‘I’ll give her a ring after the meeting and arrange to pick her up in the morning, early,’ Kingston agreed.

Murphy shook his head. ‘I want you here in the office with me tomorrow, planning the surveillance operation starting Monday morning.’

‘We’ll need to call in support from the other Flying Squad units if we’re going to carry out static and mobile surveillance on all the suspects,’ Kingston suggested.

‘I know. We can also ask the central surveillance unit at the Yard to help out. I want the rest of today and tomorrow spent finding out where Graham Smith and George Ripley live, and double-check the addresses we have for O’Reilly and Tommy Ripley.’

‘Are we going to arrest Smith if Simpson picks him out?’ Stanley asked.

‘It’s an option, but not one I’m keen on pursuing. Right now I want to know more about them, and in particular their finances. That snooker hall will have cost Tommy Ripley a good few quid. I want to know if he paid cash or got a loan. Same with George Ripley, as their businesses could be a front to launder the proceeds of their crimes. The Leytonstone robbery was a disaster for them, and they made peanuts out of it, so my guess is they’re planning something big.’

Jane looked in her pocket notebook.

‘According to Rachel Wilson, George Ripley did say on Friday in the cafe, “If yesterday hadn’t been a total fuck-up I could have paid our Tina’s wedding off in cash and had enough left over for her bloody honeymoon.” But then again, she might have made it up,’ she added with a straight face.

‘If we nick them on the plot, we won’t need her as a witness,’ Murphy retorted. ‘Cam, draw me up a list of all the phone numbers we’ve got so far that are connected to our suspects and I’ll ask for authority to wiretap them. Colonel and Bax, concentrate on George Ripley, Stanley and Cam on Tommy and O’Reilly, Teflon and Tennison, take Simpson up the Yard and revisit the Wilson twins. All of you see if you can find out more about Carl and the man in the camel hair coat.’

‘Does that mean I’m manning the phones tomorrow?’ Dabs asked.

‘Yes, but I want you to do a full forensic report on everything we have so I can use it as supporting evidence when I apply for the wiretaps. Anyone else got a question? Good, now get to work. We need to nail these bastards before they have a chance to organise another job. Next time somebody might get killed.’

Chapter Twenty-Four

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR