“I think this is safe, but just in case we’ll have only a mouthful now, just to take the edge off our thirst, and if we’re both still OK in an hour we’ll be able to drink as much of it as we want. All right?”
Lavender took a mouthful thankfully. She passed the bottle to Dee and asked, “Do you think we’ll get out of here today?”
Dee didn’t want to crush her hopes. “Only if we escape, but that may not be as unlikely as it seems. I’ve got an idea.”
Chapter 69
Vastrick Security, No. 1 Poultry, London. Sunday, 8am.
I had managed to snatch five hours’ sleep on a bed set up in a small room at the back of the offices. Obviously the Vastrick staff stayed overnight regularly because there were two such rooms. Don Fisher had retired to the other room.
DCI Coombes and Inspector Boniface had gone home after a raging argument with their superiors. They had both wanted to go into the printing press ‘hard and heavy’, in the early hours of the morning, but they were ordered to hold off for twelve hours after an intervention from Europol. Tom, Don and I were livid.
We were told that Europol would be taking down Van Aart and his organisation in a coordinated series of raids spanning the Netherlands, Belgium and Northern France. Van Aart’s home, offices, brothels and drug dens would all be hit by a variety of well-armed national police and security forces.
The Koninklijke Marechaussee, the Dutch Military Police, would also hit two industrial units where East European girls were held until they could be transported to a place where they could earn money by selling their bodies. Europol were tracking a container lorry from Bucharest, which they believed was heading for one of the units in Pernis on the outskirts of Rotterdam. It would arrive within the next hour and disgorge its cargo of teenage girls.
At twelve noon, European time, or one o’clock in the UK, the raids would begin. Unbeknown to either DCI Coombes or Inspector Boniface, the Metropolitan Police had been secretly planning to coordinate raids on the Holloways’ premises at the same time. The secret plans had been codenamed Operation Tango, and we couldn’t act until the raids were over. The Assistant Commissioner had explained that almost four hundred officers would be involved in the raids in four countries, and that they couldn’t take the chance of Holloway or Van Aart’s men reporting back to Amsterdam that the police were onto them.
Despite the Assistant Commissioner’s pleas, Don Fisher still had to be threatened with a night in the cells before he accepted the decision. I had serious qualms about the idea, too, but we reached a compromise that I was able to live with.
The police now had three men watching the Tottenham Press building; they had taken up their positions at four o’clock in the morning, and were in constant radio contact. One was in a highly specialised vehicle parked in the car park of the factory across the street, and the remaining two were concealed where they could see the two personnel doors that also served as fire exits. Nobody would go in or out of the printing press without being observed.
In less than an hour we would be meeting with DS Scott, DCI Coombes, DS Fellowes, Inspector Boniface, Tom Vastrick and a new face, Geordie Lowden, who would lead Vastrick’s assault team.
Geordie, as his name suggested, was travelling down to London from Tyneside on a chartered helicopter, which should have landed by now at London Heliport in Battersea. Given that the roads would be quiet, as they usually are early on a Sunday morning, I reckoned that the car journey from the heliport would take twenty minutes or so. I managed to pull myself away from my bed and head towards the shower.
Chapter 70
Commercial Road, Tottenham, North London. Sunday 11am.
Piet entered the room where Dee and Lavender were secured and removed the coffee cups.
“I’ll be back in an hour with your famous British roast beef dinner, or another packet of sandwiches.” He sniggered and left, closing the door behind him.
So far they had been provided with water, coffee from a vending machine and sandwiches. In each case the food had been delivered on the hour. Dee was working on the theory that they had an hour until the next visit.
“Lavender, our hands have only about nine inches of movement, and so I need your help. I’m going to lean forward, and I want you to unfasten my necklace.”
Dee leaned over the table so that her nose was almost touching the table top. Lavender reached over and unclipped the necklace. The necklace was sterling silver and consisted of a thin chain and a loop which attached just below the throat, from which hung three sterling silver rods. The outer two rods were the same length, which was around an inch, but the middle rod was slightly longer, perhaps by half an inch. Their diameter was about three sixteenths of an inch.
Lavender watched as Dee pulled the rods in opposite directions, opening the silver loop which held them. The three rods came free.
“Lavender, please listen very carefully, we don’t have a lot of time. Handcuffs are not that difficult to unlock. The fact is that the main reason you can’t unlock them is that they are often fastened behind your back. These police style speedcuffs are rigid, which means that your hands are held three inches apart and so you can’t reach the lock with either hand. Do you see?” Lavender nodded.
“Our friends downstairs have overlooked the fact that I can reach your handcuff locks, and you will then be able to reach mine, as your hands will be free. Now, hold out your hands and watch me work.”
Dee took Lavender’s right hand and turned it so that the lock was facing upwards. Taking one of the shorter rods from her necklace, she pushed it into the keyhole until it met resistance.
“Handcuff keys have to be simple and universal, because while one policeman might lock you into them, an entirely different one will probably have to release you. So they usually only have two tumblers. The key will have a space, a ridge, another space, another ridge. Like a tiny house key. The way a key works is that the ridges line up with the levers, and the spaces line up with fixed stays, so that when you turn the key the ridges open the tumblers whilst the spaces pass over the blocking stays. If you put in the wrong key the ridges will hit the fixed stays and the key won’t turn. Now, we don’t have a key but we have these three rods, and we should only need two of them.”
Lavender held her breath, watching carefully as Dee pushed the longer rod into the lock.
“I’m going to use the first rod to slide over the first lever like this.” Dee wiggled the rod until she could move the lever. “Now, this exposes the second lever and we do the same again. If we now push both levers at the same time, they should get to the point of equilibrium.”
“What does that mean?” Lavender asked.
“When you use a key to a deadlock, like the one over there on the door, you place the key in the guide, which we call a keyhole. As you turn the key you feel resistance don’t you?”
“Yes, I’m with you so far.”
“Well, that resistance is the key ridges hitting the levers. They are called levers for a reason. When the levers get to the mid-point, the point of equilibrium, gravity takes over and the only reason you keep turning the key is to remove it from the keyhole. Take notice next time you unlock a deadlock. When you get halfway through the rotation, the lock clicks open.”
Dee used the two rods to push the levers, and seconds later there was a click and Lavender’s right hand was free. Lavender unwound the chain from around the handcuffs and she was free to move around, albeit her left hand was still handcuffed.
It took Dee twenty minutes of patient coaching to teach Lavender how to prise the right hand side of her handcuffs open, but when she did she almost whooped with joy. She was so proud of herself that Dee couldn’t suppress a laugh.