Wrapping his long fingers around his coffee cup, Sulkey stared down thoughtfully at the dregs and said quietly, ‘Nothing he’d do would surprise me. Let me tell you a bit about him.’
At first, there was little in what he said that Liz hadn’t already read in Peggy’s memo – the super-bright young Irish-American, specialising in academic subjects that ultimately made him an expert in missile technology. It was an expertise that for a long time was employed in the service of the US government.
‘I gather you first came across him through investigating his brother,’ Liz interjected, trying to move things on.
‘That’s right. And they couldn’t have been more different.’ Sulkey gave a wry smile. ‘They say America is a melting pot, but sometimes people don’t melt. As my colleague Tommy Birmingham likes to say, part of the Irish community in America has never really left Ireland. They call South Boston ‘Southey’. It’s New England’s Dublin. If you go into some of the bars there – and with your accent I wouldn’t advise it – you’d think the Easter Uprising of 1916 was still being fought.
‘Edwin Purnell was James’s younger brother by eight years. Their parents died when Edwin was still quite young and James looked after him. Edwin was an okay student but he dropped out of college and got in with the hard core of the Boston-Irish crowd. Only his brother’s financial support kept his head above water and after a series of dead-end jobs he ended up working for James when James formed his own company.’
‘Were they brought up to support the IRA?’
‘Not really – that’s the funny thing. Neither of their parents was political but the local Irish culture was political all right, and that’s where Edwin seemed to pick it up. He grew more and more pro-IRA as the years went by.’
‘But James was a bit of a firebrand too, I gather,’ said Liz, recalling the file’s account of his anti-Vietnam War activism.
‘He was, when he was young,’ said Sulkey, shifting uncomfortably in his seat and stretching out his long legs, ‘but not especially about Ireland. He only got drawn in when Edwin was asked to help smuggle arms for the IRA. By then James’s company was heavily into developing missiles – hand-held, surface-to-air. It was a legitimate business – but it was also just what the IRA was looking for in those days. I don’t think James got involved out of nationalist conviction, so much as for the money and trying to keep his brother from getting caught. If James was the genius, Edwin was the dumbo. James clearly felt the need to look after him.’
‘But they got caught.’
‘They did, but not because of anything James did – or Edwin for that matter. Somebody in Northern Ireland talked to you guys in MI5. There was enough detail in the information that we knew what was going to be smuggled out – RPGs and SAM missiles – and where it was going from: Gloucester, a fishing town thirty miles north of Boston. We didn’t know the exact timing, but we staked out the harbour and two months later we caught them red-handed.’
‘But not James?’
‘Nope,’ he shook his head emphatically. ‘He was the obvious source of the stuff, but we couldn’t get evidence that would hold up in court. And in those days, long before 9/11, some of the judges were pretty sympathetic to that kind of activity. If you ask me, he would have taken the fall for his brother if he’d had to – he was that devoted to him – but it was too late: we had Edwin dead to rights. From James’s point of view, there was no point going to prison if it wasn’t going to keep his brother out.’
Liz said, ‘And then Edwin didn’t come out.’
‘That’s right.’ He pursed his lips, musing. ‘It was a freak thing. A kidney infection that was mistreated – I don’t know about standards of medical care in Her Majesty’s prisons, but in a Federal Penitentiary you’re not usually looked after by Dr Kildare.’
‘And James?’
‘He was devastated. Well, as much as he was capable of feeling emotion. You see, this is a guy who was known as a loner, who has never married, and has no record of close relationships with anybody – male or female. Except his brother. Once his brother was gone, there was nothing to care about except avenging him.’
Liz said, ‘It makes sense in a strange kind of way.’
Sulkey nodded and gave a small smile. ‘Yeah. And whether it was in memory of his brother, or because it would give him a better chance to avenge him, James suddenly goes all Irish. He becomes Seamus, moves to Belfast, and from what you tell me, starts to act like a classic IRA hood. I’ve spoken to a lot of people about Purnell over the years and the words they’ve used to describe him were “single-minded”, “ruthless” and “cold-hearted”.’
Liz suddenly felt a chill run down her spine.
‘So if he’s decided to kill a police officer or one of us, he’s going to keep going till he succeeds,’ she said quietly. ‘Or till we catch him,’ she added, ‘and you make that sound difficult.’
Sulkey gave a grim nod. ‘Let’s just say I never succeeded.’
Liz looked up at Sulkey’s lined face. ‘Thank you, I think I understand what’s driving him much better now.’
They stood up together and as they shook hands again Liz said, ‘There’s just one more thing I was wondering about.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Didn’t Purnell also nurse a grudge against the FBI? After all, it’s you who put his brother in the prison where he died. I’d have thought he’d have tried to get his revenge on you chaps first.’
Sulkey gave a short laugh. ‘Funny you should ask. I think it’s fair to say he had a try.’
‘What did he do?’
‘He tried to kill the officer in charge of the investigation.’
‘Was that your colleague Birmingham?’
Sulkey looked at Liz. ‘No, it was me. Someone tampered with the wheels of my car – I reckon it was Purnell, not that I can prove it. Two of my tyres blew out when I was doing seventy on Interstate Ninety-five.’ He shook his head and looked down at his leg. ‘I was lucky to survive. All I got left with was this limp.’
28
It was still raining when Liz came out of the embassy into Grosvenor Square, so she hailed a passing taxi and asked for Vauxhall Bridge. Nowadays pictures of Thames House, MI5’s headquarters on Millbank, appeared on TV every time there was a terrorism story, so she never gave it as her destination. She felt it was uncomfortable if not downright insecure to link herself so closely to the intelligence world. It was a sensible precaution she liked to take.
As the taxi negotiated the morning traffic, she thought over what Daryl Sulkey had said about Piggott. It was a chilling story, and she decided to get Peggy Kinsolving to ring Judith and Dave to let them know that the threat was serious, and that the tipoff that Brown Fox had given them was likely to be true.
But when she walked into the open-plan office where Peggy had her desk there was no Peggy, just a note waiting for her.
Sorry to miss you. Got to go out. Hope Sulkey was helpful. Let me know if I can do any more. Lunch next time?
So Liz walked down the corridor to Charles Wetherby’s room, with a mounting feeling of pleasurable anticipation. In the outer office Wetherby’s secretary greeted her warmly. ‘I didn’t know you were in town.’