The Final Heist Read online

  The Final Heist

  William Pullar

  Austin Macauley Publishers

  The Final Heist

  About the Author

  Dedication

  Copyright Information

  Acknowledgements

  Author’s Note

  The Release

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Appendix: Glossary of Slang

  About the Author

  William Pullar is the pseudonym of a long-retired, Scottish-born national newspaper journalist. He covered many high-profile court cases and took part in several major investigations leading to convictions.

  Dedication

  Jessica – whose undying support and loyalty has enabled this book to be created.

  Glynis and her tales from the care industry.

  Copyright Information

  Copyright © William Pullar (2019)

  The right of William Pullar to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 9781788486644 (Paperback)

  ISBN 9781788486804 (Hardback)

  ISBN 9781788486811 (Kindle e-book)

  ISBN 9781528955850 (ePub e-book)

  www.austinmacauley.com

  First Published (2019)

  Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd

  25 Canada Square

  Canary Wharf

  London

  E14 5LQ

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to The Cannae Sutra for the Scottish ditties by Rupert Besley, published by Birlinn Limited.

  Author’s Note

  For a glossary of the language used by members of the heist industry, see the Appendix at the end of the book.

  The Release

  The Retreat Residential Home lay half-way down Beech Road in the sleepy Sussex seaside town of Crabby-by-the-Sea. To the casual observer this former Victorian mansion was a quiet, unassuming, residential home for a mixture of the elderly with a variety of care and social support needs and a private wing for wealthy octogenarians.

  Four newly released bank, post office and security van robbers were placed in the social wing of the residential home. Matters would never be the same again for some of the long-term residents, both social support and private.

  Among the tenants some lived lives of quiet boredom. Secret romances blossomed. A few of the tenants taxed the patience of the warden and occasionally the local police.

  * * *

  It was late Friday morning. The shelves of the old Post Office’s little convenience store were empty. No one was manning the post office counter. The only activity was in the small café where a man and a woman sat waiting to receive their order.

  Outside, and legally parked, a paunchy man in a weather-proof coat sat in the driving seat of a small car engrossed in the racing pages of the Sun. He ignored the arrival of a people carrier disgorging five passengers, who headed for the cafe. He paid no interest in a red Mark Two Jaguar as it pulled up a few minutes later and parked in front of him. Nor did he pay any attention to three, heavily disguised, men one behind the other, who left the car and headed for the Post Office. One was pushing a four-wheeled invalid trolley, one of the others assisting him from behind. The lead man waving a heavy walking stick, bulky in his disguise, also carried what first appeared to be a towel covering a second walking stick.

  Behind him a large man beckoned encouragement to the last of the trio who was labouring to manoeuvre his walking trolley over a drainage grill in front of the door of the building. The two-front wheels became stuck in the grill of the drain in front of the door which continued sliding backwards and forwards as he tried to extract the walking-aid. As he struggled to free the wheels a loud blast came from within the shop followed by the sound of falling debris and shouts of indignation.

  As the blast went off, the last man tugs the two-front wheels of his trolley from the grip of the drain, pulling the trigger of his 12-bore shotgun strapped to the handle of the trolley only milli-seconds after the first blast. The sliding doors were open and a TV blew apart into a million-pieces as the contents of the gun’s cartridges hit it. Much to the annoyance of the café customers.

  Inside the old post office one man lay on his back. The re-coil of the gun had unbalanced him. The second was trying to get him on his feet. Both men quickly raised their hands and surrendered to the customers who, it transpired, were a heavily armed fast response team and two armed plain clothed police officers. They were awaiting instructions following a tip-off; there was to be a major raid planned for premises in Crabby.

  The driver of the people carrier arrived outside the Post Office as the trolley man’s gun went off and he tumbled backwards with the trolley and the shotgun on top of him. He was handcuffed.

  From the Jaguar, the driver got out and quickly walked up the street and headed for a pub. He too, was quickly arrested.

  Chapter 1

  SOME months before the debacle at the Post Office, the main gates of the Home Counties Jail clanged shut. Standing outside, four, now ex-prisoners, let out on licence, smelt the clean, fresh air of freedom for the first time in many years. All Four had spent most of their adult life behind bars at various times. Eighty-year-old Guy Granger was known by all as the ‘Colonel’, among other disparaging nick-names. He stood ramrod-straight, military style, waving his walking stick at nothing-in-particular.

  “Right. First thing we have to do is report to a probation officer and some goon from the council at a residential home at Crabby-by-the-Sea. It seems they cater for old ex’s like us,” he said, as they waited for the mini-bus that would take them to the local rail station along with their wheelie suitcases. He hooked his walking stick over his left arm and removed his flat, tweed cloth cap, twitched his trim moustache and brushed imaginary detritus from the cap and pulled it back on as the mini-bus arrived.

