I could see straightaway that there was going to be a problem. When planning the job, the gang hadn’t considered the ivy covering the walls of the house. The plant’s thick carpet of foliage hid a tangled network of tough tendrils firmly attached to the stonework. Time after time the heavy safe caught on these tendrils. Carl and Kevin managed to free the safe several times by tugging on the rope, but then it came to a sudden stop. It seemed that some shoots of ivy had broken clear of the wall and become lodged under the safe.
“Hell and damnation!” Carl snarled. “You’ll have to climb down and push the safe clear of the wall!”
“Not on your life!” Kevin hissed. “Why should I risk my neck? You do it!”
They argued for a while, and then it occurred to Carl that there was a better solution.
“Bernie!” he hissed into the darkness. “You’ll have to climb up and free the safe!” 245
Bernie didn’t answer and simply stared up into the darkness with a look of incomprehension. Speaking slowly and clearly, Carl explained the situation once more, making an effort to restrain his rage at Bernie’s slow-wittedness.
Bernie eventually understood what Carl wanted him to do. He gripped the ivy and found a foothold on a shoot. The ivy creaked under his weight.
Carl’s voice came from above, “If you don’t manage it, Bernie, I’ll tell Moira it was your fault we couldn’t bring the safe home.”
With panic showing in his eyes, Bernie found a new handhold and pulled himself a little higher.
I could see this was going to end in disaster. Bernie was big and heavy and he was no climber. The safe was stuck a good fifteen feet up and if Bernie fell from that height he’d be injured, maybe even break his neck.
“Get a move on, Bernie, you idiot!” Carl snarled. “Otherwise Moira will never forgive you, you know that, don’t you? Never!”
Bernie pulled himself higher and his trembling legs tried to find a foothold. But both he and I had forgotten we were chained together and when the chain pulled him off balance, he fell the few feet to the ground. He sat down on the grass and stared at me with confusion on his face.
I jumped up, grabbed a branch of the ivy with my hand and quickly climbed up as far as the chain would let me. Then 246I climbed back down and gestured to Bernie that he should unlock the chain round my waist.
That made Bernie even more confused. Meanwhile up above us Carl and Kevin were trying to urge Bernie on with every kind of threat.
I showed Bernie again what I wanted him to do and at last there was a slight glimmer of comprehension in his eyes.
“Are you good at climbing?” he asked in a quiet voice.
I nodded vigorously and pointed once again to the padlock on the chain.
Bernie began rooting around in his pocket, eventually found the key and undid the padlock. The chain fell to the ground and I quickly gathered it up and put it in Bernie’s jacket pocket.
It didn’t take me more than ten seconds or so to climb up to the safe. Once there, I braced my back against the safe and my feet against the wall and pushed.
“Go it, Bernie! Well done!” Carl whispered.
“But Carl, Carl… Can’t you see?” Kevin’s voice broke in. “That’s not Bernie. He’s sent the ape up in his place!”
The safe now swung slowly clear of the wall and Carl and Kevin began letting out the rope again. The safe moved downwards and now the thought came to me: This is my chance to escape!
It was indeed! No longer hindered by the chain, all I needed to do was climb out to the corner of the house and leap across 247to a big cypress tree that was growing right by the tall iron fence that ran round the whole garden. Within seconds I would be swallowed up by the darkness.
But was it a good idea?
I had, of course, already decided to stay with the gang until the Chief was close to Glasgow, but that might be a month or more.
Bernie, I think, suspected what I was thinking. The safe had reached the ground and Bernie was looking anxiously up at me. The whites of his eyes gleamed in the darkness. If I ran away, he would be the one who got the blame. I knew that.
I made my decision and in no time at all I was back down on the ground. Bernie was so paralysed with worry that I had to remind him with a nudge to pick up his end of the heavy safe.
No more than ten minutes later the launch moved out of its hiding place under the weeping willow and set off slowly along the canal, returning the way we’d come. Everyone stayed silent and kept their heads below the rail. I noticed that Carl and Kevin glanced in my direction several times—and they weren’t grateful looks they were giving me. I suppose they didn’t like the idea of having to be saved by an ape. 248
The gang’s lorry was parked waiting for us when we reached the first lock. The place was deserted at this time of day, except for Gordon who was standing smoking in the darkness.
“Everything go according to plan?” he asked when we had moored the launch.
“No,” Carl answered angrily. “Your plan wasn’t particularly good. You’d failed to mention that the whole house was cloaked in a great mass of horrible foliage. Like a damn jungle! The safe got stuck halfway down.”
Gordon puffed his cigarette calmly and nodded towards the safe. “But I see you’ve brought it with you in any case.”
“We have,” Kevin said. “Carl and me… We fixed the problem and salvaged your useless plan… We did, Gordon, that’s just what we did!”
“Very smart of you, I’m sure,” he said unmoved. Gordon tossed his cigarette into the canal and nodded towards the lorry. “Now let’s get that safe up onto the lorry. Moira’s eager to see what’s in it.”
Carl and Kevin accompanied Gordon back to Oswald Street in the lorry and Bernie and I had to remain on the steam launch to help Skipper Simmons. The launch had to be taken all the way back to the locks leading out to the River Clyde. 249
A new day had dawned by the time Bernie and I arrived back at the house. Bernie’s eyes were red-rimmed with tiredness and I presume mine were the same. We both ate a large portion of porridge in his quarters before he took me down to the cellar so I could get some sleep. Out of habit he started fishing in his jacket pocket for the key to the chain round my waist and instead he pulled out the chain, the padlock, the lot!
Bernie stared at the chain for a long time and then looked at me.
“You could have run away…” he said.
I nodded.
“But you stayed.”
I nodded again.
He stood there looking at me. Then he turned and left the room without bothering to lock the door behind him.