‘I don’t know, sir, but it’s possible the suspects are in a café that may be close to a bank and they could be attempting to break their way in.’ Jane held up the envelope with the tape and notes.
‘Ashley Brennan recorded the radio conversations and made a number of calls to the police which were ignored. I mean, what if he’s right, we would-’
‘All right, give it here and Spence and I will listen to it. There’s a reel-to-reel player somewhere in the property store, so go and get that out while I look at the nerd’s report.’
Jane tracked down the tape recorder. It was big and heavy so she asked DS Gibbs to help her carry it up the stairs to Bradfield’s office.
‘You missed a good celebration last night. I got so plastered the bastards locked me in an empty cell to sleep it off. Mind you, the state Kath Morgan was in was something else – singing and dancing on the tables.’
Having placed the tape machine on Bradfield’s desk and plugged it in Bradfield asked Jane to get him and Gibbs a coffee and a ham sandwich each. Gibbs said he couldn’t face food yet and a coffee would do, but Bradfield said to get Gibbs a ham sandwich as well. On her return to his office Bradfield was reading the notes Brennan had made.
‘What’s this Ashley bloke like?’
She described him as he sipped his coffee and ate his sandwich, whilst Spencer sat head down and unusually motionless in one of the hard-backed chairs.
‘Sit down, Tennison. You want your sandwich, Spence?’
Gibbs frowned as he lit up a cigarette. ‘I’ll throw up if I eat anything.’
Jane sat down opposite Bradfield. He placed the transcription made by Ashley Brennan in front of him and said he wanted to follow the typed copy against the spoken words on the tape to see if they matched. Jane asked if he’d mind her reading over his shoulder and he said not at all. Standing beside him she lowered her head to read the transcript and noticed again how nice his cologne smelt. He switched on the tape machine. It was turned up very loud and although distorted in some places Jane listened more intently than before and something began to bother her. No one said a word or reacted in any way whilst they listened to the end of the tape.
Bradfield sat back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. ‘What Brennan has typed up seems to fit with all the conversation on the tape. It’s possible something is going down. Did Brennan have any idea of a location?’ he asked Jane.
‘He lives in Hoxton and reckons anywhere within a two-mile radius.’
Gibbs snorted. ‘That’s right next to the bloody City. There’s loads of banks around there, not to mention soddin’ cafés, so it’ll be like looking for a needle in a haystack, Tennison.’
‘Eagle could be a lookout and Brushstroke a decorator or something like that so…’ Jane said hesitantly.
‘The information that it is a bank is not reliable. It could be a pedigree-pet shop for all we know!’ Gibbs muttered.
‘Right, you can go finish your early shift now, Tennison. Let me have a think about the tapes,’ Bradfield said, and sat back to finish his sandwich.
Jane felt disheartened as he didn’t seem that interested. She walked to the door, then hesitated.
‘Should I type up a report?’
‘Yes, you do that.’
As the door closed behind her, Gibbs got up to stretch and said he was still feeling hungover.
‘Sit down, Spence, we need to take another look over this Brennan stuff.’
‘You are joking? He’s a weirdo and there’s nothing in those tapes that rings real alarm bells for me.’
Bradfield lit a cigarette, and inhaled deeply before he continued.
‘There are two possibilities here, Spence. One, Brennan’s telling the truth, the tape is real and something big is going down.’
Gibbs laughed. ‘I know you don’t believe that.’
‘Two, he could be trying it on, faking it to get his name in the papers and make a few quid, sort of like a-’
Gibbs butted in. ‘Well, that sounds more like a nutter to me, Len.’
‘Let me finish, will you? It could be a sort of copycat for the job that went down back in September ’71. It was headline news for months and then some kind of government gagging order was made and it all went quiet.’
‘What “job” you talkin’ about?’
‘You’ve a short memory, Spence. Big robbery – they got away with five hundred grand from a bank in Baker Street.’
‘Shit, wait a minute, you’re talkin’ about that radio ham that heard the robbers and reported it. Yeah, it’s comin’ back now, the hangover was making me brain cells flat-line.’
Bradfield clicked his fingers. ‘It was a Lloyds bank, and I’m thinking the ham guy was called, shit, lemme think, I know, Robert Rankin, Rawlins, no, Rowland – that was his name. The press headlined it as the “Walkie-talkie” bank robbery, you remember it now?’
Gibbs nodded. ‘Yeah yeah, but it’s obvious this kid Ashley Brennan is just trying it on, maybe even got his mates to help fake the tape?’
‘Possible, but we are gonna have to check it all out, because if the tape is for real and we ignore it then we could all look like a bunch of pricks.’
