Tennison

by Lynda La Plante

  ‘Dear God, Tennison, this is the men’s floor. You’ve only been here a few hours and already you’re breaking the rules.’

  ‘I was just helping . . .’ She turned to indicate and say DCI Bradfield, but he had disappeared and whether he’d gone into his room or to the toilets she couldn’t tell.

  ‘Un-bloody believable, you’re up to sexual antics and hopping into one of the men’s beds before you’ve even slept a night in your own!’

  ‘Excuse me, Sergeant, he had a severe stomach upset and—’

  ‘Listen, my dear, I have heard every excuse under the sun and this is your first and last warning. Now get your backside onto your own landing sharpish, you should be ashamed of yourself.’

  Jane saw no point in arguing and trudged up the stairs, the sergeant following behind shaking his head like an old grizzly bear as he made sure she went to her room on the third floor. Whether or not Bradfield had made it back to his room safely was not an issue for Jane: she was just angry that after only one day she had already made a very bad impression and no doubt the sergeant would take delight in telling the other residents.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Clifford Bentley’s surprise homecoming party had been arranged by his wife and sons for the afternoon of his release from prison. John had invited all his dad’s old pals round to his mother’s flat and the day before Renee had been to the hairdresser’s for a set and perm. This was followed by a visit to the local butcher’s for sliced ham, chicken legs, sausage rolls and pork pies. Next she went to the fishmonger’s and got some jellied eels, whelks and cockles, while David went to the Co-op to buy bread, cheese slices and an assortment of spreads for the sandwiches, and chocolate finger biscuits.

  The booze had been lugged home in the van by John – large tins of Watneys Party Seven Draught Bitter, a crate of Mackeson Stout, bottles of spirits, and mixers such as tonic water and orange juice. On seeing it all David said it must have cost a fortune. John laughed and said he’d got it at half-price, but David suspected it was nicked to order which is why his brother had got it so cheaply.

  John took a suit and clean shirt for his dad to change into when he collected him from Pentonville. He picked him up in a Mercedes 280 Coupe, complete with chauffeur, supplied by one of his second-hand-car dealer friends, but neither of them spoke about the bank job. Arriving home late that afternoon Clifford was miffed to see that Renee had hung a big ‘Welcome Home Cliffey’ banner over the communal landing wall. David was by the front door to greet his dad.

  ‘Silly bitch, she knows I don’t want it publicized I’m out.’

  ‘She means well, Dad,’ David said.

  ‘Means well? She might as well have put “from prison” in the middle of the bloody banner.’

  The celebrations were in full swing and there was a rowdy crowd spilling out onto the landing outside their flat.

  Renee was all dressed up with her hair in tight permed curls, and was standing in the hallway, but before she could even put her arms around her husband there was a ‘Welcome home’ bellow from his old pals. Clifford Bentley had always been a big cheese, and they treated him as if he was some kind of war hero rather than an old lag just out of prison. He walked right past Renee, without showing her the slightest affection, and joined his mates in the lounge.

  After a few drinks and something to eat John led his father to the privacy of his bedroom to give him an update on the ‘decoration job’ at the café.

  ‘We come across a problem beyond the first brick wall and we’ve ended up breaking through to the bank’s basement, but—’

  ‘Jesus Christ – did you not read my notes properly?’

  ‘Yes of course I bloody did, but they were wrong. However, it’s not a problem and we can work round it.’

  ‘How long is it gonna take?’

  ‘We can’t work during the day – it makes too much racket. But we need to tunnel under the vault and cut through some iron bars—’

  ‘Iron bars! How you gonna cut them?’

  ‘Listen, I know what I’m doin’, Dad. Danny’s getting a knocked-off oxyacetylene torch to cut the bars. It’s nice and quiet, as well as quick.’

  ‘He’s a fucking electrician, not a welder, and they’re dangerous, ain’t they?’

  ‘Danny knows how to handle it – he used them when he was in the Army. We’re goin’ as fast as we can, but we can’t foresee every problem.’

