The White House Connection

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Michael Joseph 1999

Copyright © Harry Patterson 1999

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015

Photography and illustration © Nik Keevil

Harry Patterson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008124854

Ebook Edition © May 2015 ISBN: 9780007384792

Version: 2015-04-01

To my mother-in-law, Sally Palmer. Thanks for the idea

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

PROLOGUE NEW YORK

IN THE BEGINNING LONDON NEW YORK

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

LONDON WASHINGTON ULSTER

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

WASHINGTON NANTUCKET NEW YORK

Chapter 6

LONDON

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

NEW YORK WASHINGTON

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

LONG ISLAND NORFOLK

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

NORFOLK ULSTER

Chapter 15

EPILOGUE

Chapter 16

About the Author

Also by Jack Higgins

Further Reading

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE
NEW YORK

Manhattan, with an east wind driving rain mixed with a little sleet along Park Avenue, was as bleak and uninviting as most great cities after midnight, especially in March. There was little traffic – the occasional limousine, the odd cab – hardly surprising at that time of the morning and with such uninviting weather.

In a stretch of mixed offices and residences, a woman waited in an archway, standing in the shadows, a wide-brimmed rain hat on her head and wearing a trenchcoat, the collar turned up. An umbrella was looped to her left wrist. She carried no purse or shoulder bag.

She felt for the gun in the right-hand pocket of her trenchcoat, took it out and checked it expertly by feel. It was an unusual weapon, a Colt .25 semiautomatic, eight-shot, relatively small but deadly, especially with the silencer on the end. Some people might have thought it a woman’s gun, but not when used with hollow-point cartridges. She replaced it in her pocket and looked out.

Slightly to her right on the other side of Park Avenue was a splendid townhouse. It was owned by Senator Michael Cohan, who was attending a fundraiser at the Pierre, a function due to finish at midnight, which was why she waited here in the shadows with the intention, all things being equal, of leaving him dead on the pavement.

She heard the sound of voices, a drunken shout, and two young men came round the corner on the other side and started along the sidewalk. They were dressed in identical woollen hats, reefer coats and jeans, and they were drinking from cans. One of them, tall and bearded, stepped into the flooded gutter and kicked water, grinning, but as the rain increased, the other one wrapped his jacket tighter. Spotting the entrance to a covered alley, he swallowed the rest of his beer and dropped the can into the gutter.

‘In here, man.’ He ran for the entrance.

‘Damn!’ the woman said softly. The alley was next to Cohan’s house.

There was nothing to be done. They had disappeared into the shadows, but she could hear them clearly, their laughter loud. She waited impatiently for them to move on, and then a young woman turned the same corner the men had come from and moved along the sidewalk. She was small, and, except for her umbrella, unsuitably dressed for such weather, in high heels and a black suit with a short skirt. She heard the raucous laughter, hesitated, then started past the alley.

A voice called, ‘Hey, where are you going, baby?’ And the bearded man stepped out, his friend following.

The girl started to hurry and the bearded man dashed after her and grabbed her arm. She dropped her umbrella and struggled and he slapped her across the face.

‘Fight as much as you want, sweetheart. I like it.’

His friend grabbed her other arm. ‘Come on, let’s get her inside.’

The girl cried out in terror and the bearded one slapped her again. ‘Now you be good.’

They dragged her into the alley. The older woman hesitated and then she heard a scream. ‘Damn!’ she said for the second time, stepped out into the rain and crossed over. It was dark in the alley, with only a little diffused light from the street lamp outside. The girl tried to struggle against the man holding her from behind, but the bearded man had a knife in his right hand and touched it to her cheek, drawing blood.

She cried out in pain and he said, ‘I told you to be good.’ He reached for the hem of her skirt and sliced upwards with the sharp blade, parting it. ‘There you go, Freddy. Be my guest.’

A calm voice said, ‘I don’t think so.’

Freddy’s face, as he looked beyond his friend, registered astonishment. ‘Jesus!’ he said.

The bearded man turned and found the woman standing in the alley entrance. She was carrying the rain hat in her right hand. Her hair was silvery white, highlighted by the back light from the street lamp. She looked to be in her sixties, but it was hard to tell anything about her face in the dark.

‘What the hell is this?’ the one holding the girl said.

‘Just let her go.’

‘I can’t tell you what she wants, but I know what she’s going to get,’ the bearded man said to his friend. ‘The same as this bitch. You feel like some company tonight, Grandma?’

He took a step forward and the woman shot him in the heart, firing through the rain hat, the sound muted. He was thrown against the wall, bounced off and fell on his back.

The girl was so terrified that she didn’t utter a word. It was the man holding her who reacted. ‘Jesus!’ he moaned. ‘Oh, God,’ and then he took a knife from his pocket and sprang the blade. ‘I’ll cut her throat,’ he said to the older woman, ‘I swear it.’

The woman stood there, the Colt in her right hand, down against her thigh now. Her voice, when she spoke, was still calm and controlled. ‘You never learn, you people, do you?’

Her hand swung up and she shot him between the eyes. He fell backwards. The girl leaned against the wall, breathing heavily, blood on her face. The woman removed her light woollen scarf and passed it across and the girl held it to her face. The woman leaned over, checked the bearded man first and then the other.

‘Well, neither of these gentlemen will be bothering anyone again.’

The girl exploded. ‘The bastards.’ She kicked the bearded man. ‘If you hadn’t come along.…’ She shuddered. ‘I hope they rot in hell.’

‘It’s a strong possibility,’ the woman said. ‘Do you live near here?’

‘About twenty blocks. I was having dinner at a place around the corner, had a fight with my date and walked out hoping to find a cab.’

‘You never can find one when it’s raining. Let me look at your face.’

She pulled the girl to the entrance. ‘I’d say you’ll need two or three stitches. St Mary’s Hospital is two blocks that way.’ She pointed. ‘Go to the emergency room. Tell them you had an accident. You slipped, cut your cheek, tore your skirt.’

‘Will they believe me?’

‘It doesn’t matter. It’s your business.’ The woman shrugged. ‘Unless you want to go to the police.’

‘Good God, no!’ the girl replied, a kind of agony there. ‘That’s the last thing I want.’

The woman stepped out, picked up the fallen umbrella and gave it to her. ‘Then go, my dear, and don’t look back. It didn’t happen, none of it.’ She stepped back and picked up the girl’s purse where it had fallen. ‘Don’t forget this.’

The girl took it. ‘And I won’t forget you.’

The woman smiled. ‘On the whole, I’d rather you did.’

The girl managed a small smile. ‘I see what you mean.’

She turned and hurried off, clutching the umbrella. The woman watched her go, examined the bullet hole in her hat, put it on, then opened her own umbrella and walked away in the opposite direction.

Two blocks north, she found the Lincoln parked at the kerb. The man behind the wheel was out and waiting for her as she approached, a large black man wearing a grey chauffeur’s suit.

‘You okay?’ he asked.

‘I’m here, aren’t I?’

She got into the front passenger seat. She closed the door, went round and got behind the wheel. She strapped herself in and tapped his shoulder. ‘Where’s that flask of yours, Hedley, the Bushmills whiskey?’

He took a silver flask from the glove compartment, unscrewed the cap and passed it to her. She swallowed once, twice, then handed it back.

‘Wonderful.’

She took out a silver case, selected a cigarette and lit it with the car lighter, then blew out a long stream of smoke. ‘All the bad habits are so pleasurable.’

‘You shouldn’t be doing that. It’s not good for you.’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Don’t say that.’ He was upset. ‘Did you get the bastard?’

‘Cohan? No, something got in the way. Let’s head back to the Plaza and I’ll tell you.’ She was finished by the time they were halfway there and he was horrified.

‘My God, what you trying to do? Clean up the whole world now?’

‘I see. You mean I should have stood by and waited while those two animals raped the girl and probably cut her throat?’

‘Okay, okay!’ he sighed and nodded. ‘What about Senator Cohan?’

‘We’ll fly back to London tomorrow. He’s due there in a few days, showing his face on what he pretends is Presidential business. I’ll get him then.’

‘And then what? Where does it end?’ Hedley grunted. ‘It all seems unreal.’

He pulled up at the Plaza and she smiled mischievously like a child. ‘I’m a great trial to you, Hedley, I know that, but what would I do without you? See you in the morning.’

He went round and opened the door for her and watched her go up the steps.

‘And what would I do without you?’ he asked softly, then got behind the wheel and drove away.

The night doorman was waiting at the top. ‘Lady Helen!’ he said. ‘It’s wonderful to see you. I heard you were in.’

‘And you, George.’ She kissed him on the cheek. ‘How’s that new daughter of yours?’

‘Great, just great.’

‘I’m going back to London in the morning. I’ll see you again soon.’

‘’Night, Lady Helen.’

She went in, and a man in a raincoat who had been waiting for a cab said, ‘Hey, who was that woman?’

‘Lady Helen Lang. She’s been coming here for years.’

‘Lady, huh? Funny, she doesn’t sound English.’

‘That’s ’cause she’s from Boston. Married an English Lord ages ago. People say she’s worth millions.’

‘Really? Well, she seems quite something.’

‘You can say that again. Nicest person you’ll ever meet.’

IN THE BEGINNING

1

Born in Boston in 1933 to one of Boston’s wealthiest families, Helen Darcy was raised as an only child as her mother had died giving birth to her. Fortunately, her father truly loved her and she loved him just as much in return. In spite of his enormous business interests in steel, shipbuilding and oil, he took the time to lavish every attention on her, and she was worth it. Enormously intelligent, she went to the best private schools, and later, Vassar, where she found she had a special flair for foreign languages.

To her father, only the best was good enough and, himself a Rhodes Scholar as a young man, he sent her to England to finish her graduate education at St Hugh’s College at Oxford University.

Many of her father’s business associates in London put themselves out to entertain her and she became popular in London society. She was twenty-four when she met Sir Roger Lang, a baronet and one-time lieutenant colonel in the Scots Guards, now chairman of a merchant bank with close associations with her father.

She adored him at once and the attraction was mutual. There was one flaw, however. Although he was unmarried, there was a fifteen years’ age difference between them and, at the time, it simply seemed too much for her.

She returned to America, confused and uncertain about the future, for business held no attraction for her and she’d had enough of academia. There were plenty of young men, of course, if only for the wrong reason – her father’s enormous wealth – but no one suited her, because in the background there was always Roger Lang, with whom she stayed in touch once a week by telephone.

