'I might not be a Sith Lord but I've came bloody close to chopping that lad's hand off a couple of times!' he grumbled. 'He's got a bad habit of snooping at personal information. It's as well for him that I'm not quite as evil as his mother seems to have implied!'
'Even when you were a Civil Servant for the DWP, you didn't really need redeeming, darling' Hilary added, squeezing her husband's hand. 'You were very much on the side of the Rebel Alliance, right from the beginning. Young Daniel must know that.'
'Where has that lad gone now?' Tom's baleful gaze swept the pub. There were two empty glasses at their table and two empty chairs.
'Sally's taken him and most of the Co-op chaps away up north, to see what assistance they can render in these dreadful floods,' Vaughan explained. 'She said that your particular skills are unlikely to be required for many months.'
'Another Christmas mission,' sighed Tom. 'She is a good lass and I suppose my son deserves some credit for his part in supporting her. And at least it's not as dangerous as last year's good deed.'
'What was that?' Lyn Walker asked.
'They helped to build a new hospital,' Hilary told her.
'That doesn't sound too dangerous,' remarked Terry.
'It was for Ebola patients in Sierra Leone,' explained Hilary.
'It's a pity she's not about,' said Toby. 'I had a part in my film for her - with normal ears, too.'
'What's your film going to be then, luvvie?'
'A good old-fashioned caper movie, Lyn. Think Ocean's Eleven or The Italian Job - only with welfare rights advisers. After all, what else would a slick geezer like me star in?'
'Sound choice, Mr Novak.' Wayne Reynolds raised a large glass of Bourbon in support. 'And, if you're looking for someone in the construction business, I wouldn't mind a part in something like that. I know I'm supposed to have gone straight and my Marie would kill me if I got tangled up in anything dodgy, but I can't help wishing our author had given me chance to play a proper crim first. I'd have jumped at the chance to give that bastard Gerry Matthews a concrete overcoat!'
'Why would she let any of us get tangled up in criminal activity?' Hilary asked impatiently. 'The whole point of her stories is to undermine the insidious myth that benefit claimants are all on the fiddle.'
'Yeah, but she's always on about how precarious our funding is too - and she knows all about that,' Toby replied. 'I'm sure she wouldn't mind us branching out to secure a little bit of contingency funding, I think it could be time to get the old gang back together - for one last job!'
'Which old gang did you have in mind?' Hilary asked sharply. 'I hope you aren't including me in that description!'
'As if...!'
As the jangling guitar riff of The Stanglers' 'No More Heroes' begins, we find ourselves in a small-town street in southern England. There is a bustling market with a variety of stalls, striped awnings fluttering in the breeze. At one, an elderly woman feels the yarn quality of a ball of knitting wool. A man in his early forties, shorter than average, his fair-hair thinning on top, but walking with a younger man's swagger, moves close and reaches his hand into her shopping bag. At first glance, he appears to be robbing her until we catch a glimpse of an envelope dropping from his hand into the bag.
Further up the street, a well-dressed retired professional man wanders out of the local bank. The same fair-haired man quickly slips him an envelope, which he tucks out of sight as he replaces his wallet in his inside breast pocket. The apparently incongruous music continues as the camera tracks a venerable black man with white hair around the aisles of the local Sainsbury's. The fair-haired man drops another envelope into the 'bag for life' hanging from the shopping trolley he pushes.
Meanwhile, in a shop full of trinkets and New Age tat, another older lady haggles over the price of a crystal suncatcher. Scattered beams of sunlight illuminate the same man as he drops an envelope into the huge pocket of her patchwork coat. Finally, we see the elderly priest shaking the hands of his small flock as they leave that morning's Mass, the last of whom is the man delivering the envelopes. As he shakes the priest's hand, another is passed.
The music stops. The screen goes black. A caption appears which reads 'One Week Later.'
