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“Why’d you hit the old guy?” Ben asked, resuming the argument they had abandoned only a short while before as he got out of the car.
Jerry ground his teeth in frustration. “I told ya, I couldn’t miss him. We was on him before I knew ‘e were there.” He’d been through it already, and wasn’t in the mood to go through it again. “Just let it go, it’s done, there’s nowt we can do ‘bout it now.”
“I shoulda been driving,” Ben declared, as if he could have somehow avoided the old man and his dog who had been crossing the road as they raced around the corner. “Now the cops are gonna know where we were after leaving the bloody festival.”
“How the hell are they gonna know that?” Jerry wanted to know. “There’s no way that old geezer had a chance to see anything, and there were no-one else around.” He saw the look on his brother’s face. “What? You think his dog’s gonna tell the cops what sort of car it were run him down? Even if that were likely, it don’ matter; the bloody car won’t exist in another hour.” He spun around as a pair of headlights blazed on, lighting up both the car and the brothers, before relaxing when he recognised the deep-throated chuckle that came from the darkness behind the headlights.
“You two’re worse than a married couple.” A burly, tattooed figure entered the cone of light. “If I didn’t know better, Ben, I’d think you were a woman.”
“How long you been there?” Ben asked sourly, not rising to the bait from the bigger man.
“Long enough,” Ash said with a grin. “Long enough. So, you ‘it someone,” he directed the comment to Jerry.
“Yeah, a silly old bugger out walking his dog at stupid o’clock. It’s not a problem,” Jerry reassured Ash, who was their partner in that night’s activities; Ash showed no concern over the situation, unlike Ben, and Jerry and Ash both knew that Ben’s concern was not caused by any worry over the fact that a man had been run down, only over the possibility that the accident might lead to their arrest.
With an uncaring shrug, Ash peered into the rear of the car at the bulging bag. “How much did we get?” He was far more interested in the result of their night’s caper than anything else, especially old men who were foolish enough to walk their dog so late and get knocked down as a result.
“Hard to be sure,” Jerry answered. “Forty, fifty kay, mebbe. More’n we expected.
Ash was pleased by that - they had only anticipated getting about thirty thousand pounds. “C’mon then, let’s get this s**t finished so we can celebrate.” The other two were quite happy to go along with him since they couldn’t relax until they were finished.
Ben retrieved the bag and their shotguns from the back seat of the Vauxhall and carried them to the Ford they had parked down the road earlier that night. While he did that, Jerry got back behind the wheel and, with Ash’s guidance, manoeuvred the car up onto the trailer of the vehicle transporter Ash had brought. It was tricky to manage with only the dim moonlight and the meagre glow from the nearby street lights to aid them, but they got it done with a minimum of trouble and quickly secured the car.
That done, Jerry joined Ben in their Ford. They headed in one direction while Ash drove off in the opposite to dispose of the Vauxhall and remove one possible link between them and the robbery.
- Writer
