Tennison

by Lynda La Plante

  As he dragged on his cigarette Jane couldn’t think what was so important and curled her legs beneath her on the big chair.

  Bradfield leaned forward.

  ‘We grilled Terry O’Duncie yesterday and he started to open up a bit, then refused to say anything more until he’d spoken to a solicitor. We’d denied him any contact or a phone call on the grounds we thought he might tip off Dwayne Clark, who it seems has done a runner. He spent the night in the cells but the idiot late-shift duty sergeant forgot to mark up the sheet and tell the night shift he wasn’t allowed any calls.’

  ‘Sergeant Harris was late shift,’ Jane said, trying hard not to sound pleased that Harris had messed up.

  He nodded and told Jane that the ‘cock-up’ by Harris allowed O’Duncie to phone a bent solicitor called Cato Stonex who represented a lot of big drug dealers and got paid large sums of money to help them make up false defences. It transpired that O’Duncie told Stonex that he had been assaulted by DS Gibbs and also alleged that some of his money had been stolen.

  ‘It’s only his word against yours and DS Gibbs’s though?’

  ‘Not quite, Cato Stonex got a doctor in to see O’Duncie, and he diagnosed a recently broken nose. Stonex then went straight round the squat and took statements from a number of people who said that his ruddy nose was fine until we visited him and they heard us threatening him. Worse still is the young girl who was in bed with him says she saw Spence punch O’Duncie for no reason.’

  ‘That can’t be true – I was taking her downstairs,’ Jane said guardedly.

  ‘Exactly and that’s very important. Spence did nothing more than accidentally trip O’Duncie up as he tried to escape, which caused him to stumble and break his nose on the edge of the bedroom door.’

  Bradfield stubbed out the cigarette and looked towards the kitchen area. ‘I wouldn’t mind that whisky now, straight with ice, please.’

  Jane got up and went to the cabinet, still unsure exactly why Bradfield had come to see her. She removed a cut-glass tumbler and poured a good measure of whisky before adding two ice cubes from the fridge.

  ‘Spence and me wanted to interview O’Duncie again today,’ Bradfield said as she handed him his whisky and curled up again in the chair. ‘But his prick of a lawyer Stonex alleged his client had been seriously assaulted and some of his seized money stolen. The rubber heelers are now investigating and wouldn’t let us interview O’Duncie until they spoke with him.’

  ‘Sorry, who are the rubber heelers?’

  ‘A10 department, set up by the Commissioner Sir Robert Mark. So-called because you can’t hear them coming. They’re a group of specially selected officers from uniform and detective branches brought together to investigate and stamp out corruption in the CID. They wanted to know how much money was in O’Duncie’s wardrobe and who counted it, so obviously I had to tell them you did and they wanted to see your paperwork and property-store invoice for the amount.’

  Jane looked worried. ‘There wasn’t any missing, was there?’ she asked nervously.

  ‘That’s the problem: they couldn’t find your list in the investigation files, or a property-store invoice, so I need to know where they are and how much money was there.’

  Jane turned pale. ‘I put the list in the bottom drawer of the desk I was using.’

  He took a deep breath and sighed. ‘OK, that’s fine, but where’s the bloody property-store receipt?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir.’

  ‘What do you mean you don’t know?’

  ‘Sergeant Harris might have it as he put the money in the property-store safe . . . ’

  ‘I bloody well know it’s in the safe because A10 checked and counted it today. They obviously think someone may have nicked some of it after we returned to the station, that’s why they want your list, to check it against the money in the safe.’

  ‘I hadn’t finished counting all the money or checking the serial numbers against Mr Collins’ list, sir. DS Gibbs said I could go home and then Sergeant Harris insisted I cover the front desk. He didn’t come back for over an hour and I totally forgot to ask him for the receipt so he should have it.’

  He took a long sip of the whisky. She was really nervous and could see he was annoyed, but was surprised he didn’t shout at her. Truth was he knew he was partially to blame for not counting the money with Spencer Gibbs at the time or as soon as they returned to the station.

  ‘Harris was off today as well so let’s hope he counted the money and put the receipt somewhere safe, though knowing him I doubt it.’

  Jane felt queasy and unsure what to say. She was worried that if any money was missing she’d be accused of theft and dishonesty.

  ‘Well, it went from bad to worse. O’Duncie also told A10 that DS Gibbs slipped some money into his pocket during the search, which I know for a fact he didn’t. No doubt they think I’m bent as well. What really pisses me off is that O’Duncie actually tried to blackmail us. Anyway, when they interviewed Spence they noticed he had bruised knuckles on his right hand and jumped to the conclusion it was because he thumped O’Duncie. With that and the money allegation they suspended him from duty pending further enquiries.’ He sipped his drink and rattled the ice.

