Framed

25

At first light on Thursday morning, two days after the bank robbery, Von Joel’s powerful sea yacht edged through the dispersing mist in Jersey harbor and bumped gently against the moorings. Minutes later a taxi drew up alongside. A stooped, elderly-looking man got out of the rear seat. He wore a wide-brimmed hat and cowboy-style boots, and he moved slowly with a stiff, ungainly walk. Lola, wearing a blond wig, got out of the other side of the cab. Charlotte had come up on deck. “This is what I call perfect timing!” she shouted. Lola ran to the boat and Charlotte came to meet her. They collided and hugged by the rail outside the saloon. The old man watched them for a moment and then, astonishingly, he began to sing and do a stiff-legged dance. “Bless your beautiful hide...” The voice was unmistakably Von Joel’s. The girls ran to him. He waddled forward and put his arms around them both as they kissed and hugged him.

Up close, even though the makeup and the false moustache were effective, it was possible to see that this was not an old man. They went back to the boat together, hugging and laughing, Von Joel still walking stiffly and with obvious difficulty.

As soon as they were in the saloon the girls began stripping off his clothes. When his shirt was opened dozens of stacks of bank notes showered out on the floor. Bandages on his arms and legs were unwound and more bundles of money fell out.

“Did you have any trouble with customs?” Charlotte said, pulling away the final bandage.

“Did I have any trouble with customs?” Von Joel whipped off the false moustache and started to laugh, shaking loose a final torrent of money. He turned to Lola. “Baby, did we have any trouble with customs?”

The roar of engine throttles drowned their laughter. The boat rocked, shuddered, and began easing out of the harbor. When it was twenty yards from the moorings there was a bang like a pistol shot, then Von Joel appeared on deck carrying a frothing botde of champagne. Standing in the stern, watching Jersey recede in their wake, he raised the bottle to his lips and drank deeply, letting the champagne overflow his mouth and trickle freely down his chin.

Larry was called before Commander Havergill at noon on Thursday. He sat stiffly in a chair opposite the Commander’s desk while his immediate professional future was explained to him.

“No criminal charges will be brought against you, Sergeant Jackson,” the Commander said. “You will remain on full pay and suspended from duty until you have been before the disciplinary board. If you wish to be represented, that is your prerogative. You will be informed of the date of the hearing in due course. That’s all. You may go.”

Four days later he was told the date of the hearing; it was to be in two weeks’ time, and he was advised that he should prepare an adequate defense, with the assistance of a lawyer if necessary, since the case against him, if it went unopposed, could be severely damaging to his career. Larry’s response was to go out and buy clothes, and have himself measured for more.

At eight o’clock on the morning of the hearing he stood before the mirror in the bedroom, immaculate in a gray checked wool suit and a white batiste shirt. The square edge of a white lawn handkerchief protruded an inch above the outer breast pocket of his jacket. Lying behind him, on the bed, were several other suits and a number of shirts. As he studied the line of his jacket Susan stood by the door watching, her arms folded.

“I don’t know if you were aware of it,” Larry said, “but Fred the Stitch makes clothes for the Royals too.” He flexed his shoulders. “Great fit. I’m just not sure about this tie.”

“I think you’re crazy,” Susan told him. “You know what they’ll all be saying.”

“They can say what they like.” He centered the knot of the tie, making a face as he tried to decide. “I never instigated that robbery. If they want to treat me like a leper it’s fine by me.” He glanced momentarily at Susan. “Frisby been feeding you all the info, has he?”

She didn’t respond to that. Since their domestic estrangement — no more intimacies, not even the superficial kind, and Larry sleeping every night in the spare room — she had avoided confrontations involving Frisby, or her infidelity in general. Larry believed she was hoping that matters between them would heal, if only the wounds were left alone for long enough.

“Why go in front of them like a tailor’s dummy?” she said, looking genuinely concerned. “If you didn’t get paid off, why look as if you did?”

“Looking is not the same as doing.” He took a step back from the mirror and appraised the total effect. “Maybe not this tie, huh?”

He turned. Susan had gone. For a single unguarded moment, his nervousness was visible.

