Touch the Devil (31 page)

Fox said, "Well, that went off all right, thank God," and they went down the steps as the Bentley drew up. "The thing is, sir," he added as they got in, "as that really was the only time today when she was a soft target, what do we do now?"

"Stick to her like glue, Harry," Ferguson told him. "That's all we can do." He wrapped on the glass panel, and his driver moved away at once, following the Prime Minister's car.

Below stairs at Number 10 Downing Street was a hive of activity as six-thirty approached. The first guests were already arriving, for many retired staff members had been invited. The back entrance, a uniformed police sergeant on duty inside, stood open as half a dozen waiters ran back and forth, carrying crates of wine and other essentials for the function from a parked van.

Brosnan was one of them, and as he staggered in carrying two cartons of bottled beer the police sergeant said, "You can drop one of those off here any time you like."

Brosnan grinned and kept on going to the kitchen, where he was immediately ordered to help with the glasses. Some of the other waiters were already at work, he'd seen them go. It suddenly occurred to him that this might be it. That the sum total of all his efforts was going to be that he got as far as the kitchen, and then the headwaiter came in and tapped him on the shoulder.

"You--what's your name?'

"Jackson, sir."

"Right, put your gear on and get in there. You're needed."

Brosnan took off his dark alpaca working jacket and hung it up. Then he put on his white waiter's coat and took white gloves from the pocket. He pulled them on carefully and slipped a hand under his jacket, touching the Smith and Wesson flat against his back in his waistband, under the shirt. Then he picked up a silver tray, took a deep breath, and went along the corridor.

The Prime Minister, wearing a green evening dress, moved among the guests with her husband and daughter, thoroughly enjoying herself. From the other side of the room Brosnan watched, as he worked his way through the crowd with glasses of white wine on his tray.

When it was empty, he went back to the serving table, and the headwaiter told him to collect empty glasses and take them to the kitchen. Brosnan did as he was told, journeying back and forth to the kitchen three times.

Now that he was here, the truth was he had no idea what came next, and then, as he returned from the kitchen for the third time, he noticed the Prime Minister part from a group of people, a smile on her face, and go out through the open double doors and start up the main staircase.

He remembered the plans he had studied so carefully. Her private study, the White Drawing Room, and the Blue Drawing Room were all up there.

They were just opening champagne bottles at the serving table. He waited his turn with the other waiters and took one. Everything was busy confusion. He took a couple of glasses from the end of the table, placed them carefully on the tray with the champagne, then walked through the noisy crowd into the hall. It was, for the moment, empty. Without hesitation, he mounted the stairway to the first floor.

The Prime Minister was sitting at her desk, reading a memo an
d m
aking notes, when there was a knock at the door. It opened, and Brosnan entered. He closed the door carefully behind him and stepped forward.

She glanced up in surprise. "What on earth have you got there?"

Brosnan's throat was dry, his heart pounded. He was acutel
y a
ware of the Smith and Wesson digging into his back. His voic
e w
as low and rather hoarse when he said, "Champagne, ma'am." "I didn't order any champagne."

"Well the headwaiter told me to bring it up, ma'am, with two glasses. Very specific he was about that."

"Two glasses." She smiled suddenly. "Oh, I see. Well, just leave it there on the table."

She was writing again, and there was sweat on Brosnan's forehead as he put the tray down on a small coffee table. He straightened and looked toward her, and his right hand slid under his jacket feeling for the butt of the Smith and Wesson. In three seconds it would be over.

For her, not for him.

Would it ever be over for him?

"You can go now," she said without looking up.

I don't exist for her, he thought, and yet I am her death. Oh Norah, will this or anything else avenge you?

He saw the roses in the crystal vase on the table to one side. White Christmas roses with long stems.

"Will that be all, ma'am?"

"Yes, thank you," a touch of impatience in her voice.

She still didn't look up, even as, his heart beating rapidly, h
e s
lipped a rose from the vase and laid it on the silver tray between th
e b
ottle of champagne and the two glasses.

He opened the door, went out on the landing, and closed it again quietly.

The hall was still deserted as he went down the stairs past the portraits of all those prime ministers who had gone before her. He moved straight into the crowd, picked up a tray, and started t
o c
ollect empty glasses. When his tray was full, he went back to the kitchen.

The passage was a frenzy of activity as the party drew to a close, and the back door stood open, waiters carrying crates of empty bottles out to the van.

Brosnan went into the kitchen, took off his white waiter's coat and hung it up. Then he pulled on the dark alpaca working jacket, picked up a crate, and went out into the passage, past the sergeant standing at the open door. He joined the queue at the back of the van, passed up his crate, then walked around to the other side and cut across a small courtyard with a little lawn in the center.

Downing Street was crowded with departing guests, many of them on foot, moving on to look for taxis elsewhere. Brosnan joined the cheerful crowd, turned the corner into Whitehall, and walked briskly away.

