by Tony Kent
‘I do. What do you know of Michael?’
‘Not a great deal, but what I do know is important. It seems, sir, that Mr Lawrence called him after leaving Paddington Green. This was the only call he made in between his meeting with McGale and his death. The only opportunity he had to pass information on. Following this call there has been an attempt on Mr Devlin’s life that carries all of the hallmarks of a professional hit, which Mr Devlin somehow escaped. I think it’s safe to say that there must be a connection, don’t you?’
Haversume took a few more seconds to consider this. Dempsey could see that this was not a man who jumped to conclusions without careful thought.
‘I suppose that there must be,’ he finally said. His tone suggested that he would have preferred a different conclusion. ‘But that would mean, Major Dempsey, that whoever attempted to kill Michael on the basis of that phone call must have had access to Daniel’s telephone records within hours of his death.’
‘It does,’ Dempsey replied. ‘Which in turn means that they have access to intelligence resources, or to someone inside the service. There’s no other way they could have obtained the phone records that quickly.’
Haversume nodded his head. With every new piece of information his eyes seemed to grow sadder. More tired.
‘Do you know where Michael is now?’
‘No. He seems to have gone to ground. As have Mr Lawrence’s family. Hopefully they’re together and they’re safe.’
Haversume seemed unsurprised by the final revelation. Dempsey found that strange, in light of the man’s connection to the Lawrence family.
His doubts were quickly addressed,
‘I think I can help you with that, Major.’
Haversume pushed himself up in his chair as he spoke. His voice was still quiet, still sad. But its authority had returned.
‘You see, not everything you have just said is a surprise to me. I’m afraid I was already aware of the likely truth behind my godson’s murder.’
‘You knew?’ It was Dempsey’s turn to be confused. ‘But how?’
‘From Michael Devlin. Indirectly, anyway. He telephoned Hugh Lawrence, Daniel’s father, after the attempt on his life. And he told him very much what you just told me.’
‘Then why didn’t you stop me?’ Dempsey did not like having his time wasted. ‘Why did you let me go through everything?’
‘Because I wanted to hear it from you,’ Haversume replied. ‘What Michael told Hugh could have been wrong. My first interest in this is the safety of Daniel’s family, and I can best protect them if I know what you know. Rather than just what Michael Devlin thinks he knows. Although, in fairness to him, it seems his instincts were right.’
‘What do you mean “best protect them”? Are you saying that you know where the Lawrence family are? Where Devlin is?’
‘I’ve no idea where Mr Devlin is, Major. But yes, I do know where the Lawrence family are. I’ve arranged for them to be kept in the safest possible place. Where there is no chance that this . . . this . . . whatever this is, can find them. I won’t see another member of that family hurt, Major. Not for anything.’
The emotion returned to Haversume’s voice as he discussed his loss. And his determination that it would not be repeated. It answered Dempsey’s next question before he even asked it.
‘I don’t suppose you would allow me access to them, sir? There are questions I would like to ask.’
‘No, Major. No, I would not.’ It was the answer Dempsey was expecting. ‘How can I take that risk? You’ve just told me – confirming what Michael already said – that there is intelligence service involvement in this. If I permit you to see them then I have exposed them to exactly that service. The service we know to be compromised. Would you take that risk? With your loved ones?’
‘Mr Haversume, are you suggesting that I might be a security risk? That I’m involved in this?’
‘I’m not, Major, no. I’m as confident as I can be, with the little I know, that you are on the right side. I’m sure you know about my friendship with your director, Callum? He and I go back years, and you’ll be happy to know that he cannot speak highly enough of you. So no, I’m not suggesting that you’re a security risk. But at the same time the fewer people who know, the better.’
Dempsey could understand the answer. But it gave him another option.
‘Then what about Callum, sir? Will you allow him to meet with them?’
‘Major Dempsey, I trust Callum McGregor more than I trust almost any man alive. But even he will not be seeing the Lawrence family. So please leave this alone.’
‘But why?’
‘Because we may well have the full apparatus of the intelligence services against us here, Major. We don’t know who is behind this and until we do I will not take a risk with the lives of my only family.’
‘Your—’
‘A figure of speech. But they are my family, Major. Maybe not in blood, I realise. But they are the closest thing I have. And if it were your family at risk, would you think any differently?’
Dempsey did not answer. Nor did he need to. Haversume’s point was made, and it was a good one. With the intelligence community compromised, he could not criticise Haversume for only trusting himself.
Still, it posed a problem. Dempsey had come to Haversume for one thing: his insight into the Lawrence family. He had hoped that it would help him find them, in the anticipation that Michael Devlin would be with them or that they would at least know where he was.
It was a dead end. But there was something else Dempsey now wanted to know.
‘Sir, have you spoken about any of this to Callum McGregor?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Like you said, you go back years. And I know he’s a close friend. In the circumstances, if I was you I would have spoken to him.’
‘I had wanted to keep that to myself.’ Haversume sounded disappointed at what he now had to disclose. ‘Because I know Callum should not have discussed this with me. But yes, we’ve spoken. And yes, before you ask, he had already confirmed what you told me.’
