Regan lifted the note. The front page of the five-page report was entitled: ‘Reference planned bank raid. New York Bank and Trust Campany, 300 Eastcheap, London EC3. Source Declan Murray. Report by Detective Sergeant Carter, Flying Squad.’
Two things struck Regan immediately. First that Ewing was letting Carter take all the credit — no mention of Ewing’s name on the title page. The second was the type face of the typewriter that had been used for the report. The n’s and the l’s were bent. Whenever she had typed a report for him, and it had happened many times, often in the small hours of the morning, he had promised her that one day he would buy her a new typewriter. He wondered if Ewing, seeing the bent typefaces of the report he’d dictated, had made Tanya the same promise.
SITEX PROJECTED LONDON BANK RAID BY MEMBERS OF THE PROVISIONAL IRA
From: Detective Sergeant Carter. Distribution: DCS Maynon, DCI Haskins only.
Source of information: James Declan Murray.
Subject: Manner of robbery of the New York Bank and Trust Company, 300 Eastcheap, London EC3 by group (listed). Projected date of robbery: approximately forty-eight hours from this date time (qualified). Action required: immediate.
Report commences.
The Provisional IRA group listed:
1 Thomas Edward Murphy, 27, address unknown.
2 James Kavanagh, 50, address unknown. Nicknamed The Broker.’
3 Edward James Traynor, believed to be early 20s, address unknown.
4 Tom George Martin, nationality Scots. Connections with SNP (Scottish Nationalist Party), last address (parents) 14 Royal Street, Greenock; not seen six months. Considerable record including Larceny Dwelling House and Armed Robbery, CRO no 6770/69.
5 Harold James Evans, nationality believed Welsh. Cross ref possible connect with Harold T Evans Welsh Nationalist, CRO no 8101/71. Record GBH and Assault with Deadly Weapon. CRO no 6240/69.
6 Thomas Edward Parrish, early 20s, address unknown.
7 Howell Joseph McEvoy, early 20s, address 216 Queen Anne’s Terrace, Liverpool.
8 Joe John Everitt, believed 25, address Orneskill Street, Belfast. Record of minor crime.
9 Terence Feeney, regular officer Irish Army gone Absent Without Leave October 1971. Address unknown. Suspect safe blown on two bank robberies in Republic of Ireland. Member of right-wing Irish Republican groups.
10 Patrick (Pascal?) Timothy Harrington, 104 Queen’s Crescent, Belfast. Age over 40. Convicted bank robber, CRO no 3195/62.
11 James Purcell, alias Eddie Christoper, alias Hunt Kalman, US.citizen, details on file. Draftsman.
12 Cathy or Katey Traynor. Litde is known about this girl. No relation to Edward James Traynor (see 3). Believed to be in early 20s, graduate Sociology, University College, Dublin; description fits girl suspect wanted in connection with bomb outrages Birmingham late 1971.
13 & 14 John Murphy and Joey O’Horgan, shot to death, Islade Farm, near Bath.
15 & 16 Brothers Tim and Tony Noonan, 18 Observatory Gardens, Belfast City. No convictions. These two men suspect for three bank raids in the Republic. Reference Dublin Special Branch, telephone 0102 933120.
Note: This writer has been in touch with Dublin Special Branch. They believe they have photos of half of suspects listed above. They will proceed wirephoto urgently.’
INTENTION: The above group intend to rob The New York Bank and Trust Company within forty-eight hours. The writer of this report has been in contact with a police source who has knowledge of the type of operation of this kind of American bank in London and believes that this bank may carry large quantities in cash and convertible bonds. The writer of this report did not wish to jeopardize the security of the investigation by contacting any employee of the bank.
METHOD:
A The New York Bank and Trust Company has two branches in London. 300 Eastcheap and 221 Curzon street. The Eastcheap branch is the largest. Vice President: Averill Harben.
B The New York Bank and Trust Company shares a security system with twelve other American banks in London including Interbank of Chicago, and Anglo-American Equity Bank Company. The security consists of a direct electronic link from all these banks to a central security office in South Audley Street. In the event of a break-in occurring in one of these banks, sensing apparatus sends a silent signal to the security office at South Audley Street. Two security guards leave the office and go to the appropriate branch to investigate. In the event of the security alarm having been set off by accident, these guards will investigate the bank premises before summoning the local police.
C Purcell’s plan is:
(1) To deliberately set off the electronic alarm system in The New York Bank and Trust Company at Eastcheap
(2) To have others of his group abduct the two security guards as they step from the office in South Audley Street. Purcell believes the group will not expect to walk straight into their guns.
(3) To relieve the guards at gunpoint of the keys to the Eastcheap bank.
(4) To proceed with the guards and rendezvous with the rest of the group at the bank.
(5) To gain entrance to the bank using the security guards’ keys.
(6) The gang will then change into police uniforms which they will have brought with them.
(7) They will then use thermic lance equipment to cut open the safe and remove as much of the contents as possible and load a lorry at the back of the bank.
