‘What kind of form?’ asked Liz, still looking at the photographs of the car.
‘Six years in the eighties for the attempted murder of an RUC officer. He left his fingerprints all over a bomb that didn’t go off underneath the policeman’s car. After that he was more careful. We couldn’t get him on terrorism, but he’s got a list of convictions for violence. A GBH charge when he worked as a doorman in a nightclub in Cookstown, a couple of domestics when his wife got fed up and rang the police. Lately he’s calmed down. He’s middle-aged, like we’ll all be soon.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ said Liz.
She looked again at the photographs. She could see the two figures in the front seat clearly but the back seat passenger was not identifiable.
‘Who is the other guy in the front seat?’
‘Don’t know,’ said Dave.
‘What do you think’s going on down there?’ she asked.
Dave shrugged. ‘Hard to say. But I doubt it’s above board.’
‘Do we know who really owns the farmhouse?’ asked Liz.
‘It’s a company in Belfast. I’ve got the directors’ names, but none of them has a trace in the files.’ His face brightened. ‘I was planning to go out there this morning to have a snoop around. Why don’t you come too? It will give you a chance to see a bit of the country around Belfast and get yourself orientated.’
‘Are you talking about trespassing on private property?’
‘Of course not,’ he said, though from the glint in his eyes Liz was sure that was exactly what he was proposing. ‘There’s a public track that runs from the gatehouse up to a small parking place, then a footpath leads round the headland. It’s used quite a lot by dog walkers. We should be able to get a good look at the farmhouse from there.’
She was surprised how quickly they moved out of the city into countryside. A dreary grey sky hung like a lead lining above them. A gusty wind was throwing rain against the windscreen in short, erratic bursts and as Dave came up behind a slow agricultural truck, spray from its wheels engulfed them.
‘Not a great day for a stroll in the country,’ said Liz, ruefully contemplating her walking shoes and wondering if they really were waterproof.
Yet half an hour later when they had reached the Irish Sea and were driving along a shoreline that seemed entirely deserted, a watery sun had broken through and was sparkling on the waves. ‘Pretty?’ asked Dave mildly.
Liz nodded. ‘I hadn’t realised how beautiful the countryside round here is,’ she said.
‘Neither had I. I thought it would be all council estates with “Up the IRA” and “Brits Out” painted on the walls.’
Through the long thin village street, Dave turned sharp left round the bay, along the lane and over a narrow bridge from where they could see the closed gate into the National Trust estate.
‘How are we going to get in?’ said Liz. ‘Don’t we need a gadget to open the gate?’
‘Got one,’ said Dave, slowing down and fishing in his pocket. ‘Ted made a copy of the one Phil Robinson lent us.’
They passed in front of the stone gatehouse, with its high pitched gable. The black car was parked outside, indicating that the paying visitors were at home.
‘Do we know who lives in the farmhouse?’ asked Liz.
‘Phil Robinson thought an old lady leased it, presumably from the company in Belfast.’ He paused. ‘I wonder if anyone’s there now.’
The wind had picked up and now that the rain had passed the temperature had fallen. Liz, shivering in her city raincoat, resolved to go shopping for some outdoor clothes as she followed Dave, warm in his fleece-lined parka. The footpath ran from the small car park through a stand of pine trees towards the sea. Seagulls were swooping over the water and a flock of small birds was picking something off the low bushes, keeping just ahead of Liz and Dave as they walked. The path led parallel to a dry-stone wall that had crumbled over the years. Beyond the wall Liz could see the foundations of what must have once been an enormous house, the centrepiece of the estate. The path stopped at the corner of the stone wall, but Dave kept walking on.
‘Are we still on the public footpath?’ queried Liz.
‘As far as I know,’ said Dave, as they crested a mound and suddenly faced a farmhouse, less than a hundred yards away. It was a long two storey-structure with neatly painted stucco sides. The roof tiles had been re-laid recently and had yet to lose their gloss. Behind the house at one side was an outbuilding, a squat windowless brick structure about the size of a double garage.
