Lynn cupped his glass in both hands. ‘It could be the Prods, getting in a last hurrah,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t put it past them. They’re laying down their arms, so they say, but they’re not decommissioning and there’s some mad bastards who won’t listen to their leadership anyway.’
‘So what’s the plan?’ asked Filbin.
‘I keep looking over my shoulder,’ said Lynn, and patted his chest, ‘and I’m wearing a vest, though I’m not sure how much good it’ll do because McFee, Dunne and McEvoy were all shot in the back of the head.’
‘And the knees, right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Which is how the RUC Special Branch guy died, isn’t it? I’m assuming that’s not a coincidence.’
Lynn’s eyes narrowed. ‘What big ears you’ve got,Grandma. The cops haven’t revealed the details, just that they were shot.’
‘I might be a farmer these days but I’ve still got friends in the North. I’m told that Joe and the guys were killed the same way Robbie Carter died.’
‘That’s what I’ve heard, yeah.’
‘Then it’s as obvious as the nose on your face. Someone’s taking revenge for what you did to him. Family or friend. Has to be.’
‘The cops say they’re looking at that, but they won’t tell me what they’ve got, if anything. I made a few enquiries myself. Carter’s parents are old, he’s got a brother in Canada and his widow’s got no connection with paramilitaries. Neither has her family.’
‘So that just leaves the whole of Special Branch.’ Filbin scowled.
‘We killed Carter in 1996,’ said Lynn. ‘I know revenge is a dish best served cold but waiting this long is ridiculous.’ He grinned at Kelly and Nugent. ‘Anyway, with these guys babysitting me, no one’s going to get near me.’
Kelly lifted his mug of tea in salute. ‘That’s the plan, anyway,’ he said.
‘What about Noel Kinsella?’ asked Filbin. ‘Who’s taking care of him?’
‘He’s thrown in his lot with the Brits,’ said Lynn, contemptuously. ‘He’s got the cops watching over him – and the spooks as well, from what I hear. Lying low in London until they get the killer.’
‘Is it right he’s been promised something in the new Assembly?’
‘Apparently.’
‘And that he’s married well?’
Lynn chuckled. ‘A Kennedy.’
‘Well indeed, then,’ said Filbin.
‘It’s a love match, I’m told.’
‘There’s only one person Noel Kinsella loves and that’s himself,’ said Filbin. ‘Between you and me, I never really trusted him. Always out for what he could get.’
‘He’s destined for better things now,’ said Lynn. ‘In his own mind, anyway.’ He paused. ‘I’d better be going.’
‘Stay the night, Gerry. There’s a spare bed.’
‘We can be back home in a couple of hours,’ said Lynn. ‘It’s motorway and there’ll be no traffic this time of night.’ He drained his glass. ‘It was good to see you, Jonas.’
Filbin hugged him. ‘You be careful, yeah?’ He kissed Lynn on the cheek.
Kelly and Nugent pushed themselves out of their chairs and shook his hand. ‘You take care of this man now,’ he said.
Kelly and Nugent walked with Lynn to their Lexus. Nugent climbed into the driving seat and Lynn sat next to him. Kelly walked to the barred metal gate at the entrance to the courtyard and opened it.
Nugent drove slowly across the cattle grid and waited while Kelly closed the gate and climbed into the back.
‘Right, boys, don’t spare the horses.’
Nugent headed slowly down the gravelled track that led to the main road. As they left the farm, he flipped on the full headlights, their powerful beam flooding the track ahead. A fox hurried away, its tail low, and an owl soared into the darkness.
‘He’s real old-school, Jonas, isn’t he?’ said Nugent.
‘Careful what you say. He’s not much older than me,’ said Lynn.
‘I meant politically,’ said Nugent.
‘He wasn’t over the moon about power-sharing, but Jonas is a realist. That’s the way it’s got to be if we’re going to win the long war.’
‘What’s going on up there?’ asked Kelly, peering out of the side window.
