One evening Suzy was very late, and Mike didn’t know what to do about the dinner. He put a saucepan of water on to boil and cut up the vegetables, then he looked at his watch, shook his head, and turned out the light under the saucepan. He paced around the kitchen for a bit with his hands in his pockets and then he put some salt in the water, ground some herbs to powder, chopped the parsley even finer and went back to pacing. I must say it wasn’t like her at all; if there was some delay she would usually let us know. When she did finally show up she was talking before she was even through the door.
“That Mr. Meredrew is a such a swine! Everything has to be done his way down to the last detail and if you leave out the tiniest thing, he talks to you as if he’s at the limit of his patience.” She put down her bag and took her jacket off, still talking. “He had a go at me twice yesterday and this afternoon he went and fired Lynsey. She’s absolutely desperate. She’s expecting a baby in September! Caroline thinks it was because of her maternity leave coming up. To dismiss her like that! She’ll never get another job without a decent reference. I got in touch with the Union representative. He saw us straight away. He said there was a good case for showing constructive dismissal or sexual discrimination. He said if the bank won’t reinstate her they’ll go to tribunal. At least she should get her job back, probably at another branch. That calmed her down a bit. Caroline’s taken her home. She’s such a star.” She scooped back her thick hair. “Phew, what a mess! Sorry, that’s why I’m so late.”
Mike made the dinner, and I washed up, and we sat down together at the kitchen table while Suzy prepared the coffee. Mike was more relaxed now that dinner was over but he looked thoughtful, so I said nothing. As soon as Suzy had set out the coffee and sat down, Mike said:
“Look, I’ve had an idea. I think I know how we can settle Meredrew’s hash, good and proper. Anyone interested?”
26
I looked up quickly. So did Suzy.
“What, play a sort of trick on him, you mean?” she asked.
“Something like that, but I’m not talking about anything trivial. He’d be off your back for a long time, maybe for good.”
“Gosh, that would be wonderful.”
“Rodge?”
“Are you kidding? More than anything I would love to stick it to that bastard,” I said.
My reaction would come as no surprise to Suzy; she already knew there was no love lost between me and her manager.
“It’ll take about two weeks for Rodge and I to set it up. We’re going to need a little help from you as well, Suzy.”
“What sort of help?” she asked guardedly.
“Well, to start with I need to establish people’s movements. Let me ask you something. Money from the counters has to be returned to a safe overnight, for security, right?”
She said nothing, so he continued.
“In the morning, someone has to open the safe and money has to be transferred to the counter positions for the day’s trading. I would guess all that happens well before the bank opens at nine o’clock. So who opens the safe, and who transfers the money, and when does that happen?”
She stared at him wide-eyed.
“Mike,” she said, “do you realize what you’re asking? Staff are sworn to secrecy about things like that; it’s part of our contract. I could lose my job!”
“Well, Rodge and I will be taking much bigger risks than that. I guess it just depends how much you want to get rid of Meredrew.”
I could see that she was in a bit of a quandary. I wasn’t sure what scheme Mike had in mind but the mere thought of that self-important sod of a manager getting it in the neck made me yearn for Suzy to commit herself to it.
Eventually she said: “If things went wrong, would anyone know I’d helped you?”
“Not a chance.”
“Really, Mike? I’m serious.”
“Really.”
“Well, all right. The assistant manager opens the safe. Actually more often than not it’s the senior customer service officer.”
“Who’s the senior customer service officer?”
“Lynsey. Well, it used to be Lynsey. Now that she’s gone… well, I suppose it’ll be me. I’m the next in line, and I’ve done it quite often, when people have been on holiday or ill or such-like. I’ll be acting up till they promote me.”
“Is the manager around at that time?”
“Oh no, he usually gets in about nine. We open the street door at nine whether he’s in or not.”
“So what time do you get in?”
“About eight-fifteen. Gives me time to hang my coat up, get settled, have a cup of tea. Then I go to the safe to pick up my till. I’m responsible for my own till. It’s the same for the other girls on the counter.”
“That would be around eight-thirty?”
“Normally, yes.”
“What do you mean by ‘normally’?”
“Well on a Friday we generally start earlier. Friday’s a busy day. There are queues of people waiting to be paid so we’re tied up with customers pretty much all day. At our branch we like to bring the book-keeping up to date before the weekend. So we get the counters ready and then the staff work on the journal roll. We get as far as we can before nine.”
“And that’s done in an office round the back somewhere?”
“Yes.”
“And everyone’s involved in this, what from eight-thirty to nine?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Now there are three tellers. Do you have keys to all three tills?”
“No, of course not. Only my own.”
“But there must be spares. Where are they kept?”
“Mike, that’s confidential…”
“Okay, Suzy, I don’t need to know where they’re kept. Just tell me if you have access to them.”
She looked at him for a moment, then said “yes” very quietly, as if she didn’t want to be heard.
“Good. Excellent. Now, the next thing I need to know is, where does the manager live?”