  He added, “We’ve t’ meet a probation officer assigned to us, called Carol Smythe and some council wallahs. It seems we have t’ take these flats or we’re back behind bars. Our release conditions are that we must be well-behaved. They’ve given us single, one-journey rail warrants to a place, called Crabby-on-the-Hill. We have to get a bus or a taxi from there.” The Colonel had worked hard on developing his ex-military persona. However, nothing could totally erase his East London verbal roots. He regarded himself as the Commanding Officer of the Gang of Four, as they had been dubbed by the Metropolitan Police. Other nomenclatures included the Foursome, the Four Idiots or the Colonel and the Stooges.

  Grangers’ military experience was dubious, the reality was that
he was one of the last of the post-war conscripts and had spent most of his time as a lowly Royal Air Force ‘erk’, the lowest in the pecking order. Most of his service life was spent at the old Shepton Mallet Military Prison in Somerset. Petty thefts and disciplinary disputes were the main causes of his incarceration under military rules.

  Once married, he had been on his own since his young wife ran off with the manager of a South London Bank he had robbed. She told friends she needed companionship, stability and a family.

  As Guy was serving a 15-year stretch, she decided comfort elsewhere was required. Enough was enough of his lifestyle: sometimes in the money, usually forcibly relieved from a financial institution or reliance on social benefits after he was jailed.

  She now lived a life of splendour in Virginia Water and played golf at nearby Wentworth. Guy Granger was virtually a forgotten man. Only law enforcement teams and the prison authorities took an interest in him and his chosen career. He described himself as a ‘liberator’ of funds illegally stolen from the public. His warped view was that he had merely brought it back into public hands. The fact, that he and his fellow-robbers became the only benefactors from the heists, didn’t impress the courts. Most of his robbery schemes ended empty-handed with a jail term.

  The Colonel, as he preferred to be called, remained single after the divorce and despite his continuing anti-social career, he had developed odd social graces and a rather quaint morality, considering his villainous past. Among these was a distrust of anyone ‘messing about’ with marriage or a relationship. He had a hatred of anyone stealing private property or robbing the elderly. His deep contempt was for drugs smugglers and dealers, or anyone growing cannabis plants or producing social help pills. He was also intolerant of anyone ill-treating animals, particularly cats.

  Despite his long-term criminal history, he had strong views on anyone delivering drugs or illegal phones into jails by drones. His solution was to have armed-guards on the roof and shoot the offending delivery agents out of the sky.

  As the years passed and he responded to the title, Colonel, only the foolish and alcohol-dependents called him by any other title.

  He despised anyone swearing, particularly in front of women, and usually told them in his developed ‘gentleman’s’ jargon: “I say, less of that, ladies present.” Most scoffed at his developed verbal delivery. Younger members of the prison community avoided him rather than be chastised. Prison staff treated him with a mixture of derision and humour and was glad to be rid of the ‘gentleman’ gangster. His periods of life outside the confines of prison life were usually quite short.

  To him and his three friends, prison had become a way of life, their home. They’d had security of tenure for a period. Life outside would present challenges.

  One of the four being released suddenly asked, “What I wanna know is, can I get a place on the ground floor?” Reg Crowther, a seventy-eight-year old man, pushed his four-wheel invalid trolley, with his suitcase perched on the seat, towards the waiting prison minibus that would take them to the station.

  The Colonel responded, “Expect they’ll cater for our needs. It’ll be fait accompli—”

  “Wotcha mean cater for us? All we need is somewhere to lay our nut,” responded seventy-five-year-old Lenny Smith, South London’s intellectually challenged 114 kilos ‘Heavy weight’. He was one of the founder members of the ‘Gang of Four’. He continued, “Anyway, what the ‘ell is fate whatever? Sounds bleedin’ daft to me.”

  The Colonel growled and sharply responded. “I’ve told yer before. I won’t have swearing. As fer fait accompli, it simply means all done; it’s over. Got it?” Lenny grimaced with lack of understanding.

  In his younger days, he was known as a seasoned user of a sawn-off shotgun in the furtherance of his chosen career. He had no family and had never married. Anyone who knew him, from fellow villains and the judicial system, regarded him as educationally challenging. He’d spent some of his villainous past in Glasgow, where he’d first met John ‘Jock’ Mackenzie and was the only one of the four who understood Jock when he was sober.

  It was ‘suggested’ he left the city because of his cavalier attitude towards the use of shotguns. Glaswegian gangs had become annoyed with the Londoners’ overuse of firearms. They ‘invited’ him to return to his roots so the number of raids by Scotland’s diligent police looking for evidence of gun-related crimes calmed down. It took some weeks to recover from the ‘chastisement’ and the bruises to clear-up.

  Jock Mackenzie, the fourth member of those being released, and the newest member of the ‘Four’, remained quiet. He rarely conversed with anyone. When sober, he uttered a strange mixture of languages and slang. No one generally understood him until he’d had a ‘few wee drams’. Then mysteriously, he could be understood.