A corner table in what appears to be a dark, substantially deserted and slightly seedy bar or café. A single dim light hangs over the table, casting almost menacing shadows. The man who was handing out the envelopes is standing, about to address the people sitting around the table who are just discernible as the two older women, the elderly black man and the retired professional. The overhead lights flicker and bright fluorescent light floods the room, showing it to be the Community Cafe, a joint venture between the district Foodbank and the Solent Welfare Rights Project. The priest joins the group, with a smile.
'There's no need to sit in the dark now, is there? It's not as if we're up to no good, after all!'
'Actually, Father...'
'I've read your note, Tobias - and burned it, as advised - and I stand by my words.'
'So you're in?'
'Heavens above, yes! Battling through the Big Lottery application process once was enough for me, my son. If we're to keep the Community Café and your project in business after that grant runs out in less than a year's time, I'm all in favour of a new business model.'
The priest takes a seat beside the elderly hippy woman and the apparent leader of the gang begins to explain the plan. He has a snappy, street-wise style of delivery.
'You heard the Father. It's almost 2018, which means our gang here are going to run out of dosh again soon. We can't afford to let that happen. The Churches have offered to cough up for a couple of posts but, with all due respect, Father, you can't seriously expect Martin, Deepak or Hilary to sign up to spreading the love of Christ between appeals! Our advisers don't have time to do decent bids for money themselves; each one can take days, even if it's only for a couple of grand, and the guys are too busy with casework. You know what it was like when you all worked here and I was the new nipper - ESA appeals coming out of our ears, DLA forms, everything kicking off with Tax Credit overpayments. Well, it's way more mental than that now...'
'That's hardly an appropriate use of the word "mental" Toby!'
'Sorry, Mags. You taught me better than that.'
'I did. However, I take your point. I took afternoon tea with dear Hilary last week and she told me how many families they see struggling now that new benefits won't help with the cost of raising more than two children, leaving these poor people to choose between homelessness and separation. It's quite heart-breaking. After all the years we campaigned for a better, fairer system, we seem to be back in the days of Cathy Come Home. What do you think, Vaughan?'
'We've seen yet more cuts to benefits for disabled people. Those to ESA have left many who can't work on no more than Jobseeker's Allowance, while this constant tinkering with the PIP descriptors is driving our former colleagues to despair. Martin has an urgent appeal for a client who has lost hers and has been plunged into penury as the Benefit Cap now applies! She and her three children have lost over two hundred pounds a week and have little prospect of recovering any of it, despite Martin's keenest efforts. I'm sure you see the same, Paul.'
'I still help out at the youth club, when my rheumatism lets me, so it's the young people I feel sorry for. They're trapped at home, as they can't get Housing Benefit if they move out, but most of their parents ain't got the money to keep them either. They don't get even this so-called "living wage" when they work and, if they don't find a job, they get sent on workfare schemes and treated like slaves. My generation rioted over less than that!'
'Violence isn't the way!'
'I'm not saying it is, Caty love, only that it wouldn't be surprising.'
'I know what you mean. My nephew's a self-employed mechanic and just getting his business up and running. His Universal Credit got sanctioned because his wife isn't looking for a better paid job. She's a care worker and loves what she does! Whoever thought you'd get sanctioned for caring about your clients enough to not mind the low pay! It's wicked, isn't it Father?'
'It is that, surely.'
'But there's not going to be any violence in your plan, is there, Toby?'
'No way, Caty. Our job is just to get enough dosh to keep the Project in business until the next election, when we know there's going to be a real change - namely, an end to this austerity bollocks and all that, and the reinstatement of a proper Socialist Social Security system. And that's where you all come in.'
'We're going to write funding bids for the Project?'
'No Mags. We're going to do a heist!'
'I say! What splendid fun! Should I knit us some balaclavas?'
'We're good without, actually.'
'Pity...'
'I hate to say it, Toby, but much as I'd gain a load of credibility from being a real gangsta, aren't we too ancient to be bank robbers?'
'Not a bit of it, Paul. You're still a couple of years younger than several of the Hatton Garden gang. I know Mags is a bit older but...'
'And I'm blind, Toby!'