Suzy looked at him in alarm. “Mike, I don’t like the sound of this…”
“Don’t worry. Look, if he lives outside London it’s no big deal anyway. I’ll have to base the plan on his office. But it wouldn’t be nearly as effective.”
“I do have his telephone number. I need to have it in case of emergencies.”
Suzy opened her handbag, took out a small leather address book and leafed through it. “Here we are. Well, it’s an 0208 number so it should be London.”
“Is he ex-directory?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s look him up then.”
Mike booted up the laptop, and I mooched over to watch the screen with him. He logged on to the server and brought up the Directory Enquiries web site. Reading off the screen, he muttered, “Surname or Business,” and typed MEREDREW. “Area”, he said, and typed LONDON. Then he clicked on the search button marked PEOPLE. After a moment or two a list of Meredrews came up.
“What’s his initials?” he asked Suzy.
“M.H. It’s Morton something.”
He scrolled down the names.
“This looks like it might be it.”
He clicked the GO button at the side of the name and up came an address and telephone number.
“Suzy, have a look. Is that the number, there?”
Suzy came over with her little address book to check the screen.
“Yes, that’s it.”
She went and sat down again.
Mike scribbled the address on a scrap of paper. I pointed to a button below the address, labelled SEE MAP DETAILS.
“Oh yes,” he said quietly. “Do let’s have a map.”
He clicked the button and a very pixellated map formed on the screen and increased in resolution.
“Ah, it’s Richmond.” Half turning to me he said under his voice, “This is too easy.”
He disconnected from the server and we sat down again.
“Suzy,” he said. “Whi
le we’re about it, do you have a number for the manager of the Security Division of your bank? Not an internal number; I need one in the public domain.”
“I can get hold of one.”
“Good. And I need a large envelope, the type of thing you’d use to put money or documents in a safe deposit. Preferably something with the bank’s name on it.”
“Okay, I can get that for you easy enough.”
“Great.”
“Is that it?”
“That’s it. Well nearly it—there’s just one more thing. We’ll schedule this for a Friday; let’s see, it’ll be two weeks from this Friday. That Friday morning I’d like you to pick up the spare set of till keys.”
Suzy’s eyes had gone wide and dark, but Mike continued breezily.
“When you all go off to do the book-keeping, I’d like you to hang back and open the three tills. Gap them a tiny bit, just so as the lock’s not engaged. Then put the keys back where you found them.”
Suzy’s mouth was open.
“Mike! You’re not serious! I can’t do that! I’m not doing that!”
“Suzy, Suzy, calm down. Look, it won’t even be noticed. I guarantee that by the time the girls come back to the counter all those drawers will be locked again.”
“Oh, and precisely how…?”
“Now don’t ask me that. It’s better you don’t know. But it’ll happen. I guarantee.”
“You guarantee. You guarantee I’ll lose my job, that’s what you guarantee! This is ridiculous! I’ve said far too much already. There’s too much at stake. I’m a trusted employee, for God’s sake. Forget it! I’m not doing it.”
Mike threw up his open hands.
“Okay, that’s it, then. We can’t do it. Sorry. Lynsey gets the sack and you’ll have to live with your lovely manager.”
Suzy bit her lip and said nothing.
I didn’t know where all this had been leading but since it had obviously run into a brick wall I thought it was time I stepped in.
“Mike, can I get this straight? You want Suzy to get us a phone number and a big bank envelope. And that’s not a problem, Suzy?”
She shrugged petulantly.
“But you also want her to borrow the spare keys, just temporarily, and leave the till drawers unlocked, just temporarily.”
“That’s right,” Mike replied. “I wouldn’t have asked her if we could do it any other way. I didn’t think it was that big a deal. No one’s going to notice and when it’s all over there’ll be absolutely nothing to connect her with it.” He turned to Suzy. “I’m telling you, Suzy, if you do this, we can really sock it to Meredrew. You don’t, we can’t. It’s as simple as that.”
Suzy was shaking her head. “I’ve no idea what you’re up to, Mike…”
“I know. And I’m not spelling it out because I don’t want to involve you any more than I absolutely have to. Sorry and all that, but I need those three drawers left unlocked for about ten minutes, that’s all, and I can’t see any other way of doing it except to ask you. Rodge and I will do everything else. Won’t we, Rodge?”
“Er, yes, of course,” I said, not having a clue what he was talking about.
“See, Rodge and I will do the rest. But this is your bit.”
Suzy looked over at me. “Rodger…?”
I knew she was appealing to me to back her up. Instead I hoped my expression was conveying what I was thinking. Please do this, Suzy. I know it’s a lot to ask but please do it.
There was a long silence. Suzy looked away, staring vacantly, resting her forehead on her fingertips and massaging nervously above one eyebrow. Then she said huskily:
“All right. But if anything goes wrong I’ll never speak to either of you again.”
And she got up suddenly and stormed out of the room.
Mike and I looked at each other. I heaved a sigh of relief. Mike smiled.
“We’ll go over the details tomorrow,” he whispered.
