Six Days to Death Read online

  SIX DAYS TO DEATH

  Roderic Jeffries

  © Roderic Jeffries 1975

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

  This work was originally published under the pseudonym Peter Alding.

  First published in 1975 by Long.

  This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter One

  The armoured truck was painted royal blue and on either side was the legend ‘Heather Security Company’ in large Gothic yellow letters arranged in a semi-circle, in the centre of which was a sprig of red heather: the overall effect was rather as if someone had had an artistic design in mind, but had become bored.

  There were six men in the truck, all dressed alike in neat blue uniforms, with crash helmets on their heads, goggles about their necks, and woollen gloves on their hands. Each of the six had a moustache and unusually plump cheeks – apparent coincidence readily explainable in terms of cheek pads and false moustaches.

  Not one of the six was over twenty-eight and to an old hand this would have been sufficiently unusual as to be remarkable: as in most spheres of life, youth might apparently make all the running, but age offered invaluable experience. In fact, Akers would have liked a couple of older men to join him, but no one he’d been willing to consider had been willing to consider working with him. He hadn’t pressed them for reasons, being far too contemptuously proud, but if he had, he’d have received highly equivocal answers. The fact was, none of the older hands knew exactly why he wouldn’t join Akers, he only knew he wouldn’t.

  Akers was very solidly built, with the careless physical grace of someone in perfect condition: his shoulders were noticeably broad and correctly suggested very great strength. He was handsome, but with a hardness that was only lightened when he smiled: to this hardness was added, especially when he smiled, a sense of raffish, reckless amusement. Women were often intrigued by him and they usually discovered far too late that he was without any emotional sensitivity.

  He sat in the passenger seat of the truck and appeared completely relaxed. In direct contrast, the driver, Pinky Cannon, was obviously under tension. Cannon was one of those men who suffered so much tension during the preliminaries of a job that he felt physically sick, yet in action he was as courageous as anyone.

  Four men rode in the cargo compartment, Stubble Horne, Lofty Marin, Race Prade, and Ed Bosham. Totally dissimilar in appearances, they were very similar in character. They were the heavies, men who carried out their orders exactly and with whatever degree of violence was necessary to ensure success. If caught, they would never split. At no stage of the planning had they contributed any worthwhile suggestions, yet they were not stupid – no one stupid was ever taken on a big job – merely of limited intelligence. Because of this, they were happy to work with Akers and could not foresee that his wild recklessness and unlimited courage could be a sign of some unusual weakness, not strength.

  They reached the 30 m.p.h. sign which marked the outskirts of Fortrow at nine twenty-one. ‘What’s the white car behind us?’ demanded Cannon suddenly.

  Akers turned and looked through the hatchway and out through the small right-hand window in the rear door. There was a white Rover being driven by a middle-aged woman and her companion was elderly. ‘Civvies,’ he said briefly.

  They drew up behind a line of cars which were halted by temporary lights, controlling traffic past extensive road works. Marin, speaking through the small hatchway, said: ‘What’s up, then, Alf?’

  ‘Road works,’ replied Akers.

  ‘Tell ’em we’re in a hurry.’

  Someone laughed, but his laugh hit a flat note and sounded strained.

  The light changed to green and the line of vehicles began to move. Cannon engaged first gear, let out the clutch, and accelerated steadily. ‘How’s the time now, Alf?’

  ‘Just right, so stop getting your knickers in a twist.’

  They turned a sharp corner – Cannon twice had to take the truck well over the centre line – and entered Breeders Road, the main shopping centre of the suburb of Belsise.

  ‘Goggles on,’ ordered Akers. He leaned across and carefully raised Cannon’s goggles, before doing his own.

  The road widened to an island which marked a T junction and then again widened and was split into two by a three-foot divider: through traffic kept to the right, loading or unloading vehicles and buses used the left-hand lane.

  Cannon drew into the left-hand lane. They passed a pantechnicon, a saloon car by which stood a traffic warden, and a double-decker bus. As they cleared the bus, the bank came into sight. The parking area in front of it was free.

  Cannon braked to a stop immediately opposite the bank’s main entrance. The large wooden doors, recently re-varnished, were folded back and the inner glass doors were closed. Akers could see that there were no more than half a dozen customers inside. He checked that everything was ready, then said: ‘Move.’ He opened the cab door and jumped down on to the pavement. Home came round from the back and handed him a long, narrow case. He led the way into the bank.

  The counter was to the right and a screen of bulletproof glass, with speaking ports, stretched from it up to the ceiling except at the far end and there were two sections marked ‘Enquiries’ and ‘Foreign Business’. Beyond foreign business was a three-foot-high swing door which gave access to the manager’s office and the open plan working area of the staff. Five people stood at the four paying points.

  Marin peeled off to the right and took up position by the entrance doors, carefully placing himself so that he was not visible to anyone entering the bank until actually inside. The nearest clerk looked briefly and without particular interest at him.

