'I still wish you weren't taking the gun, though.'
'As I told you, I want to be ready for anything. For whatever opportunity arises. You don't need to come if you aren't happy.'
'Oh, but I do need to come.' He picked up a Browning from the selection of weapons on the table and fired very rapidly at the targets, shooting four of them through the head.
'Showing off again, Hedley?'
'No,' he said. 'Just checking I'm on form so I can make sure you're on form. After all, what if you meet the Connection?'
'So you'll come? You're with me?'
'Oh, I'll come all right. Someone's got to watch out for you.' He took the Colt from her, checked it and handed it back. 'Okay, take your stance and remember what I told you.'
NEW YORK WASHINGTON
ELEVEN
Blake sat in Parker's office the following morning, drank coffee and ate a ham sandwich. He was quite alone. Outside, the end of March weather was as lousy as it could be. Powdery flakes of wet snow drifted against the window. The door opened and Parker came in in shirt sleeves.
'They said you were here. Hey, feel free with my coffee break.'
'I just flew in from Washington. The weather was so bad they couldn't serve breakfast.'
'Serves you right for joining the jet set.' Parker sat down, picked up the phone and ordered another sandwich and more coffee. He shook his head. 'You are in deep shit, my friend.'
'I beg your pardon?'
'Come on — Cohan? All the newspapers indicated an unfortunate accident, but you and I know better.'
At that moment, his assistant, an older woman police sergeant, came in without knocking and put more coffee and sandwiches on the desk.
'Have mine. I've already ordered more. I figured Mr White House here would clean you out.'
She went. Blake said, 'What a treasure — and what a healthy appetite. Too much for you, with your weight to consider.'
He took another sandwich and Parker said, 'Screw you, Blake.' He took a sandwich himself. 'So what's the score?'
'Simple. The Sons of Erin, all gone to the great diners club in the sky. Cohan, Ryan, Kelly, Brady, Cassidy. That's five.' Blake opened one of the coffee containers. 'Come on, you bastard, all those years on the street, how many murders have you investigated?'
'A hundred and forty-seven. I kept count.'
'So what's your verdict? You don't accept this sectarian nonsense, do you?'
'Crap.' Parker finished his sandwich. 'The pattern is clear. The motive is revenge.'
'Revenge for something the Sons of Erin were responsible for.'
'I'd say so.'
Blake sat there thinking about it. 'I agree. But it still doesn't get us very far. I've been thinking about Cohan. Why wasn't he attacked in New York, like the others? You don't happen to have any attempted burglaries on his house, do you? That sort of thing?'
'Let's have a look.'
The last sandwich in his left hand, Parker went to his computer, sat down and tapped the keys. 'No, no such reports.' He paused. 'Just a minute. That's interesting.'
'What is?'
'Last week there were a couple of murders in an alley next to Cohan's house. Typical street bad guys. Shot dead. Autopsy showed lots of alcohol and traces of cocaine. Both of them were in police hands many times. Street dealers, one of them ran whores.'
The screen kept changing. Blake, trying to suppress a rising excitement, said, 'What kind of gun was it?'
Parker tapped, then leaned back. 'Dear God, a Colt.25.' He turned. 'Let me cross-reference.' He attacked the keys in a kind of frenzy and finally stopped. 'There you go, Blake. You thought
you had four members of the Sons of Erin shot by the same weapon. I've got you two more.'
Blake was stunned. 'But why these guys?'
Parker sat there thinking about it. 'Look, the obvious link is Cohan's house. That's in an exclusive area. These guys were lowlifes, probably just passing through.'
"You mean in the wrong place at the wrong time?'
'How in the hell would I know? I'm clutching at straws, man. Maybe someone was waiting for Cohan and these two turned up.'
Blake nodded. 'Yeah. Oh, man!'
'So what are you going to do?'
'I'm going to take a look at the scene of the crime.' He stood up. 'Thanks, Harry, I'm sure I'll be back,' and he left.
Lady Helen went for a walk, holding a golfing umbrella against the rain. She stopped in the pine trees, looked out at the turbulent sea, took out the mobile and phoned Barry.
'Ah, there you are,' she said.
'What do you want?'
'Nothing special. I just thought I'd make a connection. It's a terrible day here. Raining like hell.'
Barry felt surprisingly calm, that link again. 'Where are you?'
'Ah, progress, it's the first time you've asked. I'll tantalize you. The east coast of England.'
'Yorkshire - Norfolk?'
'That would be telling.'
He was surprised at how reasonable she sounded. 'Look, what do you want?'
'You, Mr Barry, that's what I want. Dead, of course.'
She rang off. Barry went to the cupboard, got a bottle of Paddy Whiskey, and poured one. It scalded the back of his mouth. When he lit another cigarette, his hand was shaking. She wasn't
going to go away, that was obvious, so he phoned the Connection.
'Look, I didn't tell you everything about the Cohan business.'
