A Conspiracy at the Barley Row? Tony's Story
Michael headed for Warrington Police station where Special Branch Detective Inspector Grice was already waiting. Once Tom and Henry got the noisy and uncooperative man out of the car and into the station Tom and Henry began searching the man’s coat and his possessions and Michael began asking him questions.
“Please tell me your name and address,” Michael asked as he took out the man’s driving licence from his wallet after Tom had passed it to him.
“I’m Tony Palmer, and who the bloody ‘ell are you and why have I been kidnapped by the peelers!” the man shouted.
Michael didn’t look at Tony but just nodded, still looking at the driver’s licence, “Anthony Charles Palmer. And your address is twenty-six Eleanor Road, Bootle?”
“Yeah, what of it?” The man grunted.
The Detective spoke up, “I’m Detective Inspector Grice and this is Mr Hardcastle,” he nodded towards Michael who was using his ‘work’ name.
Michael handed the driving licence to Inspector Grice, “here, you might want to run this fella through your files,” then he turned back to Tony.
“You’ve been brought here to answer questions about this,” he picked up the envelope that Henry had retrieved from Tony’s coat pocket, “and how you came to be in possession of it.”
“I’ve done nothing,” Tony protested, “I was assaulted by these bleedin’ hooligans”, he waved his arm around the room.
Michael ignored him and wafted the envelope in the air. “Stealing other people’s post is a criminal office. Not only that, but the contents of this envelope could land you in a lot of hot water. There are also laws about passing secret information to foreign powers. If what’s in this is what we think it is then you’re going to need a good lawyer and friends like us.” He then handed the letter to Tom who left to take it to the local MI5 office in Liverpool for deeper investigation.
Tony shook his head as Michael jotted down some notes on a piece of paper.
“We want to know what you were doing collecting this envelope and who told you do it.”
Tony shrugged a little, “I was told to collect a small document from the telephone box by this fella.”
“What fella? We want names.” Michael growled.
“I don’t know his name.”
Michael didn’t believe him but chose to ignore this for the moment, “And what were you to do with the envelope once you’d collected it?”
Tony rubbed his nose, “Well, I was to take it back to Liverpool with me and post it.”
Michael’s left eyebrow raised, “So you drive all the way from Liverpool and back in the middle of the night just to post a letter. Hmm, well we’ll come back to that in a moment. What address did you post all the other letters to?”
Tony shrugged again, “what other letters?”
Michael glared at him, “we’ve seen you making previous collections Tony so there’s no point you lying to us.”
Tony let out a sigh, “I posted them to PO Box 24, Harringay Post Office, London. That’s the address I was given by the fella.”
Michael mumbled to himself, he guessed they would have used a mailbox, still it would be possible to trace the owner and who collected the mail.
“It’s good you mentioned this anonymous fella, I’d like to go back to this man with no name,” Michael reached inside his jacket and pulled out a small photograph of Aston which he’d found when ferreting through the files back in London before he returned to Risley. “Is this the man?”
“No.” Tony shook his head, “the guy was a bit fatter, getting a bit bald on top.”
Inspector Grimes jotted down his own notes and asked Tony to confirm the man’s eye and hair colour.
“Did he have an accent?” Michael asked.
Tony looked blank, “I think he was posh git, a southerner if that answers your question.”
“So how did you meet this mysterious man and why did you accept his offer to play at postman?”
“I needed the rips didn’t I? I work down the docks, but it’s not steady work. Anyway one day this fella comes up to me and asks if I could do him a favour. He tells me about the ‘phone box and that he wanted me to drive there the day after a full moon each month. He tells me the time and the address he wanted me to address the envelopes to. Says there’s a fiver in it for me each month. I says make it tenner and he says ‘yeah’ and we do the deal.”
Michael looked a little incredulous and looked at Inspector Grice before letting out a dry laugh, “You’re telling us that you didn’t think any of this was fishy?”
Tony’s head lowered, “I’ve done some daft things in me time. Look, he told me not to get nosey and open the envelopes. He made out it was gang work, you know, money and that, bribes maybe. I’ve handled myself well with the Bootle lads in the past.”
“But he wasn’t one of the local lads was he, being posh git from down south?” Michael interrupted.
“Well I thought he was a right Charlie, figured he wouldn’t miss a tenner a month, a soft touch like that.”
Michael resisted the urge to roll his eyes, “so how many pick-ups did you make in total?”
Tony stroked his chin and mimed out some numbers as he thought, “nine, no ten, yeah ten, eleven if you include tonight.”
“And you only made collections from this one telephone box?”
Tony nodded, “Yeah. Look, if I knew there were anything secret in them letters I wouldn’t have done it. I just thought it was a bit of graft, like.”
“How many letters did you post?” Michael went on, ignoring Tony’s efforts to avoid any blame.
“Ten, just the ten I swear. All to London.”
Inspector Grice leaned forward, “How did you get paid?”
“I’d collect my money from a mail box at a newsagents in Aintree. The fella set that up too. I’d pick up the mail once a month, just two fivers inside a plain bit of paper.”
“Where was the money posted from?” Michael asked.
Tony shrugged in response.
“Did you ever see the man again?”
“No,” Tony shook his head, “he said if he ever needed to get in touch that he’d slip a note in with the fivers.”
Michael looked at his watch, it was approaching dawn and he had bigger fish to fry. He ended the interview and Tony went into the cells to cool off. Only time would tell if what he told them was true.