The White Gallows (28 page)

‘You sound like you’re speaking from experience, Colm.’

‘My wife died from lung cancer a year ago this Friday,’ McEvoy confessed.

‘I’m sorry, son. I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. Not even some of the scum I helped put away.’

‘You worked on the Navan bank robbery?’ McEvoy asked taking the opportunity to turn the conversation towards Albert Koch’s past.

‘I was just a gofer. I’d just started in the Guards; I was nineteen or twenty. Within a few hours the case had been taken over by national headquarters. A bank robbery was big news in those days. It’s not like now with all the murders and drugs and armed robberies. First armed robbery didn’t occur in Ireland until the early 1970s. Even then it was rare. So Dublin sent down some hotshot – Chief Superintendent Locke. He was an arrogant gobshite; thought we were all culchie thick heads,’ McVeigh said sourly. ‘He was convinced from the start it was a gang from Dublin who’d driven down the country to take advantage of our poor security. He didn’t think anybody local would have the brains, balls or means to pull the job off.’

‘You thought differently?’ McEvoy prompted.

‘I didn’t think anything. I was at the bottom of the pile. I just did what I was told and tried to keep my nose clean. Superintendent O’Sullivan thought otherwise. The lab people thought the gelignite was home-made. Something about the type and ratio of the chemicals; I don’t know. The only people who would have had the knowledge and access to the necessary resources would have been people working in the chemical industry.’

‘Hence your interest in Albert Koch?’

‘Exactly. The Koch brothers weren’t some clueless culchies. They’d trained and fought in the German armed forces. And Albert Koch was a skilled chemist. O’Sullivan had him pegged as a serious suspect from the start.’ McVeigh winced in pain and shifted his body on the seat. ‘Locke was having none of it though. There was no evidence linking Koch to the robbery and he seemingly had no motive. He had no debts and his factory was doing okay – not brilliant, but enough to stay afloat.’

‘So why rob the bank then?’

‘Ambition. Koch was determined to make it big. He needed the money to expand. He couldn’t raise the additional capital as things stood. He was already at his credit limit. The problem was O’Sullivan couldn’t pin the robbery on Koch and none of the others would talk. Locke focused his efforts on the Dublin underworld, such as it was.’

‘What others?’ McEvoy prompted.

‘His brother, Frank, and Martin O’Coffey and Maurice Coakley.’

‘And what about the second robbery?’

‘We weren’t involved in that. Cavan’s jurisdiction, though Locke continued to head up the case. Nobody was ever charged.’

‘And what happened when Koch started to spend the money – opening the Ostara Pharmacy in Kells with Coakley?’

‘Nothing. O’Sullivan tried to find out where the money came from, but he got nowhere. Koch had got himself politically connected – no doubt through some of that money being stuffed into brown envelopes. We were warned off, not that O’Sullivan took much notice; he was a stubborn old bastard. But all of our evidence was circumstantial and Koch’s business had picked up by then. He’d managed to negotiate some export contracts to Germany and to England. And Albert Koch was clever. He didn’t buy anything outright. He put down enough for a deposit, took out loans, and laundered the haul through the books.’

‘He let the money seep slowly into circulation,’ McEvoy said.

‘Exactly. And they all got what they wanted,’ McVeigh said bitterly. ‘Albert Koch, money for investment; Frank Koch, his motor sales company; Maurice Coakley, his pharmacy; and Martin O’Coffey, his farm. In some ways you have to admire their guts and patience – though that doesn’t change the fact that they were common criminals. O’Sullivan was certain they did both jobs, but…’ he trailed off.

‘…but he couldn’t prove it,’ McEvoy finished.

‘After a couple of years the robberies were forgotten about. O’Sullivan died of a heart attack – he was barely fifty – and Koch went from strength to strength. The only thing that remained was the rumours and those eventually seemed to die out.’

‘His whole life was a lie,’ McEvoy whispered, his mind wandering.

‘What?’ McVeigh asked.

‘I said his whole life was a lie.’

‘And then you die,’ McVeigh replied with a crooked smile, before bending in half with pain.

_{* * *}

‘Do you have minute?’ Jenny Flanagan asked.

‘Not really, but go ahead,’ McEvoy replied distractedly. He was back in the incident room waiting for his team to locate either Martin O’Coffey or Maurice Coakley.

‘Barney was right – Janice Kelly’s phone was in the vicinity of Kylie O’Neill’s home not Caher. The two calls to Brian O’Neill’s phone were made using the nearby mast. We’re bringing her in for questioning.’

‘Just make sure you do everything by the book. Not that… Look, take it slowly and make sure you get everything you need.’

‘Don’t worry; we’ll make sure she hangs herself. It should be fun. She’s a cocky little bitch – she thinks they’ve got away with it. I imagine she’ll either go silent or into wild theatrics and accusations.’

‘Don’t let her and O’Neill meet to swap notes. Interview him at the same time or straight afterwards. Pick apart any divergences or contradictions in their stories. Listen, you don’t need me to tell you what to do. Keep me updated, okay?’

‘No bother. You’ve had a breakthrough?’