‘I understand why you’d want to protect him,’ Dempsey replied, ‘and he’s my friend too. So this won’t go any further than this room. But just so I know what you and I can and can’t discuss, did Callum tell you anything else?’
‘Not really, Major.’ Haversume paused. He seemed to be thinking. ‘He did mention the name of a reporter too. Sarah Truman. He said that you believed she was with Devlin. But that’s about it.’
Dempsey nodded. His curiosity had been answered. He rose to his feet and offered Haversume his hand.
‘In that case, sir, I’ll leave you to get on with the rest of your day.’
‘Was there not something you wanted, Major? Why you came here in the first place?’
‘There was, sir. But we’ve covered it and I don’t want to keep you any longer than I need to. Like you said, there’s a big vote tonight.’
Haversume got to his feet and took Dempsey’s hand.
‘Major, I wish you the very best of luck. There’s nothing I want more than to see the bastard who did this to Daniel brought down.’
‘I’ll do my best, sir.’
‘How?’ Haversume replied. ‘I mean, what’s next?’
Dempsey thought for a moment. Truthfully, he did not know, and so a plan was only forming in his mind as he spoke:
‘I suppose I have to follow the only lead left. Devlin and Truman have gone to ground, and all my other leads are pretty much exhausted. Which only leaves Eamon McGale. I need to know what compels a university professor to become an assassin.’
‘So you’re off to Belfast, then?’
‘I suppose I am. I don’t see any other options.’
‘Well, then, it’s like I said. I wish you the very best of luck.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ Dempsey replied. ‘I just might need it.’
FIFTY-SIX
‘Are you sure we’ve got the right place?’
&n
bsp; Liam Casey had asked the same question twenty times in the past hour. The answer would not change.
‘I mean, there’s no sign of anyone.’
‘It’s the only address the university had for him,’ replied Paddy O’Neil, Liam’s longest-standing and most loyal friend. Along with Jack Thornton, he was one of only two men Liam had trusted to accompany him and Michael. All four had been sitting together for over an hour in a Range Rover owned by one of Liam’s more legitimate companies.
‘Jesus, Liam, it’s only been an hour.’ Michael’s response was snapped at Liam at the same moment O’Neil had spoken. ‘He’ll be back soon enough.’
O’Neil and Thornton exchanged nervous glances while Liam glared wordlessly at Michael, his eyes filled with malicious intent. He resisted translating that malice into physical action. Instead, a silence descended that carried the live charge of potential conflict.
The barely suppressed resentment between the brothers was making their two companions nervous. With good reason.
Liam’s behaviour towards Michael had varied wildly in the hours between Michael’s return and now. There had been some moments of levity, when the brothers seemed happy in each other’s company. And just as many moments of contempt, when only the memory of their father kept them from each other’s throat.
It was their tendency to flip suddenly from one mood to the other that caused the greatest concern. It made it impossible for anyone to tell if and when the obvious tension would erupt into something more.
Michael could see the stress that his return was placing on Liam. He already regretted the irritable comment. He knew he should apologise. Knew that doing so would lighten the mood. But for some reason he could not bring himself to say the words. Instead he avoided Liam’s angry gaze. He sat back in his seat and kept his eyes on the small terraced house across the street: the home of a postgraduate Political Science student named Benjamin Grant.
The decision to find Benjamin Grant had been Michael’s. It was based on a realisation that had hit both him and Sarah in McGale’s office.
Michael and Sarah had recounted everything from Daniel’s death onwards, at Liam’s insistence. They had left no detail untouched. Only after this, with Liam fully briefed, had Michael set out both the next step and the reason for it.
‘So where does this leave us?’ It had been Liam’s question. ‘You don’t have much to go on, do you? A set of initials?’
‘There is something else,’ Michael had replied. ‘I think there’s someone else who can give us a lot more information than we already have. Benjamin Grant.’
‘He was McGale’s student,’ Sarah had explained. ‘The one who called him out of the restaurant on the night of the bomb.’
Liam had nodded, understanding. His natural scepticism gave him a healthy head start.
‘Someone drags you out of a building just before it blows up, odds are that person knew it was gonna happen.’
‘Exactly,’ Michael had agreed. ‘Too much of a coincidence. How often does a student track his professor down at that time of the night, interrupting a family event? And it isn’t like it was an emergency. They’re political scientists. There’s no such thing as life or death in that world.’
‘Only this time there was,’ Sarah continued. ‘And so we think that Benjamin Grant was paid to stop McGale getting blown to bits. Which means he can tell us who paid him.’
‘And maybe more than that,’ Michael had continued. ‘If you look at the diary, it says “meeting with BG and RM”. Whoever RM is, this first mention of him coincides almost exactly with the beginning of McGale’s Matthewson obsession. Which makes it very likely that RM was either the reason for that obsession, or has a good idea what that reason was. And if he met McGale on this date with BG and if BG is Benjamin Grant, then that guy has got to be the place to start.’
Sarah and Liam had nodded as one at the additional reasoning. It was vital that they discover what Benjamin Grant knew.
‘You want me to get on the internet and start tracking him down?’ Sarah had asked. She had seemed keen to get started.
