Signal Red Read Online Free PDF

the money. But he didn't need money, not at that moment. The club was doing OK. However, when they were putting a firm together, it was hard to say no to that little wave of excitement - euphoria, even - that swept through your brain and made your stomach fizz like it was filled with best bubbly. And there was always the fear that next time, they wouldn't ask you at all. What's more, he had to be honest with himself. Running a drinking den was fine - but it was also on the dreary side, a life oddly becalmed, waiting for a seductive wind to fill its sails. And right now Bruce, Charlie and Gordy were blowing a gale through his rigging.
    A tall, thin-faced man in a pinstriped suit came into the Gents, gave him a sharp glance and Buster smiled. 'Mornin'.'
    'Good morning,' came the frosty reply. The man hesitated, as if he was going to ask Buster what his business was on the third floor, but his bowels got the better of him. He slipped into a cubicle, and Buster heard the lock slide across and the ping of braces.
    Buster looked out of the window at the graceful Air France Caravelle coming in to land. It made him think he'd like to be on one of the sleek jetliners, heading to Paris or Cannes. Bruce had told him so much about Monte Carlo and Nice, he felt as if he'd been there already, experienced the Mediterranean sun on his face. The way the Colonel told it, it'd been like Cary Grant in To Catch A Thief down there, with Roy and Mickey as his sidekicks. Except, unlike Cary's character, Bruce hadn't retired.
    Buster realised he had been so distracted by thoughts of the Riviera, he hadn't noticed the blue armoured van that had left the Barclays Bank that was just visible down the road and was now heading for the entrance to the airport and on to Comet House.
    Quickly rolling down the sleeves of the pinstriped suit he was wearing, he checked his appearance in the mirror - putting on a bit of weight round the chin there, Ronald - and slotted the bowler hat onto his head. He almost burst out laughing, thinking he looked more like Bernie Winters in a sketch than a City gent. The lavatory flushed in the closet behind him and Buster grabbed the folded umbrella he had left dangling from one of the sinks and hurried out to the lift, almost knocking over the lavatory attendant, who had been on his break, as he did so.
    At first, Buster thought he'd bollocked it with his daydreaming: the entrance lobby to Comet House was empty, but two receptionists were behind the desk. It was a shift changeover, the blazered young man taking over from the woman in the blue blouse. Good, he'd prefer it to be a man. No qualms about a little touch of cosh action there. Buster could see the dark shape of the van parked outside, but no sign of the bank guards. Perhaps, he fretted, they had already passed through.
    Also outside, thirty feet back from the van that had travelled from Barclays, was a Ford Zephyr 6 police car, its roof light flashing lazily.
    He remembered what Charlie had told him, not to break step no matter what happened. As he approached the conventional exit to the left of the revolving door, he was relieved to see two men emerge from the far side of the van. Each was carrying a metal strongbox, which they heaved onto a steel trolley. Their actions were observed by a supervisor with a clipboard. The men repeated this procedure, so there were four hefty boxes in place. Then they looked around, nodded to the waiting policemen to show all seemed in order, and wheeled the conveyance towards the lobby. Buster hesitated as he came face to face with the guards, with the glass door between them.
    He grabbed the handle, jerked the door open and said loudly in his best, mellifluous Leslie Phillips voice: 'After you, gentlemen.'
    One of the security men muttered his thanks and the duo trundled the trolley through en route to the BOAC vault in the basement. Buster could tell from the effort it took to overcome the inertia of the steel cart that the metal