Drink With the Devil (15 page)

“So what gives?” Salter asked.

“Harry, I don’t know what happened tonight, but I had what seemed like the hottest tip in my life.”

“Well, whoever your snout was, I hope you didn’t pay the bastard.”

Brown shook his head. “You’re getting old, Harry, too old to do ten years in Parkhurst. Think about it.”

“I will, Tony.”

Brown clambered up onto the wharf and turned. “We’ve known each other a long time, Harry, so I’ll do you a favor. I’d be very careful in future about the Dutch end of things.” He got in the police car beside his driver and they moved away.

“Jesus,” Billy said. “We could all have gone down the steps for a long time. That bastard back there when he took the stones, what was it he said? That he’d done you a good turn.”

“That’s right, quite a coincidence,” Salter said. “Only I don’t believe in them. Anyway, let’s go up to the pub and get a drink.”

D
ILLON WAITED UNTIL
all was quiet, then went back down the stairs of the old warehouse and walked to the pub. There was a light on in the saloon, and when he looked in he saw Salter sitting on a stool at the end of the bar. Billy, sticking plaster on his face, sat drinking at one of the tables with Baxter and Hall. Dillon moved on, turned up the side alley, and looked in the kitchen. The barmaid was drinking a cup of tea and reading a newspaper.

He opened the kitchen door. She looked up in alarm. “I see the peelers have gone,” Dillon said.

“Christ, who are you?”

“Old friend of Harry’s. If he’s as bright as I think he is he might even be expecting me. I’ll go through to the bar.”

H
ARRY
S
ALTER DRANK
his Scotch and waited, looking at his reflection in the old Victorian mirror behind the bar. A small wind touched his cheek as the door opened, there was a sliding sound as the yellow oilskin bag slid along the bar and stopped in front of him.

“There you go,” Dillon said.

The other three stopped talking and Salter lifted the bag in one hand, then turned to look at Dillon standing there at the end of the bar in his old reefer coat. Dillon took out a cigarette and lit it, and Salter, a crook from the age of fifteen, knew trouble when he saw it.

“And what’s your game, my old son?” he asked.

“It’s him,” Billy cried. “The fucking bastard.”

“Leave off, Billy,” Salter told him.

“After what he did? Look at my bleeding face.” Billy picked up the Lager bottle in front of him, smashed it on the edge of the table, and hurled himself at Dillon, the broken bottle extended. Dillon swayed to one side, caught the wrist, and hammered Billy’s arm against the bar so that he howled with pain and dropped the bottle. Dillon held him face-down on the bar, Billy’s arm tight as an iron bar.

“God, Mr. Salter, but he never learns, this nephew of yours.”

“Don’t be a silly boy, Billy,” Salter said. “If he hadn’t nicked the stones down river we’d be booking in at Tower Bridge Division Police Station with the prospect of going down the steps for ten years. All I want to know is the reason for all this.” He smiled at Dillon. “You’ve got a name, my old son?”

“Dillon — Sean Dillon.”

Salter went behind the bar and Dillon released Billy, who stood there massaging his arm, then went and sat down with Baxter and Hall, his face sullen.

Salter said, “You’re no copper, I can smell one of those a mile off.”

“God save us,” Dillon said, “I’ve had enough trouble with those bowsers to last me a lifetime. Let’s put it this way, Mr. Salter. I work for one of those Government organizations that isn’t supposed to exist.”

Salter stood there looking at him for a long moment, then said, “What’s your pleasure?”

“Bushmills whiskey if you don’t have Krug champagne.”

Salter laughed out loud. “I like it, I really do. Bushmills I can manage right now. Krug I’ll supply next time.” He took a bottle down from the shelf and poured a generous measure. “So what’s it about?”

“Cheers.” Dillon toasted him. “Well, the thing is I wanted to meet the greatest expert on the Thames River, and when I accessed the police computer it turned out to be you. The trouble was that no sooner did I find you than I discovered I was going to lose you. Someone I work with, very big at Special Branch, found out the River Police were going to stiff you.”

“Very inconvenient,” Salter said.

“Well, it would have been, so I decided to do something about it.” Dillon smiled. “The rest you know.”

Salter poured himself another drink. “You want something from me, that’s it, isn’t it? Some sort of kickback?”