'Which is why I've picked Caty to be your eyes for this job. It's your ears we need. Vaughan tells me our local bank still uses a very old-school safe. He's the only one of us here to have enough money to have ever seen it!'
'Jim and I occasionally enjoy a game a bridge with the manager and his delightful wife. After a few sherries, I have to say he can be quite talkative. It was during one such soiree that he mentioned the passage through to our cellar!'
'From here into the bank?'
'Indeed, although you have to crawl and it's quite a tight squeeze. I took the trouble to explore it last week. Ruined my best gardening trousers too!'
'So if Vaughan is our man on the inside, Mags is the safe-cracker and Caty is her guide, what are me and the Father doing here?'
'I am the back-up plan for opening the safe, if dear Margaret doesn't prevail. My brother-in-law Seamus had some interesting friends in the North during the Troubles and, although I persuaded him from the path of violence, he's always kept a few pieces of PE and a couple of detonators around the place, for old time's sake!'
'What about me, Toby?'
'You're the cool black dude, Paul. You can't do a heist movie without at least one cool black dude.'
'I think we need to talk seriously about tokenism after this heist, Toby.'
'If you say so, Mags...'
The screen darkens. 'One month later' appears as a caption.
Back in the same small town. A little to the left of the bank, a construction company van with Crafty Concrete - Foundations and Formwork is parked, while a team of builders attend to what appears to be an under-pinning job to the shop next door. As they are using power tools, there is a great deal of noise and dust. A very large man with massive, muscular, tattooed arms folded across his broad chest stands watching his men at work, although his gaze often shifts to check up and down the street.
Meanwhile, in a subterranean bank vault, the noise of a pneumatic drill can be heard coming from above. This room is also full of dust, through which filters a thin beam of sunlight. A very polite, gentle cough is heard and, as the camera zooms further into the room, the dust clears to reveal the elderly woman in the patchwork coat, clearing her throat. The well-dressed man hands her the handkerchief from the top pocket of his jacket, which he brushes despondently with the back of his hand. Toby and the priest are close by with Paul, also coated in concrete dust.
'Mags, you would be pleased as punch if you could see me now. I certainly don't look like the token black guy any more!'
'Shh!'
The blind woman is crouched with her ear close to the safe, listening carefully as she tweaks the dial cautiously and precisely, first left and then right. Caty is close by. She has drawn a variety of arcane symbols and runes on the safe's top.
'Finally I get to wear something presentable and this happens! Trust Mr Reynolds' operatives to drill all the way through from the pavement. I understood they were merely creating enough noise to muffle the sound of Plan B, should the safe prove resistant to Margaret's endeavours.'
'You know Wayne, though, Vaughan. He's inclined to be a bit over-enthusiastic.'
'I believe that was his barrister's defence the last time he was up in Court for GBH. I'm not sure it was entirely wise to involve him in this little escapade.'
'Wayne's okay. He's been decent enough as our landlord and he only wants a tenth of our loot from today.'
'A tenth?'
'That includes his fee for fencing any jewelry we need to turn into cash.'
'Oh well, under the circumstances that may prove to be quite reasonable. If Duncan's last injudicious remark is to be believed, in addition to the rental income from Gerry Matthews' property portfolio and the rather shady cash sale, of a building plot, this month he's deposited a rather charming diamond necklace and matching earrings, purchased as a sixtieth birthday gift for the long-suffering Mrs Matthews.'
'I'd be sorry to take something from Gerry Matthews wife. Surely she deserves some compensation for putting up with his shenanigans for all these years, Toby?'
'Mrs Gerry has done well enough out of her husband's crooked deals, Father. She won't miss another set of rocks for her jewelry box, whereas we can probably keep a full-time worker on for a year or more for them.'
'Just as long as Mr Reynold's doesn't try to renegotiate his share later, if we get out of here with a sack of swag. That is what tends to happen in capers of this sort, isn't it?'
'If you three could please be quiet, just for a few seconds...'
