Lynda La Plante - Civvies

'Dog!'

'I can read, Harry! But I didn't see one when I was here, did you?' Harry shook his head. 'Just a front, cheap bastard,' Dillon said.

They moved further along, past the gates to a wall topped with broken bottle glass set in cement. 'Okay, my old son, how we gonna work it,' Harry said, unslinging the coil of rope from his shoulder. 'This wall's a piece of cake, an' I got a crowbar…'

'Let's just check out for alarms, no ruddy heroics. We've had enough for one day. We just sort the place out.'

Dillon's fear of alarms was unfounded, at least as far as the external windows were concerned. Harry jemmied the catch and the three of them slipped inside. They moved on rubber soles along the aisles, hands cupped around the torch glass so the light was focused into tight beams. The shelves were chock-a-block with Newman's Third World trade. One rack was completely filled with elephants, some without their decorative head-dresses, some in the process of being replaced with beads and coloured glass. At the far end they came to Newman's office, a partitioned structure of wooden panels up to waist height and panes of frosted glass right up to the ceiling.

Harry held up his hand. 'Hang about…' He did a slow sweep with the torch round the edge of the door. 'You see any wires?'

Dillon ran his fingers along the top and down both sides of the door frame. 'I'd say we're okay.'

Harry moved back a pace or two. He switched off his torch and craned upwards, peering through the frosted glass. 'Don't go in,' he warned Dillon. 'See that red dot? We got to find the main electricity circuit. We cross that beam an' all hell breaks loose. I'll go, just stay put.' He flicked on the torch and went off.

Dillon and Cliff hunkered down, backs to the wooden panels.

Down in the basement Harry followed the circuit cables along the wall, which led him eventually to the mains box. He opened the cast-iron cover and propped his torch at an angle to provide illumination. He leaned in, lifting two wires clear with his screwdriver, clippers poised. 'Our Father which art in heaven…'

He snipped. Nothing happened. He isolated two more and snipped again. Still nothing.

'Lovely,' Harry grinned, and carried on pruning.

Hunched against the wall of the office, Cliff shone the torchbeam on his wristwatch. Ten after five. 'It's gonna be daylight soon!' he hissed at Dillon. Drops of moisture filled the air. 'Christ!' Cliff stuck his hand out. 'It's raining…'

Dillon squinted up, his face wet. The sprinklers had come on. The wavering beam of a torch through the racks marked Harry's return. He came up grinning, dead chuffed with himself.

'I clipped every wire, turned off every main switch.'

'Yeah, an' put the sprinklers on.' Dillon got up, rubbing his knees. 'Can we go in now, or not?'

Dillon and Cliff knelt in front of the safe, a squat, old-fashioned green job with a brass handle, their heads close together as they studied the combination dial in the pale wash of light filtering through the windows. Harry was rummaging in the desk, still using the torch to peer into drawers, even though the office was brightening by the minute.

'Try it again… turn it left, left,' Dillon said. Cliff twiddled the dial. 'If we can't open it, we'll blow it. Harry, turn that off, or stop flashin' it around!'

'Hey, look at this -' Harry reached into a drawer, a greedy kid who's discovered a cache of Mars bars. 'It's a 9mm Beretta. Oh very nice… it's got a custom-made silencer.' He checked it was unloaded, clicked the trigger on the empty chamber. 'I'm havin' this…'

'Leave it!' Dillon shot him a fierce look. 'We're not liftin' anythin', we're just lookin' for evidence.'

Cliff twiddled some more, then shook his head, mouth turned down. Dillon took out two small packs of plastic explosive, a wad of putty, and from a separate pocket a detonator with trailing wires. He nudged Cliff aside. 'Get back, lemme stick it.'

Harry rooted, searching for cartridges. Dillon set the charge, attached the detonator wires. 'Get under the desk,' he said to Harry. 'You too, Cliff.'

They took up positions. 'Okay. Here we go.' Dillon scuttled behind an armchair and put his head in the crook of his elbow.

It wasn't a huge bang, more like a heavy door slamming shut in the wind. Short and sweet. They waited till the puff of grey smoke had cleared and had a peek.

'Beautiful, Frank,' breathed Cliff. 'Neat as a whistle. That Jimmy's gear?'

Colin half-turned in the driver's seat, speaking out of the corner of his mouth. 'I sorted it personally, Mr Newman. The van's crushed, you could carry it in a holdall.'

At his ease, Newman sat in the back of the Jaguar Sovereign, gloved hands lightly clasped, resting in his lap. The car moved along the dingy street, passing a few parked vehicles; it stopped in the middle of the road and backed up. Newman operated the window and leaned his head out into the chill morning air. 'That's Dillon, isn't it?'

Colin went round to the Jag's boot, took out a short crowbar, walked across and broke the Granada's windscreen. He smashed the rear window and was about to start on the side windows when Newman said curtly, 'That's enough.'

Colin returned to the car. Newman leaned forward, rapped him on the shoulder. 'Let's go, they gotta be close… get some back-up round fast!' The car sped off.

'Take a look at what we got here!' Dillon slid open a deep metal tray, packed to the brim with small brown envelopes. He picked one up and tossed it to Cliff. 'The lazy so-an'-so's didn't even take it out of the wage packets.'

Cliff unzipped his windcheater and took out a foldaway bag. He batted it into shape and he and Dillon started scooping wage packets into it. Newman must have stashed the rest of the money elsewhere, Dillon thought, because this was only a fraction of the stolen payroll. But that didn't matter. The fact that Newman had some of the laundry wage packets in his possession was the real clincher. Let the slippery bastard try to wriggle out of this one!

Harry's eagle eye had lighted on a metal box, and his itchy fingers were in there quick as a shithouse rat. He rattled it and prised it open with his thumbnail. All shapes and sizes, several different hues, the heaped diamonds sparkled in brilliant profusion. Harry hissed in a breath between his teeth.

'No, put them back! I mean it, Harry, put the box back,' Dillon ordered sternly. 'You're worse than a ruddy kid! Do as I say – just get the evidence.'

'Okay Sherlock!' Harry obeyed, though his heart was weeping.

The floor in the main warehouse was awash. Coat collars up around their ears against the sprinkler jets, the three of them legged it for the main entrance. Dillon slid back the bolts, eased the door open a fraction, then quickly slammed it shut.

'Newman's outside. He's out there!'

Cliff did a sliding turn, feet slithering on the wet floor. 'We go the back way across the roof!'

They set off down the central aisle, heading for the fire exit door. Newman and Colin burst in. As he ran, Dillon grabbed one of the racks and brought it crashing down behind them. Harry and Cliff got the general idea and did likewise, bringing shelves of elephants, brass trays, fertility totems, candlesticks, temple bells and earthenware pots tumbling down.

'Dillon – wait!' Newman ran forward, kicking an elephant out of the way. 'Dillon!' He stepped on a tray and went skidding into one of the racks, bringing the whole lot down.

Colin came panting back. 'The roof – they're goin' to try and cross by the roof, the crazy bastards. It won't hold their weight…'

Limping and cursing, Newman followed Colin into the yard. They stared up in the grey light to the three figures running as nimbly as cats along the apex of the old warehouse roof, crumbling yellow brick supporting a slanting metal-framed structure of skylights. They were balanced on a lead strip no more than six inches wide, sloping glass either side, so that a single slip could be fatal. Dillon, bringing up the rear, yelled down, 'I warned you to stay off my back, you bastard!' He hoisted the bag high. 'I got the wages, an' I'll have you, Newman!'