Bleed a River Deep Read Free Page A

over ten million euros, travels slowly from bank to bank throughout the county. As it makes its way along deserted country roads and through mountain passes, its safety is guaranteed not simply by the armour plating and time locks on the van but by the fact that it is sandwiched between two Garda cars, and, in front of and behind those again, two Irish Army jeeps, with armed soldiers. At each bank, as the cash is hurried into the branch, soldiers toting M-16s line the road outside. The message is unmistakable. Only an idiot would try to rob a bank on such a day. Or someone too desperate to care.
    It is doubtful that the man who decided to hold up the local Ulster Bank branch in Lifford that morning knew this. Just after eleven, when one of the two cashiers had gone upstairs for his tea break, the man had entered the bank. He was unshaven, his skin sallow, his hair unkempt. He wore denim jeans a size too big and a multicoloured sweater unravelling around the hem. He wore no coat. He glanced around the branch, then shuffled over to the stand of pre-printed dockets, as if to complete one for a transaction. The girl behind the desk, Catherine Doherty, began to suspect that something wasn’t right. She reached under the desk and placed her finger lightly against the alarm button hidden there, ready to press it if the need arose.
    The man stood for a moment flicking through the blank dockets. Then he approached the counter, seemingly unaware that the glass partition in front of him was two inches thick and bulletproof. Behind the counter, Catherine Doherty brushed her hair from her face and smiled, then said, ‘Good morning.’ The man shouted something she could not understand, and produced a gun from the waistband of his trousers, which he brandished at the window. By this stage, of course, Catherine Doherty had already pressed the alarm button. Then she ducked beneath the counter and waited.
    The security van preparing to unload two cashboxes in Lifford pulled up outside the Ulster Bank at 11.03. The guard inside logged the time on his record sheet then waited for the soldiers in front of him to get out of their vehicle. Next the Gardai accompanying him got out. Finally he opened his door and waited for the time lock to click. He was two minutes early. Time for a smoke, perhaps.
    They all heard the alarm go off at the same time. Instinctively, he clambered back into the van and shut the door. Likewise instinctively, four Army officers simultaneously shouldered their weapons.
    Instinctively, the man turned and ran from the counter, his replica weapon still in his hand, blundering through the doorway and out into the car park. Perhaps he wondered how the Guards had arrived so quickly. Perhaps he believed that if he raised his hands they wouldn’t shoot. He was wrong.
    Patterson had got the call on our way back from the Carrowcreel. The man’s body still lay on the pavement when we arrived. The force of the automatic weapons had spun him several feet back towards the door. His legs were splayed, his arms bent unnaturally and twisted behind him. He lay facing the sky, his skin taut against his cheekbones, his mouth hanging open, his jaw slack. He had several bullet wounds to his chest, and one to his forehead. Presumably he had held his hands in front of his face in some final futile survival instinct, for his right palm was marked with a hole reminiscent of the wound of Christ into which Thomas had been able to place his finger.
    His head rested on the gravel path, his face turned slightly sideways, bits of grit stuck to his cheek. Behind his head a halo of blood widened slowly, its surface already beginning to congeal. The replica gun which he had been waving as he ran out of the bank lay several feet away from him, its casing shattered.
    John Mulronney, our local doctor, had already pronounced the man dead. He stood now with his back to the body, smoking the cigarette I had offered him while the Scene of Crime team checked the