Tennison

by Lynda La Plante

  John and Clifford had no way of contacting Silas as he didn’t have a phone in the café and it was too far for a walkie-talkie to work. All they could do was stand and watch impatiently as mourners began to gather around the waiting funeral cars. Nancy Phillips, dressed in a black-lace dress with matching black hat, directed who should go into which car. It all suddenly became too much for her and she broke down in floods of tears. Renee put an arm round Nancy to comfort her and she asked if Renee would accompany her in the Daimler behind the hearse. It was something of a relief for John and Clifford when Renee agreed and said she’d see them at the church.

  Jane was in the incident room with Kath, who had decided to say nothing to her about Bradfield until Operation Hawk was over. Bradfield was in his office, but had lifted the mood by supplying bacon-and-egg rolls as well as teas and coffees. DS Gibbs was briefing the detectives who formed the outside arrest teams. He told them that for now it was a waiting game, but it was more than likely that the arrests would be made tonight and they would be called into position when the time was right.

  ‘DCI Bradfield will be making the arrests inside the vault with a couple of you as backup. Team One will take out Clifford Bentley on the car-park rooftop. It’s likely he’ll try and sling the walkie-talkie over the top, so if anyone has a good pair of hands stand down at the bottom and try and catch it before it breaks into hundreds of pieces.’

  They all smiled. One of the officers said he played a bit of cricket and would be the catcher.

  ‘Teams Two and Three will cover the back alley in case any of the suspects try and do a runner. The Greek’s a fat bastard so he should be easy to nab, but Danny Mitcham is likely to be quick on his toes and so is John Bentley. You have Bradfield’s authority to use any force required to take them out should they resist arrest, but do not draw a firearm unless absolutely necessary,’ Gibbs said, and placed a map on the wall before continuing.

  ‘These are the positions you will take up when DCI Bradfield tells you to, and you will only move from them as and when he gives the order. Is that clear?’

  They all nodded and Jane could see the excitement on their faces. Even though she was not part of the arrest team she could feel the buzz.

  Kath had a forlorn look on her face as she raised her hand in the air and Gibbs nodded at her.

  ‘I assumed I’d be on the arrest team.’

  ‘Why’s that, Morgan?’

  ‘Well, I did a good job on the Collins murder and . . . ’

  Gibbs smiled, ‘Course you did, Kath, and that’s why DCI Bradfield’s taking you with him as part of his arrest team.’

  Kath’s face lit up. Others in the room were happy for her, but one or two had envious looks on their faces.

  Gibbs had just finished when DC Stanley radioed in about the funeral. Two detectives laughed and made derogatory comments about Eddie and his gran which upset Kath.

  ‘Grandma Phillips must have spent all her savings on her Eddie’s funeral. It’s always the way round here: live a rotten life but get buried in style. I’ve seen processions with horse-drawn hearses and bands, all for a two-bit criminal. Maybe its cathartic tears for a wretched existence, but that kid didn’t deserve to die so young and he was all she had to live for.’

  Gibbs went to Bradfield’s office and he could see from the look on Spence’s face that it wasn’t good news. He explained to him that it seemed the Bentleys, apart from David, were going to Eddie Phillips’ funeral, which meant they wouldn’t be going near the bank, especially if there was the usual piss-up afterwards.

  ‘Christ, that’s all I need! I’ve got a team of officers costing a fortune in overtime and tomorrow the bank holiday will be double pay for them all. A shedload of money and they could end sitting with their thumbs up their backsides watching nothing for God knows how long.’

  ‘There’s still Silas and Danny at the café. They might start work on their own and then the Bentleys join them later.’

  ‘You don’t know that for certain, and if they do start work and get in the vault without the Bentleys, what then!’ Bradfield snapped, infuriated by the situation.

  ‘Do you want a surveillance unit to tail the Bentleys to the funeral?’

  ‘Yes, but tell them to keep their distance behind the procession.’

  The funeral procession turned left out of the garages onto the street and moved off slowly, led by the funeral director who was walking in front of the hearse. The two Daimlers and the mourners in their own cars followed on behind. Stanley and his colleague watched as the cortège travelled along the side of the estate.

