This programme contains some strong language from the start and some violent scenes
HE HUMS ALONG TO RADIO
Here you go, mate.
Here you go, Ralphie.
Don't want you complaining about the milk. Yeah, yeah.
Here you are.
Get on the fucking floor!
SHOUTING
Get down!
Face to the ground!
Get your hands where I can see them!
Face to the floor! Freddie Hook!
32 Church Street, Tooting.
Ralph Turner, Flat 2, 98 Bromley High Street.
Gentlemen!
Come with me.
KEYPAD BEEPS
Keep moving, keep moving! Don't get tricky.
Keypads.
I can't remember.
Come on, Ralphie.
I can't remember.
We only use it for the drills. I can't remember.
We know every note in there.
We know the currency and we know you are trained to delay us.
Delay you? I get two quid an hour for this shit.
I'd carry the money to your bloody van.
I just can't remember.
Argh!
Try.
It's all right, it's all right.
He'll be fine. Just give him a minute.
Just relax, just relax!
He can't fucking remember!
MUSIC ON RADIO: Age Of Consent by New Order
Morning.
You won't like it.
Go on.
He's decided part of his legacy is
going to be a drop in armed robberies.
And he's going to do that in his last two weeks, is he?
No. We are.
He wants us to go through six months' worth of armed robberies
and make them a little less...armed.
You know, maybe it's the name, but I always thought
the Flying Squad would be a little more exciting.
Well, that was your first mistake.
Now...
..lose the crossbow from that.
HE HUMS
Don't you be cutting them in the kitchen, Ken!
I don't want no blood on my marble.
What? It keeps it honest.
Oh! You know you don't have to go poaching no more, don't ya?
Yeah, but that's what makes it fun.
He's a duke that owns them woods.
That is how England works, love.
That lot have it and us lot nick it.
THEY CHUCKLE
PHONE RINGS
Flying Squad?
Control. Can you stick a detective on?
You're speaking to one. Oh, sorry, love.
Armed robbery - Brink's-Mat warehouse, Heathrow Trading Estate.
We're up.
Well, thank Christ for that!
PHONE RINGS
Yes? Is this Kenny?
Yeah.
We hear you can handle gold.
Yeah.
Well, that's lucky, because we're outside your house.
What did they get?
Gold. This place had it for the night
and then it was supposed to fly to the Gulf today.
How much? Well, that's the thing.
That lot say it was a boatload.
But it wasn't in a vault, which doesn't make sense to me.
What are they saying about the robbers?
They're saying six men.
Seven.
Hold them in the control room.
Away from their lockers.
Tooting Rifle Club?
A lot of faces down there, I'd imagine.
Plenty. Went to school with half of them.
Still friendly?
I know what you're looking for,
and you're right to look for it.
But...it isn't me.
You did your part with the code.
If your mate hadn't had his little meltdown,
they'd have got in the vault.
And not getting in the vault was the best thing
that ever happened to 'em. How's that then?
The gold wasn't in the vault because it was too much for the vault.
What do you mean, too much?
I've worked here a long time,
and I have never seen a load like it.
And I'll tell you something else - they didn't know it was here.
Now, I can't decide if that's a lot of luck or no luck at all.
How's the eye?
It's not working too well.
Where were you when they left?
I was over there in the corner, like a frightened rabbit, truth be told.
Whereabouts exactly?
Over here.
The thing is, mate, you'd have seen the van leave from here.
No, I was more sort of over here.
He's still seeing him from there, ain't he, Tone?
Clear as a bell, Nick.
No, I wasn't like this.
I was more like...sort of like this.
DOOR OPENS
He wants you back.
Back to the Yard.
This won't be Flying Squad.
Well, if this ain't Flying Squad, I don't know what is.
Go through his statement again.
Every line.
You can come out now, mate.
We're not giving this up. It's ours.
Let's see about that.
We're wasting time, and they won't be.
What were you expecting?
Potatoes.
Yeah, that would've been easier.
So our friend says you can shift it.
I can shift it.
Bollocks, he can.
They say you're a builder who fences hooky watches.
No, they don't say that. I say that.
Cos who would bother watching a builder who fences hooky watches?
