Harker said, “I’ll have you for that, but first, I’m going to break your friend’s arms, both of them.”
He launched his full weight at Miller, hands reaching. Miller simply deflected the left arm, grabbed the wrist, and twisted, running Harker into a display of bottles at the end of the bar. The arm for the moment was rigid, and his clenched right fist descended in a hammer blow.
Harker’s cry of agony was very real, and Miller said to him, “You mentioned two broken arms. I’ve let you off with one this time. If you ever show your face here again, I’ll break the other.”
Harker was clutching his broken arm. Miller grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and called to Bolton, “Bring that nasty little sod, will you?”
He urged Harker down through the shingle to the speedboat. “In you get,” he said, and heaved him headfirst. Bolton brought up the rear with Claude Harker and thrust him over behind the wheel, where he sat, blood on his face, looking distinctly the worse for wear.
“Use your brain, if you’ve got one left, turn the key and the engine should start, then just go away. Come back and you know what to expect.” Miller turned to Bolton. “The bastards are going to need a shove.”
They gave the speedboat a push. It drifted out into the waters of the inlet, the engine started, and the boat moved away. Miller said, “I think I could do with a drink. How about you?”
“I’m driving, but I could kill for a cup of tea.” Bolton had a handkerchief out and was trying to stem the blood from the punch in the mouth he’d received.
“Nasty,” Miller told him.
“Nothing like as nasty as what you did to Seth Harker. Is he always like that?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Miller said. “My family’s owned a holiday cottage here since I was a kid, but it’s been a year since I was here. Harker, you say?”
“That’s what the lady called him.”
They went in the pub and found Lizzie picking up bottles that had been knocked off the bar. She turned and threw her arms around Miller and kissed him. There was a kind of awe on her face. “My God, Harry Miller, I’ve known you since we were kids together.” She shook her head. “It was as if I’d never known you as I watched what you did to that rotter.”
“Oh, he made me angry,” Miller told her. “Enough said, Lizzie. If he bothers you again, I can arrange for pressure to be applied from the right people to assist him in mending his ways.”
She turned to Bolton and held out her hand. “Lizzie Arnold. When that slimy little article put his hand up my skirt, I felt sick, but you came roaring in.” She kissed him on the cheek. “You’re another hero in my book. Can I have your name?”
“You can have my card, if you like.” Bolton extracted one from his wallet and gave it to her.
“Harry Miller.” He held out his hand. “Can I have one, too?”
“Certainly.” Bolton found another, and Miller read it. “Goldman-Greene Investments. You’re a long way from the City.”
“Making for Bognor—we’ve got clients there. Actually, I think I’d better make a move.”
“Well, God bless you, love, and you’re welcome anytime,” Lizzie told him.
“I’ll see you off,” Miller said, and they went out.
They walked a little way on to the beach, the shingle crunching under their feet. Sam Bolton felt calm, better in himself than he had in a long time. “This is a really special place. I envy you.” He simulated hesitation. “You know, I feel in some strange way that I know you or that I’ve seen you somewhere.”
Miller was amused but didn’t show it. “I’ve been on television on the odd occasion. I’m a Member of Parliament.”
“Of course.” Bolton laughed. “Well, if you don’t mind me saying so, you’re like no Member of Parliament I ever knew.”
“Sometimes I lose my temper. Did you get what you came for?”
Bolton answered instinctively, his big mistake. “Yes, I think so.”
He froze for a moment, and Miller smiled. “Well, that’s good. Safe journey, and thanks for stepping in. There’s still a brotherhood of men of goodwill who’re willing to step in when the going gets rough in this wicked old world. I like that.” He turned and went into the pub.
What had been said, the use of the word “brotherhood,” could only have one meaning, and Bolton got in the Audi and drove away, and for some reason found himself laughing, because he’d liked Miller, liked him a lot.
“He knows,” he said aloud. “The bastard actually knows. I wonder how.”
Fifteen minutes later, he found the main road and started back to London.
WHILE LIZZIE
was making him ham sandwiches in the kitchen, he Codexed Roper. “Call off the cavalry,” he said, and gave him a brief account of what had happened.