Finally, one weekend at their beach house on Cape Cod, she said to her father across the breakfast table, ‘Daddy, don’t be mad at me, but I’m thinking of moving back to England…and getting married.’

He leaned back and smiled. ‘Does Roger Lang know about this?’

‘Dammit, you knew.’

‘Ever since you came back from Oxford. I was wondering when you’d come to your senses.’

She poured tea, a habit she’d acquired in England. ‘The answer is…he doesn’t know.’

‘Then I suggest you fly to London and tell him,’ and he returned to his New York Times.

And so, a new life began for Helen Darcy, now Lady Helen Lang, divided between the house in South Audley Street and the country estate by the sea in North Norfolk, called Compton Place. There was only one fly in the ointment. In spite of every effort to have a child, she was bedevilled by miscarriages year after year, so that by the time her son, Peter, was born when she was thirty-three, it seemed a major miracle.

Peter proved to be another great joy in her life, and she took the kind of interest in his education that her father had taken in hers. Her husband agreed he could go to an American prep school for a few years, but afterwards, as the future Sir Peter, he had to finish his education at Eton and the Sandhurst Military Academy. It was the family tradition – which was fine with Peter, for he had only ever wanted to be one thing, a soldier like all the Langs before him.

After Sandhurst came the Scots Guards, his father’s old regiment, and a few years later, a transfer to the SAS, for he had inherited his mother’s ability with languages. He saw service in Bosnia and in the Gulf War, where he was awarded the Military Cross for an unspecified black operation behind Iraqi lines. And in Ireland, of course, the one place which never went away. Hand-in-hand with his ability for languages was a flair for dialects. He spoke, not with some stage Irish accent, but as if he were from Dublin or Belfast or South Armagh, which made him invaluable for undercover work in the continuing battle with the Provisional IRA.

Because of the life he led, women figured little. The odd girlfriend now and then was all he had time for. The fear was real, the burden immense, but Helen bore it as a soldier’s wife and mother should, until that dreadful Sunday in March 1996, when her husband answered the phone at South Audley Street, then replaced the receiver slowly and turned, his face ashen.

‘He’s gone,’ he said simply. ‘Peter’s gone,’ and he slumped into a chair and cried his eyes out, while she held his hand and stared blankly into space.

If there was one person who understood her grief that rainy day in the churchyard of the village church of St Mary and All the Saints at Compton Place, it was Lady Helen Lang’s chauffeur, Hedley Jackson, who stood behind her and Sir Roger, immaculate in his grey uniform, as he held a large umbrella above them.

He was six feet four and originally from Harlem. At the age of eighteen, he’d joined the Marine Corps and gone to Vietnam, emerging at the other end with a Silver Star and two Purple Hearts. Posted to the American Embassy Guard in London, he’d met a girl from Brixton who was housekeeper to the Langs at South Audley Street. They had married, Hedley had left the service and been appointed the Langs’ chauffeur, and they had lived in the spacious basement flat and had a child, a son. It was an ideal life for them, and then tragedy struck: Jackson’s wife and son were involved in a multi-car pile-up in the fog on the North Circular Road, and were killed instantly.

Lady Helen had held his hand at the crematorium, and when he had disappeared from South Audley Street, she had hunted him down through one bar after another in Brixton until she found him, sodden with drink and nearly suicidal, had taken him to Compton Place, and slowly, patiently, brought him back to life.

To say that he was devoted to her now was an understatement, and his heart bled for her, particularly since Sir Roger’s words to her, ‘Peter’s gone,’ had hidden a horrific truth. The IRA car bomb which had killed him had been of such enormous strength that not a single trace of his body remained, and, standing there in the rain, all they could commemorate was his name engraved in the family mausoleum.

MAJOR PETER LANG, MC,

SCOTS GUARDS, SPECIAL AIR SERVICE REGIMENT

1966–1996

REST IN PEACE

Helen held her husband’s hand. He had aged ten years in the past few days – a man once spry and vigorous now seemed as if he’d never been young. Rest in peace, she thought. But that’s what it was supposed to have been for. Peace in Ireland, and those bastards destroyed him. No trace. It’s as if he’s never been, she thought, frowning, unable to weep. That can’t be right. There’s no justice, none at all in a world gone mad. The priest intoned: ‘I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord.’

Helen shook her head. No, not that. Not that. I don’t believe any more, not when evil walks the earth unpunished.

She turned, leaving the astonished mourners, taking her husband with her, and walked away. Hedley followed, the umbrella held over them.

Her father, unable to attend the funeral because of illness, died a few months later, and left her a millionaire many times over. The management team that controlled the various parts of the corporation were entirely trustworthy and headed by her cousin, with whom she’d always been close, so it was all in the family. She devoted herself to her husband, a broken man, who himself died a year after his son.

As for Helen, she gave a certain part of her activities to charitable work and spent a great deal of time at Compton Place, although the one thousand acres that went with the house were leased out for large-scale farming.

To a certain extent, Compton Place was her salvation because of its fascinating location. A mile from the coast of the North Sea, that part of Norfolk was still one of the most rural areas of England, full of winding narrow lanes and places with names like Cley-next-the-Sea, Stiffkey and Blakeney, little villages found unexpectedly and then lost, never to be found again. It was all so timeless.

From the first time Roger had taken her there, she had been enchanted by the salt marshes with the sea mist drifting in, the shingle and sand dunes and the great wet beaches when the tide was out.

From her days as a child growing up in Cape Cod, she had loved the sea and birds and there were birds in plenty in her part of Norfolk: Brent geese from Siberia, curlews, redshanks and every kind of seagull. She loved walking or cycling along the dykes, none of them less than six feet high, that passed through the great banks of reeds. It gave her renewed energy every time she breathed in the salt sea air or felt the rain on her face.

The house had originally been built in Tudor times, but was mainly Georgian with a few later additions. The large kitchen was a post-war project, lovingly created in country style. The dining room, hall, library, and the huge drawing room, were panelled in oak. There were only six bedrooms now, for others had been developed into bathrooms or dressing rooms at various stages.

With the estate leased to various farmers, she had retained only six acres around the house, mainly woodland, leaving two large lawns and another for croquet. A retired farmer came up from the village from time to time to keep things in order, and when they were in residence, Hedley would get the tractor out and mow the grass himself.

There was a daily housekeeper named Mrs Smedley, and another woman from the village helped her with the cleaning when necessary. All this sufficed. It was a calm and orderly existence that helped her return to life. And the villagers helped, too.

The laws of the British aristocracy are strange. As Roger Lang’s wife, she was officially Lady Lang. Only the daughters of the higher levels of the nobility were allowed to use their Christian names, but the villagers in that part of Norfolk were a strange, stubborn race. To them she was Lady Helen, and that was that. It was an interesting fact that the same attitude pertained in London society.

Any help anyone needed, she gave. She attended church every Sunday morning and Hedley sat in the rear pew, always correctly attired in his chauffeur’s uniform. She was not above visiting the village pub of an evening for a drink or two, and there, too, Hedley always accompanied her and, though you might not think it, was totally accepted by those taciturn people ever since an extraordinary event some years past.

An incredibly high tide combined with torrential rain had caused the water to rise in the narrow canal that passed through the village from the old disused mill. Soon, it was overflowing into the street and threatening to engulf the village. All attempts to force open the lock gate which was blocking the water proved futile, and it was Hedley who plunged chest deep into the water with a crowbar, diving under the surface again and again until he managed to dislodge the ancient locking pins and the gate burst open. At the pub, he had never been allowed to pay for a drink again.

So, although it had lost its savour, life could have been worse – and then Lady Helen received an unexpected phone call, one that in its consequences would prove just as catastrophic as that other call two years earlier, the call that had announced the death of her son.

‘Helen, is that you?’ The voice was weak, yet strangely familiar.

‘Yes, who is this?’

‘Tony Emsworth.’

She remembered the name well: a junior officer under her husband many years ago, later an Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office. She hadn’t seen him for some time. He had to be seventy now. Come to think of it, he hadn’t been at either Peter’s funeral or her husband’s. She’d thought that strange at the time.

‘Why, Tony,’ she said. ‘Where are you?’

‘My cottage. I’m living in a little village called Stukeley now, in Kent. Only forty miles from London.’

‘How’s Martha?’ Helen asked.

‘Died two years ago. The thing is, Helen, I must see you. It’s a matter of life and death, you could say.’ He was racked by coughing. ‘My death, actually. Lung cancer. I haven’t got long to go.’

‘Tony. I’m so sorry.’

He tried to joke. ‘So am I.’ There was an urgency in his voice now. ‘Helen, my love, you must come and see me. I need to unburden myself of something, something you must hear.’

He was coughing again. She waited until he’d stopped. ‘Fine, Tony, fine. Try not to upset yourself. I’ll drive down to London this afternoon, stay overnight in town, and be with you as soon as I can in the morning. Is that all right?’

‘Wonderful. I’ll see you then.’ He put down the phone.

She had taken the call in the library. She stood there frowning, slightly agitated, then opened a silver box, took out a cigarette and lit it with a lighter Roger had once given her made from a German shell.

Tony Emsworth. The weak voice, the coughing, had given her a bad shake. She remembered him as a dashing Guards captain, a ladies’ man, a bruising rider to hounds. To be reduced to what she had just heard was not pleasant. Intimations of mortality, she thought. Death just round the corner, and there had been enough of that in her life.

But there was another, secret reason, something even Hedley knew nothing about. The odd pain in the chest and arm had given her pause for thought. She’d had a private visit to London recently, a consultation with one of the best doctors in Harley Street, tests and scans at the London Clinic.

It reminded her of a remark Scott Fitzgerald had made about his health: ‘I visited a great man’s office and emerged with a grave sentence.’ Something like that. Her sentence had not been too grave. Heart trouble, of course. Angina. No need to worry, my dear, the professor had said. You’ll live for years. Just take the pills and take it easy. No more riding to hounds or anything like that.

‘And no more of these,’ she said softly, and stubbed out the cigarette with a wry smile, remembering that she’d been saying that for months, and went in search of Hedley.

Stukeley was pleasant enough: cottages on either side of a narrow street, a pub, a general store and Emsworth’s place, Rose Cottage, on the other side of the church. Lady Helen had phoned before leaving London to give him the time and he was expecting them, opening the door to greet them, tall and frail, the flesh washed away, the face skull-like.