Lynn squinted through the windscreen. A Land Rover was in the ditch to the left of the track, its bonnet up.
Nugent slowed the Lexus. ‘An accident?’
‘Ignore it, man,’ said Kelly. ‘Just put your foot down and get us past it.’
‘I don’t see anyone, do you?’
‘Mark, put your bloody foot down!’ said Lynn.
‘We’re in the South here, nothing’s going-’
‘Do as he says, Mark,’ said Kelly, from the back seat. ‘Get us out of here.’
As Nugent opened his mouth to reply, his face exploded in a shower of blood and skull fragments that splattered across the dashboard and windscreen. A second shot shattered the rear window and Kelly slumped forward, blood pouring from his throat. Lynn grabbed the steering-wheel and lifted his right leg over Nugent’s left, trying to get his foot to the accelerator. The engine roared but the car didn’t move. A third shot rang out, and for a moment Lynn thought he’d been hit, but there was no pain. He fumbled for the gear lever, screaming in frustration.
The passenger door was pulled open and the barrel of a gun was pressed to the side of his head. Lynn raised his hands. ‘I’m not armed,’ he said.
Salih sat in his hotel room and studied the map of the United Kingdom that he’d spread out across the double bed. He had spent an hour in Borders in Oxford Street and had purchased A-Z street directories that covered all the areas that appeared in the list of landline locations the Russian had given him. He sipped a glass of Evian water and eyed the circles he had marked on the map. Most were dotted in and around London and were either police stations or government offices. None of the numbers belonged to private residences. Charlotte Button had made two calls to Leicester, to the police headquarters building where Khan worked. She had made several to Glasgow numbers and two to Belfast. Over the past fortnight she’d made fifty-three calls to landlines and twice as many to mobiles. She’d spent most of this week in Belfast.
Salih inserted a new pay-as-you-go Sim card into his phone and called the Belfast number. The Europa Hotel. He cut the connection and smiled to himself. There was a good chance that Charlotte Button was staying at the Europa, though he doubted she would be using her own name. Belfast was as good a place as any to kill her, but hotels were public places and Salih would need time to kill her in the way that Muhammad Aslam had stipulated.
He walked around the bed, looking down at the map. One of the landlines was located in Culford School at Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. Salih had Googled the name and discovered that it took boys and girls as boarders. It was a place for the rich to educate their children away from home. Khan had said Button had a daughter, and that the daughter had been sent to boarding-school. Now Salih knew where she was, and if he got the daughter, he’d get the mother, guaranteed. Salih had no reservations about killing women or children. People were people, no matter their age or sex, and Salih’s profession was to kill. But the boarding-school was a long shot. If the child was there, it might be weeks before her mother visited.
Salih sat on the bed and studied the map again. At some point Button must have phoned her home. There were two numbers, in Berkshire and Surrey, to the south-west of London. Merkulov had supplied addresses for both. One was in the centre of Windsor, the other a village called Virginia Water in Windsor Great Park, about eight miles from Heathrow.
Salih had a small Dell laptop on the dressing-table, connected to the hotel’s Wi-Fi network. He had an account with www.192.com, which he had opened when he was in Dubai. It allowed him access to a huge database, including phone directories and electoral rolls. Salih had been surprised to discover how much information about its citizens the British Government was prepared to make available to anyone with computer access, but he was more than happy to take advantage of it.
He had already entered ‘Charlotte Button’ in the website’s search engine and come up with nothing, country-wide. This time he simply entered ‘Charlotte’and the address in Windsor. It came up blank. He tried with just the address but the search engine insisted on a name or a description of a business. Salih sat back and flipped through his notepad. Khan had said that the woman’s husband was an estate agent. He tapped in ‘estate agent’ and hit the search button. In less than a second the website gave him the name of an estate agent at the address. Salih smiled. Sometimes information was hard to come by; sometimes it was like plucking apples from trees. Now he knew where the husband worked.