  Bradfield went to the incident room and listened to the radio with Gibbs. They heard Stanley telling the surveillance vehicles that the procession was on the move and the targets had got into someone’s car to accompany it. On hearing this Bradfield contacted the two ops down at the bank and asked if there was any movement in the café or any walkie-talkie transmissions, but they both responded with a negative causing him to slam the phone down.

  ‘Listen, guv, should we maybe save a few quid in overtime and stand everyone down for today?’ Gibbs asked.

  Bradfield, deep in thought, said nothing.

  ‘What are you going to tell DCS Metcalf?’ Gibbs asked.

  ‘Nothing. He’ll be that livid over the waste of manpower and money he might pull the plug on us and I’m not going to let that happen, not when I’m this close,’ he said, holding his thumb and index finger an inch apart.

  ‘So what’s the next step?’ Gibbs asked.

  Jane and Kath could see Bradfield’s increasing frustration and the two male detectives present left the room fearing he was about to go ballistic.

  ‘If I knew I’d be taking it, Spence, so stop asking stupid questions! Get down to the op at the old lady’s and await my orders.’

  ‘Are you not going there?’

  Bradfield glared at him, but before he could answer DC Stanley’s voice came over the radio again.

  Victor One to Gold, over.

  ‘Yeah, go ahead,’ Bradfield said.

  There was silence in the room as they waited for an update.

  Stanley sounded subdued. ‘We can’t see the two male targets anywhere, looks like we’ve lost them.’

  Bradfield was fuming and slammed his hand down on the table. ‘How can you bloody well lose them in a funeral procession that’s travelling at a snail’s pace?’

  ‘I don’t know, guv . . . but somehow we did.’

  The office phone rang and Bradfield nodded to Gibbs to answer it as he spoke with Stanley on the radio.

  ‘Well, you’d better find them again and fast.’ He threw the radio mike onto the desk and noticed Gibbs waving a hand trying to get his attention.

  ‘What now?’ he asked in a raised voice.

  ‘It’s the officers at the old lady’s. John Bentley just dropped his dad off at the multistorey.’

  Bradfield slumped down in a chair, shook his head and looked at Gibbs wondering what the hell was going on.

  ‘I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, Spence. This bloody case will be the death of me.’

  ‘You referring to your health or career, guv?’

  ‘Piss off.’

  The officers in the shoe shop confirmed that an angry-looking Silas and Danny had opened the yard gates and let the van in. Knowing all three targets were inside the café, Bradfield actually managed a smile. ‘Looks like it’s game on again, Spence. I can feel it in my gut that we’re going to nail those bastards tonight, so let’s get down there.’

  ‘I take it I’m back in the shitty shoe shop?’ Gibbs asked.

  ‘It’s too risky for you to go in with Clifford watching from the car park. You’re in the old lady’s with me as we can use the back staircase.’

  ‘Should I come with you, guv?’ Kath asked.

  ‘Not just now. Stay here with the arrest teams and you can help Tennison with the indexing. I’ve got to pop back here later this afternoon to deal with something so I’ll ta
ke you with me when I go back down to the op.’

  Jane loved watching Bradfield smile and laugh. She was glad to see he was once again on a high, but at the same time she felt sad that he hadn’t even said a word or really looked at her since she came on duty. However, she knew how busy and distracted he was and tried not to let it bother her.

  Kath noticed the way Jane was looking at Bradfield with smitten eyes, but said nothing. She decided to have another word with Bradfield when he picked her up later.

  Silas was in a real temper, prodding John in the chest with his stubby finger.

  ‘Me an’ Danny are pissed off, you are fuckin’ late and we been workin’ our bollocks off.’

  ‘Listen, we come out of the flats, and there’s only a bloody hearse parked right in front of the garage, we couldn’t believe it, cars lined up for the mourners. We just had to wait until it all moved off before we could get into the van.’

  Silas’s mood changed and he laughed. ‘We’d better get down to work.’

  John crawled into the tunnel and took over from Danny. He’d just started the drilling when Clifford made contact.

