“Looks like it’ll take about two hundred and fifty thousand. That’s only an estimate because we have no idea of the mix of denominations. I’m assuming there’ll be a lot of tens and twenties though, so it won’t be less than that.”
Rodge hefted it. He grunted.
“It’ll be a bit heavy when it’s full.”
“You won’t have to lift the bloody thing while you’re there. Leave it on the floor while you’re loading it. You’ll have no problem lifting it when you’re back in the cage.”
Rodge frowned. “Two hundred and fifty thousand on each trip,” he said. “That means eight trips. In twenty minutes. Two-and-a-half minutes to fill the bag, return to the cage, empty the bag, bring up the power, and project out again… It can’t be done.”
“I think it can. Let’s work through it step by step. Normally Suzy would see the security men off the premises and then go back and lock the safe. Only this time it’s different. To the others she seems to be going through the usual routine but when she gets to the secure area she doesn’t lock the safe. Instead she phones us on her mobile. That way we maximize the time available to us. If they go at eight sharp, and we’ve got our starting blocks on, we can have twenty-five minutes instead of twenty.”
“That’s better, but—just a minute. The police are bound to look at all the staff’s mobile phone records. They’ll suspect inside help the moment they realize there aren’t any signs of a break-in. And when they check Suzy’s they’ll see that she made that call.”
“Mmm. Okay, here’s what we can do. I’ll buy a cheap pay-as-you-go mobile phone. She only has to make one call on it. Just to make sure she doesn’t misdial we’ll program every button with my number. Then all she has to do is hold down one of the buttons and she comes through to me. That’s my cue to project you. When you get there and start loading the money she bungs the phone in the bag as well, so you bring it back with you on the first trip. We can dispose of it later. As far as the cops are concerned, it never existed. They’ll run their checks on the records for her usual mobile.”
“Are there any calls to us on that one?”
“Not since she moved into the flat—there’s been no need, has there? There might be some before that, but they won’t be incriminating. The cops are only going to be interested in calls made during the run-up to the job.”
Roger nodded slowly.
“All right,” he said. “I think that covers it. So we can have a full twenty-five minutes. Big deal. It’s still only three minutes a trip.”
“Hang on, you haven’t heard it all. We use two duffel bags, not one.”
Rodge opened his mouth to protest but I interrupted.
“Two bags exactly the same as that one. You take one on your first trip. You fill it and bring it back to the cage. I take the full bag from you and swap it for the empty one, and set up to project you again. While you’re there I’m busy emptying the full bag so it’s ready for the next trip; it all saves time. Then we just repeat the process. On the eighth trip you bring back the last bag. Job done.”
That way we could probably cut thirty seconds off each trip, which would start to bring the whole thing within the realms of possibility. I thought he’d be pleased with the idea. He was nodding all right but his face was clouded and I had an inkling of what was running through his mind.
“It’s a good plan, Mike,” he said carefully. “The only thing is, it occurs to me that someone less scrupulous than yourself might get other ideas when they had seven bags of money, already totalling nearly two million pounds, in front of them. I mean, it might turn their heads. They might be tempted just to take the money at that point and leave me in resonance, if you see what I mean.”
I looked at him, gave him a half-smile, and said in an indulgent tone of voice:
“Rodge. Don’t be fucking silly.”
“It’s not an unreasonable point to make, is it, Mike? After all, I’m trusting you with my life, here.”
“You’ve been doing that for weeks. What makes this job different? Look, it would be really smart for me to leave you for the cops to find, wouldn’t it? So you could lead them straight back to me? Come on now, if we’re going to do this properly we’ve got to work together. This kind of talk is going to get us nowhere.”
He grimaced but it looked like he’d let it ride.
“Suppose someone comes in?” he asked. “That new manager, for example.”
“You’re going to have to sock him.”
“Oh great! Have you forgotten I’m only punching half my weight?”
