Dishonour Among Thieves Read online

  DISHONOUR

  AMONG THIEVES

  James Pattinson

  © James Pattinson 1989

  James Pattinson has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1989 by Robert Hale Limited.

  This edition published in 2019 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  Table of Contents

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  8

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  12

  13

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  15

  16

  1

  Robbery with

  Violence

  The security van turned off to the left on to the minor road which ran through a forested area. There were two men in the cab and they were not talking much because they were sick of each other’s conversation; they had been doing this work together for a long time and they were sick of the job and sick of each other’s company, too. They would have been glad of a change but it seemed as though they were stuck with things as they were. And as it happened to be the way they earned their living they had to go on with it, like it or not.

  A hump-backed bridge appeared ahead of them and the van went over it and continued on its way. When it had gone a lorry came out from the cover of the trees and was manoeuvred by the driver into a position where it was completely blocking the narrow bridge. The driver got out and began to run in the direction in which the security van had gone. The van itself had disappeared from view round a bend in the road.

  Fifty yards away on the other side of the bend a girl was lying in the road with a bicycle beside her. It looked as though she had fallen off or had been the victim of a hit-and-run motorist. She had long blonde hair and her skirt was up over her knees, revealing a pair of slender shapely legs.

  ‘Oh, oh!’ the driver of the security van said. ‘What have we here?’

  He pulled the van to a halt just short of where the girl was lying.

  ‘It’s a girl,’ the other man said, stating the obvious as though it had been a discovery of earth-shaking proportions.

  Ahead of them the road took another bend and was hidden by the trees. On the strip of tarred surface that was visible from the cab there was no sign of any other traffic.

  Hidden in the undergrowth at the side of the road were two men. They were both wearing balaclava helmets and black-leather gloves, and one of them was holding a sawn-off double-barrelled shotgun. His name was Gus Houlder.

  The other man’s name was Tom Benton, and he was armed with a Beretta .32 calibre pistol. He had no intention of using it except as a means of intimidation, but he was not so sure about Houlder’s intentions because he was always likely to do something crazy. It was because of Houlder that Benton was seriously thinking of breaking away from the gang. Sangster and Dobie were not so bad, but Houlder he found hard to take; they had had arguments and sometimes violence had been just below the surface. One day, if things went on as they were, the volcano might really erupt and then there was no telling what might happen.

  So perhaps it would be best to get out before it came to that; before somebody got killed.

  Inside the cab of the security van there was some hesitation and uncertainty. Neither man had yet made any move.

  ‘Could be a trap,’ the driver said.

  The other man peered out of the closed windows on each side. ‘Nobody seems to be around,’ he said. ‘It’s all dead quiet.’

  ‘Maybe it’s too quiet,’ the driver said.

  The other man gave a laugh. ‘That’s what they used to say in the old Western movies. I think it’s all right.’

  ‘You can think what you like.’

  ‘Well, we gotta do something. Can’t just sit here. I’d say the girl got knocked over by a car and the bastard who did it didn’t stop. It happens all the time.’

  ‘So what if it does? What can we do about it?’

  ‘There’s only one thing to do, as far as I can see. We can’t drive straight over her, so one of us has got to get out and take a look at her. It’s either you or me. ’

  The driver showed no eagerness to move, so after another bit of hesitation the guard unlocked the door on his side and stepped down into the road. He took a wary look all round, but still nothing seemed to be moving and he started walking towards the girl.

  ‘Now!’ Houlder said.

  He and Benton got up from the concealing undergrowth and dashed out from the trees just as the security guard reached the girl and bent down to examine her more closely. He must have heard a sound which set the alarm bells ringing in his head, and he straightened up and began to turn, but it was too late. Benton jabbed the muzzle of the Beretta into his side and snapped a warning.

  ‘Don’t move or you’ll get a bullet in the guts.’

  The man froze.

  The blonde on the ground suddenly came to life and stood up, smoothing down her skirt with her hands.

  ‘You bitch,’ the security man said. He seemed ready to spit at her but lacked the nerve.

  She just laughed in his face.

  Benton heard Gus Houlder shout something, and almost simultaneously there came the report of the shotgun being fired, one barrel and then the other in close succession. He glanced towards the cab of the van and he could see Houlder by the open door with the gun in his hands. Through the windscreen he could see the driver slumped over the wheel, not moving.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ the security man cried. ‘The bastard’s shot Charlie.’ He was not a young man and his hair was greying at the temples. He was not wearing a helmet and he looked worn and tired and very badly shocked.

  The blonde was not laughing now; she also looked shocked. Benton was inwardly cursing Houlder. Why had the idiot done such a crazy thing? There had been no need for it; everything had been going according to plan. And now it was a case of murder, because there was no way the driver was going to live after taking two charges from a twelve-bore shotgun at point-blank range, no way at all.

  Damn Houlder! Damn him to hell!

  But they had to go through with the operation in spite of what had happened. There was no sense in stopping now because a man had been killed; it would not bring him back to life.

