The Eastcastle Street Job

I caught a staged production of The Ladykillers a few months ago¹.  It wasn’t at all bad, diverging enough from slavish adherence to the screenplay to be interesting and taking sufficient advantage of the relaxation in public morals since the 1950s to be wickedly funny.

Whether this line made it onto the stage or not I can’t recall but aficionados of the film will recall that there is a scene in which the villains try to intimidate the indestructible Mrs Wilberforce by threatening to implicate her as an underworld mastermind:  “I’ll tell ’em she planned the big one, the  Eastcastle Street job.” (Referencing a real 1952 robbery of a Post Office van which resulted in a haul of £287,000.)

Sunday, and I headed off into the West End to the early showing of Your Sister’s Sister, a smart, funny, indie chamber-piece and emerged at about 2pm blinking into broad daylight².  I walked up through Soho to Ramillies Street, popped into the newly relocated Photographers’ Gallery for a browse about an exhibition of Japanese photo-books³, before cutting across the crowded pavements of Oxford Street  and heading off along the parallel, and much quieter, aforementioned Eastcastle Street.

It was at this point that the small Fiat pulled up alongside me and the besuited and beshaded Italian gentleman asked me for directions towards Heathrow Airport in heavily accented English.  Easy enough, I thought, and I obliged by giving him the right bearing for the Marble Arch and points west.  Then the scam began.

He explained that he was employed by Emporio Armani and had been running a fashion show at Harrods⁴.  And, by good fortune, he turned out to have a number of suits and jackets on the back seat of the car and wanted to thank me for my kindness.  Before I knew it I was being offered a feel of the quality of the materials while he explained that I would be doing him a favour by taking them off his hands as he would be charged to take them onto the ‘plane since they exceeded his luggage allowance.   

Two things struck me at this point.  Firstly, that it seemed a little odd that Armani couldn’t stretch to a few extra Euros in travel costs.  Secondly, that the very professional business card that he handed me bore a webmail address. 

 

“How much?” I asked as he made to start putting the things into a bag for me.  “Very little,” was the response, indicated with a Latin shrug and thumb and forefinger pressed closely together.  I shook my head.  “No.”  He took the card back and began rearranging his wears as I stepped off, checking my pockets to see that my wallet and my ‘phone were still present and correct.

I’d assumed that that was the last that I would see of him but a little while later, as I was sitting outside the Marquis of Granby enjoying a pale ale and a sandwich, the Fiat swung slowly around the sharp corner from Rathbone Street, still cruising in search of marks.  I gave him a cheery wave, which he didn’t return.

¹The Ladykillers offers a remarkable view of what Kings Cross and environs looked like in the 50’s and  Martin Underwood’s website provides a thorough analysis of where the scenes were shot.

²There’s something deliciously delinquent about lunchtime showings.  For one thing, they tend to be nearly empty, for another it just doesn’t ever feel right and proper to leave a cinema in bright daylight.

³I like Japan.  Or the idea of it, anyway, since I’ve never yet been there.  To my mind it is possibly the most alien place on the planet with proper plumbing. 

⁴In retrospect, I think that mentioning Armani and Harrods was layering the luxury on with a rather large trowel.