“I don’t mean a right hook. You’ll have to hit him over the head. Either come up behind him or, if he’s facing you, threaten him with the gun, get him to turn round and then hit him with it.”
“Sorry, I can’t do that. I haven’t got a clue how much force to use. I could just hurt him or I could kill him. I mean, I lost my rag with that woman who had a go at me, and I just hit her hard, but I’ve no idea whether she was stunned for a few seconds or out for hours. Anyway, Suzy wouldn’t stand for any rough stuff. She likes that Welsh chap, and she’s not going to go along with anything that ends up with him being badly hurt.”
“Yeah, I think you’re right. It’ll have to be a stick-’em-up job, then. You’re bigger and fitter than him, aren’t you? He’s not going to put up any resistance. Get him to lie down on his face and tie his hands and feet. And tie a pillow-case over his head so he can’t see what’s going on.”
“We’ll have to use a clean pillow-case, or forensic might find something.”
“Not clean, bloody brand new, I’m not taking any chances. I’ll buy one. I’ll also buy some rope and cut it into the right lengths to save time. You’ll have to use latex gloves in case you leave fingerprints on the polythene bags. And you’ll wear the balaclava, of course.”
“Damn. I hate that balaclava. It’s so bloody hot to work in. Maybe the manager won’t come in.”
“Maybe he won’t, but we’ve still got to be prepared for it.”
“I suppose you’re right. Okay, let’s see how we’re doing for time. Suppose we use two bags, the way you said, and each trip lasts—how long?”
“Doing it like that? I’d say two-and-a-half minutes would be about enough.”
“All right, eight trips, two-and-a-half minutes each—that’s twenty minutes. Allow for one trip where someone like the Manager comes in and I’ve got to stop and tie them up—say another five minutes. Twenty-five minutes exactly. It’s bloody tight, Mike.”
“We’re going to have to rehearse it. We can set the coordinates for this flat. The lounge is the biggest room, we’ll project to that. We’ll practise getting you here and back as smartly as we can. Then we can practise loading the duffel bag. See what we can get the time down to. If we can cut just a few seconds off each trip it’ll mount up over eight trips. When we’ve got the basic operation really slick we’ll practise dealing with interruptions at every different point. You can tie me up. We’ll do the whole thing in perfect silence and time it with a stopwatch till it’s perfect.”
“And Suzy?”
“It’d be good if she could snaffle a half a dozen of those polythene money bags so we can work with the real thing. There must be a few empty ones lying around; I don’t suppose they just throw them away.”
“No, I mean you’re assuming that Suzy is on board. She’s going to need a bit of persuading.”
“Oh, I see. Rodge, I think the only thing for it is to do a demonstration for her. She’s not going to be convinced by anything less. We’ve got nothing to lose. If she backs out she won’t be able to tell anyone what happened; they’d think she’d gone crackers.”
“You’re right. Let’s do it tonight. She can stay here while we go over to the lab. Then you can project me into the lounge.”
“You can’t do it just like that, Rodge, it’ll give her the fright of her life! We have to prepare her in some way.”
“I don’t know. You saw what she was like last night.
Right now, she’s convinced it can’t be done. We need to show her it can. Perhaps we do need to shock her a bit to change her mind. If we told her too much beforehand it would dilute the impact.”
I thought about it and decided he was probably right. “Okay, we’ll have to risk it. Let’s clear the lounge and read the GPS coordinates for the middle.”
We went into the lounge. Rodge turned the bed back into a sofa and we started shifting the furniture. Then he stopped and turned to me.
“You know, Mike, I ought to take something back with me as well. That way she’ll see what’s possible. It’ll make the entire operation clearer.”
“That’s a good idea. You need something that’d be impossible to replicate. What about a notebook or something with her writing in it?”
He thought for a moment, then looked at me. “Her handbag,” he said.
“Her handbag?”