It was perhaps five minutes later that the Prime Minister finished her memo. She got up, went around the desk and started for the door, intending to go downstairs again. She glanced casually at the champagne and glasses on the tray as she went by, and stopped abruptly. Then she turned and hurried back to her desk and flicked the intercom.

Ferguson said, "He's gone, ma'am, not a sign of him."

"There wouldn't be, would there? Not now."

The rose lay on the desk between them. Ferguson said, almost plaintively, "I don't understand. What on earth was he playing at?"

"But it's so simple, Brigadier, don't you see?" She picked up the rose. "No one is safe, that's what your Mr. Brosnan is saying to us. The kind of world we've created."

Ferguson went cold, and she laid the rose down very carefully. "And now, Brigadier, I'd better get back to whatever guests I have left."

He opened the door for her and she passed through.

Music was playing again as Brosnan stepped through the judas into the warehouse, and the light was on in the office high above him. He went up the steel steps slowly and opened the door. Lily Winter was sitting at the desk examining an antique necklace with an eyeglass. The Doberman got up and pushed himself against Brosnan.

She took out the eyeglass and looked up at him for a long moment. "So, you went to make war and made peace instead." "How did you know?"

"Fool." She took a bottle of brandy from a drawer and a glass and filled it. "Here. Do you think I would have helped you in the first place if I had not sensed it in you?"

"I stood as close to her as I am to you," Brosnan said, and the glass shook in his hand. "There were some winter roses in a vase. I put one on the tray and left."

"A fine romantic gesture, and what does it prove?"

"I've made a separate peace," Brosnan said. "A separate peace." He lay down on the bunk against the wall and stared up at the ceiling. "Suddenly I feel old--really old. You know what I mean?"

"I know," she said.

Her voice seemed to come from a long distance. He closed his eyes, and after a while the glass slipped from his hand, and he slept.

Chapter
Sixteen.

In a private room on the third floor of the Mountjoy Nursing Home in Dublin, Liam Devlin tried to possess himself in patience as the staff nurse removed the dressing from his shoulder and arm. The matron, a formidable lady as stiff as her starched headdress, stood behind the surgeon, watching as he inspected his handiwork.

"Very nice," he said. "Very nice indeed." He nodded to the staff nurse. "Fresh dressing, please."

Devlin said plaintively, "For God's sake, Patrick, when can I go home? A terrible place, this. Not a drink in sight, and they even try to stop you smoking."

"A week, Liam," the surgeon, himself a distinguished professor of Trinity College, said. "Another week and I'll think about it." He turned to the matron. "Terrible injuries these car crashes cause. Terrible. He's a lucky man."

"And tobacco and whisky won't help," she said. "I'm sure you agree, professor?"

"Yes, of course. You're quite right." She opened the door for him, and he turned to Devlin and shrugged helplessly. "I'll look in again tomorrow, Liam."

When the door closed, Devlin said, "God, she's a hard one, and that's the truth."

The staff nurse smiled as she finished replacing the dressing and bandages. "Now you don't really expect me to comment on that, do you, Professor Devlin? I'll bring your tea in half an hour."

She went out, and he lay back against the pillow. There was a timid knock at the door, and a young probationer looked in. She carried a long thin parcel wrapped in gold paper with a bow on it.

"And what in the blazes is that?" Devlin demanded.

"Interflora. It's just been delivered. Shall I open it for you?" "That would seem to be a sound idea."

He lay there watching as she stood at the table removing the wrapping. "That's interesting." She turned, holding a plastic tube containing a single rose. "Somebody loves you, professor."

Devlin lay there looking at it for a long moment. "Is there a card?"

"Not that I can see."

"No, there wouldn't be."

"You know who it's from?"

"Oh, yes," Devlin said softly. "I know who it's from. Just leave it on the bed."

She went out, and he lay there looking at the rose and then he smiled. "Now then, Martin," he said softly, "a small celebration would appear to be in order, surely."

He reached over, wincing with pain, got the cupboard open at the side of his bed, and took out a bottle of Bushmills and a pack of cigarettes.

It was one of the most beautiful evenings Anne-Marie Audin ha
d e
ven known. She sat at an easel on the edge of the cliffs below
Devlin's cottage, painting very fast, trying to catch the last of the evening light. Killala Bay was below her, and across the water in the far distance, the mountains of Donegal were a purple shadow.

There was a step behind her. She didn't look around, some sixth sense telling her who it must be, and Brosnan said, "You get better all the time. That background wash is fantastic."

She looked up and frowned. "What happened to your hair?" "It's a long story." He lit a cigarette and crouched beside her. "A change of heart?" she asked.

"Something like that. I'd forgotten how peaceful it is here." She stopped painting and turned to look at him, her face somber in the evening light. "But for how long, Martin?'

He had no answer for her--no answer at all. The sea was calm, the sky the color of brass. A storm petrel cried harshly as it dipped above their heads and fled across the water.