by Jack Higgins
'What do you think?'
'Jean Talbot? Quite a lady. I liked the bit with the gun. She probably went along to the garage because she wanted to meet you – but I suspect she was also stirring things up. The Catholic and Protestant thing is what she was raised on all her life. She knew you'd have trouble at the Green Man.'
'That's true. Maybe she just likes to live dangerously. Anyway, what's the deal on Mickeen at Rosedene?'
'He's arrived and Charles Bellamy has everything in hand. He and Jordan fell into each other's arms and are enjoying lunch together at Rosedene as we speak.'
'So everybody's happy?'
'Until Ferguson surfaces. God help us all then. I've booked your flight plan for three hours from now at Belfast City. Over and out.'
Dillon leaned back. 'Three hours to lift off. Say farewell to beautiful Ulster.'
'If you're worried about Ferguson, I really meant it when I said I'd pay for the air ambulance,' Holley told him.
'After an initial roaring when he hears of it, Ferguson will calm down. The department will pay. It's a matter of honour.'
'Actually, I don't see why they should. Mickeen isn't in the employ of the Secret Intelligence Service. He just had an accident. It's you who've used your position to cause things to happen, helped by my promise to pay. Strictly speaking, I doubt whether Mickeen has any right to be in Rosedene.'
'Damn you and your logic, but I suppose you're right. Okay, I'll just have to pay for it myself.'
'Can you afford it?'
'To be honest, I made a great deal of money back in Nineteen ninety-one, payment for a spectacular, and we won't say what it was. The money's sat in a numbered account in Switzerland ever since. Over eighteen years, I believe it's trebled.'
'You old bastard,' Holley said. 'Is there no end to you?'
'So that's Mickeen taken care of. I'm going to have a nap.' Dillon inclined his seat back and closed his eyes. Jack Kelly, sitting opposite Justin in the study, told him about the scene at the Green Man.
Justin was angry. 'What was my mother up to, creating such mayhem in Collyban?'
'She told me she simply wanted to express her sympathy to Paddy O'Rourke. She's known Flynn for years, always buys petrol from his garage.'
'So she was there just by chance when Dillon and Holley turned up. Really?'
'It seems so. And it was she who insisted they go to the Green Man to celebrate the deal. Unfortunately, Curry's man objected to Dillon, and matters got out of hand.'
'Unfortunate,' Justin shrugged. 'Well, if all that's true, I suppose there's really nothing to worry about. After all, she hasn't the slightest idea who Dillon and Holley are.'
'I can't see how she could,' Kelly said.
'Good. Then let's have a drink on it.'
9
Other things had been happening the previous evening, too, while Dillon and Holley were racing to make their flight to Belfast.
After the death threat from 'number one man', Kalid Hasim had felt extremely nervous. His friend, Sajid, was still in St Luke's Hospital with the broken arm. Omar, who had swum into the darkness of the Thames, had vanished. Alone, he felt very vulnerable.
But he was no coward, and he soon got restless. Tired of staying in the furnished room he rented, he ventured out at seven-thirty in the evening and went to his usual gym for a training session, a baseball bat in the long sports bag he carried, just in case.
It wasn't particularly busy and there was no one to spar with, so he just worked out for an hour, then showered, dressed and left, unsure of where he was going to go. There was a lamp shining down from a bracket about ten feet above the end of the narrow street, the beam causing a reflection of his image in the shop window, so that he was aware of the other image merging into his own, a gun in its right hand.
'I told you you were a dead man,' the voice said from behind him. 'Now keep walking and turn into the alley on the right. The canal's at the end. Very convenient, that, I'm sure you'll agree.'
'Just give me a break.' Hasim half sobbed for effect as he said it, then stumbled, dropped the bag, the baseball bat in his right hand, and swung wildly against the man's left thigh.
'Number one man' cursed and stumbled, the silenced pistol discharging. Hasim dropped the baseball bat at the sound, and ran out into the road blindly, dodging through traffic. He stopped in the safety of the far side, pedestrians around, and stepped into a doorway from where he could observe the alley. When a figure emerged, he gave himself away by carrying Hasim's sports bag in one hand.