“Dammit all, Harry, you seem to have a flair for turning everything into the Gunfight at the OK Corral.”
“Not quite true this time. It was Sam Bolton who stepped in first, to protect a lady’s honor, as it were. He didn’t hesitate, even though there were two of them. He didn’t know I was going to arrive through the door to back him up. Anyway, he could handle himself and he was prepared to have a go. He wasn’t your average guy next door, but the most significant thing was that instinctive reply he made when I asked him had he got what he’d come for.”
“And he said I think so.”
“And what do you think he’d come for?”
“To suss you out, Harry, something like that. I must say he must have found you interesting.”
“He did say I was like no Member of Parliament he ever knew.”
“Don’t worry, old lad, you’re definitely a one-off. Perhaps that’s what he needed to find out. We’ll speak again.”
IN LONDON,
Bolton went straight to Hampstead when he arrived, and found the corner shop still open, a young girl in a head scarf working behind the counter. Bolton asked for Hassim, she went in the back, returned and held the door open for him, and he passed through.
Hassim was sitting behind his desk and glanced up. “How did it go?”
Bolton took a chair by the fire. “He’s a very exceptional man.”
“I had become aware of that. Tell me what happened. Obviously, something out of the ordinary did.”
“You could say that.” Bolton proceeded to give an account. “This is a very dangerous individual. His image, the Reform Club member, the MP in a pin-striped suit, gives a totally false idea of who he is.”
“No, of
what
he is would be more accurate.” Ali Hassim sighed. “Of course, it is a pity that your actions called into question your own credentials. You are convinced that he was onto you?”
“Why use that reference to ‘brotherhood’? But there was more than that, I sensed it. It was as if he knew me.”
“Which is unfortunate,” Ali Hassim told him. “You were in your own car and the number plate alone would open a wealth of information about you and your identity.”
“As a sleeper, my usefulness is the genuineness of my identity. I gave him my card because I am who I say I am, an investment manager with an important City firm. We live in the world of the instant check. Mine would prove at once, even to the police, that I am totally respectable.”
“But yet you say he suspects you of being a member of the Brotherhood?”
“That is true, and if I am right, there must be more going on in the background than even you know. Has it ever occurred to you that your enemies are perfectly well aware that under the respectable religious cloak of the Army of God, the Brotherhood exists? Perhaps the situation suits them.” Bolton got up. “So I’ve done my bit. I must get back to earning a living.”
He went out and Ali Hassim sat there, thinking. Bolton was right in what he had said, the implication that people like Ferguson were happy to allow the activities of an organization like the Brotherhood to continue because they were able to monitor it. A slightly depressing thought, but even more depressing was the fact that Bolton was beginning to query things. The trouble was, he wasn’t religious at all, so no control was possible because it meant he was not to be trusted. So, in future, he would have to be treated with caution. On the other hand, he was so useful to the cause, totally accepted as one of their own by the enemy, hugely intelligent. Too valuable to let go. In any case, he had made his vows to serve Allah to the death. If he ever attempted to go back on that, there would only be one possible outcome. He sighed, went into the kitchen, and made a cup of tea.
9
TWO DAYS LATER, MILLER RETURNED TO LONDON TO AN EXCEPTIONALLY
busy time in politics, debate after debate in Parliament, crucial votes necessary again and again. Add Cabinet Office business to that, and he saw little of Olivia. He also saw little of Ferguson.
But he himself was not forgotten, certainly not by Quinn, who was thinking a lot about the old days and about one man in particular. He’d been not only a top bomb maker, but a mechanical genius, and his name was Sean Fahy. Born in Kilburn, the Irish quarter of London, he’d lived there all his life, a problem solver of the first water. Quinn wondered . . . He went to his laptop and soon found a number and an address: Derry Street Garage. He phoned a special number from the old days and waited. It seemed to ring forever—and then, unbelievably, it was picked up.
