problems of ready access to food, boredom and a lack of exercise, having conspired to add some four kilos to his slight frame. Still, the lightweight windcheater jacket still fitted pretty well. After a few moments just soaking up the feeling of freedom he took a big lung full of air and walked along to the bus stop where he had been told he could get a bus into Liverpool. He was tempted to go into the nearby telephone box and ring for a taxi, but he knew that with less than fifteen pounds in his pocket that would just be stupid bravado.
The ride into the city was uneventful except the watery sun disappeared and a black squall raced in from the mouth of the Mersey and hammered its rain against the bus windows. From the top deck he looked down on people scurrying about their business while trying to stay dry and felt unreal and detached from the world. He had heard of newly released prisoners experiencing this feeling of unreality, but until now had not believed it.
He left the bus in the city centre and made his way to the address given to him by the probation service just before his release. The card he had in his pocket bore the name Anne Shargill and she was to fix him up with somewhere to live, probation approved digs, they called it. He had been glad to see a woman's name on the card, as he had never had any trouble in wrapping any woman around his finger, or any other part of his anatomy come to that. He was wrong in this case.
Anne Shargill was a dumpy little woman in her mid forties who had seen her fair share of amoral little bastards like Wayne Doolan. Looking him directly in the eyes she did not mince her words. She handed him a type written card with the day and the times of the week he was to report to her as soon as he had entered her office and gave her the big hello smile. She told him in no uncertain terms what was expected of him and what he could expect from her if he broke the terms of his probation, the clarity and reasonability of her delivery making the promised action more threatening than if she had tried to intimidate him. She then handed him a second type written card with the address of his new digs and dismissed him. Very much into type written cards was Anne Shargill.
The digs were no better or worse than he had expected. A single room filled with second hand furniture and a fifty pence slot meter to feed the electric fire if it was needed. Mrs Briggs, the landlady, was a hard faced, grey haired, skinny woman in her late fifties who had more would be tenants than she could handle, as her take it or leave attitude showed. She left him after pointing out the house rules, hand written on a piece of lined paper and staples to the back of the door. He started to transfer his belongings to the old and chipped furniture and freedom suddenly seemed a pale shadow of how he remembered it. The next few days were filled with signing on for the dole and meetings with various organisations who looked after ex-cons and found them gainful employment. Doolan hated every bloody minute of it, but realised that he was stuck with it for at least the time being until a better alternative came along. So he got on with it.
About a week had gone by since his release and he was sat in one of his favourite pubs, making a half of lager last as long as he could while reading a library book on famous crooks who have successfully fled the country and disappeared, when he heard his name spoken.
"Its Wayne Doolan, isn't it?"
Doolan looked up, all caution. A plump individual wearing an obviously new and expensive, but badly fitting charcoal grey suit, was stood in front of him clutching an equally new maroon briefcase in his left hand. The lenses in the glasses he wore looked as if they really had been made from the bottom of bottles, giving a popeyed look to the almost perfectly round and shiny face. Who the hell was he? Doolan was cautious.
"Maybe, who's asking?"
"I thought it was. Sorry, it must be fifteen years since we last met so no wonder you don't recognise me. I'm Graham King. We were in the same class and football team for a couple of years at Cranbourne Comprehensive."
He held out his hand.
Recognition slowly dawned on Doolan who now stood up and accepted the handshake. He had not remembered King as being so prosperous. His memory told him that King used to be a podgy, useless, spotty little bastard with devout Holy Joe's as parents. Perhaps there was an angle here for him. He gave the other his "sincerely pleased to meet you" smile.
"Bloody hell, so it is. I haven't seen you in years. Where the have you been? Would you like a pint?"
"Yes please, bitter if I may".
Doolan went to the bar while Graham King put down the briefcase he was carrying and sitting down took out a large white handkerchief and mopped his brow. He counted out the money for the drinks and looked with dismay at his worldly wealth of some twenty-two pounds and a few pence. He hoped the money he was laying out on the voice from the past would pay some sort of dividend. He carried the drinks back to the table. King drank down about half of the pint that Doolan placed in front of him and then put his glass back on the table with a sigh of relief.
