Garry Disher - Port Vila Blues

Mansell’s voice crackled: ‘All clear.’

Riggs fished in his bag for a small tin. It held powdered chalk, which he rubbed into the palms of his hands, the sound dry and satisfied. Then he took out another of his special tools. This was an aptoscope, used by urologists to examine the human bladder. He crouched at the drill holes, positioned the aptoscope, and began to examine the tumblers inside the lock. After a while he breathed, ‘You little fucking beauty,’ and started to poke and probe with a lock pick. Two minutes later, he had the door open.

Niekirk bent his mouth to the radio. ‘We’re in.’

They worked quickly. Riggs repacked his bag while Niekirk stepped into the vault and began to empty it. Their first job, back in February, had involved hitting the safety-deposit boxes of a bank in suburban Brighton, seizing bonds, cash, jewellery; this time the orders were clear-take the money only. The money was in small plastic containers similar to margarine tubs, stacked neatly along a shelf. As Niekirk piled them outside the vault, Riggs carried them away to the rear door of the bank, next to his tools.

Then things began to go wrong. Mansell came on the air and said, ‘A security patrol van just pulled in behind the bank.’

‘He’s early,’ Niekirk said.

‘I’ll keep you posted.’

Niekirk joined Riggs at the steel door. They heard a handbrake crank on just outside, heard a car door slam, and footsteps approached the bank. A moment later the door was rattled experimentally and they heard a faint slither as the patrolman slipped a calling card under the door. They expected the man to drive away then but instead he seemed content to wait there for a while. They heard him urinate against the wall, farting once with a sharp brap, and then a second vehicle arrived. Niekirk and Riggs heard whispers, a giggle or two, and knew they were stuck there inside the bank for the time being.

Niekirk walked back along the corridor to a point where his voice wouldn’t be heard outside the bank. ‘Looks like his girlfriend has just turned up. We’ll go with the other plan.’

‘Right,’ Mansell said.

This was their third heist. The newspapers had begun to call them ‘the magnetic drill gang’, stressing that they stamped their raids with efficiency and professionalism. Part of that was being ready whenever a situation reversed itself. That’s why they always had a backup plan to put into place. They’d each studied the bank earlier in the week, defining the likely problems. How could they get out if their planned route was blocked? The front door was no good-it faced the main street. They couldn’t burrow out or blast a hole in the wall, so that left the roof.

Working swiftly and silently, Riggs and Niekirk dragged desks and chairs to the centre of the main room and built a tower. Four desks placed together formed the base; two desks stacked on top of them formed the second tier; a single desk formed the third. Niekirk climbed to the top and reached up. His fingers brushed the ceiling, white acoustic battens. He called Riggs to bring him a couple of chairs. Now he could slide the battens away, giving him access to the space under the roof.

With Riggs passing to him from below, Niekirk stacked the money in the ceiling. Then he climbed down and both men ranged quickly through the bank, flashing the pencil torch at all the doors. They chose the storeroom door; it was long and sturdy and lifted free of its hinges as though it had been oiled for just that purpose. They went back to the desk tower. Niekirk climbed to the top, took the door from Riggs and slid it up into the ceiling.

It was warm and airless under the roof. Using the rafters for support, and working with the aid of the camping light, the two men carted the money and the door to the wall opposite the side wall of the radio station. The roof was steeply pitched here and they had to carry out the next stage doubled over. Removing the terracotta roof tiles one by one, stacking them silently, they opened a gap to the sky. Cool air poured in; clouds drifted across the face of the moon.

The roof of Radio 3UY was a little lower and less than two metres away from the roof of the bank. It was also flat. Niekirk saw a tarred surface, an airconditioning shack and a manhole cover. Using the storeroom door as a bridge, he crossed to the other side. For the next two minutes he stacked the money as Riggs slid the containers across to him. He could feel vibrations under his feet. Radio 3UY was blasting the night away.

They took the disc jockey with.38s in their hands and balaclavas over their faces. The DJ was playing an early Animals track, running his fingertips over an imaginary organ keyboard. He gulped when he saw the two men. He moved to cut the song and yelp into the microphone but Riggs moved first, smashing the edge of his gun across the DJ’s throat.

It was hard and vicious and unnecessary. ‘Steady,’ Niekirk said.

That was all he said. He had electrical tape in his pocket. He bound the man to his studio chair, then tipped man and chair onto the floor. The song finished. Both men froze. But it was an album. Another song started.

Songs had been short in the sixties and seventies. Niekirk guessed that he and Riggs had about two and a half minutes. He put his mouth to the radio: ‘Come and get us.’

Mansell backed the Telecom van onto the radio station’s forecourt. Parked like that it obscured the foyer doors from the street. The three men worked quickly, forming a chain, Riggs passing the money to Niekirk at the doors, Niekirk passing to Mansell, who stacked the containers in the rear of the van.

Another song started, ‘Sky Pilot’, droning from a speaker mounted to the wall above the reception desk. Good, a longish song, seven minutes at least. Niekirk kept the money moving, knowing there was no guarantee that the DJ wouldn’t free himself. There was no guarantee that loyal listeners wouldn’t investigate when 3UY went off the air soon, either.

Then they were loaded and Mansell was driving them out of there, Riggs in the passenger seat, Niekirk with the money in the rear of the van, just as ‘Sky Pilot’ ended, nothing following it, only a speaker hiss like a mute presence at the end of an open phone line.

Mansell turned left onto the main street, accelerating smoothly. A late cruising taxi cut in around them but otherwise the town was dark and deserted. Voices murmured on the police band: a domestic in Eltham; suspected prowler in St Andrews.

They’d parked the Range Rover at the rear of a used-car lot in Warrandyte, ‘sale’ stickers plastered across its windscreen. The entrance to the yard itself was a simple driveway with a hefty padlocked chain across it. Niekirk picked the lock, waited while Mansell drove in, looped the chain across the driveway again, and followed on foot to the rear of the lot.

Mansell parked in shadows next to the Range Rover. The three men got out and then stopped still and stared at one another. There was always this moment of uncertainty. If there was going to be a cross, this was the time and the place for it. They each carried guns and they stood with their gun-hands curled ready to snatch and fire, a standoff that could collapse into pain and blood.

Mansell broke it. He moved next to Niekirk and said, looking levelly at Riggs, the risky one: ‘We’ve been paid. It’s time we weren’t here.’

Riggs studied both men narrowly, then suddenly grinned. Moving carefully, he took out his gun and handed it to Mansell, butt first. Mansell was the quartermaster. The gun hadn’t been fired; he would issue it again, issue it for job after job until the time one of them fired it, and if that happened he would dump it in a river.

Then Mansell collected Niekirk’s gun and after that they loaded the money into a pair of small gym bags. Finally, still watching one another warily, the three men stripped off their overalls, gloves and balaclavas, Mansell bundling the clothing into a garbage bag, ready for burning. The clothing was evidence against them. When you went into a place you left part of yourself behind, and when you left a place you carried part of it with you. The forensic boys knew that, too.