The disciplinary board, made up principally of senior officers from St. John’s Row and Scotland Yard, convened in the conference room at St. John’s Row station. They sat around the large conference table, Commander Havergill occupying the senior position at one end. In neat piles along the table were thick files relating to the Myers case and associated matters. DCI McKinnes sat at one side of the table. He listened impassively as DI Shrapnel delivered his testimony about what happened at the moment the police car with Von Joel in the back was rammed by the Transit van. A dummy was handcuffed to Shrapnel and seated in the adjacent chair for purposes of demonstration.

“I saw Edward Myers try to get out. He went for the door, but it was over in a second. The truck came from this direction” — he pointed to the right — “straight at the car. Jackson put up his hands to protect himself, and Myers was drawn across his body. Like this.” Shrapnel demonstrated, drawing the dummy across him as he raised his arm. “That’s how he saved Jackson and nearly got himself killed.”

Commander Havergill looked at McKinnes. “Would you say that Sergeant Jackson felt in any way indebted to Myers?”

“I think he felt he saved his life,” McKinnes said. “Unintentionally, of course, he did.” The matter of Larry’s indebtedness to Myers seemed to figure importantly with the members of the board. They made notes and conferred among themselves in barely audible murmurs. The Commander waited until the discussion petered out before he carried the investigation forward. It was important to be fair, he had said at the outset, and he did not care how long it might take to get at the essential truth of the business.

Larry was not called to testify until half past three. By that time the conference room was crammed with officers — those on the board, and those already questioned and therefore permitted to remain. Among the faces watching him as he stood at the end of the table was Colin Frisby’s. Larry threw him a look that said complex things, none of them clear — or comforting — to Frisby.

The Commander conducted a line of questioning that took Larry right from the time he saw Von Joel in the speedboat in Marbella, up to the time of the robbery at the Millways Merchant Bank. The questions became sticky as Larry tried to explain his motives and movements prior to the robbery taking place.

“Sir, at every possible opportunity I tried in some way to leave clues for DCI McKinnes.”

The Commander nodded, folding his hands. “But you changed clothes,” he said, his voice level and reasonable. “You ate breakfast, you were with Myers for more than two hours. Are you telling me there was not one single opportunity to—”

“Sir, there wasn’t. I had to stay with him. In some ways I had to prove to Mac — to Detective Chief Inspector McKinnes — that I could handle the situation. I’d already tried to get released.”

“Wait a minute...” The Commander conferred in whispers with another senior officer; they both looked at McKinnes.

“We did have an off-the-record chat, sir,” McKinnes said.

The Commander thought about that remark. He sat back from the table.

“I think we should have a short break now. Please remember you are under oath. Thank you, gentlemen.”

A few minutes later, in the Superintendent’s office, McKinnes was blustering angrily.

“It was a chat over a pint,” he told the Superintendent, delivering flurries of smoke with his words. “It was after Myers had been taken to hospital.”

“Just cool off, Mac. You know they’ll ask you.”

“What’s with all this asking me? I’m not the one before the disciplinary board. All I wanted was Myers. I had him, and that kid let the bastard loose.”

There was a soft tap on the door. A WPC entered and passed a note to the Superintendent. As she left she said, “They’re waiting in the conference room for Chief Inspector McKinnes.”

The Superintendent read the note.

“They think Von Joel might have been at a health farm, not far from East Grinstead,” he told McKinnes. “A man fitting his description booked in for liposuction.”

“For what?”

“I’ll check it out,” the Superintendent said. “You’ve got to go back in.”

After the break the Commander continued to press Larry for convincing testimony that he had tried, in any way, to thwart or obstruct the robbery at Millways Bank. The presence of a gun in the picture was a complicating issue; the interrogation surrounding it finally had Larry thumping the table.

“I did take it off him!” he told the Commander, practically shouting. “I have admitted I had the gun — at the bank, and in the street.”

“Then why, Sergeant Jackson,” the Commander asked calmly, “if by then you knew all the officers were in the wrong location, did you assist Myers in the robbery? He had the money, why at this stage did you not arrest him?”

“I was scared I’d lose him, because as you just said, I knew everyone was at the wrong location.” He turned, pointing to the wall map with one hand, loosening his tie with the other. “I followed Myers out here. He was already across the street, about to get into the car.”

“And you still had the gun?”

“Yes. I ran toward him. In fact I shouted.”

The Commander read from a document in a folder open in front of him. “ ‘Eddie! Wait! Wait!’ No warning that you would, as a police officer, use the gun. No warning, either, to passersby. Is that correct?”

