by Rob Kitchin
‘You’re deliberately avoiding my questions,’ McEvoy said pointedly.
‘That’s because they are stupid questions. They are irrelevant. My brother was murdered three days ago, not over sixty years ago. You are meant to be finding his murderer, not investigating his past.’
‘But what if his past is the reason for his murder?’
‘Then arrest the couple who were harassing him. They were obsessed with lies as well. They were confusing my brother with somebody else, or they were after some of his money.’ Koch set off towards the showroom. ‘You really should think about a new car, Superintendent,’ he said loudly into the wind. ‘You won’t buy better than a Mercedes and I’ll give you a good deal.’
* * *
He stared at the rivulets of rain spilling down the windscreen. Perhaps Frank Koch was right. Perhaps Koch’s history was irrelevant to his death. Whether Koch was a war criminal or not, they were meant to be finding his killer, not investigating his life; though his supposed past crimes did deserve attention and justice. His mobile phone rang, jogging him out of his trance.
‘McEvoy.’
‘You’re meant to be giving me regular updates,’ Bishop said irritably.
‘I thought you had your hands full,’ McEvoy replied weakly.
‘I have got them full, but I still need to know what the hell’s going on. What am I meant to be, a mind reader?’
‘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.
‘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.’