She kissed his cheek. ‘Tony, you look terrible.’

‘Don’t I just?’ He managed a grin.

‘Should I wait in the Merc?’ Hedley asked.

‘Nice to see you again, Hedley,’ Emsworth said. ‘Would it be possible for you to handle the kitchen? I let my daily go an hour ago. She’s left sandwiches, cakes and so on. If you could make the tea.…’

‘My pleasure,’ Hedley told him, and followed them in.

A log fire was burning in the large open fireplace in the sitting room. Beams supported the low ceiling and there was comfortable furniture everywhere and Indian carpets scattered over the stone-flagged floor.

Emsworth sat in a wing-backed chair and put his walking stick on the floor. A cardboard file was on the coffee table beside him.

‘There’s a photo over there of your old man and me when I was a subaltern,’ he said.

Helen Lang went to the sideboard and examined the photo in its silver frame. ‘You look very handsome, both of you.’

She returned and sat opposite him. He said, ‘I didn’t attend Peter’s funeral. Missed out on Roger’s, too.’

‘I had noticed.’

‘Too ashamed to show my face, ye see.’

There was something here, something unmentionable that already touched her deep inside, and her skin crawled.

Hedley came in with tea things on a tray and put them down beside her on a low table. ‘Leave the food,’ she told him. ‘Later, I think.’

‘Be a good chap,’ Emsworth said. ‘There’s a whisky decanter on the sideboard. Pour me a large one and one for Lady Helen.’

‘Will I need it?’

‘I think so.’

She nodded. Hedley poured the drinks and served them. ‘I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.’

‘Thank you. I think I might.’

Hedley looked grim, but retired to the kitchen. He stood there thinking about it, then noticed the two doors to the serving hatch and eased them ajar. It was underhanded, yes, but all that concerned him was her welfare. He sat down on a stool and listened.

‘For years I lived a lie as far as my friends were concerned,’ Emsworth said. ‘Even Martha didn’t know the truth. You all thought I was Foreign Office. Well, it wasn’t true. I worked for the Secret Intelligence Service for years. Oh, not in the field. I was the kind of office man who sent brave men out to do the dirty work who frequently died doing it. One of them was Major Peter Lang.’

There was that crawling feeling again. ‘I see,’ she said carefully.

‘Let me explain. My office was responsible for black operations in Ireland. The people we were after were not only IRA, but Loyalist paramilitaries who, because of threats and intimidation of witnesses, escaped legal justice.’

‘And what was your solution?’

‘We had undercover groups, SAS in the main, who disposed of them.’

‘Murdered, you mean?’

‘No, I can’t accept that word. We’ve been at war with these people for too many years.’

She didn’t pour the tea, but reached for the whisky and sipped some. ‘Am I to understand that my son did such work?’

‘Yes, he was one of our best operatives. Peter’s ability to turn on a range of Irish accents was invaluable. He could sound like a building site worker from Derry if he wanted to. He was part of a group of five. Four men, plus a woman officer.’

‘And?’

‘They all came to an untimely end within the same week. Three men and the woman shot.…’

‘And Peter blown up?’

There was a pause as Emsworth swallowed the whisky, then he got up and lurched to the sideboard and poured another with a shaking hand.

‘Actually, no. That’s just what you were told.’ He swallowed the whisky, spilling some down his chin.

She drank the rest of her whisky, took out her silver case, selected a cigarette and lit it. ‘Tell me.’

Emsworth reached the chair again and sank down. He nodded to the file. ‘It’s all in there. Everything you need to know. I’m breaking the Official Secrets Act, but why should I care? I could be dead tomorrow.’

‘Tell me!’ she said, her voice hard. ‘I want to hear it from you.’

He took a deep breath. ‘If you must. As you know, there are many splinter groups in Irish politics, both Catholic and Protestant. One of the worst is a nationalist outfit called the Sons of Erin. Years ago, it was run by a man called Frank Barry, a very bad article indeed, and almost unique – he was a Protestant Republican. He was eventually killed, but he had a nephew, named Jack Barry, who had an American mother. He’d been born in New York, then gone to Vietnam in 1970, when he was eighteen, on a short-term commission. There was some kind of scandal – apparently he shot a lot of Vietcong prisoners, so they turfed him out quietly.’

‘And then he joined the IRA?’

‘That’s about it. He took over where his uncle left off. He’s a murdering psychopath who’s been doing his own thing for years now. Oh, and another bizarre thing. Jack’s great-uncle was Lord Barry. He had a place on the Down coast in Ulster called Spanish Head. It’s part of the National Trust now. His father died when he was a child and Frank Barry was killed just before his old uncle died.’

‘Which leaves Jack with the title?’

Emsworth nodded. ‘But he’s never attempted to claim it. He could be proscribed as a traitor to the Crown.’

‘I wonder. I think executions on Tower Hill went out some years ago. But Tony, please, get to the point.’

He closed his eyes for a moment, then sighed and continued. ‘There was a man called Doolin who used to drive for Barry. He ended up in the Maze Prison and we put an informer in his cell. Our man had an ample supply of cocaine and eventually had Doolin telling his life story from birth.’

‘My God.’ She was horrified.

‘It’s the name of the game, my dear. Doolin had not been with Barry during the time in question, but his story was that Barry was on a high as he drove him north to Stramore, on pills and whisky. He told Doolin he’d just taken out an entire undercover British group thanks to the New York branch of the Sons of Erin, and with a little help from someone he called the Connection. Doolin asked who this Connection was, and Barry said no one knew, but that he was an American, and then he started acting all coy, and talking about the detectives who’d operated out of Dublin Castle for Mick Collins in the old days.’

‘So the implication was that this Connection was someone very high up and on the inside? But where? How?’

‘For years, British Intelligence has had a link with the White House, especially because of the developing peace process. Information has been passed to what were supposed to be friends on a need-to-know basis.’

‘Including information on my son’s group?’

‘Yes. I thought that was going too far, but those more important than I, people such as Simon Carter, Deputy Director of the Security Services, ruled against me. And then Doolin was found hanged in his cell.’

She went and poured another whisky and turned. ‘It gets more like the Borgias every minute. And as you’ve avoided explaining your remark about Peter not being blown up, I think I’m going to need this.’ She swallowed half the whisky. ‘Get on with it, Tony.’

‘Yes, well, the Sons of Erin. They passed on information obtained from the Connection. They all had contacts in Dublin and London.’ He was in agony and showed it. ‘It’s in the files. Everything’s in there, all the players, photos, the lot. I copied the Top Secret file and.…’

‘Tell me about Peter.’

‘They snatched him coming out of a pub in South Armagh, Barry and his men. They tortured him, and when he wouldn’t talk, beat him to death. They were building a new bypass road nearby, down to the Irish Republic. It had one of those massive concrete mixers that works all night. They put his body through it.’

She sat there, staring, silent, then suddenly swallowed the rest of the whisky.

He carried on. ‘They blew up his car with the heavy charge to make it look as if he’d gone that way. I mean, they needed us to know he’d gone, but couldn’t send us a postcard saying how.’

He was a little drunk now. She cried out and put a hand to her mouth as she stood and ran for the door. She made it to the toilet in the hall and vomited into the basin again and again. When she finally wiped her face and came out, Hedley was there.

‘You heard?’

‘I’m afraid so. Are you okay?’

‘I’ve been better. Tea, Hedley, hot and strong.’

She went back into the sitting room and sat down. ‘What happened? Why was nothing done?’

‘They decided to keep it black, which was why you weren’t told the truth. We had operatives check Republican circles in New York and Washington. We discovered there was indeed a New York dining club called the Sons of Erin. The names of the members are all in the file, along with their photos. They’re prominent businessmen, one’s even a US Senator. It all fits. There had already been examples of privileged information from London to Washington ending up in IRA hands.’

‘But why was nothing done?’

Emsworth shrugged. ‘Politics. The President, the Prime Minister – no one wanted to rock the boat. Let me tell you something about intelligence work. You think the CIA and the FBI keep the President informed about everything? Hell, no.’

‘So?’

‘It’s just the same in the UK. MI5 and MI6 have their own dark secrets and they not only hate each other, but also Scotland Yard’s Anti-Terrorist Unit and Military Intelligence. For proof of that, you’ll find two interesting entries in the file, one American, the other Brit.’

‘And what do they refer to?’

‘There’s a man called Blake Johnson at the White House, around fifty, a Vietnam veteran, lawyer, ex-FBI. He’s Director of the General Affairs Department at the White House. Because it’s downstairs, it’s known as the Basement. It’s one of the most closely guarded secrets of the administration, passed from one President to another. It’s totally separate from the FBI, the CIA, the Secret Service. Answers only to the President. The whispers are so faint people don’t believe it exists.’

‘But it does?’

‘Oh, yes, and the British Prime Minister has his own version. It’s there in the file. Brigadier Charles Ferguson runs it.’

‘Charles Ferguson? But I’ve known him for years.’

‘Well, I don’t know what you thought he was, but his outfit is known in the trade as the Prime Minister’s private army. It’s given the IRA a bad time for years. Ferguson has a sizeable setup at the Ministry of Defence and is responsible only to the PM, which is why the other intelligence outfits loathe him. His right hand is an ex-IRA enforcer named Sean Dillon; his left, a Detective Chief Inspector named Hannah Bernstein, grand-daughter of a rabbi, if you can believe it. Quite a bunch, huh?’

‘But what has this to do with anything?’

‘Simply, that the Secret Intelligence Service didn’t want Ferguson and company involved, because Ferguson might have told the Prime Minister, and Ferguson has a private contact with Blake Johnson, which meant the President would have been informed and SIS couldn’t have that.’

‘So what happened?’

‘SIS started to send the White House mild and useless information and disinformation. There was no way of implicating the members of the Sons of Erin. And then the file was lost.’ He reached for the folder and held it up. ‘Except for my copy. I don’t know why I took it at the time. Self-disgust, I suppose. Now, I think you should have it.’

He started to cough; she passed him a napkin. He spat into it and she saw blood. ‘Should I get the doctor?’

‘He’s calling in later. Not that it’ll make any difference.’ He gave her a ghastly smile. ‘That’s it then, now you know. I’d better lie down.’

He rose, picked up the stick and walked slowly into the hall. ‘I’m sorry, Helen, desperately sorry.’

‘It’s not your fault, Tony.’

He heaved himself up the stairs and she watched him go. Hedley appeared behind her, holding the file. ‘I figured you’d want this.’