  ‘Eh, stop work everyone. He says there’s some kids out the front kicking an effing can around.’

  ‘Shit,’ John snapped.

  Silas waved his hand for them to keep quiet as he went up to the ground floor.

  He opened the café door and stepped out.

  ‘Oi! You two will get a thrashin’ if yer don’t move off! You’re disturbing the peace and quiet – move it . . . PISS OFF.’

  They didn’t need a second warning and were off up the road like a pair of whippets. Silas then went upstairs to his flat to use the toilet and was sitting reading an old newspaper when he thought he heard the toilet from the shoe-shop flat flushing. He finished his business, did up his trousers and stood leaning against the wall listening.

  Hudson who had just used the toilet was heading down the stairs when his concerned partner looked at him and whispered,

  ‘What in the hell were you doing? Bradfield said not to flush the toilets when the targets were in the café! I could bloody hear it in the basement!’

  ‘Well, what you want me to do, leave a floater, for Chrissake?’

  Silas went back down to the cellar. John and Danny were sitting with dust-caked handkerchiefs round their mouths and John was wearing swimming goggles pushed up over his eyebrows.

  ‘Listen, I’m worried as I think I hear a toilet flush next door when I was on de crapper.’

  ‘Shit, that Hebe woman’s not come back, has she?’ Danny wondered.

  ‘Me dad ain’t seen nothing or he’d have said,’ John remarked.

  ‘Her Morris is not in her yard as I check already. Hold off everythin’ while I go take look and see what happening.’

  ‘See if that bloody tailor’s van’s still there as well,’ John said.

  ‘He pain in arse. He honest, hard-working Jew, but sometimes don’t take a day of rest – not even the Jewish Sabbath,’ Silas remarked, raising his hands in the air.

  ‘Get some fish and chips, will ya, Silas, I’m starving,’ Danny said, but John said they couldn’t afford to waste time eating.

  Danny turned angrily to John. ‘Listen, you were late because of that fuckin’ funeral and I’ve been down here an’ I’m starvin’ and I ain’t gonna eat any of that sweet shit Silas got . . . never mind his stinking cans of tuna.’

  Silas cracked his knuckles. ‘Don’t you go callin’ my food shit, them tins are good quality.’

  John sighed. ‘Eh, the pair of you, just calm down and go get us some fish and chips, Silas.’

  No sooner had a tense Bradfield arrived at the surveillance flat when yet again Mannie Charles turned up at the tailor’s shop in his Austin van, this time accompanied by his wife. The couple began to bring out plastic-covered clothing items to stack inside the parked van. Two women were walking together and stopped to look through the shoe-shop window, and it seemed an age before they moved off. All these incidents were relayed by Clifford, each time causing work to cease in the café basement.

  Bradfield was pacing up and down the old lady’s living room, cursing under his breath as she shuffled behind, desperately trying to hand him two buttered scones on a plate. Gibbs took the plate from her and said Mr Bradfield wasn’t hungry but he was and wouldn’t let them go to waste.

  Bradfield watched Silas leave the café, worried that he might have seen or heard Mannie Charles arrive and was going over to speak to him. If Mannie mentioned anything about his and Kath Morgan’s visit the other night it could result in everything going wrong. If they did a runner he didn’t even have arrest teams in place yet. He thought about calling them at the station to take up positions nearby but decided to wait. The officers in the shoe shop were warned Silas was on the move.

  Bradfield watched anxiously as Silas went to the shoe-shop window and pausing briefly looked in whilst shading his eyes with his hands. Silas moved on and Bradfield could feel his blood pressure rising as he got nearer the tailor’s shop. It nearly exploded when Mannie and his wife walked out and stopped to have a chat with Silas. Thankfully it appeared to be a brief hello before they got into the van and drove off.

  The sound of Clifford’s voice came over the radio asking where Silas was going and Danny told him it was to check out the shoe shop and get fish and chips. Clifford said that the tailor had pissed off and he hadn’t seen anything at the shoe shop and told them there was no time for food.

