The wolf at the door

4

A little earlier, Miller and his sister had been on their way to Dover Street. Since becoming aware that her dearly loved brother was a man of dark secrets, Monica had also learned that anything he told her, however dangerous and extreme, was very probably true. For an academic like her, there was an undeniable thrill to it all, especially her involvement with Sean Dillon. When Miller picked her up at her rooms in Cambridge, she was already packed and waiting for him, and he filled her in on everything, as he knew it, right up to that moment.

Her reaction to the event in Central Park was highly practical. "Well, all I can say is, thank God you were carrying."

He grinned. "I see you've picked up the slang of our dark trade already."

"I don't have any option, not with you and Sean round. I've checked on George Dunkley, by the way, and he's doing fine. Thank God."

They were halfway to London when Roper called him and filled him in about Belsize Park and what was to happen.

"What about Sean?"

Roper said, "He went to see what he could dig up in Kilburn, took Billy with him."

"Is something wrong?" Monica asked him when he hung up.

"You could say that." He told her about the intruder at Belsize Park. "So this guy Cochran got away but lost his wallet, and they found another copy of that prayer card. We might as well call in at Holland Park instead of going straight to the house. They'll be finalizing the Gulfstream's departure from Farley this evening, and then there's Sean. God knows what he's getting up to in Kilburn, but, knowing him, it's bound to be interesting." He leaned over and said to Fox, "Change of plan, Arthur, as you've just heard."

"As you say, Major."

"Poor Svetlana," Monica said. "That beautiful house and all those lovely antiques and paintings. It's going to break her heart."

"I appreciate that, but it's not going to be forever, and she's got Katya to support her. And they'll be safe, that's the important thing. Whoever we're up against, they're pretty nasty."

"And Alexander?"

"Maybe in America he can get back to writing. Another War and Peace perhaps?"

"Which he's perfectly capable of producing," she said primly, and the Mercedes, approaching the Holland Park safe house, pulled up at the security gates and waited for them to open. They found Roper in the computer room and Ferguson on his phone. He waved to them, then walked out, still talking.

Roper said, "He's been on and off the phone all afternoon. Half a dozen times with Clancy, but everything is set now. We pick them up at Belsize Park at seven. It'll take forty minutes to get to Farley Field, and they're all off by eight."

"Where are they heading?" Miller asked.

"Andrews Air Force Base, where they'll refuel, and then move on to another base in Florida, and then proceed by helicopter to the island."

Monica went and kissed him and ruffled his hair. "You look tired, love."

"I always do, these days, it's my new look. Sorry about Dunkley, there seem to be bad people out there. Are you okay?"

"A few bruises here and there. It could have been worse."

"I suppose so. At least with Kurbsky and the ladies out of it, we'll have a level playing field, and we can just concentrate on discovering who these people are."

Maggie Hall appeared from the kitchen, face beaming. "And how are you, Lady Monica? It's real nice to see you again. Mr. Dillon will be smiling, I know that. Can I get you some tea? I know you've been traveling."

Ferguson loomed up behind her. "We'll all have tea, my dear, and some of those delicious chocolate biscuits that you seem to have an inexhaustible supply of."

"You can have anything you want, General."

She departed, and Ferguson held Monica for a moment and kissed her cheek. "Sorry about having to drag you away from Cambridge like this, but it's for your own good, I'm afraid. Has it been made plain to you what we're up against?"

"It's been made plain to me what's happened. The behavior of the wretch who drove his truck into me was proof enough of what we're up against."

"You're armed, I trust?" Ferguson asked.

She opened her shoulder bag and produced a Colt.25. "As provided by Roper when I first signed up."

"Hollow-point cartridges at all times. We are really going to war, my dear."

He turned to Roper. "Any sign of Dillon and Billy?"

"Not yet. I'll call them, if you like."

"No need," Ferguson said. "Here's the tea."

Maggie put her tray on the table and poured tea for everyone and distributed biscuits, smiling and cheerful, and made Ferguson, Roper, and Miller all laugh, too. Monica thought how strange it was that these men she had come to know so well, including the brother she had never really known properly until now, these men who were so civilized and jolly, were all in the death business, had all killed people.

She felt slightly unreal for a moment, and Roper, with that ravaged face, glanced at her and stopped smiling. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, fine. I'll have a drink, if you don't mind. Long journey, and I'm tired."

She moved to the drinks cabinet, found a shot glass, opened a bottle of whiskey, filled the glass, and swallowed. It went straight to her head, releasing some lightness in her, and, as she turned, Dillon entered, along with Billy.

