by Stuart Woods
“Time, gentlemen,” the publican called and shooed his customers toward the door. MacAdam didn’t move. The publican looked at him, then locked the door and walked over to the table. “Something I can do for you, sir?”
“I expect you know who I am,” MacAdam said, folding his newspaper carefully.
“I expect,” the publican replied. He had seen more than one policeman in his time.
“Sit down,” MacAdam said, “and tell me about the geezer who just left.”
The man sat down. “Which geezer?”
MacAdam sighed wearily. “Come along, now, don’t annoy me.”
“Oh, you mean the bloke at the bar. Pearce, his name is; Pat Pearce.”
“Is it, now?” MacAdam began rolling the newspaper into a tight tube. “Tell me all about him.”
The publican shrugged. “Not much to tell; comes in, has his pint, goes home; talks about the football.” He was making an effort to be affable, but he was nervous.
In one motion, MacAdam swung the thick roll of newsprint across the publican’s face, backhanded, then rose and followed as his chair spun sideways and spilled him onto the floor. The blow hadn’t hurt him much, but the newspaper had made a hell of a noise inside the man’s head, and his ears would be ringing. MacAdam seized him by the back of his belt, got him up and walked him quickly on his toes toward the back room. He found two chairs, sat the man in one, and pulled the other up until they were sitting knee to knee, facing each other.
“This is a dirty little place you run, here,” MacAdam said, conversationally. “Why, I saw an illegal bookie taking bets in here not ten minutes ago, and if I was a betting man I’d wager with him that a proper analysis of the contents of the bottles behind your bar would reveal a shocking percentage of tap water. Now, a man of a more rigid frame of mind would close you down blindingly fast, but you’re fortunate, because I’m a quite reasonable chap, unless I’m annoyed. Don’t annoy me. Tell me all about your mate, Pat Pearce.”
“He lives just around the corner there … used to live with his mum, but she died a year or so ago … he’s a bookkeeper, or something like that, until recent had a job with a firm in the West End … he quit, I think … but he’s not short of a few bob … his mum left him a bit, you see … she sold her house in Islington a few years back and never bought another … moved out here and took a flat … he’s always been quite upset about that, says the fellow who bought the house did her wrong, didn’t pay her what it was worth, then he tarted it up a bit and sold it for triple or better to some advertising bloke or solicitor … goes on about that all the time, he does ….” The man paused, panting.
“Who are his friends?”
“Doesn’t seem to have any … he’s always in here alone … a loner type, if you ask me … funny for an Irishman, they’re usually great ones for a chat with the boys, but not Pat Pearce.”
“Come now, you’re not going to tell me that he isn’t pals with some of that Irish rubbish you get in this place.”
“Well, to tell the truth, they don’t seem to want much to do with him … he’s a bit eccentriclike, you see …. I think that worries them … they don’t think of him as reliable, if you know what I mean ….”
“You mean he’s IRA, and he frightens the boys, is that it?”
“No, no, just the opposite, I don’t think they’d have him … he’s too strange … he told me he’s got a brother, though, what’s in with those lads, somebody pretty big … he told me that when he’d had a bit much, after he quit his job … he never talked about it but that once.”
MacAdam stared quietly at the man, thinking. “What was his mother’s name?”
“Ah, Bridey, that was it, Bridey.”
“And what street was her house in, in Islington?”
“I don’t know, honest, chief, he never said, honest, he didn’t …”
“What else?”
“Jesus, that’s all I know about him, honest to God … I’d tell you if I knew any more.”
MacAdam rose, removed a small notebook from his coat pocket and began jotting down the number of the coin telephone on the wall. “Oh, yes you do, you know something else. You’re just a bit flustered trying to think so hard at the moment, and you can’t think of it. So I’m going to give you until opening time tomorrow to think about it, and then I’m going to ring you up and ask you, and you’re going to remember what it was and tell me. Right?”
“Oh, yeah, right, sir. I’ll do me best.”
“Your best had better be good enough, son, or I’ll come back here and break up this place with your limp body, do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir, I understand.”