"Thanks mate, I needed that."
"Yes, I can see. Been a bad morning has it?"
"You could say that. You would think that instead of helping them get one more person off the dole, I had stolen the bloody crown jewels or something."
Doolan raised his eyebrows and looked at his watch. The sudden small lift at meeting someone he hadn't seen for years was wearing off and if he couldn't get a quick advantage out of this he was anxious to get back to his own problems. He was also remembering what a boring Pratt Graham King could be. His eyes went down to his book as he asked the next question automatically.
"What's the problem then?"
He was looked around for escape routes, already regretting the rash impulse that had cost him the price of a pint, but King carried on oblivious.
"Well I've had a bit of luck. After years of working for local government I can finally tell them to stuff it. Finally get to do what I want to do instead of what Edinburgh County Council want."
Doolan feigned interest, making an effort not to pick up his book again.
"What's it got to do with them?" he asked, not caring a stuff about the answer.
"Work for them, don't I, or did. Until Auntie Gracie left me the money."
At the mention of money Doolan was suddenly all ears. That made it different. He smiled.
"Yeah? Tell you what. It’s your round. Why don't you get them in with a couple of packets of chips and then tell me all about it?"
King happily complied. When he returned he sat back and looking just a little smug, started on his story.
"Well, you know when we left school? Well I wanted to go into the building trade with me Dad, right. But I couldn't because I'm bloody useless with my hands. So I started with the Liverpool Council in the Rates Department and went to Night School for three years to get me accountancy papers. But after I passed my exams they wouldn't give me the proper rate for the job, so when Mum and Dad g
ot killed I moved to Edinburgh City Council."
He looked sad and lost for a moment and Doolan dimly recalled reading some years ago that his parents had been killed together in a car crash on the M6. King came back from his thoughts and carried on with his story.
"Christ, I hated that bloody job. Day in and day out for nearly twelve years, worrying about who had a fan belt fitted on which lorry and had the right person signed the rotten chitty. I tell you, Wayne, it was a prison. You can't imagine what its like."
Doolan chose not to enlighten him, but felt that he could write a very long book on what prison was really like. A month after his release it still haunted his dreams. A particular smell or sound could return him to it at any hour of the day or night, particularly at night when he woke up sometimes thinking he was still there. King's voice brought him back to the pub.
"I had come close to filling in the Chief Accountant a couple of times because he was a complete birk and at lunch breaks, when it was too wet to walk around the shops, I would sit at my desk working out different ways I could kill him and get away with it. Then it happened."
He sat back with a happy grin on his face.
"What happened, did a bus run him over or did you poison in his morning coffee?"
"No, nothing to do with that birk. I'm talking about Aunt Grace's legacy. One hundred and fifty thousand smackers, mate."
He watched with some pleasure as first the disbelief and then envy flitted across Doolan's face and it was as well he could not read his thoughts.
"One hundred and fifty thousand? Oh you lucky, lucky bastard. Why couldn't I have an Aunt Grace? I really need one right now. How much of it can I con out of him?"
"Yeah, that's right. One hundred and fifty thousand pounds."
King rolled the words round his tongue as if they were vintage wine.
"And I never even met the old girl. She left it to me as the only living relative on her side of the family. " He explained. "Since me Mam and Dad passed on there's only me and me elder sister, and Aunt Grace reckons women should find husbands to keep them, like she did."
Doolan had to shake his head to clear it before he could continue.
"You didn't give any to your sister then?"
King curled his lip.
"Course not. Mean bitch never did anything for me. Refused to let me stay with them when Mum and Dad died and the council took our house back. Said it was that husband who didn't want me, but I know she agreed with him."
"Well if you've suddenly got all this money what the hell were you moaning about when you came in here just now?"