He had a paleness to him, the eyes dark, a look that she had never seen before. This man she had got to know well enough to love was suddenly a stranger, and she knew something must have happened.

He came and put a hand around her waist and kissed her lightly on the mouth. "It's good to see you, girl. I'd like to kill that bastard in the truck for what he did to you."

She ran her hand up and down his arm a couple of times. "It could have been worse, he could have succeeded. George is knocked about a bit, but he'll get over it." She looked at him searchingly. "You're angry, I think?"

"You could put it that way."

"Then tell us about it," Ferguson said.

"Billy and I went hunting, first of all in Camden in search of Cochran. Turns out that address has been a brickfield since last year, waiting for a housing project. A helpful Indian storekeeper in the next street told me he remembered the address well because there used to be a lodging house there."

"I already checked on the computer," said Roper. "It only threw up two Matthew Cochrans, one a chemist at the School of Oriental Medicine and the other a headmaster at a high school in Bayswater."

"So another false name," Ferguson said. "What else is new. What about Kilburn? Did you discover anything useful?"

"I think you could say that."

"For God's sake, Dillon," Billy exploded. "Get it off your chest." He turned to the others. "That priest you found, Roper, near Pool's address…"

Roper nodded. "Monsignor James Murphy."

"Dillon knew him. When he was nineteen and his dad was killed in Belfast, it was Murphy the police asked to break the news to him, which he did right there in Holy Name church, and he gave him one of the prayer cards."

There was a kind of stillness, and Monica took a step closer and reached for Dillon's hand. "Sean?"

Ferguson said, "Dillon, I don't think you've been completely straight with us on all this."

"That's nonsense. The card first reared its ugly head hidden in Frank Barry's wallet. I found it and showed it to Harry immediately. I also explained its significance, isn't that true, Harry?"

Miller nodded gravely. "Yes, I admit it is, but what you didn't mention was your personal experience with the card."

"Because I'd had the wind knocked out of my sails, Harry. It was a bad memory of a terrible night in the life of a nineteen-year-old boy all those years ago in Kilburn. So I got on with the business in New York and tried to push the bad memory away for a while, and then things started to happen. I left Kilburn forever when I went to Belfast for my father's funeral. Frankly, I've always avoided it, and I'd no idea that Murphy was still at Holy Name."

"Well, one thing's for sure, he'll remember your return," Billy said.

"What happened?" Ferguson asked.

"I got angry and, you might say, I let rip, at least that's what Billy would tell you, because he heard. But it was all on purpose. I figured a little acting job was called for. So if you'll all take your seats and Roper turns on his recorder, we'll begin."

It took no more than twenty minutes, and when they were finished Roper switched off and Ferguson said, "Extraordinary. I find particularly interesting the remark Murphy made to you when he gave you the card. That it would be a comfort for all victims of a great cause. It certainly indicates where his political sympathies lay then, and no doubt still do."

Miller put in, "But it's hardly illegal. So it influenced an impressionable youth, which was what Dillon was then, and now he's angry about it. Most people would say so what?" He turned to his sister.

"Come on, Monica, as an archaeologist, you constantly have to analyze the past based on very little. What have you got to say?"

"It's seems simple to me. So far, four people are dead and various others have been put in harm's way, and the one constant has been that prayer card."

"Which first turned up in Frank Barry's wallet at the Plaza Hotel," Miller said.

"No, Harry," she said. "As far as I'm concerned, it first turned up on that evening in 1979 when Father James Murphy gave it to Sean. He's the one we have to look at next."

"I absolutely agree." Ferguson turned to Roper.

"I'll get right on to it."

Monica said to Miller, "I'd like to go to Dover Street now, Harry, and settle in. Is that all right with you? We could see Kurbsky, Svetlana, and Katya off later."

"A good idea."

She brushed Dillon's cheek with a kiss and went out, followed by her brother. Billy decided to pay a visit to the Dark Man, and Ferguson retired to his office. It was suddenly quiet, only a low hum from the equipment.

Roper said, "You're too wound up, Sean. Relax, go and have a sauna."

"It wasn't good," Dillon said. "I was surprised how violent I felt towards him and that bloody woman. I don't know a thing about her except what the old lady next door to Pool's house in Green Street said about her. A hard bitch, I know that having met her, but the old woman described her as a kind of Mother Teresa."

"Well, we'll see who's right, so off you go, and leave it to Uncle Roper."

