Money Laundering for Dummies

I felt truly sorry for our Sylvia, as I watched her prod the remains of a kipper on her plate with a fork. She wore a vacant expression as she stared down at the half-eaten fish, for which she had no appetite. It was as though she were in a trance.

The reason for her detachment was that she had planned to go to McKendrick’s in town for a new dress that was half-price in the sale, but she hadn’t received her wages for the week. She worked in a small clothing factory just off the local high street, where she was given her wage every Thursday. On that particular day, someone snatched the entire payroll, leaving the workforce without a penny. The sale at McKendrick’s is due to end on Friday.

The thing is, I was in a position to help my sister out. I could have loaned, no, given her the money for the dress. What prevented me from doing so was that any display of affluence on my part may have given away the fact that I made up one half of the duo that had stolen Sylvia’s wages earlier that afternoon. My partner in crime on the job was lifelong friend Alfie Dankworth, who goes by the rather colourful nickname of Butternut.

Butternut’s sobriquet has less to do with the squash of the same name, and more to do with an incident from when he was a small boy at school when he banged his forehead on some climbing apparatus. As young Alfie wailed like a siren, a teacher applied a good smearing of butter to the bruised area, more in the hope of its placebo effect than trusting to the alleviative properties of that particular fat.

As Alfie’s sniffles petered out, we other pupils gathered around to gaze upon his wonderfully lustrous brow. An older girl at the back piped up, “It’s Buttery-nut,” and the name, after a slight modification, stuck. Butternut and I are now both twenty-years-old, and both out of work.

The robbery hadn’t been planned, but rather it was an opportunist theft made possible by sheer luck, exquisite timing, and a dollop of good old negligence. Butternut and I had entered the office silently, and we stepped up to the enquiries counter which stood about four feet high. I’m not going to lie, we were looking for stuff to steal, but if anyone had questioned our being there, we could always say we were seeking work.

The job-hunting ploy was a great subterfuge for gaining entry to factories and offices. Only a week earlier, Butternut had flashed the ash like a millionaire, after he’d pilfered a full packet of twenty cigarettes from a coat pocket in a cloakroom at a plastics factory.

At the very moment we entered the small enquiries area, a door with a fluted glass window at the opposite end of the office was being pushed to by an automatic door closer; a clear indication that someone had just gone out.

There was no one else around, and on a desk there stood a shallow metal drawer, inside which were the pay packets for the entire workforce. Those tempting brown envelopes stood in rows like soldiers on parade and were due to be given out at five o’clock. On seeing the drawer, Butternut immediately pushed himself up onto the counter, and by leaning right across as I held his legs, he was only just able to reach the drawer, and pull it towards him with his fingertips. When the drawer was within reach, he grabbed it and I hauled him and it over the counter. I pushed the door open with my shoulder, and we sneaked out into a small lobby.

We stuffed the pay packets into our pockets, and down the front of Butternut’s Harrington jacket. He wiped the drawer with his sleeve, and we left the building in great haste. I fully expected to be caught, but we made it to the high street without any issues, and we disappeared into the throng. I’d say the entire operation, from entry to exit, had taken less than a minute.

Trying to keep the lid on our euphoria, and to walk without leaping in the air, we ducked up an alley that led to a disused railway station. There, inside an ante-room at the rear of the ticket office, I closed the door and wedged a chair against the handle. We spilled our loot onto a square table.

After a brief outburst of celebration, we came to our senses and set about sorting what Butternut called the blunt. We did this methodically, making three separate piles; one for notes, another for coins, and a third for the empty wage packets and pay slips. Our production line ran along the lines of me opening each packet and tipping the contents onto the table, Butternut separating it into coins and notes, and then me burning the packets and payslips by a broken window.

We worked quickly and quietly, not counting yet, but only sorting. I did make one utterance though when I picked up Sylvia’s packet. “Poor cow,” I said, “she was going to buy a dress.”

With all of the packets emptied, Alfie counted the notes. They totalled two hundred and thirty-eight pounds. Again, we had to stifle our excitement.

