Twenty-four hours after the robbery, police began knocking on the doors of all crooks who had committed an offence in the past three years. With his reputation, Tattley was always going to be one of the first interviewed. Police located him at his home in Blockhouse Bay and found him to be unusually cooperative. He denied having anything to do with the robbery, and explained that his wife had recently given birth. He had his hands full and was now going straight. He had a full-time job at the Vacuum Oil Company and life on the correct side of the law, he reckoned, was grand. When officers asked to search his house, Tattley agreed without hesitation. Because he was so cooperative, the police figured he had nothing to hide and left after only a cursory look around.
When clerks from the Australia and New Zealand Bank were shown the selection of photos from the rogues’ gallery, Mavis Fitzgibbons confidently picked out a photograph of Ron Tattley as a likeness of the customer who had come in asking the teller next to her to change bundles of £5 notes into fifties. While the actual teller, Blumenthal, wasn’t so sure, Mavis was adamant, saying that as soon as she spotted the huge roll of £5 notes she paid close attention.
And now Tattley was nowhere to be found.
According to an associate, he had shot through to parts unknown. Tattley had been arrested in South Auckland six days after the robbery and charged with driving under the influence. His wife fronted up with the bail surety of £50, which she grudgingly paid over in £5 notes, complaining loudly that this was money she had saved up over the year for their family holiday. Tattley was released and sent home to face the music. It wasn’t until nine days after Tattley was bailed that Miss Fitzgibbons identified him. By the time this possible connection became known, the bail money had long since been banked and, of course, no record of the serial numbers of the notes retained. Efforts were made to trace serial numbers through Crown Revenue, but this proved impossible: heaps of £5 notes were banked around the same time, and most were now back in circulation. There was no way of knowing whether such notes as could be recalled were the ones handed over by Mrs Tattley, and in any case none of them were in the 4/Y sequence. That line of investigation went nowhere.
The Tattleys were gone and Schultz had his detectives visit all of Ron’s known haunts and shake down his associates to find out where in hell they were. Information gleaned from the few informants willing to talk was that the Tattleys had split at midnight on Christmas Eve, with Tattley presumably hiding in the back seat of the car with a suitcase while his wife drove. Some went further and swore that the suitcase was full of the stolen loot. Several indicated that their plan was to hide out somewhere in Wellington and ring-bolt to Australia on the MV Wanganella.
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The MV Wanganella was a trans-Tasman passenger liner. Several crew were militant union members with links to the Australian criminal underworld. This network was known to run a highly organised ring-bolting racket whereby, if someone wanted to escape overseas, he could be hidden in a safe house until he was smuggled aboard the Wanganella or another vessel immediately prior to sailing. This could be arranged in return for a sizeable drink or favour. It was alleged this practice had been operating for years and was widely known and accepted by the crew and by a particular alcoholic captain who turned a blind eye.
Auckland Police were given information about the Tattleys’ likely plans on 28 December; the Wanganella was due to depart Wellington the following day.
An urgent All Points Bulletin (APB) was issued throughout the Wellington Police District via teleprinter to be on the lookout for Tattley, his wife and baby. A team of CIB detectives scoured the streets and a description of the three was given to the Traffic Department to keep an eye out for their distinct green 1939 Chevrolet Coupe. Uniformed officers were tasked with visiting every used car yard in the city to see if Tattley had attempted to sell his car prior to his scheduled departure. It’s no exaggeration to say that the entire Wellington Police Force was out looking for Ron Tattley.
If it had been for the fact alone that he was wanted on suspicion of being involved in the Waterfront payroll robbery, Auckland would likely never have secured this level of cooperation from Wellington. But Tattley was under suspicion for the still-unsolved Hellaby robbery and the theft of £1743 from Soljan Wine Merchants in Henderson. Both crimes bore his hallmarks, and there were warrants out for his arrest. To those in command in Wellington, he sounded like a one-man crime wave.
