скачать книгу бесплатно
‘Ferguson is certain to want to see you. There’s been a series of small doorstep bombs in Hampstead and Camden during the past two weeks. It’s a known fact that the IRA have at least three Active Service Units operating in London at the moment.’ He took a piece of paper from a wallet and passed it across. ‘You tell Ferguson he’ll find an Active Service Unit at that address plus a supply of Semtex and fuses and so forth.’
Riley looked at the paper. ‘Holland Park.’ He looked up. ‘Is this kosher?’
‘No ASU, just the Semtex and timers, enough to show you were telling the truth. Not your fault if there’s no one there.’
‘And you expect Ferguson to get my sentence squashed for that?’ Riley shook his head. ‘Maybe if he’d been able to nick an ASU.’ He shrugged. ‘It won’t do.’
‘Yes, he’ll want more and you’re going to give it to him. Two years ago, an Arab terrorist group called the Army of God blew up a jumbo jet as it was lifting off from Manchester. More than two hundred people killed.’
‘So?’
‘Their leader was a man called Hakim al-Sharif. I know where he’s been hiding. I’ll tell you and you tell Ferguson. There’s nothing he’d like better than to get his hands on that bastard and he’s certain to use Dillon to pull the job off.’
‘And what do I do?’
‘You offer to go with him, to prove you’re genuine in this thing.’ Brown smiled. ‘It will work, Mr Riley, but only if you do exactly as I tell you, so listen carefully.’
Brigadier Charles Ferguson’s office was on the third floor of the Ministry of Defence, overlooking Horse Guards Avenue. He sat at his desk, a large, untidy man with a shock of grey hair, wearing a crumpled fawn suit and a Guards Brigade tie. He was frowning slightly as he pressed his intercom.
‘Brigadier?’
‘Is Dillon there, Chief Inspector?’
‘Just arrived.’
‘I’ll see the both of you. Something’s come up.’
The woman who led the way was around thirty and wore a fawn Armani trouser suit. She had close-cropped red hair and black horn-rimmed spectacles. She was not so much beautiful as someone you would look at twice. She could have been a top secretary, a company director, and yet this was Detective Chief Inspector Hannah Bernstein, product of an orthodox Jewish family, MA in Psychology from Cambridge, father a professor of surgery, grandfather a rabbi, both hugely shocked when she had elected to join the police. A fast-track career had taken her to Special Branch, from where Ferguson had procured her secondment as his assistant. In spite of her appearance and the crisp English upper-class voice, she had killed in the line of duty on three occasions to his knowledge, and had taken a bullet herself.
The man behind her, Sean Dillon, was small, no more than five feet five, with the kind of fair hair that was almost white. He wore dark cords and an old black leather flying jacket, a white scarf at his throat. His eyes seemed to lack any kind of colour and were very clear and he was handsome enough, a restless, animal vitality to him. The left corner of his mouth was permanently lifted into the kind of smile that said he didn’t take life too seriously, perhaps never had.
‘God save the good work, Brigadier,’ he said cheerfully in the distinctive accent that was Ulster Irish.
Ferguson laid down his pen and removed his reading glasses. ‘Dermot Riley. He ring a bell for you, Dillon?’
Dillon took out an old silver case, selected a cigarette and lit it with a Zippo lighter. ‘You could say that. We were not much more than boys fighting together in the hard days in the seventies in the Derry Brigade of the Provisional IRA.’
‘Shooting British soldiers,’ Hannah Bernstein said.
‘Well, they shouldn’t have joined,’ Dillon told her cheerfully and turned back to Ferguson. ‘He was lifted last year by Scotland Yard’s Anti-Terrorist Squad right here in London. Supposed to have been a member of one of the Active Service Units.’
‘As I recall, they found Semtex at his lodgings and assorted weaponry.’
‘True,’ Dillon said. ‘But when they stood him up at the Old Bailey, he wouldn’t cough. They sent him down for fifteen years.’
‘And good riddance,’ Hannah said.
‘Ah, well now, everyone has their own point of view,’ Dillon told her. ‘To you he’s a terrorist, whereas Dermot sees himself as a gallant soldier fighting a just cause.’
‘Not any more he doesn’t,’ Ferguson said. ‘I’ve just had a call from the governor at Wandsworth Prison. Riley wants to do a deal.’
