‘Yes, sir, I understand.’
‘Good. A10 will want to take a statement from you, and are you clear about why I wanted to have a private chat with you?’
She nodded, but the truth was she wasn’t exactly sure.
‘You back me up and you back Spencer up about O’Duncie’s aggressive attitude in the bedroom and the car.’
He held up his forefinger and thumb.
‘I’m this close to nailing him, OK?’
She nodded, and he patted his pocket to check for his car keys then walked through the archway towards the front door. She followed and opened it; he towered above her and she was taken aback when he leaned close and kissed her cheek.
‘We all sing from the same song sheet and everything will be fine, so be in early tomorrow.’
She closed the door after him. He smelt of whisky, cigarettes and faint lavender cologne. She replaced the chain lock, turned off the hall light and walked slowly back to her bedroom.
Bradfield got into his blue Ford Zephyr with Gibbs at the wheel.
‘Christ, you took your time.’
‘Yeah well, I had to be careful... met her mother — lovely lady, invited me for Sunday lunch.’
‘Come on, don’t string me out.’
Bradfield patted Gibbs on the shoulder as he started up the engine.
‘She was on her way downstairs with the young girl so didn’t see you smack O’Duncie. I told her you tripped him up as he tried to escape and that’s what she’ll say when the rubber heelers interview her.’
‘Thank Christ for that,’ Gibbs said as they drove off.
Jane lay in her bed mulling over her discussion with Bradfield. Although he had reprimanded her about not finishing counting the money and about the receipt, she knew she had got off lightly because basically what he wanted was for her to lie.
Chapter seventeen
When it had just turned dark John dropped David off on the top level of the newish nine-storey car park in Great Eastern Street and got his wheelchair out the back of the van. He then handed David binoculars and a Shira-WT-106 walkie-talkie.
‘This has been modified by Danny for a greater transmission distance. We already tested ’em and they work fine — we’ll be able to hear each other. Don’t have it up too loud, though, and I don’t want to hear any idle chit-chat.’
‘I know, John, I ain’t stupid.’
‘Yeah well, you only call us if there are any problems like—’
David sighed. ‘The rozzers, passers-by, anyone reacting to any noise coming from the café... you’ve told me loads of times.’
John patted his brother’s cheek. ‘Yeah well, I know what you’re like for forgettin’ things. See ya in the morning.’
No sooner had John left to go to the café than David felt how cold it was due to the wind being more intense at such a height. He was grateful that the car-park barrier walls were low enough for him to be able to sit in his wheelchair and still have a good view of the café, the bank and surrounding streets. Although he had a rug around him for warmth he was soon freezing cold, and he realized he’d best wear some thermal underwear, gloves and a woolly hat in future.
Silas had already opened the café back-yard gates and closed them as soon as John drove in and parked up the van. Danny opened the back doors and he and John started to unload all the equipment which was wrapped in decorators’ sheets: the Acro poles, Kango drills, sledgehammers, wire cutters and two large buckets filled with tins of paint and brushes.
‘Come on, hurry up,’ Silas said, worried that they may be seen.
‘It’d save time if you bloody lifted a finger instead of just standing there watching us,’ John snapped.
Silas cracked his knuckles, lifted a stack of wooden joists and muttered they were too long.
‘For Chrissake, I’ve brought a fuckin’ saw... just get the gear inside.’
Danny glanced over to John. ‘He’s just nervous, John, so lay off him.’
‘All right, all right. David’s in position and I just want to get this stuff down the basement then get started with the job.’
Working through the night from 9 p.m. proved to be a lot tougher than John Bentley and the others had anticipated: breaking through the brick wall was a depressing, arduous and time-consuming exercise. The wall was not one brick in depth but had four individual layers. Using masonry chisels and hammers they painstakingly removed a line of single bricks six feet long into which they inserted wooden joists, supported by Acro poles, to ensure the four-foot-high square hole they’d made through the brickwork wouldn’t collapse in on them. Once this was done they were able to make a start on knocking through the next layer of bricks with heavy-duty hammers and chisels, taking their time so as to make as little noise as possible. As they moved through each layer of bricks they added more wooden supports. Silas had wanted to use the small electric Kango hammer drills, but John said it was safer for now to proceed slowly and use the hammers and chisels, but they would need the Kango to break through the concrete floor of the vault. Again Silas suggested using a small amount of explosive, but John, with Danny backing him up, was totally against it, fearing the shockwave would make too much sound, or worse still, cause the supports to give way.
Between them, Silas, Danny and John worked hard, with only a couple of breaks for tea or water to clear their lungs. As Silas had to open up in the morning, to make everything appear normal, he was allowed to have some sleep during the night in the flat above. John and Danny felt mentally and physically exhausted, and by 4 a.m. they had removed just three layers of bricks. Silas was sleeping when John suggested they stop and clear the bricks out of the café cellar as the sun would be up in just over an hour. Danny agreed, but chiselled out one brick in the fourth layer to see what was on the other side. He shone a torch through the small gap expecting to see the vault’s concrete base, but was surprised to see two thick iron bars a few inches apart. He peered closer, using the torch to illuminate the dark void beyond the bars.
‘Shit, there’s iron security bars, and we’ve miscalculated the length of the fucking vault,’ a disheartened-sounding Danny said.
‘What? Let me see!’ John exclaimed moving forward to look.
He put his hand into the brick hole to feel the thickness of the iron bars and Danny jerked it back almost spraining John’s wrist.
‘Christ, bloody watch it! If they’re on a vibration alarm you could set it off by touching them.’
John took the torch from Danny and soon realized the room on the other side was a dusty basement storage room filled with old filing cabinets, broken furniture and assorted junk.
Danny became jumpy, worried that anyone going down to the bank basement in the day would see the hole. John peered through it and shone the torch to his right. From a distance of a couple of feet he could see the right angle of the wall and more iron bars, behind which was thick concrete with embedded mesh.
He turned to Danny. ‘The concrete base of the vault is about two feet to the right.’
‘So what are you saying... we go through into the bank’s basement and work on the vault base from there?’
‘No, that’s far too risky. We start digging a tunnel from here down under the bank’s basement and then right so we can work upwards under the middle of the vault.’
Danny nodded in agreement. ‘Those iron bars will run at least two further feet into the ground. I can rig an alarm bypass circuit between the bars so we can cut them away.’
‘Do we use an angle grinder?’
‘No, far too noisy. An oxyacetylene torch would melt through the iron bars like butter and with little sound.’