Mason and Bevan had settled into the kitchen because there were three exits from the room. An internal door led into the hallway, a double patio door led into the large enclosed back garden and a solid wood side door opened onto the side-alley — the most likely entry point for the gang as they’d be shielded from prying eyes. The most important door in this kitchen, however, was the glass patio door which provided clear lines of sight for the team of officers currently hiding in the back garden. It was already unlocked and slightly open, allowing for quick entry. Mason and Bevan’s positions at the breakfast bar were also part of the plan: the second everything kicked off, they had been instructed to put this large, tiled kitchen island between themselves and the gang. They were not there to challenge, or arrest anyone. They were the decoys. Because whilst the gang were focused on frightening ‘Mr and Mrs Yardley’ into complying, the police would be entering via the patio doors behind them.
But for now, Mason and Bevan sipped water and ate sandwiches. ‘So, what happened between you and DS Warr?’ Bevan’s question came out of the blue and Mason instinctively adopted a quizzical expression, as if he didn’t know what she was talking about. ‘You were different when you came back from Oxford,’ Bevan continued. ‘He’d got you on-side. With me, it was the fact that he spoke to me like I was working with him, not for him. He saw what I brought to the table and said that “you’re great at the details, Bevan”. No bullshit. That’s what I like about him. There’s no bullshit.’ Bevan stuffed the last quarter of her sandwich into her mouth, indicating that she had now stopped talking and it was Mason’s turn to speak.
‘We had a difference of opinion.’ Mason swigged from his water bottle to give himself time to choose his words carefully. ‘He was right, I was wrong.’ Then Mason laughed. ‘I know that, because he told me.’ When Mason laughed, deep crow’s feet appeared around his eyes and his pure, unabashed smile turned him from a temporary colleague into a person Bevan felt herself wanting to know so much more about.
Barrowman’s mic screeched into life, drawing everyone’s attention in the marquee. From the church hall, Gifford could hear the reverberating echo of his opening words: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I won’t bore you for long. As most of you will know, the annual charity auction held at the golf club two weeks ago was cut short when Sally and I had to leave unexpectedly. That event raises money for St Barnabas’s special school which Mathew used to attend in Gloucester. But today’s event is not meant as a fundraiser; today is a thank you for always being there for us when we needed you... though of course if you choose to pay £20 for a pint of beer, St Barnabas’s will be most grateful. Most importantly, have fun. We’ve had some dark moments of late, so we all deserve a good day.’
All five target homes sat within a seven-kilometre radius of Ascott-under-Wychwood train station. And all five homes were under surveillance by teams of covert officers. Jack was part of the team based outside the Yardley house.
At the bottom of their back garden, the Yardleys had two hen houses. These were low, grey buildings, around three metres wide and seven metres long. They had no windows and two doors that led into a fenced-off area of grass, roughly the same size as the building itself; and one half-sized door at the back of the hut, used for egg collection whilst the hens were outside. Each building was home to a couple of dozen hens who were given the freedom to roam during the day and locked in at night to protect them from foxes and other carnivorous wildlife.
At this precise moment, the hens were all inside one of the huts, leaving plenty of room for Jack’s team inside the other one. Although there were no windows, David Yardley had given them permission to make holes in the wooden side panels.
From his position inside the hen house, Jack could see Mason and Bevan chatting and laughing in the brightly lit kitchen. He noticed that they each looked genuinely interested in what the other had to say and were happily talking over each other, showing an easiness that normally only came with time. Jack couldn’t help but think that they might make a nice couple, if Mason could ever live up to Bevan’s fastidiously high standards.
At the front of this house, a single police officer watched the feed from the Yardleys’ three external CCTV cameras that sat just beneath the guttering, rotating to cover the whole of the outside of the property.
It was another two hours before Jack, along with the other four covert teams, got the call they had been waiting for.
CCTV at Wychwood train station, and the hidden CCTV cameras mounted in the trees along the B4437 to monitor the unauthorised temporary traffic lights, had all picked up an intriguing sequence of images. Around 1 p.m., a silver Mercedes A-class collected three people, all wearing baseball caps, from the Oxford train. By the time this Mercedes passed the hidden cameras on the B4437, it was accompanied by two riders on a red Ducati Streetfighter V4 with custom-made saddle bags. This was noted, but not flagged as relevant until exactly the same thing happened around 2 p.m. A silver Mercedes A-class collected three people, all wearing baseball caps, off the Worcester train. Again, by the time this Mercedes passed the hidden cameras on the B4437, it was accompanied by two riders, on a red Ducati Streetfighter V4 with custom-made saddle bags. The rider of this second Ducati was very clearly wearing Adidas NMDs with red soles.
It was now 2.37 p.m., and twelve outsiders, sharing four getaway vehicles, were now somewhere inside the monitored zone around all five target homes. Jack suspected that neither Betina nor Alberto would have arrived with the hired hands, they’d more than likely been here for a couple of days already, so they would make the numbers up to fourteen. Jack sent out one final message before ordering radio silence: ‘Assume other gang members are already here. Assume other vehicles will also be used. Take nothing as read. Stay in your teams. Don’t get separated. Good luck.’
No one replied, as per protocol, but, inside the hen house, Jack’s second-in-command, Sergeant McDermott, whispered a repeat of his final words — ‘good luck’ — triggering all other officers to whisper it back. Jack knew that every other team on this operation would have just done the same thing.
Then silence.
The officer watching the feed from the Yardleys’ CCTV cameras reported that all was quiet at the front of the house, and down either side... and Jack had visual on the back.
But if the officer been watching the CCTV from the house next door, he’d have seen four shadows moving slowly forwards, using the extensive foliage as cover. They took their time. They climbed the side fence, under overhanging tree branches, and then slid along the fence, behind the trees, until they reached the side alley of the Yardley house. They were, to all intents and purposes, invisible. The swaying shadows from the branches concealed a set of heavy boots... an arm... a crowbar...
To the left of the kitchen door was a small opaque window twelve inches tall and half as wide. A light came on in this room and the distinctive sound of someone urinating could just be heard. Mason was using the toilet.
Inside the kitchen, Bevan was seated at the breakfast bar neatly folding her empty crisp packet and stuffing it inside the sandwich box. The door to the small toilet opened and Mason emerged, drying his hands on his trousers. In the same split second, the side door burst open and a tall, lean masked man brought a crowbar heavily down on the back of Mason’s head, knocking him out cold. The masked man then raced over to Bevan before she could work out what had happened, grabbed her by the throat and slammed her against the door of the fridge freezer with such force that it rocked back in its alcove.