Chapter 4.
ONE YEAR EARLIER......
Inside the Locarno Dance Hall. BR (Short for British Rail). Real name Brian, has been searching the dance hall for the past 10/15 minutes looking for his old school friends Philip, Charles & Anne. He spots them having drinks in the "Long Bar". Well pleased at finding them he hurries over to them, "I knew I'd find you lot here."
They all greet their long lost friend. letting him know how pleased they are to see him, and how unusual it is to see him at their local watering hole after such a long time.
With excitement and trepidation not usually associated with BR he starts to tell them his story, and the reason for his visit. "I had to come and see you. I didn't know who else to turn to."
Phil tries to console him, "Calm down me old mate. Have a drink, what'd you want?"
"Give us a large whiskey."
Standing at the bar Charles only has to turn around to order the drink.
He gets it and hands it to BR.
BR takes the drink and almost downs it in one, "Cheers Charlie. I don't know where to start."
Philip puts a consoling hand on BR's shoulder, "Take it easy mate. Just calm down and tell us what your problem is."
"It's not a problem. It's a fucking miracle, it's fucking magic."
Anne who is now interested, "Come on Brian darling. Don't keep us in suspenders all night."
BR now wanting to keep the next thing he says a secret, "Now this is just between us four right?"
Philip, Charles, & Anne all answer as a group. "Yeah of course."
They all move away from the bar.
Anne holds her glass up, "It'll be our little secret. Cheers."
Phil, "You know us."
BR back to Anne, "Cheers." Addresses everyone, "That's why I came here.
You're the only people I can trust."
Phil, "Well it's nice to be trusted."
Charles, "So what's the big secret?"
"You know I work at Paddington?"
Charles, "I thought you worked at Victoria."
"I did. I got moved."
Charles, "Ok, now you're at Paddington. So?"
"I got something that'll make the Great Train Robbery look like kinder-garten stuff."
Phil, "Sounds interesting. What is it?"
BR, "Well every Thursday there's a delivery from Kings Cross to us. It always gets here about 1.00 pm ish. The thing is. There's never anyone here at 1.00 pm. We're all on break from 1.00 pm till 2.00 pm. So they just leave it. It don't get signed for, It just sits there. And no one knows how many bags have been delivered."
Phil's interest is now peaked, "So what's in the bags? Money?"
"You got it, used notes. The same as the Train Robbers nicked."
Phil can't believe what he's hearing, "What they just leave the bags unat-tended?"
"That's what I'm saying. There always there for about 45 minutes to an hour. And if a couple of em went missing, no one would ever know."
Charles's voice becomes a little high pitched, "A couple, why not nick the lot?"
Phil, raises a hand to Charles, "Slow down, BR's right, he's thought it through. If we nicked the lot, alarm bells would start ringing, then there'd be old bill all over the place, and that, you devious little criminal would put the tin hat on that."
Charles has instantly calmed down, "So you want to just take a couple like BR said?"
Phil, "Well, Yes and No."
Anne, knowing that Phil always thinks things through, "Oh, oh, here it comes."
Phil now has everyone's attention, "How about if we take say 4 bags a week for a couple of months, then no one would be any the wiser, and no crime would have been committed."
BR, "That's bleeding genius. I knew I'd picked the right place to come. I hadn't thought of that".
Phil half laughs, "Bollocks, who you trying to kid, course you had. You cunning little bastard."
"Well maybe."
"No maybe about it, that was the next thing coming out of your mouth wasn't it? Am I right or am I wrong?"
"Yeah well, maybe I had given it some thought".
"Given it some thought. Let's have another drink you dodgy little fucker".
Charles hears Phil, "I'll get em", he turns away and makes his way to the bar.
Whilst he had been talking to BR, Phil had been formulating a plan, "We're going to need two British Rail uniforms, and a British Rail van.
Do we need any id's or passes to get in and out'a the place?"
"I can get the uniforms, but I don't know about the van. I reckon you could get one from Brentford auctions, they do em there all the time.
Phil, "What about ID's?"
"No need. Vans go in and out'a there all day, it'd be impossible to check everyone. It's so busy nowadays it'd be impossible."