‘I surely do.’ She took it from him. ‘Let’s move on, Hedley. There’s only death here.’

Back in the Mercedes, as they drove through the narrow lanes, she read through the file, every detail, every photo. Strangely enough, she dwelt on Sean Dillon longer than anyone: the fair hair, the self-containment, the look of a man who had found life a bad joke. She closed the file and leaned back.

‘You okay, Lady Helen?’ Hedley asked.

‘Oh, fine. You can read the file yourself when we’re back at South Audley Street.’

She felt a flutter in her chest, opened her purse, shook two pills into her hand, and swallowed them. ‘Whisky, please, Hedley,’ she said.

He passed back the silver flask. ‘What’s going on? Are you okay?’

‘Just some pills the doctor gave me.’ She leaned back and closed her eyes. ‘No big deal. Just get me to South Audley Street.’

But Hedley didn’t believe her for a moment and drove on, his face troubled.

2

At South Audley Street, she sat in the study and worked her way through the file again, studying the text, the photos.

The composition of the Sons of Erin was interesting. There was Senator Michael Cohan, aged fifty, a family fortune behind him derived from supermarkets and shopping malls; Martin Brady, fifty-two, an important official in the Teamsters’ Union; Patrick Kelly, forty-eight, a construction millionaire; and Thomas Cassidy, forty-five, who had made a fortune from Irish theme pubs. All Irish-Americans, but there was one surprise, a well-known London gangster named Tim Pat Ryan.

She passed the file to Hedley in the kitchen, got a pot of tea, returned to the study and started on her computer, a recent acquisition and something with which she’d become surprisingly expert, thanks to help from an unexpected source.

She’d asked for advice from the London office of her corporation, and their computer department had jumped to attention and recommended the best. She’d mastered the basics quickly, but soon wanted more and had consulted the corporation again. The result was the arrival in South Audley Street of a strange young man in a very high-tech electric wheelchair. She’d seen him from the drawing-room window, but when she went into the hall, Hedley already had the door open.

The young man on the sidewalk had hair to his shoulders, bright blue eyes and hollow cheeks. He also had scar tissue all over his face, the kind you got from bad burns.

‘Lady Helen?’ he said cheerfully as she appeared behind Hedley. ‘My name’s Roper. I’m told you’d like your computer to sit up and do a few tricks.’ He gave Hedley a twisted smile. ‘Turn me around, there’s a good chap, and pull me up the two steps. That’s the one thing these gadgets can’t manage.’

In the hall, Hedley turned him and she said, ‘The study.’

When they reached it, he looked at her computer setup and nodded. ‘Ah, PK800. Excellent.’ He glanced up at Hedley. ‘I’m not allowed to eat lunch, but I’d love a pot of tea to wash my pills down, Sergeant Major.’

Hedley smiled slowly. ‘Do I say “sir”?’

‘Well, I did make captain in the Royal Engineers. Bomb disposal.’ He held up his hands. They saw more scar tissue.

Hedley nodded and went out. Helen said, ‘IRA?’

Roper nodded. ‘I handled all those bombs so slickly, and then a small one caught me by surprise in a car in Belfast.’ He shook his head. ‘Very careless. Still, it did lead me to a further career, fatherhood being out.’ He eased his wheelchair to the computer bank. ‘I do love these things. They can do anything, if you know what to ask them.’ He turned and looked up at her. ‘Is that what you want, Lady Helen, for them to do anything?’

‘Oh, I think so.’

‘Good. Well, give me a cigarette and let’s see what you know, then we’ll see what I can teach you.’

Which he did. Every dirty trick in the computer book. By the time he’d finished, she was capable of hacking into the Ministry of Defence itself. And she continued to be an apt pupil until the morning she got yet another phone call – that was three, she thought; these things always seemed to travel in threes – the phone call that said Roper was in the hospital with kidney failure. They’d managed to save him, but he’d gone to a clinic in Switzerland and she’d never heard from him again.

Now, typing from memory, she started trawling through files, entering names as she went. Some were readily available. Others, such as Ferguson, Dillon, Hannah Bernstein and Blake Johnson, were not. On the other hand, when she cut into Scotland Yard’s most wanted list, there was Jack Barry, complete with a numbered black-and-white photo.

‘They got you once, you bastard,’ she mused. ‘Maybe we can do it again.’

Hedley came in from the kitchen with the file and put it on the desk. ‘The new barbarians.’

‘Not really,’ she said. ‘Very old stuff, except that in other days we did something about it.’

‘Can I get you anything?’

‘No. Go to bed, Hedley. I’ll be okay.’

He went reluctantly. She poured another whisky. It seemed to be keeping her going. She opened the bottom drawer in the desk in search of a notepad and found the Colt .25 Peter had brought back from Bosnia, along with the box of fifty hollow-point cartridges and the silencer. It had been a highly illegal present, but Peter had known she liked shooting, both handgun and shotgun, and often practised in the improvised shooting range in the barn at Compton Place. She reached down and, almost absentmindedly, picked it up, then opened the box of cartridges, loaded the gun and screwed the silencer on the end. For a while, she held it in her hand, then put it on the desk and started on the file again.

Ferguson fascinated her. To have known him for so many years and yet not to have known him at all. And the Bernstein woman – so calm to look at in her horn-rimmed spectacles, yet a woman who had killed four times, the file said, had even killed another woman, a Protestant terrorist who had deserved to die.

And then there was Sean Dillon. Born in Ulster, raised by his father in London. An actor by profession, who had attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. When Dillon was nineteen, his father had gone on a visit to Belfast and been killed accidentally in a firefight with British paratroopers. Dillon had gone home and joined the IRA.

‘The kind of thing a nineteen-year-old would do,’ she said softly. ‘He took to the theatre of the street.’

Dillon had become the most feared enforcer the IRA ever had. He had killed many times. The man of a thousand faces, intelligence sources had named him, with typical originality. His saving grace had been that he would have no truck with the bombing and the slaughter of the innocent. He’d never been arrested until the day he had ended up in a Serb prison for flying in medicine for children (although Stinger missiles had also apparently been involved). It was Ferguson who had saved him from a firing squad, had blackmailed Dillon into working for him.

She went back to the Sons of Erin and finally came to Tim Pat Ryan. His record was foul. Drugs, prostitution, protection. Suspected of supplying arms and explosives to IRA active service units in London, but nothing proved. He had a pub in Wapping called The Sailor by the river on China Wharf. She took a London street guide from a shelf, leafed through it and located China Wharf on the relevant map.

She lit a cigarette and sat back. He was an animal, Ryan, just like Barry and the others, guilty at least by association, and the thought of what had happened to her son wouldn’t go away. She stubbed out her cigarette, went to the couch and lay down.

The great psychologist Carl Jung spoke of a thing called synchronicity, the suggestion that certain happenings are so profound that they go beyond mere coincidence and argue a deeper meaning and possibly a hidden agenda. Such a thing was happening at that very moment at Charles Ferguson’s flat in Cavendish Square. The Brigadier sat beside the fireplace in his elegant drawing room. Chief Inspector Hannah Bernstein was opposite, a file open on her knees. Dillon was helping himself to a Bushmills at the sideboard. He wore a black leather bomber jacket, a white scarf at his neck.

‘Feel free with my whiskey,’ Ferguson told him.

‘And don’t I always,’ Dillon grinned. ‘I wouldn’t want to disappoint you, Brigadier.’

Hannah Bernstein closed the file. ‘That’s it, then, sir. No IRA active service units operating in London at the present time.’

‘I accept that with reluctance,’ he told her. ‘And of course our political masters want us to play it all down anyway.’ He sighed. ‘I sometimes long for the old days before this damn peace process made things so difficult.’ Hannah frowned and he smiled. ‘Yes, my dear, I know that offends that fine morality of yours. Anyway, I accept your findings and will so report to the Prime Minister. No active service units in London.’

Dillon poured another Bushmills. ‘Not as far as we know.’

‘You don’t agree?’

‘Just because we can’t see them doesn’t mean they’re not there. On the Loyalist side, we have the paramilitaries like the UVF, and then the LVF, who’ve been responsible for all those attacks and assassinations, we know that.’

‘Murders,’ Hannah said.

‘A point of view. They see themselves as gallant freedom fighters, just like the Stern Gang in Jerusalem in forty-eight,’ Dillon reminded her. ‘And then on the Republican side, we have the INLA and Jack Barry’s Sons of Erin.’

‘That bastard again,’ Ferguson nodded. ‘I’d give my pension to put my hands on him.’

‘Splinter groups on both sides. God knows how many,’ Dillon told them.

‘And not much we can do about it at the moment,’ Hannah Bernstein said. ‘As the Brigadier says, the powers that be say hands off.’

Dillon went to the terrace window and peered out. It was raining hard. ‘Well, in spite of all that, there are bastards out there waiting to create bloody mayhem. Tim Pat Ryan, for example.’

‘How many times have we turned that one over,’ Hannah reminded him. ‘He’s got the best lawyers in London. We’d have difficulty getting a result even if we caught him with a block of Semtex in his hand.’

‘Oh, sure,’ Dillon said. ‘But he’s definitely supplied active service units with material in the past, we know that.’

‘And can’t prove it.’

Ferguson said, ‘You’d like to play executioner again, wouldn’t you?’

Dillon shrugged. ‘He wouldn’t be missed. Scotland Yard would break out the champagne.’

‘You can forget it.’ Ferguson stood up. ‘I feel like an early night. Off you go, children. My driver’s waiting for you in the Daimler, Chief Inspector. Good night to you.’

When they opened the door, it was raining hard. Dillon took an umbrella from the hall stand, opened it and took her down to the Daimler. She got in the rear and put the window down a little.

‘I worry about you when things get quiet. You’re at your most dangerous.’

‘Be off with you before I begin to think you care.’ He grinned. ‘I’ll see you at the office in the morning.’

He kept the umbrella and walked rapidly away. He had a small house in Stable Mews only five minutes away and as he walked in the front door, he felt strangely restless. The place was small, very Victorian: Oriental rugs, polished woodblock floors, a fireplace with an oil painting by Atkinson Grimshaw, the great Victorian artist, above it, for Dillon was not without money, mostly nefariously obtained over the years.

He poured another Bushmills, stood with it in his hand, gazing up at the Grimshaw, thinking of Tim Pat Ryan. He had too much nervous energy to sleep and he checked his watch. Eleven-thirty. He walked to the sideboard, took the stopper out of the decanter and poured the glass of whiskey back.