‘Leave that part to me,’ Liam had replied. ‘I can do that quicker. And then we’ll find out what the treacherous little shit knows.’
‘. . . and so there I’d be waiting for someone to walk around the corner, on my back, grunting and groaning and doing my best to look like I’d just landed.’
Paddy O’Neil was struggling to get out the words between bouts of laughter.
‘Then what would you do?’ asked Jack Thornton. He was the only man in the car not familiar with O’Neil’s story.
‘Well, I’d wait for the person to get real close, then I’d make the noise louder and louder. Make out I was real hurt. They come running over all concerned and ask what happened and I’d say “they threw me off the roof, they threw me off the roof”.’
O’Neil paused again as he fought to regain his composure.
‘And then I’d point up to the top floor and there they’d be, Liam and Mikey, ready to dunk a bucket of water down on the poor sods as they looked up at where I was pointing.’
‘What about you?’ Thornton was obviously struggling to see the joke. ‘Didn’t the water get you too?’
‘Sometimes, yeah!’ O’Neil showed no signs of his laughter letting up. ‘If I didn’t roll away in time. But c’mon, Jack. A whole bucket of water, bulls-eye every time!’
‘Yeah, sounds like you had a laugh together.’ Thornton’s tone did not sell his words. ‘Great days.’
‘When Dad wasn’t there.’ Michael’s reply was wistful. It ignored Thornton’s lack of enthusiasm. ‘Not quite as wild when he was watching, though. Then we did as we were told.’
‘So I’ve heard.’ This was a subject that interested Thornton far more. ‘I knew him before he passed, your dad. And even as an aul man you didn’t cross him. I’ll bet you did as he told you.’
‘Not always, but we’d pay for it afterwards!’
Liam heard Michael’s voice crack as he spoke about their father.
‘He was the best dad you could ask for though. Especially for two boys who didn’t have a mum.’
Liam nodded his agreement but stayed silent. Still, both Michael’s answer and the sadness in his voice affected him. Liam wiped a tear from the corner of his eye with a flick of his fingertip. He tried to think about happy memories instead. Funnier memories, like the water prank. One of a thousand stories from their youth, a time when Liam and his younger brother were inseparable.
Liam had endured those memories over the years. They reminded him of happier times that, in Michael’s absence, he would have preferred to forget. But they had become less frequent. His life was far emptier without Michael in it, and so he had forced himself to forget the good times.
Liam hated what Michael had done. He hated that his brother had left them all behind. But he hated nothing as much as the feeling he could no longer shake: gratitude that his brother had returned. It was the most unwelcome of emotions and so he was relieved when he glanced in the car’s offside mirror and saw what they had been waiting for.
‘That’s him, isn’t it?’ Liam asked. ‘It looks like him, right?’
Michael stopped speaking. He turned and looked out of the rear window.
A thin, bespectacled man in his twenties was walking in their direction. Michael looked carefully and compared the man against the newspaper article that carried his photograph.
‘Yeah, it’s definitely him. What now?’
Liam met his brother’s eyes. Even in the dark his grim determination was visible.
‘Now we grab the bastard and we make him talk.’
FIFTY-SEVEN
Anne Flaherty took a seat across the table from Sarah. The two women sat in a corner booth of the 32 Counties main bar room. They had been here for an hour and a half, since Michael and Liam had left. Other than them the bar was empty. Anne had ordered it closed after the lunchtime rush.
Anne placed two fresh glasses of w
hite wine on the table and slid one to Sarah. Their fourth of the evening. Next she took two cigarettes from the pack next to her and handed one to Sarah. With the bar closed, the smoking ban no longer applied.
Anne sat back into her chair and exhaled a stream of smoke. A smile crossed her face as she considered her new drinking partner.
‘Now come on.’ Anne’s accent lacked the Belfast harshness that Sarah was growing used to. ‘They’ll be back in no time at all. There’s nothing to worry yourself about.’
Sarah smiled back. She had been unaware of her own distraction.
‘How can you be sure? What if this Grant guy’s dangerous? If he’s mixed up in this he might be more than they can handle.’
The honesty in Anne’s laugh was enough by itself to settle Sarah’s fears.
‘Liam’s not exactly new to this sort of thing, love. He’s dealt with people at least as dangerous as a university student!’
‘And Michael?’
‘Well, I’ve not seen him for twenty years, have I? But the Michael I knew? That Michael would’ve had nothing to worry about either. He can’t have changed that much or you wouldn’t be sitting here alive now, would you?’
‘I guess not. But I can’t help worrying about them, Anne. They’ve got professional killers after them.’
‘You get used to that.’
It was the reply of a woman who had grown accustomed to waving her man off to war. Something Sarah hoped she would never become.
Anne did not seem to notice Sarah’s discomfort at the thought. She leaned forward, closer to Sarah. Her elbow was on the table, her chin resting on her fist.
‘So tell me about yourself,’ she said. ‘What brings you to Britain and the dangerous Mikey Casey?’
‘Really bad luck?’
The mood had been lightened by Anne’s description of Michael. Sarah’s reply was equally light-hearted. Both women laughed.
Sarah paused just a beat before giving the real answer.
‘Just running away from my background, I guess.’