“And I hardly need mention what I might do if you should let drop to Pearce that I’ve inquired about him. Now, unlock that door and let me out of this pest hole.”
Pearce ducked away from the window as the big man and Tim, the publican, came out of the back room. He stepped into the doorway of the news agent’s next door while Tim let the man out of the pub. As soon as the man was around the corner Pearce rapped sharply on the pub door, and shortly, the publican opened it but kept the chain on.
“It was about me, wasn’t it, Tim?”
“Oh, Jesus, Pat, I didn’t tell him nothing, honest I didn’t.”
Pearce knew from the fear in the publican’s voice that he had told the man as much as he knew.
“Who was he, Tim?” Pearce shoved his foot in the door to keep the publican from slamming it.
“A copper, Pat.”
“What’s his name?”
“He didn’t tell me.”
Pearce was surprised. “Did he show you his warrant card?”
Tim shook his head. “He didn’t have to. I can spot ‘em a mile off.”
“He didn’t show you a card or tell you his name. Did he actually tell you he was a policeman?”
“No, but I know ‘em, I reckon he is, no doubt.”
Pearce had doubts. He allowed the publican to close the door, then quickly walked to the corner in time to see the big man getting into a BMW—from the number plates, only two years old. That was no copper’s car. He reached his own car at a trot, and pulled out as the BMW turned the corner. He followed at a block’s distance as the car drove into central London and parked near South Kensington tube station. The man used a resident’s parking sticker, so he lived nearby. Pearce parked and followed the man at a distance until he turned into a doorway next to a wine merchant’s. Pearce could see movement upstairs a moment later. He crossed the street and walked quickly to the doorway, looking for a nameplate on the bell. A business card was stuck into a holder. “John MacAdam, Confidential Investigations, Scotland Yard experience.”
Thrasher had a goon on him.
At noon the following day MacAdam rang the Bramble in Streatham. “This is the gentleman you spoke with yesterday,” he said to the publican. “Tell me.”
“Oh, hello, sir.” The voice was bright and eager to please. “I did remember something. The outfit that bought the old lady’s house in Islington was T&M Properties. Pat mentioned it a couple of times a while back.”
“What else?”
“Oh, and I remembered the name of the street in Islington; it was Sebbon Street.”
“You’ve done nicely, lad,” MacAdam said. He hung up.
On Monday, an hour with the corporate records at Companies House told him the rest. The T in T&M Properties was Derek Thrasher; the M was Muldah. Sounded Arabic, could be the bloke in Paris. MacAdam chuckled to himself. Simple when you knew how. He would blow their tiny minds with all this when they phoned the next day for their report. But he wanted more out of this, and he thought he might know how to get it. From a call box he rang an old mate in Special Branch at the Yard.
“Hello, Wilf, it’s MacAdam.”
“Bloody Tarmac, how are you, mate?”
“Getting by. Actually a bit better than that these days. Listen, I’m doing something private, and what I’m working on might be to do wit
h what you’re working on. Thought we might trade a bit of knowledge.”
“You’ll want my knowledge first, if I know you.”
“Too right. Besides, I’ve only a hunch at the moment.”
“What do you need?”
“I want to know about a mick named Patrick Fitzgerald Pearce. Seems to have a fairly straight background in accountancy, but word is he has a brother who’s high with the rebels.”
“I think I know the one. I’ll run him on the computer now, if you’ve got a moment.”
“I’ve got a moment.” MacAdam fed more coins to the telephone. He heard the clicking of typing and the rapid spitting of an electronic printer.
“Hear we are, Blackie. The brother’s Michael Pearce, forty-nine. Thought to have been involved in a dozen assassinations and army ambushes. For certain, though, in sixty-nine he bombed a police station in Derry, killed eight coppers, and brought the wrath of God down on the local Provos, for which they didn’t thank him. He’s been something of an outcast since, thought to be uncontrollable. He’s gathered about him a dozen of them like himself and called them the Irish Freedom Brigade.”
“They the ones who did the Berkeley Square thing last autumn?”