He went to the shelves of books in an alcove, took three out and opened a flap behind, removing a Walther PPK with a silencer already fitted. He replaced the books, checked the weapon and put it into the waistband of his jeans, snug against the small of his back.

He took the umbrella when he left the house, for the rain was relentless, and lifted the garage door, where an old Mini Cooper in British racing green waited. The perfect town car, so small and yet capable of over a hundred with the foot down. He got in, drove to the end of the mews and paused to light a cigarette.

‘Right, you bastard, let’s see how you’re doing,’ and he drove away.

At the same moment, Helen Lang, dozing on the couch, came awake, aware of Tim Pat Ryan’s face, the last photo she had looked at in the file. She sat up, face damp with sweat, aware that in the dream he had been hurting her, laughing sarcastically. She stood up, went to the desk and stared down at the open file, and Tim Pat Ryan looked back at her.

She picked up the Colt and weighed it in her hand. There was an inevitability to things now. She stood in the hall, pulled on a trenchcoat and rain hat, opened the shoulder bag that hung on the hall stand, found some cash, then put the Colt in her pocket, took down her umbrella and let herself out.

She hurried along South Audley Street, the umbrella protecting her from the driving rain, intending to go to the Dorchester nearby. There were always cabs there, but as it happened, one came along on the other side of the road. She waved him down and darted across.

‘Wapping High Street,’ she said, as she climbed inside. ‘You can drop me by the George,’ and she sat back, tense and excited.

Hedley had retired with no intention of sleeping, had simply sat in an armchair in the basement flat in the darkness, for some reason afraid for her. He had heard her footsteps in the hall, was up and waiting at the foot of the stairs. As the front door opened and closed, he grabbed his jacket, went up and had the door open. He saw her hurrying along the pavement, the umbrella bobbing, the wave of the hand for the cab. He’d left the Mercedes at the kerb, and was at it in an instant and switched it on. As the cab passed on the other side of the road, he went after it.

Dillon reached the Tower of London, St Katherine’s Way, and moved into Wapping High Street. He passed the George Hotel, turning into a maze of side streets and finally parked on a deadend turning. He got out, locked the door and walked rapidly between the tall decaying warehouses, finally turning on to China Wharf. There were few ships now, only the occasional barge, long-disused cranes looming into the sky.

The Sailor was at the end beyond the old quay. He checked his watch. Midnight. Long past closing time. When he paused in the shadows, the kitchen door at one side opened, light flooding out. Tim Pat Ryan and a woman.

‘See you tomorrow, Rosie.’

He kissed her cheek and she walked away rapidly, passing Dillon safe in the shadows. He moved to the nearest window and peered in. Ryan was sitting at the bar with a glass of beer, reading a newspaper, totally alone. Dillon eased open the kitchen door and entered.

The saloon was very old-fashioned and ornate with a mahogany bar and gilded angels on either side of a great mirror, for The Sailor dated from Victorian times, when sailing ships had moved up the Thames by the dozen each day to tie up and unload at the quay. There were rows of bottles on glass shelves, beer pumps with ivory handles. Ryan was proud of it and kept it in apple-pie order. He loved it like this at night, all alone, reading the Standard in the quiet. There was a slight eerie creaking of a door hinge, a draught of air that lifted the paper. He turned and Dillon entered the bar.

‘God save the good work,’ Dillon said cheerfully. ‘There’s hope for the world yet. You can actually read.’

Ryan’s face was like stone. ‘What do you want, Dillon?’

‘“God save you kindly” was the answer to that,’ Dillon said. ‘And you an Irishman and not knowing.’

‘You’ve no right to be here. I’m clean.’

‘Never in a thousand years.’

Ryan stood and opened his jacket. ‘Try me. I’m not carrying.’

‘I know. You’re too clever for that.’

‘You’ve no right to be here. You’re not even Scotland Yard.’

‘Granted, but I’m something more. Your own worst nightmare.’

‘Get out now.’

‘Before you throw me out? I don’t think so.’ Dillon lifted the bar flap, went behind, reached for a bottle of Bushmills and a glass and filled it. ‘I won’t drink with a piece of dung like you, but I’ll have one for myself. It’s cold outside.’

Without a flicker of emotion, Ryan said, ‘I could call the police.’

‘What for? I’m not carrying myself,’ Dillon smiled as he lied. ‘You see, old son, this is a new agenda, what with the Northern Ireland Secretary, Sinn Fein and the Loyalists with their heads together in Belfast working away at the peace process. I mean, who needs guns any more? My boss wouldn’t like it.’

‘What do you want?’ Ryan asked. ‘What is this? You’ve been on my back for years.’

‘Just making my rounds,’ Dillon said. ‘Just to let you know I’m still on your case. The Semtex you supplied the Birmingham and London units – how many bombings was it used for? Three? Four housewives in that shopping mall in Birmingham. We know it was you, we just can’t prove it. Yet.’

‘You can talk. How many did you kill for the cause? For nearly twenty years, Dillon, until you turned traitor.’

‘But I never sold drugs or used young girls for prostitution,’ Dillon said. ‘There’s a difference.’ He swallowed the rest of the Bushmills and put the glass down. ‘It’s cold outside and dark and I’ll always be there in the shadows. To vary an old IRA saying, my day will come.’

He turned and walked to the kitchen door and Ryan exploded. ‘Fuck you, Dillon, fuck you. I’m Tim Pat Ryan. I’m the man. You can’t treat me like this,’ but the kitchen door was already closing softly.

Ryan, beside himself with rage now, hurled back the flap, opened the old-fashioned cash register, fumbled at the back of the drawer and found the Smith & Wesson .38 pistol he always kept there fully loaded, turned and headed for the kitchen.

Lady Helen Lang had paid off the cab outside the George Hotel in Wapping High Street. Remembering the street map, she crossed the road and turned into a narrow lane. Hedley, caught behind two cars at a red light, saw her go. He swore softly, took off on the green and moved into the same lane. But there was no sign of her, even when he turned his lights on fully. It was a maze of decaying warehouses and narrow crisscrossing streets. What in the hell was she playing at in a place like this? Frantic with worry, he started to cruise slowly.

Lady Helen, her umbrella high against the teeming rain, found China Wharf with no trouble. There was a light at the pub window and an old-fashioned gas lamp bracketed to the wall above the painted sign that said The Sailor. It threw a diffused light to the edge of the wharf, the river black beyond, lights on the far side. She hesitated, uncertain now. A large Range Rover was parked close to the pub entrance, Ryan’s, probably.

She stood in the umbrella’s shelter and the kitchen door opened and Dillon came out. She recognized him at once from the file, and, surprised, she drew back. She watched him walk across the wharf and light a cigarette, then the kitchen door opened again and Tim Pat Ryan, also unmistakable, rushed out.

‘Dillon, you bastard,’ he called, and in the light she saw the Smith & Wesson. ‘Here’s for you.’

Dillon laughed. ‘You couldn’t hit a barn door, you never could. Someone always had to do it for you.’

His hand found the butt of the Walther and he drew it, crouching as Ryan fired wildly. Dillon put a foot forward to steady himself, but there was a puddle of spilled oil there, and he slipped, falling headlong, the Walther skidding away.

Ryan laughed triumphantly. ‘I’ve got you now,’ and he fired again.

Dillon rolled frantically and went over the edge of the wharf, plunging into the dark waters below. It was bitterly cold and he surfaced to find Ryan peering down.

‘So there you are.’

He raised his Smith & Wesson, and then Dillon heard a voice call: ‘Mr Ryan.’

Ryan turned. Dillon heard a muted cough that he recognized as the sound of a silenced pistol, then Ryan came backwards over the edge of the wharf, hit the water beside Dillon and surfaced with a hole between his eyes. Dillon pushed him away and grabbed for a ring bolt. There was a footfall above, but no one looked over. When the voice spoke again, it was with an Irish accent.

‘Are you all right, Mr Dillon?’

‘As ever was, ma’am, and who in God’s name might you be?’

‘Your guardian angel. Take care, my friend.’

He heard her walk away, as he swam to a wooden ladder and climbed up. As his head rose above the edge of the wharf, he caught a brief glimpse of her disappearing into the shadows, a dark shape under an umbrella that was gone in a moment.

He pulled himself over and stood up, streaming water. His Walther lay where it had fallen and Ryan’s weapon was close by. He pushed the Walther into his waistband and picked up the Smith & Wesson, went to the edge of the wharf, looked down at Ryan’s half-submerged body, then hurled the gun far out into the river.

‘And you can chew on that, you bastard,’ he said, and hurried back to the Mini Cooper.

He had a mobile phone in the glove compartment, got it out and dialled Cavendish Square. Ferguson sounded irate. ‘Who is this?’

‘It’s me,’ Dillon told him.

‘Good God, do you know what time it is? I’m in bed. Can’t it wait until the morning?’

‘Not really. An old friend just passed on.’

Ferguson’s voice changed. ‘Permanently?’

‘Very much so.’

‘You’d better come round then.’

‘I need to go home first.’

‘What on earth for?’

‘Because I’ve been swimming in the Thames, that’s why,’ and Dillon switched off and drove away.

Ferguson thought about it and then phoned Hannah Bernstein. She answered at once. ‘Are you in bed?’

‘No, reading actually. One of those nights. Can’t sleep.’

‘Phone through for one of the emergency cars and get round here. It would appear our Sean has been involved in some sort of mischief.’

‘Oh, dear, bad?’

‘The graveyard variety, or so it would seem. I’ll see you soon.’

He put down the phone, got out of bed and pulled on a robe, then he phoned through to Kim, his Ghurka manservant, woke him up and ordered tea.

Hedley had almost given up when he saw her at the end of the sidewalk in front of him, and as he coasted towards her, three youths came round the corner wearing bomber jackets and jeans, young animals of the kind to be found anywhere in the world, from New York to London. Hedley heard the ugly laughter and then they were on to her, one of them yanking her purse away. His anger was instant, he braked at the kerb and jumped out.

‘Leave it.’

One of them pushed Helen against the wall and they all turned. The one with the purse said, ‘Hey, nigger, get out of here, this is none of your business.’

They moved in on him and it all came back: ’Nam, the Delta, every dirty trick he’d ever learned. He grabbed the wrist of the one holding the purse, twisted the arm straight, and delivered a hammer blow that snapped the bone. His right elbow went back into the face of the one behind, breaking the nose, and his left foot scraped down the leg of the third, dislodging the kneecap.

