I was still in the air force, I wasn’t demobbed
until my thirtieth birthday, a birthday present I was actually looking forward
to. I was on leave and thought that I
had finished with the air force that everything had been sorted out. I should have known better, the air force had
other ideas, for on arriving at the office one morning, having refused all
offers I had received on my way in, I found a letter waiting for me. The air force wanted me to extend my adult
service by one day. Yes, that’s exactly
what I thought and probably said out loud to myself but I read on. According to the air force I had spent one
day in jail therefore had not completed the contract we had and therefore was
not eligible to receive my gratuity.
The gratuity was not very generous it was about
three and a half thousand pounds but it would cover all my legal fees, valuation
fees and survey on the new house I was buying at Pin Mill, so I wasn’t in a
position to tell them to stuff it. Also
I wasn’t happy at them saying I had been in jail, as I hadn’t, and as far as I
can remember I hadn’t gone through any formal disciplinary procedure, but rather
than argue the point with them I telephoned Wattisham and agreed that I would
turn up for one days extended service, the day after my birthday. I wasn’t looking forward to it as I had
already handed in all my uniform so would be pitching up in civvies. I had been told that I had to report to air traffic
control which reminded me that the marching idiot Joe Pearson would be in his element.
The Forces Master project was about ready and I
had to give a presentation to a selected group of senior salespeople and the
office manager to test my presentation out and get some feedback. There had been a lot of talk about my ‘team’
for the Forces Master project. It had
been suggested that I should have a team of six, all ex members of the armed
forces. I was dragging my heels over this
because I wanted to do it on my own. I could
see that perhaps I might need one assistant and I had hoped Irene would take up
that post, but as the whole ethos of the project was to stop members of the
armed forces getting ripped of I didn’t want anyone on my team that I didn’t know
and trust. It was my project, my idea,
my reputation and it had to be above reproach.
Graham had already decided that he was on my
team, in fact he probably thought he was in charge of it and it wouldn’t have
surprised me if he had been telling people that it was all his idea in the first
place. It was just like being back in
flight planning. I had a group of about twelve
people, some I knew, some I didn’t, and I had my notes and a slide
projector. I launched myself into the
presentation and tried to keep it as real and as believable as possible. It felt good and the experience I had gained
from the air force allowed me to work my way around the audience, focusing on
certain people for certain aspects. Timing
was good too and I landed on the forty five minutes slot like a pro.
After, there was a question and answer session which
took about another forty five minutes and then the senior team would get together
and discuss the project and agree whether or not to give me all the support I
wanted. Graham and myself shot off for a
few beers. This time we stayed out of
the pubs and clubs in Soho and headed for the city of London, the square mile. We went in to a pub, I can’t remember the name
of it, but people were buying jugs of beer.
And I mean jugs, large copper jugs that must have held half a gallon of
beer. This was not a pint of beer and
packet of crisps pub. In fact they
served hors d’oeuvre, which mainly seemed to be smoked salmon on a tiny piece
of bread. People were leaving their
credit cards at the bar and telling the bar staff to ‘add it on’, as they ordered
drink after drink and plates of finger food.
It was so strange; most of them wore shirts
that would have cost more than my suit and were garish in the extreme. But the strangest thing of all was that there
was sawdust on the floor. Not a wisp of
sawdust that a jobbing carpenter may have left but handfuls of the stuff,
scattered all about. The accents got me
though, all talking Received Pronunciation through their noses and all talking
shite. Graham was rubbing shoulders with
some aristocrats and wanted to meet more of them as he could smell money and
wanted to invest it for them, he was so caring.
It was a really interesting afternoon
for me, and expensive, but if they had inflated prices to keep the hoi polloi
out then I was quite happy to be kept out of any establishment they populated.
We got back to the office and I knew I would have
had rosy red cheeks from the beer which had been quite nice. I was stopped by my direct line manager
Peter, who informed me that the Forces Master project had been given the go
ahead by the big bosses. Hearing that put
me in the mood to head off to a decent pub and celebrate but Peter continued. He introduced me to some fellow who had been
in the Royal Marines. We shook hands and
then Peter explained that until the Forces Master project was up and running
properly this fellow would be in charge.
I had been used to underhand tactics in the air force from the air
traffic controllers and it had never crossed my mind that civvies could be as
useless or as devious as air traffic controllers.
When I find myself faced with people who claim
to be doing the right thing for the right reasons, for me, but really are doing
exactly what they think is right for themselves and couldn’t give a monkeys
about you, I tend to clam up. My head turns
into a tumble drier and I simply have to get away, sit in a quiet corner and
think my way through things. So many words like, sly, deceptive, dishonest,
sneaky all could have been said with just one punch, but it would have been the
end of my career with Abbey Life. I went
in to my little office and sat down. Forces
Master was an idea, I had had plenty of good ideas before, so I knew that this wasn’t
the be all and end all of my life. It would
be nice to see the whole thing through but I wasn’t going to be precious about
it. In the air force there was nothing I
could do about the underhandedness of the air traffic controllers as I was controlled
by military law, but this was different.
I didn’t have to take it anymore.
Graham came in and sat down. He explained that he had heard what had happened
and told me not to worry. It was all for
the best. Stephen who was at his desk
joined in and the three of us began to discuss options available to me. Stephen was telling me to go with my gut feelings;
Graham was telling me not to rock the boat.
I decided to tell my boss to stick his team leading Royal Marine, Forces
Master was my idea, it was my baby, I didn’t want or need any fecking Royal Marine
on my team. The project was mine and
mine alone. If he wouldn’t accept that
then he could stick it all where the sun didn’t shine. Graham still kept advising me not to take
this route, but I was angry. I stood and
buttoned up my jacket, nobody was going to tell me what to do, apart from the
fellow who came in to the office and told me to sit down.
From the three of us sitting chatting in the small
office, to the office being full with a dozen people, most who had guns, and
were shouting, took seconds. Graham, Stephen,
and myself were all arrested and escorted from the building. We were all off to help Scotland Yard
detectives with their enquiries. Even those
who lived on the edge of society in the shadows of Soho stood and watched as we
were led from the main building and encouraged to get into police vans. My head was still spinning, I wondered if Graham
had actually been involved, I knew hadn’t, but the police had other ideas, seems
that I was accused of being the master mind behind what was becoming known as
the robbery of the century, the Knightsbridge Safety Deposit robbery.
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