“Right. They were after Thrasher, the financier, for a bit, but he was too hard to track down. That seems to be the way it was, anyway. They’d try again if they had the chance.”
“What about Patrick?”
“He’s forty-one, the baby brother and mammy’s boy. He was thought to have been in on the police station but had an alibi. Settled in England with his mother, who lived in London, worked as a domestic. Last address, Sebbon Street, Islington.”
“No activity since?”
“Not that we know about. We thought he kept in touch with Michael, and we kept somebody on him for a while, but with no results, and we didn’t have the manpower to keep on him. It’s a nasty family, though, going back to the twenties, so if you’ve anything to do with any of them, watch yourself. Now what’ve you got for me?”
“Nothing just yet, but I might be able to give you Patrick on something pretty good in a few days.”
“I knew it. You’ve bled me dry, and I’ve nothing to show for it.”
“Patience, Wilf, I’ll be able to give you something before long, a new address for Patrick, at least, and maybe some charges. Thanks, now.” He hung up and heaved a satisfied sigh. Now he had something that might get him a hell of a lot more business out of Thrasher and his people. He could milk this for weeks at a hundred a day. The pubs were just opening, and there was one across the street. He could afford to relax a bit, now.
On Tuesday morning Pearce waited in a café across from Mac-Adam’s flat. When the man left, he would follow him until he got his chance. When it was nearly noon, Pearce had become nervous; perhaps MacAdam had already left. He crossed the street, let himself in through the unlocked downstairs door and climbed the stairs, keeping near the wall. If MacAdam were out, then he might get a look at the flat if the lock weren’t too much. As he reached the top of the stairs he heard a telephone ring on the other side of the single door. Now, at least, he would know if the man was home.
MacAdam was on hair of the dog all morning, but he held it in check, knowing that he had to report. At precisely noon, the telephone rang.
“MacAdam here.”
“Mr. MacAdam, this is the gentleman with whom you spoke in Paris last week. May I have your report, please?”
“Of course, sir. I believe I have the information you want. Pearce is the son of one Bridey Pearce, an Irish domestic who owned a small house in Sebbon Street, Islington. Some years ago, the house was purchased from the woman by T&M Properties, with which I believe you might be familiar. Pearce believed that his mother had been cheated in the transaction and has borne a grudge against the proprietors of T&M since that time. It seems likely that Pearce became employed at Avondale in the normal way of things, and afterward, discovered that Avondale and T&M shared an ownership. Since holding a grudge is one of the principal talents of the Irish, he decided to do what he could to cause the owners discomfort. You would be a better judge than I as to how successful he was.”
“Indeed. Were you able to ascertain whether he has any political affiliations?”
“There are indications that he may have, sir, but I hope you can appreciate that such matters require a much more complex sort of investigation than the more rudimentary one I have just completed. If you wish to engage me further, I should be glad to take on the assignment, which I imagine could run to some weeks.”
“I will let you know about that, Mr. MacAdam.”
“Oh, sir, I should mention that if that investigation should bear fruit I might very possibly be in a position to have Pearce arrested on rather serious charges, and in such a manner as to in no way reflect your interest in the matter.”
“I see. The remainder of your fee will be delivered within the hour, Mr. MacAdam. Thank you for your assistance.”
“Not at all, Mr. Muldah, please let me know if I can be of further help to you and Mr. Thrasher.”
There was a pause at the other end of the line. “Goodbye, Mr. MacAdam.”
MacAdam put the phone down laughing and reached for a bottle. “That should put the hook into the bastards,” he said aloud, nearly shouting. “They’ll want Pearce put away; I’ll hear from them before the day is out, I’ll wager.” He laughed again and knocked back a large whisky.
Outside, his ear to the door, Pearce was trembling and sweating heavily. He could wait no longer, not a minute. He knocked on the door.
“Who’s there?” MacAdam shouted without getting up.
“Express post for Mr. MacAdam,” Pearce called out. “Some-one’ll have to sign.” He braced himself. He could hear MacAdam lumbering toward the door, hear him curse as he apparently knocked over a bottle.