Thornton said, 'Well, you'd better do it now.' Which Barry did. When he was finished, Thornton said, 'Tell me again what she said about her son.'
Barry thought for a moment. 'She said I butchered her son in Ulster three years ago, and executed his friends, four others, including a woman.'
'Does that strike a chord with you?'
'For God's sake, I've been at war for years. You want to know how many people I've killed?'
'Okay, okay. Just leave it with me. There may be a link here. I'll check it out.'
Blake had his car drop him in front of Cohan's house on Park Avenue, but on the other side of the street. He sat there reading the scene-of-crime reports. It was all pretty straightforward. It had been after midnight, heavy rain clearing the streets.
He tried to imagine the scene, as he looked across at Cohan's place: dark, wet, not much of a struggle because the pathologist's report indicated instant death in both cases, and then he frowned. There was an anomaly here. He turned to the pathology report and examined it quickly. Victim One, blood group O. Victim Two, blood group A. The only trouble was that there were traces of another blood group on Victim Two's shirt, this time B.
So, there was a third party involvement, some sort of a struggle. Could that have been the killer? Blake frowned. For some reason, he didn't buy that. The way the two guys had been shot had been so instantly effective, so ruthless. Why would there have been a struggle? He frowned again. Unless there had been another person. Four persons, not three.
He decided to try and get the perspective from the pavement,
a different viewpoint. 'Go back to police headquarters and wait for me there,' he told his driver. 'I'll get a cab. Just hand me the umbrella.'
The driver did as he was told and drove away, as Blake opened the umbrella. So, it was night and she was waiting for Cohan to return home from some function or other. Where would you wait? This side of the street, not the other, because from here you got a clear view, from here a halfway decent shot was possible.
He turned and looked behind. Plenty of doorways to stand in concealed by the shadows. So what happened? What went wrong? To hell with it, Blake thought, took out a pack of Marlboros and lit one. This wasn't a time to give up smoking. He inhaled deeply and that damn March rain dripped from the umbrella.
The two victims were in the alley, probably sheltering from the rain. They shouldn't have been there, not at such a time and in such an area. So, I'm the killer, Blake thought, and I'm waiting here for Cohan, so what went wrong? He looked across at Cohan's hous
e, and at that moment, a young couple came around the corner further along Park Avenue, huddled under an umbrella. Blake watched them go, move past the alley, walk to the next corner and disappear.
'That's it,' he said softly. 'Just as I thought. Someone walked into something. The wrong place at the wrong time.'
So, the individual with the B blood group had left the scene, God knows in what condition, and to where?
Blake crossed the street and paused at the alley. So, say someone was running, which way would they go? Right or left? What the hell, he would go to the left first, for no better reason than that's the way the young couple had gone.
He lit another cigarette and walked steadily along the sidewalk in the rain, turned the corner and carried on for another block,
passing offices, the occasional boutique, all of which would have been closed after midnight.
'But not that place,' he said softly, looking across the intersection. 'They never close.'
The sign said St Mary's Hospital. It was private and a large painted board offered a range of services including ambulance, accident, and emergency.
'So here we are,' Blake said. 'It's the early hours of the morning, it's raining and you're bleeding. Now where would you go?'
He moved into a doorway, got his mobile phone out and called Harry Parker. 'Harry, I need you.'
'Have you got something?'
'Let's say my nose is twitching, and if I'm right, I need a police presence.'
'So where are you?' Blake told him. 'Fine, I'll see you soon.'
When Parker and Blake went into the emergency room of St Mary's, they found it surprisingly luxurious; fitted carpets, comfortable chairs, calming music. The duty nurse at reception wore a uniform which could have been designed by Armani, and probably had been.
'Gentlemen?' She was slightly wary. 'Can I help you?'
Harry flashed his gold badge. 'Captain Parker, N YPD. I need some information. It's tied to a murder investigation.'
'Then I'd better get our Chief Administrator, Mr Schofield.'
'You do that, honey,' Harry said.
Schofield wore a blue chalk-striped suit, and looked tanned and fit. They sat in his rather sumptuous office and Blake told him all he needed to know. That there had been a double shooting not too far away, and that there was a possibility of a third person injured to some degree or another.
'Sounds important,' Schofield said.
'Yes, well, my friend here is FBI, that's how important it is,' Harry Parker told him.
'So what do you want from me?'
Blake reached for a memo pad and scribbled a date. 'The early morning of that day. Did you get anyone coming into the ER sometime after midnight, bleeding?'
'There's a question of patient confidentiality here, gentlemen.'
'And there's the question of a presidential warrant here.' Blake produced the document and presented it.
Schofield said, 'Jesus. Okay, let's take a look.'
At the desk, he looked through the admissions book, then nodded. 'There was a patient noted here. Name of Jean Wiley. Booked in at one-fifteen a.m. on the indicated date. Her face was cut. The night intern handled it, Dr Bryant.'