Dillon returned to the computer room, hair damp but looking refreshed, wearing an open-necked black shirt, black bomber jacket, and black velvet jeans.

"Not bad," Roper told him. "But it's time you saw the barber."

"Never mind that." Dillon poured two whiskeys and handed one over. "What have you got for me?"

"You're going to love it. I've found a good deal about Murphy and the lady, who's fifty, by the way."

"Good God." Dillon was genuinely astonished. "I'd never have believed it. She's a handsome woman."

"I agree with you, her picture's coming up now from an identity card. There she is. At least she doesn't look like a prison warden. To summarize, her mother, Mary Ryan, was born in Derry in 1934, she trained as a nurse, married a Patrick Daly when she was twenty-five. Caitlin, her only child, was born in 1959. In 1969, with the civil rights business, there was serious marching in Northern Ireland. The Dalys were in a mixed housing area, and armed men in hoods broke in one night and shot Patrick Daly dead in front of the mother and Caitlin, who was ten at the time. The family had friends in London, so they fled to Kilburn."

Dillon looked grim. "Not good, not good at all."

"Her mother-a trained nurse, remember-got a job at the Cromwell Road Hospital, and they lodged in Kilburn with a cousin, who was a widow. As Caitlin is a year older than you, I wonder if you ever knew each other?"

"I came to Kilburn later than that, when I was twelve, but I can't recall a Daly. What did she do then?"

"Went to St. Mary's College, London, to train as a teacher. Member of the students' union, president of Fairness for Ireland Committee, left-wing activist, vice president of the Civil Rights Committee, third-class honors degree in English, teaching certificate."

"Spent too much time marching," Dillon observed.

"Teacher in various Catholic schools. Then, in 1984, her mother packed it in as a nursing sister and took the job of housekeeper at the church, and they moved in together, and so continued until the old lady died last year."

"And Caitlin is still there, still teaching it would seem, and still without a man."

"Not true. She's got one, in a way. Listen to Murphy's story and her position is explained, but not in the way you might think. I'll roll his file round and read it, particularly 1979."

"The year my father was killed."

"Can you remember the date?"

"Of course I can. November thirteen. How could I forget that?"

"Well, Murphy went on secondment to Londonderry in January for six months to be a priest with them at the Little Sisters of Pity's St. Mary's Priory. Read it."

Which Dillon did. He shook his head. "I never realized that. I'd stopped going to church, and I was finished at RADA by then. Kilburn was pretty working class, so I was used to keeping my head down about being an actor."

"So you lost touch with him. But I've got a report he sent to his bishop, telling him how bad it was in the war zone and how impressed he'd been with the priory as a nursing home and the efforts of the nuns to help the sick and needy against the odds. His intention was to have a hospice called Hope of Mary, and he intended to recruit nuns from the Little Sisters of Pity. This would cost money, but the bishop responded to his enthusiasm. Murphy registered a charitable trust, called Requiem, and the church agreed to buy a suitable house on mortgage for him on the condition he was responsible for raising the operating costs."

"And he has, presumably?"

"In spades. See the photo of him here in full regalia, another when he was made Monsignor. He proved irresistible to many businessmen and a sensation in the city. The hospice is paid off, including all improvements, and they've started ones in West Belfast, Dublin, and now one in the Bronx in New York."

"That's a hell of a lot of money, when you look at it. A hell of an achievement. I wonder where it came from?"

"He certainly seems to have the golden touch."

"And where does Caitlin figure in all this?"

"Her mother worked at the housekeeping post at the presbytery till she was seventy. At that time, Caitlin just carried on, obviously by arrangement with Murphy, helping out but still teaching. When her mother got cancer, she packed in her job to nurse her, becoming more and more involved with Hope of Mary. The old lady died over a year ago, and Caitlin is still doing her job, but twins it with being executive director at the hospice."

"Fascinating stuff. What else have you got?"

"Costello-cum-Docherty, who tried to torch the Dark Man. Inspector Parkinson recognized him as a petty thief and drunk named Fergus Costello who'd apparently gotten religion over twenty years ago at a refuge for drunks and down-and-outs in Wapping High Street. It was interfaith, but Parkinson spoke of a charismatic priest who turned up there on occasion. So guess who it was?"

"Oh, I'm at the stage where I'm prepared to believe anything you say. But why the fake Irish passport?"

"I don't know. He had a prison record as Costello, maybe he wanted to start fresh."

"He must have known the right people. The passport was an absolute ringer. But our Irish connection falls down when we consider Henry Pool, doesn't it? I know his wife was from Cork, but his father was a cockney soldier, as I recall, so badly wounded in April 1945 in Germany he was immediately discharged and went to live in Kilburn with his wife, who produced Henry in 1946."

