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Austin Macauley Publishers - William Pullar

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93 pages

English

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Four old men had spent most of their adult life in prison following many failed attempts to rob financial institutions. Now aged late 70s and early 80s, they are released from a long jail term to take up residence in a warden-controlled, local-authority owned block of self-contained apartments. Other residents are a strange mixture. The local diminutive vicar relaunches the campanology group. The bell-ringing group of gays drives the bats from the belfry, along with other animals. The four decide that life in Bogwash is not to their liking and plan the last heist, just to get convicted and return to a world they understand. Dressed as four gorillas, wearing flashy Bermuda shorts and high-visibility jackets, they plan on robbing a small post office.

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Fantasy (canción de Mariah Carey)

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Publié par	Austin Macauley Publishers
Date de parution	29 mars 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781528955850
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0175€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

The Final Heist
William Pullar
Austin Macauley Publishers
2019-03-29
The Final Heist About the Author Dedication Copyright Information Acknowledgements Author’s Note The Release Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Appendix: Glossary of Slang
About the Author
William Pullar is the pseudonym of a long-retired, Scottish-born national newspaper journalist. He covered many high-profile court cases and took part in several major investigations leading to convictions.
Dedication
Jessica – whose undying support and loyalty has enabled this book to be created.
Glynis and her tales from the care industry.
Copyright Information
Copyright © William Pullar (2019)
The right of William Pullar to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781788486644 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781788486804 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781788486811 (Kindle e-book)
ISBN 9781528955850 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Acknowledgements
Thanks to The Cannae Sutra for the Scottish ditties by Rupert Besley, published by Birlinn Limited.
Author’s Note
For a glossary of the language used by members of the heist industry, see the Appendix at the end of the book.
The Release
The Retreat Residential Home lay half-way down Beech Road in the sleepy Sussex seaside town of Crabby-by-the-Sea. To the casual observer this former Victorian mansion was a quiet, unassuming, residential home for a mixture of the elderly with a variety of care and social support needs and a private wing for wealthy octogenarians.
Four newly released bank, post office and security van robbers were placed in the social wing of the residential home. Matters would never be the same again for some of the long-term residents, both social support and private.
Among the tenants some lived lives of quiet boredom. Secret romances blossomed. A few of the tenants taxed the patience of the warden and occasionally the local police.