  Clifford shook his head. ‘Jesus Christ, you know I told you that we gotta get in there fast cos some of the fivers in amongst that cash will cease to be legal tender soon.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah I know – but let’s just forget about them and stick to the ones, tens and twenties.’

  Clifford prodded his son in the chest. ‘No bloody way! There could be fuckin’ thousands worth of those fivers.’

  ‘But how we gonna offload ’em all by the beginning of September? I can’t just walk into a bank with a few thousand worth of fivers then open an account or ask for them to be changed for new ones in a shop.’

  Clifford looked at his son knowing he’d made a good point. He screwed up his lips and frowned as he thought to himself.

  ‘Listen, when you divvy up the money after the job, offload the hooky fivers on Silas and Danny. It’ll be ages before they realize, and when they do you play dumb and lie about it, say you had a load as well and you had to burn ’em – yer with me?’

  John nodded with a grin, realizing what a sly old dog his dad was.

  Clifford patted him on the back. ‘Don’t waste any more time – the bloke in the nick who set the job up was a heavy for the Krays and still has some nasty contacts. I don’t want them coming here with baseball bats to beat the shit out of us cos we ain’t done a proper job.’

  John sighed. They had only just begun the job and he knew it was going be at least another two or three nights before they could get to the concrete floor below the vault. Then they had the problem of cutting through that, but he didn’t want to tell his dad yet.

  ‘I’m gonna disappear for a couple of hours . . . she’s waitin’ for me.’

  ‘Christ, Dad! Can’t you wait one night?’

  ‘Listen to me, I been away eight years and I need a shag, so keep yer mother occupied.’

  The drinking was in full swing. Elvis was crooning from the record player and most of the food had already been consumed. They had even sent out for more Watney Sevens, the empty ones stacked in a pyramid shape in the lounge for fun. Renee was in the kitchen clearing leftovers into a bin, plates and glasses stacked up on the sink waiting to be washed. David was leaning against the wall. He felt sorry for his mum. He knew his dad had skived off and she’d got herself all dolled up and spent a lot of time preparing the food for his homecoming, and he hadn’t even bothered to talk to her or ask how she was.

  ‘You don’t have to do all the washing up, Ma. Put the stuff into the new dishwashing machine.’

  ‘Not my good glasses, I don’t trust it. They’re all getting well pissed, and some dirty bugger was sick in the toilet.’

  ‘I’ll go and see if anyone wants any more food,’ David said.

  ‘Thanks, love. I’ll stay put in here washing up. Yer dad’s gone out, hasn’t he?’

  David said nothing.

  Renee frowned. ‘I know he’s gone to that slag – he’ll come back stinkin’ of her. Well, all I can say is she’s welcome to him.’

  ‘I love you, Mum,’ he said quietly and kissed her gently on the cheek.

  She looked up at him and gave a weak smile.

  ‘Yeah, I know you do, son, and a long time ago I suppose I loved your dad. Worn it out of me, he has, but he looks well, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Yeah, he’s been workin’ out at the gym in the nick. He always took good care of himself.’

  ‘But he never took care o’ you,’ she said with a grimace.

  ‘Leave it out, Ma. I’ll bring you a sherry.’

  ‘Get me a stout, it’ll put some iron in me blood.’

&nb
sp; John saw David in the lounge pouring stout into a glass. He leaned in close and said that he had been told by their father they couldn’t waste any more time.

  ‘He’s sayin’ we gotta get the fivers out before they get to be illegal, and he wants the job completed in the next few days.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, John, he only got out this afternoon and already he’s throwin’ his weight around. Let’s just forget about the bloody fivers, they’re too much hassle. Besides, there’ll be loads of deposit boxes with nice jewellery in them.’

  ‘I know, I know, but it’ll take time to fence and sell all the sparklers, and we need the fivers to pay off Silas and Danny.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Dave, with all this new decimal currency shit the old fivers in the vault become worthless unless they’re cashed in or used by September.’

  He shook his head. ‘It seems crazy to rush things, especially for pissin’ five-quid notes that will be useless.’

  ‘Yeah, well, Danny and Silas won’t know what’s in the bags until it’s too late, will they?’

  He paused as it sunk in. ‘You crafty beggar, John.’