"Bloody bureaucracy. You see, I've got this cousin by marriage down in Australia who owns a small building firm an he's looking for someone with capital to come in as a partner and help him expand. You know, run the orders and the office for him while he gets on with the actual building. The problem is that trying to emigrate to Australia is like trying to please the Inland Revenue. Just when you think you've cracked it they send you another bloody form."
He shook his head sorrowfully before he continued, not realising that he had just thrown a second poison dart into the other's heart. Doolan knew he would enjoy conning this greedy Pratt. King rambled on oblivious to the avaricious thoughts of his one time schoolmate.
"I've had most of the money in a bank over there for two months now, its getting to join it that's the problem."
He pulled some papers out of his pocket, among them his driving licence and passport while Doolan tried to absorb that last statement and come to terms with the fact he would be lucky to see any of the money he had already been mentally spending. It was some seconds before he realised that King was still talking.
"Look, I've been running around in circles all week trying to sort out this lot and just when I think I'm getting there they say come back tomorrow. Its enough to make a priest swear."
Still reeling from the shock of hearing that the money was already in Australia, the second idea hit Doolan like a blinding flash of lightning and he fought to keep it from his face. He thought quickly and then reached out and patted the other on the shoulder sympathetically.
"Well never mind, Graham. I'm sure with your accounts background, having the right bit of paper is not new to you. Look, as your here I'll get them in again and we can spend a couple of hours talking about the old days. After all, when you get down to Oz you won't find anybody that knows where Cranbourne Comprehensive is, let alone played football for them. Talking about Cranbourne Comp, whatever happened to that nutter, Harris? You know, the one who used to keep his pet frog down his underpants." He shook his head at the memory and picking up the empty glasses and headed for the bar.
And so passed three of the most congenial hours that Graham King had spent in a long time. In the morning, when he couldn't find his passport or his driving licence, he'd had some trouble remembering the names of all of the pubs they had visited. None of those he did remember could help him find them and he couldn't ask his old mate, Wayne Doolan, as he had forgotten to ask him where he lived. The local police station could only advise him to report the losses to the relevant offices, which with a sinking heart, he did. He did eventually reach Australia some five weeks later, but in the meantime he made sure that he did not travel down memory lane with any more old school friends, just in case he got drunk again and lost something else.
For his part it had been with some relief that Doolan heard the landlord of the fifth pub they visited, call time, as he was getting near the end of his tether by then. On the occasions he himself had gone to the bar to get them in, he had been carefully getting himself low alcohol drinks, but he was still beginning to feel woozy from the rounds that King was buying.
King himself was smashed out of his head and in the last three quarters of an hour had become nauseatingly maudlin. Hanging an arm around Doolan's neck while slobbering in his ear what great pals they had been at school. Drinking endless toasts to good old Auntie Gracie, while sobbing his heart out over the fact that he had never even tried to get in touch with the old girl when she was alive. In Doolan's opinion King was fortunate in that. He was sure that if the old lady had ever found out what a pathetic little turd her nephew had turned out to be she would have left all her money to some cats home.
At the landlord's second call of time, he now stood up and put his arm around King's waist to help him to stand and the two of them waltzed unsteadily towards the door, Doolan carrying King's briefcase. The taxi he'd had the foresight to order when they had arrived at the pub half an hour earlier had pulled into the curb as they reached the pavement and Doolan called to the driver.
"You for Mr King, driver?"
The cabby looked doubtfully at the two piss artists he was supposed to be picking up as they stood leaning against each other, King staring around him in the dazed manner of someone who is totally lost. He shook his head. "I was, but you can forget it, mate. I'm not having you two spewing up in the back of my cab."
Handing King his briefcase, Doolan carefully leant him against the wall and placed the empty hand on a convenient drainpipe. He clutched at it like the drowning man he was as he swayed, but stayed upright. Leaving him there Doolan walked back to the taxi doing his best to act as sober as he would like to have been and gave the driver the benefit of his most winning smile.