Larry nodded, swallowing hard.

“So now, explain how you came to drive the vehicle with the gun held at your throat by Myers, if, as you have told us, you were in possession of the gun.”

“I shouted that I wanted to drive,” Larry said, his voice dry and hoarse. “He refused, then he moved across from the driving seat.”

“But you’ve still got the gun, Sergeant.”

“Yes...”

In his anxiety to delivery the exact literal truth of the situation, it appeared that Larry’s memory had locked up on him. He sweated, looked around the table anxiously.

“You see,” he improvised, “I thought that if I drove, I could... I could control the situation.”

The Commander sighed. He began flicking through the statements. The other members of the board started doing the same. The Superintendent came into the room and tiptoed along the table to where McKinnes was sitting. He delivered a whispered update on the health farm story. Von Joel, if indeed it had been him, had left the place in a helicopter.

“The pilot used a chopper from a hire company in the West End. We can’t trace him yet, they’re checking the prints. He used a qualified pilot’s license that the guy says was nicked a few years back.”

McKinnes nodded, taking it in, then he leaned close to the Superintendent. “What the hell is liposuction?”

The Commander had resumed his questioning of Larry.

“The getaway vehicle was driven at a speed of between seventy and one hundred miles per hour. You were the driver?”

“I drove toward the tunnel. The Blackwall Tunnel.” Larry looked exhausted. He rubbed his head. “He said it was a fake, the gun, so I let it go. He got it, released the safety catch, pressed it to my neck.” Larry pointed at the spot. “He said, ‘I lied about the gun, Larry.’ He forced me to drive fast. If I slowed, he said he’d kill me. I just kept hoping, praying, we’d be picked up.”

“You were, Sergeant,” the Commander said coldly.

At five-thirty a WPC told everyone in the waiting room that they were free to leave. “Everyone is cleared to go except Sergeant Jackson.”

For a further half hour Larry waited alone, feeling like a pariah, while the board deliberated. When he was finally called in to face them, he did so with the slightly vacant look of a man worn expressionless with strain.

“I have taken everything into consideration, Sergeant,” the Commander said. “I find you guilty of foolhardiness, perhaps more than gross error of judgement. You acted, I believe, without criminal intent, as has already been determined, but your behavior must be reprimanded.”

“Yes, sir,” Larry murmured.

“You will be fined three thousand pounds. You will lose your rank, and will return to uniform for two years. After two years you can apply to be considered for reappraisal.” Larry nodded once, accepting the board’s decision.

Later that evening, in a local pub used regularly by St. John’s Row personnel, the Superintendent joined DCI McKinnes and DI Shrapnel in a booth with a number of other officers. There was an atmosphere of overdone jollity. DC Summers was announcing, loudly, that Von Joel had nowhere to run.

“I mean, where could he go to? If he tries to get to France we’ve got him, he can’t go back to Spain or they’ll have him. Anywhere he goes in Europe, Interpol’s going to jump on him. I’d take bets we get him back in days...”

Colin Frisby was singing and trying to encourage the others to join in. Shrapnel looked glazed. So did McKinnes, but the Superintendent believed that was partly self-defense. He leaned close to McKinnes and passed him the news he was waiting for.

“Demoted, fined three grand, he’s back in uniform.”

McKinnes nodded solemnly. “All I ask,” he said, raising his glass, “is, live long enough for me to get you, Eddie, because I will, I’ll keep on looking until they ram the last nail in my coffin!” He swallowed all the whisky in the glass and turned to the Superintendent. “What about me? What did I get?”

“It’s as you expected, Jimmy.”

A rapid blink was the only sign that he had been affected. “So I’m out, huh? I suppose they’ll let me get the trial over, and then...” He blew a raspberry. “Ah, well...” He shrugged. “You got Minton, Bingham, and a few other heavies. No news on Myers?”

The Superintendent shook his head.

“Well,” McKinnes said, looking past the Superintendent. “I’ll say this for him, he’s got some guts.”

The table grew quiet as Larry approached and stood in front of the booth. Everyone stared at him.

“It’s all right,” Larry said, “I don’t want to have a drink with you, I just wanted to give you this, Guv.” He put his warrant card on the table in front of McKinnes. “I’ve left a formal letter of resignation on your desk. I’ll clear out my locker tonight.”