  Viciously, as if to give vent to his anger, he jabbed the pistol again into the security man’s side.

  ‘Get moving. You’ll have to open her up.’

  The man made no resistance; the shooting of his colleague had scared him too much. Houlder was still standing by the cab door when they got there.

  ‘That was a damned stupid thing to do,’ Benton said. What Houlder had done could land them all in deep trouble if the police ever got their hands on them.

  ‘He asked for it.’ Houlder spoke defiantly, justifying his action. ‘He was getting on the blower. I told him to stop but he took no notice.’

  ‘So you just blasted him to keep him quiet?’

  ‘What else was I to do?’

  Benton could have thought of other ways of preventing the driver from putting out a message over the radio-telephone, but there was no time to argue about it now. He glanced into the cab and saw the body and the blood. It looked a real mess.

  Dobie came running up from the direction of the hump-backed bridge where he had left the lorry blocking the road. He saw what had happened but asked no questions. He was a small thin-featured man who had been in prison a few times and was getting a bit old for the game, but he was reliable.

  The security guard had the rear doors open when Sangster drove up from the other direction in the stolen Jaguar. The blonde
girl had already dragged the bicycle on to the verge and he turned the car in the road and backed it up to the van.

  Benton ordered the guard to lie face downward on the grass verge and not move if he wanted to stay alive. He obeyed without a murmur; he was obviously not keen to make a martyr of himself and he was thoroughly cowed by what had happened to the driver.

  The cash was in canvas bags. Those containing coin were left and only the paper money was taken and quickly transferred to the boot of the Jaguar. Benton was all too aware of the urgency, the need for haste. It was possible that the van driver had managed to get enough of a message through to raise the alarm, and the sooner they were away the better for all concerned.

  The job was soon finished. Sangster closed the lid of the boot and got back into the driving-seat of the Jaguar. Dobie pointed at the security guard who was still lying face down on the grass.

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Get in the car,’ Houlder said. ‘Leave him to me.’ He took a couple of cartridges from his pocket and reloaded the shotgun.

  Benton realised what he intended doing and moved to stop him. ‘No! Not that!’ One dead man was plenty.

  He stepped between Houlder and the man on the ground, putting a hand on the barrel of the gun and pushing it to one side. ‘You’ve done enough with the shooter. Put it away.’

  His own gun was in his pocket and he could have threatened Houlder with it, but it did not occur to him to do so; he believed persuasion would be sufficient, that even a crazy devil like this would see reason.

  He should have known the man better; the check merely served to infuriate Houlder. He wrenched the gun away from Benton’s hand and hit him on the side of the neck with the barrel.

  ‘Get outa my way.’

  Benton was staggered by the blow, though it had not been a particularly heavy one; it had been rather like a man swatting a fly that was making a nuisance of itself. But it was enough to give Houlder all the time he needed. He stepped up to the security guard and shot him in the back of the head at a range of no more than a few inches.

  Benton had recovered quickly from the thump on the neck and he could see the shattered head on the grass, a mess of blood and bone and hair. The girl was staring at it too, wide-eyed with shock. The colour had drained from her cheeks and he thought she might be going to faint. He moved to her side and gripped her arm.

  ‘Come along. It’s done now. Get in the car. We’ve got to go.’

  She allowed him to guide her to the Jaguar where Dobie was already installed on the rear seat. The girl got in beside him and Benton followed and closed the door.

  ‘This is bad,’ Dobie said. ‘I never been in a job where there was a killing before. Now two of ’em. Ah, that’s bad, that is.’

  Benton peeled off his balaclava; there was no need for it now. As things had turned out there had never been any need for it; dead men were not going to identify them. He could feel the girl shaking and he guessed she had never expected anything like this; maybe she had regarded it all as a kind of game until now, a bit of excitement and a way to some easy money. All she had been asked to do was to lie down in the road and not move; it was to have been a piece of cake. But it was more than a piece of cake now; now she was involved in murder, and that was something else again.

  Houlder got into the front seat beside Sangster, bringing the gun with him. He put it down at his feet and slammed the door.

  ‘Let’s get to hell out.’

  Sangster already had the car in motion. He said nothing, but Benton knew he was angry; he had known Eddie Sangster a long time and he could tell. Sangster would be just as unhappy with what Houlder had done as he was.

  Houlder pulled off his balaclava, revealing his bullet head and bristling close-cropped hair that looked as coarse and stiff as a coir mat. He had a thick neck and bulging shoulders which fitted tightly into the black leather jacket he was wearing, and his heavy jowl had that halfway look situated somewhere between the bearded and the shaven.

  He turned and looked at Benton. ‘You all right, Tommy boy?’

  ‘I’ll have a sore neck,’ Benton said, ‘but that’s the least of my worries.’

  ‘You didn’t oughta have got in the way; then you wouldn’t have been hurt.’

  ‘Maybe not.’

  ‘No hard feelings?’

