Thief

By Rupert Croft-Cooke

'If they've got any sense they'll leave the boy with Alicia Robbins.'But they didn't.They (the Juvenile Court, that is) took Gerry Lovell away from the old spinster who had taken him in ad cared for him so passionately and they had packed him off to an Approved School.

Gerry had always been 'the one who was different': even as a boy he found crime only an excitement, not a moral wrong.Perhaps he could have been rescued from this but he wasn't.From the moment he entered the Approved School his way forward was mapped out: robbery and deception, crime taken like a drug, until at last, as the henchman of the underworld mogul Graham Bond, he was prepared to risk everything - the happiness of a young wife and child, a promising career, the loyalty of the old woman who had stood by him through everything - to throw them all as stake just 'for kicks'.

Through a series of incidents more tense than any ordinary thriller Thief moves rapidly towards a climax of violent excitement. There is a brilliant picture of how the underworld works and there is, too, a warmth and human understanding that will make this novel remembered long after it is laid down.

Rupert Croft-Cooke, of whom Sir Compton Mackenzie has said 'no contemporary novelist has offered us so many readable books' here gives yet another proof of his remarkable versatility.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Sep 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9781448204892

Rupert Croft-Cooke

The English author Rupert Croft-Cooke (1903-1979) published thirty-odd novels on a wide variety of subjects in his life-time, as well as poetry, plays, non-fiction books on such diverse topics as Buffalo Bill, Oscar Wilde, Lord Alfred Douglas, Victorian writers, criminals, the circus, gypsies, wine, cookery, and darts. Under the pen name of Leo Bruce he also wrote more than thirty crime novels. At the age of 20, Croft-Cooke spent two years in Buenos Aires, where he founded the journal La Estrella. In 1925 he returned to London and began a career as a freelance journalist and writer. His work appeared in a variety of magazines, including New Writing, Adelphi, and the English Review. In the late 1920s the American magazine Poetry published several of his plays. He was also a radio broadcaster on psychology. In 1940 he joined the British Army and served in Africa and India until 1946. He later wrote several books about his military experiences. From 1953 to 1968 Croft-Cooke lived in Morocco where he wrote his Sensual World series, possibly his most important contribution to English letters, written as a series of twenty-seven autobiography-cum-travel books.

Book preview

Chapter One

1

If I am going to tell what I know of Gerry Lovell I must start by saying something of myself. My name is Ronald Craik Pargiter – I have never discovered where that Craik came from – and I was born and brought up a few doors from Gerry in Nelson Road, Camberwell. As I write this I am a Research Physicist employed at Harwell. I took my B.Sc. at London University. My father had not much education but it used to be said of us that there was cleverness in the family much as people say there is lunacy or tuberculosis. I was helped by scholarships and the charity of a farmer at Charden, to which village of the Kentish Weald I was evacuated on the outbreak of war. This man, whose name was Evans, kept me down there when the other children went back because, he said, he wanted to give me a chance in life. He belonged to some obscure little sect and thundered hell-fire at a dozen of the faithful in a tiny chapel on Sundays. He made me work like a horse – on his farm and at my own studies. I am deeply grateful to him.

I do not know when Gerry and I started to run about together. Almost as soon as we could run, I suppose. I can remember him long before we went to school. We were both twelve years old when we were sent down to Charden and Gerry was put with an old spinster called Robbins. At least I say old because she seemed very ancient to us then. I suppose, as I look back on it now, that when Gerry first went to live with her she was less than sixty.

I shall never forget the first time I saw her. It was about a fortnight after we had got down to Charden. I was hanging about with Gerry when we saw her coming down the street. I had never seen anyone like it. Old-fashioned? She looked like someone from another age to me. She did not actually wear a bonnet and cape like old ladies in pictures but that was the impression she gave. Her clothes looked stiff and black and rusty. She had an expression on her face as though she was annoyed with everything, a fixed expression at that.

"Oh Lord!" I said to Gerry.

It’s the old girl where I live, he told me, then he called out to her, Hullo, Gran!