If you can handle a job like this, then I'd have heard of you.
You only hear about the people who get caught.
This is crazy, Micky.
It's our score. We can do it ourselves. How?
How would you do it?
Well, we're all villains.
We all know fences.
Oh, yeah?
Who do you know who could handle that?
A bloke in Basildon - he's got a pawn shop. He owes me a favour.
That's three ton of pure gold that you've taken out of the market
and brought to a lockup in South London.
And now you need to take it out of a lockup in South London
and get it back into the market
without anyone noticing.
There's two people in England who know how to do that.
And neither of us live in Basildon.
I'll be in touch.
CLASSICAL MUSIC ON RADIO
Caesar's wife.
Sorry, sir?
Caesar's wife must be above suspicion.
You don't know your classics?
Not, like, off by heart.
Envy, temptation, greed.
Human nature is weak and that is why the law must be strong.
And that is why those who propagate the law must be strongest of all.
For a civilised society to operate,
Caesar's wife must be above suspicion.
Oh, OK, right.
Yeah, I get it.
As a solicitor, I've represented 42 police officers
accused of corruption and I'm yet to lose.
And that is because I don't represent bent cops.
I represent those who have shown weakness and are ready to repent.
I keep good men on the beat.
Are you a good man?
Yes, I am, Mr Cooper.
You accepted a bribe.
I didn't take it. So we're in the grey.
You accepted it but never took it.
They will try and argue from the grey to the black.
I will argue from the grey to the white and I will win.
And I will get you back on the beat.
And when you are back on the beat, Constable, pounding the troubled
streets of this once great city, you will think of Caesar's wife.
Yes, sir.
What's he up to, then?
It's the size of it, Nick.
It's too big a job, so he's palming it off.
Why would he do that?
Because he wants to go out nice and neat, waving his greatest hits.
He wants people talking about him nicking the Krays,
not asking him where this gold is.
If he won't take it, then who will?
The Prime Minister wanted to pass on her personal thanks.
There was no need to have bothered her with it, sir.
Those prints helped catch the man who tried to kill her.
She took an interest.
I played a small part, Ma'am.
You're not getting the head of counter-terrorism, Boyce.
Can I ask why?
You've had many successes.
You've also caused several international incidents.
It's difficult to have successes in counter-terrorism without
causing international incidents. As number two, you got away with it.
But the head of counter-terrorism has to lead from the back.
Not much happens at the back, sir.
As you may have noticed.
We have a solution.
The Flying Squad. No, thank you. Hear us out.
I did 20 years in London, from the beat to criminal intelligence.
I've nicked every villain in this city once and the good ones twice.
That's why you're here.
I don't want to be wondering which of my team are masons,
which are on the take and which are both.
Which means I don't want Flying Squad and is why they won't want me.
They don't.
But they don't want Brink's-Mat either.
Gordon Parry.
Ooh, rings a bell.
Fraudster, South London. Never convicted.
Say what you like about South London, it pays all our wages.
PHONE RINGS
Mr Parry. Mr Cooper.
How are you?
Busy.
I don't doubt it. Don't doubt that for a second.
Look, I thought you'd like to know
that I found this new investment opportunity.
It's bigger than the others.
Bigger than all the others put together, to be fair.
What's Boyce doing here?
That's Boyce? Mm-hm.
You two picked up Brink's-Mat? Uh, yes, sir.
First thing tomorrow, I'm taking it over.
A special task force.
External operation, independent of the Flying Squad.
Gather the paperwork, don't make copies and bring it over the river.
Over the river.
Why would you go outside of South London?
Because it's too big for South London.
Every copper in England's looking for it.
I don't know what to do with it.
And he's the only one mad enough to fence it.
I didn't know you were doing it, Micky,
but this thing you've done,
it's a miracle.
And miracles don't happen too often, so...
..when they do, you show 'em a little respect.
What you don't do with a miracle is give it to a builder called Kenny.
HE SCOFFS
He's vouched for.
You're tired, Micky.
You need some sleep.
When you wake up, you're going to see this for what this really is.
Escape.
Freedom.
Getting out of London and spending the rest of our lives
with the sun on our faces.