They were on the sidewalk, crying in pain. He picked up the purse and took her arm. ‘Can we go now?’

‘My God, Hedley, you don’t take prisoners.’

‘Never could see the point.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I heard you leave, so I followed. Then I lost you when you went on foot.’

He held the door for her, she slipped in and he got in behind the wheel. Sounding a little breathless, she opened her purse, took out a bottle and shook a couple of pills into her palm.

‘The flask, Hedley.’

‘Lady Helen, you shouldn’t.’

‘The flask.’ Her voice was insistent and he passed the flask over reluctantly. She drank, washing the pills down, a warm glow spreading through her. ‘We’ll go back to South Audley Street now and pack. Compton Place in the morning.’

As he pulled away, he said anxiously, ‘Are you okay?’

‘Never better. You see, I just executed Tim Pat Ryan.’

He swerved slightly, then regained control. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’

‘Not at all. Let me tell you about it.’

Kim opened the door to let Dillon in, and when the Irishman went into the drawing room, he found Hannah Bernstein, wearing a track suit, opposite Ferguson, who wore a robe over his pyjamas.

‘God bless all here,’ Dillon said.

‘Enough of the stage Irishman, Dillon. Just tell us the worst,’ Ferguson said wearily.

Dillon did, in a few brief sentences, then went and helped himself to the Bushmills.

‘For God’s sake, what am I to do with you?’ Ferguson demanded. ‘You know the present political situation. Hands off, no trouble, and yet out of some strange perversity, you went looking for it.’

‘I only intended to lean on the bastard.’

For once it was Hannah Bernstein who spoke up.

‘It’s no great loss, sir. Ryan was like something from under a stone.’

‘Yes, I admit to a certain satisfaction,’ the Brigadier told her. ‘But how does that fine Special Branch mind intend to handle it?’

‘By leaving it alone, sir. Someone will find Ryan down there by the wharf soon enough. That leaves Scotland Yard and a Murder Squad investigation. Let’s face it, a piece of filth like Ryan had more enemies than you could count. It’s not our problem, sir.’

‘I agree,’ Ferguson said.

Dillon shook his head. ‘Jesus, ’tis the hard woman you are. Whatever happened to that nice Jewish girl I fell in love with?’

‘Comes of working with you.’ She turned to Ferguson. ‘To business, sir, our business. This woman with the Irish accent may have done us a favour, but I’d like to know who she is. With your permission, I’ll trawl all intelligence sources on the computer at the Ministry of Defence and see what I can see.’

‘Be my guest, Chief Inspector. There may be a Loyalist link here.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Dillon said. ‘Most Loyalists have the Ulster accent like my own. Hers was different.’

‘No matter.’ Ferguson stood. ‘You can stay in one of the spare bedrooms, Chief Inspector, I don’t want to turn you out again in the rain at this time in the morning.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

He turned. ‘You, of course, can walk home, Dillon. I mean, you Irish are used to the rain, aren’t you?’

‘God save your honour, ’tis the grand man you are. I’ll take my shoes off at your door, tie them round my neck and walk barefoot to Stable Mews to save the leather.’

Ferguson laughed out loud. ‘Just go, you rogue, go,’ and Dillon went out.

In the study at South Audley Street, Lady Helen sat at the desk examining the file, and Hedley came in with tea on a tray. He put the tray down and poured tea into a cup.

She added milk, English style, and sipped it. ‘Lovely.’ She leaned over the file. ‘Strange. Tim Pat Ryan was the last on the list, but the first to go.’

‘Lady Helen, this can’t go on.’

‘Oh, yes, it damn well can. What’s my money buy me that’s worth anything, Hedley? Those bastards, all of them, were directly responsible for the butchery of my son. As a result, my husband died an early and unnecessary death, and I’ll tell you another thing, old friend. I don’t have much time. The pills I’ve been taking – I have a damaged heart.’

He was deeply shocked and sat down. ‘I didn’t realize.’

‘You do now, so are you with me or against me? You could phone Dr Ingram and tell him I’ve gone mad. You could call Scotland Yard and they’d arrest me for murder. It’s up to you, isn’t it?’

He stood up. ‘You’ve been good to me, more than anyone else in my life.’ He sighed. ‘I still don’t like it, but one thing’s for sure. You need someone you can count on, and I’ll be there for you, just like you were there for me.’

‘Bless you, Hedley. Get some sleep and we’ll leave for Compton Place in the morning.’

He left the room and she sat there, wondering how Dillon was getting on, then she went and lay on the couch and pulled a comforter over herself.

LONDON

3

At the Ministry of Defence, Hannah Bernstein’s efforts at trawling the computer proved useless. She even tried Dublin and British Army Headquarters at Lisburn, in Northern Ireland, but nothing. So, the matter was shelved. Ryan’s death was a seven-day wonder; the newspapers spoke of rivalry between gangs in the East End and other parts of London. No one at Scotland Yard was shedding tears, underworld contacts proved useless, the case was shelved. Left open, of course, but shelved.

At Compton Place, Helen ate well, took long walks and got plenty of fresh air. She also practised at the pistol shooting range in the old barn, a reluctant Hedley giving her the benefit of his expertise. She had never realized how good he was until one afternoon, after supervising her, he picked up a Browning, one of many handguns her husband had accumulated over the years, and loaded it. There were seven cardboard targets at the far end of the barn, each a facsimile of a charging Chinese soldier, a legacy of the old colonel’s time in the Korean War.

‘I want you to watch.’

He was about thirty feet away. His hand swung, he fired rapidly and shot each target through the head. She was amazed and showed it as the sound died away.

‘Incredible.’

‘But I’m a trained soldier. Now, you, you’re good, but handguns are unreliable unless you get close.’

‘How close?’

He slammed a fresh clip into the butt of the Browning and handed it to her. ‘Come with me.’ He led her to the large centre target. ‘Right, put it against his heart and pull the trigger.’ She did as he ordered. ‘Now you get it, that close.’

‘I was about twelve feet away from Ryan.’

‘Sure, but you could have missed and he might have got you.’

‘All right, but I’d still like to return to the table and try again from there.’

‘Be my guest.’ The mobile phone on the table rang.

He opened it and passed it to her and she said, ‘Helen Lang.’ After a while, she nodded. ‘My thanks. I’m so sorry.’ She closed the phone and looked at Hedley. ‘Tony Emsworth just died.’

‘That’s a shame. When is the funeral?’

‘Wednesday.’

‘Are we going?’

‘Of course.’ She was calm, but there was pain in her eyes. ‘I’ve had enough, Hedley. I think I’ll go back inside,’ and she walked away.

It was a fine sunny morning for the funeral at Stukeley. As it was no more than an hour’s drive from London, the church was full and Helen Lang, sitting on one side of the aisle, was almost amused to find Ferguson, Hannah Bernstein and Dillon on the other. On her way out, she paused to shake hands with Tony Emsworth’s nephew and his wife, who had organized things.

‘So nice of you to come, Lady Helen,’ they chorused. ‘We’ve arranged a reception at the Country Hotel just outside the village. Do come.’

Which she did. The hotel lounge was crowded. She accepted a glass of indifferent champagne and then Charles Ferguson saw her and barrelled through the crowd.

‘My dear Helen.’ He kissed her on both cheeks. ‘My God, you still look fifty and that’s on a bad day. How do you do it?’

‘You were always a charmer, Charles, a glib charmer, but a charmer.’ She turned to Hannah at his shoulder. ‘Beware of this one, my dear. I remember when he had an affair with the Uruguayan Ambassador’s wife, and her husband challenged him to a duel.’

‘Now, Helen, that’s very naughty. This gorgeous creature is my assistant, Detective Chief Inspector Hannah Bernstein, and this Irish rogue is one Sean Dillon, who knew Tony quite well. Lady Helen Lang.’

Dillon wore an easy-fitting Armani suit of navy blue. Helen Lang took to him at once as they shook hands. At that moment, someone called to Ferguson, who turned and moved away. Dillon and Hannah went with him.

Ferguson said hello to the man who’d called him and Dillon pulled him around. ‘Lady Lang, who is she?’

‘Oh, I soldiered with her husband in Korea. Her son, Major Peter Lang, was Scots Guards and SAS. One of our best undercover agents in you-know-where. Someone in the IRA got on to him the other year and blew him up. Car bomb.’

Hannah Bernstein was talking to someone and Ferguson was hailed again. Suddenly, it was all too much for Helen Lang and, slightly breathless, she went out on to the terrace in the February sunshine. Dillon saw her go. There was something about her, something he couldn’t define, so he went after her.

She was at the terrace balustrade tossing a couple of pills back when Dillon arrived. ‘Can I get you a glass of champagne?’

‘Frankly, I’d rather have whisky.’

‘Well, I’m your man. Will Irish do?’

‘Why not?’

He was back in a few moments with two glasses. She put hers down, got out her silver case and held it out. ‘Do you indulge?’

‘Jesus, but you’re a wonderful woman.’ His old Zippo flared and he gave her a light.

‘Do you mind if I say something, Mr Dillon?’ she said. ‘You’re wearing a Guards tie.’

‘Ah, well, I like to keep old Ferguson happy.’

She took a chance. ‘I should mention that I know about you, Mr Dillon. My old friend Tony Emsworth told me everything, and for very special reasons.’

‘Your son, Lady Helen.’ Dillon nodded. ‘I’m surprised you’d speak to me.’

‘I believe war should still have rules, and from what Tony told me, you were an honourable man, however ruthless and, may I say, misguided.’

‘I stand corrected.’

He bowed his head in mock humility. She said, ‘You rogue. You can get me that champagne now, only make sure they open a decent bottle.’

‘At your command.’

He joined Ferguson at the bar. ‘Lady Helen,’ he said. ‘Quite a woman.’

‘And then some.’

The barman poured the champagne into two glasses. ‘There’s something about her, something special. Can’t put my finger on it.’

‘Don’t try, Dillon,’ Ferguson told him. ‘She’s far too good for you.’

It was a week later that they flew from Gatwick to New York in one of her company’s Gulfstreams, and stayed at the Plaza. By that time, she knew the file backwards, every facet of every individual in it, and had also used every facility available in the company’s computer. She had the Colt .25 with her. In all her years flying in the Gulfstreams, she had never been checked by security once.