(8) In the event of other police or civilians arriving, they trust that the sight of uniformed police already investigating inside the bank will allay suspicion. Four men will be exclusively involved in loading the lorry at the rear of the premises, the others in posing as policemen.
(9) They time the raid as taking twenty-eight minutes from entering the bank to leaving in the lorry.
(10) They will all be armed and are dangerous.
(11) Purcell has been told that prior to the raid he will be taken to a secret address and kept under observation. After the raid they will hand over his share and release him. He has said that he is prepared to accompany them on the raid. They are considering his offer.
CONCLUSION: The information is the result of a lengthy interview with suspect Declan Murray. His attitude was one of co-operation throughout. We have no reason to doubt that he was telling the truth. This report has been written speedily for obvious reasons. The below signed will be pleased to discuss and clarify any points that may require amplification.
Signed:
G. Carter
Detective Sergeant,
Flying Squad. C.O.C.8.
Lieutenant Ewing woke and adjusted his eyes to the darkness of the bedroom, and then raised and turned his head slowly to see the digital clock on her side of the bed. Four-thirty am. The beginnings of grey dawn seeping in at the edge of the chintz curtains. He raised himself on his elbow. Her hand came out and touched his. He told her softly to go back to sleep. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and explored the immediate area of carpet with his toes. They had made love a few hours ago, two hours of it. It had been good. He felt relaxed. It was all working out. The case was sewed up — except for his play — when he turned his cards face up and watched the shock strike across all their faces.
His toes found the beer cans and pushed them away. Tanya had gone from fury to mirth when he’d produced the six-pack of beer at the bedside. ‘Are you saying you’re going to screw me and drink beer at the same time?’
He was watching her, his face had a quizzical expression, his head inclined. ‘What about it?’
‘Are you mad? Are you crazy?’
‘Thirsty,’ he said.
‘You are saying we are actually going to screw while you are drinking beer?’ The anger was going and she was beginning to laugh.
He shrugged. ‘Let’s say screwing comes first — the beer is the intervals.’ His eyes went slowly down the naked length of her body. ‘But we start with an interval.’ He snapped off the beer can top one handed, and dropped it on the carpet by the bed. O
ver the next two hours five more tabs and six empty cans of beer ended up on the floor.
He got up and headed across the room. ‘What’s the time,’ she asked, her voice soft and vague.
‘Four thirty. I’m making a States call, collect. I’ll be back. Go sleep.’
‘What happens if I don’t want to sleep? What happens if I want a screw again?’
He paused at the door. ‘We’re out of beer.’
She sighed, pulled the sheets up and over her head. He went out of the room, and pulled the door closed.
In the sitting room he picked up the scotch bottle on the way to the phone. He picked up the phone and dialled 108. He got through straight away.
‘Which country are you calling?’ A tired voice enquired.
‘USA San Francisco.’
He was connected to the States operator. ‘I’d like to make a collect call to Parry, Duty Officer, Main Bay, San Francisco P.D., Area Code 415 444-0900, my name is Ewing. ‘ He said it all in one sentence.
He unscrewed the whiskey cap and took a small swig, and studied his watch. Four-thirty equals eight-thirty pm, coast time, a good moment to catch Parry coming on to night watch and just about to start on patrol.
It took the English operator ten minutes to get through and locate Lieutenant Parry, Ewing’s closest colleague in Frisco P.D.
Parry came straight on the line with a question. ‘How goes it?’
‘Ed, it’s working out. We’re going to find him.’ Ewing paused as if suddenly he wondered about whether there was any real purpose in this phone call. The issues had always been laid out — why check back? The answer was he needed that final confirmation that they were backing him and he was not alone. ‘Ed I want to know nothing’s changed. That I proceed with the plan that you and Dane and Darrel put up. I don’t want to hear later on, that any of you guys had last minute thoughts.’
Lieutenant Parry was also silent for a moment, and then said two words of affirmative. Ewing was to proceed and execute the plan that they had all discussed and agreed.
Sunday morning around nine o’clock. Regan walked up from the village into the tree line. The paths which led through pines to the valley escarpments were empty except for a couple of goats which scattered from him and leapt off awkwardly to hide in the clumps of wild fern. The trees of the valley were being stirred by the first hints of another storm. The air was cold, tightening the skin on his face. He found an eyrie of broken rock and climbed up to a perch which looked down on the falling land,
A church bell banged a truncated sound somewhere in the isolation below. Over the tiny world of Gloucester villages other bells echoed, as if to make the point of being ignored. He sat down on the rocks, took out his binoculars, and studied the farmhouse a quarter of a mile below. Then he panned round the quarter of a mile radius with the farmhouse in the centre. He could see no other policemen in bushes, gullies, or behind trees, armed with guns and binoculars. But there were policeman out there, at least half a dozen of them. Perhaps a couple of them had already seen through their binoculars Regan arrive on the rock, and had wondered what the hell he was doing there.