Dave took a small pair of binoculars from his pocket but suddenly swung round and faced the sea, still with his binoculars to his eyes. Then quickly dropping them back in his pocket he turned towards Liz, threw both arms around her and kissed her full on the lips. Before she could begin to object he kissed her again.
What the hell was Dave up to? Furious, Liz was about to dig an indignant fist into his ribs, then slap his face for good measure, when Dave disengaged just enough to whisper, ‘Someone’s coming.’
She understood, and hugged him back fiercely, feeling more than a little ridiculous.
Then a voice rang out. ‘This isn’t a Lover’s Lane.’
Dave and Liz let go of each other and turned together to face a man in a long waxed coat. He was tall and lean, with short greying hair, square features and rimless glasses. Behind him stood a shorter, dark-skinned man in a black leather jacket. His hands were deep in his pockets, and he was looking at them with dull, expressionless eyes. Liz felt pretty sure she knew what was in the pockets, and her backbone crawled.
‘Sorry,’ said Dave, in an uncanny approximation of an Ulster accent. ‘The footpath just seemed to disappear.’
The man looked at Dave, then moved onto Liz, giving her a probing stare, a soulless once-over that had nothing to do with her being a woman – she might as well have been a piece of machinery for all the emotion in the man’s eyes.
The man pointed sharply in the direction from which they’d come. ‘The footpath’s there. This is private. Didn’t you see the notice?’ There was no trace of an Ulster or an Irish accent, but something flat about his pronunciation didn’t sound English. The man looked back at Dave. ‘You’re on my land.’
‘Not for long,’ said Dave. ‘Our apologies.’ He took Liz’s arm and started walking quickly back towards the corner of the wall.
They went along in silence until they were well down the path towards the beach. Then Dave stopped and looked behind them. ‘That shorter, heavy-set guy followed us to make sure we left,’ he said. ‘Did you recognise him? He’s the man in the front seat in a couple of those pictures.’
‘Not exactly a pleasant encounter.’
‘I’ll say. But what does he expect? If there is a sign, I didn’t see it.’
As they retraced their steps to the car park, Dave said, ‘Still, it had its upside.’
‘You mean we got a sight of the inhabitants?’
Dave shook his head, then gave a grin. ‘No. I was thinking of our clinch. Wait till I tell them back in Thames House. My stock will go through the roof.’
‘Don’t you dare,’ said Liz. She added with a smile, ‘That was strictly business and don’t you forget it, Dave Armstrong.’
10
It had been almost two weeks since her arrival, and Liz was finding a rhythm to life, driving to the office each morning and returning against the rush-hour traffic at six – if she was lucky – or at seven or even eight when there was lots to do.
She had settled in to her flat, unpacking the few belongings she had brought with her, which she had supplemented by the odd find at the Saturday flea market, so the place was beginning to look slightly more lived in. Not that she had done it single-handed – one afternoon, Mrs Ryan, Daisy’s childminder, had bearded her in the hall. ‘Would you be needing a cleaner, Miss Carlyle?’
‘I hadn’t really thought.’
Mrs Ryan said, ‘I’d think about it if I were you, miss. You work hard – you�
��re just as bad as Mrs Spratt. You need to take it easy when you’ve got a minute to relax, like. And not be worrying about washing your smalls and vacuuming your sitting room.’
Liz smiled, seeing the truth of this. ‘Would you know of someone?’
‘I’d do it myself, miss,’ the woman said firmly. ‘It won’t take long at all, and I’ll charge you just the same as I do Mrs Spratt.’
‘Well, if you’re sure you have time—’
Mrs Ryan waved this away with a hand. ‘Time’s the one thing I have got, miss. My poor husband’s been with his maker these last five years, and I’ve only my son Danny to look after, and he’s out at work all day. I’ve more than enough time.’
So now Liz was living in unaccustomed cleanliness and order, which she had to admit to herself was rather pleasant, though she did miss the homely untidiness of her Kentish Town flat. She hadn’t done anything about letting it. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to.
