John and Danny were doing the brunt of the work as Silas was so unfit and overweight he couldn’t keep up with them, and kept moaning that he didn’t feel well and needed to lie down for a bit. John had commented to Danny, out of Silas’s earshot, that the fat git would be doing them all a favour if he dropped dead from a heart attack and then they’d each get a bigger cut of the money and goods in the deposit boxes. John was having a break for some water when he thought he heard something coming from the radio. It had been difficult to hear due to the racket of the machinery.
Danny emerged from the tunnel and pulled the handkerchief from his face as John pressed the speak button on the walkie-talkie.
‘Are you callin’ us, Dad? Is everything OK?’
‘No it’s not, I’m fuckin’ freezin’ up here. How much longer before you’re in?’ Clifford asked, finishing the hip flask of brandy he’d brought with him.
‘We’re working hard, but it won’t be tonight.’
‘Then down tools and come and get me,’ Clifford said.
‘We’re taking a break, but we’re not ready to leave yet. Give us another hour or so.’
‘Shit, don’t do anything, don’t make an effin’ sound. Someone’s just pulled up in a van outside the tailor’s shop,’ Clifford said tensely, at the same time annoyed that he was stuck out in the cold.
Bradfield, stationed at Op Four, was asleep in the armchair and the old lady had gone to bed when Frank picked up some conversation on his CB radio. He gently shook Bradfield’s shoulder and he woke with a start. ‘What you got?’
‘Bit crackly in places, but I heard the tail end clearly and it’s on tape.’
Frank was about to rewind the tape and play it but Bradfield told him not to in case they started a conversation on the walkie-talkie again and he missed recording it. ‘It’s OK, I’ve written it down in shorthand,’ said Frank.
‘John Bentley, Target One, said “It won’t be tonight”, so I assume he was talking to Clifford, Target Two. They still aren’t into the vault.’
‘Was that it?’ Bradfield asked, alert now.
‘No. Target Two said there’s someone in a van pulling up outside the tailor’s shop.’
‘It’ll be fucking Mannie!’ Bradfield exclaimed, and hurried over to the front window.
He could see Mannie under the street light unloading suits from the van and taking them into the shop. ‘Shit, how long’s he been there?’ He turned to the surveillance officer who had earlier played the part of the tramp and was now watching what was happening from the window.
‘Just arrived, sir. I was waiting to see what he did before I disturbed you, but Frank got to you first.’
Frank had removed the headphones so the CB was now on loudspeaker for Bradfield to hear what the suspects were saying. He recognized John Bentley’s voice.
Bradfield was pulling his hair out wondering what the hell Mannie was doing there so late at night. He watched him return to the van for a third time and carry another armful of plastic-covered garments into the shop. When he closed the van’s back doors Bradfield thought he was going to leave, but he went into the shop shutting the door behind him. Bradfield phoned Gibbs.
Seeing the light flashing on the silent phone they had installed in the shoe shop Gibbs answered it and Bradfield updated him on Mannie Charles’s movements.
‘What you going to do?’ Gibbs asked.
‘There’s nothing I can do. If I send anyone over to the front of the shop then Clifford will see them from the rooftop and get suspicious. We’ll just have to sit it out like our targets are. So make sure you don’t make a sound in your op.’
Bradfield sat down in the armchair again and shut his eyes, but he couldn’t sleep. It was the frustration and the underlying fear that the whole job would go wrong and they’d have no result for all their efforts.
It was nearly 2 a.m. by the time Mannie Charles eventually turned off the lights and locked up his premises.
‘The tailor has come out the shop, guv,’ Frank said, and Bradfield got up and went over to the window.
As Bradfield stood back and watched Mannie drive off in his van he heard Clifford and John’s voices over the radio.
Bradfield knew it would still be at least half an hour before John and Danny were on the move as they would have to replace the plasterboard to conceal the hole in the wall and tidy up.
