Murder on Pay Day

by David Pearson

  Further assistance for the unit will be provided by additional posts in the forensic team, but these will be recruited separately through the usual channels, and you will be advised in due course.

  In implementing these changes, I would ask you to have regard to the current policies on gender balance and equality within the unit, and to ensure that all of the correct procedures are followed meticulously before any appointments are made.

  To allow sufficient time for the recruitment, and any additional training that may be required, these changes will take effect from June 1st next year, and budgetary adjustments will be made to reflect the new organizational structure from that time.

  I will leave it to you to decide when best to share these new arrangements with your team, but please make it clear that the changes will not be effective until the date indicated, although I have no issue with any of the individuals “acting up” in the interim, provided that their pay scale remains as is until the implementation date.

  As I understand it, Mill Street is currently operating above capacity, so I have today sent a note to the Office of Public Works to ask them to find a suitable overflow arrangement close to the station until such time as our new Western Regional Headquarters comes on stream in the near future.

  You may contact Ms Irene McFerriter here at Headquarters for any Human Resource assistance that you may require to implement these measures.

  Yours sincerely,

  Dónal J. Whelan

  Garda Commissioner

  “Well that’s a good one all right,” Plunkett said to himself whilst rubbing his chin, “I thought they had forgotten all about it. It just goes to show, it always takes longer than you could imagine to accomplish anything in this outfit. Still, it’s all good!”

  Superintendent Plunkett lifted the phone and dialled an internal number. The phone was answered by Detective Garda Sally Fahy.

  “Sally, is Inspector Hays in his office?”

  “Eh yes, sir, he is.”

  “Could you ask him to drop up to see me if he has a few minutes? Thanks.”

  A few moments later, there was a knock on the superintendent’s door.

  “Come in, Mick. Sit you down. Coffee?” the superintendent said.

  “Yes, thanks sir.” Hays replied.

  Plunkett rang through to his secretary and asked for two coffees, and then swivelled the letter from the Commissioner around towards Hays.

  “Have a read of that, Mick. It looks as if something has come through at last.”

  Hays studied the letter in silence, reading through all three pages before making any comment.

  “Congratulations, sir, that’s excellent news. It looks as if they have agreed to just about everything you asked for,” Hays said.

  “I asked for a good bit more, Mick, but I’ve learnt in this game that’s what you do – ask for a dozen, and you get three or four. It’s all I really wanted anyway – we couldn’t handle too much change all at once. What do you think about stepping up to Super?”

  “If you’re happy with it, sir, then I’d be delighted. You know it wasn’t so long ago I was thinking of handing in my papers here. I had an offer to go to a UK force to head up a new digital crime unit. I’m glad I didn’t now,” Hays said.

  “I heard about that, but I’m glad you decided to stay. So, can I assume that’s a done deal then, all in due time, of course? There’s a bloody lot of administration and paperwork that goes with it mind you. Less operational work. Are you OK with that?”

  “Yes, sir. Perfectly, and I’m sure there will be times when I’ll still be able to get my hands dirty,” Hays said.

  Just then the phone on the superintendent’s desk rang and he picked it up.

  “It’s for you, Mick. You’re wanted downstairs. Let’s continue this discussion later, or maybe tomorrow, and in the meantime mum’s the word, OK?”

  “Fine, sir,” Hays said getting up to leave, “and thanks.”

  The superintendent gave Hays a nod and went back to studying the letter.

  * * *

  “What’s up Sally?” Hays asked Detective Garda Sally Fahy as he returned to the open plan office where the detective unit plied their trade.

  “There was a call for you, sir. Some bloke called ‘Rolo’ or ‘Rollo’ he said. He said you know him. He’s going to ring back in five minutes.”

  “Thanks Sally,” Hays said and went into his private office and closed the door.

  A few minutes later, his phone rang.

  “Hays.”

  “This is Rollo. We need to meet,” a man’s husky voice said.

  “Usual place, half an hour?” Hays said.

  Rollo said nothing, and just hung up.

  Hays collected his scarf and overcoat as he left his office and made for the door. It was December after all, and the west of Ireland weather was doing its best to dampen the Christmas spirit that seemed to have gripped the city over the past few days. The festive lights strung across the streets high up between the lamp standards were swinging wildly in the strong wind, and rain cascaded down from the gutters and parapets giving the pedestrians hurrying along beneath with parcels and shopping bags a good soaking.

  Hays drove out to Salthill, where rather crude concrete shelters had been built along the promenade looking out to sea. The local youths had decorated these very basic structures with graffiti in all shapes and colours. The city council would come along in the spring and re-paint them in time for the tourist season, but for now they looked tatty and unkempt. They provided an ideal meeting place for Hays and his snout. No one would be using the shelters today, and the promenade itself was completely deserted.

  Hays parked up and walked – bent against the rain – straight to the one where he met Rollo occasionally to glean information about potential criminal activity. The information Rollo gave him proved generally useful, if a little lacking in detail, but Hays used it to fill in the blanks, or to point enquiries in a particular direction, and he paid Rollo handsomely for it.