Judith had asked her down to supper, after Daisy was in bed, and the two women had stayed up late, catching up with each other. Liz had reciprocated Judith’s hospitality by cooking a big Sunday lunch for her and Daisy. How eventful Judith’s recent life had been, thought Liz, and how well she had picked herself up from her husband’s disgrace and their failed marriage. What had Liz to report in return? Nothing really, in terms of change to her private life. There was still no one man in her life, no marriage, no children; only the solace of doing work she enjoyed and knew she was good at.
The sole news of Charles she had heard came in a letter from her mother and it was not what she wanted to hear. Her mother and Edward had been to have supper with him, and Charles seemed very well. Her mother went on that Charles was busy again with his garden, and that he had help from one of his neighbours – that nice woman Alison who’d been at the funeral. Alison had also been a big help with the boys, apparently, and Sam, who was not starting boarding until the following September, went every day after school to Alison’s house for his tea and to do his homework until Charles came home from work. Such a good arrangement, wrote Susan Carlyle enthusiastically; it must make life so much easier for Charles. I bet, thought Liz grumpily. I wonder what this Alison woman is getting out of it. There was no mention in her mother’s letter of whether Charles had asked after Liz, which made her not so much grumpy, as sad.
She had explored the city centre extensively, and found that she liked Belfast. There were still plenty of signs of the sectarian divide that had caused the Troubles in the first place – IRA graffiti splashed in paint across a building she drove by each morning, for example – but they seemed like memories of the past rather than evidence of imminent hostilities.
But she thought again about her surroundings after a meeting with Michael Binding. The chief constable was concerned about an increase in activity by breakaway Republican groups. There were signs that policemen, current and retired, were being targeted for assassination. And threats were being made against contractors working for the police, and even against social workers. Binding had said, ‘Ministers are very concerned that all this activity might upset the political balance. It’s been hard enough to get it all in place. If one of these groups succeeds in killing a target, it could endanger the entire peace process.’
He looked worried for the first time. ‘We don’t want to make too many waves, but potential targets are being advised to increase their personal security. And we all of us need to be careful too.’ He looked out of the window as he went on: ‘Make sure that if you take a car from the pool you keep it parked at the garage of your flat, or here in the car park – don’t leave it on the street. The mechanics change the number plates regularly, but we can’t take any chances. And if you detect any sign of surveillance, please report it to A4 and me immediately.’
He turned his head and looked again at Liz with a thin smile. ‘But of course I don’t need to tell you any of this, with all your counter terrorism experience.’
Then why did you? thought Liz, trying her best to smile back.
Binding seemed to remember something, for he said suddenly, ‘By the way, I’ve heard from A4 about that car you drove in from the airport. The wheel was damaged, but they think that’s because you drove on it – the tyre was completely shot.’
‘But what caused the blowout?’
Binding raised both hands in a ‘who knows?’ gesture. ‘It could have been anything. A nail on the road, broken glass, even the way you were driving, I suppose. There wasn’t enough of the tyre left to tell.’
Liz bristled at the suggestion that her driving had caused the blowout. It seemed a gratuitous insult. And how could Binding sound so certain it had just been an accident? But she resisted the urge to challenge him, knowing it would just confirm his view that women were hysterical.
11
Dave poked his head round Liz’s office door. ‘I’m going to see an old RUC Special Branch contact this afternoon. Maybe he can cast some light on things. I’m taking the photographs from the camera to show him.’
‘Where are you meeting him?’
‘At his house. He didn’t want to come here. I’m getting the feeling that this place is behind enemy lines, which is a bit spooky.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Jimmy Fergus. He’s retired from full-time work, but he’s still winding up some of the old RUC cases. He’s supposed to be a mine of information.’ Dave sounded sceptical.
‘I know him. He was a big help when I was on that mole case a few years ago. I’d like to come, too.’