“Yes. She’ll recognize that, and she’ll know straight away if the contents have been disturbed. But a handbag’s good psychologically, too. Women get emotionally attached to their handbags; they grieve when they’re parted from them. It’ll raise her anxieties further if she loses touch with it. And then, when I give it back to her, she’ll be correspondingly relieved, and that will increase her confidence in us. It’s the sort of thing magicians do, you know, when they make objects disappear. They don’t choose any old object; they choose something that’s valuable to you, like your house keys.”
“Very subtle. All right, that’s agreed then. We’ll set the whole thing up for her when she gets back from work. I just hope she has a strong constitution.”
35
Inside the lab, Rodge’s arm went up and I returned him to the cage. He opened the door and came out with the duffel bag. I looked at him expectantly.
“She’s pretty shaken up, Mike.”
“I was afraid that would happen. Did you try to explain it to her?”
“I just said it was a bit like the molecular transporter in Star Trek. I thought that would be easier for her to grasp, but I’m not sure she’s taking anything in at the moment.”
“Did you get her handbag?”
Rodge opened the duffel bag and showed me.
“Good. Well, let’s pack up and go to her as quickly as we can.”
When Rodge and I got back to the flat, Suzy was moving restlessly around. From the glass she was carrying I’d say she’d been working her way through a second gin and tonic, and a sizeable one at that. She stopped and glared at us.
“There you are,” she said. “Nice of you to use the front door for a change. I hope you’ve finished with your little games for the evening.”
Rodge said, “I’m really sorry, Suzy. We couldn’t think of any other way of doing it. Are you all right now?”
“Oh, I suppose so. God, I don’t know what gave me a bigger turn: you appearing in the middle of the room or the expression on your face just before you disappeared.”
She was obviously talking about the moment when Rodge transferred his awareness back into the cage. Rodge seemed intrigued.
“What expression?” he asked.
“Oh, it was like a vacant stare. All the life went out of your face. You looked like a dead person standing up. Gave me the shivers.”
She shuddered, then peered at him, as if half expecting to see the same expression again. Rodge, however, was busy opening the leather duffel bag. He reached in, came out with her handbag, and handed it to her. She opened it quickly and, of course, found the contents undisturbed. She was visibly relieved.
“How did you manage it?” she asked him wonderingly.
“It’s a bit complicated to explain, Suzy. The technicalities needn’t really concern us, though. The fact is I can. I’ve shown you I can. What more can I say?”
Her big brown eyes swept from one of us to the other. She’d obviously been doing some frantic thinking while we’d been finishing off in the lab.
“That’s how you did it, isn’t it? That’s how you stole the money from the tills in my Bank and left them locked.”
“I told you I could guarantee,” I said, a little truculently.
“And that’s how you planted the money on poor Mr. Meredrew.”
Rodge reacted quickly to that.
“Poor? The man was a reptile, Suzy!” he said. “Don’t waste your sympathy on him. In any case we only meant to get him into hot water. Things got a bit out of hand, that’s all.”
She turned and went back into the lounge. Rodge and I followed, moved the armchairs and the coffee table back into their usual positions, and we all sat down. Suzy looked at Rodge.
“And now you want to rob a bank.”
“Not quite,” he said. “I want us to rob a bank. Suzy, we’re not talking about till drawers here. We’re talking about two million pounds in used, untraceable notes. We’ll be rich. We’ll be able to go anywhere in the world. It’ll be like winning the lottery, except that we can make it happen. And no one will ever know how it was done.”
“So do it. You don’t need me.”
“Yes we do. Mike, you explain.”
“Look, Suzy,” I said. “You’ve seen how Rodge can transport himself with this invention of his. He can go through walls, trees, everything. But we have to set the destination very accurately. We do that by taking a sort of reading in the place where he’s going to land. It’s very simple: just a device like a mobile phone. All you do is press a few buttons. That’s how you can help us. We’ll show you how to use it to take a reading in the secure area. Then Rodge will be able to land right outside the safe.”