I thought he was being cheeky, but no. She did not quite smile but it was the nearest thing she ever came to it and her hand went up to wave to him. When I looked at Gerry he was smiling all over his face. I realized he had taken to the old lady. I had never seen him like that with anyone else.

It was extraordinary to see those two. I suppose neither of them had anyone else in the world. Before we had been in that place a week there was a sort of understanding between them. She never seemed to speak much – Gerry did all the talking. But you knew, somehow. Wild horses would not get them apart.

She let Gerry do pretty much what he liked. Never seemed to treat him as a kid or show that she was in charge of him. It was as though it was his house.

2

Gerry got into trouble in the village but at first it was nothing serious. He beat up two local boys, the sons of a shopkeeper, and afterwards stole some sweets from the shop. It could be argued, I think, that these were escapades of which any little scamp from a home like Gerry’s might have been guilty. But I do not want to argue one way or the other, heredity or environment, innate wickedness or the result of outside influences. I want to tell his story truthfully as far as I know it and leave it to others to discuss the causes of this or that. He may have been a born thief or circumstances may have made him one.

It may, even, have been partly the fault of Alicia Robbins. According to Gerry she never said a word to him about that incident of the sweets, never lectured him or punished him. She understood him, I think, and believed that it was touch and go with him and that if she put herself on the side of authority she might lose his confidence. All that is conjecture. I only know that Alicia did not interfere with Gerry and many people blamed her for it.

Then there was an incident with a Mrs Waterton. She was an ordinary sort of woman, so far as I could see, but Gerry hated her. She was a solicitor’s wife and I suppose thought a bit of herself, socially, I mean. She was a grey-haired dumpy woman with glasses whose clothes always looked a bit too like town. Perhaps she had said something to old Miss Robbins which Gerry did not like. Or perhaps she hadn’t said anything at all when he thought she ought to. Or perhaps he had no reason. Anyhow, he told me several times he hated her guts.

One day he was in a shop with her when she put her bag down on a chair while she looked at something. I don’t know how he got out with it, but then I wouldn’t. I’m not a thief. It seemed like Yogi to me, or at least conjuring. Gerry was not a pickpocket but he seemed able to get anything however large from one place to another without being seen. Uncanny, it was. He came to me afterwards and said he had seven quid. We went over to Thornbridge that Saturday to the Fun Fair. I do not know whether he was suspected of that theft. They did not question him, anyway.

The worst of it was that it started him off again. A week later he did a real job.

3

There was something wrong with Gerry, something – the cliché is apt, is inevitable – something wrong at the roots. He looked like all the rest of us except that he was rather more handsome, more frank-looking and more ready to smile than most, yet there was this thing that set him apart. I do not know quite when I realized that. About this time, I think. Certainly before his first robbery.

He told me his plans for this. Right from the very first idea he told me, but it was not for some time that he thought of letting me in on it.

It started, so far as I know, in a conversation we had on the bus coming back from our school at Thornbridge. There were four or five of us, all about the same age, who went over from Charden every day and young Len Mowbray from the Plough was one of us. We used to get the front seats on the top of the bus as youngsters do; if we found them full we did our best to make ourselves objectionable to the occupants. That day the bus was fairly empty. Only Gerry, Len and I were on top.

Gerry had an evening paper. He always bought it in Thornbridge to take back to Alicia Robbins. That was an unusual quality in Gerry, he could remember things like that. Most boys would forget to bring a newspaper four times out of five. He never forgot. The old lady likes it, he used to say. He had taken to speaking of her as the old lady though to her face he always called her Gran.

He was reading bits out to us, then he said nothing for a bit while he turned the pages, then he came on a murder case. An old woman who kept a pub up in Lancashire somewhere had been murdered in her bed. The man who did it had been arrested and told the police he hadn’t meant to kill her, he was only trying to keep her quiet. He wanted to rob the night’s takings which he knew she took up to bed with her.

Silly old tot, said Gerry absently.

Why silly? asked Len.

Gerry was reading something else.

Why, taking her bees and honey up to bed with her.