Fergus lived in a comfortable suburb on the north side of the city. As they drove there Dave asked, ‘How’s it going with Binding?’
Liz shot him a look, but Dave kept his eyes on the road straight ahead of him. Eventually she caught him looking sideways at her, and they both laughed.
Liz said, ‘He seems to think I screwed up that pool car. Apparently my inferior driving skills caused a blowout.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Dave.
‘He didn’t think so. Then he gave me a lecture on security – he seemed obsessed with where I parked my car.’
‘Well,’ said Dave, ‘Binding’s got a point, even if it kills me to say it. Don’t underestimate the danger. Oh I know, on the surface it’s all sweetness and light, but just twenty years ago any IRA man in Ulster would have given their eye teeth to kill either of us.’
He turned now onto a quiet tree-lined road, with detached red brick houses set back behind high hedges and no parked cars by the kerb. Only a van delivering laundry disturbed the peace.
He’s lost weight but he’s hardly aged at all, thought Liz, as her old acquaintance opened the front door. She was surprised to find him still working for the police service. When they had last met he had talked happily about taking over his father’s farm in Antrim. But since then he’d married again – wife number four if Liz remembered right – so maybe he needed the salary.
‘Liz,’ he said beaming, and gave her a big kiss on the cheek. She introduced Dave, who sat silently, shifting in his chair as they talked of old times. Eventually, bored with a conversation in which he had no part, Dave opened his briefcase and laid out the photographs on the coffee table.
‘I know three of them,’ said Jimmy Fergus, leaning back in his comfortable chair and surveying the enlarged prints now strewn on the table. He scratched a finger against his pockmarked cheek. He was a big man, whose suits never quite fitted his powerful frame, and whose tie always slid an informal inch down his shirt front. But the ruffled sloppiness of his appearance was misleading; Liz knew he was an excellent policeman, with an intuitive feel for a case and a nose for what people were really like. These qualities had seen him steadily promoted over the years. During the worst years of the Troubles, when dozens of policemen had been murdered, they had also helped keep him alive.
‘This guy,’ he said, pointing at the photograph of the driver of the car that had passed the gatehouse several times, ‘is Terry Malone. Long-time
Provo volunteer. Enforcer type. Nothing sophisticated.’ Fergus gave a short laugh. ‘Got a Vauxhall now, has he? He’s come up in the world. He used to drive an old banger that was always breaking down on the Falls Road.’
He paused to contemplate the photographs again. ‘These other two are called Mickey Kinsella and John O’Sullivan. Small-time villains basically, not as heavy as Malone. This fourth guy. Don’t know him – looks Spanish? What do you think?’
‘Maybe he’s Black Irish,’ said Dave facetiously.
Fergus ignored him. ‘Come to think of it, we had a tip off that someone had come here from the Costa del Sol. A hit man named Gonzales. Terry Malone was never an angel, but this guy’s reported to be seriously hard.’
‘Who’s he working for then?’ asked Dave. He seemed a bit prickly with Jimmy Fergus, while Jimmy was as easygoing in his rumpled way as Liz remembered.
‘That’s what nobody seems to know. And we’d like to find out – you don’t bring in somebody all the way from Spain unless he’s got a role to play. Where were these pictures taken?’
Liz explained, telling him about the tip-off from Phil Robinson and their reconnaissance of the farmhouse.
Dave broke in, ‘We’ve checked who owns the farmhouse. A company – Fraternal Holdings. It’s a private enterprise, Belfast based, with offices just off Castle Street.’
‘Never heard of it,’ said Fergus. ‘What’s it do?’
Dave shrugged. ‘Hard to say. They describe themselves as consultants.’
Fergus snorted. ‘Who doesn’t these days? Every retired copper I know says he’s a “private security consultant”. It usually means they work the door at the local disco.’
‘This is different,’ Dave said testily. ‘I drove past the offices – they’ve got an entire floor in a new building. The rents are high in that area, so there has to be some kind of business going on.’
Present Danger Page 5