"Look, driver. Mr King here has been celebrating because his aunt has left him a large sum of money and I am sure that when you get him back to his lodging place he will show his gratitude with a decent tip. Shall we say five pounds?"
The driver gave him a look that said he had heard it all before and he no longer believed in fairies. Well not the magic kind, anyway. Doolan watched him as the lure of the tip fought with the desire to keep his cab clean, then, reluctantly.
"Where does he live?"
Doolan negotiated his careful way back to where King still clutched at the drainpipe.
"Where do you live"?
King grinned at him and burped loudly.
&nb
sp; "Good old Auntie Grace, eh."
Doolan shook him violently.
"I said where do you live, you stupid pratt".
The naked anger in his voice seemed to bring King almost back to his senses.
"Cwomrell Woad", he slurred.
"Cromwell Road"?
He nodded and Doolan held out his hand.
"Give me your wallet."
After some fumbling King produced it and Doolan carefully took just ten pounds from it and put it back in his inside jacket pocket. He led King over to the cab, opened the rear door and pushed him in onto the back seat. he then struggled to lift in his legs before reaching in and pulling him upright. He turned to the driver’s window.
"He lives in Cromwell Road. That's less than a mile away. Here's ten quid. For that distance your getting a good deal and if you take it gently you will probably get him there before he's sick. Here's his briefcase. See it gets out with him, will you. I've had it."
He walked away without a backward glance. It was only later within the safety of his digs, that he allowed himself to examine the passport and drivers licence that he had removed from Kings briefcase during one of that gentleman's increasingly frequent trips to the gent's. The driving licence was one of the later pink ones and joy of joys, the passport was only eight months old. What's more it had only been used once. It sported only a stamp for Alicante Airport. Doolan grinned. That one must be a collector's item. He had passed through that airport on at least three separate occasions and no one had ever even looked at his passport. They had just waved him through. He suspected that Graham King was one of those people who always received the attention of the law. They probably never believed anyone could look so stupid and not really be hiding something.
He grinned at the thought of the other's face when he found he had lost these. Then he got serious. Before it would be any good to him, he had to get the bovine features looking up at him from the pages of the passport replaced with his own.
He went to the old and scarred chest of drawers at the foot of his bed, which with an equally battered wardrobe and a threadbare carpet allowed his landlady to describe the room as furnished. Reaching into the top drawer he extracted a small black address book.
He brought it back to the bed and opening it started to thumb through it. It did not hold the names and telephone numbers of various young ladies who had, or who might, succumb to the Doolan charms. This book was much more useful for it held the name, address, speciality and expected release date of all of Doolan's prison contacts that might possibly be useful to him one day. They were entered alphabetically by crime. Doolan turned to the one page section headed forgery and ran his thumb down the names. There he was. Terence David Hogge, known as Piggy among the prison fraternity, not famous for their originality.
Piggy had run an art class in prison, which Wayne had attended and to his surprise, enjoyed. Piggy was in for producing hundreds of perfect copies of the Queen’s portrait, faithfully reproduced on forged fifty-pound notes. He had an address in Manchester and Doolan remembered that he was married. However, before visiting Piggy he had to find some running away money.
The next evening found him on a pavement across the street from a very nice three bed roomed detached house in one of Liverpool's better suburbs. It stood in a well kept, tree lined road along with about fifty other houses. All were built to the same basic design, but each pair was just different enough from their fellows to be called individual. Built just after the war they were of a design that a certain royal poet would have had no trouble at all in recognising as the Acacia Avenue model. Doolan particularly liked the house opposite with the built on garage. Two years earlier it had been his. His shoulder length hair was in a ponytail and gathered up under his woollen Liverpool football supporters hat that literally thousands of locals wore and he also wore an old car coat he had bought from an Oxfam shop. The rest of his clothes were jeans and trainers the same as nearly every other young person in Liverpool.