“But the safe’s locked…”
I spoke with gentle emphasis. “Not this time. That’s the other way you can help us. You ‘forget’ to lock it straight after the delivery’s been completed. You can lock it later after Rodge has got all the money out.”
“Oh, wonderful. Look, Mike, good employees don’t forget things like that, and I’m a good employee. And just suppose for the moment that I still have time to go back and lock the safe after you. What then? Off I go, trying to look nonchalant, and I get a cup of coffee or occupy myself with something else. The next thing that happens is the girls come looking for me to open up the safe because they need to take their tills to the counters. So I open up and wow, am I surprised when we look inside and see that all the money’s gone! Do you really think anyone is going to believe I had nothing to do with it? I’m the one who knows how to operate the safe. It’s my job to lock it after the delivery. My God, they’ll probably reckon I let the robbers in and out of the door myself.”
Rodge said, “She’s got a point, Mike.”
“Okay, okay, let’s think this through. Look, Suzy, we can do it like this. You come to the secure area as usual, as if you’re going to lock the safe. You phone us when you get there; that way we know the coast is clear. As soon as Rodge arrives he ties you up. When the girls come in for their tills they’ll find you tied up on the floor. It’ll look like a robbery. That way you won’t fall under suspicion yourself.”
She grimaced slightly and thought about this for a moment. “And what happens when I don’t turn up for work the next day? They’re still going to put two and two together, aren’t they?”
I was watching her carefully. She seemed to be taking a different tack, not objecting to the plan in principle but showing us it was unworkable. That was a good sign. As for the point she was making, I’d already given that some thought.
“After the raid they’re bound to want to take you to hospital to get you checked over. They’ll release you once they’ve established there aren’t any actual physical injuries. You go back to your own flat and stay there. Over the next couple of days you tell your girlfriend you’re suffering from post-traumatic stress. ‘It was all so ghastly and it keeps coming back to me in flashbacks and nightmares. I haven’t slept a wink since it happened’—you know the sort of thing. Your colleagues at the bank are sure to phone to find out how you are. You get her to take the calls
and make sure she feeds it all back to them. You let a couple more days go by, then you phone the manager—what’s-his-name?—Hughes. You tell him just the thought of coming back to the place where it all happened sets your nerves screaming. Right now you don’t know how long it will last. It could go on for years. You think it’s only fair to resign from your position at the bank. You can’t imagine ever wanting to go back into banking but maybe when you’re feeling better you’ll try some other career. He probably won’t try to talk you out of it. He’ll be very sorry to lose you, of course, but on the other hand it will be a relief, because he’ll be able to fill the vacancy. Do it properly, though, it’ll look suspicious if you don’t. Get your P45, ask about transferable pension rights, get him to write you a letter of recommendation. It should only take a week or two at most. Then you can join us.”
She smiled sweetly at us. “Always assuming that you haven’t just taken the money by then and done a runner.”
We both shook our heads.
Rodge said, “Suzy, there’s no need for that. You surely can’t believe I’d want to leave without you! We’ll be here at the flat. We’ll be in no hurry; there’s absolutely no way they can trace us or connect us to the robbery. All the same it’s probably best if you don’t actually come round here, just in case someone is watching you. We’ll arrange to meet you somewhere.”
“And how are you going to get the money out of there?” she demanded. “You’re not talking about a handbag, now, Rodger. You’re talking about—what?—forty bags of money.”
“I won’t be doing it in one go, Suzy. I’m going to make eight trips.”
“Eight trips? That’s five bags a trip. It’s still a lot. What are you going to put it in?”
“The duffel bag. The one you saw before.”
She gave a short laugh. “Never.”
“What do you mean?”
“Those polythene bags are far too bulky. You’ll never get five in that thing.”
The Man in Two Bodies (British crime novel): A Dark Science Crime Caper Page 18