"Signal Red" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ryan Robert)

Prologue

Blackheath, South London, May 1992

I was aware of the blue flashes on the bedroom ceiling even before the telephone rang. I felt a cold cramp grip my insides, although my brain told me I was being ridiculous. How could they have come for you? I asked myself. After all this time? Christ, Tony, even your VAT is up to date these days. And they don't do raids in the wee small hours for VAT anyway. Do they?

I listened to the sounds from outside, muffled by the double- glazing. There was the bark of a police controller on the radio, the distorted voice interrupted by stabs of static; a motor was still running, at idle, but hunting slightly. I thought the Met was meant to look after their vehicles? Maybe they had privatised their maintenance departments, outsourced to the lowest bidder. And look at what you got. Revs that rose and fell at random.

The bedside phone chirruped the annoying tone set by my wife, Jane, jolting me out of my ruminations on free market forces. It sounded like a sparrow being strangled. She claimed it was less of a shock to the system than an ordinary ringing tone if a call came while you were asleep. Not when police lights were raking the room it wasn't.

'Hello?'

I heard a throat being cleared on the other end of the line. 'Tony? Tony Fortune?'

'Who's this?'

'Bill Naughton.'

I swung my feet out of bed and squinted at the clock. Past one in the morning. My head was clouded by the residual fuzz of the late-night brandy I had downed after taking in part of the Burt Lancaster season at the cinema in Greenwich. I had seen a strange movie called The Swimmer and John Huston's The Unforgiven. Maybe that last title applied to me, too. Perhaps they hadn't forgiven me my youthful misdemeanours. I was aware of Jane stirring behind me, pushing back the duvet, releasing a few stray molecules of last night's perfume. I held out a hand to stop her saying anything.

'Mr Naughton.' Or, more correctly, DC Billy – not Bill – Naughton. At least, that had been his rank when I had known him. 'Been a while. How are you?'

'Retired, Tony Have been for a few years now.'

I looked up at the lights strobing through the curtains. 'Pleased to hear it. So the fact that my bedroom looks like the last dance at the Policeman's Ball is nothing to do with you then?'

He gave the feeble joke an appropriately dismissive snort. 'Well, Tony, I am afraid it is. I'm back, as they say, for one night only, by public demand. Or at least, some Deputy Commander's request.'

I spoke slowly and carefully Was it time to run, at last? At every house and flat I had lived in for the past thirty years I had rehearsed it. My escape route. Out the back, over the garden wall, or onto the roof, along to the neighbour's yard. But now I was too old for that. My running days were over. 'New evidence come to light has it, Mr Naughton?'

'Not about you, Tony.' Was that regret I could hear? 'Fact is, they dragged me from my bed, too. Youngsters are all fresh out of ideas. Need a couple of old hands.'

'Tony? Who-?' Jane began, but I shushed her.

'Sorry to disturb you and the missus, Tony.'

'What can I do for you exactly, Mr Naughton?'

'It's Roy. He's in a spot of bother.'

Jesus, I thought, so it is the VAT after all. I might have dropped out of the life, but even I knew that a few of the old lads were playing silly buggers with importing/exporting gold Krugerrands and running VAT scams on the deals. 'It isn't my area of expertise.'

'What isn't?'

'Whatever Roy has been up to. I haven't seen him in… must be ten or more years. Silverstone, it was.'

'He's shot someone.'

Now I was fully awake. The words, though, didn't make sense. 'Hold up. We are talking about Roy James?'

'Yes.'

'Roy James shot someone?' It was so ridiculous I laughed at the very notion. 'Come on, Mr Naughton. That can't be right. He was never-'

I almost heard the twang of Naughton's patience snapping. 'He shot his father-in-law, then hit the wife with the gun- butt.'

I was quiet for a moment while I took that in. Roy was never a violent man. He'd made sure he'd stayed away from all that business. The coshing’s that were sometimes a part of the job had always vexed him. And guns? He'd ran a mile from them. 'I'll be damned.'

'And he'll be shot dead if you don't help. And then, no doubt, he'll be damned. The one and sevens are here.'

'Who?'

'PT Seventeen,' he explained carefully, as if only just remembering I wasn't up on the latest jargon. 'Tactical Firearms Squad – the boys with the Heckler and Kochs and what have you. Roy's barricaded himself in the house. So they want friendly voices to talk some sense into him before they are forced to go in guns blazing. And believe you me, these lads don't take much forcing.'

'How's the father-in-law?'

'How do you think? In a lot of pain. But he'll live.'

That was something. If it had been murder, the armed police would be even more trigger-happy. 'So the idea is for you and me to talk Roy down?'

'Yeah. Police and thieves,' he chortled. 'Working together for once.'

'Now, now, Mr Naughton,' I protested.

'Figure of speech, Tony. Forget it. Right – the car is outside, ready to take you to the scene.'

It was then I remembered I had tickets for the FA Cup replay the next day. Arsenal versus Sheffield Wednesday at Wembley, courtesy of BMW corporate hospitality. 'Is there nobody else?' I felt a prickle of shame as I said it.

It was nerves, I told myself. The nagging feeling that Billy Naughton might really have unfinished business with me, not Roy. 'What about Bruce?'

Naughton let out a sigh. 'Bruce Reynolds is too busy with his bloody memoirs, so he says. Which puts Roy 's life in your hands, Tony. Our hands, that is. I hate to play this card

After what, thirty years, but you owe me one. A big one, at that.'

I did. I owed him my freedom, even though he knew, deep down, I was a wrong 'un. He had an overdeveloped sense of fair play, our Mr Naughton, to ever be a real, hard, bastard copper. As I had found out to my benefit. 'So, payback at last.'

But sparring was over. 'You gonna help or what?'

I was already pulling on my clothes, so I supposed I had decided to go along with his plan. 'All right then, Mr Naughton, for old times' sake.'

His voice softened once more. 'Good man. Be nice to see you again, Tony. As you say, been a long time.'

'Yeah.' Not long enough, part of my brain protested as I struggled with my socks, using my free hand. 'I'll see you there.'

I cradled the receiver and explained to a bleary Jane that I had to go out to help an old friend. Jane was my second wife, younger than me, a different generation almost. She knew next to nothing of the old Tony Fortune, the one whose wife left him because of his misadventures in the underworld.

'Who is he?' she asked.

'A bloke called Roy James.'

I saw her brow farrow. Like most people she could recall the names of Roy 's better-known associates, the celebrity thieves. To Jane, and most of the British public, Roy was a vague memory, a half-forgotten name. Wasn't he the fella who played the trumpet? they might ask. No, that was Roy Castle. Or the quiz-show host? Roy Walker. Desert Island Discs? Roy Plomley. If only he'd gone over the wall and ended up in Brazil doing crappy punk songs, they'd remember him then. Who?

'He was a thief,' I went on. 'Cat burglar. First-floor man.'

She was awake now, eyes wide. 'How on earth do you know him, Tony?'

'It's a long story.'

One I had a feeling that Billy Naughton, Roy James and I were going to be chewing over for the rest of what was shaping up to be a very peculiar night.

'Try me.'

As I leaned over and kissed her forehead, I didn't actually say the sentence that formed on my lips. I thought it best to let it die a lonely, unloved death. ' Roy was a Great Train Robber. And, come to that, so was I.'

Instead I whispered, 'I'll be as quick as I can. Go back to sleep.'