After the count, Alfie succumbed to a weakness common among burglars and thieves during the commission of their crimes, which is thought to be brought on by nervous excitement; a sudden urge to defecate. He went into a walk-in cupboard and dropped his jeans. “We need to plan our next move carefully,” he said. I agreed although it wasn’t a face-to-face conversation.

Having finished his business, he asked if I had a spare pay slip or two, but I told him I had just made a fire with the last of them. He emerged from the cupboard with his jeans around his ankles, hobbled over to the table, and took three five-pound notes from the pile. “You’re not serious,” I said. He laughed.

“Needs must,” he said, hobbling back to the cupboard.

“You do realise,” I said, “that this money won’t last forever, and when it’s gone and we’re flat broke again, I’ll remind you of the time you wiped your arse on fifteen quid.” Again he laughed.

“The one thing we have to do,” he said, adopting a serious tone, “is to keep it under wraps for now. We do everything as we did before, and that means we’re broke. Hassle your Syl for cigarettes and scrounge money from your ma. We’re going to forget this loot even exists for at least three weeks.”

I knew what he meant. We watched The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner on TV at my house the previous Saturday. We had laughed when the protagonist told of an office burglar, who had gone into town with the proceeds of a recent theft and came back dressed in a brand-new Teddy boy suit and carrying a set of skiffle drums. He may as well have carried a sign saying I did it.

Here we were facing an identical situation. It didn’t matter how tempting it would be to pick at the spoils, we had to resist. But where could we safely hide our prize?

After some discussion, Butternut suggested stashing the loot in his grandad’s attic. The old man lived alone, and he never went up there. The attic was full of junk, so there was sure to be an unused drawer or a teapot, or some such receptacle in which we could safely hide the cash. It sounded ideal to me, so I agreed.

Butternut rolled up the huge bundle of notes and shoved it into the pocket of his jacket. He separated some change from the pile of coins, a few of which he gave to me for cigarettes, and the rest he took for his own cigarettes and the bus out to his grandad’s house.

We scoured the dilapidated buildings at the station in search of something into which we could put the coins, and I found a plastic carrier bag that would do the job. Butternut ripped a length of telephone cable from a skirting board, which he used to great effect by tying it around the bag full of coins and making a loop that he placed around the back of his neck, so the bag hung feely around his midriff. When he zipped up his jacket, and with his hands thrust into the pockets, I couldn’t tell that he had anything hidden there. The cable device also freed up both of his hands.

We checked to make sure we’d left no clues (other than the dirty steaming one in the cupboard), and prepared to leave. Butternut spat onto the palm of his right hand. “Trust,” he said. I spat on my hand.

“Trust,” I said, and we gripped hands in the manner of those starting an arm wrestling bout.

As soon as we got to the high street, we separated. Butternut turned towards the bus station, while I went to a shop for ten cigarettes. Then, I walked home to kippers for tea with nothing to link me to the crime.

When the theft was mentioned on the early evening bulletin of the regional TV news, it triggered a series of tuts from my mother. The reporter said that a secretary had left the office in answer to a call from her manager and that the wages, which were on a desk behind a counter, had been left unattended for only a moment.

That’s all it takes.

I'm nowhere near being a hardened criminal, although I will admit to having done my share of naughtiness. It was via past transgressions that I became familiar with the unpleasant sense of impending arrest that comes immediately following the commission of a crime. It is a time of great worry and uncertainty that borders on paranoia, as the thief never knows how much intelligence is in the hands of the police.

Consequently, even walking along the street is a nervy experience. There are pangs of butterflies at the sight of a policeman, dread at the sound of a car slowing down behind, and an unshakable conviction that a grab of the shoulder is imminent. In that environment, I had to remain calm, and act as though everything was normal.

Butternut and I had agreed not to see or contact each other for a full week. Early on Sunday evening, after I’d spent the day trying to cadge cigarettes from Sylvia and my mother (but never my dad), my mother gave in to my pestering one final time. She tossed me a cig, with the rider that the tobacconist is now closed. I went into the kitchen to enjoy it with a cup of tea.

