Present Danger

20

O’Reilly was restless. That bastard Piggott was always on his mind, and he was going to get him one way or another. But how? The meeting with the MI5 man had gone well. O’Reilly was pleased that he had stayed in control and the Englishman had got no more out of him than he’d wanted to give. But what would the Brits do with the information? Would they do anything? You couldn’t rely on the spies any more than you could on Piggott.

He needed to be sure. He wanted to tie Piggott up in knots; to worry the cold American sod; have him looking over his shoulder, not knowing who he could trust. Then he’d start to make mistakes and that would be the end of him.

But Piggott was clever. And he wouldn’t listen to anything O’Reilly said to him – especially not now that he’d as good as sacked him. He’d have to find another way to unsettle him and wipe that sneer off his Yankee face. But what way? An anonymous phone call had worked with ‘Simon Willis’ (or whatever his real name was). But Willis didn’t know his voice; he’d never spoken to him before. If he tried an anonymous call with Piggott, he might recognise the voice. And there wasn’t anyone else he trusted enough to make the call for him.

Then an idea came to him – an old-fashioned solution, the kind he liked best. No computers, nothing technical. And it should work.

His wife caught him by surprise. She was supposed to be out having her hair done, but there she was, standing in the kitchen doorway. ‘What’s going on?’ she said, pointing to the mess on the table where in half an hour she’d be wanting to give him his dinner.

‘Just give us a few minutes, will you? I’ll clear it all up, but I need to be private now. It’s work.’

‘Work?’ she asked with disbelief.

He put a warning hand up, and she knew better than to argue. She shut the kitchen door, and he could hear her go upstairs.

On the table he had a week’s worth of newspapers, some scissors, a few sheets of A4 paper, and a glue stick. He examined his handiwork so far:

Thanks to the News of the World and the Irish News, his message could hardly be more anonymous. With luck, Piggott should read it as it was intended – a warning from a Republican sympathiser that his new French ‘mate’ wasn’t what he said he was. Piggott would certainly take it seriously: it was just too likely to O’Reilly’s mind that Milraud, a foreigner, was a plant.

At the very least it would get Piggott thinking about the Frog. Which meant that sooner or later the two worlds would collide: with luck Simon Willis would be contacting the Frenchman before he left Northern Ireland, and when Piggott got the message he would be watching for him as well. The two strings O’Reilly had pulled would start winding round each other; if there was any justice in the world, they would leave Piggott trapped in the knot.