  Silas went into a phone box, picked up the phone book and started to flick through the pages. He then dialled a number and held the door open with his other hand as it was so hot inside. In the shoe shop the officers heard Hebe’s phone ringing. It wasn’t the one they had installed for the observation so they knew not to pick it up and simply let it ring, which it did for almost a minute.

  Silas left the phone box, content that Hebe was not there and he must have been mistaken about the toilet flushing. He continued down the street and turned left entering a fish-and-chip cum kebab shop. The undercover officer tailing him went in behind him and pretended to be looking up at the prices on the illuminated menu positioned above the fryers. Silas ordered a large doner with chilli sauce and two portions of fish and chips. He chatted with his fellow countryman in Greek as he prepared the order. Silas was so engrossed that he didn’t even glance towards the undercover officer. He asked for salt and vinegar on the fish and chips and watched the food being wrapped in paper and placed into a plastic bag. He paid at a till at the end of the counter whilst the undercover officer ordered sausage and chips.

  It was coming up to five thirty when Frank, who was twiddling the dials on the CB radio, indicated that he had picked up something. Bradfield rushed over and pulled the headphone jack out so he could listen on the loudspeaker. Clifford said a woman walking a dog was passing and asked how much longer they would be. John said that due to the number of stoppages they had been forced to make it would be an hour or two after midnight, at the earliest.

  Bradfield was no longer frustrated at having to play the waiting game, and he was glad to hear from the shoe shop that Silas had returned and the drilling had started again. He took Gibbs to one side and spoke quietly.

  ‘I’m popping out for a bit and will be back a little later with Kath Morgan . . . ’

  ‘What’s the secrecy for?’

  ‘If you let me finish I’ll tell you . . . I’m going to get the bank manager, Dunbar, and bring him to the op so he can hear what’s going on for himself.’

  ‘Is that a wise move?’ Gibbs frowned.

  ‘I need him to open the vault when they get in. I’m also concerned there may be someone at the bank giving the Bentleys inside information and if it’s Dunbar the look on his face and reactions on the plot here may well give him away.’

  Unseen by Clifford, Bradfield left the op via the staircase at the rear of the building and got into an unmarked car waiting in a side street. Gibbs, Frank and the other officers pos
itioned in the flat remained, monitoring the radio action and the café.

  Bradfield returned to the station and bumped into Kath on the landing as she was returning from the canteen.

  ‘Tell Tennison I want to see her in my office,’ he said bluntly.

  ‘Why, what’s she done wrong now?’

  ‘Nothing, just go and tell her,’ he said and walked off, but a suspicious Kath followed.

  ‘She’s my friend, not to mention an innocent naive probationer, and some of the team are beginning to notice the infatuated way she looks at you. She doesn’t take her eyes off you, and I’ve seen your little flirty glances to her. They’ll start makin’ jokes about it, the smutty bastards.’

  ‘Leave it out, Morgan. It’s my problem to resolve, not yours. Now do as I asked and tell Tennison to come to my office.’

  Kath wished she could have said that she knew more, but not wanting to betray Jane’s trust she kept her mouth shut and went to find her.

  Jane knocked on Bradfield’s door before going in, anxiously wondering if she was going to be on the arrest team.

  ‘Kath said you wanted to see me.’

  He drew her by her hand into the room and closed the door.

  ‘Listen, I want to have a chat with you. Right now I have to be really on the ball and I need to iron a few things out with you.’

  She smiled and kept hold of his hand.

  ‘You know what went down the other night – it shouldn’t have happened. And I think you should know that as much as I would like it to continue, it has to stop,’ he said, and released her hand.

  ‘Like I said, I have to be totally focused right now and you are a distraction. So I have made a decision. We agree that it was something that shouldn’t have happened and as you’ve done more than eight hours today you can book off duty and have a few days off.’

  ‘I don’t understand. I thought you liked me, and I want to stay on and see this case through.’

  ‘I do like you, Jane, but you really need to get some rest, you look exhausted. Why not get away from the section house? Maybe pop home and spend some time with your family?’

  ‘I would like to remain at the station, at least for tonight, please,’ she said quietly, hardly able to take on board what he was saying.