At 1.30 pm on 29 December, a little under two hours before the Wanganella was due to sail for Sydney, twelve detectives boarded the vessel and searched high and low. Chief Officer Crimmer was adamant that, under his watch, nobody had stowed away for years, but during the search a trapdoor was found above the forward smoke lounge. Upon opening this, police discovered a small compartment that could also be accessed from the top of the superstructure, through portholes that opened up into this space. The alcove was furnished with two blankets, two towels, one lifejacket and a carton of KB Lager. Chief Officer Crimmer was a study in astonished disbelief. He had been too trusting, he cried, and conceded it was entirely possible that crew could smuggle someone on board without his knowledge, and the ring-bolter could then spend the four-day sailing out of sight in this cramped little space. Everyone agreed that the blankets looked old and smelled musty, and that it was therefore not likely they had been stowed there recently.
A few weeks later, on 14 January 1957, Ron Tattley was spotted on Wakefield Street in Auckland and promptly arrested on suspicion of having committed a robbery. Although there was no evidence he had committed the Hellaby robbery, the safe was blown with a detonator powered by a Globe car battery, which had been reported stolen by the vehicle’s owner, Steve Burgess, and valued at £9. This battery was found when Tattley’s house was searched after his arrest and he was formally charged with theft of a battery. When informed of this charge, Tattley laughed scornfully, accusing police of trying to fit him up for the Waterfront job, which he also vehemently denied having any involvement with. He couldn’t remember what he was doing on the night of 27 November, but he thought he was at home caring for his wife and two-month-old baby, who was ill at the time. Detectives looking at Tattley’s home and effects decided that, if Tattley was indeed responsible for the Waterfront heist, then he was not flashing it about. He admitted paying cash for his Chevrolet Coupe from Atlas Motors on 19 November and produced a receipt for £375, but he claimed this was from striking the double at the Te Rapa races.
When asked his whereabouts throughout December, Tattley claimed he had gone on holiday with his wife and baby, staying with relatives in Whanganui and Palmerston North, oblivious to the fact the entire Wellington police force was looking for him.
He pleaded not guilty to the theft of the battery, which he claimed he had purchased legitimately for £5 in November. But on this matter his luck ran out, and because he had an extensive list of previous convictions, he was sentenced to a stretch up at the Big House.
— — —
With Tattley secure in Mount Eden Prison for the time being, Schultz turned his attentions to David Brady. A search warrant executed at Brady’s home found nothing remotely incriminating and it was reported that ‘if Brady had some part in the robbery, then he certainly has nothing to show for his ill-gotten gains’.
Harold James Kendall wasn’t initially high on the list of suspects for the Waterfront payroll robbery, because he hadn’t been around for a while. He was described as a ‘bird of passage’ because of his ability to disappear as quickly as he hit town, and he generally left one hell of a mess to clean up. Kendall was a transient safe-breaker who did not restrict himself to one particular location. He was well known in the Central Districts and Wellington regions but occasionally made forays into Auckland if the pickings looked promising. Kendall was a meticulous planner and fussy about who he worked with. His MO was to recruit a solid driver to drive him around for weeks while he cased out joints. Once he had identified a target, he would spend hours planning the
job down to the last detail, then he would carefully handpick a partner to help carry it out. He openly scorned amateur wannabes and ‘big-noters’.
A fizz told Detective Kyne that Kendall had checked into a hotel in Auckland several days before the robbery and had not been seen since. That made everyone sit up, and Kendall’s name went right to the top of the list.
Of particular interest to police was that, while Tattley was known only for his expertise in blowing safes, Kendall was one of the very few with experience in both explosives and cutting-torch methods. He usually targeted banks and TABs.
Auckland CIB received a teletype from Rotorua advising of a hotel publican who engaged a women’s undergarment salesman in conversation in mid-November 1956. The salesman called himself Dick Kendall and, as he drank more, he intimated he was on his way to Auckland to cut a safe and demonstrated in great detail how it was going to be done. The publican put it down to booze-drivel and forgot about it until news of the robbery broke. Even so, he didn’t do anything about it at first, and it was only when he made an informal remark to an off-duty officer that things began to roll. The salesman was soon identified as Harold Kendall.
