move back in too, along with a back-up guy, and we'll set up an ambush of our own a proper killing team. Sooner or later Meehan will have to come and then we'll waste the bastard.'
'What back-up guy?'
Alex's immediate thought was of Stan Clayton.
'Someone from Hereford. One of my people.'
'There's no question of any other non-Five people being involved, I'm afraid.
This is a top-secret operation, not a get- together of your barrack-mates.'
'Listen,' he said quietly.
'They aren't just my barrack mates, they're the people with the best training and experience of this kind of close-up surveillance in the world. Guys who've spent days at a time lying up in the undergrowth next to IRA arms caches, or waiting for Bosnian war criminals. With all due respect to your guys, I've seen them in action and they stick out like the bollocks on a dog. One other guy from my RWW team, that's all I'm asking.'
'I can pass on the request, but I can tell you right now what the answer's going to be.'
Alex shook his head.
'You still don't get it, do you?'
'I get it only too well. You want to turn this into a Regiment operation. Well, I'm afraid it's all a damn sight too sensitive for that.'
'What you mean is that you don't trust anyone else to keep his mouth shut about what is basically one of the most disastrous fuck-ups in your service's history. You're afraid that if word gets out that one of your agents not only turned into one of PIRA's top nut ting boys but crowned his brilliant career by torturing and killing a choice selection of your desk officers, that people just might start asking questions about your service's competence to handle intelligence affairs in the province. They might decide the Treasury got better value for its money from some other agency. The Firm, for example.'
At the mention of MI6, Thames House's hated rival, Dawn Harding all but bared her teeth.
'You are out of your depth by some distance, Captain Temple.
You have been placed under the authority of my service and you will kindly respect that authority.'
'Even when its orders are illegal?'
Dawn's expression tightened.
'Let's behave like grown-ups, shall we? We both know what has to be done, we both know why. Like I said, I will pass on your request but I can tell you now what the response will be: if you need back-up, MI-5 will provide it. Assuming, that is, that they go along with your plan at all.'
Alex nodded expressionlessly.
'Let's go and check out the house.'
She nodded and followed him towards the Lodge.
'After all,' he added drily, 'we have to make sure there's going to be room for the children's play area.'
Half an hour later the two prospective buyers of Longwater Lodge were sitting in a quiet corner of the Pied Bull. On the walls framed photographs of local cricket teams were displayed, along with horse brasses, winnowing fans, malt shovels, scythe handles and other redundant rural artefacts. A truce had been agreed between them.
'It strikes me,' said Alex, when their sandwiches and drinks had been served to them, 'that your deputy director is probably in the clear. That there's a good chance she's not one the Watchman's targets.'
Dawn narrowed her eyes.
'What makes you say that?'
'Fenn had his tongue cut out, OK?'
'OK.'
'And Gidley had his eyes cut out?'
'Yup.'
'Widdowes, if he gets him, will have his ears cut off.'
'What makes you say that?'
'Well, I figured it might be that three wise monkeys thing. See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil.'
She nodded.
'I thought of that as soon as I saw what he'd done to Craig Gidley. The suggestion being that when they were alive they saw, spoke and heard evil, and only now that they're dead..
Alex nodded. He had thought it was a pretty brilliant deduction on his part and was rather disappointed that she had reached the same conclusion, and reached it first.
'The thing I was going to say,' he pressed on, 'is that there are only three wise monkeys. So assuming your man Widdowes is supposed to be the third, that puts Fenwick in the clear.'
'Two points,' she said.
'One, we're dealing with a psychopathic murderer here.
Assigning logic or structure to his actions and assuming that he will abide by this logic and structure is asking for trouble. He will do what he will do, period. Two, look at this. I did an Internet search for the expression wise monkeys'.
From her jacket pocket she took a folded piece of paper. It was a printout, Alex saw, a printout of a London auction house web page.
Lot 42 - 'Four Wise Monkeys'. Netsuke, Thirteenth Century This is a highly rare and important piece, in that it shows four wise monkeys, rather than the more coventional three. The monkeys were introduced into Japan from China in the eighth century AD by a Buddhist monk of the Tendai sect, and are believed to have been associated with the blue-faced god Vajra.
Originally there were four monkeys, namely Mizaru (see no evil), Mazaru (speak no evil), Mikazaru (hear no evil) and Iwazaru (know no evil). As in this piece, Iwazaru was always represented with his hands placed over his heart. By the fourteenth century, however, the fourth monkey was absent from most representations, as he is from the best-known example, the seventeenth-century carving over the doorway of the Sacred Stable in Nikko, Japan. The presence in this early piece of the fourth monkey emphasises the essentially ambiguous nature of the traditional instruction. For while at one level the refusal to see, hear and speak evil will afford spiritual protection, at another level it lays the postulant open to charges of moral disengagement of a closing of the heart.
Alex read the sheet and handed it back to Dawn.
'Four monkeys, then,' he muttered.
'Do we reckon that our Watchman knows about the fourth?'
'It took me less than a minute to find this on the web.'
'I guess you're right,' said Alex.
'And there's another thing,' Dawn went on.
'Do you remember the pictures of Meehan you saw in Thames House?'
Alex nodded.
'Do you remember the one in the kitchen of their house in Derry? The one with both his parents in it? Well, if you enlarge it you can see that there are some brass ornaments on the shelf. There's a bell shaped like a Dutch girl, and a miniature camel, and a little square thing that I'd bet a month's salary is a statuette of the wise monkeys.'
Alex nodded.
'Well, that does seem to wrap it up,' he said.
'And to put your Miss Fenwick squarely in the frame as the fourth monkey.'
'That's rather what we feared.'
'You might have mentioned it,' said Alex.
'Like I said before, anything that helps me to know him better will help me to deal with him.'
'We were rather hoping you might deal with him before the projected number of his victims became .. . an issue.
That evening he was changing into a tracksuit in the Pimlico safe house, preparing to go for a run, when his mobile rang. It was Dawn, although she didn't announce her name.
'You've got what you wanted,' she said peremptorily.
'Our friend returns to his house in Hampshire the day after tomorrow.'