"This just gets better. We'll take a look this week, and if everything's ok, we'll start helping them remove all those nasty dirty old waste paper bags next week."
Anne, "You're so nice to these people."
Phil, "Only trying to help.
"1.00 pm 5 DAYS LATER....Collection & Dispatch Area at the rear of Paddington Station.
Philip, Charles, & Anne, In Charles's car waiting and watching for the delivery.
At 1.10 pm the van arrives, and is unloaded. As BR had said, no one signs for the bags. There are 3 carts with almost 60 bags on them, it's now 1.20 pm. The van just drives away.
Sitting in the car, they all look at each other in total disbelief, they are almost speechless until Charles comes up with the immortal words, "You gotta be fucking joking."
Phil replies with his own one liner, "Yep I see it, but I can't believe it."
Anne, always on the lookout for money to buy new shoes, "Can we go over and take just one? Please, please, please."
Phil, always the pacifier, and always thinking ahead, "Next week darling.
It's 20 past now, and I reckon if we give it a couple more minutes to make sure they've gone. We can pop down to Brentford auction and take a look at the vans.
ONE WEEK LATER - They are back at the Collection & Dispatch Area at rear of Paddington Station.
Phil, & Charles are in their newly acquired British Rail van, dressed in their railway workers uniforms. Phil drives the van over to the 3 carts.
They take their time, not wanting to draw attention to themselves.
Charles opens the back door of the van. Phil has a clipboard, studies the carts, and writes something down. They load up the 4 large bags as agreed.
Phil looks back at the carts. He's thinking, "That don't look right." Picks up the clipboard again, he writes something else down on it, then throws it back into the front seat of the van. He goes back to the carts takes 2 more bags from the third cart, throws them into the back of the van.
"Yeah that looks better." They both notice a man sitting on a bench watching them. He is a large man half reading a James Bond Book "Dr No". and half watching them load up the van.
Philip, and Charles close the back doors of the van and drive away. Charles is puzzled by the appearance of the man on the bench, "Did you see that bloke watching us?"
"Yeah, just some bloke having a read during his lunch break."
"Didn't he look like Sean Connery to you?"
"No not really."
They get back to Phil's house, and unload the bags, they shake the money out onto the living room table, it spills out all over the floor. They notice they're are hundreds, and hundreds of £5 notes.
Anne is taken aback at the amount of cash she is seeing, "How much do you think's here?"
Phil, "I don't know, but whatever it is, we're gonna have six more next week."
Charles, "Oh, it's gonna be 6 from now on is it?"
Phil, "Two from each cart makes it look even. Seems rude not to help em out as much as we can." He finishes counting a pile of £5 notes puts an elastic band around the pile throws it on the table. "That's 5 grand and it's not made a dent in this pile. I think we're looking at least half a million."
Charles is now so excited he almost chokes on his beer, "What all 6 bags? and another half a million next week."
Phil, "No you plank. I mean in this bag alone."
Anne is overjoyed at that prospect, "Definitely enough for a new pair of shoes then?"
Phil using his very serious voice. That's another thing. We're not going to be able to go mad or spend any of this."
"Why not? That's not fair. They don't even know it's missing."
"Yeah I know, but if the old bill wanted to, they could always pin something else on us."
"For something we haven't even done. That's not nice."
Phil tries to pacify Anne, "Darling girl, that's the business we're in. We can build up something nice and legal so it looks like we should have the money we're gonna be spending."
Charles is now interested, "What sort of thing you thinking of? Strip club? Birds with big tits?"
"NO."
"Shoe shops?"
"No, I haven't thought it through 100% yet. But you're gonna like it."
Carrying on with their Thursday gaunt up to Paddington Station it's now week 2. Philip & Charles go through the same routine as they did on week 1. Filling their van with 6 bags of money. Again, they see the large man sitting on the same bench as before. This goes on for 6 weeks and every time the same large man is seen sitting on the same bench., and every time he takes a break from reading, and watches Philip, and Charles as they load up their van, and drive away.
That was the last time Philip & Charles go to Paddington Station.