  In his early twenties, he had been the reserve driver for a Scottish company’s attempt to win the Le Man twenty-four-hour motor race. They had chosen to buy a second-hand re-built AC Cobra directly from the car company’s factory at Thames Ditton, Surrey.

  The Tartan Team’s attempts lasted two years until it folded, leaving the young Scot jobless, homeless and broke. He took to becoming a ‘contract’ getaway driver for various Glasgow Gangs of the day. His favourite steed for such activity was any stolen Mark Two Jaguar.

  Whilst doing a spell in Glasgow’s notorious Barlinnie Prison, his ‘Lassie Fiona’, as he called his girlfriend, ran off with a crofter from the Isle of Skye. They had never married but had two daughters. The eldest had emigrated to Canada and was never heard from again.

  His youngest daughter, thirty-year-old Moira, looked after her father’s personal effects at her home in Perth. She wrote to him every week, no matter where he was imprisoned. She told friends: “He’s a silly old, a bit cranky, but he’s m’ dad.” She was one of the few who understood him when he was sober. He told her in one of his letters he’d given up being a getaway driver. “Too dangerous,” he wrote in his strange, garbled language, which she understood. “Me eyesight’s failing, and I don’t trust English opticians.” Prison guards frequently blocked his outgoing mail until they were satisfied with his explanations. He wrote in a kind of code which even experienced prison guards failed to decipher his enigmatic phraseology. He scorned anything that had a hint of southern beast stupidity’. This was usually said in Gaelic, ‘à deas bruid baoghaltachd’. He said it was Gaelic.

  He’d moved south soon after Lenny was banished from his highland haunts and recovering from his punishment by the Glaswegian Crime Lords. He soon linked up with Lenny, then awaiting trial for a series of security van hijacks. All the vans were empty and returning from their deliveries. At the time, the Crown Prosecution Service took months of head scratching to decide what the charges should be. They eventually plumped for ‘intent to steal’. He was found guilty and given three years in the care of the prison service. He served 14 months.

  Lenny and Jock met up with the duo of the Colonel and Reg and formed the gang of four when housed together in Wandsworth Prison, where they were all waiting for separate trials for a series of failed armed robberies. They joined up, given the sobriquet of the ‘Gang of Four’ by detectives of the Metropolitan and Home Counties Police Forces, following a series of failed attempts to rob financial institutions.

  By ten in the morning of their release, and following a train journey, they were breathing the bracing sea air of the tiny resort on the south coast near Brighton, a situation in a natural bowl with a large deciduous wood to the north and a main A-road running across the top of the hill. The coastal railway ran some two miles out of town.

  They shared the cost of a taxi from Crabby-on-the-Hill Rail Station. As they pulled-up outside the Retreat Residential Home mid-morning, they were confronted by an ambulance, sirens blaring, pulling away from the building.

  They stayed in the taxi whilst an elderly be-speckled lady, dressed in an ankle-length skirt with a blouse buttoned-up at the neck, was arguing with police. They could hear her dema
nding she be arrested and taken to the police station and charged.

  “Now, look young man, I’ve battered that idiot, so I should be taken into custody. I used to be a headmistress, you know. Now, handcuff me and take me into custody. Why can’t you youngsters ever do as you are told?”

  A young policewoman tried to calm her down without success.

  “Madam, we can deal with this without you leaving here.” “Don’t be stupid. I battered him. He said I was pregnant. Damned idiot. Pregnant at my age and I’ve never even been with a man. He deserved being clouted.”

  The Colonel said, “I can’t hear why she battered whoever was in the ambulance.”

  The old lady held out her arms to be handcuffed. Finally, exasperated police put her in the rear seat of a police car without putting on the handcuffs.

  “Good Gawd, someone pleading to be nicked. How daft! How damned stupid! She must be of her trolley,” Lenny uttered.

  Reg added, “Queer place they’ve sent us to.” The police finally departed and the four paid the taxi driver.

  From the branch of a mature oak tree, a large, long-haired, ginger cat imperiously watched events.

  Entering the building, the four were met by the diminutive Mary Murphy. The Colonel introduced himself and the other three. “Ah, yes, we were expecting you. I’m the warden,” Mary declared.

  They were joined by a large lady, who waddled towards them. It was her style of perambulation owing to her size. “Hello gentlemen, ’I’m Carol Smythe, your assigned probation officer. Please let’s sit down. I will be looking after your welfare whilst you’re with us and, of course, helping you stay out of trouble.” She removed her horn-rimmed spectacles and smiled at the quad of men sitting before her.

  Lenny was the first to speak, “What wuz the ambulance, cops and the old dear all about?”

  “I have no idea. Now let’s press-on,” she answered abruptly, her ample chest resting on the table.