Cos if you do this one right, Micky...
..you won't never have to do another.
Now, you keep an eye on all of 'em.
You keep an eye on that builder.
He ain't a builder.
I don't know what he is.
But Kenny Noye ain't a builder.
I'll go down to the country this morning,
get the house ready for my parents.
Oh, Christ! Now, now.
Come along, darling.
Ah, Maria, can you get the children ready
and make sure that Charlotte has her violin for later?
What is this farrago, George? Come here.
Always look the part.
The world decides who you are from what you show them.
Go on.
The Great Train Robbery.
The Krays, the Richardsons.
Every villain in London worth knowing was brought down by
teams that set up here, locked the door, didn't let anyone in.
This is where it happens.
The guard?
It's that or Flying Squad, mate.
Then it's the guard.
RADIO: And now back to our top story.
We are receiving reports that yesterday's armed robbery
by six men at the Brink's-Mat storage depot
on the Heathrow Trading Estate was far larger than initially thought.
In the last few hours, it has been revealed by
the Metropolitan Police in a press conference at Scotland Yard
that the robbers who struck early yesterday morning
made off with over three tonnes of gold bullion.
That would make the raid the largest robbery in world history,
with an estimated value of...
26 million.
That's what they're saying on the television.
It's 27.
Yeah. It was enough to move the market.
So it's 27 now.
I'm not a villain. Not like that.
Neither am I.
That's why we didn't nick it.
All we'd be doing is turning it legit,
like we do with all the other stuff.
It's a long way from that. 27 million is a long way from that.
Look, we've done all right, considering where we're from.
But I want to do all right the way the other side
of this country does all right.
People that come from money - they don't think much about
what's right or wrong when they want to make more of it. No.
They use what they have.
And what we have and they don't
is that we know villains
and villains know us.
So let's use it.
Too pure, it's too pure.
No. Ah!
We'll disguise it.
SCOFFS
Three tonnes? That'll be like, uh...
That'll be like disguising an elephant with a fucking wig.
Yeah?
Then we'll start small.
See what your mate in Sheffield makes of that.
That's very pretty.
Be a shame to make it ugly, won't it?
People like us, John, we can only have it if it's ugly.
Sir...
..where are you recruiting from?
From some places you know and some that you don't.
Well, we've both done surveillance training, sir.
No, thank you.
We were there, sir. You need someone who had eyes on the scene.
Tell me something you saw there that is not in here.
We've got our eye on a guard. Going down Tooting
and shooting an air rifle doesn't make someone a villain.
Not that guard. Wright.
Wright? They nearly took his eye out.
Exactly, sir. He didn't have the codes.
He didn't resist.
There was no reason to hit him.
Unless they wanted us to see him hit.
All right? All right.
What are you doing home, then? Picked up a few bits.
Oh, yeah? Trying to sneak them past me, were you?
Well, there's not much chance of that, is there?
Oh! Ooh!
These'll do.
Come on, love, there's 4g of gold there.
So what am I worth, then, in grammes of gold?
Go on, then! Go on!
I'll bring you out a sandwich.
That's all right - I'll come in in a bit.
Careful out there, John!
Don't you go burning down the house.
You forget it was a working river.
It's the biggest undeveloped area in Central London.
Hiding in plain sight.
I've got a contact...
..at the development agency.
We buy up all the wharfs.
We have them rezoned...
..and we build a new London right here.
What do you need?
Proper money for proper reward, Mr Cooper.
Let me see what I can do.
DOOR OPENS
Your suspect.
Eye was a nice touch.
You suffered for your art, didn't you, Robert?
I'm from Rotherhithe.
You lot don't scare me.
And you won't verbal me into admitting something I ain't done.
Whereabouts in Rotherhithe?
Silwood Estate.
Oh, lovely, you've got gardens there.
They're paved.
Still gardens, mate - kingdom of the blind and all that.
How'd they get ya?
What did they have?
I'd like a lawyer.
Do you associate with any known criminals?
No. Married?
Yeah. To?
Carol. Maiden name?
That's the kind of thing we check.
Robinson.
Are you a member of any other...? Surely not.
Surely you're not married to Brian Robinson's sister?
