He looked uncomfortable. ‘You shouldn’t have been,’ he countered quickly. ‘It was a false alarm.’
‘Your friend Trenchard seemed certain enough yesterday.’
‘Don isn’t an expert.’ ‘Is that why the Commander knew nothing about it?’
‘Probably,’ he replied irritably, edging towards the door. ‘But I’m afraid I have nothing more to say to you, Miss Mullins.’
She reached out her hand as he moved away, catching his sleeve. ‘I’ll call.’
‘Don’t bother,’ he replied coldly and was gone.
After telephoning over an article on the conference to the Standard’s copy-takers, Eddie Mercs took Casey to an hotel across the road from New Scotland Yard. On the way she told him about the parcel bomb sent to Senator Powers and Harrison’s denial. St Ermin’s was discreet and palatial, its verandah in the cul-de-sac entrance providing shade from the sun and shelter from the skittish northerly wind.
After ordering two beers from the waiter, Mercs observed: ‘You’re quiet. Just because your boyfriend gave you the old heave-ho?’
‘It was my own fault. He suddenly realised I was a journalist. I think he hates us more than he does the bombers.’
Mercs flicked a match under his cigarette. ‘The military don’t have much time for us until one of their precious regiments is about to get the chop in defence cuts.’
‘He was quite rude,’ she said, still smarting with disbelief. Then she seemed to take a grip on herself and smiled. ‘I don’t mind the blood, guts, violence and mayhem, Eddie, but I just hate having my feelings hurt.’
He grinned at her. ‘So anyway, what’s he doing here?’
‘Pardon me?’
‘Your friend. I thought you said he’s the Senior ATO from Belfast. So what’s he doing at a New Scotland Yard press conference? I thought he was just attending Murray’s funeral?’
Casey shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’ She hesitated. ‘Wait a minute. They were talking yesterday at the house. There was some argument over the phone. Something about Harrison’s presence being an official Home Office request. His presence here, I suppose, I wasn’t really paying attention.’
Mercs let out a long low whistle and looked slightly embarrassed when the waiter arrived unexpectedly. The man gave the reporter a coy smile as he placed the drinks on the table. When he left, Mercs said: ‘Those men were from the Met’s bomb disposal unit, the Explosives Section, right? Your boyfriend’s been drafted in from Belfast by request of the government. That’ll ruffle a few feathers, I’ll be bound.’
Casey didn’t understand, and told him so.
‘Look, sweetheart, we all know this latest IRA campaign’s been unusually active and successful. Maybe more so than we realise. Listen, what you said earlier at the conference, about you being certain there were four real bombs, which today they denied. Already Fleet Street has swallowed the story. But imagine, just imagine, that there were four and they’d all gone off. Three main artery routes into London from the west and another into the city. It would have caused chaos and choked the capital’s roads for months. Millions of pounds in business losses that, one way or another, would have cost the taxpayer.’
‘I don’t know what to believe,’ Casey said.
‘Consider this,’ said Mercs, sipping his beer and wiping the froth from his upper lip with the back of his hand. ‘They, the government and the police, might have been lying. Like this parcel bomb that was sent to Senator Powers.’
She stared gloomily and confused at her untouched glass. ‘What does it mean, Eddie?’
‘It means, sweetheart, that you might have got yourself a scoop.’ He jerked his mobile phone from his pocket and flipped it open. ‘Let’s just verify a couple of points with an old oppo of mine in Belfast.’
Gerard Keefe, he explained, was an ex-staffer on the Telegraph who’d turned freelance some five years earlier. His contacts with terrorists — which he deferentially referred to as ‘paramilitaries’ on both sides of the political divide were legendary, his sources impeccable. As many who read his work considered he was a secret supporter of the Provisional IRA as believed him to be in the pocket of the Protestant extremists. Which probably meant that he had his editorial balance just about right.
However, his notoriety for having contacts with the rival leaderships had led to his increasing paranoia about his own safety. And that concern seemed to worsen each time Mercs spoke to him. The reporter was one of the few people to be trusted with his home telephone number; even that method of contact was of intermittent value, as Keefe regularly changed it and neglected to inform Mercs of his new number.
Today they were in luck. Keefe answered with a gruff ‘Yes’ to the background noise of his children shouting and shrieking over their lunch. It was incongruous for someone who believed he was a marked man by two terrorist organisations as well as British Intelligence.
‘Hallo, Gerry, it’s Eddie here. How’s life treating you?’
‘Sure mustn’t grumble, still strugglin’ on,’ came the unusually soft Ulster accent. ‘Can I be doin’ something for you, Eddie?’
‘I’d like to run a couple of things across you, Gerry.’
The slow, disapproving intake of breath was unmistakable. ‘Not over the phone, Eddie, you know how I feel about that.’
Keefe’s paranoia focused particularly on the telephone ever since he’d unearthed a story that all calls across the Irish Channel were screened by computer to pick up key trigger words in order to track down terrorist active service units on the mainland. Although Mercs had no way of knowing the veracity of the story, he tended to be sceptical. ‘Nothing sensitive, Gerry, and you don’t have to answer me.’
‘Go on then.’ Reluctant.
‘Can you confirm the name of the army’s Senior ATO in the Province?’
‘You mean Colonel Taffy LloydWilliams?’
‘No, not the Chief, his 2IC
A short pause. ‘Without referring to my files, a Major Harris, I think. Harris or Harrison. Tom Harris, I’m sure that’s it. But LloydWilliams is Top Cat, the main spokesman.’
Mercs grinned at Casey and raised his thumb in a gesture of triumph. ‘Would it strike you as odd, Gerry, if I told you this Harris or Harrison had been seconded to the Met’s Explosives Section over here?’ ‘
There was a chuckle at the other end. ‘Very odd, especially in mid-tour. Someone in Whitehall must be very worried about that latest bombing campaign over there. But it could make sense, what with the threat over these talks.’
Talks. Mercs was instantly on the alert, recalling the contents of AIDAN’s warning to the paper and the subsequent request for silence from the Defence Advisory Committee. He played it dumb. ‘What talks are these, Gerry?’
‘Sure it’s the worst kept secret in the Province. The place is alive with rumours about the talks.’
‘What’s this, another Sunningdale or a repeat of Mayhew and Adams fiasco?’ Mercs asked. ‘Government talking to the terrorists and all that.’
Keefe’s voice laughed down the telephone again. ‘More like a reworking of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Strictly between Dublin and London to the exclusion of all the paramilitaries. The Provies have got wind that it will include internment of terrorists on both sides of the border, that’s why they’re creating such a stink. They want the talks torpedoed unless they’re included.’
‘Who told you that, Gerry?’
‘A reliable source, Eddie.’ A hard edge had crept back into his voice. ‘That same source assures me the mainland campaign won’t stop ‘till the Provies get their way.’
‘D’you know where these talks are being held?’
‘If I did I could be a rich man!’