“You didn’t tell me,” Edward repeated. “You asked me to plan this, and I did. But that only works if I know absolutely everything that’s going on. No surprises. Bringing along a gun was not something on my list. Giving it to Billy makes it worse. You can do that if you want too, but, just so everything is clear between us, you’ll be doing it without me.”

Joseph put his hand on Edward’s shoulder. “Come on, Doc––we’re inside now. Alright? Now’s not the time. There’s plenty to do and we’re going to look like amateurs if he catches us arguing. We can talk about this later. Let’s get cracking. Alright?”

“Fine,” Edward said, far from happy. He stalked back to the truck. The chaps were busy, lowering the flaps at the rear of the vehicles and taking down the pallet-trolleys and loading equipment.

Butler was at the entrance to the nearest store. “You’ve gone the extra mile, haven’t you? Looking the part and all that.”

“Ready to start?” Joseph said to him. “The sooner we get going, the sooner we’ll be out the way.”

“Hold up, men,” Butler said, looking behind them. “Here comes the cavalry.”

A group of six soldiers pulled up in two extra jeeps.

“What’s this?” Edward said warily.

“Thought you could do with some help. They’re good lads. Speed things up a bit.”

“Do they––”

“Not a thing,” Butler said. “As far as they know, this is all as it should be.”

It got worse, Edward thought. He was unhappy with this late addition to the plan but there was nothing for it now but to trust Butler. They swung open the big doors of the nearest store and stood there with their mouths hanging open. The store held twenty or thirty brand new industrial refrigerators. They were stacked two-high and crammed in all the way to the back of the room. Edward couldn’t help but be impressed. He had never seen a fridge before; only a few businesses could afford them. It was certainly beyond Jimmy’s means at the Shangri-La.

They got cracking. Each refrigerator weighed half a ton. They manhandled them onto the hand-drawn fork-lift and then rolled them out to the trucks. That was the easy part. Loading them into the trucks was much more difficult. It took half a dozen of them to manage it: three to raise one end so that the refrigerator rested on the lip of the truckbed and another three to push, shouldering the big units until they were far enough inside for gravity to make the rest of the job a little easier. The Bedfords were large enough to manage five units each. It took them two hours to load all fifteen. By the time they were finished, the suspensions sagged heavily and they were drenched in sweat.

“Your pal in Barry’s expecting us, then?” Joseph asked Butler after he had dismissed the other soldiers.

“You won’t have a problem.”

“You said that before.”

“I’ll call ahead to make sure. Have you arranged buyers?”

“Don’t worry about that,” Joseph said brusquely. “You just leave it to me.”

“When can I expect to be paid?”

“Later.”

“When?”

Joseph smiled tightly. “You get your cut right at the end, pal, once everyone else has been sorted. You just do as you’re told and be patient, and everything will turn out just fine.”

41

THEY SET OFF AGAIN. Edward had been ready to refuse to ride with Billy but Joseph had rearranged the order before he could complain, taking Billy off his hands so that he could drive alone. That suited Edward perfectly well. The prospect of spending more time with him was almost more than he could bear and he was quite content to use the time thinking about how the day had gone and how it could be improved. Getting Bubble out of the way would be a good place to start, he thought. He settled behind the wheel and wondered how that might be done.

The journey from Honeybourne to Barry took another three hours. They headed west towards Gloucester and turned south at Cinderford, following the coastline the rest of the way. It was a pleasant ride and Edward found that the scenery lifted his mood. The truck was sluggish because of the heavy load in the back and he had to concentrate, nudging the wheel back to the centre and correcting the small errors in the handling. Joseph led the way, scrupulously observing the rules of the road, maintaining a steady forty miles an hour. Edward had laboured the point that good driving was essential. It was important to avoid the attention of the police. The last thing they needed was to be pulled over with a haul of moody goods. Major Butler had given them transfer notices for the refrigerators but Edward did not think that they would stand up to much scrutiny. The paper trail would eventually lead back to Butler and he was not the sort of fellow to make one feel confident about things.

They arrived a little after seven. The base at Barry was smaller than Honeybourne. Butler’s contact was an officious captain named Williams. He had remembered to tell the guardhouse that they were coming and this time they passed inside without a hitch. They parked up at an empty warehouse and got to work again. There was no help this time and so they unloaded the trucks themselves. The fridges seemed twice as heavy now and it took two hours to lower them from the trucks and transfer them to the stores. By the time they were finished it was after nine. They had already driven over two hundred miles and they were all dog tired. Edward had been fighting heavy eyelids for the last half an hour of the drive and now all he could think about was a pint, something to eat and bed. Joseph evidently felt the same way and suggested a change of plan: rather than attempting the return trip to London they should find somewhere to stay overnight instead. They could have a meal and a drink and make an early start in the morning. No-one objected.

Edward remembered a roadside inn that they had passed outside Gloucester and led the way north again, pulling into an empty car park next to the hotel. Petrol was still rationed and the days of going out for leisurely drives were long gone. Businesses like this struggled to stay afloat without passing trade and the proprietor gladly welcomed them when they asked whether he had any vacancies. They took four rooms: two doubles and two singles. Edward was thankful for the peace and quiet of one of the singles, and, stripping out of his overalls, he soothed his muscles in the tub.

When he awoke an hour and a half had passed. Feeling partially refreshed, he dressed and went down to the dining room. He needed a beer and something to eat. The others were already there and the empty pint pots on the table suggested that they had made a start without him.

“Perfect timing,” Joseph said, nodding at the empties. Edward ordered beers from the bar and passed them round. He sat down in the spare seat, Billy to his left and Joseph to his right. There was a strange atmosphere around the table, a mixture of relief and fatigue. There was an edge of hysteria to it, too, a manic quality that was exacerbated by the alcohol. They had been up early, on edge all day and all of them were tired. They were living off nervous energy.

“Well done, chaps,” Joseph said, holding up his pint. “A good day’s work.”

Edward couldn’t disagree with that. They all touched glasses and he drank off half of his beer in one thirsty gulp. It felt good, so he finished the rest and got another.

“How long are we going to leave the fridges down there?” Jack McVitie was asking when Edward returned to the table.

Joseph deferred to Edward. “A week should do it,” he said. “Plenty of time to make sure it’s safe. We’ll leave earlier next time––pick up another load, drop it off and take the fridges back with us. It’ll be easier. We’ll know what we’re doing. We’ll have a routine.”

Joseph had already ordered the food––gammon and chips five times––and the proprietor appeared with the plates, setting them down on the table. The smell reminded Edward how famished he was. They ate in silence for five minutes, shovelling the food into empty stomachs, in the meantime finishing their pints and ordering replacements.