Because the word was out that Detective Inspector Regan wasn’t on the case any more. The case had been carved up last night between the Commander of the Flying Squad, and the Superintendent of the Bomb Squad. When Regan had phoned through at six am this morning to ask what was the result of the 0-Group, Haskins had said: ‘Make sure we have your telephone number for wherever you’ll be today.’ Which meant fuck off. Sergeant Carter, according to Haskins, was ‘unavailable on a job’, which meant that Carter, interrogator and report-writer par excellence, had now replaced his superior, Regan, in spearheading the case for the Squad.
The house was a smaller version of the Islade farmhouse. There were four cars and a van parked around the mud yard in front of the house. Declan Murray, under Carter and Ewing’s interrogation, had come up with the news that the group had a ‘double stop’. They’d rented two farmhouses within a mile of each other. If the security of one blew out, there would be the other.
Whoever was heading the group now — Declan Murray had suggested it would be James Kavanagh — had decided that Islade had blown out. Probably related to Declan Murray’s and his two pals’ fatal ‘accident’ — a photo of their tin-opened car smashed over the M4 with suitable caption, on the front page of the Daily Express: IRA SUSPECTS KILLED IN M4 CRASH. Kavanagh would be worried that perhaps on one of the three dead bodies would be the Islade Farm address. Bath CID, who had been watching Islade Farm, said no one had turned up after the farm battle yesterday.
Obviously the people wandering around in the farmyard below had no idea that yesterday there had been a gun battle at Islade. Obviously they believed the M4 crash story. Regan could see a half a dozen of them clearly, going in and out of the farmhouse, loading up the van, no apparent haste. He could see their expressions, read their silence, understand their grief at what they considered an idiot stroke of Fate — their leader and two compatriots killed in a car hours before the job. Regan questioned the thought again and again. There was no other conclusion to come to. If they suspected that the accident was a fake, they’d be running around down there like a bunch of Keystone Cops getting the hell out.
The cold chilled him. He took out the letter and buttoned his coat up to the collar. The letter had come in yesterday’s second post. Last night he’d read it quickly, now he read it again.
Dear Jack,
I am leaving you. I don’t understand you and now I don’t want to. This has nothing to do with the American Ewing. Next week I go on business to Germany. If you wish to see me I will agree, although I believe when you have thought about this you will understand that contact between us is now pointless. There was much that happened in our relationship that I’ll always thank you for, and I will never forget you.
Good-bye, Jack Regan,
Tanya
He felt a sudden stab at the thought of the loss of her, her companionship, her genuine humour, and her confidence in all situations. And he’d miss her at night, too. He had had some of the best hours of his life with her, but one of them was always a victim in the relationship — it didn’t matter who — and the seeds of its collapse were built in because of his work and his attitude to his work, the seriousness with which he took his work. And the catalyst for the breakdown had to come sooner or later. Now was a good time. He was tired of most things and puzzled by himself, and unsure why he had been driven to take certain critical directions over the last years which he knew intuitively were wrong. Why didn’t he question more his way of life? He knew he was losing finesse in his work. He knew that the respect of his enemies, and his colleagues — and most of his colleagues were enemies in some disguise — was gradually being tempered by the odd doubt. Here he was, on a Sunday morning, perched on a rock above the village of Barton, alone, no sergeants with him, not officially in charge of anything — what the fuck was he doing here? A robbery was going to take place in London tonight or tomorrow. Probably an enormous operation had been mounted by Maynon and the Bomb Squad brigade and he, Regan, didn’t know a damn thing about it, was not privy to one jot of information about the over-all plan. Why?
Better question: why put up with it?
Answer: he knew he was hanging around, hanging on to this case, because there was something wrong about the whole fucking set-up as delineated by smart-arse Sergeant Carter in his worthy report. Something wrong. Something in that list of names. Something about the bank, perhaps? But what? Regan put the binoculars to his eyes and panned them across the farmhouse again. Still those men slowly loading the van.
Then he saw the girl come out. What was her name — Cathy or Katey Traynor? She was carrying something that looked like a transistor radio. Early twenties, undistinguished face, good body, good tits under a little cotton shirt, good arse, tight in Levis. Walks well. Yes, he, Regan, could give her one, give her a couple as a matter of fact. But no other member of the Metropolitan
CID had those plans for her. This kid was walking, walking beautifully, into a lot of trouble.
It was a transistor radio. Probably they would use it on the job to tune into police VHF transmissions.
Regan wondered if he was the only one on this Sunday in this Christian country who realized that Carter’s report was junk. There certainly was one person who’d know for sure. But he wouldn’t have read it — the draftsman James Purcell. And that was a possible area that might be worth studying as a starting point. The proposition: the report is a turd because the micks wouldn’t have brought in such a bleeding high-powered piece of machinery like Purcell to do something so straightforward as to knock a bank over. Or would they? Or would they?
He lit a cigarette, propped the binoculars on his nose with one hand, held the cigarette in the other, smoking, contemplating the creatures in the farm below.
The Sweeney 01 Page 14