The lady receptionist said, 'Dr Bryant is on duty today, Mr Schofield. I saw him going down to the cafeteria.'
'Fine,' Parker said. 'Just point the way, Mr Schofield.'
Bryant was around thirty, slightly overweight, with glasses, dark curling hair and a beard. He was sitting at a corner table eating French bread and soup.
He looked up. 'Schofield, my man, what are you trying to sell me?'
'These gentlemen would like a word with you.' He turned to them. 'Dr Bryant graduated top of his class from Harvard Medical School. We're lucky to have him. Do bear that in mind, won't you?'
'Oh, Clarence,' Bryant said. 'Stop stroking me. Now what is this?'
So Parker introduced himself and Blake, got rid of Schofield, and told him. Parker said to Bryant, 'You know something about this, I know you do.'
'Okay, I'm thinking about it.'
Blake said, 'I'll get you some coffee.'
'Tea, man, tea. I spent three years at Guy's Hospital in London, got a taste for it. English Breakfast.'
Blake got the tea, and returned to find Bryant crumpling an empty cigarette pack. Blake took out his Marlboros. 'I thought you doctors were against tobacco?'
'Are you denying me my rights?'
'So let's get to those really lousy early morning shifts and someone called Jean Wiley coming in off the street. What was that problem?'
'Her face had been cut, not too badly, but by a knife unmistakably.'
'Did you ask for details?' Parker said.
'Of course. She said she'd slipped and cut her face in the kitchen.'
'Balls, would you say?' Blake asked.
'No, bollocks they would say in London. Her face had been cut by a knife. I did some excellent embroidery work, she gave us her insurance information and left.'
'Okay,' Parker said. 'If she gave her insurance details, they'll have it on the computer. We can get her blood group that way.'
'No need for that,' Bryant said. 'I remember it.' They looked at him, and he seemed to blush slightly. 'I've seen her around a few times, in the same coffee shop for lunch. Nick's Place around the corner. She's... well, she's attractive.' He shrugged and grinned. 'Anyway, she's a B.'
Parker checked his watch. 'Lunch just coming up.'
Bryant hesitated, and repeated what Schofield had said earlier. 'Hey, there's such a thing as the doctor-patient relationship here.'
'There's also such a thing as a double killing up the street just before she came in here. This is important, doc. The NYPD doesn't put police captains out on shit cases, and neither does the FBI.'
'She's not much more than a kid. You're not saying she killed anybody?'
'No, I'm not,' Blake said. 'But to use a fine old police phrase, in pursuance of our inquiries, we need to cross her off the list.'
'Okay,' Bryant said wearily. 'I'll show you who she is. But take it easy on her, huh?'
'This is the new police department,' Parker told him. 'We're trained for sensitivity. Now let's get going.'
Nick's Place was small, tucked away in a side street, three guys behind the counter rattling away at each other in Greek as they handled short orders and one of them made fresh sandwiches. It was warm and muggy, and because of the rain, the windows were partially steamed up. Bryant peered inside.
'I can't see any sight of her.'
'Okay, so let's stand over here and wait,' Parker said.
'I've got patients,' Bryant said, as they stepped into a shop doorway, and then he stiffened. 'Hey, there she is, crossing the road. The small, dark girl in the blue raincoat. Black umbrella.'
Jean Wiley put the umbrella down and went into Nick's Place. 'Nice legs,' Bryant observed.
'Yes, well, remember your concern over the doctor—patient relationship,' Parker told him. 'Thank you very much, Dr Bryant, you can go now.'
'If you need me, you know where to find me.' Bryant walked away, pulling up his collar.
Blake and Parker moved to the window of Nick's Place and peered in. The girl had taken coffee and a sandwich on a tray and moved to the back of the room to a booth. It was still early and there were few customers.
'How do we play this?' Harry Parker asked.
'Good guy/bad guy shouldn't really be necessary. Let's say you're a nice big avuncular cop doing your duty with deep
regret, and I'm Mr Nice Guy Fed. But remember one thing, old buddy,' Blake said, 'I'm in charge. I'm the one who decides what happens to her.'
'The more I find out about this business, the more I'm happy to know it isn't my responsibility,' Parker said. 'In we go.'
Jean Wiley was eating a chicken sandwich with salad, and reading a paperback novel at the same time. Blake noticed it was Jane Austen's Emma. She glanced up, a slight frown on her face.
'May we join you?' Parker said.
&nb
sp; 'I'd have thought there was plenty of room elsewhere.'
'I think you'd better say yes,' Blake told her gently.
Parker flashed his gold badge. 'N YPD, Captain Harry Parker. My friend here, Mr Johnson, is with the FBI.'
'We think you might be able to help us,' Blake said. 'It relates to a double shooting last week.'
Jack Higgins - Dillon 07 - The White House Connection Page 17