12
THEY bundled me out of the car at Bromley nick and there was no need to fake it anymore. I felt genuinely nauseous.
Eighteen months since my release from Aylesbury and they had me again. How had I been so silly to get involved with Kevin’s plans? Why had I even left Spain? All for a birthday party which I would never get to attend. What a kick in the nuts.
Currie and his colleagues placed me incommunicado to begin with, meaning I was neither allowed access to phones nor any other contact with the outside world. No one was to know where I was, until they gathered their initial evidence. The level of precaution showed their resolve – they wanted nothing to impede their task.
Nearly a full day passed before I was allowed to make a call and the police used the time to raid every address with an attachment to myself or Kevin. They were looking for hard evidence to prop up their case, exhibits for the courtroom – guns, crash helmets or any paraphernalia associated with armed robbery. I lay on my bunk and thought of them turning up at Mum’s, how distraught she would be. It was heart-breaking.
When they eventually allowed me two phonecalls I spoke to Milner first, as was customary.
‘Don’t worry, John,’ he said. ‘I’m already aware of your situation. Someone’s coming down in the morning. We’ll do the very best we can.’
Dreading the next conversation, I dialled Mum’s number warily. She would be beside herself. How could I put a positive spin on this?
‘Mum, I’m sorry…’ I began.
‘You promised me,’ she interrupted. ‘You promised you’d never go back.’
‘They haven’t got anything,’ I tried to argue. ‘It’ll be fine. The charges won’t stick. I’ve done nothing.’
She paused. I knew she wanted to believe me and could almost hear her mulling it over down the line. ‘Okay,’ she said at last. ‘Don’t worry love. Everything will be all right. I’ll come down later and drop your stuff off.’
When the duty officer came in that night he was holding the sports bag I had brought home from Spain. Opening it was demoralising beyond belief. Pastel shirts, beach shorts, flip-flops, all the stuff I had thrown in there hurriedly before leaving my apartment in Marbella. None of it appropriate to where I found myself. As I didn’t have any other clothes available I put them on.
Old Bill must have wondered what I was up to when they returned to take me down for interview. I was sitting in my cell dressed as if I were sipping cocktails by a pool.
Milner sent a junior brief from his office down to see me, a guy called Dentif.
‘How bad do you think this will be?’ I asked. He puffed out his cheeks.
‘We have to wait and see. The two semi-automatic pistols and the stun-gun are a big negative. It depends what else they’ve got. Obviously if you’re found guilty, your previous conviction will be considered in sentencing. Let’s hope it doesn’t get to that stage, though.’
Just as I had the first time, I sat with police for three days in that police station and refused to answer a question, not even to confirm my name. I made no eye contact. I gave them nothing.
Messages were mixed and they kept telling me I would be taken to different magistrates’ courts. One copper said Bromley, another said Westminster. At other times I was told Bexley, or City of London. They were confusing me, deliberately. The only thing I knew was that my hearing was due on Saturday morning.
I woke on the Saturday and asked to be taken to the showers, so that I could wash and brush my teeth before court. Repeatedly they said I had to wait, which made no sense. Feeling ignored, I became enraged. I shouted and swore, kicking at the door of my cell. Eventually the custody sergeant came back down.
‘Calm down, John,’ he said. ‘You’ll get to have a shower and a change of clothes, don’t worry, but I’ve been asked to hold on for a bit. When your arresting officers arrive they’ll come and open up your cell, okay?’
‘My arresting officers?’
‘Yes.’
‘You mean the Flying Squad?’
‘Yes.’
‘For my shower?’
‘Yes.’
They had to be up to something but I couldn’t fathom what. About ten minutes later Currie arrived with DCI Foreman and two other suits, all the top brass from the Sweeney. Currie smiled, arousing my suspicion straight away. I had never seen anything on his face other than disdain. When he spoke his voice was unusually friendly.
‘Hi John,’ he said. ‘Do you want a shower then mate?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Can I get you anything else at all, a newspaper or magazine perhaps, a snack or something?’
I narrowed my eyes. ‘No, just a wash.’
‘Okey dokey!’
He let me out and all four of them escorted me down to the bathroom, waited outside while I washed, then led me back to my cell. I put my suit on, a nice charcoal grey, tailored Savile Row number and tried to figure out their intentions.
‘Are you ready then John?’ Currie asked after a few minutes, still doing his best ‘nice guy’ impression.
‘Yeah, course I am. I can’t wait to get out of here. There are junkies and piss-heads next door and I’ve had virtually no sleep for three days. The food tastes like dog shit. Let’s go.’
‘Come on then mate,’ he said. His voice remained low and calm. ‘Let’s get the handcuffs on you.’
‘Mind the watch,’ I told him. I was wearing a 15 grand Rolex Daytona.
They restrained my wrists and cuffed me to Foreman, all of which was unusual procedure for a magistrate’s hearing. As we began walking along the corridor, I decided just to be direct and asked as nonchalantly as I could.
‘What’s going on? Why are you lot here?’
Currie gave another little smile. ‘We’re not taking any chances with you John,’ he said, leading me down the corridor. ‘We need to be absolutely sure.’
Squinting into the sun, as we emerged from the back doors of the station into the car park, I understood. A bombproof lorry was parked up with the back doors open and its engine running.
The thing was the size of a standard heavy goods vehicle, white, with an orange police stripe around it like a belt. Five tiny windows sat just below the roof.