You ain't the only one from Rotherhithe, Robert.
We didn't have a garden.
How did that work, then, Robert?
You got the job at Brink's-Mat, and suddenly Robinson's your best pal.
A few nights at the pub, a bit of warming up,
then the questions started.
I want a lawyer.
There is a clock, Robert,
and it's ticking.
And every time it ticks, this thing you're in gets worse.
It's bad already.
But it gets worse.
You can stop the clock. Stop the ticking.
Just tell us what you've done.
Tell us about you and Brian Robinson.
I want a lawyer.
I didn't want this job, Robert.
But you don't turn down a promotion.
And apparently this is a promotion.
I didn't want this job because of people like you.
I've seen you before...
..100 times.
And it becomes slightly dispiriting sitting in rooms like this
with people like you - stupid people, Robert.
Stupid, greedy people who get promised the world
and always end up the same.
Skint, scared and looking at me.
I've got nothing to say about Robinson.
I don't care about Robinson. He's mid-level.
He'd only be on the job for getting you.
I want to know whose job it was.
I ain't telling you nothing.
Oh, no, you don't have to.
Just you sit there while I think.
Armed robbery, six men,
bit of planning, but not enough.
I want to say Jimmy Wood, but that's the North London in me
and he wouldn't recruit south of the river.
There's the Knight Brothers, but they always work alone.
There's Frankie Maple,
but he's hiding out in Morocco after the Bank of America job.
There's Billy Green, but last I heard he'd seen the light
and was running a tea shop in Whitstable.
Can you imagine, Robert? This country used to win wars.
Now Billy Green's running a tea shop in Whitstable!
But, look, let's not get fancy -
it's Rotherhithe, it's armed robbery.
Why look past Micky McAvoy?
Yeah, it's McAvoy. I didn't say anything.
We'll keep you here for as long as you're useful.
Then it's the Scrubs, where their mates are.
So you'd best just stay useful.
I want a lawyer.
And they'll offer to get you one, the people that put you here,
but don't let them.
Pay for one yourself.
One you can trust.
Then you can start getting out of this.
Don't name the suspects on the search warrants,
and type them up yourself.
We're in?
No overtime, no drinking at lunchtime and no Freemasonry.
Thank you, sir. Book him in.
Shame about the drinking.
Oh!
Never mind.
Ready?
You're leaning back! Get over the front foot.
No, no, no!
The power comes from the back foot.
Look, here.
Like this.
Right, there.
Boom, boom!
Pivot from the rear, hm?
That's much better!
OK?
Right.
Oh, nearly!
I'll pivot you from the rear!
AL HUMS A JOLLY TUNE
Family's well?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, they're all good, thanks, Al.
Yeah. How are you?
You see it all, John.
You see it all.
Bit rough and ready.
Yeah, it's been bashed about a bit.
Chop what you need off the price.
With the Heathrow business, there's room for chopping.
It's up 20% now.
Huh!
Wow, is it really?
It's good news for you. Yeah.
Yeah, I suppose so. Yeah. QUIETLY: Yeah.
Don't make a mess.
Where is he, Jackie? Where's Micky?
Say hello from me if you find him.
He forgets he's got a wife.
Such a beautiful house.
Thank you, Mary.
Anything for my girl.
Edwyn is having a driveway put in. From the front, off the other road.
Really?
Nicer approach.
Over the lawn?
Well, there's plenty of it.
Oh, I wouldn't do that.
A nicer approach.
It's one of the things that attracted me, the lawn.
You can't go...chopping it up. We're hardly...
It's one of the reasons I bought it.
No. We shan't do that.
I'll get another bottle, shall I?
Uh, French this time, Edwyn, please.
I find your new world stuff a little...
..gauche.
LINE RINGS
Yeah? There must be something in the water in Sheffield.
He's blind as a bat.
And there was you getting all worried.
Look, it's not hard to shift a bar, Kenny.
But what you're talking about, that is...
That's a different level.
You'd need a team to do it, you'll need paperwork for every staging,
you need a lot of people looking the other way.
Yeah, well, gold tends to make people look anywhere you tell them to, John.
