Buried (DC Jack Warr #1) - Lynda La Plante Page 0,84
back, familiar arms wrapped around Angela’s waist and Rob rested his chin on top of her head. He beamed a huge smile at the women and he opened his arms for an impromptu group hug, easily enveloping them all. For a moment, no one spoke. They stood there, savouring the moment until Ester ruined it with some crude comment about foursomes. They came to their senses and set about moving the bags from the van into the back of the pickup.
‘Is Mike OK?’ Rob asked.
He’d known lots of men like Mike, men who needed to be part of a team to understand their role in life; the army, the police ‒ it was all the same. This need to belong had been a useful way of keeping Mike in check . . . but not today. Today he needed to play his part on his own and Rob wasn’t sure that, alone in Rose Cottage, he would keep his nerve. But there was nothing they could do about that now.
Once all of the bags were in the back of the pickup, Ester jumped into the back seat, while Rob slid the heavy-duty cover closed and double-locked it. Ester couldn’t be clearly seen through the blacked-out windows and even the driver’s cab partition window was blacked out so that, if Rob was stopped or caught on any cameras, none of the women would be identifiable.
Angela, Julia, Connie and Rob jumped into the pest control van and drove a few feet before going off-road and heading towards the Thames. Once they were close enough, they all got out, Rob released the handbrake and they pushed the van into the water. With all of its doors open, the van sank quickly. They then headed back to the pickup and the women climbed into the back with Ester.
Once they were all settled, Rob pulled back the partition window, winked at Angela and passed through a bottle of champagne. The shrieking and cheering coming from the back would have been deafening if there had been anyone around to hear it.
*
Back at Rose Cottage, Barry Cooper was staring at the bundles of £5 notes and £10 notes piled high in the hearth. He was about Mike’s height and age but was a good couple of stone overweight, although he carried it well. Life had been harsh for Barry. Like Mike, the army had taught him how to survive in a group but not on his own; civvy street didn’t suit him. It didn’t really suit either of them.
‘You gotta be fuckin’ kidding me,’ Barry whispered in a deep, gruff smoker’s growl.
Mike held open a small bag. ‘Two hundred thousand pounds in twenties and fifties. Untraceable. This is for you. We need to burn the fivers and tenners first, make sure they’re properly gone, and then we need to take down the cottage. There’s always tramps sleeping rough in here using tea lights and candles, so we can easily make it look like an accident.’
Barry took the bag of money from Mike. Even though it contained more money than he’d ever had in his life, he couldn’t take his eyes off the mountain of cash piled high in the hearth and he couldn’t quite comprehend burning it. He looked back at the relatively small bag of cash in his hand.
‘Papers said you got about thirty million. You’re happy to burn a couple of million here, so you must have plenty left.’
Barry turned and Mike recognised the dead stare; it was the stare Barry got when he was about to take on a job that no one else dared to do.
‘I want more, Mike. You couldn’t even have robbed that train if I hadn’t given you the explosives to take out the track ‒ I got 100K for doing that. Now you want me to destroy all the evidence that ties you to the train robbery and all I’m getting is 200K. I want a million.’
Mike smiled nervously. ‘It’s nowhere near that. The papers exaggerated. And in any case, I’m just one small part of a much bigger gang. They took most of the cash anyway.’
But, as he spoke, his eyes flashed to the green bag sitting on the little two-seater sofa, containing his cut: £5 million in untraceable £20 and £50 notes.
Barry dived at the bag, ripping it open. And the red mist instantly descended. One punch fractured Mike’s lower jaw and sent him flying onto his back. Barry knelt down by Mike’s side and leant in close.