UNCLE GEORGE        [Part 5 of 10] 

By Richard Banks 

         I arrive five minutes early to find him already there and halfway through a scotch and ginger. Suddenly apprehensive at what was to come, I sensed that he was too. We shook hands.

         “What are you drinking, Mr Jones? I have a feeling you may be needing one. You are, I take it, the beneficiary of your uncle’s will?”

         I replied that I was and that if he was buying I would have a Guinness.

               “Then that’s what you will have. To be sure, the lady at the bar is already pouring it. Bring it over Gladys when you’re ready, and another Scotch for myself. Now Mr Jones, what do you know about the London Run? And I don’t mean the marathon.”

         “Not as much as I would like to,” I said, fearing that my ignorance on that subject might dissuade him from sharing what he knew.

         He laughed. “Oh, don’t worry Mr Jones I’m going to tell you the whole story irrespective of what you have for me, although I’m anticipating that your visit to the bank yesterday is likely to be of interest. Anyway, I’ll go first and after that I’ll be wanting to hear everything you know. I’m sensing it may not be much but after all these years every last scrap of information is like gold dust to me.

         I settled into my seat and, on Gladys bringing over our drinks, he began his tale.

         “Twenty five years ago, Mr Jones, I was a young reporter on the Echo doing the usual round of weddings and lost dog stories and dreaming of that big scoop that would get me noticed by the dailies in London. I was aware that some low level smuggling had been going on, mainly booze, which almost everyone in these parts was in on, even the mayor took a few bottles. Well, what was the harm in it? Smuggling along the Wash has been going on since the Stuarts were on the throne. It was almost like we had an unwritten charter to do it. Then, in the late ’80s, things changed and what had been a side line for a few fishermen and those who took two or three bottles became an altogether larger operation. Serious criminals were now involved and little of what they brought in was being sold locally. That’s when I decided to become the daring young reporter who was going to uncover what was going on and reveal all in a front page exclusive that would make my name.

         It didn’t take a genius to work out that Frankie Beale was involved and that his usual crew were doing the legwork. One of these was a farmhand called Johnny Bragg who after a few pints tended to live up to his name. My idea was to ply him with a few drinks at the Green Man on a Saturday evening and coax him into blabbing out what he knew, but as he was seldom very far from his likely accomplices this was never going to be easy. However, when I saw him buy a round from a roll of ten pound notes I knew beyond a doubt that he and his pals were making more money than they knew what to do with. What’s more, Frankie Beale was also in the house.

         Usually he stood at the bar with the rest of them but this evening he was sat by himself showing little interest in the lager in front of him. A few minutes later it all starts to make sense; who should come in but Roy Callow, our recently appointed Inspector of Police who without so much as a sideways glance crosses the floor and disappears into a corridor where there are two doors, one into the Gent’s toilet and the other, marked ‘No Entry’, giving access to the private rooms of the pub. A minute or two later Frankie follows on and when I check-out the toilet neither of them are in there. So now I have the Inspector and one of the biggest villains in Norfolk together in the same room where, I’m guessing, Ernie Spall, the landlord of the pub is also to be found.

         If only I was a fly on the wall, but maybe, just maybe, if I put my ear to the keyhole I will hear what they are saying, but when I do there’s nothing to be heard. I peer in and see an empty room and on the other side of it a door into another room where I’m assuming the meeting is under way. I creep in and park myself down by the door. There’s a key in the lock but that don’t matter, I can hear everything that’s being said. Callow is not in a good mood and everyone is speaking louder than is good for them. As usual Johnny Bragg has been saying too much and Callow wants him given a good beating and dropped from the team. Frankie doesn’t like being told what to do but knows only too well that Johnny is more trouble than he’s worth. If there’s been any blabbing, he says, he will put a stop to it, even if it means putting an end to the dickhead who’s doing it. Just make sure you do your job, what we’re paying you for.

         Callow responds with a terse, ‘no problem’ and they move on to what Spall refers to ‘as the next big event’. There’s a consignment of brandy coming into Anderson’s, an abandoned wharf, on Sunday, some of which is to be taken by road two days later to Spall’s contact in London. The rest will be kept under lock and key until Spall secures another order.

         ‘Where are you storing it?’ demands Callow, but Frankie won’t tell him. ‘It’s safe,’ he says, ‘that’s all you need to know. Just keep the boys in blue out of our way, that’s your job, storage and transport is down to me.’ Callow snaps back and, as their voices become louder and more acrimonious, I retreat back into the corridor. I’ve been lucky, and I’m not even on their radar.

