‘Bravo One eyeballed in white decorator’s van, index, Juliet, Whisky, Bravo, One, Seven, Six Charlie. Heading North up Homerton High Street carrying white male passenger unknown.’
Seeing the surveillance cab in his wing mirror the officer driving the van held back.
‘Two Four take over the tail,’ he said over the radio and the cab moved in behind the van.
The surveillance vehicles constantly swapped position behind John Bentley’s van, but always kept a car or two between them wherever possible so as not to be spotted.
In Shoreditch High Street the officer in the van radioed to his colleagues.
‘Target right into Bateman’s Row.’ There was a short pause. ‘Now left into Curtain Road... Two Five take over.’
‘Two Five received,’ the female officer in the cab replied and her colleague driving took up position behind the van.
The female officer continued. ‘Target right into Great Eastern Street and moving slowly... Target now left, left, left into Charlie Papa.’
The other surveillance vehicles knew the code — the target van had gone into the multistorey car park. The surveillance cab parked up nearby. The male and female officer in the back of the cab got out and stood on a nearby corner holding hands, chatting and acting if they were a loving couple out for a stroll.
A few minutes later the target van drove out from the multistorey car park and turned left. From their position the two officers on foot could only see the rear of the van. The female officer got on the radio as she and her colleague dashed back to the cab.
‘Target on move again left out of Charlie Papa, Two Four, you need to follow.’
The surveillance-van driver was parked up nearby and went to move into Great Eastern Street but got stuck behind a learner driver at the junction. By the time he was able to get back onto the main road Bentley’s van was nowhere to be seen, and there were a number of roads he could have turned down.
‘Two Five to Four, target lost,’ he said dejectedly over the radio. Taking a chance he turned down a side road to look for the target vehicle but with no luck.
‘Please tell me you’re joking?’ the now distraught female officer asked over the radio.
‘I’m checking the back streets but no eyeball on target.’
‘Well, you can explain to the boss you screwed up,’ she replied.
‘I knew we should have used more vehicles, and if you two hadn’t got out on foot this wouldn’t have happened.’
The two surveillance vehicles checked every nearby road and narrow lane, but all they found were high brick walls and gated yards that they were unable to see over. Getting out and looking over the walls was not an option. They decided to return to the Pembridge Estate and see if Bentley had driven back there. It never crossed their mind that John Bentley’s passenger had been dropped off as they now assumed his turning into the car park was a deliberate ploy to see if any unmarked police vehicles were following him.
High up in his wheelchair David could see the white van going up and down the alleyways through his binoculars. He was in two minds about making contact with the café, but was worried about John getting mad with him for making unnecessary contact. He was relieved, and presumed the driver was lost, when he saw the van turn onto the main road and drive off up Kingsland Road towards Dalston.
As she waited for the drying cycle to finish, Renee read some of the discarded, out-of-date magazines that were lying around. When the drier stopped a woman offered to help her with the sheets, holding one end whilst she held the other, and together they folded all the bed linen. Renee had already put the other washing into her wheelie, and although the two women had hardly spoken to each other they smiled and both said ‘Goodnight’. By the time Renee got back to Ashburn House her breath was rasping and the wheelie felt heavier than when she had started out. Climbing the stairs to the flat and heaving the wheelie up each floor tired her out, and she had to keep pausing to catch her breath. The flat was in darkness when she let herself in.
Feeling exhausted Renee made herself a cup of tea and had some biscuits, then decided to press on and make up the beds before the boys got back. Whatever time that would be.
She started on David’s bed first. Noticing the mattress was slightly urine-stained in places she decided to turn it over. As she did so she saw newspaper and magazine cuttings hidden beneath it, some of which slid off the divan and onto the floor. Using both hands to balance the mattress on its side she shuffled the rest of the cuttings to the floor with her foot, and heaving some more she eventually succeeded in turning the mattress over. Renee found herself gasping for breath and had to sit down before she could gather the energy to pick up the cuttings. Some were from a travel brochure advertising hotels in Florida, and tucked inside the magazine was an envelope with David’s name and address.
She looked inside the envelope and was surprised to find a passport. Opening it she saw that it was David’s, and looking at his photograph she realized it was at least seven years old. Also in the envelope was a page from a medical journal, giving details about a hospital in New York City that specialized in orthopaedic surgery and treatment for rheumatological conditions. She was unsure what the medical terms meant but underlined was a reference to the hospital performing knee and joint replacements. It made her feel wretched as her poor son must have at one time hoped for an operation to cure his lameness. She sighed. In his dreams maybe, she thought to herself. She placed everything on the bedside cabinet, and set about making up the bed, tucking the cuttings and envelope back under the mattress after she laid the bottom sheet.
Renee noticed that it was almost eight o’clock and realized that she had not had anything substantial to eat since midday. She started to peel some potatoes for the mash and decided she’d cook the liver in gravy, and put on some frozen peas to go with it as well. She spread some newspaper over the table and got a small plastic bowl, tipped in a few potatoes and sat down to peel them. She always used the same small, sharp knife, cutting the skins off finely and methodically. As she did so she thought about David’s cuttings and why he had hidden them. It made her feel depressed as he would never have enough money to get to places like New York, or anywhere in America. David was her favourite son, the handsome one, who had been the most caring and sweet-natured little boy. Now his life was ruined by his awful crippled leg, which was his father’s fault. The tears started to trickle down her cheeks and drop into the dirty, potato-stained water as she thought of poor David’s wasted life. Then she thought about her own life and wept for herself.
It was dark when Jane was woken by a knock on her door. She panicked, thinking she had slept in and was late for the 6 a.m. early shift. She looked at her bedside clock and was relieved to see it was actually only 9 p.m. Opening the door she saw Sarah in the corridor.
‘Hey there, it’s Sarah Redhead, and there’s a DCI Bradfield in the quiet room who wants to speak to you.’
‘Did he say what he wants?’ Jane asked, pulling on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.
‘I’m only the messenger, sweetheart. He just said it was important. The old buzzard Sergeant is on the prowl so you’d better go down. God forbid a man’s caught on our landing.’
Jane hurried down to the quiet room wondering what was so urgent.
‘You wanted to see me?’ she asked as she entered the room and saw Bradfield wearing a white raincoat with the collar turned up.
‘Please, sit down. I need a quick chat with you about some developments regarding what you told us earlier today. I put a surveillance team on John Bentley. He was driving a white decorator’s van that’s not registered in his name, but that might be because he hasn’t informed DVLC he now owns it so that he avoids paying any road tax or parking fines.’