Our Sylvia had been particularly blunt in her rejection of my pleas for cigarettes. I found this surprising, as she was clearly in brighter spirits than of late. On Saturday afternoon she had gone to Mckendrick’s, where she told the manager how she had dearly wanted to buy a dress in the sale, but she hadn’t received her wages. The manager had heard about the robbery, and he told Sylvia to come in when she had her wage reimbursed, and she could have the dress at the sale price. Yet, even amid that uplifting boost, her cigarette packet remained closed to outsiders.

From a drawer in the kitchen, I pulled out a large buff envelope that contained an assortment of papers: old gas bills, hand-written recipes, past birthday cards, that sort of thing. I tipped the contents out into the drawer and folded the envelope. From another drawer, I took a small battery-powered torch, which I tested, and found to be in good working order. After my cup of tea and cigarette, I pulled on my coat, put the torch and the envelope into my pocket, and I left the house.

It was dark when I got to the small ante-room behind the ticket office at the derelict railway station, where the smell of stale excrement now hung in the air. I switched on the torch and shone the beam into the cupboard where Butternut had taken a crap. I was relieved to see that the notes were still there.

I picked up the soiled fivers gingerly and dropped them into the envelope I’d brought along to keep the mess off my clothes. I took the notes home where, between retches, I sponged them down in warm soapy water, behind the locked door of the bathroom. When the notes were clean, I dropped the sponge into a pedal bin under the wash basin, lest anyone used it to wipe their face. I washed my hands vigorously.

After laying the notes on my bedroom radiator to dry, I allowed myself a moment of levity. “The money laundering is complete,” I said, smiling at my reflection in the dressing table mirror.

On Monday morning, I put one of the dry fivers into my pocket and hid the other two within the pages of a hardback copy of Great Expectations, which stood with a dozen other books, pressed between a pair of carved wooden elephant bookends on the dressing table. It was a relief to be in funds, but I wouldn’t tell anyone of my sudden injection of cash, not even Butternut. Especially not Butternut.

Four days after the crime, everything was going according to plan, and I focused on projecting the image that I was still on the hard cart. To help that along, I bought a packet of five cigarettes, although I could easily afford twenty. At twelve-fifteen, I signed on at the local labour exchange in town, and later I sat in Mario’s cafe with a cup of coffee, pondering my situation.

As I stared from the window of the cafe, I saw a skinhead standing at a bus stop. He looked the business in a Crombie overcoat and Dr Martens boots, and he carried an LP record in a plastic bag, on which was emblazoned the name of a local record store. I promised myself that I would be kitted out in such clobber, as soon as Butternut and I were able to spend the proceeds of the wage theft.

As a bus pulled in, and the skinhead boarded, my gaze fell upon a police Hillman Imp panda car a yard behind. A second later, I was damn near pole-axed with the biggest jolt of my life. For there, in the back seat of the police car, sat Butternut. I watched in horror as he gesticulated, and a policeman in the passenger seat laughed. The car drove off, leaving me at Mario’s in a state that verged on panic.

What if they had already been to my house? I thought. What if they had a search warrant? And then the clincher; what if they had found those fivers hidden in the book? How would I explain those? I couldn’t. I couldn’t.

After my coffee, I wandered about the town centre, aimlessly gazing into shop windows, with my mind in overdrive. I was dreading going home, because if the game was up, there would be a miserable time coming. For, aside from the grilling by the police, and the wrath of my parents, Sylvia would be after my blood when she learned that her own brother had robbed the factory where she worked.

Dusk was falling when I got home, Dad, Mam, and Sylvia were sitting at the kitchen table, going at bowls of pea soup and dumplings. That Dad didn’t bounce said dumplings off my head served as an indication that the police hadn’t been. I ladled out a bowl of soup from the pressure cooker, but I omitted the dumplings. It’s difficult to muster an appetite when your guts are churning in fear.

As I ate though, a comforting thought entered my head, and I clung desperately to it. If Butternut had spilled all about the theft, the police would surely have been by now. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that my friend since childhood hadn’t snitched.

My participation in the mealtime conversation was on par with my enthusiasm for the soup, that is, minimal. Dad droned on about the rising cost of food at his works canteen, and Mam told of some old cove who had died suddenly that morning. I hadn’t recognised the name of the recently departed, but then my mother said to me; “You know who it is, it’s your friend Alfie’s grandad.”