And there's no point doing it
if you can't clean what comes out the other side.
That's not money you can just hide under your bed.
Yeah, that's true.
And those people you talked about,
the ones that come from something.
The ones that run this bloody country. What about 'em?
We're going to need one of them.
Well, that was fun.
Your father gave us this life,
all my salary does is maintain it. I'm a bloody caretaker.
Not many caretakers live like this.
No, we're going to sell this house, pay back your father,
buy somewhere bigger, and if I want to build a bloody roundabout
in my garden then I shall do so.
Oh, really? And how might we do that?
With my little hobby.
Tennis is a hobby, Edwyn.
Flipping property like a barrow boy is something else entirely.
I don't know why you bother. You've made it.
Took you three wives to get here, but you made it all the same.
Call my property interests what you will, but...
..I have quite the opportunity.
I just require a little seed money,
and I thought perhaps...
..we could take it out of the trust fund.
Will that stop you from throttling him?
For now.
Very well.
As long as it's not more than 100,000.
Sorry?
He has to countersign any withdrawal above that.
And I'm not sure that's a conversation you would savour.
No, I shouldn't think it would be.
I'm sure, though, if you told him about the investment...
I mean, he'd be all over it, of course. Too much time on his hands.
No, no, forget it.
I'll seek an alternative solution.
Really? What alternative solution might you have?
Let's not rule out the throttling.
Mwah.
How do you shift three tonnes of gold?
Hmm.
Slowly.
What happens if they manage it?
Then it's gone.
And we're back to rewriting reports.
Exactly.
All Boyce wants is to grab the robbers and roll 'em for the gold.
Well, what's wrong with that?
Well, if they didn't know the gold was there,
they won't have known what to do with it.
Other people will.
And then some other people will know what to do with the money.
What happens when 26 million quid of bent money gets going?
Think of what that could turn into.
This ain't just about six blokes in a van.
HE CHUCKLES
Listen to yourself.
Gold trade and money laundering.
This is South London, mate, everything's about six blokes in a van...
CAR DOOR OPENS
Jesus... Let's go.
Uh, where have you been, sir?
I have been touring the celebrated hostelries of Rotherhithe.
Doing what? Listening.
And?
Early start tomorrow.
ENGINE STARTS
FAINT RADIO CHATTER
Police.
BANG ON DOOR
Run, Micky.
Got him...
POLICE!
Whoa! Ah!
THEY PANT
Who's that, then?
John Fordham.
He'll be heading up surveillance.
Your fitness is unacceptable, Brightwell.
What? I was just waiting on my second wind, sir.
Yeah. Join me at lunchtime tomorrow. That'd be lovely, sir.
Yeah, we'll run four miles a day to start then build it up from there.
For fuck's sake.
SHE CHUCKLES
I'm afraid I've come up empty.
Oh, well, not to worry.
I reckon I might have found us another option.
Well, go on.
Well, I thought we might discuss it over a spot of lunch.
Lunch?
Yeah, I mean, that's what people like you like to do, isn't it? Lunch?
But not with people like you.
Funny.
Yeah, very funny, Mr Cooper.
Come to my club.
That would be nice.
And wear a jacket.
I'll do me best.
This one.
Well, that's you dead then, Robert.
That's enough.
This one.
Argh!
IDENTITY PARADE CLAMOURS
Mr Wright requires police protection, a new identity
and plastic surgery. What do you want, a pair of tits?
You heard what he said!
Grow a beard if you can and you'll get a flat in Margate till the trial.
Margate?!
What's wrong with Margate?
I thought this was a private meeting...
..and that's not what I meant by a jacket.
This is Kenneth Noye, Mr Cooper.
We have a mutual friend.
Mutual friends from South London tend to elicit conversations
best suited to my office.
Well, this felt more appropriate, Mr Cooper.
I was taught to be cautious.
Now, I represent a group of businessmen...
..who have a lot of money that needs to be made respectable,
and Gordon and I's mutual friend suggested that that might be
something that you...could handle.
There's one very large amount of money that I know of.
That we all know of, that we couldn't fail to know of.
That'll be looking for somewhere to go.
You've been misinformed, Mr Noye.