Money, you mean? I don’t see why that’s silly.

" That’s why, said Gerry, pointing to the column. She’d never have been done if she hadn’t. I suppose your old man takes his up every night?"

I honestly do not believe that Gerry was seeking information. He was neither subtle nor practised enough for that then. He was just talking, as any boy might be.

No, said Len. As a matter of fact he doesn’t.

I daresay Len had some sort of inkling in his subconscious mind that his old man was not the brightest character in Charden, and was sticking up for him. Gerry started reading out an account of a car crash and nothing more was said.

Three days later Gerry and I were returning to Charden from an outlying farm. We were in a lane which ran downhill for a few yards to a lazy stream. Even that small decline was a relief from the levels of the Weald, cut as they were hereabouts into the hedged squares of hop-gardens and orchards. It was a hot, scented afternoon. The hazel hedges were undipped that year, for labour was scarce, and there was honeysuckle and a few wild roses. I felt at home in this rich countryside. I had almost forgotten Camberwell. We were sucking the taste of sweetness from the honeysuckle flowers and had been talking of cricket.

Presently Gerry said casually, as though it had just occurred to him, I’m going to do that place.

Which place?

The Plough. You heard what Len said?

What?

They don’t take the money up to bed with them.

Yes, but what about them? Len’s people, I mean.

They’ll be asleep upstairs. I shan’t go till early morning.

But they’ll… they’ll be losing the money.

I remember now how he answered, though I cannot remember the words. What I had said meant nothing to him, simply did not penetrate. He made some absent reply – They can afford it, They’ll soon get some more, It’s not much to them – and then began talking with open relish about spending the money.

There ought to be well over fifty nicker, he said. I might be able to buy a motor-bike. He laughed. I asked the old lady the other day if she’d come on the back of a motor-bike if I had one. ‘Why not?’ she said. Dead game, she is. D’you know that? Dead game.

Still, you couldn’t tell her where you’d got the money.

Think I’m crazy? She’d have twins. Or would she? You never know with the old lady. Anyway, there it is. I reckon if I do it on a Sunday night before they bank on Monday there ought to be a decent bit. I shall have to find a way in, though.

I looked at him. I can only describe his face as glowing. We were in full sunlight, I know, but it was not that. He had a look of such radiant happiness that I felt almost shy. It was not diabolic glee. You would have sworn it was the most innocent, the most irresponsible delight, as though he was planning a hilarious practical joke.

I tried once more.

They say Len’s parents are all right. Everyone likes them.

Yes. I know. So what? It isn’t as though I was going to rob the old lady. Think of a hundred nicker, Ron. We’ll spend it in a couple of weeks even if I don’t get the motor-bike. You can have some of it. All I want now is to find a way in.

4

In the days that followed, Gerry’s excitement kept at the same high pitch. With me he talked of nothing else.

I went round there last night. Just to give it a look over. There’s a little swing window at the back leads into a lavatory. It must be their own, right behind their own part of the house.

Don’t they lock it?

From their side? Don’t be silly. Who locks a lavatory from outside? Besides, the key was in the lock. It’s only a little window, but I can just get through. It’s going to be dead easy.

I said the obvious thing.

Suppose you’re caught?

Caught? How can I be? First thing I shall do when I’m in is to slide up their sitting-room window to give me a way out. I’d be half a mile away in a few minutes. I needn’t be there long. Just find the money. …

If you can.

Course I can. He grinned. I shall smell it. Tell you what, Ron, would you like to come with me? Not to do the job, I mean, but outside. I shall want a heave up to that window.

Looking back now I am certain that Gerry thought he was doing me a good turn. The thing was so attractive, so exciting to him, that he wanted generously to let me share it. It was not a question of the money. He would have given me that in any case. He did not want me to miss the fun.

Why did I agree? Again not because of the money. Curiosity, perhaps. Or I was infected with his enthusiasm.

What time are you doing it?

Just before it gets light. Three or four in the morning.

I could never get out.

Say you want to stay at my place again. They won’t think anything.