  ‘I’m really sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to cause all this trouble, especially for DS Gibbs and you,’ Jane said, close to tears, fearing her career might be over before she’d even finished her probation.

  He could see how upset she was and spoke softly. ‘Hey, don’t look so worried. A10 can think what they like, it doesn’t scare me. They’ll strut about and ruffle a few feathers, but believe me everything will be OK and Spence will be reinstated. In this job you sometimes learn the hard way; O’Duncie and his solicitor are just trying to muddy the waters and it was me that cut corners, not you.’

  ‘Has he admitted that Julie Ann was at the squat for those missing two weeks?’

  ‘Right now he’s admitted fuck all, but I want the money thing sorted and you to check all the notes for sequential numbers first thing in the morning, then we can get them off to fingerprints branch. If by the luck of God a few match the serial numbers Mr Collins gave us, and we get his or Julie Ann’s dabs on them, then we got Terry O’Duncie in the frame for her murder and A10 off our backs.’

  ‘So is Terry O’Duncie the Big Daddy character?’

  ‘Nope, we got a call from Manchester CID and it appears Joshua Richards is Big Daddy. He was arrested for assault and banged up without bail. He’s a nightmare bastard apparently and probably why everyone is scared to death of him. He might be the guy that got Julie Ann pregnant, or it could be O’Duncie; truth is we will never know. Richards is out of the frame for her murder but I’d say he’s Terry O’Duncie’s supplier and that’s how Julie Ann knew Big Daddy.’

  ‘What about Dwayne Clark?’

  ‘He’s the sidekick runner for Richards and O’Duncie admits knowing him. He’s gone into hiding and so far we can’t break his alibi that he was in Coventry at the time of Julie Ann and Eddie’s deaths.’

  He finished his Scotch and placed the glass down on a small coffee table.

  ‘We need something on O’Duncie to break him so he’ll talk.’

  ‘I hope it’s the money.’

  ‘Yes, but you have to understand that when you are asked to do something you must finish it, whether or not the duty sergeant wants you to cover the front desk. Any problems with Harris you come to me, do you understand?’

  She couldn’t believe he was still letting her stay on the investigation and was worried at one point he might tell her she was suspended.

  ‘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 thum
b.

  ‘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.’

  ‘I’ll nip out and fucking buy one now, shall I?’ John said sarcastically.

  ‘I know where I can get my hands on one today. Might cost a few quid, but I’ll have a few hours’ kip, borrow a van and sort it out for tonight.’

  Before leaving they concealed their handiwork by putting up partially prepainted plasterboards to hide the hole in the café basement wall. They also took out the bricks in large cloth sacks to the yard and covered them with an old tarpaulin, with the intention of dumping them later.

  David had had to continually force himself to keep awake and the effort of staying alert had drained him. With a start he heard the walkie-talkie crackle into life and then heard John say it was ‘time to get up’, which meant that work was ove
r for the night. The lift was broken so he started to walk down to the entrance of the car park, using the wheelchair as a support, but his bad leg was so cold and numb he was in agony. He decided to sit in the wheelchair, but even that had been an effort and caused friction burns on his hands as the slopes required him to slow the wheels so much. He did try using the brake but it was already well worn and not much use. He eventually made it to the ground floor where John was waiting in the van.

  John told him Danny had made his own way home as he folded the chair and put it into the back of the van.

  David got into the passenger seat. ‘Christ, it was cold up there. I was freezing and me leg’s killing me.’

  John rammed the van into first gear. ‘At least you were fucking sitting down all night,’ he snapped. He didn’t even mention the problems they had come across. He was so tired, he hardly said another word for the rest of the journey.

  Arriving early at work, Jane was anxious about what had happened, and felt she’d let Bradfield and Gibbs down. She wanted to have all the money taken from O’Duncie’s squat counted, recorded and checked against Mr Collins’ list by the time DCI Bradfield arrived. She really hoped that some of the serial numbers would match against the money Julie Ann stole from her father.

  Having grabbed herself a coffee she removed her coat, sat down at her desk and opened the drawer where she’d left her half-completed list. With mounting horror she realized it wasn’t there and she frantically searched through every drawer, tray and file in the office but could find no sign of it.

  ‘Oh my God, what am I going to do?’ she said to herself, panic-stricken. She took some deep breaths to calm herself. Perhaps the A10 officers had searched the office and taken her list for their investigation. Maybe they’d even seized the money as evidence.

  Jane ran down the stairs to the property office, only to find it wasn’t open yet. Desperate to know if the money was still in the safe, so she could continue checking it, she went to ask the duty sergeant for his assistance in retrieving and booking it out from the store. To her dismay it was Sergeant Harris who was on a changeover to early shift after his day off. She found him in the cell area checking on the prisoners with a young PC who was handing O’Duncie his breakfast on a cardboard plate, along with a plastic knife and fork. Harris held out a cup of tea in a polystyrene cup.