During the hunt for Tattley, one Wellington detective reported that his fizz told him Kendall and two other fellows approached him in the Regent Hotel on 23 November asking if he wanted to be part of a ‘big job’. The informant knew Kendall, but was wary of the other two, so declined. The matter was not discussed in great detail, but the informant understood it was a bank job in Ashburton over Christmas. The group mentioned they also had ‘another big one in the pipelines’.
Kendall’s associates were ‘Don’, aged about 35 years, with a reddish complexion, possibly Australian. The other was a foreigner and didn’t say much. He was a shorter, younger man than Don, with a dark complexion and solid build, and wearing a white sports coat—similar in appearance to the second fellow Eric Thomas saw walking from the Northern Steamship Company building shortly after the Waterfront robbery. Thomas had described the man he saw as being around 40, whereas this informant described his man as younger. Don mentioned they had just been over at the Melbourne Cup, and Kendall goofed off that they knew each other from the Army, where they all served as engineers.
Records showed that Kendall was parolled at the time to his mother’s address in New Plymouth. Detective Smeaton called around and was told Kendall was in Wellington looking for work and reporting to the probation office there. When Smeaton looked sceptical, Kendall’s mum showed him a postcard apparently sent by Kendall from the Manners Street Post Office on 21 November—six days before the burglary. Smeaton didn’t put too much weight on that. At best, it proved that Kendall was in Manners Street that day, but not even that much was certain. Arranging someone to mail a postcard for you to establish your location was one of the older tricks in the book.
The New Plymouth probation officer confirmed he had authorised Kendall to make the journey and was led to believe he was reporting to the Wellington Probation Office on a daily basis. The Wellington Probation Office had not seen him, nor had they been told what day he was first supposed to report. The Justice Department recorded Kendall had transferred to Te Kuiti in October but had only checked in once; he was now in breach of his parole and there was an active warrant for his arrest. An APB was issued in Wellington and beat constables were tasked with checking all legal and illegal drinking and gambling establishments in the capital that Kendall was known to frequent.
Enquiries led police to Lower Hutt, to the residence of George Reardon, an ex-watersider who had worked with Kendall years earlier on the Wellington waterfront. Reardon stated that on Friday 23 November he had just arrived home from work at the Ford Motor Company when Kendall and an associate turned up out of the blue. Kendall, who Reardon hadn’t seen for five years, explained that he was working as a salesman for Horlicks Baby Food but, because his driver’s licence had been cancelled, his mate ‘DG’ was driving the hired company Vauxhall. They had come from head office in Christchurch and were driving back to New Plymouth when DG sideswiped a tram in Manners Street, causing damage to the right-hand door. Kendall said they were on their way to report the accident to the Taranaki Street police station, but had dropped in on Reardon to see whether he knew of a panel beater who could do a quick touch-up. Reardon replied he didn’t know any and the men left.
The Wellington Tramways Department confirmed a Vauxhall driven by a man named Williams had crashed into a tram that day. Mr Williams gave an address that proved to be false, and when a check was run on the number plates it revealed that they had been stolen off an Essex car in Napier. The Vauxhall itself was similar in description to one that had been stolen from Hawera several weeks earlier. Kendall’s story was checked and it fell over almost at once. Horlicks didn’t have a head office in Christchurch; instead, a company named Smallbone & Co. were the sole agents for North Island distribution and they had never heard of Kendall.
That weekend, the Moera TAB in Lower Hutt was broken into and the safe cut open.
Kendall was nowhere to be found, but DG was identified as a petty criminal named David George Sutherland. He was soon popped and charged with stealing a motor vehicle. He denied being involved in any safe breaks, and provided an alibi: he was in New Plymouth on the night of the Waterfront payroll robbery. He admitted knowing Kendall, but claimed he hadn’t seen him for a number of weeks. When asked where Kendall might be, he said he thought he was somewhere in the South Island.
Kendall seemed to have disappeared. Not many of the criminals willing to sing really knew too much about him and had no idea where he was. The police resigned themselves to waiting for him to break cover.
