Lynda Plante - Tennison

Jane was trembling; she had never seen two women fight in her entire life. She took the opportunity to get out fast and headed across the road to the bus stop. She took deep breaths to calm herself, and looking back across the road saw two men pulling Renee and ‘the slag’ apart.

The conductor was sitting on the platform smoking as another 253 bus pulled up behind the broken-down one.

‘Right now, everyone all aboard! If you’ve kept your tickets you can still use ’em,’ he said as he tossed his cigarette butt into the gutter.

Jane didn’t bother to go upstairs this time as it was only a few more stops before Bethnal Green Tube station. She was still shaken and only then realized she’d left her denim jacket in the pub, but there was no way she was going to go back to look for it.

When the conductor approached she showed her warrant card again and he looked at her.

‘Sorry about the delay, officer. I’m surprised you went in the Star and Garter — it’s a real notorious hang-out for East End villains. Lucky you weren’t in uniform or they’d have tossed you out head first.’

He wasn’t to know what had happened, but what he said made Jane feel even more upset. She wanted to be at home with her mum and dad more than she could ever remember.

Bradfield and Kath went to the bank manager’s house in Islington to tell him about what was happening and to ask him to accompany them to the observation point in the old lady’s house. En route Kath had tried to broach the subject of Jane and how distressed she was after her meeting with him. Bradfield had frowned disapprovingly and made it quite clear there was nothing going on and she should keep her nose out of his business. As far as he was concerned the matter was over and done with. Tennison was on a few days’ leave and would return to normal uniform duties on her return.

‘Fine, whatever you say.’

‘Didn’t mean to sound off at you, Kath, but I got a lot on my plate. She’s a sweetheart and I maybe need to make it clear I’m no good for her.’

As hard as it was to bite her tongue and say nothing, Kath valued being present at the arrests in the bank vault too much to say anything further on the matter.

Adrian Dunbar was perplexed and anxious as Bradfield told him that he was to accompany him to an observation address where a team of officers were monitoring an ongoing break-in at the bank.

He paced up and down his living room, shaking his head and refused to accept what he was being told. Bradfield gave him a quick rundown on the events of the last couple of nights.

Dunbar shook his head. ‘It is simply not possible to gain access to the vault like that. The security system is of the highest calibre and if they have got as far as you say the alarm would have gone off by now. I think you are mistaken and overreacting, Chief Inspector.’

‘I’m not prepared to go into all the details here and now, but we believe the suspects have what is known as a “bell man” who is an expert in bypassing even the most sophisticated alarm systems,’ Bradfield said, trying to keep his temper in check.

‘Not the ones in my bank. Since the Baker Street robbery it was designed to be impenetrable, thick metal bars, concrete, steel mesh—’

Bradfield was really impatient. ‘It’s not YOUR bank and neither is what is stored in there. If you want the suspects to get away with it then fine, stay here and don’t help us. But you might find yourself looking for a new job.’

Dunbar walked over to his phone and picked it up, but a suspicious Bradfield put his finger on the button to cut off the dial tone.

‘I need to contact my head of security,’ Dunbar said aggressively.

‘No, Mr Dunbar, there may be someone in your bank who has given inside information to the suspects, so at present only you can know what we are doing.’

He watched Dunbar’s reaction closely. He did look nervous but it was impossible to tell if he was involved or worried about his career. However, there was no way Bradfield was leaving the house without him, or letting him out of his sight, and within the next hour they were at the op with a very subdued Dunbar listening in disbelief to the suspects’ walkie-talkie conversation on Frank’s CB radio.

John Bentley pulled up his goggles and backed out of the tunnel section which they had now widened to make it easier and quicker to remove the debris from the vault’s thick concrete base.

He was covered in cement dust and sweating heavily. Danny and Silas could see he was livid as he grabbed the walkie-talkie from Silas, pressed the transmit button and started to shout at his father.

‘Yet again you and your man inside got the fuckin’ layout wrong! The floor also has a bloody thick sheet of steel plating, not just concrete, so I dunno what the hell we are gonna do now. Are you hearin’ me?’

‘You wouldn’t be in there on the verge of Aladdin’s cave if it weren’t for me, so shut the fuck up and get on with it.’

Danny told John to calm down as he dragged forwards the oxyacetylene cutting equipment which was strapped to a two-wheeled heavy-duty upright trolley.

‘Listen, there’s plenty of gas left in this thing and it will cut through steel just like it did the iron bars.’

John was sceptical, plus it was a very confined space to haul the connecting hoses and two tanks into as they were bigger than a deep-sea diver’s oxygen equipment. Danny said they could take turns in doing the cutting as it would get very hot and would be physically draining.

‘You done all the cutting so far, Danny, and know how to use it. I don’t wanna risk it — you said that stuff is dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing.’

‘Jesus Christ, all right, just bloody calm down, I’ll do it.’

Danny tested the pressure gauges on the two tanks as it would be hard to do so once in the tunnel. He then put on a welding mask and thick leather gloves to protect him from the sparks and molten steel when he began the cutting. Danny sat in the tunnel facing John and Silas as they slowly lowered the trolley with the heavy cutting equipment onto the ground by the tunnel entrance. Danny gripped hold of the trolley handles and dug the heels of his boots into the soil ready to heave it backwards and towards him.

‘Right, when I say go you push like mad, John, and I’ll pull. Stand by... ready... GO.’

John pushed the trolley and Danny pulled with all his strength. It took ten minutes of hard, exhausting effort to eventually get it into position to work on the steel. Danny turned on the oxyacetylene gas, held his lighter to the end of the cutting torch and there was a loud WOOMF as it ignited and the flame burst out of the end, lighting up the tunnel. The flame startled John who scuttled out backwards as quickly as he could.

‘Jesus Christ, you hear that fuckin’ thing go off?’ he asked Silas nervously.

At an angle away from his face Danny held the lit torch to the steel and watched as the metal slowly turned cherry red. Then, as he pressed the oxygen-blast trigger, the reaction produced even greater heat and the flame began to cut through the steel.

‘Is like a bloody big volcano eruption,’ Silas said as he heard the rumbling sound from inside the tunnel and watched the smoke filter out from the entrance hole.

Ten minutes later the noise from inside the tunnel abated and they heard Danny call out.

‘Go see what he wants,’ John said to Silas, as he didn’t want to go inside the tunnel again while Danny was using the cutting torch.

After a few seconds Silas reappeared from the tunnel and gestured with his finger and thumb.

‘He reckon is no that thick, maybe few inches, and couple of hours to cut through. He also wants a big bottle of water as like inferno in there.’