It was a good job this revelation came between spoonfuls, or I would have showered the family in soup. I was stunned. My mother went on to say how terrible it was that the old man should die on the same day his grandson was arrested for robbery. The grapevine is fertile on these streets.

Later that evening, while watching television as a family, I perpetuated my pretence of penury by asking for a cigarette. No one offered, and in the ensuing silence, I couldn’t shake the suspicion that, following news of Butternut’s arrest, I was being scrutinised for any indication that I had been involved in the caper. I rose and left Sergeant Bilko to it.

Outside, I took a cigarette from a packet I’d hidden down my sock. I walked down the street, turning over recent developments in my mind. The whole thing was a mess.

With Butternut in the clutches of the police, it was up to me to retrieve the loot from the old man’s house before a family member found it, or the place was picked clean by a clearance firm. My first problem was that I didn’t know where he lived, and secondly, I would have no means of access other than to force entry, which could see me on a burglary charge if I got caught. I desperately needed help, and the only one from whom I could seek it was Butternut’s sister, Janet.

When I was seventeen, I’d gone out with Janet, who was eighteen, for a couple of months. She was a terrible flirt but possessed of a great sense of humour, so she was always fun. Luckily, we were still on good terms, because she was the only one who could help me get at the stashed cash. The alternative was to lose it all to the clearance men.

I flicked my cigarette away and went into a phone box, and dialled Butternut’s number. His dad answered. “Is Janet there?” I said.

“Who’s calling?” he said in an impatient tone.

“Tom,” I said. There was a lengthy silence, and then a voice.

“Who are you?” Janet said, “I don’t know any Toms.”

“It’s me, Eric. I need to see you.”

“About our Alfie, no doubt. I take it you’ve heard what happened.”

“Yeah. What did they say?”

“Not much. Said they’d found his fingerprint on a drawer.” I hadn’t touched the drawer or anything else, so I considered myself in the clear for dabs.

“Look, Janet,” I said, “would you meet me at the Dun Cow later? It’s important.”

“I can’t,” she said.

“If you’re broke, I’ll buy your drinks.”

“It’s not that, Eric,” she said, “I don’t think it would be appropriate to go boozing tonight. My grandad died this morning, and my mother’s upset.”

“Yes, I heard. I’m sorry.” There was a sustained silence that I had to break before the pips went. “Well, would you meet me tomorrow at Mario’s cafe, say half past ten?”

“I can. But why do you want to see me?”

“I can’t say right now, but trust me, it’s important.”

The pips went, I hung up and trudged homeward.

In the morning, when everyone was out, I made preparations in case I was called upon to go into the attic at short notice. I took Sylvia’s old school plimsoll bag from a peg in a cupboard, where it had hung for years. This would be ideal for carrying the loot, including those weighty coins. I dropped my trusty torch into the bag and set off.

Janet came into Mario’s, and I got her a coffee. We sat at a table, as a rasping voice on the jukebox urged us to get down and get with it. I knew I was taking a risk telling all to Janet because she had access to her grandad’s house while I didn’t. But I never had her down as a double-crosser, so I trusted her to play ball.

“You see,” I said, “Butternut hid the loot at your grandad’s house. We need to get it out before stuff gets taken away. I hoped that maybe you could get a key.” She shook her head.

“Sorry, Eric,” she said, “Dad has one, but that’s it as far as I know.”

“Damn,” I said, my disappointment obvious.

“That doesn’t mean I can’t help you. But first, you have to hear me out.”

“I’m all ears,” I said, sipping coffee and expecting Janet to demand a cut of the loot. I was wrong.

“Before I lift a finger to help, we’re going to sort out what happens to Alfie’s share. I want it safely hidden away somewhere so every penny that’s due is there for him when he gets out. That means his share comes with me.”

“Right,” I said, “I don’t have a problem with that. But first, we need to get the stuff from the attic. How are we going to do that if you don’t have a key?”

“Drink up,” she said.

“Huh?”