MacAdam yanked open the door, and before he had time to focus on who was standing there, Pearce came up hard with both hands, driving the knife upward and in. MacAdam reflexively grabbed Pearce’s wrists, pushing down, going up onto his toes. Pearce walked him backward, still shoving upward as hard as he could, until MacAdam struck the desk and fell back. Pearce was quickly on top of him, gouging in and out an inch or two, but never letting the blade leave the man’s chest. MacAdam, wide-eyed, fought on, but more and more feebly, until finally he went limp. Pearce twisted the blade and yanked out the knife, then plunged it in again—once, twice, and a third time, making sure there was nothing but mince left of the heart. When finally he pulled back there was a lot of blood. At least it had been quiet. He kicked the door shut.
He went to the kitchen and cleaned himself up. His mackintosh was ruined; he took it off and cleaned out the pockets, stuffing the contents into his jacket pockets. He went to MacAdam’s sleeping area and found a pair of clean socks in a drawer. He drew them onto his hands, then went carefully through the flat, taking what cash and valuables would fit into his pockets, making a burglary of it. When he had tossed the place adequately, he dragged MacAdam’s body to the kitchen, threw the bloody mackintosh over it, and found a can of paraffin, used for a portable heater. He doused the body thoroughly, then the desk and whatever else would burn quickly. He found a packet of cigarettes and a book of matches. He lit a cigarette and folded the matchbook closed over it, then placed it in a pool of the paraffin. The glow of the ash wouldn’t ignite the kerosene, but when the cigarette burned down enough the match-book would go, and there would be a fine blaze. He forced himself to stand for a moment and think, just to keep from doing anything stupid. As an afterthought he blew out the pilot light on the cooker and turned all the jets on. Satisfied, he put the latch on and closed the door behind him.
At the bottom of the stairs he took a good look up and down before stepping out into the street and walking unhurriedly toward South Ken tube station. He was in Piccadilly before the explosion went and by the time the fire engines arrived in South Kensington he had knocked over and smashed an expensiv
e bottle of port at Fortnum & Mason, an incident the staff would remember well. He treated himself to a new mack at Burberry’s before catching the bus for Streatham.
37
I WOKE on a Sunday morning in late May with such a heightened feeling of well-being that I should have known I could not sustain it through the day. For months, through the winter and now into spring, we had enjoyed a peace so thorough that we could hardly believe it. Nothing whatever had been heard from Denny O’Donnell and Maeve, although Denny was, presumably, still being sought for Donal’s murder, and once Major Primrose and Lord Coolmore had intervened on our behalf, we had gone unmolested by their local friends. The yacht was on schedule and due for launching in a couple of weeks, and she was living up to all our expectations. We would have time to try her extensively at sea before the race to the Azores, as we had planned.
Things had not gone as well in the interim for Derek Thrasher, though. Although charges had not been brought against him and he was, thus, not actually a fugitive from justice, the circumstances of his problems with the public prosecutor made it advantageous for him to stay out of Britain, and he had. I had spent another Rabelaisian weekend in Paris at Easter, and Jane had told me that his enforced absence had caused a number of harassing lawsuits to be filed against him by business competitors, and since he could not be present to answer them, he was faring badly.
Mark and Annie had had another couple of spats, and Annie had pulled her by now accustomed disappearing act for a week or so on each occasion, but all had been made up. Only my relationship with Concepta Lydon did not go well—in fact, was not going at all. She had declined to see me since New Year’s, and when we did meet accidentally she was cool and uncommunicative. She was polite, not even admitting annoyance with me, but she would not enter into a discussion of anything personal. Since I was congenitally a negotiator, this attitude drove me mad. On this Sunday morning Mark and Annie were out for a day sail in Toscana, and I had slept very late. Now, as I showered and shaved, the thought of the situation with Connie began to dissipate my feeling of well-being, and by the time I was dressed it was completely gone. I wanted a showdown, to thrash this business out once and for all. My visits to Jane Berkeley were fun but curiously unsatisfying; they did not displace my yearning to be with Connie. I missed her.