Tennison (59 page)

Jane was eventually served and ordered a glass of lemonade. After paying for it she thought she’d have a quick look in the snug where people were still singing at the tops of their voices. Jane was surprised to see the pianist was Irene Bentley, but didn’t recognize the woman standing next to her conducting everyone in the sing-along. It was obvious they had both had a good drink and Renee’s straw hat was lopsided and the flower in the band was flopping up and down as she banged the piano keys. The woman next to her had one hand on the piano top to steady herself and her words were slurred; in fact almost everyone in the snug appeared to be rather drunk as they leaned against each other and swayed to the thumping keys on the old piano. Jane noticed the pint glass on the bar counter with ‘Eddie RIP’ and with a jolt of recognition realized it was the wake for Eddie Phillips. She wondered if the woman with Renee at the piano was his grandmother Nancy. She had not intended moving further into the snug bar, but found herself pushed forwards by two men singing loudly and trying to get through the crowd with a round of drinks. The song ended to loud shouts of ‘A big hand for Nancy and Renee’ and applause filled the room as Renee staggered to her feet, took a bow and Nancy hugged her. She saw Renee look in her direction so gave a nod hello but Renee didn’t respond and instead whispered to Nancy.

A young, thuggish-looking man replaced Renee at the piano and began to sing the popular song:

Jane thought Renee hadn’t recognized her and had just turned to leave when she heard a scream and the singing and piano-playing came to an abrupt halt. Turning round Jane saw Nancy pointing towards her. Her face was sweating and red as she elbowed her way towards Jane, and before she knew it the irate woman had made a grab for her shirt and knocked the lemonade glass out of her hand.

‘You got a fuckin’ nerve coming here and spyin’ on us. My grandson’s dead cos you bastards give him a beating.’

The room was silent and people looked at each other wondering what was going on.

‘SHE’S A BLOODY COPPER!’ Nancy hollered as loud as she could.

Jane could see everyone was looking at her and, terrified, she tried to push her way through the men behind her and out of the snug, but they didn’t move. Ma Phillips made another lunge, grabbed Jane’s shoulder, spun her round and spat in her face. Everyone began crowing and screaming and even though the pianist started playing and singing another verse they all began herding around Jane. It was Renee who grabbed Nancy and pulled her away from Jane.

‘That’s enough, the lot o’ ya! Leave ’er alone, Nancy. She’s uniform, not CID filth, and nuffin’ to do with Eddie’s death.’

Unsteady as she was on her feet Renee stepped forward and positioned herself between Nancy and Jane.

‘I know this girl and she’s all right. Leave it to me and I’ll see her out. Go on, get back to yer singing.’

Nancy glared at Jane.

Renee raised her arm to hold Nancy back and spoke calmly. ‘We’re here to show respect to your grandson Eddie. He’d be turning in his grave if you got nicked for belting a copper at his wake.’

Renee waved her hands for everyone to back off, hooked her arm through Jane’s and moved towards the exit to the back yard of the pub. Jane helped her keep her balance.

Once in the rear yard Jane helped Renee sit down by a bench table covered in dirty glasses. She took a tissue out from her bag and wiped Nancy’s spit off her face.

Renee looked at her and shrugged. ‘It was my fault Nancy kicked off. I recognized you first and said you were a copper. I didn’t get a chance to finish telling her you’d helped me out before she erupted. But to be honest, luv, you shouldn’t have come here.’

‘I’m sorry, but my bus broke down and—’

‘Whatever the reason I don’t wanna hear it. You did me a good turn and I figured I owed you one.’

‘I really appreciate what you did in there.’

Renee started to stand up but stumbled back onto the seat.

Jane hesitated but couldn’t stop herself. ‘So how’s your family? I heard your husband was released recently.’

Renee looked up with a squinting half-smile on her face.

‘If John and Clifford could see me now they’d not be best pleased, but family is family, no matter what I got notions about, but . . .’ She tried to straighten her hat. ‘My David’s the only decent one. I take care of him cos the other two are no-good bastards.’

Holding on to the table she pulled herself to her feet and started to return to the snug, but stopped and glared at a woman at an adjacent table. She had long dyed blonde hair and was wearing a silver lamé dress.

‘You slag!’ Renee shouted.

Jane couldn’t believe it: one minute Renee was fine and the next she was screeching in a rage. Unbeknownst to Jane this was the woman Clifford had been having an affair with for years. Renee lurched across the table, picked up a half-finished pint and threw it over the woman, who jumped up and started screaming whilst clutching her soaking-wet hair. Jane watched aghast as Renee threw a punch that missed before toppling forward knocking the woman to the ground. Shouts and cat-calls erupted as the pair of them struggled and punched at each other, and people came out from the snug wondering what on earth the ruckus was about.

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.’

John excitedly slapped Silas on the back and picked up the walkie-talkie.

‘We’re back in business! The torch is slicing through the steel like butter and will take about two hours, then we’re in.’

‘Good,’ Clifford replied bluntly.

Bradfield had an excited grin and a ‘told you so’ look on his face as he checked his watch and looked at Dunbar who, having heard what John Bentley said to his father, was sitting with his head in his hands feeling sorry for himself. If the suspects were breaking through into the vault that night it would only be a matter of hours now before Operation Hawk went into overdrive. Bradfield called the incident room and the arrest teams were relieved and excited by the news. He told them to go the station yard at City Road Police Station and wait there until further instructions.