‘Really?’ Dillon had stopped smiling, a slight frown on his face. ‘Now why would he want to do that?’
‘Have you ever been inside Wandsworth, Dillon? If you had, you’d know why. Hell on earth, and Riley’s had six months to sample it and has another fourteen and a half years to go, so let’s see what he’s got to say.’
‘And you want me?’ Dillon said.
‘Of course. After all, you knew the damn man. You, Chief Inspector, I’d like your input.’ He pushed back his chair and stood. ‘The Daimler is waiting, so let’s be off,’ and he led the way out.
They waited in the interview room at Wandsworth, and after a while, the door opened and Jackson pushed Riley into the room and closed the door.
Riley said. ‘Sean, is that you?’
‘As ever was, Dermot.’ Dillon lit a cigarette, inhaled and passed it to him.
Riley grinned. ‘You used to do that in the old days in Derry. Remember when we ran rings round the Brits?’
‘We did indeed, old son, but times change.’
‘Well, you’ve certainly changed,’ Riley said. ‘And from one side to the other.’
‘All right,’ Ferguson broke in. ‘So you’ve had the old-pals act. Now let’s get down to business. What do you want, Riley?’
‘Out, Brigadier.’ Riley sat on one of the chairs at the table. ‘Six months is enough. I can’t face any more, I’d rather be dead.’
‘Like all those people you killed,’ Hannah said.
‘And who might you be?’
‘A DCI from Special Branch,’ Dillon told him, ‘so mind your manners.’
‘I was fighting a war, woman,’ Riley began, and Ferguson cut in.
‘And now you’ve had enough of the glorious cause,’ Ferguson said. ‘So what have you got for me?’
Riley appeared to hesitate and Dillon said, ‘Hard as nails this old bugger, Dermot, but very old-fashioned. A man of honour, so tell him.’
‘All right.’ Riley raised a hand. ‘You people always thought there were three Active Service Units operating in London. There was a fourth and a different kind of set-up. Nice house in Holland Park. Three guys and a woman, all with good jobs in the City. Another thing – all handpicked because they’d been born in England or raised here. Perfect for deep cover.’
‘Names?’ Ferguson demanded.
‘It won’t do you any good. Not one of them has a police record of any kind, but here goes.’
He rattled off four names, which Hannah Bernstein wrote down in her notebook. Dillon watched impassively.
Ferguson said, ‘Address?’
‘Park Villa, Palace Square. It’s on old Victoria Place in a nice garden.’
‘So you had dealings with them?’ Dillon asked.
‘No, but a friend of mine, Ed Murphy, was their supplier. He got a little indiscreet one night. You know how it is with the drink taken. Anyway, he told me all about them.’
‘And where’s Murphy now?’
‘Rotated back to Ireland last year.’
Dillon turned to Ferguson and shrugged. ‘If it was me, I’d be long gone, especially after Dermot was lifted.’
‘But why?’ Hannah demanded. ‘There’s no connection.’
‘But there always is,’ Dillon said.
‘Stop this bickering,’ Ferguson told them. ‘It’s worth a try.’
He banged on the door, and when it opened and Jackson appeared, took an envelope from his pocket. ‘Take that to the governor and get it countersigned. It’s a warrant for this man’s release into my custody. Afterwards, take him back to his cell to collect his things. We’ll be waiting in my Daimler in the courtyard.’
‘Very well, Brigadier.’ Jackson stamped his booted feet as if back on the parade ground and stood to one side as they filed past.
A number of people were waiting in the rain outside the main gate for prisoners on release. Among them was the lawyer who had called himself George Brown, standing beside a London black cab, an umbrella over his head. The driver looked like your average London cabbie, which he was, a very special breed, dark curly hair flecked with grey, a nose that had at some stage been broken.
‘Do you think it’s going to work?’ he asked.
At that moment, the gates opened and several men emerged, the Daimler following.
‘I do now,’ Brown said.
As the Daimler passed, Riley, sitting beside Dillon and opposite Ferguson and Hannah, glanced out and recognized Brown at once. He looked away.
Brown waved to a Ford saloon on the other side of the road and pointed as it moved away from the kerb and went after the Daimler.
Brown got into the cab. ‘Now what?’ the driver asked.
‘They’ll follow them. Ferguson’s got to keep him somewhere.’
‘A safe house?’