CHAPTER 6
THE WHOLE SIX YARDS
It wasn’t just Auckland detectives who were feeling persistent pressure from the attorney-general’s office. The government’s desire to suppress details was soon made known to the Fourth Estate. It might have struck the alert reader as strange that, while the robbery had made front-page news for two consecutive days, there was suddenly nothing.
John Wilson, intrepid reporter for The Auckland Star had the uncanny ability to sniff out a story and had just as many reliable informants as Detective Sergeant Schultz. It was a tip-off from one of his connections that alerted him to the fact that something pretty damn big was going down at the Waterfront Industry Commission. Wilson wasted no time in purloining the Star’s ace photographer and hustling him downtown that Wednesday morning.
Wilson had taken advantage of the confusion at the scene to slip past the constables guarding the perimeter and sneak upstairs. Upstairs, it was pandemonium. Mingling with the office staff, he had caught the gist of developments. Sherwin had been far from pleased when he caught sight of him and sent him packing, but the more sympathetic Hoy had allowed him to take one photograph of the locksmith trying to open the safe: a front-page exclusive. ‘Any more, you better talk to the chief,’ Hoy had cautioned, before showing him the door.
Later, Wilson had just been putting the finishing touches on what he was sure would be that evening’s lead story when his editor interrupted him.
‘Just had word from the sub-inspector,’ he had grumbled. ‘He’s getting it from the top. The Waterfront Industry Commission top brass want to keep this one low-key.’
Wilson had looked at him quizzically. ‘Are you joking? This is a big one. Besides, we’re due to go to print, and they know it. Are they trying to cover something up?’
‘Not sure.’ The editor shrugged. ‘But the Herald’s getting it too. I told Mr Finlay it’s too late to call back tonight’s edition, but I suggest you clear it with Mr Brady if you intend saying anything more about it.’
Within days, the police attitude had changed. They now knew they needed all the help they could get and supplied the media outlets with photographs of the equipment used to break into the safe, on the strict understanding that any articles published were to serve police interests in seeking help from the public. The amount of
money stolen didn’t feature in any subsequent articles.
— — —
Detective Harold McCombe was in charge of trying to trace the equipment left behind by the offenders. Since there were no fingerprints, it looked like seeking the proverbial needle in the haystack at first. It was unlikely all the tools and equipment left at the scene originated from one source. It was thought more likely they had been collected and stockpiled for the purpose over a period of time—as MacDonald and Newman were suspected of having done earlier that year. They could either have been stolen to order, or legitimately purchased who knows how long before. McCombe instructed all uniformed constables to call in to all building sites and light engineering-type businesses along their beat and make enquiries. Meanwhile, he scoured hundreds of burglary reports from the previous twelve months, initially concentrating on gas depots. To his surprise and delight, it didn’t take long to find something.
The gas cylinders found at the scene of the crime had the word ‘exchange’ stamped in red ink near the head. While there were 70 gas-bottle outlets in Auckland, the only company known to stencil this word on bottles was New Zealand Industrial Gases Limited (NZIG) in Otahuhu. McCombe learned that the same company was also the only firm in Auckland to handle the particular type of acetylene cylinder—BOC 40 cubic feet—that was used in the heist.
The Depot Manager of NZIG, Richard Stone, confirmed that on the night of 30 October 1956 somebody broke into the storage cage on the landing of their Nelson Street depot and stole three oxygen cylinders and six of acetylene. The offenders entered the yard by scaling the wire mesh fence, then used wire cutters to cut holes in the cage that housed the gas bottles. All the bottles taken were full: the three oxygen bottles weighed approximately 37 pounds (17 kilograms) each; three of the acetylene bottles were larger and weighed 82 pounds (37 kilograms) each, while three were smaller and weighed 30 pounds (14 kilograms). It was one of the smaller bottles that was found in the Waterfront Commission offices. Because the bottles were so heavy, the police who investigated the burglary of NZIG were certain it had been carried out by more than one offender with access to a vehicle.
The Great New Zealand Robbery Page 8