Grace’s living room window went dark sometime after eleven p.m. An upstairs bathroom light came on minutes afterwards, and stayed lit for twenty minutes while she was taking a shower and getting ready for bed. A dim bedroom light peeked through a narrow gap in the curtains until 11.28 p.m. and then went off too, leaving the whole house in darkness like most of the other homes in the street. Grace’s neighbour two doors down was a night owl, watching TV until well after one a.m.

Later in the wee small hours, Tuesday observed the figure of a man quietly slip out of the plumber’s van parked in the square and take a stroll into the park. Even at this distance Tuesday’s sharp eyes could make out the tiny cigarette glow as the man settled on a bench and lit up. Tuesday decided it was probably the same guy he’d seen earlier. The obligate smoker of the gang. The guy was there for fifteen minutes before he returned to the van. Tuesday noted down the time, wondering whether or not that meant the surveillance team were using the building for rent, and how that might affect his assessment of their numerical strength. Only time would tell.

An hour after that, with Jeff on watch and Tuesday snoozing quietly in the rear bunk, one of the occupants of the black Range Rover stepped out and walked down the street on the opposite side from Grace’s house, treading lightly, head bowed, hands in pockets. At first Jeff thought he was heading over for a pow-wow with his pals in the plumber’s van, but then the man disappeared inside the public toilets. Pissing in a bottle obviously wasn’t an option for these guys. He was tall and bulky, with stubbly hair that looked orange in the glow of the sodium streetlight on the corner of the square. Five minutes later, Jeff watched him exit the toilets and return to the Range Rover, trying to make himself look as small and unnoticeable as possible. His companion must have had a stronger bladder or less modesty, because he stayed inside the car for the duration. Jeff noted the enemy’s movements below Tuesday’s entry.

At four in the morning, both Jeff and Tuesday were awake and alert. Four a.m. was the magic hour when the enemy’s circadian rhythms would be at their lowest ebb, making them vulnerable and less capable of reacting quickly to a surprise attack. Tuesday said to Jeff, ‘You want to take them down?’

‘I’d love to, mate. But there are too many of them and we still don’t know if there are more inside the building. It’s too damn risky.’