‘Do you want a surveillance unit to tail the Bentleys to the funeral?’
‘Yes, but tell them to keep their distance behind the procession.’
The funeral procession turned left out of the garages onto the street and moved off slowly, led by the funeral director who was walking in front of the hearse. The two Daimlers and the mourners in their own cars followed on behind. Stanley and his colleague watched as the cortège travelled along the side of the estate.
Bradfield went to the incident room and listened to the radio with Gibbs. They heard Stanley telling the surveillance vehicles that the procession was on the move and the targets had got into someone’s car to accompany it. On hearing this Bradfield contacted the two ops down at the bank and asked if there was any movement in the café or any walkie-talkie transmissions, but they both responded with a negative causing him to slam the phone down.
‘Listen, guv, should we maybe save a few quid in overtime and stand everyone down for today?’ Gibbs asked.
Bradfield, deep in thought, said nothing.
‘What are you going to tell DCS Metcalf?’ Gibbs asked.
‘Nothing. He’ll be that livid over the waste of manpower and money he might pull the plug on us and I’m not going to let that happen, not when I’m this close,’ he said, holding his thumb and index finger an inch apart.
‘So what’s the next step?’ Gibbs asked.
Jane and Kath could see Bradfield’s increasing frustration and the two male detectives present left the room fearing he was about to go ballistic.
‘If I knew I’d be taking it, Spence, so stop asking stupid questions! Get down to the op at the old lady’s and await my orders.’
‘Are you not going there?’
Bradfield glared at him, but before he could answer DC Stanley’s voice came over the radio again.
Victor One to Gold, over.
‘Yeah, go ahead,’ Bradfield said.
There was silence in the room as they waited for an update.
Stanley sounded subdued. ‘We can’t see the two male targets anywhere, looks like we’ve lost them.’
Bradfield was fuming and slammed his hand down on the table. ‘How can you bloody well lose them in a funeral procession that’s travelling at a snail’s pace?’
‘I don’t know, guv... but somehow we did.’
The office phone rang and Bradfield nodded to Gibbs to answer it as he spoke with Stanley on the radio.
‘Well, you’d better find them again and fast.’ He threw the radio mike onto the desk and noticed Gibbs waving a hand trying to get his attention.
‘What now?’ he asked in a raised voice.
‘It’s the officers at the old lady’s. John Bentley just dropped his dad off at the multistorey.’
Bradfield slumped down in a chair, shook his head and looked at Gibbs wondering what the hell was going on.
‘I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, Spence. This bloody case will be the death of me.’
‘You referring to your health or career, guv?’
‘Piss off.’
The officers in the shoe shop confirmed that an angry-looking Silas and Danny had opened the yard gates and let the van in. Knowing all three targets were inside the café, Bradfield actually managed a smile. ‘Looks like it’s game on again, Spence. I can feel it in my gut that we’re going to nail those bastards tonight, so let’s get down there.’
‘I take it I’m back in the shitty shoe shop?’ Gibbs asked.
‘It’s too risky for you to go in with Clifford watching from the car park. You’re in the old lady’s with me as we can use the back staircase.’
‘Should I come with you, guv?’ Kath asked.
‘Not just now. Stay here with the arrest teams and you can help Tennison with the indexing. I’ve got to pop back here later this afternoon to deal with something so I’ll take you with me when I go back down to the op.’
Jane loved watching Bradfield smile and laugh. She was glad to see he was once again on a high, but at the same time she felt sad that he hadn’t even said a word or really looked at her since she came on duty. However, she knew how busy and distracted he was and tried not to let it bother her.
Kath noticed the way Jane was looking at Bradfield with smitten eyes, but said nothing. She decided to have another word with Bradfield when he picked her up later.
Silas was in a real temper, prodding John in the chest with his stubby finger.
‘Me an’ Danny are pissed off, you are fuckin’ late and we been workin’ our bollocks off.’
‘Listen, we come out of the flats, and there’s only a bloody hearse parked right in front of the garage, we couldn’t believe it, cars lined up for the mourners. We just had to wait until it all moved off before we could get into the van.’
Silas’s mood changed and he laughed. ‘We’d better get down to work.’
John crawled into the tunnel and took over from Danny. He’d just started the drilling when Clifford made contact.
‘Eh, stop work everyone. He says there’s some kids out the front kicking an effing can around.’
‘Shit,’ John snapped.
Silas waved his hand for them to keep quiet as he went up to the ground floor.
He opened the café door and stepped out.
‘Oi! You two will get a thrashin’ if yer don’t move off! You’re disturbing the peace and quiet — move it... PISS OFF.’
They didn’t need a second warning and were off up the road like a pair of whippets. Silas then went upstairs to his flat to use the toilet and was sitting reading an old newspaper when he thought he heard the toilet from the shoe-shop flat flushing. He finished his business, did up his trousers and stood leaning against the wall listening.
Hudson who had just used the toilet was heading down the stairs when his concerned partner looked at him and whispered,
‘What in the hell were you doing? Bradfield said not to flush the toilets when the targets were in the café! I could bloody hear it in the basement!’
‘Well, what you want me to do, leave a floater, for Chrissake?’
Silas went back down to the cellar. John and Danny were sitting with dust-caked handkerchiefs round their mouths and John was wearing swimming goggles pushed up over his eyebrows.
‘Listen, I’m worried as I think I hear a toilet flush next door when I was on de crapper.’
‘Shit, that Hebe woman’s not come back, has she?’ Danny wondered.
‘Me dad ain’t seen nothing or he’d have said,’ John remarked.
‘Her Morris is not in her yard as I check already. Hold off everythin’ while I go take look and see what happening.’
‘See if that bloody tailor’s van’s still there as well,’ John said.
‘He pain in arse. He honest, hard-working Jew, but sometimes don’t take a day of rest — not even the Jewish Sabbath,’ Silas remarked, raising his hands in the air.
‘Get some fish and chips, will ya, Silas, I’m starving,’ Danny said, but John said they couldn’t afford to waste time eating.
Danny turned angrily to John. ‘Listen, you were late because of that fuckin’ funeral and I’ve been down here an’ I’m starvin’ and I ain’t gonna eat any of that sweet shit Silas got... never mind his stinking cans of tuna.’
Silas cracked his knuckles. ‘Don’t you go callin’ my food shit, them tins are good quality.’
John sighed. ‘Eh, the pair of you, just calm down and go get us some fish and chips, Silas.’
No sooner had a tense Bradfield arrived at the surveillance flat when yet again Mannie Charles turned up at the tailor’s shop in his Austin van, this time accompanied by his wife. The couple began to bring out plastic-covered clothing items to stack inside the parked van. Two women were walking together and stopped to look through the shoe-shop window, and it seemed an age before they moved off. All these incidents were relayed by Clifford, each time causing work to cease in the café basement.