Free Dark Eyes of London by Philip Cox Page B

snapped.
    ‘Fuck you,’ John replied. ‘I report direct to Mr Fleming.  Not you.’
    Merchant glared at him for a moment, then climbed into the car. Started the engine, and switched on the headlamps. She reversed a few feet to clear the transit vans, then attempted a three point turn. The roadway, however, was too narrow, probably one and a half standard lanes, and she was unable to make the turn in three manoeuvres. Instead, it took five or six.  Because it was dark, John was unable to see but to his amusement he could visualize her frantically turning the steering wheel. He hoped she could see him laughing.
    ‘Stupid cow,’ he said, to the amusement of the others.
    He watched as Merchant’s tail lights disappeared round the corner. Lifted the last box himself and loaded it into one of the vans.
    He made one final check of the building. Two of the men got into the first van; John closed the building doors, and padlocked them. Then got into the other van with the third packer. Looked at his watch: it was three twenty-five.
    ‘Almost half three, Roy,’ he said. We should get to the A12 by four. Then another couple of hours.’
    ‘Couple of hours easy,’ said Roy, starting the engine. ‘Especially at this time of night.’
    ‘Yeah, but take care,’ John said. ‘Keep to the speed limits. We can’t afford to draw attention to ourselves.’
    The two vans drove slowly out of the side street onto the main road and started their journey.
    *****
    Just before dawn the two vans arrived at their final destination.
    ‘Think Ms Merchant will be here to supervise us again?’ asked Roy as they pulled up.
    John laughed. ‘Do you know, it wouldn’t surprise me.’
    She was not there.
    The four of them opened the building doors, opened the vans’ doors, and transferred the packages. This was a similar storage facility to the one they had left, containing many more packages than the ones they had brought. Once done, they locked up.
    ‘Thanks, guys,’ John said. ‘I’ll just report in, then we can go get some breakfast.’
    The three men commented how this was a good idea, and returned to their vans. John paused outside and took out his phone. Speed dialled a number, then waited half a minute.
    ‘Mr Fleming, sir, we’ve just completed the transfer.’
    ‘..........’
    ‘No, no hitches.’
    ‘..........’
    ‘Thank you very much, sir.  Everything is now in place.’
     
     

 
    Chapter Fifteen
    Monday morning saw Tom back at work at his job at the local library. His branch had recently had self-service kiosks installed for readers borrowing and returning items. In theory a good idea, and much quicker than a librarian scanning bar codes on returned books or date stamping due by dates in the front of books. However, that was assuming the machines worked properly one hundred percent of the time, and assuming the readership, many of whom were elderly, understood how to use them.
    Tom’s role today, therefore, was to stand by the bank of kiosks for the entire day, supervising the machines, dealing with any faults, and helping the customers if they had a problem. Always mind-numbingly boring, Tom felt; he would rather be stacking the bookshelves than this. However, as it was his turn on the rota, so be it.
    He had sent Amy a short text first thing that morning: good luck, speak later, tom . She in turn had sent a brief sms: ok tnx . Okay, thanks , he assumed.
    He had just had a problem with one kiosk where it had failed to read the encoding strip on the book, and Tom had to manually override the system. Bidding the customer goodbye after her profuse thanks, he looked at his watch: it was a quarter to twelve.  Only fifteen minutes to go before his lunch break.   He took his phone off the belt clip he was wearing, and checked for messages or missed calls.  There were none. He wondered how Amy was getting on.
    *****
    Amy’s morning was not quite so boring; however, like Tom, she wished the day could be over.  At