“Come on, drink up. We’re leaving.”

We left the cafe and took our places at the bus stop outside.

“What gives?” I said.

“Dad’s going over there today to pick up a few things and have the meter read and the electricity supply disconnected. If we just happen to be passing, we can call in to see if he needs help with anything.”

“Then what? I can’t just wander off into the attic.”

“You say you’re going home, but you sneak up to the attic to hide. Then when I leave with Dad, you can do the search at your leisure.” It didn’t sound to me like much of a plan, but it was all I had.

“All right,” I said, as the bus approached.

I offered my condolences to Mr Dankworth when we got to the old man’s house. He seemed more irritated at having to sort things out than saddened at the death of his father, and he moaned about everything. He was pleased Janet and I had turned up though, as he got us to do all sorts of jobs while he directed, pointing toward each task with the stem of his pipe. Janet got grease on the lapel of her jacket, as we hauled a huge electric cooker from a wall.

After an hour or so, Janet told her dad that I had to leave, and he bade me a gruff goodbye while pointing at the door with the pipe stem. As I crept up the stairs, Janet said an over-loud goodbye at the doorstep, and then closed the door. I entered the attic.

I couldn’t walk about while they were still in the house, and I didn’t dare even move in case I knocked something over that would give me away. I sat on an old piano stool, after first checking under the lid to see if that had been Butternut’s chosen hiding place. It hadn’t.

Making use of items that were within reach, I pulled an old macintosh over my shoulders for warmth, and I picked up an old Beano annual from a box. I read the book by torchlight, taking lengthy breaks between each story to save the batteries.

I had almost finished the book by the time I heard the front door slam, and a car pull away. Satisfied they were gone, I switched on the torch and began the search. The place was awash with clutter, and finding the treasure would be no easy task, but I began, working my way methodically through drawers and cupboards. After ten minutes of fruitless rummaging, I heard a terrific crash from somewhere below. I came down the attic stairs, onto the landing, and listened. There was movement; someone was walking about.

I switched off the torch, and descended the stairs with great stealth, only to realise that a figure was climbing them with similar stealth. I switched the torch back on and shone it onto the figure.

“Christ, Butternut!” I said. “Have you escaped?” He couldn’t see me because of the light, but he knew my voice.

“I got bail.”

“Great. What was that bang?” I said.

“I threw a rock through the window of the outhouse door. I knew the key would be on the other side of the lock. The cops are trying to tail me, but I managed to shake them off. I thought I’d best come here to grab the cash while I have the chance, seeing as Grandad has popped his clogs.” There followed an uncomfortable pause, which Butternut broke. “What are you doing here, Eric?”

“Trying to retrieve our loot before stuff gets moved out.”

“Have you found it?”

“No, but you know where it is.”

He was now right up with me, and I handed him the torch so he could lead the way. In the attic, when he showed me where the cash was hidden, I was pleased he had been bailed, because I would never have found it. He lifted a rolled-up rug off a cluster of old paint tins, one of which he picked up and shook. There was something inside.

He had brought a spoon from the kitchen, which he used to pry off the lid, and I shone the torch inside onto a cheese and onion crisp packed that held the bundle. Beneath that was the bag of coins. What remained of the original contents of the tin had long since dried up. He took the packet and stuffed it into the pocket of his jacket.

“Let’s go,” he said, and we hurried downstairs, Butternut leading the way with the torch. “Looks like I got here in the nick of time,” he said, as we entered the kitchen.

“How come?” I said. He didn’t answer, and I had an inkling that he thought I was pulling a fast one.

“It seems odd that you should be here on your own with a torch, and you thought I’d been remanded.” His insinuation angered me.

“Look,” I said, “The stuff in this house is going to be removed, and that would include the cash. I had to act, so I sought help, and I only got in here because your Janet sneaked me in. She’s been an absolute star. We discussed ways to ensure that your share would be safe, and my next step after recovering the money, if I’d ever found it, would have been to call her. I’m playing this by the book, brother.”

“All right, Eric,” he said, unconvinced I thought, “calm down.”

“While we’re having this heart-to-heart though, what exactly were your plans once you’d recovered the cash?

