The White Gallows (27 page)

‘I, er, well,’ McEvoy stumbled, once again put on the back foot by Bishop’s management style of passive-aggressive bullying. ‘We’re no nearer to solving either case. A few leads with Koch, but God knows whether they’ll go anywhere. It looks like he might have been a war criminal, although his life seems to have been surrounded by hundreds of rumours. We still don’t know who the Lithuanian is or where he came from. At this stage, I doubt we ever will. Jenny Flanagan’s convinced Kylie O’Neill was killed by her husband, but she’s lacking any evidence, and Cronin seems to be chasing a ghost.’

‘What do you mean, Koch might have been a war criminal?’ Bishop asked, honing in on the victim most likely to attract media and political attention.

‘It looks like he might have worked at Auschwitz as a chemist and was involved in a large medical experiment on Jewish concentration camp prisoners.’

‘Jesus Christ. And that’s why he was killed?’

‘I don’t know. It’s one hypothesis. It looks as if it might be turning into a bit of a labyrinth case. What are the chances of getting Jim Whelan back? We need all the experience we can get.’

‘None. I’m going to bring that bastard Charlie Clarke down if it’s the last thing I do,’ Bishop said, immediately forgetting Koch’s supposed past. ‘We’re trying to round up members of his gang.’

‘The gap will only be filled by others,’ McEvoy said downheartedly.

‘So what do you want us to do?’ Bishop snapped. ‘Nothing?’

‘Get the Minister to give us more resources.’

‘Stick to the policing, Colm, and the Commissioner will look after the politics. We have what we have. Just get a result and get one soon. We need something to parade in front of the media.’

‘How about Charlie Clarke?’

‘Charlie Clarke’s a done deal,’ Bishop said irritably. ‘We need something else. I don’t care which case; just get us some good press.’

‘How’s Hannah?’ McEvoy asked, trying to change the subject.

‘She’s fine. Don’t worry, Colm, I’ll catch the bastards that attacked her. And they’ll learn a few sharp lessons being caught,’ Bishop said, meaning heads would be cracked regardless of whether they went down fighting.

‘Then you’ll have your good press.’

‘Don’t mess with me, Colm. Just get me a result.’

‘I’ll be taking Friday off, remember,’ McEvoy warned.

‘I don’t think so! Not unless you get a result tomorrow.’

‘It’s the first anniversary of Maggie’s death. There’s a memorial service. I need to be there for Gemma. You were sent an invite.’

‘Oh. Shit. Look, I’m sorry, Colm. I forgot,’ Bishop said softening. ‘I’ll try to be there. I can’t believe it’s a year already. It seems like… well, you know.’ He paused unsure what to say. ‘Give your teams their heads. Any developments, I want to know, okay?’

‘You’ll be the first person I’ll call,’ McEvoy lied to the dead line.

_{* * *}

Mickie Brehan, Colin Vickers and Kenny Clarke looked worn out and demoralised. It was difficult to appear enthusiastic when everything you did seemingly led nowhere.

‘So?’ McEvoy asked.

‘Nothing,’ Mickie Brehan said. ‘Not likely to get anything on a Tuesday night. Friday or Saturday is when we might get lucky.’

‘All the foreigners drink at home in any case,’ Vickers added. ‘Much cheaper than the pubs and you can smoke.’

‘Nothing like a bit of optimism to drive things along,’ McEvoy said flatly. ‘Any joy with the translations, Kenny?’

‘Agency’s working on it; we should have them by this afternoon. We’ll get some flyers made up and distribute them. A number of the papers will carry a photo and an appeal tomorrow.’

‘Well, maybe that will prompt something. Concentrate on places of work for now. Leave the pubs until the weekend. Just stick at it.’ His mobile phone rang. ‘I better take this,’ he said, standing and heading to the door. ‘McEvoy.’

‘It’s Kelly Stringer. I think you’d better come back to Ballyglass. There’s been a development.’

‘What kind of development?’

‘It’s about that rumour of a bank robbery.’

‘Remind me,’ he said heading for the stairs.

‘It was intimated that Koch was involved in a bank robbery in the 1950s. Kevin Townsend, one of the local guards, has been working on it. He’s found newspaper reports on two bank robberies in 1955; one in Navan, the other in Virginia. A gang broke into the banks in the early hours of the morning and blew their safes. Nobody was ever charged, but he’s tracked down a retired guard who worked on the fringes of the case in Navan. The banks were robbed by a gang of four. Two of the gang were thought to be Albert and Frank Koch.’

‘Jesus.’

‘The retired guard now lives in Mullingar. He’s happy to come over to Ballyglass if it’ll help.’

‘Arrange a car for him. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. And see if you can track down the original case notes. They have to be on file somewhere.’

_{* * *}

The incident room was busy with several guards working at computers or sorting through papers spread over tables. Professor Moench was still hunched over the same table, reading documents and scribbling notes onto a pad. Kevin Townsend was seated at an adjacent table, absently twirling a pen across his fingers.

Tall and thin with a narrow face framed by short black hair and sideburns, Townsend scraped back his chair and rose to his feet as McEvoy approached, nodding a nervous greeting.

‘You better tell me what you know before the old boy arrives,’ McEvoy said, shaking Townsend’s hand before seating himself at the table, placing a styrofoam cup of piping hot coffee down in front of himself.

‘I… I’ve… I’m Detective Garda Townsend by the way,’ he said awkwardly. ‘Kevin.’