FAHY WAS SIXTY-FIVE
and looked older, with sallow cheeks and a kind of eternal sadness to him, the general look of a man who had found life more disappointing than he had hoped. He wore an old raincoat over a dark suit, a shirt so old-fashioned it lacked a collar, and a battered tweed cap, touched with oil from too much time spent under automobiles. He had been out in the yard, about to leave his premises, when he’d heard the sound of the old telephone, the one someone in the Movement had fitted illegally for him in the pantry. He hadn’t answered a call in years, because there hadn’t been one. He slumped on a stool, breathing hard from his rush to get in, and put the phone to his ear.
“Who is this?”
“Michael Quinn, you old sod. How are you?”
“Mother Mary, after all these years. Quinn! What in the hell do you want?”
“A kind word would be welcome, especially as I have work for you that would be right up your street. Take my number. I’m calling from County Louth. Go on, take it. You won’t regret it.” There was an old pencil in a jar beside the phone, so reluctantly he used it to write on the whitewashed pantry wall. He was slightly incredulous, and in any case didn’t feel well.
“For God’s sake, Quinn, it’s over, the whole bloody game. Peace in Ireland and all that shite. I was your best bomb maker and that’s a fact, but the days of the bomb are over, except for the damned Muslims.”
“Never mind the bombs, you were also a mechanical genius, you knew more about car engines than any man I knew. Remember that judge who was killed in his car in County Down when you came over from London special? That was no bomb, just your touch with the engines.”
“I remember him well enough, and also the wife that was with him and left in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. No, whatever it is, I’m not interested. Now I’m due at a nursing home to see my wife, so I’ll say good-bye.”
“Fifty thousand pounds.”
Fahy stood there for a moment clutching the phone. “For what?”
“For what you’ve done many times before—helping someone out of this wicked old world into the next.”
“You must be mad. Leave me alone, and I mean that. Don’t call again.”
QUINN THOUGHT ABOUT IT
and then spoke to the Broker. “I’ve got a prospect who could be of use to me residing in Kilburn. His name is Sean Fahy, at a place called Derry Street Garage. He has a flat above it. See if this Ali Hassim of yours can have somebody give him the once-over to see what the situation is. It could be important.”
“I’ll see what I can do. Something stirring?”
“I think so.”
FAHY WAS WALKING
through dark rain, head down, in a turmoil, and the pain in his gut that had started only a couple of weeks earlier was really hurting. He would be late for Maggie and he hated that, but when Doc Smith’s secretary had phoned about the X-ray results from the hospital, she’d been abrupt with him. The doctor needed to see him and that was that. Ten minutes later, he walked into the surgery and the receptionist told him to go straight in.
He knew it was bad news, you could see it on Smith’s face; he had the X-rays up on the screen and the report from the hospital. Fahy made it easy for him. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”
“Cancer of the pancreas. We’ve known each other a long time.”
“Serviced your bloody car for years. How long have I got?”
“Three months tops.”
“Can’t anything help? Chemotherapy or drugs?”
“Not with this.” Smith hesitated. “I know it presents you with a difficulty regarding your wife.”
Fahy got up, surprisingly calm. “Not now, Doc.”
AT SAINT JOSEPH’S HOSPICE,
he sat holding her hand while she lay propped up in bed, unaware of his presence, and it struck him again how cruel Alzheimer’s could be, to destroy the real person she had been for forty years and leave only a vacant shell.
Sister Ursula looked in. “I think that’s enough for today, Sean.”
He kissed Maggie’s hands and followed the young nun out, thinking how good the nuns were and that at least Maggie had the loving-kindness of the hospice.
In the entrance hall, Sister Ursula said, “Sit down a minute, Sean.” He did and she carried on. “The local hospital trust wants to move her. I did warn you it might happen. They say their facility is perfectly adequate and at their price.”
“I want her to stay with you. I’ll find the extra.”
“That isn’t the point. We’re private, and they don’t like that. We’d be happy to keep her on at the rate they charge, but they’re going to refuse to pay it if she stays here, and they’ll get away with it because they’ve got room for her there.”
“It’s no better than a madhouse, Victorian style. I wouldn’t keep a dog in there.”