The whirring of blades alerted me to a helicopter hovering in the sky directly above while 20 armed officers holding semi-automatic carbines formed a guard of honour down to the waiting transport. Foreman took me ceremonially through the middle of them, like some kind of military parade, slowly walking the gauntlet of their expressionless faces and cold eyes. I turned my head to look at him.
‘You have got to be having a laugh,’ I said. ‘This is fucking overkill ain’t it?’
‘Can’t have any of your mates coming along to break you out, can we?’ he replied.
He manoeuvred me inside and they strapped me on to a seat at the far end of the lorry, by the driver’s cab. Two doors made of bulletproof Perspex were closed around me. I felt like Hannibal Lecter in his cage, while they busily taped over all the interior windows. Through the rear doors, which were still open, I watched a convoy of police cars and motorbikes surround the lorry in formation.
‘You lot are on a jolly,’ I said, concern mounting. ‘Just get me to fucking prison. I want to go to sleep.’
‘It’s nice to know you’re keen to get back where you belong,’ Foreman replied.
‘Piss off! I’ll be out in a year. Bit of time on remand and I’m away.’
‘We’ll see about that.’
‘We will fucking see.’
A while later the van ground to a halt, they opened up the cage and re-handcuffed me to Foreman. He led me out of the lorry and through the rectangular, concrete frontage of Camberwell magistrates’ court. I was surprised to see Kevin in the waiting area, our first meeting since the aborted job.
He looked terrible. Black eyes, cuts and scrapes all over his face, they had obviously given him a proper going over. I sat on a chair next to him and he turned, looking at me out of the one eye he could open. There wasn’t anger in his manner, but a kind of weariness, almost disappointment. He stared past me silently for a while then whispered, ‘You fucking brought it on us.’
‘No mate,’ I replied. My head was clear. ‘You’ve brought it on me. There’s no way that activity was linked to me. I haven’t even been in the country.’
‘No, it’s you. You, Billy and Micky, the McAvoy name and all that rubbish, you’ve been over there, meeting with Micky, they’ve clocked on and then you’ve come home and brought it on me.’
‘No way mate, I couldn’t have. What happened to you, anyway?’
‘I clocked them early on, so I got out of there. Thought you’d done the same.’
I nodded.
‘I just can’t believe all this is happening,’ he said, eyes down.
The hearing was brief. Agonisingly, Mum was there, her face white, mouth twitching. They remanded us into custody and she waved as they dragged me back out. Handcuffed, I tried to wave back with my eyebrows.
On the way down to the lorry, Currie spoke matter-of-factly, as if he was talking about a shopping list, or the weather.
‘So, John, we’ve made a few arrangements and you’re going to go to Belmarsh.’
I shrugged. ‘Whatever.’
It was only a 30-minute drive across south London, not that I could see any of it. The brakes screeched and they dragged me out. I could smell the Thames.
Belmarsh doesn’t look like much from the outside. The main entrance is a simple, standard doorway set into a wide, red brick building that resembles a sports hall.
I was led into a bright, white reception room and placed in a holding cell until they were ready to receive me. Kevin was already in there. He looked up and sniggered.
‘What do you make of all this?’ he asked.
‘Mate, we’re fucked,’ I said. ‘Look at all this shit. This is high-end. Are you sure they haven’t been on you?’
‘Course they haven’t, I know what I’m doing.’
I believed him. He had been in so much trouble so many times and always seemed to pull his irons out of the fire. He even earned a nickname of ‘Untouchable’, a reputation he relished.
‘Maybe they just drove past on the day and got lucky?’ I offered, clutching at straws.
‘Fuck knows.’
They pulled him out first. Left alone, I stewed on my dilemma. Even without details I knew it was his fault. It had to be.
They came for me 20 minutes later, took me to reception, strip-searched and checked me. Out of stubbornness I refused to confirm my name, address or anything. By that stage it was pointless but I still wanted to give them nothing, especially not the satisfaction of knowing they ‘had me’. When the formalities were completed they placed me back in a holding cell and one of the senior officers came in.
‘John McAvoy?’ he said.
I nodded.
‘You’ve provisionally been made category double A. Do you know what that means?’
I shook my head.
‘An application was made to the Home Office and through that application, it has been deemed that you have the access to money, means, capability and of course the associates to stage an armed escape from prison. As a result, you’ve been assigned to the HSU.’
I thought it sounded like some sort of hospital.
‘What’s that?’
‘You’re going on to the High Security Unit.’
It meant very little to me so I accepted the news without comment. He closed the door and I had another ten minutes to myself before five other officers appeared in a group.
‘You all right?’ the leader asked, casually.
‘Yeah.’
‘Good stuff. We’ve been told you’re coming with us to the HSU. You’re not going to start causing trouble down there are you?’
‘Nah.’
‘It’s not like a normal prison, it’s much more relaxed and we like to keep it that way.’
‘Okay.’
‘Good. That’s what we like to hear.’
Another stepped forward and handcuffed my wrist to his, while the rest formed a ring around me. Rather than walking me through corridors to the wing, as I expected, they took me back out of the front doors, on to the forecourt and into a waiting van. The HSU, I soon gathered, was housed in a completely separate building, in the south-west corner of the prison complex, away from all the other wings.
As they drove me past the brick and concrete strongholds toward my new home, outside on the streets of London, the Evening Standard was being sold on news-stands. ‘Brinks-Mat robber’s nephew among dangerous gang jailed’ read the headline.
In a front-page article Kevin and I were called ‘extremely dangerous’ and ‘the top of the tree of armed robbers’.
I hadn’t made my name in the way I always hoped, but without even knowing it I was famous.