Doctor Who_ Attack of the Cybermen - Eric Saward [3]
At the time neither Griffiths nor Payne had seen the point of this robbery. To them, real swag would always remain hard, instantly negotiable commodities such as gold, diamonds or bank notes. Stealing what seemed like nothing more than a few printed circuits could never excite in quite the same way. Still, neither man had complained, especially after the generosity of their bonus.
Although there wasn’t any doubt in Special Branch’s mind that the robbery had been carried out with skill, they were puzzled that the whole machine hadn’t been stolen, especially as the time wasted dismantling it increased the chance of the thief’s capture. Amazement soon followed as they discovered how brilliantly the factory’s internal security systems had been neutralised. Such was the attendant praise of the perpetrator’s skill, there was serious talk, once he had been found, of the factory employing rather than prosecuting him.
But in spite of Lytton’s brilliance, he had made one vital mistake: he had not supervised closely enough Joe Payne’s part in the robbery. Instead of providing an anonymous vehicle, Joe had stupidly supplied one from his own garage.
He couldn’t see the point of stealing a car which, after being used to transport them to the factory, would spend the duration of the robbery parked safely in a side-street half a mile away. But then Joe hadn’t taken into consideration Lytton’s final precautionary procedure of always reconnoitring the surrounding streets of an imminent robbery. He hadn’t reckoned, as they cruised past the factory gates for the third time, that their presence would be recorded on video tape by a security camera.
Once Joe’s careless mistake had been discovered, it didn’t take the police long to trace the vehicle’s registration, or for them to establish that the owner was incapable of executing such a robbery. Apart from lacking the necessary technical knowledge, Joe also lacked the style for such a crime. Whereas he might be capable of fencing a few stolen cars without getting caught, real master criminals would not risk their freedom by making the foolish mistake he had. Neither would they embroider their error by offering for sale, in their own garage, a vehicle used in a robbery. But there it was, parked on his forecourt, adorned with its ‘Bargin of the Week’ poster, for both punter and police to view.
The police placed Joe under close surveillance in the hope he would lead them to the organising brain. Since this led only to Charlie Griffiths, they began to fear they had made a terrible mistake.
Neither did the discovery of Lytton help much. Unlike the others, he was unknown to them. Yet when they made general inquiries, in an attempt to build a dossier of background information, they couldn’t find anything. No one seemed to know where he had come from, who his parents were, or even where he lived. In fact, the more the police searched, the less they discovered. Nothing seemed to be known about him. Not even a birth certificate could be found. At the Department of Health and Social Security it was established he had never registered with a doctor, been admitted to a hospital, or purchased a National Insurance stamp. Even Her Majesty’s Inspector of Taxes had never heard of him, which upset him greatly.
Deciding Lytton must be foreign, although his north London accent seemed to deny this, the police involved Interpol but they, too, proved unsuccessful in tracing Lytton’s origins.
It was as though Lytton had never existed. The police became mesmerised which led them to make many mistakes. If only they had allowed their investigation to reach its natural conclusion, they would have learned that Lytton, in spite of his accent, was not from the planet Earth. But in 1985 the apparent was not yet acceptable, as contact with other life-forms had yet to occur. So instead they invented the hypothesis, which only further obscured the truth, that somehow Lytton had managed to slip through the bureaucratic net. But such