Margaret persists for a few more moments but is finally defeated by the racket from the drilling above. She attempts to rise but needs Caty's assistance to do so. Another shower of dust descends.
'I fear that we may have to revert to Plan B.'
'Over to you, Father!'
'Okay, so...'
Father Cornelius attaches a small device to one side of the safe's door. He motions to his colleagues to move back into the furthest corner of the vault, sets something and scurries for cover. There is a small explosion, though in such a confined space it sounds massive. Everything is again enveloped in dust. Above, the drilling noises cease. As silence descends and the dust settles, the five robbers can be seen rising from their corner and peering towards the safe. The priest is the first to speak.
'Will you look at that!'
'You were only supposed to blow the bloody door off!'
'I know.'
'And that's exactly what you did!'
'It is that!'
'Are you absolutely certain you haven't done this before?'
'Not in earnest...'
The group cluster around the safe. As anticipated, there is a substantial amount of money within, mostly in thick bundles of used twenty-pound notes and, when Paul opens a royal blue box, the sunlight filtering through the gloom catches on the contents and jewelry sparkles. Above, the drilling starts again.
Suddenly, there is a cry of 'Oh bollocks!' and water starts to pour in through the hole in the pavement. Alarmed, the pensioner robbers retreat to the sides of the vault. Water swiftly pools on the floor and begins to rise around their ankles and is soon at their knees. The group's leader shouts to get the attention of the workers above. A rough voice answers from the street.
'We've struck a fuckin' water main!'
'Bloody hell, Wayne! You'll have to get us out of here - fast! Our way in from next door is already under water!'
'Righto, mate. The guys are just moving some stuff around to hide you as you come out, then I'll get you a ladder.'
'I'm not sure Paul and Caty could climb a ladder. Isn't there something you can use to pull them out?'
'Give this a try.'
A large bucket on the end of a robe descends into the vault. The rising water is already knee-deep.
'That's too small!'
'I'll see what else we've got. You might as well stick the money in it, though, to save it getting wet.'
'Don't do it, Toby! I don't trust him! I sense a bad aura all around him!'
'Me to, Caty, though I think that's his dodgy aftershave!'
Toby quickly loads all of the money into the bucket and, after a moment of hesitation, also drops the blue velvet box in. When he shouts up that the contents of the safe are aboard, the bucket quickly disappears though the hole. Despite several further calls for aid, there is no sign of a larger bucket, ladder or other means of escape. They cannot pick up signals on their mobile phones and the noise of the rushing water means they cannot be heard from outside. The water continues to rise, reaching the pensioners' waists. The situation looks hopeless. The men lift the women onto the top of the safe to keep them above the rising waters for a little longer.
'Forgive the sexism, Mags.'
'Just this once, Toby.'
'I fear the villain really has double-crossed us, Paul.'
'I think so too, my friend. After all the years the Project worked with him - and the rent they paid!'
'And all the work Sally Archer put his way, thinking he was a reformed character!'
'I can't believe our author would let us end like this. I always thought she was quite fond of the Solent Elder Action group.'
'She's a Saints supporter too. She can't let Toby drown down here...'
'Shh! I can hear something!'
Margaret looks up. Snaking in through the ceiling gap is a long hose and above, an engine can be heard spluttering into life. As the hose touches the water, there is a slurping, gurgling noise and it quickly becomes apparent that it is attached to a pump. Gradually, although water is still leaking in, the level starts to fall. At the same time, a rope with a harness similar to that of a bosun's chair drops through. Wayne Reynolds' voice is heard:
'We've got you hidden behind the vans and I've sent the cop who turned up off to get the Southern Water guys. They'll be out of the way for a while, but you'd better get out quick before they all get back here.'
'We're sending Mags up first!'
Caty helps Margaret into the hoist and she is quickly whisked up out of the vault. A few moments later, the contraption reappears and Paul straps Caty in. With a cry of 'whee!' she too soars up out of the room. Vaughan follows, then Paul and finally Toby attaches himself to the harness and is lifted out, a huge muscular arm reaching down to pull him out onto the pavement. He stares up, blinking in the sunlight, straight into the faces of Wayne Reynolds and Sally Archer.