  David limped into the kitchen. He’d poured the stout badly and spilt some of the overflowing creamy head down his fingers which he wiped on his trousers as he placed the glass down beside his mother who was washing the cutlery.

  ‘Use the dishwasher, Mum.’

  ‘Never gets between the forks, and there’s a few silver ones from your grandmother. You can’t put silver in the dishwasher.’

  ‘You should sell them, get some money.’

  ‘I might, but I’ve already got a little nest egg. Been saving all my earnings from cleaning for years – yer dad doesn’t know. God forbid he finds it – he’d be straight down the betting shop. I always saved, even my pension. It was always me that bought you boys your Christmas presents, and every time he was banged up I was able to save even more.’

  ‘Listen, I don’t even want to know where you’ve got it, but do you understand all this new decimal currency yet?’

  ‘A bit, but only cos I do the grocery shop. No more half-crowns, threepenny bits, or old pennies. Yer couldn’t buy nothin’ with a penny nowadays.’

  ‘Well, if you’ve got any old fivers stashed you got to change them up or use them soon as they’re gonna be withdrawn come September.’

  ‘No more fivers? You gotta be jokin’, gerraway with you. I got one in me purse right now. Who told you this, David?’

  ‘When I got my benefits the other day the lady there mentioned it,’ he lied.

  She shrugged and began placing the cutlery in a drawer.

  ‘It’s a terrible world, and I think they’re doin’ all these changes to rob us blind. I mean eleven pence for a bloody loaf of bread.’

  David smiled. The record player had stopped so he went to put another LP on. He contemplated putting on Des O’Connor hoping it would encourage the remaining few guests to leave, but he knew how much his mother disliked him so he just replayed the Elvis album.

  Renee didn’t want to go back into the lounge. The smell of cigarettes and cigar smoke always brought on her asthma. She cleared up most of the kitchen and downed her stout before she slipped along the hall to her bedroom. Clifford’s plastic prison bag of belongings was on the floor. It was full of dirty socks and underwear, old denim shirts and jeans, and there were two pairs of old trainers that smelled terrible. She decided she’d do his washing in the morning, and was about to tie the top of the bag in a knot to stop the sweaty odour filling the room when she noticed a small cardboard box. She took it out and opened it to discover a bunch of letters with an elastic band round them. She cautiously looked to the door, and took the packet to the bed, pulling off the elastic band. There were a few letters from the boys, birthday and Christmas cards, and then a considerable amount of pale-blue envelopes. She had rarely, if ever, written to her husband. She never saw the point as she knew his ‘bit on the side’ visited him on a regular basis.

  She opened one that smelt of violets and saw the unfamiliar looped handwriting and immediately knew who it was from. She sighed. To her the slut had always been a disgusting bitch, a woman who had been hanging on by her fingernails. Cloyingly sentimental, the letters were badly spelt outpourings of adoration for Clifford which sickened Renee. She had put up with her husband’s infidelity for many years.

  Before this woman there had been others; she suspected there had even been whores. But the most humiliating discovery had been that some of her friends had been having sex with Clifford. He could never keep his dick in his pants, but now she realized how much she had chosen to ignore his unfaithfulness. She had always told herself that it was because she put her two sons first, but now they were older and mostly taking care of themselves. She had accepted the abuse, anything for a quiet life, but holding the woman’s letters made her feel wretched. She carefully replaced them in the box, then into the plastic bag. Whilst tying it tight she imagined it was Clifford’s neck.

  She stood, arms folded, looking out of the bedroom window and listening to the Elvis song coming from the living room:

  Love me tender,

  Love me true

  All my dreams fulfilled.

  For my darling I love you

  And I always will . . .

  Renee carried the hard-backed chair by her bed over to the wardrobe, opened the door and got up on the chair. She had to stand on her tiptoes to reach for the hat box at the back of the shelf behind the shoeboxes. She eased it out and unsteadily got down before sitting on the chair and opening the lid. She lifted the soft tissue paper and removed the pristine white gloves, followed by the dark navy straw hat which had a yellow rose sewn onto the headband. She had worn it to a wedding twenty years ago, but not since. Now that the hat box was empty she pushed one side of the flat base up from the outside so she could remove the false interior bottom.