         Come Sunday, I watch from a safe distance as hundreds of boxes are unloaded from a barge. Beale’s men load them onto two lorries and drive off along the coast on a private road built by the businesses along there, most of which are closed down or moved on.  There’s no way I can follow on without being noticed but they can’t go far; the road’s less than a half mile long, and the only way inland and onto the road system, is where I’m hiding.

         The next day I take my dog for a walk along the beach looking for their storeroom. There’s no end of buildings at the back of the beach, mostly wooden sheds, much vandalised, doors missing or flapping open in the breeze. Then I come across a place larger than most with solid, breeze-block walls and a door with a padlock on it - a shiny, brass padlock that’s not long out of the shop that sold it. This could be it, I’m thinking, then I’m more than sure. The building has a minder, some fifty yards away but near enough to observe anyone taking too close an interest. But maybe he’s not a minder, maybe he’s just an old guy in a deckchair, reading the ’paper on a warm Summer’s day.

         I decide to make his acquaintance; it might look suspicious if I don’t, so I amble over to him and make the usual observations about the weather. That’s when I realise I might have seen him before, and, if I have, maybe he’s thinking the same about me. Perhaps he knows exactly who I am,  but if he does there’s not a flicker of recognition on his face. On an otherwise deserted beach he seems pleased to have someone to talk to, but not for long.

         ‘If you’re wanting a walk why don’t you try Grathham Wood,’ he says, ‘it has a lake, ancient woodland and a colony of beavers. It’s only five minutes away, down that path on the other side of the road.’

         I thank him for the information but say it’s time I was heading back. We bid each other goodbye; I turn-about and, in unhurried fashion, return to my car.

         So far so good but a story that started-off no more serious than some smuggled booze has now expanded to include police corruption. Any thoughts I had of tipping off the local bobbies and being on hand to witness the villains’ arrest has got altogether more complicated. I need advice from someone more experienced than myself, so next morning I waste no time in telling Bill Frindley, the Editor, what I have been up to. I’m nearly done when the News Desk ring through with breaking news: a young farm worker Johnny Bragg has been killed in a hit and run accident. For the first time since I joined the paper Bill seems stunned and less than sure what to do. No doubt he’s thinking who he can trust and who he can’t but to his credit his first concern is about me; if Beale has had Bragg killed then I too could be in danger.

         ‘Do you think the man on the beach knows who you are?’

         I say ‘no’, then ‘maybe’, I really don’t know.

         Bill says I’m to stay in the building and out of sight. If necessary I can bed down there for the night, but at 4.30 in the afternoon he summons me back into his office. He’s dug deep into his contacts book and spoken to a guy he once knew in Essex who is now in the Serious Crimes Unit of the Met. As the brandy is bound for London they will take the lead and follow the consignment all the way to London where Beale’s gang and those taking delivery will be arrested. The Met needs someone who knows the local area and can identify the targets to be followed.

         ‘Will you do it?’ says Bill.

         I tell him, yes. I know the lorries used at the wharf and where we can wait for them unseen as they come off the coast road and onto the B1158. This is shaping-up nicely, the cavalry’s been summoned and is ready to go, and I’m about to get the story that will make my name. What’s more, if Frankie and his crew end up in prison, which they surely will, they won’t be doing me any harm.

         At 11.30 the following evening I’m in the front passenger seat of an unmarked police car, just off the coast road, with three coppers who look every bit as desperate as the villains they’re pursuing. There’s a van further on with armed back-up inside that will be following in our wake and sometimes taking over as the nearest pursuit vehicle. We’re all set and when a lorry shoots past us I  know, for sure, it’s one of those I saw being loaded at the wharf. Twenty minutes later we’re on better lit roads and heading south. There’s nothing more for me to do now but enjoy the ride and get some photos at the other end. This is a dream come true, my ticket into Fleet Street.

         An hour later we’re on the A10 and passing through Ware when the lorry takes an unexpected left and accelerates away before taking another left into a suburban road and screeching to a halt. By the time we catch-up, the doors of the lorry are open and everyone inside has fled into the night. The support van arrives and the coppers spill out, guns at the ready, but with no one in sight their pursuit is as good as over. But it’s not done yet, I’m told, a police helicopter is being scrambled and a message has gone out to every police car within miles to be on the look-out. But no one knows how many men we’re looking for, what they are wearing or anything else about them. The cops try and put a good face on it. They have the contraband and there will be fingerprints, they say, no matter how careful those in the lorry think they have been there’s bound to be fingerprints.