“You would've got your share,” he said.

“Sure I would,” I said, my words dripping with scorn.

We argued momentarily, but then Butternut ordered hush, as we heard a noise outside.

“Look,” I said, squinting at the torchlight in my eyes, “let’s get out of here and we’ll split the cash and take our chances. It’s pointless arguing.”

Butternut spat on his hand. “Trust,” he said, raising his arm as previously.

I spat on my hand. “Trust,” I said.

Then, instead of clasping my hand, as dictated by the protocol of our ritual, the treacherous swine fetched me an almighty right hook that caught me square on the mouth. The blow sent me reeling, as much from surprise as force, and I fell over a dining chair. Dazed on the kitchen floor, I heard Butternut say; “Sorry, Eric, but needs must. It’ll be borstal for me this time.” Then, rapid footsteps and the slamming of the front door.

I pulled myself onto the chair, over which I had just tumbled, and dabbed my bleeding lip with the back of my hand. The torch lay on the floor, shining down the passage. After sitting for half a minute to recover, I picked up the torch and returned to the attic, where the bag of coins was still in the paint tin. I put the cash into the plimsoll bag, and I left the house.

The following evening, Janet told me that Butternut had been arrested. The police had re-established their tail on him, and they had followed him to the city centre. He was arrested boarding a train, which was in breach of his bail conditions. This time he was remanded, and the local TV news reported that the bulk of the stolen money had been recovered.

Oddly, I felt relieved that Butternut had so much cash on him. If he’d split the loot with me, as planned, that half of it was missing would be a clear indication to the police that he hadn’t done the job alone, and they’d be looking for the accomplice. It would be a bit off for him to drag me into proceedings at this late stage, especially after what he did to me at his grandad’s house, so I relaxed with my runner-up prize of fifty-one pounds and sixty-five new pence.

I may be slow to react to an unexpected right hook, but I do possess one quality in which I’m as sharp as a needle: cunning. And it was time to apply a dose of that to my monetary situation. You see, I didn’t want to be nibbling at my hoard whenever I was short for a packet of cigs; I wanted to splash the cash. Whereas earlier I had made a joke about money laundering, it was now time to give my loot a good old rinse.

I started to spend, only taking necessary tobacco funds as previously mentioned. Even though Butternut had run out on me with the cash, and given me a fat lip, he didn’t grass, so I began to hatch a plan. Every day that passed pushed the robbery further onto the back burner; it was becoming stale news.

On Wednesday I received my unemployment benefit, and after cashing my Giro, I went into a bookmaker’s shop in town. This was in keeping with my routine on the day I got paid. I took one of the firm’s newfangled betting slips, which come in two parts, an upper layer, and a carbon copy below.

I put ten bob, or fifty new pence as I should now call it, on a random horse, writing out the slip with as light a hand as I could muster. Whether said nag went on to win or not didn’t matter. I paid my stake and got back the carbon copy, which I folded carefully and tucked away in my wallet. With phase one of the plan complete, I went for a look around the shops in town to kill time.

Later that day, I returned to the bookies to pick some winners, literally. I studied the boards and jotted down the names and odds of about ten horses that had won that day, and I picked up a few blank betting slips. Back home in my bedroom, I loosely worked out various combinations, looking for something that would give me a decent return. The trio I opted for had come in at five-to-one, twelve-to-one, and seven-to-two. I'm not great at working out betting odds, but I reckoned that little lot would net me about forty-five to fifty quid in the new currency.

I tore the front off one of the blank betting slips I’d brought home and laid it on top of my carbon copy. I took a pencil and wrote the following, in a much heavier hand than previously:

3 x 10p doubles

20p treble

Crackpot 2.15 A

Tell Him He’s Dead 2.45 A

Joyrider 4.00 N

I tore up the cover sheet and studied my handiwork. What I had now, or what I appeared to have to those who might scrutinise it, was a winning betting slip, stamped with the time, date, and correct stake. I scrunched up the slip and put it away in the pocket of my jeans. To give more credence to my scheme, I waited until the following evening when Dad got home from work.