  Today, he had brought a half bottle of Irish whiskey and five well used ten euro notes in the expectation that Rollo hadn’t dragged him out in such awful weather for no good reason.

  Hays stepped into the shelter and found Rollo already sitting inside trying to keep as far away from the driving wind and rain as it would allow. He was a man who could have been any age from forty to sixty, with lank, thinning grey hair that stuck to his scalp, a weather-beaten face that featured three or four days of grey stubble and a few badly yellowed teeth. He was wearing a heavy tweed herringbone overcoat, black trousers and badly broken cracked leather shoes that Hays assumed were nowhere near watertight. He didn’t smell too good either, so Hays remained seated at the far end of the concrete bench.

  “Rollo,” Hays said with a nod.

  “Mick,” the man replied, and that was the extent of the greeting that passed between them.

  “Have you got anything for me?” Rollo said.

  “I hope you have something for me, Rollo, dragging me all the way out here in this weather.”

  “Sure, don’t you know I have. I don’t suppose you brought a drop of cheer considering it’s so near the Christmas?” Rollo said.

  Hays reached into the inside pocket of his coat and produced the half bottle of whiskey.

  “Ah, God bless you, sir,” Rollo said, grasping the bottle, removing the screw top and taking a generous swig.

  “Ah, that’s better. Fair warms the cockles, that does,” Rollo said.

  “C’mon Rollo, I haven’t got all day. What have you got?” Hays asked.

  Rollo leant in nearer to Hays giving him the full benefit of his body odour, now infused with the smell of whiskey. Hays tried not to withdraw visibly from the man.

  “Just something I heard. You know the way they will be giving a double week’s benefits out next week?” Rollo said.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, seems there are a few lads fancy a bit of it, out in Clifden, I hear. They reckon
there could be up to seventy or eighty grand in it – worth having a go,” Rollo said.

  “Who are these lads, Rollo?”

  “Ah, now I don’t know that, Mick. I just overheard a couple of them chatting on their phones when they were having a smoke in the back lane outside the pub. I didn’t recognise them or anything.”

  “So, you think they’re going to have a go at Clifden Post Office on benefits day next week?” Hays said.

  “That’s what it sounds like, Mick. Now have you anything else for me? I’m a bit brassic.”

  Hays slipped the notes into the man’s grubby hand and they disappeared instantly.

  “Ah, thanks Mick, you’re a good man even if you are a copper,” Rollo said.

  “This better pan out, Rollo,” Hays said.

  “Ah ’tis sound, don’t worry, sir.”

  Hays turned the information he had received over in his head on the way back to Mill Street.

  “It sounds feasible, I suppose, if a bit daring. But that’s the way things are going these days,” he said to himself. By the time he got back to the station, he had almost fully bought into Rollo’s story.

  Chapter Four

  “Where did you disappear to?” Inspector Maureen Lyons asked Hays when he returned to the office. Lyons and Hays were partners in life, as well as in the force, and they lived together in what had been Hays’ house in Salthill. Lyons had moved in after being made up to inspector following the successful detection and prosecution of a particularly nasty murder a few years previously. It was an unconventional arrangement but Superintendent Plunkett tolerated it, as long as it didn’t interfere with their police work, and to date it hadn’t.

  “I got a call from Rollo. He told me there could be a job going down out in Clifden next week on benefits day. Some likely lads reckon with the extra week it will be worth their while doing the post office. They seem to think it could be worth seventy grand,” Hays said, relaying the skimpy details that Rollo had shared with him.

  “Jesus, are you sure he’s reliable, Mick? Clifden is the last place I’d be targeting if I was them. There’s only four roads out of the place, and they basically lead nowhere anyway,” Lyons said.

  “I know what you mean, but there are literally hundreds of holidays homes out there, and you could be holed up in any one of them completely unobserved for days and no one would be any the wiser. Anyway, where else would you rob? Galway is a no-no due to the traffic – you’d never get out of it. Moycullen and Oughterard wouldn’t be rich enough, and if you planned it right, you could be away off to Westport or back into Galway before Séan Mulholland had finished his tea and biscuits!” Hays said.

  “Hmm. OK. So what day is benefits day out in Clifden anyway?” Lyons said.

  “Tuesday, I think. We’ll have to check up with the Department of Social Welfare to see what the drill is for getting the money out there, and how much they usually hand out in cash. I think a lot of the old-timers in the west don’t have bank accounts, or even if they do, they prefer to get the readies into their hands so that they can go and play cards and have a few pints in the afternoon in front of a nice warm turf fire in some of the pubs,” Hays said.

  “I’ll get Sally Fahy onto it straight away. If we’re going to catch these buggers, we need to plan it carefully. Do you think they will be armed?” Lyons said.

  “Possibly, although not heavily. Probably just a sawn-off shotgun to scare the living daylights out of the post-mistress. I doubt if they’ll want to use it though,” Hays said.

  “Nevertheless, we’ll need to get the Armed Response Unit involved just in case.”

  When Fahy contacted the Department of Social Welfare, she was careful not to reveal the reason for her enquiries. It was important to keep the possibility of a blag going down a secret, lest the word might get back to the gang and the entire caper be called off.

  Lyons was alone in her office when Fahy knocked on her door.