McKinnes glared at him. “Sit down, you flashy bugger.” He started waving his arms at the others. “Come on, come on, make room, you lot, he’s not contagious. Oy! Push up.”

Larry stepped back, shaking his head. The jukebox was playing the Kinks — “Dedicated Follower of Fashion.”

“They’re playing your tune, Sergeant,” DI Falcon shouted from the bar. The others roared with laughter. Larry leaned down to McKinnes.

“Thanks all the same. But... sorry. I’m really sorry, Mac.”

There was no drama in his departure. Falcon pushed past him with a flowing drinks tray. The hubbub swelled. People shouted at each other and several of the lads began to sing along with the jukebox. Larry walked out.

McKinnes had the chasers lined up, and the lads kept them coming as they sang at the top of their voices, until it was obvious to all there was nothing to sing about.

The cold night air hit McKinnes like a slap in the face. He refused all the lads’ offers to drive him home, saying he’d prefer to walk. When he was halfway down the street, Shrapnel drew up alongside him.

“Eh, Mac, you sure you don’t want a lift? You got quite a skin full.”

“Piss off!”

Shrapnel looked up at McKinnes, his face flushed red, the ever present butt stuck out of his mouth.

“Well, one good thing came of it all...”

“Oh, yeah, and what would that be? Got rid of me?”

“No, the patches, they work... Tarra!”

McKinnes had no idea what Shrapnel was talking about, wondered if he should be driving — he’d no doubt sunk a few pints. He plodded on, turning into Edgware Boad, and stopped by a large glass-fronted display window of a television shop and showroom. The screens showed all the different channels. He was about to pass on but suddenly stopped. One TV set showed the face of Edward Myers, the most wanted Super Grass. He couldn’t hear what the announcer was saying, as there was no sound. Instead he stood staring at the handsome, arrogant man.

“You got the luck of the devil, Myers.”

The news continued, as Mac plodded on down the street toward a cab rank. He could hear that dark voice again, asking if he was still wearing the same raincoat. He was, he doubted if he’d get a new one.

“How are you, Mac?”

“In shape.” He remembered when he’d said it how he had felt. That gut-tightening feeling. He really had believed that this time he would have Myers locked up for at least fifteen to eighteen years. Myers was free again, but he reckoned it would not be for long. Somebody, somewhere’d grass on him. They always did. Only Mac knew that when, and if, they brought Myers back he himself would be out in his garden planting friggin’ roses, or under the sod himself. He’d not felt well for months. He sighed, looked up and down the road, and then gave a halfhearted signal to flag a passing taxi cab. He stumbled slightly as he got in, and gave the address. That was another thing he’d have to face. The wife. She’d love this, relish it. And her bloody sister. They would, no doubt, be sitting in the kitchen right now with all the papers, and when he appeared they’d give those looks to each other. And he’d sit at the table as the wife placed his Marks & Spencer’s dinner in front of him — since she discovered their bloody food take-away he’d not had a home-cooked dinner. He leaned back against the seat, exhausted, and would have nodded off, but as luck would have it, he’d got a mouth under a cloth cap that slid back the adjoining window. “You been followin’ this Super Grass escape then?”

“Yes,” said McKinnes. “I’ve been following it.”

The noon sun in Casablanca was scorching. Lola, sunbathing on the deck of Von Joel’s motor yacht, rubbed oil into her arms and gazed lazily around. She glanced toward the harbor and caught her breath. Charlotte, coming up from below, heard Lola and followed the direction of her eyes. She stared, surprised. Coming up behind her, Von Joel looked over her shoulder, moved slowly past her, and stopped by the rail. The women came and stood behind him protectively. Nobody said a word.

Walking toward them, carrying a single carry-on, looking fabulous in a lightweight suit and mirrored shades, was Larry Jackson.

The two-man crew appeared at the high steering deck, like guards. Von Joel stepped onto the gangplank and walked to meet Larry. They stopped within handshaking distance. Larry dropped his bag. He took off his shades.

“Hi,” Von Joel said, opening his arms. He embraced Larry cautiously. “We did it.”

“One thing didn’t go to plan, Eddie.” Larry’s voice was soft and icy calm. “They didn’t fire me.”

“What!” Von Joel stepped back a fraction.

“I said they didn’t fire me.”

