Angel of Death (25 page)

His breathing was labored. “Take it easy,” Dillon told him.

“No, something I want you to understand, want to tell you because it doesn’t seem to matter now. The first January 30 was a mistake. Tom was a delivery boy for Belov, but the Arab he met was supposed to kill Belov for the KGB. Tom shot him in a struggle for the gun — the Beretta. That’s why we invented January 30. To explain the killing. But Tom was shot and I couldn’t have that, so I knocked off Ashimov, the KGB bastard behind everything. I killed people in Ireland, Dillon, so why couldn’t I kill a piece of slime like that?”

Blood was trickling out of his mouth. “Easy,” Dillon said.

“So it started and after a while came Grace.” His words were distorted now. “Tom and I went to see her at the Lyric. On the way back, those two scum jumped her, heroes of the glorious revolution. Took her up an alley to rape her. Tom and I intervened. I was carrying, you see. I’d made the Beretta my licensed handgun for visits to the Province.”

“And you killed them.”

“They were armed. I shot one, there was a struggle and Grace picked up the Beretta and took out the other bastard.”

“And that was the start of it for her?”

“Got a taste for it. Another kind of performance. I put her through a weapons course here. Very apt pupil!”

He closed his eyes, his breathing shallow. Dillon said, “The Beretta, has Grace got it?”

“Oh yes, needs it.”

Dillon frowned. “Why?”

“Poor Ferguson. Another Bloody Sunday. Like to see his face,” Lang said and coughed, turning his head to one side, blood erupting from his mouth. His body shook violently, then went very still.

A moment later Dillon heard his Cellnet phone. He took it out and switched on and Ferguson said, “Dillon, there’s an RAF base only twelve miles away. They’re sending a helicopter.”

“Too late,” Dillon said. “He just died. I’ll see you in a little while, Brigadier.”

He switched off and turned, as stone cascaded down the slope, and Sam Lee arrived. “What happened, then?”

“He crashed through the gate off the track and came down the slope.”

“Dead, is he?” There was a certain satisfaction on Lee’s coarse face. “Ah, well that’s the way of the world. Even the high and mighty come down to this.”

“Who the hell are you?” Dillon asked.

“The estate shepherd, and that damn dog lying there like that is the best news I’ve had in years.”

He stirred Danger with his foot and Dillon, anger flooding through him like lava, put a knee in Lee’s crotch and raised it again into the descending face, sending the shepherd back down the slope a good forty feet.

It was mid-afternoon when Alan Smith took the Navajo up over the trees at the end of the old RAF landing strip and climbed through the rain.

“One bright spot from the Prime Minister’s point of view,” Hannah Bernstein said. “With Rupert Lang’s timely death, a rather large scandal is averted for the Conservative party.”

“But it still leaves us with the Browning woman, Curry, and Belov. Thanks to Rupert Lang’s rather emotional leave-taking, we now have our suspicions confirmed.”

“I’d like to point out, Brigadier,” Hannah said, “that Dillon’s account of Lang’s dying confession carries no weight in a court of law. If it was put forward by the prosecution, the Judge would have no option but to throw it out.”

“Yes, I am aware of that sad fact, Chief Inspector.” Ferguson sighed. “But I’m deeply disturbed by Dillon’s other piece of information. He said that the Browning woman had the Beretta?”

“Yes,” Dillon told him. “He said she needed it. I asked what he meant and he said: ‘Poor Ferguson. Another Bloody Sunday. Like to see his face.’ That’s exactly what he said.
Then
he died.”

“How very inconvenient of him,” Ferguson said.

“Isn’t that rather hard, sir?” Hannah told him.

“Not at all. There’s only one Sunday that’s important in my book — tomorrow — and any kind of involvement in that affair by Grace Browning fills me with horror.”

“But she’s here in London, sir,” Hannah said, “ performing at the King’s Head tonight.”

“So are we, my dear, but flying out to Shannon in the morning. She could do the same.”

“Shall I have her lifted, sir?”

“You got the tickets for the show?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll allow her the final performance. Pick her up afterwards. My guess is Curry will be there.” He turned to Dillon. “Are you looking forward to it?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for all the tea in China,” Sean Dillon told him.