An hour ago he had watched the current owners leave the house and knew from the way they were dressed they weren't just popping down to the local chippy. Not with the woman wearing a fur coat and three inch, high-heeled shoes they weren't. He also knew that there was no one else in the house. He had checked that out earlier when he had rung them to offer a very good deal on double-glazing. The woman who answered had refused his offer as he knew she would, because she already had double-glazing. After all, he'd had it installed. Still, she had been willing to help such a nicely spoken young man with his customer survey and when she had finished the only thing he didn't know about them was her husbands inside leg measurement. It never failed to surprise him how much people were prepared to tell you about them selves if you gave them a good story. He had been walking around for about an hour now, waiting for it to get properly dark, when the streetlights suddenly flickered on, making him jump. He saw up under the eaves of the house the outline of the burglar alarm he had also had installed and wondered if the new people had made any changes. Ah well, time to go.
He walked casually across the road and straight in through the front gate and down the side path that led around to the back of the garage as if he still owned the property. Here, where he was sheltered from prying eyes, he sat down on the concrete path beneath its small rear window. From inside the dark blue, three quarter length car coat he took out a small pencil torch, a wide roll of gaffer tape, an industrial tyre lever and a small glass cutter. All of them he had stolen one hour before from a small industrial lock up on one of the new industrial parks on the west of the city. He could still open doors like that with his eyes shut.
Kneeling down on the concrete path he reached up and completely covered the glass of the garage window with the gaffer tape except for a gap of one centimetre all around the edge. When this was done he attached four further lengths to each corner of the glass and gathered the loose ends in his left hand before running the glasscutter right around the window as close to the frame as he could get it. Putting the cutter and the torch back in his pocket he braced himself and placed the heel of his right hand against the glass, then drawing it back about two inches, slammed it forward hard. The glass came out cleanly with hardly a sound or splinters and hung from the four lengths of tape. Leaning in through the window he lowered the glass carefully onto the floor away to the left along with the tyre lever and then wriggled himself through the frame headfirst. He received no nasty surprises and blessed tidy people.
He took out the pencil torch again and switching it on recovered the tyre lever and made his way to the door that connected the garage to the utility room of the house. This was the bit he was concerned about. Inserting the tyre lever into the jamb of the door close to the lock, he gave a sharp jerk and the door swung open with a crack. No flashing lights or screaming sirens greeted his actions and he felt the cold sweat of relief spring to his brow. Amazing, but to his certain knowledge there had been a fault in the system that covered this door out into the garage for at least eight years and no one had ever had it fixed. He grinned in the darkness. He bet they would after tonight. He moved on through the kitchen and out into the hall, moving with the sure tread of someone who knows where he is going. At the door of the lounge/diner he switched off the torch and crossing over to the window, closed the heavy velvet drapes. That done he switched the torch on again and placed it on the seat of a dining room chair where its light would cover the middle of the floor.
The new owners had covered the oak parquet flooring with wall-to-wall carpeting and he moved the armchairs and the settee to the far end of the room in order to take this up. But a heavy bookcase full of the complete Encyclopaedia Britannica and other volumes finally defeated him and picking up the torch he went back to the kitchen. When he returned he was carrying a sharp carving knife. Forcing it down through the carpet and the underlay he hacked out a section of carpet in front of the bookcase of about a metre square. He then took the tyre lever and prised up a section of the parquet flo
oring. Underneath was a small cavity that was practically filled by an old metal cashbox. He smiled. If he had been able to get to this before they came to arrest him he would have left them chasing smoke. He opened the box and took out a black polythene parcel and unwrapping it removed the assortment of five and ten pound notes it contained, nearly two thousand pounds. He put the money in his coat pocket and left everything else, tools and all, where they lay. After all, since he'd had to cut the carpet it would only take the police about five seconds to work out who had done it. He switched off the burglar alarm at the main control and left by the back door.
The same night he packed his belongings into a small holdall and left his digs to spend the night in the back seat of an old Cortina in the local breakers yard. At six o'clock the next morning he was on a train for Manchester.