The piece of sheet metal was three feet square and held in position by Phillips screws. Teflon handed Jane one of the screwdrivers and they undid the screws together. When they removed the sheet there was a square hole. Teflon picked up the inspection pit lamp, turned it on and handed it to Jane.

‘Carl wanted you to find the money.’

She held the light by the entrance and could see a large open area to the right that stretched back a good six or seven feet. She felt nervous; it was as if she was about to enter a tomb looking for hidden treasure. She crouched down, moved forward a few inches, then stopped and looked back at Teflon.

‘Do you think it might be booby-trapped?’

He shrugged and Jane moved forward, then held the lamp up and her eyes opened wide at what she saw. She was overjoyed, yet filled with sadness, knowing how Carl had led her here. She unzipped one of the holdalls, which was filled with banknotes. After a quick look in a smaller holdall she shuffled backwards out of the hole.

‘It’s an Aladdin’s cave in there. There’s holdalls filled with cash, balaclavas, guns, a priest’s outfit, a fake beard and boiler suits.’

She handed the lamp to Teflon to have a look.

His voice echoed from inside.

‘There’s a sawn-off shotgun in a plastic bag and some screwed-up Security Express van logos as well – they must have put them on the van they used at the Shoreditch job.’

Jane was grinning from ear to ear.

‘We got them, Teflon. George, Tommy and the rest of the gang will be going to prison for a long time.’

*

Jane and Teflon went to see Murphy at Leytonstone. He was over the moon when he heard what they’d found at the garage.

‘Well done, you two. We’ve got those bastards bang to rights now.’

‘Would you like us to help with the interviews?’ Jane asked.

‘It’s all right, me and DI Kingston will do them. You two can go back to Rigg Approach and write up your statements, then have the bank holiday Monday off.’

Jane realised that Kingston, having arrested George Ripley, couldn’t have been involved with him or Tommy, as any connection to them would have been exposed by the brothers. It was also clear he was not involved in the death of Fiona Simpson. She was glad she’d been wrong about him, and realised that subjective suspicion is worthless without objective evidence to back it up. She didn’t think the Colonel was corrupt, but he was a tad dishonest when it came to paying an informant a small amount of money and she decided to tell him not to do it again.

*