“I just expect people to come up to expectations. Coming up with the goods is another way of looking at it, which Scotland Yard seems to be rather spectacularly failing to do in Hannah’s case.” He turned to Roper. “Any news at all from the Murder Squad?”
“It’s early days, Sean. You’re expecting too much.”
“It’s one of their own we’re talking about,” Dillon said.
“Leave it alone,” Ferguson said. “This is a job for uniform and Special Branch and certainly not for us. You don’t interfere.”
“Sounds definite enough,” Dillon said. “I’ll give it my consideration.” And he went out.
Levin had been on his tail since leaving Dillon’s cottage in Stable Mews, which could have been difficult with someone of Dillon’s experience, but there was London traffic to help. Not that he was exactly inexperienced himself, and he stayed well back and followed.
Dillon went to Mary Killane’s place. He really was worried that the Murder Squad didn’t appear to be making much progress. Where she had lived, Kilburn, was the most Irish area of London. There were pubs there that would make you think you were back in the old country. Republican, Protestant, take your pick.
Dillon was an expert on all of them, had lived there as a boy newly come from Belfast with his father, so if you were a nice Catholic girl who was going out for a drink, you’d never go to a Prod pub, only a Catholic one. Mary Killane didn’t have a car, so you were talking about walking unless she’d a fella who picked her up at the flat. In any case, within a reasonable walking distance to here, there were a few Catholic pubs.
Most were clean enough. He showed her photo and got nowhere. There were others that had IRA connections, especially from before the Peace Process, there being little action in London these days. One such was the Green Tinker, the landlord one Mickey Docherty. A huge IRA supporter in the old days, he’d been picked up twice although nothing had ever been proven.
Dillon found him just before noon, when the bar was empty except for two old men in cloth caps drinking ale at a corner table and playing dominoes. Docherty was reading the Standard at the bar, and the look on his face when he saw Dillon was comical.
“My God, it’s you, Sean.”
“As ever was. Get me a large Bushmills.”
Docherty did as he was told, and when he turned, Dillon had a computer photo of Mary on the bar. He took his whiskey and drank it. Docherty’s face said it all.
“I can see by your face you know her.”
“What’s she done?”
“Got herself killed.”
Docherty crossed himself. “Mother of God.”
“Don’t start getting pious with me. Who did she come in with?”
“And how would I be knowing that?”
“Because there’s an IRA connection and a possible Liam Bell connection, so tell me what you know. If you don’t, I’ll be back tonight to haunt you. I’ll cripple you, both knees. This is important to me.”
“All right, Sean, I hear you.” He turned, poured a whiskey, hands shaking. “Nice girl. A nurse. She was a sleeper.”
“How do you know?”
“I took letters from Dublin for her and the fella.”
“Which fella?”
“Well, he was a sleeper, too. Dermot Fitzgerald.”
“What did it say in the letters?”
“How would I know?”
“Because you steamed the envelopes open.”
Docherty was panicking. “I only did it a couple of times. They were just notes, no signature. Things like phone a certain number at such and such a time. Fitzgerald was a handsome rogue. A real scholar. Doing an MA at London University.”
“A scholar and a gentleman thinking it was romantic to be in the IRA?”
“There was word about him.”
“What kind of word?”
“That he’d killed three or four times.”
There was silence. “Do you have his address?”
“Only round the corner, but he’s gone.”
“Gone where?”
“Ibiza. He told me a couple of days ago. Said he’d made a bit of money and was going over there for a while. Likes to dive.”
Dillon thought about it, then took another computer photo out, Levin’s this time. “Anyone you know?”
Docherty shook his head. “Definitely not.”
Dillon put the photos away. “I hope I don’t have to come back.”
Igor Levin, following Dillon to the Green Tinker, had glanced through a window, seen him approach the bar to talk to Docherty. He moved on and discovered a door to a separate saloon bar. He moved in. There was no one there, but there was an access door into the other bar, and when he put his earpiece in, he could hear what passed between them from the moment Docherty recognized Mary Killane and was told she had been killed.
There was really little else Levin could do. He waited by the front door, giving Dillon time, then moved out and went along the street to his Mercedes. Once behind the wheel, he phoned Luhzkov at the Embassy, and asked him to do a trace on Dermot Fitzgerald and flights to Ibiza.
In Dublin, Flynn sat in his favorite bar and had a large whiskey. He had a problem. A fine officer, Hannah Bernstein, had gone down and he felt that. On the other hand, there was a question of family loyalty and his brother, not ex-IRA at all, but still active. So he did the good thing, or the bad thing, and gave him a ring. Billy Salter had come calling, maybe Liam Bell needed to know. Afterward, he felt even worse and consoled himself with another whiskey.
Levin phoned Drumore Place and got Ashimov. He told him what Dillon had learned at the Green Tinker. “The important thing is we’ve checked through the GRU computer and Dermot Fitzgerald left London Gatwick for Ibiza the day before yesterday.”
“So what are you saying to me?”
“That if I was Dillon and fired up like he is, I’d be on the next plane over on Fitzgerald’s case. If he can find him and squeeze him, he’ll know it was Liam Bell behind the execution of Mary Killane, and that’s a direct lead to Drumore Place and what goes with that.”
“Do you think I don’t know?”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“Get after Fitzgerald. Get rid of him.”
“Are you going to come?”
“I’ve other things to do.”
“Can I say something?”
“Anything you like as long as it’s relevant.”
“Getting on Fitzgerald’s tail is one thing, but there’s another side to it. Why waste him? If Dillon comes after him, which he will, we’d get two for the price of one.”
Ashimov said, “That’s good. I like that.” He thought about it. “I tell you what. I’ll send a company Falcon from Ballykelly. It can bring Greta. She could be useful to you. It’ll collect you at Archbury, then onwards to Ibiza.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Then let’s do it.”
At Holland Park, Dillon found Roper and gave him the information he’d obtained from Docherty about Fitzgerald. He had no known criminal connections, but was on the books at London University. A BA in English literature. His thesis for his master’s degree was on the pending list.
Roper trawled through the passenger lists for Ibiza and confirmed that Fitzgerald had left. “Anything else?”
“This diving business. Check that out if you can.”
“I can do anything, old lad.” Roper went through the PADI list, the world association of professional divers, and nodded. “There you are. A master diver. So what do you want to do?”
“I think I should go after him. I know Ibiza well. I used to go there a lot in the old days. A good friend of mine ran an outfit flying floatplanes between the islands. I flew for him. I wonder if he’s still at it? Aldo Russo, Eagle Air. He’s Italian. Has strong Mafia connections, or did have.”
Roper went back to his computer, which came up trumps again. “There you go. Still up and running, but would you be? How much flying have you done lately?”