[b]Tulse Hill 10:48 AM[/b] Etan Ben-David inspected the piece of black metal with a surgical eye. There were long, deep scratches running along it revealing the metal beneath it. As far as Ben-David could work out, it had broken loose in some kind of car chase. There were pieces of the metal scattered up and down the streets around the Diamond Exchange. He’d taken his time to collect each piece carefully and place them into a garbage bag for future inspection. As he rose from his knees to return to the Zinkman building, something glistening in the morning sun caught his eye. “What have we here?” Ben-David produced a pair of tweezers from his pocket and plucked a bullet casing from the middle of the street. He lifted it to his nose and took a sniff before dropping it inside another plastic bag. Slowly he was beginning to gather a picture of what had happened last night, but there were still gaps that needed to be filled. His first step had been to pay a visit to the basement. It contents had been cleared out earlier by Adam but the Zinkmans had given Etan a fairly detailed itinerary of what had been inside – and what had been left inside afterwards. Whoever had hit the building were here for the diamonds and the diamonds alone and they had chosen this weekend for a reason. That much was obvious. What was less obvious was who the flecks of blood on the basement floor belonged to. He made a note of it and then move on. Secondly, he interviewed the two on-duty security guards. They were both tired by the time he sat them down in the draughty office passing for an interrogation room. Each man made their way through several cups of coffee as he interviewed them to keep themselves awake. In the main they had very little information of any use to share, but that in and of itself had been revealing. It meant that whoever had hit the Diamond Exchange had been professional. That they had bound and gagged the men and kept silent around them spoke to that. Something had gone wrong, of that Etan was sure, but it wasn’t due to a lack of a professionalism. Then Ben-David had inspected the building’s security system. The Zinkman’s ran an autodialer system that had a direct line to the local police station. They were unreliable. Etan could think of three to four alternatives that were more suitable. Yet something about the ease with which the alarm was deactivated made Ben-David suspicious. The Diamond Exchange was peculiar in that its architecture demanded its wiring be run not along skirting boards along the floors but vertically up through the ceilings. As a result anyone wanting to tamper with the alarm would have had to access the roof of the building. Getting up there was not a problem. It was that whoever hit the Zinkmans knew they had to which was intriguing. There was only one conclusion. There was an inside man. As Etan arrived back from canvassing the streets he looked to the nightwatchman Bruce. “Do you have the names for me?” Bruce nodded tentatively and handed over a piece of paper with the names of the three other men that the Zinkman’s employed as security guards. Etan reach the list studiously, burning each man’s name and home address into his memory, before folding the piece of paper and placing it into his pocket. There was work to be done. --- [b]Herne Hill 12:12 PM[/b] “So that’s where we stand.” Charlie looked from Bobby’s dour face to Coach’s even distraught one. Both men had their hands in their jacket pockets and were now looking at their shoes intently. “It’s the best I could do,” Charlie said with a touch of a defensiveness. “Small bloody miracle I didn’t come out of that room a few fingers short.” “Still, forty-eight hours isn’t a long time,” said Coach. “Especially since we’re down a man.” “How is Red?” Bobby asked. “Still out of it,” said Charlie. “I took him home after I met with the Kanes. Hopefully he’ll be fit come tomorrow morning, if this fucking thing last this long. I got some ideas on how to track down Freddy.” “You too?” said Coach. Charlie looked at the older man with surprise. “What have you got?” “You go first." “Sod it,” Charlie sighed. “Look, Freddy can’t do a damn thing with the diamonds. He’s gonna need to lay them off on someone to fence. That kind of action, there’s only a handful of people in London capable of handling that much weight. I say we go around and pay them all a visit, see if our boy Freddy has been to see any of them.” “Where would we start?” Bobby asked. “We know people who fence appliances and low-level stuff. This was our first time actually taking something that's not cash money.” “I got a guy,” said Charlie. Coach rubbed his mustache with a thumbnail. “That’s a place to start. I may have something, too.” He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a wrinkled scrap of paper. He held it up between two fingers. “I snagged the plate on the car Freddy was in.” “You are just now telling us this?” Bobby asked incredulously. “I was a bit busy making sure Red didn’t die.” “Don’t get your hopes up too much, Bob,” said Charlie. “There’s a good chance the car was stolen beforehand. The bastard had plotted this out.” “Doesn’t hurt to check it out,” said Coach. “In this case?” asked Charlie. “A dead end that takes time away from finding Freddy just might. But, yeah, we can split up. I’m gonna go see my guy and try to run down a list of names.” “There’s a copper I heard about,” said Coach. “A bent one.” “Is there any other kind?” asked Bobby. “He can look into the plate for us,” said Coach. “I might have enough cash on me to pay for his services.” “I’ll go with Charlie,” said Bobby. “Two people can cover more ground.” “There’s a smart lad,” Charlie said with a gentle slap to Bobby’s shoulder. He pulled a small wad of cash from his wallet and passed it to Coach. “Just in case your copper friend wants to charge us through the nose. We’ll meet back up at that Italian place where we planned out Loomis Job?” “How could I forget it,” said Coach. “Let’s say ‘round three?” The three said their goodbyes before drifting off in separate directions. While Charlie and Bobby headed for Peckham, Coach and his temporary car made its way towards Battersea.