Part 9

Pinky lowered his eyes. “Th – thank you,” he stammered, shaking his head from side to side. “But I’ve – I’ve got a job to do when I get out. Then I’m off to Spain.”

“Spain?” Jeanette shot him a quick, confused glance. “Oh, oh I see. Well, the offer is always there if things don’t work out. Not that I don’t want them to,” she quickly qualified. “I just care for you, Pinky, and want to know that you’re all right.”

In adverse circumstances, God, fate, chance may send us a guardian angel and a solution to all our problems. If Pinky had been worldly enough to both see through the flimsiness of Brinks-Matt’s bank heist plan and recognize Jeanette Green as the rightful successor to his mother’s hallowed place in his affections, the tragedy that was to follow his release would never have happened.

* * *

Nine months after his conviction, Pinky walked out of the prison gates to be met by Leon Brinks-Matt. Rather than a fine BMW or Mercedes, he was behind the wheel of a clapped-out Ford Fiesta. The first sign (had, again, Pinky been worldly enough to notice) that much (if not all) of what Brinks-Matt had boasted about being a millionaire criminal linchpin was fallacious to the extreme. Ditto: the grotty bed and breakfast they occupied the night before their own personal crime of the century.

“Just temporary, son. Come tomorrow afternoon and we’ll be in serious clover.”

Over many a long night in their former cell, they had gone over the plan so many times, it was etched into Pinky’s brain. Hence, the preliminary side of the bank job: storming through the door, balaclavas over their heads, shotguns in hands, Brinks-Matt’s grating warning for everyone to get face down on the floor, even the way Pinky began to operate his crane-like arms, grabbing bag after bag crammed full of banknotes couldn’t have gone any smoother. But if you ignore your guardian angel and that clear, providential solution to all your problems, it invariably comes back to haunt you – for you have greatly angered those gods.

By simple chance, a squad car with two officers inside happened to pass the Nationwide Building Society as the armed assailants were in the midst of pulling off a heist far more lucrative than Brinks-Matt had ever dreamed. Not three and half seconds before he and Pinky had burst through the doors, a wealthy local resident had made a sizeable six-figure cash deposit. Over his shoulder, the older assailant kept glancing at the bulging bags his partner in crime was grabbing with such metronomic efficiency, nodding his head, licking his lips, and excitedly shifting his weight from one shiny tassel-loafered foot to the other.

But at the very moment they were about to make their escape, the two officers burst into the building society, guns raised.

“Put the weapon down!” one shouted.

In panic, Brinks-Matt dropped his shotgun clattering to the floor.

Duly alerted, Pinky swung round a fraction too quickly and purposefully for the second police officer’s liking. Ultimately, Pinky’s arms – both the blessing and the curse of his far-too-short life on this planet – were simply too large, cumbersome, and potentially dangerous for the police officers at the scene not to think that he was about to pull out a gun and open fire.

Bang.

And that was how Pinky Goose met his fate. Heartbroken by the death of his beloved mum, he never quite recovered his former, happy-go-lucky self: a wonder of the cricket field, a food factory dynamo, a pot boy extraordinaire, a supermarket checkout phenomenon; someone loved by one and all who truly took the time to get to know the man behind those incredibly long arms.