The untimely death of Rupert Lang, Under Secretary of State at the Northern Ireland Office, was featured on television news as early as one o’clock. Tom Curry, preparing a sandwich in the kitchen at Dean Close, had the television on and could not believe what he had heard. He felt himself start to shake with emotion, stumbled across to the dresser, and got a bottle of Scotch open and spilled about three fingers into a glass. He swallowed it down, then went into the drawing room and sat on the couch, hugging himself.

“Rupert! Oh, God, Rupert! What happened?” He started to cry and then the phone rang. He let it ring for a while, then picked it up reluctantly.

Grace said, “Are you there, Tom?”

“Rupert,” he said brokenly. “Rupert is dead.”

“Yes, I know. Now just hang on. I’m on my way,” and she put down the phone.

But he couldn’t do as she asked, because there was nothing to hang on to. He had never felt so totally desolate in his life. Rupert was gone, and in that moment he realized that the most important reason for his existence had gone forever. This time he poured an even larger whisky and swallowed it down quickly, then he went and got his raincoat and let himself out of the front door.

It was raining quite hard, not that it mattered. Nothing mattered now. It was as if his whole life had been for nothing and he kept on going in the general direction of the Houses of Parliament.

Grace, driving along Millbank, was astonished to see him walking along the pavement. She tried to pull in, but the traffic was extremely heavy, and then he crossed the road to the other side and there was nothing she could do, stuck for a moment in a long jam of traffic.

He was some distance ahead now and she tapped the wheel nervously and then the traffic started to move. At the same time a delivery van moved out of a parking space and she swerved into it. She locked the car hurriedly and ran along St. Margaret’s Street and entered Parliament Square.

She paused, looking everywhere desperately, then saw him on the corner of Bridge Street. She ran even faster now and reached the corner to see him on the other side of the street approaching Westminster Underground Station. He entered with a number of other people and she dodged her way through traffic and crossed the road.

Curry didn’t have a destination. He simply took a pound coin from his pocket, put it in the appropriate slot, took the ticket that came up, and went through the barrier. He went down the escalator with a large queue of people, walked along the corridors below, just another face in the crowd until he came out onto the station platform. There was quite a crowd, people standing shoulder-to-shoulder, and he pushed his way through to the front and stood at the edge of the platform.

The whisky had done its work now. It was not that he was drunk, just totally numb, no feeling at all. There was the roar of a train approaching, a blast of air, and then a voice calling.

“Tom! Wait for me!”

He half-turned and saw Grace Browning trying to push through the crowd toward him and then he turned back and as the train emerged from the tunnel, stepped off the platform in front of it.

It was no more than forty minutes later that Hannah Bernstein’s computer buzzed in her office at the Ministry of Defence. She got up from her desk, crossed to the printer, and tore off the strip of paper and read it.

“My God!” she said and called, “Dillon? Where are you?” Then she knocked on Ferguson’s door and went in.

Ferguson, at his desk, looked up. “What is it?”

At that moment Dillon joined them. “It’s the professor, Tom Curry,” Hannah said. “I had a general call out to Central Records Office to update me if anything new turned up on him as I did with the others. It seems he just stepped in front of a train at Westminster Underground Station.”

“Dead, presumably?” Ferguson asked.

“Oh yes. Immediate identification from the wallet in his jacket. The police officer in charge radioed it in to CRO. When it entered their computer, it referenced to my inquiry.”

“Sweet Mother of God.” Dillon lit a cigarette. “And why would he do that?”

“Rupert Lang, perhaps,” Ferguson said. “They lived together for years, Dillon. Perhaps Lang’s death was a blow he simply couldn’t take.”

“So where does it leave us, sir?” Hannah asked.

“Two down, one to go,” Dillon said.

“Two,” Ferguson told him. “There’s Belov at the Embassy, remember.”

“What will you do about him, sir?” Hannah asked.

“Leave him to stew for a while. Always difficult, this diplomatic immunity business.”

“And Grace Browning?”

“Whichever way you look at it, she’s on her own now,” Dillon put in.

“I’m afraid so,” Ferguson said. “I almost feel sorry for her.”

“Jesus, you old sod,” Dillon said. “You never felt sorry for anyone in your life.”

