‘Now, then. The tape has stopped, as you see, so let’s talk man to man for a minute. We don’t know yet whether the bomb was meant to kill you, and went off too early, or was simply meant to scare you rigid. Either way, it’s clear that someone is seriously displeased with you. So I need you to be frank. Exactly how much contact do you have with the Republican movement?’
Harry had seen the question coming. He had seldom heard Finbar talk about the Irish troubles, but the inference to be drawn from the bomb attack could have been drawn by a Lestrade. Anyone could start a fire, even one sufficiently fierce to destroy a building. Car bombers were a rarer breed.
Finbar rubbed his nose. He was no fool; he too must have foreseen this line of enquiry.
‘I won’t deny I knew a few people who were that way inclined.’ He might have been speaking about bashful gays. ‘Same as anyone living in Liverpool might know a bloke who earns a crust selling dodgy cars. But that’s as far as it went — I was never mixed up in any sectarian shenanigans. Live and let live, that’s my motto.’
Harry could see his client calculate pros and cons before deciding to name names. Those he mentioned mostly sounded small-time: people who might have done a bit of fund-raising for the cause. The only one which meant anything to Harry was the last.
‘And of course,’ said Finbar, ‘there was Pearse Cato.’
For a moment it seemed to Harry as if Sladdin had been struck by lightning. The careworn features would never betray shock, but a flickering of the eyelids was akin to a squeal of amazement from someone less self-contained. Finbar glanced at the detective uncertainly. If, by adopting a casual tone, he’d hoped to lessen the impact of his reference to Cato, he had failed. Even Harry, no student of current affairs, had heard the name in a hundred news bulletins.
‘Pearse Cato?’ asked Sladdin, careful not to sound too eager. ‘Tell me how you happened to know him.’
‘Not much to tell, really,’ said Finbar. He bit his lip and Harry could see he already regretted mentioning Cato. But Sladdin would not let it go now. You couldn’t claim acquaintance with Lucifer and then dismiss him as a bit of a nonentity.
‘His family lived across the road from ours in Dublin,’ said Finbar unhappily. ‘He was maybe five years younger than me. We were never close.’
‘But you were aware of his — connections?’
‘From when he was a kid, he was committed to the armed struggle. His uncle had been shot in a tit-for-tat killing. All the Catos were bred to battle, but Pearse was special. No one messed him around.’ Finbar shook his head. ‘Everyone kowtowed to Pearse, me included. He had a mad streak. Nothing was surer than that one day he would wind up dead.’
As indeed he had. His assassination had made headline news, Harry recalled: mown down in a bar a couple of summers ago by a gang of Kalashnikov-wielding paramilitaries who called themselves loyalists. They had fired as many bullets as were necessary to destroy the face seen on so many Wanted posters. In England, the tabloid press had celebrated the killing of the man they dubbed Europe’s most wanted terrorist; for Pearse Cato was notorious, an outcast from the Provos who had formed the Irish Freedom Fighters with a handful of others more concerned with murder for murder’s sake than with political progress. According to rumour, he had been responsible for upwards of a dozen murders on either side of the Irish Sea: a retired brigadier in Virginia Water; a backbench MP in Great Yarmouth; a judge in Magherafelt and a motley assortment of British soldiers and suspected Army informers.
‘Might someone,’ suggested Sladdin, ‘think you were on better terms with Cato than you describe? Perhaps now they’re gunning for you.’
Finbar gave an incredulous laugh. ‘I promise you, Inspector, my religion is the same as my politics. I’m a card-carrying member of the self-preservation society. Violence frightens me. It hurts people! Believe me, the closest I got to Pearse Cato was when I tattooed him.’
Sladdin pursed his lips. ‘Tattooed him? With what?’
‘A mailed fist flourishing the Irish Tricolour,’ said Finbar, a mite shame-faced. ‘It covered his chest. Not one of my more elegant creations, but Pearse liked body pictures, for his women as well as for himself. He didn’t know much about the finer aspects of tattooing but he knew what he liked.’
‘So you were neighbours and had a fleeting business relationship, that’s all?’
‘Not very businesslike,’ said Finbar. ‘The sod didn’t pay for any of the work he told me to do. And with Pearse, you didn’t ask. He hated putting his hand in his pocket, unless maybe it was to impress a girl. If he’d lived till fifty, he’d have died a millionaire.’
‘I see.’ Sladdin returned to a topic he’d worried at earlier. ‘And are you quite sure no one could have known you were coming here with Miss — er, Wilkins?’
‘I didn’t know myself until this lunchtime.’
‘But you’d left the car parked outside the hotel earlier in the day,’ Sladdin pointed out, ‘so someone following you from home, say, might have had the opportunity to fix the bomb while you were in the city centre with Miss Wilkins.’
‘I didn’t see anyone following me.’
‘Were you expecting to be followed?’
‘Well, no…’
Work it out for yourself, then, Sladdin’s expression insinuated. Aloud, he said, ‘As I explained, we’ll need to speak to Miss Wilkins.’
Harry knew why. The police needed to eliminate the possibility, however unlikely, that Finbar himself had activated the bomb by radio control.
‘She’ll not be able to tell you anything else,’ said Finbar.
Sladdin gave a sceptical grunt.
‘Look, Sophie was awful upset when she left, as Harry here will testify,’ Finbar continued. ‘Can’t blame her, it’s a nasty feeling for anyone — that someone has tried to blow you to smithereens.’
‘Yes,’ said Sladdin. ‘And that’s why, if you can think of anything further that might assist us…’
‘Yeah, yeah, I’ve got the message.’
‘Is that all, Inspector?’ asked Harry. He was anxious to go. If this interview did not end soon, he would be too late for hospital visiting hours and a chance to check on Jim Crusoe’s progress. And at any moment Finbar might say something rash.
So far Sladdin had given no indication that he intended to detain the Irishman; by now he must have received confirmation via New Scotland Yard that Finbar had no known links with terrorists. But the temporary legal powers that had been in force for a generation entitled the police to hold someone on the flimsiest of grounds for forty-eight hours, sometimes more. All Harry could offer in return for Sladdin releasing Finbar was the usual blather about his client being willing to surrender his passport and report to a police station whenever he blew his nose.
The detective considered Harry somebrely. In the end he said, ‘Yes, Mr Devlin, at least for the time being.’
‘So I’m free to go?’ asked Finbar, jumping to his feet in his eagerness to be away.
A poor choice of words for a client with a clear conscience. Harry barely stifled a groan, although Sladdin remained impassive.
‘Free, Mr Rogan? Why, of course. You’ve had a traumatic afternoon. I’m only sorry it has been necessary to keep you for so long. You will understand how anxious we are to identify the culprit as soon as possible — this is hardly a typical case of Liverpudlian car vandalism. And then there is the continuing need to preserve your own safety.’
The warning was as unambiguous as if lettered in blood on Finbar’s front door. He would remain at risk until his unknown antagonist was caught.
‘Have you really no idea who might have planted the bomb?’ asked Harry when they got outside.