Free Once Upon a Crime by Jimmy Cryans Page A

unconscious in the bar is the one who beat you up as a kid?’ I asked.
    ‘No, Jim, don’t be a mug. Of course that wasn’t the same geezer, I just hate any slag I see wearing a red jacket.’ For Tommy this was a perfectly reasonable explanation. From that moment on I made sure I was never wearing anything remotely red whenever I had a meet with Tommy the Viking, as I christened him that day. From then on almost anyone enquiring about Tommy would say, ‘Seen the Viking?’ I know that Tommy secretly enjoyed being referred to in this way and it was quite appropriate as he really was a throwback to the days of the mad fucking Vikings.
    There are a hundred stories I could tell you about Tommy, some of them very funny, because he truly was a funny guy – he just had these moments when it was best to give him some distance. But there was another side to him and that was he had a genius for jewellery shops and how to rob them. He knew every jeweller’s shop from London to Bristol and he taught me the art of robbing them. He started right at the beginning, showing me how to palm rings, before finally showing the professional way to carry out a hold-up. It was quite an education and I was like a sponge soaking up all the knowledge.
    The year 1975 was proving to be a good one for my family. We had settled into our new home, I was earning good money with my various bits and pieces, and I hadn’t had as much as a sniff from the law. I was driving a Volkswagen Beetle that was very reliable and did not attract too much attention. It was my policy even then to try and stay under the radar but if I am honest there were times when I could be just a wee bit flash. I suppose I was influenced by my London pals, who could be very up front. Outside of family and friends they just didn’t seem to give a fuck what anybody thought of them and lived life to the full. They were fiercely loyal and generous to a fault and for a young guy like me they represented exactly how I wanted to live my life.
    As well as spending a lot of time with Tommy the Viking, I was seeing a lot more of John Renaldi. We had always been close but now we were like brothers and I loved being in his company. John is a very special guy and of all the characters I have met and gotten to know over the years, there is no one who comes close to him.
    But it was probably also around this time that a few cracks were beginning to appear in my relationship with Christine,if nothing major. We were still very much in love but something had changed and it would be a while before we realised what it was.

Chapter Fourteen
    B y 1976 it was clear that Christine and me were quite simply growing apart. I had met her at 16, when I was still a boy really, and Christine was basically a very hardworking, honest person. The thought of when the next knock on the door would come from the old bill was never far away. I had learned to live with the risk, but it must have been very difficult for Christine who had never had any experience of this. But I suppose it is easy to see the answers in hindsight. I guess it’s called growing up. Or maybe it is just the way life is for most of us, a series of highs and lows interspaced with periods of boredom!
    I had learned well from Tommy the Viking and was now almost exclusively concentrating on jewellers to get my earners. Sometimes I would work on my own if it was just a simple case of swapping a ringer for the real thing and I made a nice few quid stealing diamond rings. My method was fairly easy but it did involve a fair bit of acting on my part and you had to have a good nerve, but this came withmy confidence in my ability and the knowledge that I had picked up from Tommy. What was important in this type of work was that you looked and sounded the part. It was always to my advantage that I not only looked very young but was lucky enough to possess an innocent face. I also had the ability to adopt various accents but would concentrate mainly on a