This script has been lightly edited for clarity.

Jace Lacob: I’m Jace Lacob and you’re listening to MASTERPIECE Studio. 

The 26th of November, 1983 marks both the apex and the end of traditional crime in Britain. When three tons of solid gold bullion were stolen from the Brink’s-Mat warehouse at Heathrow, everything changed — global monetary systems, international banking policies, London’s urban landscape, the Metropolitan Police Force — everything except the strict social hierarchy of 1980s Thatcherite Britain. Upward social mobility might be possible… if you have the means to leave your entire world behind.

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Gordon Parry: We used to come mud larking down here when we were kids. Dig around at low tide.  We’d find teeth, bones, bits of old pottery. One day, we thought we’d go out west, thought we’d have a dig around in the mud in Chelsea. Do you know what we found, Mr. Cooper? (chuckles) Coins.  Jewelry. One lad, he found a silver cigar box. That’s how deep it goes in this city, Mr. Cooper. The divide. It’s in the mud.

By now, you’ve hopefully watched all six episodes of The Gold season 1. You’ve seen the heist, the chase, the gold smelting and money laundering, and the aftermath.  

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Cooper: Thirteen million pounds were sent through British banks to our Swiss account and into front companies, of which there are about 30. I bounced the money between them a bit before, buying out properties. We’d spruce them up and sell them on, send the proceeds to other fronts, to our account in Lichtenstein. In which there is about 28 million pounds or there abouts awaiting its next move.

Brightwell: Well, that’s a million quid more than the gold as well.

Cooper: And it’ll be worth more tomorrow. The Brink’s-Mat gold is the seed money for what could be the greatest criminal fortune in history if you’re not quick.

This story has become as rich as those involved. And in preparation for the second half of the story, as told in Season 2 of The Gold, which will be coming to MASTERPIECE next year, we wanted to wrap up Season 1 with this special postscript bonus episode. In this coda, you’ll hear first from The Gold writer and executive producer Neil Forsyth about a few final details of the real-life story, followed by The Gold star Hugh Bonneville who shares his thoughts on the end of Season 1.

Jace Lacob: The Gold portrays the six villains who rob unit seven as stumbling onto the gold while trying to get the guards to open the vault. However, when you unexpectedly interviewed Micky McAvoy for the final chapter of your book, McAvoy tells you, “A lot of work went into that. Don’t make it look cheap.” Do you believe McAvoy’s story that they were, in fact, after the “two ton of yella” in the lockup, that the gold itself was always the target?

Neil Forsyth: I think they always thought there was going to be an element of gold there. They definitely didn’t think there was going to be three tons. Micky McAvoy told me he thought there was going to be around two. Who knows? What I would say about Micky McAvoy is that he very unexpectedly, as you say, he got in touch and I spoke to him at some length. He’s now sadly passed away. He was the ringleader of the robbery.

And it sounds unusual and unexpected, but I felt that he gave me probably one of the most honest interviews I had because I don’t think he had anything to prove. And I think that a lot of the people I spoke to for Brink’s-Mat and kind of both sides of the law really, and those in between, often had a slight agenda of some nature at least, where they were perhaps wanting to answer criticism or get across their side of the story, or perhaps claim credit for things that they felt they should have had credit for, perhaps slightly overselling their role in various ways. It was interesting to juggle all of that, but I found with Micky McAvoy, a man who knew that he was unwell at the time, who’d been convicted, he’d been sentenced to 25 years. He’d lived a life. I don’t think there was too much guile behind his answers. I think he was answering me very instinctively.

And whether that’s a story and a position that’s become so entrenched in his mind that he was comfortable telling it, or whether it was just completely unvarnished truth, I don’t know. I’ll never know. But I thought it was a really interesting aspect. And the fact that what he said slightly contradicted the take in the show, I’ve got absolutely no problem with, because that is the Brink’s-Mat story. The Brink’s-Mat story is constantly evolving. It’s full of theories. It’s a very slippery thing, the Brink’s-Mat story, almost like the harder you’re trying to grip it, the easier it is to lose it. And I think that’s the thing with Brink’s-Mat, if you’re ever not sure of an opinion, there’s other opinions available. And I think it was just for me trying to pick my way through it. But I was really pleased that I spoke to him, and maybe he would dispute how much gold we suggest the robbers thought was there, but I don’t think he would dispute the idea that we made it cheap. I think we made it look like what it was, which was a moment that kind of shocked Britain.

Jace Lacob: You make a point in your book about the Brink’s-Mat heist that, “…robbery is never a victimless crime.” And that metal dealer, Johnson Matthey, the company that owned the gold, is often wrongly identified as the victim. Who was the ultimate victim then, of the Brink’s-Mat heist?

Neil Forsyth: I guess it would be the insurers and the customers of those insurers who had their premiums put up to cover their losses, I suppose, because the gold was insured. But that is a very technical answer. I think for me, the true victim of the Brink’s-Mat story was John Fordham, who was the policeman who was killed in Kenneth Noye’s garden, something that we do cover, I hope sensitively, in the first opening series of The Gold. So, I think if you ask me the question, then my instinctive answer would be that the victim of the whole story was John Fordham and his family.

MIDROLL – We’ll take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors, and when we return, we’ll be back with The Gold writer and executive producer Neil Forsyth and The Gold star Hugh Bonneville. 