"Poor old Ernest, he died of a stroke two years later. But I've discovered an Irish connection that wasn't immediately apparent. His wife, Mary Kennedy? Her father was killed by the highly irregular British police force known as the Black and Tans."

"God help us," Dillon said. "The scum of the trenches. They'd frighten the Devil himself."

"So when we consider Pool and the life he led at the beck and call of an embittered old woman who probably blamed him for being half English and drummed guilt into him every day of his life, I suppose you could say he'd be capable of leaving a bomb in the back of an English general's limousine."

"I take your point. But Pool was the driver."

"Yes, but Ferguson did say Pool appeared to be running away." Dillon sighed. "A hell of a tragedy it would have been, Charles Ferguson's sainted mother being from Cork herself."

"Actually, I did know that, but they say there are round eight million people of some sort of Irish extraction in the English population."

"Exactly," Dillon said. "More than there are in Ireland itself." He shook his head. "So where does it all lead?"

"God knows," Roper replied, and then Ferguson walked in.

"There you are," Dillon said. "When do we get going for Farley?"

"We don't," Ferguson said. "I decided a little extra security was called for, so I did a little sleight of hand. I apologize for not telling you, but I figured the fewer people who knew, the better. Svetlana, Katya, Alexander, and Bounine were all picked up by an emergency ambulance from the Royal Marsden Hospital, transferred to an anonymous people carrier, and delivered to RAF Biggin Hill in North London. They took off about twenty minutes ago. So that's that. Now, I've contacted Miller and the Salters and suggested that they join us to go over the new information. I asked Monica, too, but she's not feeling too good. She took a bit of a battering, remember. She thought she'd have an early night."

It was no more than half an hour later that the Salters arrived in the Alfa, and, as they walked in, the gate opened again behind them, and Fox delivered Miller, who followed them in to the computer room, where they found Ferguson, Roper, and Dillon talking quietly.

"So what is all this?" Harry Salter demanded. "What about Kurbsky and the ladies?"

"Departed some time ago, and, if you'll all sit down, I'll explain the circumstances."

He repeated what he'd told the others, emphasizing that what had alarmed him was the intruder at Belsize Park. "He was not an ordinary thief bent on burglary, we know that because of the prayer card. Kurbsky's makeover was very effective, so I'm inclined to believe that he wasn't the target. Cochran was probably intent on obtaining what information he could from the women. How he learned about them, I don't know, but that's why I felt we had to take extra precautions."

"I agree," Dillon said. "The Russians were behind the plot for Kurbsky's original false defection. Since then, they haven't heard a word from him or Luzhkov or Yuri Bounine. It must be making someone very angry indeed."

"And angry enough to do something about it?" Ferguson said. "So you think it is the GRU seeking revenge if they can't find answers?"

"It's the GRU I've always worried about, because Russian military intelligence is as good as it gets." Roper nodded. "There are six of us sitting here, and four have experienced serious attempts to kill them. Blake and Monica make six."

Miller said, "You and Dillon must feel left out."

"Well, it would be difficult to get at me here in my wheelchair, but I'm always ready." He produced a Walther from the side pocket of his chair and turned to Dillon. "Why they're leaving Sean alone, I don't know."

"I've already told you," Dillon said. "If I hadn't gone to New York at the last minute, it could have been different."

"So that's it, the bleeding Russians again," Harry Salter said.

"What are we going to do about it?"

"Hold on, there's something I'd like you to see first," Ferguson said. "Dillon and Billy visited Kilburn earlier in the afternoon to explore the Irish connection."

"And where's this taking us?" Harry Salter asked.

"To a hospice known as Hope of Mary, which has a website, if you can believe it, featuring a familiar prayer card. It has an executive director, Caitlin Daly, a charity called Requiem behind it, and a priest responsible for the whole package called Monsignor James Murphy. Roper's prepared a very interesting fact file, so watch and learn."

As they pulled chairs forward and Roper adjusted his equipment, Harry Salter said in a low voice to Dillon, "Waste of time, all this. There's got to be more to it than Kilburn."

"You think so?"

"Of course I do." He sat down. "Shooting Blake on Long Island, bombing the General's car in London, all these other things-this is major stuff, and it takes organization. I think you're absolutely right, Dillon. It's the GRU getting their own back for Kurbsky, and I bet they've been planning it ever since he scarpered."

And he was absolutely right.