He must have assumed Hasim was running for his life. Hasim had not been able to get a good look at his assailant on the street, but now he stepped back into the darkness of the doorway and watched him. The lights on a silver Mercedes down the street came on – must be a remote control. Hasim found a pen in a pocket of his tracksuit and wrote the licence plate number across the palm of his hand.
The man drove away, and Hasim stood, thinking. There was no point going home. That would be the equivalent of committing suicide. He had twenty-five or thirty pounds in his pocket. A limited future indeed, whichever way you looked at it. 'Number one man' was obviously serious about killing him, and it only gave him one choice. He waved down a cab, got in, and told the driver to take him to the Dark Man on Cable Wharf. It was time to talk to the Salters. Harry and Billy Salter were in the corner booth, Dora serving them with two plates of sandwiches. 'Ham and pickles,' she said, 'and salad for the vegetarian teetotaller.'
'So kind, Dora.' Billy reached for one. Harry said, 'Well, look what the cat's brought in.'
Hasim stood uncertainly just inside the door, and Joe Baxter went and grabbed his arm. 'Shall I give him the heave-ho, boss?'
'Just listen to me, Mr Salter,' Hasim pleaded.
'Why should I?'
'The guy I told you about who's just a voice on the phone?'
'The one you'd never met?' Billy said.
'He just tried to shoot me.'
There was complete silence, then Harry said, 'Now why would he do that?'
'After you gave me the money and told me to find my friend, I took him to the hospital. He's still there. The man I'm talking about called me. He said I'd shot my mouth off to you. He added that you now knew it was connected to Al Qaeda and it was my fault and I was a dead man.'
'And he's had a go?' Billy demanded.
Hasim described exactly what had happened when he'd left the gym in Camden.
'What a bastard,' Salter said. 'We can't have this. Let's have a look at your palm.' He examined it, turned to Billy, and read off the licence plate number Hasim had written there. 'Roper should take at least five minutes to trace this bleeder on his computer, wouldn't you say?'
'Absolutely.' Billy was already on his mobile, calling Holland Park. He got up, walking away as he talked to Roper.
Harry said, 'You look half starved. Have a sandwich. There's salad there. I know you Muslims don't go for ham.'
'Actually, I'm rather partial to it, so if you don't mind.' Hasim helped himself. 'There are Muslims and Muslims.'
'You'd better stay here for a bit while we sort this out,' Dora said as she brought him a drink. She ruffled his hair. 'Can't have a nice young lad like you running round in fear for his life.'
'God help us, she'll be adopting you next,' Harry said. 'But she's got a point. Go on, have another sandwich, build yourself up.' The licence plate number was the key that unlocked everything.
'His name's Selim Lancy,' Billy said when he returned to the booth. 'An interesting geezer. His father was an English seaman, his mother's Muslim. She's got cancer and she's a patient at St Luke's at the moment.'
'Just up the bleeding road,' Harry said. 'Bit of a coincidence.'
'Not really. They live in an old house on Tangier Wharf. That's no distance at all.'
'What's he do?' Harry asked. 'Has he got any form?'
'Not the kind you mean,' Billy said. 'A corporal in 3 Para. Couple of tours in Afghanistan, badly wounded, discharged. Ro
per's even got the amount of compensation he received from the Ministry of Defence. Seventeen grand.'
'Well, I think we should do better than that for our gallant lads,' Harry said. 'That isn't going to keep him for the rest of his life, is it?'
'He's bought a second-hand Mercedes and is a licensed private chauffeur.' Billy shrugged. 'It's a living, I suppose.'
'More than a living, I'd have thought,' Harry said. 'What's more glamorous than a war hero in a good suit driving a silver Mercedes? Those posh birds that go shopping to Harrods or Bond Street will lap him up. I bet he's making a fortune.'
'Which still leaves us with the Al Qaeda connection,' Billy said, and turned to Hasim, who'd been listening intently. 'What's that all about?'
'I honestly don't know,' Hasim said. 'He only mentioned the name Al Qaeda once, like I told you, when he sentenced me to death.' And then he frowned. 'I think he takes his religion seriously.'