‘Perhaps, but what would be safer than having him stay at Dillon’s place in Stable Mews, very convenient for Ferguson’s flat just round the corner in Cavendish Square. That’s why I’ve made the arrangements I have. We’ll see if I’m right. In the meantime, we wait here. I chose visiting day because I was just one of two or three hundred people and no one at reception will remember me, but the prison officer who took me to Riley will. Jackson is his name.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘The present shift should have just finished. We’ll wait and see if he comes out.’
Which Jackson did twenty minutes later, and hurried away along the street to the nearest tube station. A keen snooker player, he was in a tournament at the British Legion that evening and wanted to get home to shower and change.
The tube was as busy as usual, and as he entered the station the black cab pulled in at the kerb and Brown got out and went after him. Jackson went down the escalator and hurried along the tunnel, Brown close behind but keeping a few people between them. The platform was crowded and Jackson pushed his way through and waited on the edge. There was the sound of the train in the distance and Brown slipped in closer as the crowd surged forward. There was a rush of air, a roaring now as the train appeared, and Jackson was aware of a hand against his back, the last thing he remembered in this life as he plunged headfirst on to the track and directly into the path of the train.
Outside, the black-cab driver was waiting anxiously. He’d already had to turn down several fares, was sweating a little and then Brown emerged from the station entrance, hurried along the pavement and got in the back.
‘Taken care of?’ the driver asked, as he switched on his engine.
‘As the coffin lid closing,’ Brown told him, and they drove away.
Ferguson said, ‘You’ll stay with Dillon at his place. Only five minutes’ walk from my flat.’
‘Very convenient,’ Riley said.
‘And try and be sensible, there’s a good chap. Don’t try playing silly buggers and making a run for it.’
‘And why would I do that?’ Riley said. ‘I want to walk away from this clean, Brigadier. I don’t want to have to look over my shoulder for the rest of my life.’
‘Good man.’
At that moment, the Daimler turned into Stable Mews, negotiating a grey BT van parked on the pavement, a manhole cover raised behind a small barrier. A telephone engineer wearing a hard hat and a distinctive yellow oilskin jacket with the BT logo printed across the back worked in the manhole.
Ferguson said, ‘Right, out you get, you two. The Chief Inspector and I have work to do.’
‘When will we make the hit?’ Dillon asked.
‘Sometime tonight. Sooner rather than later.’
The Daimler moved away and Dillon unlocked the door of the cottage and led the way in. It was small and very Victorian, with a scarlet and blue Turkish carpet runner up the hall. A door stood open to a living room, polished wood-block floor, a three-piece suite in black leather, oriental rugs scattered here and there. Above the fireplace was an oil painting, a scene of the Thames by night in Victorian times.
‘Jesus,’ Riley said, ‘that’s an Atkinson Grimshaw and worth a powerful lot of money, Sean.’
‘And how would you be knowing that?’ Dillon asked.
‘Oh, once I had to visit Liam Devlin at his cottage at Kilrea outside Dublin. He had at least six Grimshaws on the walls.’
‘Five now,’ Dillon said, and splashed Bushmills whiskey into two glasses on the sideboard. ‘He gave that one to me.’
‘So the old bugger is still alive.’
‘He certainly is. Eighty-five and still claiming seventy.’
‘The living legend of the IRA.’
‘The best,’ Dillon said. ‘On my best day and his worst, the best. To Liam.’ He raised his glass.
Outside on the corner of the mews, the man working in the manhole got out, opened the door of the van and went inside. Another man dressed as a BT engineer sat on a stool manipulating a refractive directional microphone, a tape recorder turning beside it.
He turned and smiled. ‘Perfect. Heard everything they said.’
At nine o’clock that evening, Palace Square in Holland Park was sealed off by the police. Ferguson, Dillon and Riley sat in the Daimler at the gate of Park Villa and watched armed police of the Anti-Terrorist Squad smash the front door down with their hammers and flood inside.
‘So far so good,’ Ferguson said.
Dillon took the car umbrella, got out and lit a cigarette and stood in the pouring rain. Hannah Bernstein emerged from the front door and came towards them. She wore a black jump suit and flak jacket, a holstered Smith and Wesson pistol on her left hip.
Ferguson opened the door. ‘Any luck?’
‘A stack of Semtex, sir, and lots of timers. Looks as if we’ve really nipped some sort of bombing campaign in the bud.’