‘I know. I’m Detective Superintendent McEvoy. So what’s the story?’ McEvoy asked impatiently.

‘Well, I, er… a couple of people gave statements that the victim… I mean Albert Koch… he was involved in a bank robbery. That’s where he supposedly got the money to start his business.’

‘I thought it was meant to be Nazi gold?’

‘I, er…’ Townsend stuttered, thrown off track by McEvoy’s interjection.

‘And did he?’ McEvoy prompted.

‘Did he what?’

‘Did he get the money to start his business from robbing a bank?’

‘Well… you see… no. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t take
part in any bank robbery. Maybe I should start at the beginning?’

‘If it’ll help,’ McEvoy said reaching for his coffee.

‘Well, what I’ve been doing,’ Townsend said, failing to spot McEvoy’s sarcasm, ‘is going through the newspapers from 1948 onwards, when Koch arrived in Ireland, trying to find any reference to him or to any robberies. Basically, I’ve worked my way through two of the nationals – the
Irish Times
and the
Irish Independent
– and one of the local papers, the
Meath Chronicle
, up until 1960. Koch doesn’t appear in the national papers at all between 1948 and 1957. He appears in the
Meath
Chronicle
first in 1952 when he bought the Breen Strong Grow fertiliser factory in Athboy from the receivers.’

Townsend passed McEvoy a printed copy of the paper. The story was in the bottom right corner of page five with the headline: ‘New start for fertiliser plant.’ The accompanying text was a single short column along with a picture of Albert and Frank Koch and a young Martin O’Coffey standing in front of the gates, a large shed in the background. A temporary, painted sign, ‘Ostara Fertiliser’, was hanging next to them on the iron work. Only O’Coffey was smiling, the Koch brothers wearing determined looks, their eyes boring into the camera lens.

McEvoy handed the sheet back.

‘He only appears sporadically after that, mainly through small adverts for Ostara Fertiliser – ‘Bring new life to tired soil’ – until 1956 when Albert Koch and Maurice Coakley opened their first Ostara Pharmacy in Kells. In 1957, Frank Koch was bought out of Ostara by Albert and he started his own motor sales company in Navan. In 1958 Albert Koch buys The White Gallows and Martin O’Coffey the neighbouring farm.’

‘And the bank robberies took place in 1955?’ McEvoy said, the implications of the robberies becoming clear.

Townsend nodded, yes. ‘The first one took place in Navan, Friday, February 25th, 1955. The Bank of Ireland on Canada Street was broken into in the early hours of the morning. They got in through the roof at the back of the bank, lifting off the slates and letting themselves into the attic space. They made their way down to the basement and blew the hinges off the safe using home-made gelignite.’ Townsend passed McEvoy a copy of the front page of the
Irish Independent
. The story was the lead item under the imaginative headline of: ‘Bank Robbed in Navan.’ The picture showed a serious-faced Mr Kilbride, the manager, standing outside of the bank’s imposing façade.

‘They made off with just over thirty thousand old Irish pounds. I think that’s about eight hundred thousand euro in today’s money. Most of it would have been drawn later that day by businesses to pay their employees. The search for the thieves was headed up by Chief Superintendent Locke based in the Phoenix Park.’

‘Bank robberies were the crème-de-la-crème in those days,’ McEvoy observed. ‘There wouldn’t have been anyone below detective sergeant on the case.’

‘The second robbery took place on Friday, October 21st in Virginia in Cavan. They broke into the Allied Irish Bank on the main street and again blew the safe. It was a smaller haul – just under twenty-two thousand pounds or about five hundred and ninety thousand euro in today’s money.’ He handed McEvoy another copy of the
Independent
with the main headline: ‘Cavan Bank Theft.’

‘So the total haul was the equivalent of one point four million euro in today’s money?’ McEvoy asked.

‘It seems that way.’

‘You could do a lot with that kind of money back then. Property wasn’t the crazy kind of prices they are today.’

‘You could do a lot with it now if you weren’t in the major cities,’ Townsend countered. ‘You could buy half of Longford for one and half million, especially now the market’s crashed.’

‘And they got away with it scot-free.’

Townsend shrugged.

‘I wonder what the Criminal Assets Bureau will make of all of this,’ McEvoy pondered. ‘If it’s true, then Koch’s entire business empire is founded on stolen money.’

_{* * *}

Jimmy McVeigh was sitting on the back seat of a mini-van, his legs covered by a blue-and-green check blanket. The rain was so heavy that he would have got soaked if he’d been lifted into the Ballyglass clubhouse.

McVeigh looked his age. His face was gaunt and pale, his head bald with mottled liver spots. He wore a pair of unstylish, thick glasses over deep eye sockets, a white shirt buttoned to the neck, and a grey flannel suit jacket that had seen better days.

‘The cancer nearly got me last year,’ he explained matter-of-fact. ‘It’s back again now. I’ll be dead soon – only a matter of time. I don’t care this time, it can take me. I’ve had enough.’

‘If I’d have known, I’d have come to you,’ McEvoy said sympathetically. ‘I didn’t realise… ’

‘…I wanted to get out. Get a bit of fresh air. It’s a good place but you’re mind turns to mud,’ McVeigh said, referring to the nursing home in which he now resided.

‘Cancer’s a terrible thing,’ McEvoy said absently, McVeigh reminding him of how frail Maggie had become in her final months.