'In what way?' Billy asked.
'He paid me and my friends once to smash up a shop selling anti-Muslim literature; then on another occasion to do the same to a place selling pornographic magazines.'
'Did you do that often?' Billy asked.
'We torched an old shop somebody had bought with the intention of turning it into a massage parlour. He told me over the phone that the people involved used young girls and that his boss thought it an offence against Allah.'
'Well, I agree with him there,' Harry said. 'But who was this boss he mentioned?'
'I haven't the slightest idea,' Hasim said. 'That was the only time he said such a thing.'
Harry turned to Billy. 'What do you make of this?'
'It fits with the Al Qaeda attitude,' Billy told him. 'They follow the teachings of the Koran, they're moralists, and these joints Hasim and his pals turned over were purveyors of filth.'
'All very well, my old son, but the attack on the Dark Man was nothing to do with Allah or the Koran, and everything to do with some personal vendetta against all of us,' Harry said.
'I agree,' Billy told him.
'Then I suggest you do something about it, like getting your arse over to Tangier Wharf, grabbing Lancy by the scruff of his neck and bringing him back here where I can put a few pertinent questions to him.' Harry looked grim. 'I mean, Muslim morality is one thing, but he's got questions to answer. Take the boys as backup if you want.'
Billy nodded to Baxter. 'I'll take Joe as driver, and Hasim might be useful. I'm just going to check my laptop. Roper was putting an identity photo through from army records.'
Harry said to Hasim, 'Do you feel okay about this? He sounds like a bad bastard.'
'Yes, I think he is.' Hasim looked tired, but shrugged and tried to smile. 'It's as Allah wills, Mr Salter. I made a bad mistake getting involved with this man. I will do anything to get rid of him.'
Billy returned wearing a dark single-breasted raincoat. He produced a silenced Walther from the interior pocket, checked it and replaced it.
He said to Baxter, 'You tooled up, Joe?'
'In the car,' Baxter told him. 'A selection.'
'That's it then.' Billy put a hand on Hasim's shoulder. 'Let's get it done.' Selim Lancy had been visiting his mother in the oncology department at St Luke's. An operation for her skin cancer seemed to be working and they'd assured him the treatment had stopped the spread. He'd taken her flowers and sat with her for a while. She was a kind and simple person who divided her time between keeping the old Victorian flat on Tangier Wharf spotless and offering whatever services were required at the mosque.
She was overwhelmed by what seemed to her the luxury of her private room at the hospital, and Lancy had spent time assuring her that they could afford it. Except for pocket money, he'd always put everything into her deposit account, including the largesse from the Preacher, a total in excess of fifty thousand pounds. The dangerous game he had chosen to play carried the chance of instant death at any time, so it was his way of making things as simple as possible by leaving her everything in advance.
When he'd had enough, he kissed her hand and said to her in Arabic, 'Sleep well, Mother, Allah and all the angels protect you.'
Her eyes already closing, she murmured something and he eased out. Turning from the busy right lane traffic of Wapping High Street into the gloom of Tangier Street was like a journey back in time, the old warehouse buildings, several storeys high, rearing up into the night, obviously waiting for the developer.
The streetlights were museum pieces, many of them originally gas lamps from the look of them. There was a strange, brooding air to the place, as if it was waiting for something to happen, as Joe Baxter cut his engine and coasted down over the cobbles to the Thames below.
'What a bleeding place to live,' Billy said. 'You'd only need the cameras to make a Jack the Ripper film.'
'It gives me the creeps,' Hasim said. 'I'm already imagining a bogey man waiting to jump out at me.'
They coasted silently down to a Victorian tower-like rookery about five storeys high, the wharf below it creating a basin of deep water where ship and barge traffic had been able to ply their trade. A gateway, its gates long gone, gave entrance to a courtyard, and the only light came from a lamp bracketed over the main door. A rotting sign said: 'Tangier Wharf, Hart amp; Son, General Shipping, 1852'.
'Christ,' Billy said. 'It's like Charles Dickens is writing the script.'
There was a modern sign at one side of the entrance, advertising a development of apartments and offices the following year with unsurpassed river frontage.