“Your expertise, Mr. Salter, your knowledge of the river.”

“What for?”

“You may have read in the papers that the President of the United States and the Prime Minister are to meet on the Terrace at the House of Commons on Friday morning.”

“So what?”

“I think the security stinks and I have to prove it, so sometime after midnight on Friday morning I want you to help me float in to the Terrace. I’ll hide out in one of the storerooms behind the Terrace Bar and give them a nice surprise at the appropriate moment.”

Salter stared at him in amazement. “You must be raving bloody mad. Are you a lunatic or something?”

“It’s been suggested before.”

Salter turned to the other three. “Did you hear that? We’ve got a bleeding loony here.” He turned back to Dillon. “But I like you. Not only will I do it, you can call me Harry.”

“Terrific,” Dillon said. “Could I have another Bushmills?”

“I can do better, much better.” Salter opened the fridge at the back of the bar, took out a bottle, and turned. “Krug champagne, my old son. How does that suit you?”

T
HE FOLLOWING DAY
was Thursday, and when Dillon went into Hannah Bernstein’s office on the third floor at the Ministry of Defence it was just before noon.

“My God, Dillon, what time do you call this? He’s been asking for you.”

“The hard night I had, girl dear. In fact, I only came in to ask you to have a delicious light luncheon with me.”

“You’re quite mad.” She pressed her intercom. “He’s here, Brigadier.”

“Send him in.” There was a pause. “And you, Chief Inspector.”

She led the way, opening the door for Dillon, who advanced to the desk, where Ferguson was working at a pile of papers. He didn’t look up.

“God save the good work,” Dillon said and waited. Ferguson ignored him and the Irishman laughed. “God save you kindly is the correct answer to that, Brigadier.”

Ferguson sat back. “I am well aware that as a boy you went to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Dillon. I am well aware that you actually acted with the National Theatre.”

“Lyngstrand in
The Lady from the Sea
. Ibsen that was,” Dillon reminded him.

“Until you decided to take up the theater of the street for the IRA. As my mother, God rest her, was Irish, I do my best to understand you, but your constant role of the stage Irishman proves wearisome.”

“God save us, Your Honor, but I’ll try to mend my ways.”

“For God’s sake, be serious. You’re leaving me with egg on my face because of this ridiculous bet with Carter. You know how much the Intelligence Service hates our very existence. They’d like nothing better than to make me look a fool in front of the Prime Minister.”

“Don’t I know that?” Dillon said. “That’s why I thought I’d make Carter look the fool.”

Ferguson frowned. “Are you seriously telling me you think you can?”

“Of course.”

The Brigadier frowned. “Where have you been? It’s almost noon.”

“I had a hard night preparing the way, so to speak.”

“Tell me.”

“You wouldn’t want to know,” Dillon said. “But one thing I’ll promise you. The next time you’ll see me will be at ten-thirty tomorrow morning on the Terrace together with the President of the United States and the Prime Minister.”

Ferguson sat back staring at him. “My God, Sean, you actually think you can do it?”

“I know I can, Brigadier, and watch yourself. You just called me Sean.”

“Are you going to tell me how?”

“Aspects of it are so illegal that it’s better you shouldn’t know. I’ll discuss it with this good-looking woman here if I can take her to lunch.”

Ferguson laughed in spite of himself. “Oh, go on, you rogue. Get out of here, but if it costs me five hundred pounds it comes out of your salary.”

They returned to Hannah’s office. She said, “You really think you can pull it off?”

“Nothing is impossible to the great Dillon. A magician, that’s what British Intelligence called me in the great days in Ulster. They never laid hands on me once, Hannah, your lot. The master of disguise. Did I tell you about the time I dressed as a woman?”

“I don’t want to know this, Dillon, because if I do, I have to consider how many you killed.”

“Fighting a war, Hannah, that’s what I was doing, but that was then and this is now. Get your coat and we’ll away. I am right about Jewish people? No shellfish, but you can eat smoked salmon?”

“Of course. Why?”

“Good. Krug champagne, scrambled eggs, and smoked salmon, the best in town.”

“But where?”

He held her coat for her. “Jesus, girl, but will you stop asking all these questions?”

