On the basin was a small packet marked aspirins. Except they were not aspirins and Devereaux never had a headache. Swallowing two of the white pills, he went back into his room and began to pull fresh clothes from the leather two-suiter on the bed.
By 5:55 P.M., he was marching across the road from the station hotel into the dark streets to the Crescent and Lion pub. Night had brought an end to the rain. There was only a sweeping sense of cold blowing down the old streets. Devereaux’s face had lost its pallor; his eyes glittered almost unnaturally.
He had a rhythm to walking on a job. He moved methodically, his eyes sweeping the street in front of him: Doorway, post, street, car, bus, doorway, window—
He stalked into the pub.
After work. A gentle murmur and hard drinking. Brownish whisky in plain glasses and large British pints of Tartan Ale and Guinness and Bass Ale. Glasses sparkled in the subdued light as they sat on the shelves above the bar top. The pub was not a fancy pub; there was no saloon side in the English style. Devereaux ordered a double Johnnie Walker and took the drink to a table that hugged a wall next to the front window.
Scotch in Scotland, he thought and smiled to himself. He sipped the brown, liquid warmth. Better. Much better. He looked out the window at the cold as though it was a stranger. The pleasant, burred voices around him soothed him.
By seven o’clock it was clear that Hastings was not coming.
The warmth had left Devereaux. He sat contemplating his third double whisky and reviewed the options.
One, Hastings had nothing and it had all been a bluff as Hanley suspected.
Swirling the whisky in its stemmed glass, he watched as it rose and fell against the bubbled sides like waves.
Nonsense. Out of the question. Hastings was not mad enough to believe the Section would pay him those extraordinary sums without seeing his information. A bad scenario.
Around him, the hard-drinking crowd had settled in at the bar, pushing against the ten o’clock closing time in Presbyterian Scotland. Those with homes or supper waiting had already left.
Two. Hastings had been delayed by the sort of freak accident that even spy flesh is heir to. He’d fallen down, had a heart attack, was struck by a bus. In that case, it was merely a matter of waiting to be recontacted.
He sipped at the whisky.
Three. Hastings had been killed.
Who would kill Hastings?
A lover. An enemy. A friend. Someone who knew what he had. And who knew it was worth a life. At least a life.
Devereaux drained the whisky and set the glass back down on the scarred black oak table. The pills and whiskies were producing an odd effect: Devereaux’s body was slowly falling asleep though his mind was awake and outside the body — watching it and commenting on it.
What did Hastings have that he was sure was worth exit money? And which he knew we wanted?
And why deal with R Section?
That had puzzled Devereaux most from the moment Hanley had given him the assignment. After all, Hastings had been recruited by the Section and he was the Section’s man — but if it was a matter of getting exit money and retiring, he could have dealt with the company as well. The CIA was more generous than R, and the CIA could have guaranteed his safety. Even from us.
Go back to the beginning of option three.
Hastings is dead. Someone killed him.
The killer eliminated him for one of two reasons: To get his information or to stop him from giving it to us.
Devereaux tried to remember Hastings as he had seen him six hours before.
He felt sure Hastings was dead.
“Ah, y’ll be havin’ to get it yourself, you know.”
Devereaux looked up.
The man wore an ordinary rumpled business suit of heavy wool that looked as though it was usually damp. His white shirt-collar was a trifle dirty and the shocking red tie was knotted so fiercely at the thick throat that it resembled a noose.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Whisky, lad. Yer be havin’ to get it yourself. At the bar.” The face was middle-aged Irish and so was the accent. The man smiled.
Devereaux did not. “I know,” he said and turned back to his thoughts. He was not finished with Hastings.
“Now, I intended no offense—”
Devereaux nodded slightly, politely. But the Irish businessman seemed not to care.
He leaned over confidentially from his table — all connected by the same bench that ran along the wall — and said, “Yer an American.”
Devereaux looked at him.
“I’m Irish,” he said unnecessarily. “From Belfast.” As though the name of the city would invoke a reaction. “Poor old bleedin’ Belfast.” He saluted the city with his own whisky glass. “On business here. Edinburgh is a lovely city, don’t you think?”
He was irresistible.
“Lovely,” said Devereaux. He got up and went to the bar to order another. He intended not to return to the table. He would wait for Hastings a while longer.
But the Irish businessman pursued him to the bar as well.
“Me,” he began as though there had been no interruption. “I like the Scots, you know. Not like some. We’re all Celtic people. I’m Catholic, though, you see.” Saying it, he lowered his voice as though it were still against the law to be a Catholic in lowland Scotland.
“But they’re an honest enough people and who can we blame for our troubles now, I want to ask you,” he went on. The whisky came and the Irishman placed a five-pound Irish banknote on the bar.
“I canna take yer Republic note,” the bartender said gently. He was a red-bearded giant with a flat, pleasant face.
For a moment, the blue-eyed Irishman bristled. Then he let it go. “Ah, well, it’s all the same, isn’t it now? The Sassenach won’t take yer Scottish money down there but they expect us to all take theirs at their bloody convenience.” He tried out a smile of Celtic comradeship but the barkeep was having none of it. When the businessman finally produced an English fiver, the barkeep snatched it away with a grumble and made change.
With a stage wink, the Irishman turned to Devereaux and nodded at the bartender’s back. “And den some of them are like that stiff-backed Prod with no sense of humor atall and you wanta join the IRA yerself.”
Devereaux allowed a smile. Thought was impossible before the onslaught of Irish charm. He surrendered with a shrug and the Irishman looked as though he had won a battle.
“Yer health, sur,” he said and drained half the whisky at a swallow. After the Irish habit, he had mixed tepid water with the alcohol.
“What about the money?”
The Irishman looked startled.
“What money?”
“The Scottish and Irish money. I don’t understand—”
“Oh.” The Irishman looked relieved. Devereaux picked up on it. Something out of place. “Oh, that. Well, y’see, the Republic prints its money and the Bank of Scotland prints its money and the Bank of England prints its money. Y’follow, now? This is a Scottish note here. But it’s all the same bloody money because the Republic is tied to the English pound and the Scottish pound the same. If the English pound is worth so much, then the Irish pound is worth the same. Y’follow now? Same money. If yer go into dear Dublin and yer an Englishman, ya hand over an English pound and they give you change nice as can be. Anywhere there. Me mother’s people ran a pub there, always takin’ English notes. They treat it the same as if it was Irish pounds. But if yer take yer Irish money into London and yer in a pub somewhere and you put down the note on the bar, well, they’d as soon spit at you, the Sassenach bloody bastards. That’s the English for yer. A bloody rude people.”