Ferguson ignored the remark. “She won’t have heard about Curry yet. Of course, the media will catch on to the fact that he lived with Lang for years and draw their own conclusions.”

“Very convenient when you think of it,” Dillon said. “Now if only Grace Browning would break her neck on that motorcycle, everything would be wrapped up nice and quiet. You could invite Yuri Belov to come over instead of going home to bread queues in Moscow. Lots of juicy information to be obtained there.”

“You’re a callous bastard, Dillon,” Hannah told him.

“He’s right, of course,” Ferguson observed. “In the circumstances, I think I’ll turn the screw on her,” and he picked up the phone.

Grace Browning, back at Cheyne Walk was drinking a cup of hot and very sweet tea, sitting at the table, trying in the most cold-blooded way to assess the situation. The phone rang and she picked it up.

Ferguson said, “Brigadier Charles Ferguson here, my dear. I think you know who I am.”

“What do you want?” she said calmly.

“I’m sure you’re aware, as it has been prominently featured in all news bulletins, that your good friend Rupert Lang died earlier today in a tragic accident.”

“Yes, I know about that.”

“What you won’t yet know is that your other good friend, Professor Tom Curry, died under the wheels of a train at Westminster Underground Station within the past hour.”

Grace took a deep breath. “That’s shocking news.”

“Yuri Belov is, in effect, locked up at the Soviet Embassy, which leaves only you. The game’s over, I’m afraid.”

“And what game would that be, Brigadier?”

“I always did say you were a brilliant actress. That’s why I got my aide, Chief Inspector Hannah Bernstein, to get us tickets for the King’s Head tonight. You will be appearing, I take it?”

“I’ve never missed a performance in my life, Brigadier.”

“I’m looking forward to it. I’ll tell you what I think of it afterwards.”

Hannah said, “She could decide to run.”

“I don’t think so,” Ferguson said, “but if you want to keep a discreet eye on her, do so. She knows Dillon, so you’ll have to take care of it yourself.”

“I’m on my way,” Hannah said, picked up her shoulder bag, and went out.

“Full of enthusiasm,” Dillon said. “That’s what I like. God save us, but the women are taking over the world.”

No alcohol, she needed a clear head. She made another very hot cup of tea, went into the drawing room, and looked out at Cheyne Walk. Lots of traffic and plenty of cars parked. Somebody out there would be keeping an eye on her, she took that for granted now, so she would have to be very, very clever. The one important thing was her firm intention of still keeping her date with destiny at Drumgoole Abbey. She owed it to Tom and Rupert if for no other reason. She lit one of her rare cigarettes, pacing up and down, and then it came to her, the perfect solution and devastatingly simple.

Yuri Belov was in his office at the Soviet Embassy when the phone rang. Grace said, “Yuri, it’s me. You’ve heard about Rupert?”

“Unfortunately yes.”

“I’ve more bad news. Tom flung himself under a train at Westminster Underground Station this afternoon.”

“Dear God!” Belov said.

“And they’re definitely onto me,” Grace said. “I had a cryptic phone call from Ferguson. He’s coming to my final performance at the King’s Head tonight with Dillon and this Bernstein woman.”

“Get out, Grace, while you can,” he said urgently.

“No way. I’m sticking to the plan. You see, I’m taking a chance. I’m betting on the fact that they don’t know anything about Sunday. Rupert could have told them — although I’m sure he wouldn’t have — Tom’s dead. That means it’s all still in place, Carson at the airfield at Coldwater, the flight to Kilbeg. Will your people definitely leave a car there?”

“All taken care of, but Grace, this is madness.”

“Not really, I’ve worked it out very carefully. There is one thing I need to know. There’s no chance of Ferguson ringing you up to offer you a deal? I mean, some of your people
have
come over in the past. Lots of information in return for a comfortable asylum.”

“He’ll offer, I’m sure of it, but not yet.”

“But if you’re shipped back to Moscow as a failure, wouldn’t that be rather unpleasant?”

“But I won’t be a failure if you succeed in shooting Patrick Keogh.” Belov laughed. “Of course, if you fail, I can always do a deal with Ferguson then.”

She laughed back at him. “That’s my Yuri.”

“But tell me,” he said, “what’s your plan?”

“It’s really quite simple. I’m going to die.”