         At first light the police break into the storeroom on the sea front but find only a dozen boxes inside. But there should be more, I say, much more, I saw them load-up two lorry loads of the stuff. Three of Frankie’s gang are apprehended next day but only one of them has left fingerprints in the lorry and he claims it’s a hire vehicle he sometimes uses for rubbish removal. Any other prints found in it will probably be those of pals who help him out from time to time. As for the storeroom the police keep talking about he knows nothing of it.

         It’s not looking good and despite pulling-in Frankie and everyone else likely to be involved no one’s talking. Ditto Callow and Spall. But Callow’s mobile has been taken from him, and what do you know, there’s a call on it to Frankie five minutes before the lorry was abandoned in Ware. Did he find out what was going on and warn Frankie who in turn phoned through to the guys in the lorry? The Met think so, and if they can find Frankie’s phone they will likely have their proof, but no one’s surprised when it can’t be found.

         It’s as satisfactory as a no score draw in football. A crime’s been prevented, the contraband seized, but there’s insufficient evidence to charge anyone with a criminal offence; a young reporter gets only half a story and Callow survives an investigation but agrees to resign, later reinventing himself and returning to Buremarsh as a genial member of the gentry. As for the man on the beach, three months later I see him again and follow him, all the way back to his home at Petherdale.    

         Yes, Mr Jones, the man I saw on the beach was your uncle and having ascertained his name informed my Editor who duly told the Met. A police raid on his home recovered a single bottle, and after a long interrogation he admitted his part in their unlawful importation.

         If, like the others, he had denied his involvement he would probably have got away with it but unlike them he was not a street wise criminal and soon confessed his guilt. However, one thing he wouldn’t do was name any of his accomplices even though he would have escaped a custodial sentence had he done so. Whether this was out of loyalty to Frankie and Co or because he thought time in prison preferable to the retribution that might one day come his way, I can’t say. What I do know is that in 1994, after serving eighteen months of a three year sentence, he was released. He returned to his previous life as a casual labourer whose periods of employment were now even less than before. It was at this time that I contacted him requesting an interview which he unsurprisingly declined. A pity that, there’s so much he might have said, things we may now never know. Two hundred boxes were recovered from the lorry, with a street value of sixty grand, but that’s only half of what I saw unloaded two days before, and who knows how much was in the warehouse from previous shipments. So what happened to it all, Mr Jones? Do you have something to tell me?”

         His long monologue was at an end.

         “No idea, Mr Cummings, my uncle left me his house and everything in it, his furniture, furnishings, a few books, even an unopened box of teabags, but bottles of brandy there were none. He was a poor man struggling to get by. Far more likely it was Frankie who kept hold of what was left, but how he did so I have no idea.”

         Cummings looks disappointed, but not altogether surprised. “If only I could prove that and put him away; even after all these years, there is nothing I would like better. What happened to Billy Bragg will always be on my conscience. I should have warned him that he was in danger but I didn’t. Otherwise I’m an old dog with a large bone he can’t crack. It should have ended so well for me, the arrest and imprisonment of the villains, including a senior policeman, and the recovery of valuable contraband. It should have been my big break, but it wasn’t. It was only half a story, and not until five years later was I able to escape the shackles of grass route journalism. Well, there’s no changing that, but nevertheless I need closure. So tell me, please do, how did you fare at the bank? Could it be, despite what you say, that your uncle once had some serious money, money he chose to count rather than spend, money he has now passed onto you. Is there something I should be telling the police, Mr Jones?”

         “Tell them what you like! There’s no money, it’s gone, where to I have no idea.” For a few moments I’m irritated by what he’s just said, then even more annoyed when I realise I have told him more than I intended. The man’s obsessed, there may be no getting rid of him now, but then, what do I have to hide, so I tell about the money in my uncle’s account, how he withdrew every penny of it in cash and did who knows what with it. I say I will get Matlock & Wells to write to the bank and get them to confirm what I have just told him. “Will that satisfy you, Mr Cummings, otherwise there is little I can tell you. My uncle and Frankie have occasionally been seen together, once with Callow, and that although nothing was heard of their conversation my uncle appeared less than easy in their company. One thing I’m certain of is that my uncle never made any serious money from the brandy otherwise there would have been no need for him to live in poverty for the rest of his life. The one occasion on which I’ve met Frankie he went out of his way to praise my uncle; if he ended up with the money in uncle’s account he would have had good reason for doing so. I wish I could tell you more but, after twenty years, I suspect that only a death bed confession is going to solve this particular mystery; unfortunately for the both of us Uncle died in his sleep.”

         Cummings looks dejected but appears to accept what I say. We finish our drinks and he gives me his private mobile number. “Let me know,” he says, “if anything else comes to light.”

          I assure him that I will, and we go our separate ways.

 

(To Be Continued)

 

Copyright Richard Banks