The farmer with whom I was billeted went to bed very early and more than once when there had been a late bus from Thornbridge he had agreed to my staying at Gerry’s.

You could give me a lift up to that window, then hop it. I shouldn’t be long after you.

All right. I’ll come.

I am glad I went because, at least once, I have seen Gerry in action.

5

We slept in his four-poster bed. At least, I slept – Gerry told me afterwards he never closed an eye.

I remember him waking me.

Come on, you bastard. It’s nearly three o’clock.

I suppose that at fifteen one does not feel that awful grim and yellow emptiness which in later years envelops one like an incubus if one wakes in the small hours, as though one were a lonely damned soul blown through the wastes of limbo. I felt nothing but a thrilling, stimulating excitement. I dressed in a few moments.

Carry your shoes, said Gerry. He did not whisper in a feverish or furtive way. He spoke very quietly, but his voice was steady.

He led me down the staircase, aware that there was not a creak in it. He knew just how to open the front door without noise and soon we were out in the open. He was wearing gloves, I had noticed in the bedroom, and he carried a torch but did not use it yet.

It was a clear starlit night with a thin harvest moon. The air seemed fresh about us but not chilly. I may have imagined an atmosphere of expectancy – I can only say it was as though the night was breathing. You know, breathing rather heavily as people do when they are waiting for something to happen.

When Gerry and I knocked about together in the ordinary way it was I as much as he who took the lead – perhaps a bit more. The local kids thought of him as the big boy, but in fact he followed my ideas pretty often. Not that night, though. This was Gerry’s world, this shadowy, silent, unfamiliar place. He knew the way not only out of the house and down the lane, but in another sense. I saw now what he meant about not being caught. He was entirely at home, as though he spent all his nights wandering about in the small hours. He was fifteen years old, but I can only describe his manner as professional. He had never broken into a house, but this might have been his fiftieth exploit of the kind.

We saw no one. A dog was barking, but it sounded as though it was a mile away. There was the restful, undisturbed hooting of an owl. No other sounds. There were smells though, flowers chiefly, the beautiful heady smell of garden flowers at night. And green stuff generally. I cannot describe what it was like, but I could smell the very grass and the hedges.

We came to the Plough. It was a little stucco building with a flat front and longish windows. We stood under a tree across the road for a moment seeing it faintly outlined in the misty half-light. Not a sound. Not a glimmer of light anywhere. You could imagine – no, you could almost see and hear – the old people sleeping upstairs, comfortable and warm, deep in the heavy slumbers of those who have worked hard and drunk a few pints of beer at the end of the day and have nothing to trouble them.

Gerry led the way to the back of the house. He knew they did not keep a dog. Their old fat spaniel had died a month before and they were still saying they would never have another. Gerry walked noiselessly but not slowly. I found it to keep up with him without being heard.

He reached the little window. It was above the height of his head, but standing back from it I saw it was fastened open by about four inches. He indicated that I should help him up and I cupped my hands. He was soon free of me. I watched him go through that window like a snake. Yes, that is exactly what it looked like, a snake whose legless motion comes from the muscular sinuations of its length. Soundlessly, smoothly, Gerry disappeared through that small window.

As soon as I was alone I was frightened. Surely someone at an upper window had been watching the whole thing and in a moment would throw the window open and shout? Perhaps they had already telephoned. Had Gerry thought of that? Now I should see the lamp on the village policeman’s bicycle approaching or perhaps a whole carload of coppers. Should I run? Where should I hide? I am not sure now, but I think my teeth started to chatter.

Then slowly, with scarcely a sound, the big window to my left began to rise. It moved upwards so steadily that no one would have supposed it was being pushed, rather that it was driven by the gentle but inexorable power of electricity, like that which moves the doors on underground trains. Gerry appeared for a moment. I think he was grinning but I could not be sure. Then I saw, through the open window, the light of his torch moving about the room.

It seemed no time before he was with me, but he turned back to pull the big window down from the outside. Within a quarter of an hour of reaching the Plough we were on our way home.

You take the money in the morning, he said. "It’s more than