She knew everything. For example, that Martin Brady, the Teamsters’ Union official, attended a union gym near the New York docks three times a week, and usually left around ten in the evening. Hedley took her to a place a block away, then she walked. Brady had a red Mercedes, a distinctive automobile. She waited in an alley next to where he had parked it, and slipped out only to shoot him in the back of the neck as he leaned over to unlock the Mercedes.

That had been Hedley’s suggestion. He’d heard that the mob preferred such executions with a small calibre pistol, usually a .22, but a .25 would do, and this would make the police think they had a mob-versus-union problem.

Thomas Cassidy, with a fortune in Irish theme pubs, was easy. He’d recently opened a new place in the Bronx and parked in an alley at the rear. She checked it out two nights running and got him on the third, at one in the morning, once again as he unlocked his car. According to The New York Times, there had been a protection racket operating in the area and the police thought Cassidy a victim. She’d known about all that and his complaints to the police from the computer.

Patrick Kelly, the boss of the construction firm, was even easier. He had a house in Ossining, with countryside all around. His habit was to rise at six in the morning and run five miles. She checked out his usual route, then caught him on the third morning, running with the hood of his track suit up against heavy rain. She stood under a tree as he approached, shot him twice in the heart, then removed the gold Rolex watch from his wrist and the chain from around his neck, again at Hedley’s suggestion. A simple mugging, was all.

So, everything worked perfectly. She hadn’t needed the pills as much, and Hedley, in spite of his doubts, had proved a rock. Am I truly wicked, she would ask herself, really evil? And then recalled reading that in Judaism, Jehovah was not personally responsible for many actions. He employed angels, an Angel of Death, for example.

Is that me? she asked herself. But needing justice, she could not be sorry. So she continued until that rainy night in Manhattan, when she waited for Senator Michael Cohan to come home from the Pierre and was sidetracked.

At the same time that Helen Lang was returning to the Plaza, consoling herself with the thought that she would get Cohan in London, other events were taking place there that would prove to have a profound influence not only on her, but on others she already knew.

A few hours after Lady Helen went to bed, Hannah Bernstein entered Charles Ferguson’s office at the Ministry of Defence, Dillon behind her.

‘Sorry to bother you, sir, but we’ve got a hot one.’

‘Really?’ He smiled. ‘Tell me.’

She nodded to Dillon, who said, ‘There’s an old mate of mine, Tommy McGuire, Irish-American. Been into arms dealing for years. He was caught with a defective brake light in Kilburn last night, and a rather keen young woman probationer insisted on checking the boot of his car.’

‘Surprise, surprise,’ Hannah Bernstein said. ‘Fifty pounds of Semtex and two AK47s.’

‘How delicious,’ Ferguson replied. ‘With his record, which I’m sure he has, that should draw ten years.’

‘Except for one thing,’ Hannah told him. ‘He says he wants a deal.’

‘Really.’

‘He says he can give us Jack Barry,’ Dillon told him.

Ferguson went very still, frowning. ‘Where is McGuire?’

‘Wandsworth,’ Hannah said, naming one of London’s bleaker prisons.

‘Then let’s go and see what he has to say,’ and Charles Ferguson stood up.

Wandsworth Prison was one of the toughest in the country, what was known as a hard nick. Ferguson saw the governor and served him with the kind of warrant that made that good man sit up. No one was to see McGuire except those designated by Ferguson, not even Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist section, and certainly not anybody from Military Intelligence in Northern Ireland or the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Any deviation from such a ruling could have sent the governor himself to prison for breaching the Official Secrets Act.

Ferguson, Hannah Bernstein and Dillon waited in an interview room and a prison officer delivered McGuire and withdrew on Ferguson’s nod. McGuire almost had a fit when he saw Dillon.

‘Jesus, Sean, it’s you.’

‘As ever was.’ Dillon offered him a cigarette and said to the others, ‘Tommy and I go back a long way. Beirut, Sicily, Paris.’

‘IRA, of course,’ Ferguson said.

‘Not really. Tommy was never one for direct action, but if there was a pound or two in it, he could get you anything. Automatic weapons, Semtex, rocket launchers. Got away with a lot because of his Yank passport and the fact that he always acted as an agent for foreign arms firms. German, French.’ He gave McGuire a light. ‘Still fronting for old Jobert out of Marseilles, but then you would. He has the Union Corse protecting him.’ He turned to Hannah. ‘Worse than the Mafia, that lot.’

‘I know who they are, Dillon.’ She looked at McGuire with total contempt. ‘Two AK47s and fifty pounds of Semtex were found in your car last night. Samples, I presume? Who were you going to see?’

‘No, you’ve got it wrong,’ McGuire told her. ‘I mean, I didn’t know they were there. I was told there would be a car waiting for me at Heathrow when I got in. The key under the mat. It must have been a setup.’

Ferguson said coldly, ‘We’ll leave now.’

‘Okay, okay,’ McGuire said. ‘You were right about the stuff in the car being samples. They were from Jobert to Tim Pat Ryan. When I flew in, I phoned to arrange the meet and discovered he was dead.’

‘Indeed he is,’ Ferguson said. ‘But there was some mention of Jack Barry.’

McGuire hesitated. ‘Barry used Tim Pat Ryan as a front man in London. It was Ryan who fixed things up. I can give you Jack Barry. I swear it. Just listen.’

‘Get on with it, then.’

Hannah said, ‘So you know Jack Barry?’

‘No. I’ve never met him.’

‘Then why are you wasting our time?’

‘Let me,’ Dillon said and offered McGuire another cigarette. ‘You’ve never met Jack Barry? That’s good, because I have, and he’d cut your balls off for fun if you crossed him. Let me speculate. Jack inherited the Sons of Erin from dear old Frank Barry, alas no longer with us. The Sons of Erin would kill the Pope, which isn’t surprising as our Jack is one of the few Protestants in the IRA. However, he’s had a falling-out with Dublin, Sinn Fein and the peace process. Probably thinks they’re a bunch of old women.’

‘So I hear.’

‘So let me speculate again. His source of arms from Dublin has dried up. However, there’s family money in his background, he’s rich in his own right, so he’s dealing direct with Jobert. Semtex, guns, whatever, and you’re the middle man. Ryan was in London, but, alas, no more.’

‘That’s right,’ McGuire said eagerly. ‘I’m supposed to meet Barry in Belfast in three days.’

‘Really?’ Ferguson said. ‘Where exactly?’

‘I’m to book in at the Europa Hotel and wait. He’ll send for me when he’s ready.’

‘Send for you where?’ Hannah Bernstein asked.

‘How the hell would I know? I’ve already told you, I’ve never even met the guy.’

The room went very still. Ferguson said, ‘Is that really true?’

‘Of course it is.’

Ferguson stood up. ‘Serve the warrant on the prison governor, Chief Inspector. Deliver the prisoner to the Holland Park safe house.’

She pressed the bell and the prison officer entered. ‘Take him back to his cell and get him ready to leave.’

McGuire said, ‘Have we got a deal?’ but the prison officer was already hauling him out.

Dillon said, ‘Are you thinking what I am, you old bugger?’

‘You must admit it would be a wonderful sting,’ the Brigadier said. ‘When is McGuire not McGuire? This could lead us directly to Barry and, oh, how I’d love to lay hands on that one.’

‘There is one thing, sir,’ Hannah Bernstein said. ‘McGuire is an American and it’s too easy to spot a phoney American accent. Who are we going to get to play him? We need someone who can pass as American and who can handle himself.’

Ferguson said, ‘That’s a good point. In fact, it would seem to me there’s an American dimension to all this. I mean, the President wouldn’t be too happy to find out in the middle of peace negotiations for Ireland that there was an American citizen trying to sell arms to one of the worst terrorists in the business.’

Dillon, devious as usual, was ahead of him. ‘Are you suggesting that I speak to Blake Johnson?’

It was Hannah who said, ‘Well, that’s what the Basement is for, sir.’

‘Who knows?’ Dillon said. ‘Blake might feel like a holiday in Ireland. Who better to play an American than an American – especially one who can shoot a fly at twenty paces?’

‘Sometimes you really do get it right, Dillon.’ Ferguson smiled. ‘Now let’s get out of this dreadful place.’

Blake Johnson was still a handsome man at fifty, and looked younger. A Marine at nineteen, he’d left Vietnam with a Silver Star, a Vietnamese Cross of Valor and two Purple Hearts. A law degree at the University of Georgia had taken him into the FBI. When President Jake Cazalet had been a Senator and subject to right-wing threats, Blake had managed to get to him when a police escort had lost him, shot two men trying to assassinate him, and taken a bullet himself.

It had led to a special relationship with the man who became President, and an appointment as Director of the General Affairs Department at the White House, a cloak for the President’s private investigation squad, the Basement. Already during the present administration, Johnson had proved his worth, had engaged in a number of black operations, some of which had involved Ferguson and Dillon.

It was hot that afternoon, when Blake arrived at the Oval Office and found the President signing papers with his chief of staff, Henry Thornton. Blake liked Thornton, which was a good thing, because Thornton basically ran the place. It was his job to make sure the White House ran smoothly, that the President’s programmes were advancing through Congress, that the President’s image was protected. The pay was no big deal, but it was the ultimate prestige job. Besides, Thornton had enough money from running the family law firm in New York before joining the President in Washington.

Thornton was one of the few men who knew the true purpose of the Basement. He looked up and smiled. ‘Hey, Blake, you look thoughtful.’

‘As well I might,’ Blake said.

Cazalet sat back. ‘Bad?’

‘Let’s say tricky. I’ve had an interesting conversation with Charles Ferguson.’

‘Okay, Blake, let’s hear the worst.’

When Blake was finished, the President was frowning and so was Thornton. Cazalet said, ‘Are you seriously suggesting you go to Belfast, impersonate this McGuire and try to take Barry on his own turf?’

Blake smiled. ‘I haven’t had a vacation for a while, Mr President, and it would be nice to see Dillon again.’

‘Dear God, Blake, no one admires Dillon more than I do. The service you and he did for me – rescuing my daughter from those terrorists – I’ll never forget that. But this? You’re going into the war zone.’

Thornton said, ‘Think about it, Blake. You’d be going into harm’s way and is it really necessary?’