'What are you doing here, Sazza?'
'Wayne asked me to bring the pump and the rescue kit we got for the floods two years ago. You know our author works all this sort of stuff out well in advance, and always gets me in to save the day where she can't think of another way to make the plot work. I got here as quickly as I could. Anyway, why are you in a hole in the ground with Vaughan's retirement revolutionaries?'
'We've been fundraising.'
'Talking of which...'
Wayne Reynolds hands Toby a bucket full of used notes.
'Of course, you can't just march into a bank with it and open a new account for the Project, so you'll have to come up with another way of keeping it safe until it's needed. I'd suggest you share it out among your gang and then, when the fuss dies down, get one of the old fogeys to set up a charitable trust that you can all put a few quid in or leave legacies to. None of these notes looks traceable to me, so you won't be needing the services of my financial adviser.'
'But you'll still take your cut, despite messing things up?'
'I rescued you too, didn't I? Anyway, I thought something sparkly for my Marie would settle it. You'll have trouble shifting that pretty necklace.'
'Won't Matthews recognise it?'
'I hope he does. I want to see the look on that smug bastard's face when my lovely wife turns up at some civic do wearing the jewels he bought for his missus. I know enough about old Gerry's past that he won't dare say anything to the Law about it. He'll be as sick as a dog! And before you ask me if I'm taking more than my fair share hanging on to the diamonds, you might want to have a count up of what's in that bucket you're holding. At a rough guess, I'd say there's about three hundred grand.'
'Three hundred...! That's more than enough to get the Project though to the summer of 2020 and the next election!'
'And what then, mate?'
Before Toby can answer, Wayne spots the relevant authorities heading up the street to take charge of the water main problem. He hustles Toby and the pensioners into the back of the Construction Co-op's van, with Sally Archer at the wheel. Toby crawls forward to offer her a few words of advice.
'Drive carefully, Sazza, especially round the hairpin bends, You know this is usually where it all goes wrong.'
As Sally smiles, starts the engine and accelerates gently away, Margaret's voice is heard from the back of the van.
'I don't know why, but I could suddenly murder a portion of fish and chips!'
'And they all lived happily ever after,' Toby concluded, raising his glass to his friends and colleagues.
'What a lovely idea,' said Hilary. 'Except that you couldn't possibly get away with it in reality. The CCTV in the High Street would have all of this recorded.'
'Not by the end of 2017. The Council won't have the money for that any more. And, although the police will question Wayne Reynolds, he won't tell them anything.'
'Damned right I won't. I ain't no grass!'
'But the evidence...!'
'There isn't any linking Wayne to the theft of Gerry Matthews' money or jewelry - he was legitimately doing a job next door. Again, due to budget cuts, they won't be able to spend enough time investigating to get a case fit for court. We'd be home and dry, I tell you, and when Jezza and the real Labour Party win the election...'
'I'd love to see that, lad, but I think we might both be in the realms of fantasy again there.'
'I think Tom's right, Toby. We've got a long way to go before that happens.'
'I know, but the fightback is gaining pace. Look at how the House of Lords stood up over the Tax Credit cuts. Now people have seen that, maybe they'll start to question the rest of it? Our author isn't the only one out there writing "welfare rights lit"; there have been plays, and Ken Loach is making a film about sanctions - which is where we came in, of course.'
'And all those benefits problems you mentioned in your film, with PIP and ESA being cut, and less money for families with more than two kiddies, and that Universal Credit thing. They were just made up, weren't they, luvvie? It won't really be like that in 2017?'
Toby looked at Lyn Walker. She suddenly looked very old and tired, and more than a little afraid.
'Yeah,' he said, catching Martin's eye as a warning to stay quiet 'I made all of that up.'
'Thank goodness for that!' said Lyn. 'In that case, I wish you all a very, very Happy New Year!'
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