* * *
It was late Friday morning. The shelves of the old Post Office’s little convenience store were empty. No one was manning the post office counter. The only activity was in the small café where a man and a woman sat waiting to receive their order.
Outside, and legally parked, a paunchy man in a weather-proof coat sat in the driving seat of a small car engrossed in the racing pages of the Sun . He ignored the arrival of a people carrier disgorging five passengers, who headed for the cafe. He paid no interest in a red Mark Two Jaguar as it pulled up a few minutes later and parked in front of him. Nor did he pay any attention to three, heavily disguised, men one behind the other, who left the car and headed for the Post Office. One was pushing a four-wheeled invalid trolley, one of the others assisting him from behind. The lead man waving a heavy walking stick, bulky in his disguise, also carried what first appeared to be a towel covering a second walking stick.
Behind him a large man beckoned encouragement to the last of the trio who was labouring to manoeuvre his walking trolley over a drainage grill in front of the door of the building. The two-front wheels became stuck in the grill of the drain in front of the door which continued sliding backwards and forwards as he tried to extract the walking-aid. As he struggled to free the wheels a loud blast came from within the shop followed by the sound of falling debris and shouts of indignation.
As the blast went off, the last man tugs the two-front wheels of his trolley from the grip of the drain, pulling the trigger of his 12-bore shotgun strapped to the handle of the trolley only milli-seconds after the first blast. The sliding doors were open and a TV blew apart into a million-pieces as the contents of the gun’s cartridges hit it. Much to the annoyance of the café customers.
Inside the old post office one man lay on his back. The re-coil of the gun had unbalanced him. The second was trying to get him on his feet. Both men quickly raised their hands and surrendered to the customers who, it transpired, were a heavily armed fast response team and two armed plain clothed police officers. They were awaiting instructions following a tip-off; there was to be a major raid planned for premises in Crabby.
The driver of the people carrier arrived outside the Post Office as the trolley man’s gun went off and he tumbled backwards with the trolley and the shotgun on top of him. He was handcuffed.
From the Jaguar, the driver got out and quickly walked up the street and headed for a pub. He too, was quickly arrested.
Chapter 1
SOME months before the debacle at the Post Office, the main gates of the Home Counties Jail clanged shut. Standing outside, four, now ex-prisoners, let out on licence, smelt the clean, fresh air of freedom for the first time in many years. All Four had spent most of their adult life behind bars at various times. Eighty-year-old Guy Granger was known by all as the ‘Colonel’, among other disparaging nick-names. He stood ramrod-straight, military style, waving his walking stick at nothing-in-particular.
“Right. First thing we have to do is report to a probation officer and some goon from the council at a residential home at Crabby-by-the-Sea. It seems they cater for old ex’s like us,” he said, as they waited for the mini-bus that would take them to the local rail station along with their wheelie suitcases. He hooked his walking stick over his left arm and removed his flat, tweed cloth cap, twitched his trim moustache and brushed imaginary detritus from the cap and pulled it back on as the mini-bus arrived.
He added, “We’ve t’ meet a probation officer assigned to us, called Carol Smythe and some council wallahs. It seems we have t’ take these flats or we’re back behind bars. Our release conditions are that we must be well-behaved. They’ve given us single, one-journey rail warrants to a place, called Crabby-on-the-Hill. We have to get a bus or a taxi from there.” The Colonel had worked hard on developing his ex-military persona. However, nothing could totally erase his East London verbal roots. He regarded himself as the Commanding Officer of the Gang of Four, as they had been dubbed by the Metropolitan Police. Other nomenclatures included the Foursome, the Four Idiots or the Colonel and the Stooges.
Grangers’ military experience was dubious, the reality was that he was one of the last of the post-war conscripts and had spent most of his time as a lowly Royal Air Force ‘erk’, the lowest in the pecking order. Most of his service life was spent at the old Shepton Mallet Military Prison in Somerset. Petty thefts and disciplinary disputes were the main causes of his incarceration under military rules.
Once married, he had been on his own since his young wife ran off with the manager of a South London Bank he had robbed. She told friends she needed companionship, stability and a family.
As Guy was serving a 15-year stretch, she decided comfort elsewhere was required. Enough was enough of his lifestyle: sometimes in the money, usually forcibly relieved from a financial institution or reliance on social benefits after he was jailed.
She now lived a life of splendour in Virginia Water and played golf at nearby Wentworth. Guy Granger was virtually a forgotten man. Only law enforcement teams and the prison authorities took an interest in him and his chosen career. He described himself as a ‘liberator’ of funds illegally stolen from the public. His warped view was that he had merely brought it back into public hands. The fact, that he and his fellow-robbers became the only benefactors from the heists, didn’t impress the courts. Most of his robbery schemes ended empty-handed with a jail term.
The Colonel, as he preferred to be called, remained single after the divorce and despite his continuing anti-social career, he had developed odd social graces and a rather quaint morality, considering his villainous past. Among these was a distrust of anyone ‘messing about’ with marriage or a relationship. He had a hatred of anyone stealing private property or robbing the elderly. His deep contempt was for drugs smugglers and dealers, or anyone growing cannabis plants or producing social help pills. He was also intolerant of anyone ill-treating animals, particularly cats.
Despite his long-term criminal history, he had strong views on anyone delivering drugs or illegal phones into jails by drones. His solution was to have armed-guards on the roof and shoot the offending delivery agents out of the sky.
As the years passed and he responded to the title, Colonel, only the foolish and alcohol-dependents called him by any other title.
He despised anyone swearing, particularly in front of women, and usually told them in his developed ‘gentleman’s’ jargon: “I say, less of that, ladies present.” Most scoffed at his developed verbal delivery. Younger members of the prison community avoided him rather than be chastised. Prison staff treated him with a mixture of derision and humour and was glad to be rid of the ‘gentleman’ gangster. His periods of life outside the confines of prison life were usually quite short