I'm a solicitor.
Nothing more.
Mr Cooper, I understand that you are an important man in your world,
but...I represent important men in another world.
Men who are from the streets.
And when they make a generous offer - 10% -
for just a little bit of guidance...
..it's not an offer that you take lightly.
I'm afraid you've fallen for an illusion.
It is an illusion I created as a child
when I entered a world far from my own,
and one I have finessed ever since.
You see, when you talk so menacingly of those streets from whence you came,
the problem you have is
I'm from those fucking streets.
So let us talk with the shared honesty of hoi polloi, shall we?
This is Brink's-Mat.
And because it's Brink's-Mat, and all that comes with it...
..I shall take 25% to clean it through Swiss bank accounts...
..set up dummy companies here to receive the remainder.
With a fair wind...
..I can handle a million a week.
Tell Gordon when you're ready to start, OK?
OK, Mr Cooper.
You're Boyce, ain't ya? That's right.
You think because you turned some IRA you can turn me.
No, because those people have a cause.
I don't agree with what they do with it, but they have a cause.
Nicking money and trying not to get caught doing it is not a cause.
I can't turn you because there's nothing to turn you from.
All I can do is send you to prison,
and all you can do is decide how long you want to be in there.
You won't get nothing from me.
I need four more names and I need the gold.
And if it's gone, we want to know where.
We'll have those names and all.
I know you.
You're Billy Jennings' girl.
Who's fencing it for you, Micky?
And where's the money going after?
Billy Jennings' girl, a bloody copper.
It's DI Jennings. Well, he must be disappointed in you.
I don't give a fuck. Ooh.
25 years, Micky, with the guns.
You know that.
Four names...
..and the gold.
I'll never give you any names.
And I'll never give you anything that's not mine to give.
And what's gone is gone.
OK.
Low security.
Not that low.
But not the Scrubs.
I'll have a think, Mr Boyce.
Time isn't something we have...
..but neither do you.
Your power is on the street, and the longer you're off the street,
the less power you have.
If you want that gold to help you, Micky,
you need us to get there first.
We want to chase the money, sir.
It's proceeds of crime, no matter how clean they get it.
And it's only going to get bigger.
Crime is crime and I don't think we should only ever nick people
that talk like me. I just don't think that's right.
I agree.
I'm not interested in gold, that's cops and robbers.
But money like that will end up a long way from South London,
in surprising places with surprising people.
And we don't get many chances to nick those people,
because there are systems in this country that stop us doing so.
I'm interested in nicking those people
and I'm interested in beating those systems.
So if we could chase the money then I'd be right there beside you,
but if we've got the gold,
then there's nothing to chase.
Jennings.
I nicked him once, your father.
It's not a problem, sir.
They look for weak links.
When you nicked him, did he talk?
He's not a weak link.
Neither am I.
SIREN WAILS
PHONE LINE RINGS
Yeah?
It's Micky.
I hear you've gone on holiday.
It's over.
I've given up what's mine.
I do a lot of reading, Micky.
About England...
..about the way it was.
And the funny thing is, right, this country,
it wasn't always like this.
There wasn't always kings and queens.
Because sometimes, for whatever reason,
one of our lot got on top for a while...
..and found themselves in charge.
But it never lasted long.
Because, you see, when they got there, they'd panic.
They'd think, "Hold on...
"..this ain't me, this ain't natural...
SHUTTERS OPEN
"..I ain't no king."
And they took off the crown,
and they gave it back.
Well, that ain't me, Micky.
I hope you haven't taken it, Kenny.
I really hope you haven't done that.
I haven't taken it, Micky.
It weren't mine to take.
But gold like that...
..you can't control it.
No-one can.
And if YOU can't handle it,
then it will find its way to someone who can.
And I can handle it, Micky.
I'm ready.
I can be a king.
MUSIC: Never Stop (Discotheque) by Echo & The Bunnymen
# Good God, you said
# Is that the only thing you care about
# Splitting up the money and share it out
# The cake's being eaten straight through the mouth
# Poison
# Poised to come back in season
# For all the ones who lack reason
# Measure by measure, drop by drop
# And pound for pound, we're taking stock... #