She dealt with two people who came in to report a couple of minor crimes and an elderly woman who’d lost her purse in the street. An hour and a half passed and Sergeant Harris hadn’t returned. Jane suspected he was probably playing snooker, but she couldn’t leave the front desk unmanned.
She’d just sat back down when a civilian courier arrived with the internal mail, which she signed for and then began to sort out into piles.
Jane noticed that an envelope was addressed to her. Opening it she read that there was a place available at the section house, but if she wanted the room she had to reply within forty-eight hours. She immediately started to fill out her personal details on the residents’ form. Knowing that her parents would be upset she was moving out, Jane decided it would be best to tell them after the wedding. She completed the forms and put them in a return envelope addressed to the section house sergeant at Ede House.
As she sealed the envelope and popped it into the internal mail bag Sergeant Harris finally returned.
‘Why’s all that mail on the desk? You’re supposed to put it in the relevant drawer trays.’
‘I was about to but-’
‘Then get on with it before you go off duty,’ he sneered, deliberately trying to antagonize her.
She knew what he was trying to do but smiled. ‘My pleasure, Sergeant. Sadly there’s nothing for you.’
Having dealt with all the mail she returned to the incident room to get her handbag and personal belongings. As she passed Bradfield’s office she could hear him and Gibbs chatting and wondered if there were any further developments, but she had no intention of hanging about to find out. As she picked up her handbag she noticed the open file Kath had left on the desk. She glanced at the mug shot of Kenneth Boyle and suppressed a shudder. There was something about his almost pretty-boy face, with its wide-apart dark hooded eyes and thin mouth that chilled her. No wonder Kath felt so angry about the short sentence: Boyle definitely deserved a lot longer for the stress and fear he’d inflicted. Flicking the file shut, Jane walked out of the office and headed to the bus stop, feeling depressed by the day’s events.
David Bentley tuned the radio to another channel. David Cassidy’s ‘How Can I Be Sure’ filled the van.
‘Turn that Cassidy wanker off,’ John said.
They were at the rented garage and had just finished attaching the advertising logos to the sides of the van: ‘Home Decorating, Painting and Carpentry’, ‘Professionals at Reasonable Prices’ – all of which could be easily peeled off at any time. The back windows were covered with pictures David had cut out from magazines: tins of paint, paper-pasting boards, paintbrushes and ladders. They had earlier purchased two smaller stolen Kango hammer drills for cash from a dealer in Essex and were now loading them into the van, along with the additional equipment needed for the job. John reversed the loaded van into the garage and locked the heavy metal garage door. David was using his walking stick and had not been very helpful due to his lameness, but John had tried to include him as much as possible.
‘We’ll unload the decorating gear in the back yard of the café tomorrow night when we start. Danny will be there to help carry it down to the basement,’ John said, patting the garage door. They walked back towards their estate, and John put his arm around his brother.
‘Don’t look so worried.’
‘It’s gonna be all right isn’t it, John?’
‘Trust me, Dave, we been working on this for weeks, there’ll be no problems.’
David’s stomach tightened as he recalled his father using the same words when they went to the church to steal the lead and he fell off the roof. He was now terrified of heights, scared of ever going back to prison, knowing as a cripple he’d be vulnerable inside.
John started talking about a movie he wanted to see.