Blake said, ‘Gentlemen, we’ve worked our rocks off for peace in Northern Ireland. Sinn Fein have tried, the Loyalists have talked, but again and again it’s these terrorist splinter groups on both sides who keep things going. This man, Jack Barry, is a bad one. I must remind you, Mr President, that he is also an American citizen, a serving officer in Vietnam who was eased out for offences that can only be described as murder. He’s been a butcher for years, and he’s our responsibility as much as theirs. I say take him out.’

Jake Cazalet was smiling. He looked up at Thornton, who was smiling too.

‘You obviously feel strongly about this, Blake.’

‘I sure as hell do, Mr President.’

‘Then try and come back in one piece. It would seriously inconvenience me to lose you.’

‘Oh, I’d hate to do that, Mr President.’

In London in his office at the Ministry of Defence, Ferguson put down the red secure phone and touched the intercom button.

‘Come in.’

A moment later, Dillon and Hannah Bernstein entered.

‘I’ve spoken to Blake Johnson. He’ll be at the Europa Hotel the day after tomorrow, booked in as Tommy McGuire. You two will join him.’

‘What kind of backup will we have, sir?’ Hannah asked.

‘You’re the backup, Chief Inspector. I don’t want the RUC in this or Army Intelligence from Lisburn. Even the cleaning women are nationalists there. Leaks all over the place. You, Dillon and Blake Johnson must handle it. You only need one pair of handcuffs for Barry.’

It was Dillon who said, ‘Consider it done, Brigadier.’

‘Can you guarantee that?’

‘As the coffin lid closing.’

4

As frequently happened in Belfast, a cold north wind drove rain across the city, stirring the waters of Belfast Lough, rattling the windows of Dillon’s room at the Europa, the most bombed hotel in the world. He looked out over the railway station, remembering the extent to which this city had figured in his life. His father’s death all those years ago, the bombings, the violence. Now the powers that be were trying to end all that.

He reached for the phone and called Hannah Bernstein in her room. ‘It’s me. Are you decent?’

‘No. Just out of the shower.’

‘I’ll be straight round.’

‘Don’t be stupid, Dillon. What do you want?’

‘I phoned the airport. There’s an hour’s delay on the London plane. I think I’ll go down to the bar. Do you fancy some lunch?’

‘Sandwiches would do.’

‘I’ll see you there.’

It was shortly after noon, the Library Bar quiet. He ordered tea, Barry’s tea, Ireland’s favourite, and sat in the corner reading the Belfast Telegraph. Hannah joined him twenty minutes later, looking trim in a brown trouser suit, her red hair tied back.

He nodded his approval. ‘Very nice. You look as if you’re here to report on the fashion show.’

‘Tea?’ she said. ‘Sean Dillon drinking tea, and the bar open. That I should live to see the day.’

He grinned and waved to the barman. ‘Ham sandwiches for me, this being Ireland. What about you?’

‘Mixed salad will be fine, and tea.’

He gave the barman the order and folded the newspaper. ‘Here we are again then, sallying forth to help solve the Irish problem.’

‘And you don’t think we can?’

‘Seven hundred years, Hannah. Any kind of a solution has been a long time coming.’

‘You seem a little down.’

He lit a cigarette. ‘Oh, that’s just the Belfast feeling. The minute I’m back, the smell of the place, the feel of it, takes over. It will always be the war zone to me. The bad old days. I should go and see my father’s grave, but I never do.’

‘Is there a reason, do you think?’

‘God knows. My life was set, the Royal Academy, the National Theatre, you’ve heard all that, and I was only nineteen.’

‘Yes, I know, the future Laurence Olivier.’

‘And then my old man came home and got knocked off by Brit paratroops.’

‘Accidentally.’

‘Sure, I know all that, but when you’re nineteen you see things differently.’

‘So you joined the IRA and fought for the glorious cause.’

‘A long time ago. A lot of dead men ago.’

The food arrived. A young waitress served them and left. Hannah said, ‘And looking back, it’s regrets time, is it?’

‘Ah, who knows? By this time, I could have been a leading man with the Royal Shakespeare Company. I could have been in fifteen movies.’ He wolfed down a ham sandwich and reached for another. ‘I could have been famous. Didn’t Marlon Brando say something like that?’

‘At least you’re infamous. You’ll have to content yourself with that.’

‘And there’s no woman in my life. You’ve spurned me relentlessly.

‘Poor man.’

‘No kith or kin. Oh, more cousins in County Down than you could shake a stick at, and they’d run a mile if I appeared on the horizon.’

‘They would, wouldn’t they, but enough of this angst. I’d like to know more about Barry.’

‘I knew his uncle, Frank Barry, better. He taught me a lot in the early days, until we had a falling out. Jack was always a bad one. Vietnam was his proving ground and the murder of Vietcong prisoners the reason the army kicked him out. All these years of the Troubles, he’s gone from bad to worse. Another point, as you’ve read in his file, he’s often been a gun for hire for various organizations around the world.’

‘I thought that was you, Dillon.’

He smiled. ‘Touché. The hard woman you are.’

Blake Johnson entered the Library Bar at that moment. He wore black Raybans, a dark blue shirt and slacks, a grey tweed jacket. The black hair, touched by grey, was tousled. He gave no sign of recognition and moved to the bar.

‘Poor sod. He looks as if he’s been travelling,’ Dillon said.

‘I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Dillon, you’re a bastard.’ She stood up. ‘Let’s go and wait for him.’

Dillon called to the barman, ‘Put that on room fifty-two,’ and followed her out.

Rain rattled against the window as Dillon got a half-bottle of champagne from the fridge and opened it. ‘The usual Belfast weather, but what can you expect in March?’ He filled three glasses, and took one himself. ‘Good to see you, Blake.’

‘And you, my fine Irish friend.’ Blake toasted him and turned to Hannah. ‘Chief Inspector. More fragrant than ever.’

‘Hey, I’m the one who gets to make remarks like that,’ Dillon said. ‘Anyway, let’s get down to it.’

They all sat. Blake said, ‘I’ve read the file on Barry. He’s a bad one. But I’d like to hear your version, Sean.’

‘It was his uncle I knew first, Frank Barry. He founded the Sons of Erin, a rather vicious splinter group from the beginning. He was knocked off a few years ago, but that’s another story. Jack’s been running things ever since.’

‘And you know him?’

‘We’ve had our dealings over the years, exchanged shots. I’m not his favourite person, let’s put it that way.’

‘And we’re certain that he hasn’t met McGuire?’

‘So McGuire says,’ Hannah told him. ‘And why would he lie? He wants an out.’

‘Fine. I’ve memorized all that stuff you sent on the computer. McGuire’s past, this French outfit he works for, Jobert and Company, and this Tim Pat Ryan who nearly finished you off in London, Sean. Intriguing that – a woman as executioner. But as for Barry – I’d like to hear about him from you, everything, even if it is on file.’

Dillon complied and talked at length. After a while, Blake nodded. ‘That’s about it then. I’m going to need my wits about me with this one.’

‘There’s one more thing you should know about the Barrys. First of all, they’re an old Protestant family.’

‘Protestant?’ Blake was incredulous.

‘It’s not so unusual,’ Dillon said. ‘There are plenty of Protestant nationalists in Irish history. Wolfe Tone, for example. But in addition to that, his great-uncle was Lord Barry, which made Frank Barry the heir, except that he’s dead, as you know.’

‘Are you trying to tell me Jack Barry is the heir apparent?’ Blake asked.

‘His father was Frank’s younger brother, but he died years ago, which only leaves Jack.’

‘Lord Barry?’

‘Frank didn’t claim the title, and Jack certainly hasn’t. It would give the Queen and the Privy Council problems,’ Hannah told him.

‘I just bet it would,’ Blake said.

‘But Jack takes it seriously.’ Dillon nodded. ‘An old family, the Barrys. Lots of history there. There’s a family estate and castle, Spanish Head, on the coast, about thirty miles north of Belfast. It’s owned by the National Trust now. Jack used to rhapsodize about it years ago. So – our Jack’s a complicated man. Anyway, let’s get down to it. McGuire is to wait in the bar between six and seven for a message that his taxi is ready.’

‘Destination unknown?’

‘Of course. I figure he’ll be waiting somewhere in the city, with lots of ways out in case of trouble. The dock area, for example.’

‘And you’ll follow?’

‘That’s the idea. Green Land Rover.’ Dillon passed him a piece of paper. ‘That’s the number.’

‘And what if you lose me?’

‘It’s not possible.’ Hannah Bernstein put a black briefcase on the table and opened it. ‘We’ve got a Range Finder in here.’

‘Follow you anywhere: The very latest,’ Dillon told him.

The Range Finder was a black box with a screen. ‘Watch this,’ Hannah said, and pressed a button. A section of city streets appeared. ‘The whole of Northern Ireland’s in there.’

‘Very impressive,’ Blake told her.

‘Even more so with this.’ She opened a small box and took out a gold signet ring. ‘I hope it fits. If not, I’ve got another bug that you can pin anywhere you want.’

Blake tried the ring on his left hand, and nodded. ‘Feels good to me.’

‘No weapon,’ Dillon said. ‘There’s no way of fooling Barry’s people in that respect.’

‘Then you’d better be right behind me.’

‘Oh, we’ll be there and armed to the teeth.’

‘So the general idea is I lead you to Barry and you jump him? No police, no backup?’

‘This is a black one, Blake. We snatch the bastard, stick a hypo in him and get him to the airport, where a Lear jet will take us to Farley Field.’

‘And afterwards?’

‘Our Holland Park safe house in London, where the Brigadier will have words,’ Hannah put in.

‘Grand drugs they have these days,’ Dillon said. ‘He’ll be telling all before you know it, although the Chief Inspector doesn’t like that bit.’

‘Shut up, Dillon,’ she said fiercely.

Blake nodded. ‘No need to argue, you two. I’m happy to be here and the President’s happy. No problem. I’m in your hands and that’s good enough for me.’

The Library Bar was a popular watering hole for those in business who liked a drink before going home, and was quite busy when Blake went in just after six. Blake sat at the bar, ordered a whisky and soda and lit a cigarette. Tense, but in control. For one thing, he had enormous faith in Dillon. It got to six-thirty. He ordered another small whisky, and as the barman brought it to him, a porter came in with a board saying McGuire.

‘That’s me,’ Blake told him.

When he went down the steps to the red taxi, it was raining hard. He got in the back and noticed to his astonishment that the driver was a grey-haired woman.

‘Good night to you, sir,’ she told him in the hard Belfast accent. ‘You just sit back and I’ll tell you where you’re going.’

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.