  Akers, Horne, Prade, and Bosham, walked down the length of the counter. Akers tried the swing door, beyond foreign business, and found it was locked by a mechanism not readily apparent. He climbed over the door. The middle-aged woman in the foreign business section stared at him with such surprise that Horne had followed him before she began to ask what he was doing. He flicked down the top catch of the case and the lid fell open, enabling him to withdraw a double barrel twelve bore shotgun with sawn-off barrels.

  A young woman clerk, attractively dressed, was the first to react. She reached up with her right knee and pressed the panic button: a loud harsh bell began to clang. In the nearest police station, as Akers knew, a second alarm sounded. Their time was now sharply limited.

  Akers hurried past the manager’s office to a second door and wrenched it open. A flight of stairs led below and he went down these three at a time. The others, with the exception of Prade, followed him: Prade was dealing with the manager.

  The strong-room occupied the far half of the basement. There were roughly finished concrete walls, reinforced with a spider’s web of steel rods, and a circular, metal door, with six-spoked central wheel which operated four locking lugs, that was set in a metal surround. The door was convex, nearly eighteen inches thick at the centre point, and dull stainless steel in colour. It had two separate locking systems. The manual locks, three, worked by deceptive
ly ordinary looking keys, and a time lock that operated four more locking lugs which rendered the door safe against the cleverest operator for an estimated forty-eight hours.

  Emergency routine, to be operated the moment an alarm sounded, theoretically was straightforward – shut the massive door, which one man could do with surprisingly little effort, and operate the time lock. Practical considerations, however, modified this routine. False alarms were not unknown and once the strong-room door was shut and under the time lock, it could not be opened until the set time had passed – and a bank which could not get to its money on a Friday, when dozens of firms were drawing their wages money, was in trouble.

  Three members of the staff, among them the chief cashier, were in the basement. The chief cashier was standing by the newly-closed strong-room door, three keys in his left hand, right hand free to punch the time lock switch. When he saw Akers he was shocked by the reality, despite the alarm – true to human nature, he had hopefully assumed it was false even while preparing to act if it proved to be genuine – and he hesitated for a second before reaching up. Akers moved forward with bewildering speed and slammed the butt of his gun into the chief cashier’s face. The chief cashier staggered back, reaching blindly for his right cheek. Akers landed a second blow which broke the bridge of the chief cashier’s nose and sent him slumping to the floor.

  ‘Open the door,’ ordered Akers.

  Terrified by the thought of receiving the same treatment, one of the two clerks frantically grabbed the three keys from the moaning chief cashier and, with trembling hands, unlocked the door, spun the central wheel anti-clockwise, and pulled the door open.

  The strong-room contained a number of strong-boxes and cases deposited by customers, stacks of papers dusty and yellowing with age, three battered, green coloured filing cabinets, a number of files, a wooden table on which a large sum of money in notes of various denominations had been neatly laid out, firms’ cases into which the money was to be packed, fourteen olive green canvas sacks, one of which was on the table, each eighteen inches long and eight in diameter, and eight blue canvas bags.

  Akers swept the money on the table into one olive green sack and then picked up the remaining two the others could not carry. He held them in one hand, leaving his gun hand free.

  Up top, Prade stood outside the manager’s office, gun levelled at the clerks. Akers handed the sacks he was carrying to Prade.

  They climbed the three-foot-high swing door and ran past the customers who had been herded together against the wall by Marin. Bosham led the way outside. Several people were standing about, their attention drawn by the alarm bells. When they saw the armed men they tried to scatter, like a flood of sheep sighting a killer dog.

  Bosham ran across the pavement, followed by the other four. In the truck’s cab, Cannon, who’d kept the engine running, engaged first gear and let out the clutch to take-up point.

  Prade was half-way across the pavement when he trod on a tomato, dropped from the shopping bag of an elderly shopper in the panicky rush. His right foot slipped, he tried desperately to keep his balance but failed, and instinctively he released the canvas bags he’d been carrying so that his left arm was free for the fall. He crashed awkwardly and painfully. Two men, standing within a couple of feet of where he’d fallen, grabbed hold of him.

  It had been quite clear from the beginning that once the raid was under way any casualty was on his own – every second wasted in a rescue attempt would be one second closer to jail. Home, Marin, or Bosham, would have ignored the fallen Prade, thankful it was someone else and not himself. But Akers ignored his own orders and turned back, giving best to his reckless courage, his unspoken belief that he was beyond the normal forces of retribution.

  The two men, one in his early twenties, the other middle-aged, had Prade by his right arm and right leg. Prade, partially stunned by the fall, was struggling only feebly. Akers swung the gun round so that the butt crunched into the elder man’s mouth: the man doubled-up, whimpering. The young man, obviously strong, squared up for a fight. Akers reversed the gun, pulled the front trigger, and the column of shot, hardly spreading despite the sawn-off barrels, mangled the other’s shoulders and spun him round so that he lost his balance and fell to the pavement.