Jace Lacob: And we’re back with The Gold writer and executive producer Neil Forsyth. It’s said that if you bought gold jewellery in Britain since 1984, it is likely to contain traces of the Brink’s-Mat gold. The vast majority of the gold has never been recovered. What do you believe happened to it? Was it ultimately sold back to Johnson Matthey, the gold’s original owner, after being smelted?

Neil Forsyth: Yes, I think if you bought gold that was manufactured as new in jewellery in around probably ‘84 into the early ‘90s, but particularly maybe ‘84 to ‘87, ‘88, I think there’s absolutely no doubt that that gold jewelry will have elements of Brink’s-Mat gold in it. So there’s definitely people in Britain, probably quite elderly now, who are wearing wedding rings that have some Brink’s-Mat gold in them unwittingly.

I’ve got no doubt and certainly Micky McAvoy’s belief, and he knows much more about it than me, he said it all went back in and I think that’s true. I think the Brink’s-Mat gold almost entirely will have been in some criminal manner sold back into the gold marketplace. Johnson Matthey definitely did unwittingly buy back some of their own gold, but they’d be one of hundreds of customers. But yeah, I think the gold came out of the gold marketplace and went back into the gold marketplace. And I think what’s interesting is what then happened with those proceeds.

Jace Lacob: How did the Brink’s-Mat theft ultimately change banking and financial regulations in Britain?

Neil Forsyth: It was specific money laundering laws that came in to counter some of the crimes that came out of the Brink’s-Mat robbery and its aftermath. There was a new pressure and a new awareness of things like the Swiss banking system by the British police and the fact that it had been very much discovered by British criminality, Swiss and Liechtenstein banks. And I think it was just a recognition from the British police that there is a new breed of white collar criminal who, particularly in the early ‘80s, were almost encouraged, perhaps mistakenly by the Thatcherite deregulation and the big boom and to look for new ways to make money and to not worry too much necessarily about morality, that they took that to an extreme example of interacting with traditional British criminals. And there was definitely a feeling that these aren’t a few rotten apples in terms of the white collar establishment in Britain, that there was now a very firm relationship between working class British criminals and white collar opportunists, if you like.

And with that, we wrap up our conversation with Neil Forsyth about the real-life aftermath of The Gold. But before we go, we’re going to switch gears a bit and hear once more from The Gold actor Hugh Bonneville, who plays the stalwart DCI Brian Boyce, about what’s in store for Season 2 of The Gold.

Jace Lacob: Since Episode 1, Boyce and the task force have been chasing the three tons of gold bullion stolen from the Brinks’-Mat warehouse. With a great deal of malice, Kenneth Noye inadvertently reveals he only ever had half of the stolen gold this whole time:

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Kenneth Noye: I’ll be remembered for what I did, Mr Boyce. In my world, at least. Because no one’s ever done anything like that before, have they? One and a half ton of gold just vanished into thin air.  And having you lot run about like clowns, all that chasing, all that digging for something that was never there. Yeah. Yeah. I’ll be remembered for that.

Jace Lacob: To find the rest of the gold, Boyce and his team must start all the way back at the beginning: to six men in a van outside the Brink’s-Mat facility. What did you make of that final reveal, and how does that knowledge — that they’ve only ever been aware of half of the gold— weigh on Boyce?

Hugh Bonneville: I think it’s a wonderful twist at the end, and it’s almost accidental. It’s almost like Noye himself didn’t know that they only had half of it. Well, why would he, because he wasn’t in the van at the beginning. And we catch a glimpse in a moment at the end of Episode 6 where we realized there were two lumps of gold, two packages, and we’ve only been chasing the half of it. And Boyce realizes that during the scene with Noye. And that obviously is the springboard into Season 2 — what happened to the other half of the gold?

And the fact is, it’s gone into the system, it’s gone forever. And it made Boyce, certainly at the end of Episode 6, A, you’ve got this appalling thing that when Kenneth Noye is finally convicted of the gold, he got off on the murder, but he got convicted on the gold, and he says to the jury, I hope you all get cancer. That’s a verbatim quote. And there were subsequent stories which were touched on in Season 2, but he eventually got put away for a murder further on into the decade ahead. But for Boyce, I don’t think it’s a sense of failure, but it’s a sense of, oh my God, we’ve only known half the story and there’s another half to tell. And that’s what really unfolds in Season 2.

Jace Lacob: Thank you so very much for joining me today.

Hugh Bonneville: Thanks Jace. Really good to talk to you. Take care.

Coming up next on MASTERPIECE Studio, join us on December 16th for a special podcast episode celebrating the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth. But before then, On November 23rd, be sure to catch Michael Caine and the late Glenda Jackson as they star in the comedy-drama, The Great Escaper.

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Bernard: Did you happen to see…

Irene: Woah, woah, woah. Hold your horses.

Bernard: What’s wrong?

Irene: Nothing. Only I haven’t got my face on.

Bernard: I’ve seen it without.

Irene: 1973. It’s not happening again.

This film is based on the true story of Bernard Jordan, the 90-year-old British World War II veteran who escaped from his retirement home to attend a 70th anniversary D-Day memorial in France. That’s Sunday, November 23rd at 9 p.m. Eastern, 8 p.m. Central on MASTERPIECE on PBS.