'I don't care what they do,' Hasim said, 'this place would still give me the creeps.'
'Never mind that,' Billy said. 'The important thing is there's no sign of a silver Mercedes in the courtyard, so we'll go and suss out the situation. Joe, just put the car across the street in that turning, so that it's out of sight.' Baxter switched on for a moment and turned into the yard across the way, then killed his engine again.
Billy opened the glove compartment and took out a Smith amp; Wesson revolver. 'Have you ever fired one of these?'
'Never,' Hasim said.
'Well, you've been to the movies, so you know what to do.' Billy replaced the weapon in the glove compartment. 'You know where it is if you need it. Stay here and keep your eyes open. We'll check where he lives.'
They moved across to the courtyard and Baxter tried the front door, which swung open. There was a tenant listing beside the door, most of the slots blank, and Billy read it quickly.
'They've all gone, except for Mrs Lancy. She's on the top floor.'
'And she's in the hospital, isn't she?' Baxter said.
'She certainly is, so let's get up there and see if we can arrange a surprise for her son when he returns home.' Hasim sat there, not enjoying himself at all. The whole atmosphere of the place was threatening, and sitting in the Mercedes he felt claustrophobic, so he took the Smith amp; Wesson from the glove compartment, opened the door, got out and stood looking down at the river. A boat passed, lit up, the sound of people and music echoing across the water, and then the muzzle of a pistol was rammed into the side of his head and the Smith amp; Wesson torn from his hand.
'Now then, you young bastard,' Selim Lancy said. 'Let's have some answers. What the hell is going on here? Don't try lying to me. I know who Salter is, and I recognize the geezer with him from my visit to the Dark Man when you dropped me in it. You've been doing it again.'
'Come off it,' Hasim said. 'I didn't know your name, never mind your address, until they picked me up.'
'And how did they know where to find you?'
'Salter had a look at my Social Security card when they turned me over that night at the Dark Man.'
'And how do they know about me?'
'Salter said he had one of his men follow me a couple of times and he noticed you in the silver Mercedes. He thought it odd, so they checked your licence plate number.'
'So what are they up to now?' The muzzle of the gun bored painfully into Hasim's right ear.
&
nbsp; 'Checking on your place to see if you're at home. He said your mother was in the hospital.'
The fact that they knew about his mother disturbed Lancy and made him angry. 'The bastards,' he said. 'Bringing my mother into it. Well, we'll see if I can provide a nice surprise. Get moving, across the courtyard and straight down the left side and round the back.'
Hasim did as he was told, wondering what had gone wrong. It was, in fact, very simple. Lancy parked in a yard on the high street by arrangement with a shopkeeper. It was sheer chance that he'd walked down Tangier Street just after Baxter's silent approach and had – from the shadows – witnessed what had gone on.
Now, he shoved Hasim roughly ahead of him, and paused. The rear of the building dropped five storeys down into forty feet of water in the basin, but at the side, another ancient lamp illuminated an old goods lift, the doors long since gone.
'Get in,' Lancy said. 'It still works, so hang on at that rail. We wouldn't want you to fall out, would we?'
Hasim was desperate, but there seemed no way out of his predicament. They stopped, and Lancy shoved him out on a flat roof. There were the remains of a low wall, which in some places had crumbled already. Hasim could see only the dark waters of the basin far below, the dim glow of a lamp.
'A fast route to hell,' Lancy said. 'A good seventy feet, so behave yourself or I'll shove you over. Now put your hands on your head.'
Hasim did as he was told. There was a stairhead with a door. Lancy got out his mobile and punched the right button and it was answered at once.
'Preacher. Is there a problem?'
'You could say that. I've got Billy Salter and one of his goons trying to invade the flat at Tangier Wharf. I'm hoping to ambush them, but you never can tell.'
'How much does Salter know?'
'That Al Qaeda is a problem for them.'
'And how could they know that?'
'I was trying to do you a favour and it backfired. I haven't got time to explain now. But promise me one thing, Preacher. If things go sour, see to my mother for me, all right? I hear sounds now. I've got to go.'