H
E TOOK HER
to the Piano Bar at the Dorchester, the best in London with its magnificent mirrored ceiling, was greeted by the manager as an old friend, and led to a booth. Dillon ordered his usual, Krug champagne non-vintage and scrambled eggs, smoked salmon, and a salad for both of them.

“God, but you live well, Dillon,” she said. “That’s an Armani suit you’re wearing and you can afford these prices.”

“I’m still trying to spend some of that six hundred thousand pounds I got out of Michael Aroun for failing to blow up the Prime Minister and the War Cabinet at Number Ten during the Gulf War.”

“You’ve no shame, have you? None at all?”

“Why pretend? It’s what I was and it’s what I am. The same man, Hannah my love, and times you’ve been glad of it.”

The champagne came, was opened, and poured. He toasted her. “To the best-looking policeman in London.”

“That kind of flattery gets you nowhere. Now tell me what’s going on.”

W
HEN HE WAS
finished, she gazed at him in horror. “You used me, you used privileged police intelligence to get a notorious gangster and his men off the hook?”

“He’s not such a bad old stick.” Dillon sipped some champagne. “And I needed him.”

“How could you do such a thing?”

“Come off it, Hannah. Ferguson does things to suit himself all the time. What about that Lithuanian bastard, Platoff, the other month? If ever a man deserved to be shot it was him, but he was more useful to us than the other people, so Ferguson did a deal and, as I remember, you brokered it.”

She glared at him. “Damn you, Dillon.”

“Sure and you look lovely when you’re angry.” The waiter approached at that moment with their food. “Eat up like a good girl.”

“Dillon, you are a sexist pig.”

“And you are a nice Jewish girl who should be having babies and making her husband’s life miserable instead of shooting people on behalf of Scotland Yard.”

She laughed, in spite of herself. “This is lovely. So tell me how you intend to do it.”

“The river. I’ll swim in.”

“But the current there can be ferocious with the tide running. It’s suicide, Dillon. You mustn’t.”

“Yes, you’re right. That’s why the Terrace is a weak spot in the security system.”

“But how can you hope to get away with it?”

“Difficult, but not impossible,” and he explained.

T
HE
R
IVER
Q
UEEN
was still tied up at Cable Wharfe when Dillon turned up in the Toyota at eleven o’clock that evening. The pub was just closing and he sat there watching the last customers emerge and walk away toward Wapping High Street. The barmaid stood at the door talking to Billy. She closed the door and he crossed to the boat.

Dillon got out of the Toyota. “Good man yourself, Billy, could you be giving me a hand?”

Billy looked at him, a kind of reluctant admiration on his face. “You know you’re mad, don’t you? I mean, my uncle’s told me what you’re up to. Crazy. For one thing, you won’t even get into the Terrace. The current’s real murder out there.”

“If I don’t get back you can sell the Toyota. My hand on it.”

He held it out and Billy shook it instinctively. “Mad bastard. Okay, what have we got here?” and he opened the rear door of the van.

I
N THE SALOON
, Dillon laid out his gear watched by Salter and the other three. There was his heavy nylon diving suit with hood, nylon socks, and gloves.

“You’re going to need that bleeding lot,” Salter told him. “That water’s bloody cold tonight.”

“I never thought it wouldn’t be.”

Dillon laid out his fins and clipped the air tank he’d brought to the inflatable. He checked his weight belt, then opened a hang bag and took out a small Halogen lamp and a waterproof purse.

“You won’t need that lamp,” Salter said. “I’ve passed the Terrace regularly in the early hours and they leave that row of Victorian lamps on. Even if you get there, Dillon, you could get done. They must have security guards prowling. One glimpse and you’ve had it.”

“Yes, well I know that.” Dillon opened the waterproof pouch and checked the contents.

“And what’s that?”

“Picklocks. I need to get into one of the storerooms, as I told you, to spend the rest of the night.”

Salter shook his head. “And you know how to use those things.” He shook his head. “No, don’t answer that. With that accent of yours, are you sure you’re not going to shoot the Prime Minister?”

“Perish the thought.” Dillon unzipped a waterproof bag and checked the contents.

“And what have you got there?” Salter asked.

“White shirt, bow tie, nice white jacket, black slacks and shoes.” Dillon smiled. “After all, I
am
supposed to be a waiter.”