  The notes were all ironed flat, and covered the entire secret compartment. She didn’t touch them but stared at the thick neat rows. Some of the money she had discovered in the airing cupboard after Clifford’s arrest. She had lied and intimated that the detectives searching the flat must have nicked it, which her husband and John had accepted. Now Clifford was home she wondered if the money would be safe in the hat box, but she could think of nowhere better to conceal it. She thought about what David had said about the £5 notes and began to sort them out, stacking them on the bedside table one by one.

  Renee returned the other notes to the hat-box compartment, put back the false base, then carefully replaced the hat and gloves and the tissue paper before concealing the hat box once again behind the shoeboxes in the wardrobe. She began to count her £5 notes but stopped abruptly when she heard Clifford shouting for her.

  ‘Eh, where are you at, Renee?’

  She quickly stuffed the notes into her underwear drawer and covered them with stockings and panties.

  ‘Renee, what yer doin’?’ he shouted.

  She stared at her reflection in the dressing-table mirror. ‘Wishing I’d run away,’ she said softly to herself.

  She went to the lounge where Clifford was standing, legs apart, a large tumbler of Scotch in his hand, as he chatted to two friends who were sitting on the sofa drinking port and brandy mixers.

  ‘We’re starvin’ – fry us up something.’

  ‘Where are the boys?’ she asked.

  ‘Takin’ some pals home and then goin’ out to a club.’

  ‘Bacon an’ eggs, sausages and baked beans do?’

  ‘Yeah, and do some of that fried bread, luv, and a pot of tea.’

  Renee gave a smile and walked out. It was almost 9 p.m., and it surprised her that David had gone out clubbing – after all it wasn’t as if he could dance.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  It was almost 10 p.m. by the time John finished fixing the brake on David’s wheelchair and dropped him off at the top of the multistorey car park, as the lift was still broken. David sat in th
e chair, put on some gloves, and wrapped the blanket he’d brought with him around his knees. John handed him the walkie-talkie and a small bottle of whisky.

  ‘Don’t go drinking it all and falling asleep on us. Just take a wee sip if you feel cold.’

  ‘Cold? It gets bloody freezing up here! I’ve had to put on long johns, a vest, two jumpers and a thick coat to try and keep warm.’

  ‘Good, then you won’t need to drink too much of the whisky,’ John said cynically as he closed the rear door of the van.

  ‘God, it stinks of piss up here,’ David said, pulling a face.

  ‘Yeah, the tramps take a slash down on the first floor and the smell travels up the stairwell. You’ll be OK now. Only make contact if you see someone or something suspicious. And don’t use names, all right?’

  ‘Yeah, don’t worry ’bout me, I’m good.’

  John drove down to the exit, turned right and passed the café and the bank before taking a small turning into a narrow lane behind the buildings. He pulled up by the café’s yard, got out and opened a tall double wooden gate, then drove the van inside, parked up and closed the gates. Silas was waiting by the back door. The small yard was piled high with garbage and John noticed a few rats scuttling amongst the bags of waste food.

  ‘Lookout’s in place,’ John said quietly, and went down to the basement followed by Silas.

  Pots of paint, brushes and dust sheets were laid out and the fake painted plasterboard had been removed revealing the hole in the wall. John could see that Danny had dug a hole under the bank’s basement to get access to the bits of the iron bars that were embedded underground, which he had now cut away with the oxyacetylene torch. He told John he had done an electric-circuit test on the bars and they were rigged up to an alarm, but he had managed to bypass it.

  ‘I reckon our best bet is to dig the tunnel wide and deep enough for us to get in and out easily,’ Danny said.

  ‘What about the fat Greek?’ John smiled.

  Danny laughed. ‘Yeah, maybe a bit bigger then, but we’ll need more wood to shore the tunnel up, and we can dig under the other iron security bars on the right-angle wall of the bank’s basement. Once we’re a little way under the vault we drill through the concrete floor. It should be easy street from there on in.’