27
We’d already identified two banks that were suitable, and we spent the rest of that week scouting around to bring the number up to six. In each branch we took GPS and ultrasonic distance readings in the usual way so we could be sure I’d land in a good position behind the counter. We did the same for the Cromwell Road branch where Suzy worked. And then we were all set. On the following Tuesday we went into action.
Mike roused me at six-thirty. It’s not in my nature to get up so early, and I detest having to do it, but timing was going to be crucial to this whole operation. All these branches had several tellers. If I let them get in place before I arrived behind the counter I wouldn’t be able to control all of them; there was a real risk that one would hit a concealed panic button, sounding the alarm and alerting the police. The only way to avoid this was to get there before the first teller came in.
We walked over to the Department and warmed up the equipment. When everything was stable Mike projected me to the first target. I had my gun and I was wearing the balaclava, now dyed black. I just waited there quietly. There was no need to conceal myself; all the activity was going on somewhere in the rooms behind, and no one could see me from the street. It was eight-fifteen.
Seventeen minutes later a girl came in with her till drawer. I covered her mouth with my hand and jammed the barrel of the gun against her forehead. I wasn’t gentle; she had to know I meant business. I pointed the barrel at her till and then at my duffel bag and hissed, “Put it all in.” Then I pressed the cold muzzle of the gun hard behind her ear and kept it there while she did it. When she’d transferred all the money I told her to lie face down on the floor and not to move or make a sound. She was still lying there when I did my disappearing act.
We did two more targets the same way, one on Wednesday morning and one on Thursday morning. We skipped Friday and Monday and went into action again the following Tuesday and Wednesday. I’d only netted about thirty thousand pounds so far but that wasn’t to be sniffed at. In any case this was just the prelude to the main part of the plan; that would go into action on Friday morning when we hit Suzy’s branch. Meanwhile we had just one more job to do, on the Thursday morning.
And that’s when it all went pear-shaped.
I was at the target at eight-fifteen in the morning, as before. The teller who came in first was a slim woman in her thirties. She didn’t see me and I moved behind her as usual, clapped my hand over her mouth, brandished the gun, and signalled for her to put the money in the bag. I’d done this so many times now it seemed almost routine. But this girl had other ideas. She just dropped the till drawer and stamped her high heel down on my instep. The pain stabbed up my leg like a white-hot lance. I cried out; I couldn’t help it. I must have loosened my grip because she whirled round and tried to scratch my eyes out. I jerked back but her fingers caught in the slit in my balaclava and dragged it down, her long nails raking my cheeks. At the same time she started to scream at the top of her lungs. The noise was unbelievable. I shoved her hard in the chest and she fell backwards against the counter but right away she was fumbling frantically for something underneath it. Before she could find the alarm button I backhanded her with the gun. It caught her a good wallop on the side of her forehead and she staggered. Then I brought the butt of the gun down hard on the top of her head and she folded and dropped to the floor.
My breathing was so loud in my ears I thought the whole world must be able to hear. I looked around quickly. The phone on her counter had a long cable—that would do nicely. I snatched it up and wound the ends round my hands. Then I heard doors opening and urgent voices coming from the back. I hesitated, standing over her with the cable taut between my hands, the phone still swinging and twisting at one end. Now there were running footsteps. It was too late. I gave Mike the signal and I was back in the cage. I dropped the empty bag and walked out of the cage, pulling off the balaclava.
Mike must have taken in the empty bag and my manner in a single glance.
“What’s the matter? What happened?” he said.
I passed my fingers gingerly over my face, expecting them to come away covered in blood. There was nothing.
Mike looked at me quizzically. “There’s not a mark on you, Rodge.”
“Come to think of it, my foot’s not hurting any more, either.” I tapped the floor lightly with the foot. Then I stamped it down hard. “That’s not the point, though, is it? She got a look at me!”
“How much of a look?”
“Well, she dragged my balaclava down. She’s seen the bottom half of my face.”
Mike shrugged.
“Mike, this is serious! The cops’ll get her to identify me! They’ll get a drawing made. They’ll have her looking through footage from the security cameras. She’ll recognize me!”
Mike was shaking his head. “The security cameras cover the other side of the counter, Rodge.”
“I know, but I was the one who cased that branch. They’ll publish a photo, and it’ll be in all the newspapers and someone will recognize me—Ledsham, or that bloody manager, or one of the idiots from our year—”
“Rodge—”
“I should have dealt with her then and there. I would have done, too, but there wasn’t time. I’ve got to go back, Mike. In person, I mean. Forget the operation tomorrow. This takes precedence. I’ve got to follow her. ”
“What for?”
“She’s got to be silenced.”
“You mean killed?”
“Unless you know of another way.”
“Rodge, the idea was robbery, plain and simple. You’ve already made it robbery with violence—”
“I couldn’t help—”
“I know, all right. But murder? Forget it. It’s not happening, Rodge. Not on my beat.”
“It’s all very well for you, Mike. It isn’t your face that’ll be plastered all over the newspapers.”
“Rodge, will you calm down? Let’s look at this objectively. Put your balaclava on and show me exactly what she did.”
The Man in Two Bodies (British crime novel): A Dark Science Crime Caper Page 14