‘We should get the bloke who picked up the radio transmissions on the Lloyds job – he seemed to know what he was doing.’
‘Give him time, he’s just nervous.’
‘We haven’t got it, Spence. If he doesn’t get a result in the next few hours we’ll have to bring in someone else.’
‘Where you gonna get ’em from? This equipment is illegal. Pull your finger out,’ Gibbs said as he patted Frank’s shoulder.
Bradfield straightened his tie, and ran his fingers through his hair. Spencer, taking care of the guv, asked if he had his fags and matches, and he nodded as they left for the office meeting.
Bradfield, followed by Gibbs, walked into the room, where the haze of cigarette smoke now hung like a blue cloud. Those who were sitting stood up, and as one officer started to applaud everyone joined in.
Jane watched in awe as Bradfield laughed and said the applause was a bit premeditated and they would all get a lot more than a few hand-claps if they got the result they were after. He stood at the front of the room with Gibbs and placed a notebook and file down on the table in front of him then pointed to the mug shots of the Bentleys and Daniel Mitcham.
‘You’ll all be pleased to know that DCS Metcalf fully supports Operation Hawk and has given me the green light to proceed.’
There was a cheer and Jane could see the excitement on people’s faces, as well as feel the buzz of anticipation as Bradfield paused briefly before continuing.
‘Sadly there has been no movement today, to or from any of the suspects’ premises. However, that doesn’t mean they’re on to us. On the contrary, after DS Gibbs’s uniform stint last night, I’m certain that the TSB is the target bank to be robbed via a tunnel from Silas Manatos’ café.’
He asked Gibbs to give them a run-down on what he had uncovered when visiting the café under the guise of a decoy burglary at Mannie Charles’ tailor shop.
‘Are we still on for the cut-price suits?’ an officer asked jokingly, causing a ripple of laughter around the room.
Gibbs smiled. ‘I’ll pay for the lot if we get a result on this job.’
Bradfield held his hand up to indicate that he wanted to get back to the serious matters.
‘We know the suspects weren’t at the café last night, but there could be all kinds of reasons for that. It’s unlikely they’ll work during daylight hours, or try to break into the bank vault while it’s open, so fingers crossed there’ll be some action tonight. We now have two good observation points in Great Eastern Street which give us an excellent view of the café and the bank, and the cream of the crop from Scotland Yard’s surveillance unit.’ He nodded at the scruffily dressed officers in jeans and tatty coats leaning against the back wall. He continued, ‘They will be doing the tails and manning those points along with myself, DS Gibbs and a selected few of you. As soon as this meeting is over the new observation points will be manned.’
Jane listened, impressed by Bradfield’s calmness and clarity as he outlined exactly which teams were to be in place, and where.
‘Will we be taking them out tonight, guv?’ a detective asked.
‘Only if we can be sure the targets are actually inside the bank and that is a decision the DCS supports. I appreciate we won’t know for sure from the ops, but we can see the back yard of the café from the rear of the shoe shop, so once they start loading the van with bags or sacks of their spoils we take ’em out then if need be. Given the amount of safety-deposit boxes in the vault it will take more than one run to load the spoils into their van. When that goes down the arrest team need to be on their guard. Make no bones about it, John Bentley and Danny Mitcham are nasty pieces of work and would take great delight in giving a copper a good kicking. Clifford Bentley may be old but I can assure you he’ll still know how to take care of himself in a stand-up fight.’
‘Truncheons won’t be much use to us then, guv,’ an officer said.
Bradfield gave a cynical smile. ‘Off the record, should any of you come by a spare pickaxe handle that just happened to be lying nearby then defend yourself as you see fit.’
‘The handles are already sorted,’ Gibbs leant over and whispered to him.
Bradfield told them that the DI in charge of the Yard surveillance unit had already given him the teams his officers were to work in, and which observation point or vehicle they would be in.
‘We will work on the Yard’s team radio frequency and I don’t want to hear anyone else but them or me making communication. They’ll be using coded communication, so if our suspects are monitoring police radios they won’t have a clue what’s being spoken about.’
DC Hudson asked how he would know what was being said and Bradfield explained that his CID officers would be paired up to work with the surveillance officers who would explain things, and when it came to making arrests the surveillance officers would not be involved in order to protect their identities.
