of a gun, then of several guns—a whole parade of them, laid out like in Dr Jauhari’s diagrams, with their sleek finishes, curved handles and thick hammers. The image widened: I was with my staff, all in formation just like in my dream, an aeroplane-shaped phalanx. We were on a demarcated surface, an interior concourse divided into areas, cut up by screens which we were penetrating, getting to the other side of. We were standing in a phalanx and demanding money, standing on the other side of something, holding guns—and the whole scene was intense, beautiful and real.
On the asphalt pitch a football hitting a caged goal slammed me back into the present. I turned to the short councillor and said:
“What I’d like to re-enact next is a bank heist.”
14
ONE WEEK LATER Naz and I found ourselves stepping back into the Blueprint Café. We were there to meet a man named Edward Samuels. In his heyday Samuels had been one of the UK’s most prolific and audacious armed robbers. Besides holding up countless banks, he’d also stolen artworks, clothes, tobacco, televisions: whole shipments of all these. He’d always stolen in bulk. He’d hijacked lorries and raided warehouses. He’d been so adept at making large things disappear that he’d earned himself the name, among the underworld, of Elephant Thief—a moniker which, apparently, those who knew him well were permitted to abbreviate to Elephant.
Samuels’s criminal career hadn’t gone completely without hitch. He’d been imprisoned twice—the second time for an eleven-year stretch, of which he’d served seven. While in prison he’d started studying. He’d done some O levels, and then some A levels, then a degree in Criminal Psychology. He’d written an autobiography, Elephant, which he’d managed to get published shortly after leaving prison. That’s how Naz had hooked up with him and set up our meeting: he’d read his book, then contacted his agent.
Naz told me all this stuff about Samuels while we took a taxi to the restaurant. As he did I pictured him. I pictured him as tall and quite athletic. I was more or less right. I picked Samuels out as soon as we walked in. He was burly and fiftyish, with straight white hair. He had high cheekbones and was sort of handsome. He’d brought a copy of his book with him—or so it seemed: a book which I assumed was his was lying on the table just in front of him, but when I sat down and glanced at it, it turned out to be called The Psychopathology of Crime.
“Still studying?” I asked him.
“Halfway through my MA,” Samuels said. His voice was husky and working class, but had a middle-class kind of assurance to it. “I got the bug. In prison you go mad if you don’t put your mind to something. The weights are okay for your murderers and psychos, but if you’ve got half a brain you want to use your time to educate yourself.”
“Why criminal psychology?” I asked.
“There were psychologists in prison, studying us,” Samuels said, picking at a breadstick. “So I asked one of them to lend me some books. At first he lent me ones geared to the patient: how to manage anger, how to cope with this and that. Within a week I’d asked him to show me the ones he read. Books for psychologists.”
“Like textbooks?” I asked.
“Exactly,” he said. “Reading these was like suddenly being given the key to my own past. Understanding it. If you don’t want to repeat things, you have to understand them.”
I thought hard about what Samuels had just said, then told him:
“But I do want to repeat things.”
“So Nazrul’s informed me,” Samuels answered. “He says…”
“And I don’t want to understand them. That’s the…”
My voice trailed off. The waiter turned up. Naz and I ordered fish soup, kedgeree and sparkling water; Samuels ordered venison sausages and red wine.
“Did you serve us here before?” I asked the waiter.
He stepped back and looked at me.
“Possibly, sir,” he said. “I’ll remember you next time.”
When he’d gone I told Naz:
“Get his details when we leave. I might use him for something in the future.”
“Absolutely,” Naz said. He knew exactly what I meant.
I turned to Samuels again.
“So,” I said. “Naz has filled you in on what we want?”
“He has indeed,” said Samuels. “You want to pay me an enormous amount of money for advice on how to re-stage a bank heist.”
“Re-enact,” I said, “yes. You think you can help out?”
“I’m certain I can,” he answered. “I acted as a consultant on