  “Hi Sally, what’s up?” Lyons said.

  “I’ve been onto the Department, boss. They told me that they normally send around thirty-two thousand in cash out to Clifden with the postman, who has a safe in his van. But next week, that amount will be doubled due to the Christmas bonus, so more like sixty thousand.”

  “Right. Well get onto the central post office here and find out what the arrangements are for the transportation of large amounts of money. Don’t be specific about Clifden, and tell them we’re just updating our records about cash in transit generally. Ask about Loughrea and Athenry as well in case they smell a rat,” Lyons said.

  * * *

  Clifden post office is located on the main street, sandwiched, along with two other retail outlets, between Foyle’s Hotel and Millar’s knitwear and souvenir emporium. It could be a busy little place at times, and the post-mistress, Bridget O’Toole, who had run the place for more than thirty years, was frequently hard pressed to keep up without letting long queues develop. On benefits day, she often enlisted the help of her daughter, Aoife, to help out. Aoife worked in the nearby pharmacy, and took a few hours off on Tuesdays to help her mother through the busy hours from 11 a.m. to lunch time, by which time most of the benefits had been doled out.

  Bridget was a small woman, with tight grey curls and a wrinkled complexion who knew absolutely everything about every single citizen from the town. Before the installation of the automated telephone exchange, which came to Clifden in the late 1980s, Bridget had manned the old manual telephone exchange in the little shop, and as a result eavesdropped on every conversation that took place between the locals, or between them and their overseas relations – usually in America.

  Over the years Bridget had endured three robberies, on one occasion chasing the thieves out empty-handed with a stout hawthorn shillelagh that she kept under the counter for just such an occasion. But she was getting old now, and she knew that the thieves were getting more vicious, so recently she had adopted a different approach. These days, if an attempt was made to steal from her, she would not resist – after all, it was only money, and not even hers.

  With Christmas approaching, the town was busy enough. There were no tourists of course, and all of the folks that occupied the holiday homes in the hinterland had long since departed to their busy urban lives, but nevertheless, the locals provided brisk trade in the town’s shops, and for the past three weeks the post office had been busy sending parcels and packets, letters and greeting cards off to the USA, Australia, and of course all over the United Kingdom. Despite extensive advertising and postering inside the post office, people still thought they could rush in during Christmas week with a parcel for their relatives overseas, and expect it to be delivered virtually overnight. But Bridget was patient with such tardy customers, often saying, “Won’t it be a nice surprise for them in the new year!” and would take the package and get it away as soon as she could.

  Bridget and Aoife had worked out a practical scheme for dishing out benefits every Tuesday. Paddy McKeever would arrive out between nine thirty and ten in the morning, depending on the number of deliveries he had to make on route. On arrival, he would bring the van around to the yard at the rear of the post office, open the safe in the back of the van, and carry in the cash; then Bridget would place it all in her own safe. Then she would sign for the cash and let Paddy away before opening the packages and removing €5,000 in mixed denominations of notes and coins. She would bring this money into the front office, being careful to lock the safe again. As she handed out the allowances, giving each beneficiary the amount printed on their benefits book, Aoife would top up her supply at the front counter from the safe from time to time. It usually took about two hours to pay out to all those who wanted ready money, so that starting at eleven, they would be finished shortly after one o’clock and could go to get some lunch next door in Foyle’s Hotel. It was a well-practiced routine that had served them well, and there was really nothing different about Christmas, except of course that the amount dispensed to each recipient was almo
st double the usual.

  Chapter Five

  Hays had gone upstairs to inform Superintendent Plunkett of the information he had received, and to see what additional resources he could procure to set up a stake-out in Clifden the following Tuesday.

  Lyons was in her office when he re-appeared a few minutes later looking glum.

  “Christ, Maureen, that man! You’d swear it was his own money,” Hays said.

  “That went well then. What’s the story?” Lyons said.

  “He will only give us two men from the Armed Response Unit. He says that you and I both have firearms authorization, and with Sally and Eamon and a couple of Séan’s men in plain clothes, we should be able to handle it. But of course, if it goes wrong, it’ll be my fault,” Hays complained.

  “Never mind, Mick, we’ll be fine. Don’t worry. You and I can draw guns for the day, and there’ll be enough of us to deal with whatever turns up. Just try not to shoot me!”

  “As if,” he said, softening.

  He was always surprised at just how tough his favourite Detective Inspector could be. Although she was only five foot three inches tall, and her big brown eyes and dark hair gave her a look of childing innocence, woe betide anyone who took her for a pushover. She had, after all, as a rookie uniformed Garda, arrested an armed robber making a getaway from a bank raid on Eyre Square single-handedly. On another occasion she had been taken and tied up by a nasty vicious little thug called Lorcan McFadden, but Lyons had got herself free and given McFadden a good hiding for his trouble.

  “OK, well we need a good briefing on Monday. Can you get Séan to send in Jim Dolan and any others he can spare, and we’ll make a plan for Tuesday? Get Sally and Eamon in too. We’ll kick off at half ten – don’t want to get the country folks up too early. Then see if you can set up the firearms for us both,” Hays said.