Larry’s right hand moved slowly and deliberately to his inside left jacket pocket.

“You shouldn’t have lied to me about your brother. You shouldn’t have lied to me...”

Von Joel’s eyes darted right and left. His composure disappeared. He stepped back. Larry’s hand moved in his pocket, taking a grip. On the harbor road behind Larry, Von Joel saw a police patrol car moving slowly. Larry’s hand came out of his pocket. He was holding a huge Havana cigar.

“Gotcha, Eddie! Checkmate!”

They roared with laughter, and Von Joel hugged Larry. Charlotte ran down the gangplank, catching Larry’s hand to draw him aboard the yacht. Lola hung back slightly. Larry dropped his bag and he gave her a wonderful smile, opening his arms for her. Like a cat she sprang forward, wrapping her arms and legs around his body.

“We did it,” she crooned, and then began to kiss every inch of his face, his cheeks, his eyes, and lastly his lips. As they parted she whispered... “Oh, Larry, we did it!”

Larry turned to Von Joel, who was slowly strolling up the gangplank. He wafted his hand to signal the crew to begin to lift anchor, and the chains began their slow, uneasy turn. As he stepped onto the deck, Charlotte called for the gangplank to be drawn up. They were on their way.

Larry was being drawn down into the cabin area by Lola. He never even saw Von Joel deftly remove the gun that had been tucked into the back of his trousers. Ever cautious, he would have, if it had been necessary, killed Larry, just as he had killed the man who had brought him the deposit key all those years ago, a man that Von Joel had trusted, who had suddenly started wanting more than the share they had agreed. He had no idea Von Joel was going to split it fifty-fifty. He had been welcomed on board, had even had a few glasses of champagne with Von Joel before they had strolled up onto the deck, stood looking out over the dark, still waters. Nothing in Von Joel’s manner had given the slightest indication of his intentions. When he had unhooked the guard rail, there had been a moment of dread, terror even. They were miles out, but he thought that having the key still on him meant that he was safe. He had been wrong. Von Joel simply kicked his feet from under him, and as he floundered in the water, had stood watching.

“For Christ’s sake, Eddie, get me up. I got the fuckin’ key. You can’t get the money without it... Get me out... I got the key.”

Von Joel had turned away, walked to the bow of the boat, and sat, listening to the man thrashing around. He didn’t care if he drowned, or if he got the safe-deposit box key back. It wasn’t the money that concerned him, it was the fact that he had trusted this man, like a brother, and he had betrayed him.

When the cries subsided, Von Joel put on a rubber suit and aqua lungs and dived in. He found the body, even searched it, but if he had the key on him, it had dropped way down, fathoms down. It was while he was in the water that Von Joel slipped his own wristwatch onto the dead man’s wrist, emptied his pockets, and then returned to the boat. The body was washed up two weeks later, but he had never identified it, never visited the morgue. By that time the sharks would have had a good go at the man, hopefully not chewing off his arm, with the wristwatch inscribed to “Eddie Myers with love from his wife Moyra.” It had been good night, Eddie, good-bye, Eddie, and Philip Von Joel set out for Marbella... He was setting sail again now. He’d have to change his name, keep on the move. He had a few encumbrances, too, now, such as Jackson and the two girls.

He had to bend his head slightly to enter the cabin. The throb of the engines had started. The boat swayed as the water churned and frothed like the champagne Lola already had open. She was filling four glasses to the brim. She passed one to Charlotte, another to Larry, and lifted her own at the same time Von Joel reached for his. Larry was about to say something, a toast perhaps, but Lola tapped his arm. It was a tiny gesture, but an indication that they were not equals, and Larry was onto it fast. He kept his glass lifted, his eyes met and held Von Joel’s.

“To us, to the future, no regrets, no betrayals...” It was not done with a flourish, a relish even. Von Joel’s voice was husky, and solemn. He looked first at Charlotte, then to Lola, and lastly to Larry. Only then did he raise the champagne glass to his lips, only then did he laugh that infectious, wonderful gut laugh that had stayed in the mind of a young, eager police officer, a laugh that the same police officer, now a sergeant, had recognized all those years later. Larry had known instantly that he was right. The man calling himself Philip Von Joel was in actual fact the supposedly dead Edward “Eddie” Myers.

“You’ll have to do somethin’ about that laugh, Eddie... It’s very distinctive...”