I held back until after he’d eaten before I approached. Dad sat at the kitchen table behind a mug of strong tea, puffing on a cigarette, while Mam washed up. “Did you get a paper today, Dad?” I said.

“In my haversack,” Dad said. I pulled the newspaper from his bag and spread it on the table, turning the pages until I got to the racing results for the previous day. “Bloody mug’s game,” the old one grumbled, as he realised my intention.

“I don’t know,” I said, all chipper, “the first one’s up. Seven-to-two.” To lay the second one on him, the huge twelve-to-one shot, I had to put on an exhibition of astonishment. “It came in, Dad,” I said, excitedly, “twelve-to-one.”

“Gimme a look,” Dad said. I turned the newspaper around so he could read it, and then I played what I considered my master stroke.

“There’s still one to come, Dad. I put a three-crosser on.”

“Come on then, Eric. What was it?” Dad said. I tossed the receipt onto the newspaper.

“I can’t look. You do it.” After a while, Dad piped up.

“Eeh, bloody hell. Our Eric. That one’s come in as well. The bet’s up.”

There were congratulations and cries of delight, and home was the hero. Of course, the next day I bought cigarettes for Dad and Sylvia, and I slipped Mam a couple of quid. My funds had been released.

That Friday night saw me standing outside the Regal cinema in town, resplendent in my new Crombie overcoat and Dr Martens boots. I thought my new short haircut looked the part too. I was going to see Where Eagles Dare with my new girlfriend, whom I could see hurrying up the street towards the cinema.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said, panting a bit.

“That’s okay, Janet,” I said. She put her arm through mine, and we went into the cinema.

It all came up roses for me. While Butternut was looking at borstal, I got a share of the spoils and a girlfriend out of the robbery. So, if you’re happy to see someone get away with a crime, and live it up on the proceeds, then stop reading now, and move on satisfied.

On the other hand, if you’re from the school of thought that says crime should never be seen to pay, read on.

On Saturday morning, I was happily slurping a bowl of cereal at the kitchen table, when Dad sat down opposite. I sensed from his demeanour that something was awry. After a slurp of tea, he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and said one word, Aptitude.

I narrowed my eyes, not sure what he was on about, but at the same time, the word was ringing a distant bell somewhere in my consciousness. “Huh?” I said.

“I was talking to old Jackson in the Travellers Rest last night. He told me that down at the bookies they’re wondering why you haven’t been in to collect the five and a half quid you’d won by putting ten bob on Aptitude.” It hit me like I’d stepped on a rake. The bet I’d put on specifically to obtain a carbon copy of the slip had come in at ten to one, and the guy dad had been talking to, Jackson, works at the bookies. I didn’t know what to say for the best, and I ended up blurting out what I saw as the only viable reason.

“I lost the betting slip, Dad.”

Now, my dad speaks in one of three tones when it comes to talking to his offspring: calmly, angrily, and pointedly. The last of these, his current mode, is the worst because there's no telling in which direction the conversation will go. I could gauge by his reaction though that we were going to visit angrily.

“I told him that you’d probably forgotten about it in all the excitement of your big win on Wednesday. He said that he didn’t remember any big wins at the bookie’s on that day.”

What could I do? If I said I’d put the bet on at a different bookie’s, Dad might remember seeing the name of Jackson’s shop on the betting slip, which I had given him. All I could offer by way of reply was a slurp from my spoon.

“Anyway, he seems to think that you’ve doctored a betting slip, and so there’s going to be an investigation at other branches, and that'll probably involve the police.”

With Mam and Sylvia watching on, all I could do was shovel the last of the cereal into my mouth as my face reddened.

“After breakfast,” Dad continued, “you can go up to your room to think about things, and I’ll be up in an hour to hear your explanation, and it had better be good.” I stood up and went upstairs.

So, here I am, caught in a trap of my own making. What I thought was a master stroke, turned out to be what gave me away. I’ve looked at the situation from all angles, and nothing I’ve come up with sounds even remotely plausible. Saying that I found the money and created the betting slip dodge as a screen is probably my best bet, but I doubt Dad will swallow it.

Anyway, I’ll soon find out, because I can hear him coming up the stairs.