  ‘I’ll let you know about that tomorrow,’ Benton said. ‘Just don’t ever do it again, that’s all. Not ever.’

  ‘You’ve dropped us all in the shit, Gus,’ Dobie said. ‘You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Damn that for a tale,’ Houlder retorted. ‘We’d all’ve been in it if I hadn’t stopped that driver getting through on the blower. I only done what had to be done. What you think I had the shooter for?’

  ‘For an emergency. Not to use just for the hell of it.’

  ‘Well, god damn it! It was an emergency.’

  ‘You didn’t have to shoot the other guy. He wasn’t doing nothing.’

  ‘Ah, stop moaning,’ Houlder said. ‘It was safer that way. He won’t tell no tales now.’

  Sangster had still said nothing; he was concentrating on his driving, but probably thinking none the less for that. He had the Jaguar moving fast and there was no other traffic to bother with for the present.

  But they soon came to the end of the minor road, which was no more than a link between two busier highways, and he had to bring the car to a halt at the barrier that had put a temporary stop to any vehicles turning off at the junction.

  The barrier was no more than a wooden bar supported on two light trestles, and on the other side of it was a notice indicating that the road was closed. It looked genuine and it had served its purpose of keeping intruders away from the scene of the hold-up.

  Even before the Jaguar had stopped moving Dobie and Benton had the rear doors open and were jumping out. They ran to the barrier and lifted the bar to allow the car to pass through; then they dropped it back into place and took their seats again in the car.

  Sangster was held up for a while by a stream of cars and lorries going past on the major road, and Houlder was fuming with impatience.

  ‘Come on, come on, damn it.’

  Sangster remained calm, waiting patiently for a gap to appear and then slotting the Jaguar into it.

  ‘Now let’s really get moving,’ Houlder said. ‘Step on it, Eddie.’

  Sangster ignored him; he would do things his own way regardless of any urging from the man sitting beside him. He drove fast but not recklessly; there was no sense in taking risks and landing yourself in trouble with an accident which would bring police rushing to the scene. So far there had been no sign of any patrol cars and perhaps they would have enough time to get well away from the area before the alarm was raised and road-blocks were set up. Benton hoped so, but he was not banking on it.

  A signpost showed up ahead, indicating a side-road on the left. Sangster reduced the Jaguar’s speed as it approached the junction.

  ‘Here’s where you leave us, Tommy,’ Houlder said. ‘Look sharp.’

  The Jaguar stopped and Benton and the girl got out. Dobie pulled the door shut and the car moved away, accelerating smartly.

  Benton did not wait to see it go; he was already running down the side-road between the hedges of thorn and bramble, with the blonde girl following him. He could hear her heels clicking on the tarmac as she did her best to keep up with him; but there was not far to go. About a hundred yards down the road they came to the place where the green Vauxhall Cavalier had been left on the wide grass verge under an old oak tree. Everything was quiet and there was not even a tractor working in the fields.

  He took the keys from his pocket, unlocked the car door and got in. He reached across and opened the other door to allow the girl to slip into the seat beside him. He could hear her panting a little after the sprint down the lane.

  ‘Fasten your seat-belt.’

  She did so.

  ‘Why,’ she said, ‘do we have to do it this way?’


  ‘You mean why do we have to split up?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s better not to have too many together; less conspicuous. The others will ditch the Jag and transfer the stuff to the Volvo before long.’

  ‘When do we get our share?’

  ‘We meet up with them tomorrow at Eddie’s place. That’s when we split the take.’

  ‘Do you trust them?’

  ‘How do you mean, trust them?’

  ‘Well, they’ve got the money, haven’t they? How can you be sure they won’t grab the lot and leave us to sing for our supper?’

  ‘It isn’t done like that.’

  ‘Honour among thieves. Is that what you mean?’

  Benton could detect the note of sarcasm in the question. It was evident that she had no belief in any such concept; and he was not altogether sure that he had either. Criminals in his experience were mostly looking out for number one and to hell with anybody else.

  ‘Call it self-interest,’ he said. ‘It wouldn’t pay them to pull a fast one; it would be as good a way as any I can think of to make enemies who would be on the lookout for any means of getting their own back.’

  He was driving the Vauxhall away from the A class road where they had vacated the Jaguar. They were in the Essex countryside and he intended returning to London as much as possible by way of the minor roads that meandered all over the place, even though it would mean adding extra miles to the journey. He hoped thus to reduce the likelihood of running into any checks which the police might set up as soon as they got wind of the security van robbery and the murder of the two guards.

  The manoeuvre was, however, not entirely successful; on the other side of a small village they came upon a police car parked by the side of the road with a couple of uniformed officers in attendance. One of them signalled to Benton to stop and the girl gave a squawk of dismay.

  ‘Coppers! Now we’re in trouble. Oh God, I just knew this would happen. What are we going to do?’

  ‘We’re going to stay cool,’ Benton said. ‘Just try not to look like you’ve robbed a bank. Remember they don’t know us from Adam and Eve.’