‘We got a thumb and fingerprint mark, which don’t match any of your suspects.’

Jane felt a sense of relief. ‘Whose was it?’

‘No ident yet, but Fingerprint Bureau are still checking. Division are treating her death as murder, but they don’t think it’s connected to your investigation.’

‘Are they thinking it’s a burglary gone wrong?’

‘Yes, and I’d say that’s a reasonable conclusion under the circumstances.’

She had a thought.

‘Could you get the RUC bureau to check the prints against their files? Just in case there’s a connection to Aidan O’Reilly.’

‘You don’t let things go, do you?’

She smiled. ‘You shouldn’t have taught me so well.’

*

All the team were in the office by 7 p.m. With the surveillance and intelligence officers having to return to the Yard, the mood was bleak.

Murphy strode out of his office looking positive.

‘For Christ’s sake – you lot look like you let the Ripleys get away with another robbery.’

‘The way things are going it could happen, Guv,’ Bax remarked.

‘Not on my watch they won’t. If all else fails, revert to plan B.’ He held up a piece of paper. ‘We can do this without CO11. It will be harder, but it’s doable.

‘We’ve lost the firearms officers as well, and the CROPS officers won’t be working the bank holiday weekend. Colonel, you will be driving the gunship with DI Kingston on board and tailing George Ripley. The second gunship will tail Tommy, and be driven by Cam with Stanley on board. Bax and Dabs continue at the Bruce Grove OP and Teflon on GR Motors. We can pick up eyeball on Graham Smith and Carl Winter when they arrive at the garage, but don’t worry about a tail on Winter for now. Tennison, I’m going to have to pull you from the cafe to work in here.’

She wasn’t pleased about it, but knew he had no choice as their numbers had been severely depleted. He did, however, say he would use Kingston’s office and listen in on the phone conversations as they were being recorded, as there were four phones to monitor.

‘Did the intel guys listening to the phones pick up anything interesting today before they went back to the Yard?’ Kingston asked Cam.

‘I had a quick look through their logs. There’s nothing of significance, mostly Maureen Ripley moaning and groaning. She phoned George and gave him a right ear-bashing about playing golf on the Saturday morning before the wedding.’

‘He’s playing golf before his daughter’s wedding? That sounds a bit dodgy,’ Teflon remarked.

Cam picked up the relevant log from his desk and flicked through it.

‘George phoned the golf club straight after Maureen had a go at him to confirm a seven a.m. tee-off time, Saturday morning, for four people.’