‘Chatham? That’s a bloody warzone Alex. Shit, I’m coming with you. Let me take the old lady a cup of tea and then we will fill your van. Five minutes.’
‘I’ll start bringing some of these upstairs, then, while you go and make the tea.’ Alex was sweating; the whole basement was like a sauna and wearing a large heavy coat and woolly balaclava didn’t help.
Alex started loading up and Luke returned swiftly to help him. Between them they put thirty plants of mixed sizes into the back of the van. Luke got in and pulled up his hoodie. ‘Where to first?’
‘To start with, we’re on a mechanic job, picking up a car to take it to a garage, then we are going to put these plants in the car.’
‘I didn’t know you were a mechanic. I thought you were a publican?’
‘I’m not and I’m not. My wife is the publican and my neighbour’s the mechanic, although I probably know more about cars than he does,’ Alex laughed.
‘So, who are we taking the plants to?’ Luke smiled and lit two cigarettes.
‘We’re selling them back to the people we stole them off. The very people who wanted you dead.’
Luke paled. ‘What the fuck for? They can’t see me or I’m dead meat.’
‘Nobody is going to see anybody Luke. Do you think I want to be seen?’
‘Suppose not, but how do you know they are going to pay up? They aren’t going to hand over money when they can put a bullet in your head and take them for free.’
‘Watch and learn Luke. And stop asking questions. Come on, it’s here.’ Alex turned into a side road. Just as Mark had said, the car was parked in the driveway of the address given. Telling Luke to stay in the van, Alex knocked on the door, while pulling the hood of his coat way over his eyes and making sure his balaclava covered his face.
A woman answered the door. ‘Mark, thanks for coming to pick up the car,’ she babbled and reached up to a key holder at the side of the door and handed him the car keys. ‘Okay, got to go,’ Alex mumbled. The woman looked quite shocked at his abrupt manner.
The woman hovered at the front door, wrapping her cardigan around her and watching Alex attach the car to his van, waving as he drove off with it.
‘Blimey, that was easy. What a way to steal cars, eh?’ Luke laughed.
Alex heart was pounding in his chest. Looking at his watch, he knew he was stretched for time – towing the car had slowed him down, which he hadn’t thought about in his planning. Once at the supermarket car park, he pulled over and turned to Luke. ‘Start unloading. We need to put the plants in the car.’ Jumping out of the van, Luke asked no questions but did as instructed.
Next Alex opened his jacket and pulled out the homemade bomb he had made earlier. Looking to make sure Luke was busy with the plants, Alex lifted up the bonnet of the car and attached the bomb to the battery and put a timer on the steering wheel of the car, with a red light flashing, so whoever entered would see that the car was wired up to something.
‘You all done there Luke?’ Seeing Luke mop his brow and nod, he told him to go and sit in the van and wait until he saw him leave. Then Alex swiftly walked away and into the doorway of the supermarket, which was surprisingly busy, considering the time. Mingling in with everyone else, Alex made his way to the toilets. He was sweating, and wet from the rain. He knew people would be on the alert looking for whoever had dropped off the car. In fact, they were probably already there; maybe his cover was already blown.
Seeing the disabled toilets, he noticed a notice on the door explaining that to use the toilet you had to get a key from customer service. Shit! He hadn’t counted on that. He had expected it to be open.
Deciding to buy something, Alex purchased two large bags and some cigarettes and ignoring the cashier’s odd look, he also asked about the key to the disabled toilets, explaining his disabled mother needed to use it. Thankfully she was too busy to see if he had a disabled mother with him and handed it over. He went back to the toilets, all the while checking his watch. This was taking more time than he had estimated. There he took off his coat and balaclava and stuffed them in the large bag for life and walked back out of the supermarket. If anyone was watching and had seen him go in, they definitely hadn’t seen him come out. Mark had been the one to walk in and Alex had walked out. After the heavy weight of the coat, he welcomed the coolness of the rain. Now standing in the shadows, he could only wait.
Looking up, Alex saw the familiar BMW enter the car park and circle around twice, and instantly he knew they had got his second note detailing the time and the car’s location and registration number. He had instructed that the bag of money be left in the disabled toilets, before anyone opened the car. The bomb gave them only fifteen minutes once the car door was opened before it went off. If the money hadn’t been left before they emptied the car, then Alex would use his remote control to blow the car up. Crossing his fingers, Alex hoped he had covered everything. His stomach was doing somersaults.
He watched a man walk into the supermarket carrying with him a leather holdall and from what he could see it looked heavy. Then he saw the others open the car door and start transporting the plants into their own car. To the outside world, it looked like they had just bought plants from the supermarket and no one paid any attention to what they were doing. Waiting for what seemed a lifetime, he saw the man who had taken the holdall come out of the supermarket empty handed. This was now the trickiest part of his plan because Alex needed to go to the toilet to see what was in the bag without causing any suspicion. The bag could be full of nothing and he would have failed. Only time would tell.
Nonchalantly, Alex walked back into the supermarket and to the disabled toilet. It was still unlocked and he opened the door cautiously. The holdall was tucked away under the sink and he snatched it up quickly. It was promisingly heavy. Looking at his watch, he saw twelve minutes had passed already and he needed to look in the bag and get outside. Undoing the zip slightly, he saw there was some money inside but he didn’t have time to look any further. He swiftly put the holdall into the other large shopping bag he had purchased earlier, left the toilet and made his way outside. From what he could see, the men had already emptied the car and left. As he started walking towards the car, an almighty explosion erupted, and the car burst into flames. Turning around, he hastily made his way back to Luke who was waiting for him in the van. He could hear screams and shouting from shoppers and jumping into the van, he quickly started the engine.
Luke’s eyes were wide. ‘Where the bloody hell have you been? I presume that explosion had something to do with you?’ Luke peered through the windscreen. The light from the fire lit up the sky and Alex knew the fire brigade would soon be on its way. He hoped no one had been hurt. The parking bay had been empty when he had last seen it, so hopefully not.
‘Open the bag Luke,’ Alex commanded as he drove away. ‘Just look in the fucking bag!’
Nervously, Luke did as he was told. ‘Fuck Alex, it’s full of money!’ Luke swirled his hand around the bag and took out a fistful of notes. ‘Shit, they have paid up. I can’t believe it!’
‘Let’s see how much they have paid when we get back to yours. First, I have another car to pick up and drop off.’
‘What the bloody hell are you going to tell the owner of that one?’ Giving a nervous laugh, Luke looked at Alex.
‘I’m only supposed to pick up and drop off at a garage, leaving the keys in the glove box. Cars get stolen all the time. Shit happens!’ Alex laughed.
‘Let’s go and pick up your other car first, before we go back to mine. Where did you get the bomb from?’ Luke asked suspiciously. ‘That was a bomb wasn’t it, not some petrol leak? Is that what you were doing while I was loading up?’
‘What do you care? More to the point, why do you care? But if you must know, I made it Luke. Does that satisfy you?’
Luke cast a glance towards Alex in the darkness of the van and said nothing. What was there to say? They had left mayhem behind them, and had blown up some poor woman’s car for a bagful of money. Some things were best left for another day, Luke thought to himself and looked at the road ahead.
Once they had picked up the other car and dropped it off on the forecourt of the closed garage, they drove on to Luke’s house. Once inside, Luke steered Alex towards the kitchen and checked on his mum who had fallen asleep in her chair.
‘Let’s take a proper look Luke.’ Alex picked up the bag and emptied the contents onto the kitchen table, some notes aimlessly falling onto the floor. Luke couldn’t contain his excitement and he burst out laughing. ‘Oh my God, you’ve done it. There must be thousands there.’
Alex grinned from ear to ear. ‘A hundred thousand pounds is what I asked for; let’s count it partner, then we’ll split it fifty-fifty.’
‘You mean half of this is mine?’ Luke asked, surprised. ‘Seriously Alex, you’re giving me half of this?’
‘You said it yourself, we’re partners.’ Without thinking, they hugged each other.
‘For fuck’s sake, we’re rich!’ exclaimed Luke. Adrenalin ran through their bodies as they sat and counted the cash, discovering to their joy that it was all there as Alex had requested. ‘It’s like monopoly Alex; I’ve never seen so much cash at once. Christ, I can’t believe it. You’ve got balls, I grant you that.’ Luke laughed almost manically.
Alex looked at his watch. ‘I have to get back.’ He stood up to leave. ‘Put my half in the bag.’ Luke scooped up Alex’s half and was about to put it back into the leather holdall when Alex stopped him.
‘Not in there; that’s their bag and will be easily recognised. You destroy the bag here and I’ll take the shopping bag with the cat on it,’ Alex laughed. ‘Next, we need to get some mobile phones, just for you and me. You buy them and I’ll drop by in a day or two to collect mine from you.’
