Paper Money

Tony said: "I wish he was here, full stop."

Jesse prepared to blow open the chests. He stuck the jellylike explosive all around the locks, attached detonators and wires, and co

Watching him, Tony said: "You seem to know what you're doing."

"I've seen Willie do it often enough." He gri

"Maybe I can become the firm's peterman-"

"Willie ain't dead," Tony interrupted gruffly. "Not so far as we know."

Jesse picked up the trigger and, trailing wires, took it outside. Tony followed him.

Tony said: "Drive the van outside, in case of the petrol going up-know what I mean?"

"There's no danger-"

"You've never done a peter before, and I'm not taking the risk."

"Okay." Jesse closed the rear doors and backed the van into the farmyard. Then he opened the bo

He said: "Hold your breath," and pressed the plunger.

There was a muffled bang.

The two men went back inside. The chests stood in line with their tops hanging open at odd, twisted angles.

"You done a good job," Tony said.

The chests were neatly and tightly packed. The bundles of notes were stacked twenty across, ten wide, and five deep: one thousand bundles per chest. Each bundle contained one hundred notes. That made one hundred thousand notes per chest.

The first six chests contained ten-shilling notes, obsolete and worthless.

Tony said: "Jesus H. Christ."

The next contained oners, but it was not quite full. Tony counted eight hundred bundles. The last chest but one also contained one-pound notes, and it was full. Tony said: "That's better. Just about right."

The last chest was packed solid with te

Tony muttered: "Gawd help us."

Jesse's eyes were wide. "How much is it, Tony?"

"One million, one hundred and eighty thousand pounds sterling, my son."

Jesse gave a whoop of delight. "We're rich! We're lousy with it!"

Tony's face was somber. "I suppose we could burn all the te

"What are you talking about?" Jesse looked at him as if he were mad. "What do you mean, burn them? You going potty?"

Tony turned around and gripped Jesse's arm, squeezing hard. "Listen. If you go into the Rose and Crown, ask for a half of bitter and a meat pie, and pay with a te

"They'll think I've had a tickle. You're hurting my arm, Tone."

"And how long would it take for one of those dirty little snouts in there to get round the nick and spill it? Five minutes?" He let go. "It's too much, Jess. Your trouble is, you don't think. This much money, you've got to keep it somewhere-and if it's kept somewhere, the Old Bill can find it."

Jesse found this point of view too radical to digest. "But you can't throw money away."

"You're not listening to me, are you? They've got Deaf Willie, right? Their driver will co

"I never thought of it that way," Jesse said.

"The word for it is overkill."

"I suppose you can't put that much money in the Abbey National. Anybody can have a good night at the dogs, but if you got too much, it proves you've had a tickle, see?" Jesse was explaining it back to Tony, as if to demonstrate that he understood. "That's it, ain't it?"

"Yes." Tony had lost interest in the lecture. He was trying to think of a foolproof way of disposing of hot money in large quantity.

"And you can't walk into Barclays Bank with over a million nicker and ask to open a savings account, can you?"

"You're getting it," Tony said sarcastically. Suddenly he looked sharply at Jesse. "Ah, but who can walk into the bank with a pile of money and not arouse suspicion?" Jesse was lost.

"Well, nobody can."

"You reckon?" Tony pointed to the packing cases of surplus Forces clothes. "Open a couple of those boxes. I want you dressed as a Royal Navy seaman. I've just had a bloody clever idea."

28

An editor's conference in the afternoon was rare. The editor sometimes said: "The mornings are fun, the afternoons are work." Up until lunchtime, his efforts were expended in the production of a newspaper. By two o'clock it was too late to do anything significant: the content of the paper was more or less determined, most of the day's editions had been printed and distributed, and the editor turned his brain to what he called administrative sludge. But he had to be around, in case something came up which required a top-level decision. Arthur Cole believed that such a thing had come up.

Cole, the deputy news editor, sat opposite the editor's oversize white desk. On Cole's left was the reporter Kevin Hart; on his right was Mervyn Glazier, City editor.

The editor finished signing a pile of letters and looked up. "What have we got?"

Cole said: "Tim Fitzpeterson will live, the oil a

"And?"

"And there's something going on."

The editor lit a cigar. If the truth were known, he quite liked to have his administrative sludge interrupted by something exciting like a story. "Go on."

Cole said: "You remember Kevin came in during the morning conference, a little overexcited about a phone call allegedly from Tim Fitzpeterson."

The editor smiled indulgently. "If young reporters don't get excited, what the hell will they be like when they get old?"

"Well, it's possible Kevin was right to say it was the big one. Remember the names of the people allegedly blackmailing Fitzpeterson? Cox and Laski." Cole turned to Hart. "Okay, Kevin."

Hart uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. "Another phone call, this time from a woman who gave her name and address. She said that her husband, William Johnson, had been on the currency van raid, that he had been shot and blinded, and that it was a Tony Cox job."

The editor said: "Tony Cox! Did you follow it up?"

"There is a William Johnson in hospital with shotgun wounds to the face. And there's a detective beside his bed, waiting for him to come round. I went to see the wife, but she wouldn't speak."

The editor, who had once been a crime reporter, said: "Tony Cox is a very big fish. I'd believe anything of him. Not at all a nice man. Go on."

Cole said: "The next bit is Mervyn's."

"There's a bank in trouble," the City editor said.

"The Cotton Bank of Jamaica-it's a foreign bank with a branch in London. Does a lot of UK business. Anyway, it's owned by a man called Felix Laski."

"How do we know?" the editor asked. "That it's in trouble, I mean."

"Well, I got a tip from a contact. I rang Threadneedle Street to check it out. Of course, they won't give a straight answer, but the noises they made tended to confirm the tip."

"Tell me exactly what was said."

Glazier pulled out his pad. He could write shorthand at 150 words per minute, and his notes were always immaculate. "I spoke to a man called Ley, who is most likely to be dealing with it. I happen to know him, because-"

"Skip the commercial, Mervyn," the editor interrupted. "We all know how good your contacts are."

Glazier gri

"I said: 'Then you'll know just how viable the Cotton Bank is at the moment.'