Lynda Plante - Tennison

‘I’ve just heard a man’s voice. Sounded like he had a bad cold, and it was hard to make out what he was saying but I think he was telling someone how to use a two-way radio.’

‘Did you record it?’ Frank asked.

‘I didn’t know how to work the thing,’ she replied in a worried voice and passed back the headphones.

Frank twisted the dials back and forth and one of the sound-indicator arrows began to swing from left to right.

‘Nope, I just got static. Maybe something or nothing, so best we keep it between us as I left my post and it wasn’t recorded.’

Uneasily Jane agreed.

To appease David, who was acting like a petulant child, John had told him to show their dad how to work the walkie-talkie, little realizing they’d been overheard. With a temperature of 102 and a fever so bad he couldn’t get out of bed there was no way David could be lookout that night. Clifford joined John in the kitchen and they sat down to enjoy a saveloy-and-chip tea.

‘You gonna be OK? Did he show you how to use it?’ John asked.

‘Yeah, it’s not a brain teaser, and to be honest the way he is tonight he’d be a liability up on the car-park roof. He can hardly sit up, let alone stand. He’s that fucking sick you’d hear him coughing a mile away.’

John put his arm around his father and hugged him tightly.

‘Well, he is, and always was, a liability. I gotta be honest, I’m glad you’re looking after our backs. So eat up and we’ll get moving in half an hour.’

The doorbell rang and both men froze, wondering who it was. It rang again and they heard Renee saying she was coming followed by the sound of the front door opening.

John inched the kitchen door open and saw Renee ushering in the local GP. He turned to his dad with gritted teeth.

‘Jesus Christ, she’s only got the fuckin’ doctor in,’ he whispered, and closed the door before continuing. ‘I’m tellin’ you, Dad, she’s a bigger liability than bloody David. I done a drawing, workin’ out how deep and at what angle we hadda dig the tunnel and slung it in me bedroom bin when I’d finished with it. She must have taken it out to have a look as I found it on the kitchen table.’

‘Don’t worry, son. She’s that thick she won’t have a clue what your drawing means.’

Clifford then opened the door and went to David’s room.

‘Is he all right, Doc?’ he asked.

John could hear the doctor saying that it wasn’t pneumonia, but a severe bronchial infection, and David should stay in bed for a couple of days. He wrote out a prescription for some antibiotics and Renee thanked him for coming, before showing him out.

‘I’m going out to get David’s prescription,’ she said, taking her coat down from the hall stand. Clifford shrugged, indifferent, as she picked up her purse.

‘Do you want me to get somethin’ in for your tea?’

‘No, we’ve had ours. And we’re goin’ out to a club,’ Clifford said.

‘But David’s in no fit state to go drinking. You heard what the doc said, didn’t ya?’

‘I meant me and John, you dozy mare. So don’t wait up.’

Renee buttoned up her coat and stared at him accusingly before leaving.

David lay in bed feeling as if his body was on fire. His chest was hurting, as well as his leg and his back, and the headache he had was unbearable. He was annoyed that he wasn’t taking any further part in the robbery for at least two days. But the reality was he knew he was too ill to sit in the cold car park for another night.

John walked in and took the walkie-talkie from David’s bedside drawer. He looked at the profusely sweating face of his brother.

‘We’re off now. You get plenty of rest and take them antibiotics when Mum’s back. We told her we’re off to a club, OK?’

‘I’m sorry, John, but will I lose any of my cut because I can’t go wiv ya?’

‘Course not, you stupid bugger. Family always share, right?’

It was six thirty when Clifford and John left the flat and headed out of the estate to get the van from the lock-up, unaware that their movements were being monitored, and a fleet of surveillance vehicles would be on their tail.

Everything was going smoothly as the surveillance vehicles followed at a distance behind John and Clifford Bentley, who were now in the ‘rung’ van travelling in the direction of Great Eastern Street. Undercover officers were on the number 55 bus tailing Danny Mitcham, who, like the Bentleys, clearly hadn’t got a clue what was going on around him. Bradfield’s hunch about the bell man had been spot on.

Op Three at the shoe shop relayed in code that John and Clifford had just pulled up at the rear of the café and Silas had come out to open the gates, which he had unlocked earlier in anticipation of their arrival.

Five minutes later Danny Mitcham was seen by officers from Op Four, which was the flat belonging to the elderly woman in the derelict building opposite. Mitcham was strolling casually down Great Eastern Street and, stopping in front of the café, he had a quick look around before knocking on the door. As soon as Silas opened it he slipped inside.

Bradfield was still in his office catching up on paperwork, but finding it hard to concentrate as the anticipation of the night ahead ran through his body like adrenalin. He was able to monitor the situation by listening to one of the surveillance radios he had with him, and DS Gibbs was keeping in contact from Op Three by telephone. It was his intention to go to one of the observation points in Great Eastern Street later in the evening.

Gibbs was concerned that the multistorey car park might not be the lookout point for the gang, as John Bentley hadn’t driven in to drop anyone off. Nor had they seen anyone enter with a vehicle to drive up to the top floor, or for that matter even go up on foot. He was about to phone DCI Bradfield when Clifford Bentley was seen exiting the café from the rear. He walked up the alley, across the main road and towards the car park.

‘Fuck off, you stinking bastard,’ Clifford said as he kicked the legs of the drunken tramp lying on some cardboard boxes by the stairwell to the upper floors.

Groaning, the tramp watched Clifford climb up the stairs out of sight before putting his mittened left hand up to his mouth and pressing the transmit button concealed on his wrist, which operated the hidden radio sewn into his coat.

All units from Foxtrot One, Target Two on foot travelling up Charlie Papa with comms device.

OK, received by Silver , DS Gibbs replied, as he watched from the front window of the shoe shop. He could see Clifford climbing up the stairwell, and looking through the binoculars that he was carrying a walkie-talkie. A couple of minutes later Clifford had reached the top floor and was surveying the area.

Gibbs breathed a sigh of relief. He rang Bradfield from the secure line they’d installed in the shoe shop, and updated him.

‘Good job, Spence — I heard it on the surveillance radio but didn’t have a code book in front of me so was having to guess some of what was said. What’s it like in the shoe shop?’

‘Bit of a shithole compared to the old lady’s flat, but of course that’s where you decided you’d like to watch from for some reason,’ Spence said cynically.

‘My rank comes with privileges, Spence, so I get first pickings. Any sounds coming from the café basement yet?’

‘No. An officer’s down there with a listening device, well, a big stethoscope really, so if and when there is any sound we should pick it up. What’s happening about the bank manager? You still gonna speak with him at his home tonight?’

‘No, he might become overanxious and start shooting his mouth off to the staff, or worse, make an appearance at the bank late at night to check it over. How’s your brother-in-law getting on?’