  Akers bent down and with his left hand grabbed hold of the back of the collar of Prade’s uniform and pulled. Prade, far more conscious now of what he was doing, came to his feet and at the same time grabbed one of the canvas bags.

  There was the harsh clatter of heavy boots on the pavement and they half turned, to see a police constable running towards them. Akers aimed the gun. The constable kept coming forward, although anyone interested in meeting his grandchildren would have stopped. Akers pulled the rear trigger and it hung up, refusing to fire the left-hand barrel. Cursing, he swung round and ran for the truck into which Prade was now clambering.

  Cannon, showing none of the quixotic bravery Akers had done, let out the clutch, accelerated, and began to drive off. For a moment it seemed to Akers he was going to miss, then he managed to find a last burst of extra speed. Hands grabbed him and dragged him inside and the rear doors were slammed shut.

  The van swung right into the main roadway. The lights were at red, but Cannon crashed them, almost writing off a Mini in the process.

  Their get-away car, a dark green Jaguar XJ12, stolen the previous night in Chelsea, was parked in Rathsay Road. They made the change-over in fifteen seconds flat, loading the canvas bags in the boot, and drove out of Fortrow nine minutes after the start of the bank raid and seven minutes before the first of the road blocks was set up.

  *

  They were full of wild fun, joshing each other, laughing at even the stupidest things, men who had not had any liquor for hours yet who acted like drunks. Home’s wife – a courtesy title – repeatedly had to fend off the pawing hands of Cannon and Prade and Home was merely loudly amused.

  The horsing around stopped when Akers put a canvas bag on the circular table in the centre of the dining-room, a room overburdened with dark coloured furniture. The mouth of the bag was secured by cord, run through eight brass eyelets, and also by a flexible locking bar which was padlocked and sealed. Akers used a knife to cut through the canvas just below the eyelets. He tipped out the contents, six bundles in orange coloured, heavy duty paper, sealed with the bank’s crest.

  ‘They’re heavy,’ said Bosham, in an expectant voice. ‘Real heavy.’

  ‘All twenties,’ agreed Prade.

  Akers, his movements deliberately slow, ran his thumb under the seal of one packet. He opened up the paper. The notes, in bundles secured by bands of brown paper, were ones.

  Home let out his breath with an audible hiss. ‘Try the next sack, Alf. That’ll have the heavies in it.’

  They looked down at the sacks on the floor. Along with Home, they were for the moment contemptuous of small denomination notes.

  When the last canvas sack was emptied, the last orange coloured bundle was opened, one fact became inescapably obvious – they had not made the enormous haul they had been reckoning on. Almost all the notes were ones or fives and only one sack, with four not six bundles inside, had contained a mixture of tens and twenties.

  They stood round the table, the same baffled, angry look on each of their faces. They could not understand how fate could have been so cruel to them.

  Marin broke a long silence when he shouted at Prade: ‘You had the heavies and dropped ’em and then picked up the wrong ones.’

  They were grateful to find someone on whom they could focus their hatred.

  Cannon moved round the table, his right hand in his pocket. ‘You ain’t goin’ to louse up any more jobs, Race.’

  ‘Cool it,’ ordered Akers harshly.

  They relaxed, realized they’d been acting ridiculously, and their anger drained away to leave only bitter disappointment. A big job, beautifully worked, and only peanuts to show for it.

  *

  Akers’s anger and disappoi
ntment had been no less than any of the others, but although a man who at times suffered the fatal weakness of a surge of recklessness so acute that it could, and did, shatter his mental balance, he was normally a person able to weigh up consequences. Had there been a fight in which Prade was badly worked over, he would have had a grudge big enough to send him to the splits. So although Akers had, as much as any of them, needed the mental release which came from physical violence, he had wisely prevented any such violence. But now, twenty-four hours later, and as he drove north on the motorway, he could feel the bitter anger tighten his mind. It was going to be a long time before he could think of the missing money without experiencing a savage hatred for Race Prade.

  He increased speed until travelling at well over the legal maximum. He drove with aggressive skill, contemptuous alike of traffic laws and of small-faced men who dutifully watched their speedometers. Speed reached a hundred and five. Ahead of him, all three lanes were blocked: the car in the middle lane was overtaking a heavy lorry, the car in the outer lane was not going nearly as fast as it should have been.

  He flashed the lights, sounded the horn, and refused to brake until the very last moment. He almost left it too late and, with tires squealing and the back weaving, due to faultily balanced brakes, he came within inches of the outside Mini before his speed dropped appreciably.

  The middle car, a Vauxhall, finally cleared the lorry. Akers kept the horn blasting and the middle-aged woman in the Mini was pressured into turning into the middle lane with little reference to the Vauxhall. Akers accelerated fiercely and came round the outside of the Mini, at one moment almost losing control. Unknown to him, the rear nearside wing of the Bristol just flicked the front off-side wing off the Mini. The woman, convinced she was dealing with a homicidal maniac, panicked completely, slammed on her brakes full bore, and turned more sharply. The Mini was hit amidships by the Vauxhall and it flipped over in the first of two rolls.