‘Not in terms of catching Koch’s killer, but things are developing. I’ll talk to you later.’ McEvoy disconnected the call.

Kelly Stringer waited for him to pocket his phone and stepped towards him. She smiled at him shyly. ‘Martin O’Coffey is on his farm. He’s not feeling that well – he has a cold and would prefer it if we went to him.’

‘I’ll go there now,’ McEvoy said, starting for the door.

‘There’s something else.’

McEvoy turned back towards her. ‘What?’

‘I thought it might be useful to go back through the surveys, see what other rumours there were about Koch that might turn out to be true. I think there are a couple that might be worth investigating further.’

‘Go on.’

‘There’s a rumour that Koch brought in a small team of builders to his farm sometime in the 1960s, probably near the start of the decade. They stayed on the farm and had no dealings with the locals. They were there for a few weeks. All the building supplies and food were shipped in. The rumour seems to be that they were German, though one person thought Dutch. Koch told people it was restoration work, but…’ she trailed off.

‘But what?’ McEvoy prompted.

‘But others thought it was something else.’

‘Such as?’ McEvoy asked, starting to lose patience.

‘Such as a secret vault,’ Stringer said, slight embarrassment in her voice, knowing that it sounded like a conspiracy theory. ‘To store his Nazi gold,’ she elaborated.

‘Or his stolen bank money or other valuables,’ McEvoy hypothesised.

‘It could be what the killer was searching for?’ Stringer suggested tentatively.

‘Okay, get hold of George Carter and Tom McManus. We’ll do another search of the place, see if we can find anything. Tell McManus to concentrate on the outbuildings, George can look after the house. What was the other rumour?’

‘That Koch supplied the IRA with explosives at the start of the Troubles.’

‘Jesus. This just gets better and better. Talk to Dr John and see if he can find any evidence of a link. I better go and talk to Martin O’Coffey. And while I remember, is there any news on Kinneally’s apartment?’

‘I’m still waiting for Harcourt Street to come back to me,’ Stringer said, referring to the
NBCI
headquarters in central Dublin. ‘I’ll chase them straight away.’

_{* * *}

The rain had eased off, but the mature beech trees were still twisting in the wind.

McEvoy was met at Martin O’Coffey’s front door by his grandson, Peter. The Wellington boots were gone, replaced by battered brown shoes, but he wore the same check shirt and dirty jeans as at their last encounter in the field on Koch’s farm.

‘He’s not well,’ O’Coffey said as a greeting.

‘I’m only going to be a few minutes,’ McEvoy explained, not saying that he would probably be there hours if O’Coffey admitted to the bank robberies.

‘Just make sure you are,’ the grandson warned, widening the door and beckoning McEvoy in. ‘He’s an old man and I don’t want any stress adding to his condition. Last thing we need is another feckin’ case of pneumonia.’

‘Pneumonia?’ McEvoy asked, concerned. ‘I was told he has the start of a cold.’

‘More like the flu. I just don’t want it settling in his chest. Happened a couple of years ago and it damn near killed him.’ He passed McEvoy and pushed open the kitchen door.

Martin O’Coffey was standing near to a boiling kettle, a grey blanket draped over his shoulders. He turned to face the intruders. ‘Tea?’ he asked, his face the same colour as the blanket, his bloodshot eyes watery and rimmed red.

‘No, no, you’re fine,’ McEvoy replied. ‘I hear you’re not feeling the best?’

‘Been better. Peter?’

‘Please.’

The room descended into silence as Martin O’Coffey made three cups of tea, shuffling back and forth between the fridge and kettle and loudly blowing his nose. He sliced a lemon in half and squeezed one half into his cup.

‘Did you have the flu jab?’ McEvoy asked.

‘No.’

‘Maybe you should get it done? It might help shift your cold and stop it developing further.’

‘I’m fine,’ O’Coffey replied before sniffing. ‘Sit,’ he instructed.

McEvoy took a seat at the kitchen table. O’Coffey joined him, his grandson moving to his cup left by the kettle.

‘I wanted to talk to you in private if that’s okay,’ McEvoy asked filling the silence.

‘I’ve no secrets,’ O’Coffey said.

‘All the same, it might be better…’ McEvoy trailed off.

The old man didn’t reply.

‘Right, okay,’ McEvoy conceded, ‘but if you want Peter to leave at any point just let me know. We’ve been looking into Albert Koch’s past. You used to be close, before you fell out over the strip of land. You used to…’

‘We still want that land back,’ Peter interjected. ‘It’s our land.’

‘Peter,’ O’Coffey senior warned, and then sneezed into a paper tissue.

‘You used to work for him before you bought this place.’

O’Coffey stayed silent.

‘How did you manage to buy it? You worked in a fertiliser factory, yet you could afford a farm.’

‘I worked hard.’

‘But even so, you would have needed a very large deposit and a means of paying the mortgage.’

‘What’s this got to do with Albert Koch’s death?’ Peter asked defensively.

‘It’s background information,’ McEvoy said tartly. ‘You managed to save enough on a labourer’s salary to obtain a mortgage for a farm?’ he asked O’Coffey senior.

‘Aye.’

‘You didn’t have additional help?’