Flanagan did, also pausing to down his whiskey. “That’s so great, man, let’s do it again.”
Burke looked on with obvious disapproval. “Rots the inside of your nose, I hear.”
“If you indulge enough,” Cohan observed.
Delaney was really on a roll. “Your travel agency. Reminds me of that Paki store we turned over the other week in Bayswater. Big bastard with a beard. Wouldn’t open the safe. Young girl was serving, one of those things on her face with only the eyes showing. I pulled it off, the veil. Real good-looker. I mean, I’d have given her one if I’d had time.” He took a pistol from his pocket, a silencer on the end. “Put her over the counter and shot her in her right bum cheek. She never even screamed.”
“That was shock, you see,” Flanagan said.
“But he got the safe open bloody quick after that,” Delaney said. “And there was only eight hundred quid in it. Must have been to the bank. I’d have given him one, too, only we had to get moving.”
Burke turned to Cohan. “The great days are behind us indeed, Tim, if this is what we’ve come down to.”
“So it would appear.”
“You wouldn’t know how to have a laugh if you saw one,” Delaney told him.
“And you wouldn’t know how to handle serious business if it hit you in the face, sunshine.”
Delaney giggled again. “Last of the old brigade, a sort of Dad’s Army of the Provisional IRA.”
Burke grabbed him by the lapels. “Don’t take the piss out of the IRA, boy. I did a stretch at Long Kesh, the Maze Prison itself. In five minutes you’d have been on your knees in the shower room begging. And I’ve got one of these, too.”
He produced a silenced pistol from his pocket and held it up. Delaney pulled away, higher than ever. “But is it as big as mine?”
The door to the office opened and Nolan appeared. “Cut it out. Get in here.”
Kelly was sitting on one end of the desk. On the wall behind was the material Flynn had sent on the computer. A row of photos, an information sheet under each one.
Ferguson, Harry Salter, Billy, Dillon and Roper in his wheelchair. There was nothing on Greta Novikova, but Harry’s minders, Joe Baxter and Sam Hall, were represented.
“They look like nothing much to me,” Flanagan said.
“I agree.” Delaney nodded.
Burke said, “I recognize that bastard, Ferguson. Years ago, he was a colonel in Derry when they lifted a bunch of us.”
“Major General now. He’s the prime target, and I can tell you boys there is big money in this for all of us, you have my word on it.”
Cohan said, “How much?”
“A hundred grand, and my client is good for it, believe me.”
“But we’ve got to deliver the goods before we see any of that?” Delaney frowned.
Kelly, who had been silent, said, “So we do. Let’s have some plain speaking, I hate time wasting. If the terms aren’t satisfactory, there’s the door.”
“No need to be so butch,” Delaney said. “We might as well have a go. Nothing else on at the moment.”
Cohan said, “So what are we talking about?”
“The main targets are Harry Salter, and a lot of people will heave a sigh of relief if you manage to kill that one, and Charles Ferguson. The others are minders, back-up people, but Salter and Ferguson go down any way we can.”
“Any suggestions?” Burke asked.
“A bullet in the head is as good as anything.” Cohan nodded. “I wouldn’t hesitate to shoot Ferguson in the back if I saw him in the street on a wet night.” He looked at the photos again. “God save us, Sean Dillon himself, the Small Man some called him.”
“Looks like rubbish to me,” Delaney said.
“Chief enforcer in the movement for twenty years. Killed more men than you could imagine, boy.”
Cohan said, “He never got his collar felt once by the Army or the RUC.”
Delaney said, “You knew him then?”
“Only by reputation.”
Nolan cut in. “Have any of you been to the Dark Man, Salter’s pub at Wapping?” Nobody had. “That’s okay then. It’s Friday night so it should be busy. Go down there, mingle, get the feel of the place, the area. It’s on Cable Wharf. The pub is the first place Salter owned. There’s a development next door. It seems he’s turned an old warehouse into luxury apartments. He even keeps a boat along the wharf.”
“Anything else?” Cohan asked.
“Drive past Ferguson ’s pad in Cavendish Place, just to have a look, and Dillon’s at Stable Mews. That’s walking distance from Cavendish Place. Feel it all out, but carefully at this stage. We’ll speak again.”
Delaney said impatiently, “So what’s the point?”
Burke said, “To use the military term, so you’re familiar with the killing ground, stupid, and know what we’re talking about.”
“All the people on the board meet at the Dark Man on a regular basis. I’m betting most of them will be there tonight,” Nolan pointed out.
Kelly said, “And so will we. See that you are. Now away with you.”
“Thank God for that,” Delaney said. “Come on, Sol,” and Flanagan followed him.
Cohan said, “Are those two for real? Is this what we’ve come down to, working with scum?”
“They kill without hesitation,” Nolan told him.
“It’s the only point in their favor.”
“And have to be drugged up to the eyeballs to be able to do it,” Burke said.
Cohan shook his head. “Not Delaney, he’s naturally evil, that one, and born that way.” As he followed Burke out, he paused at the door. “Christ, is this what it was all about? The great days we knew and it comes down to this?”
“Those days have gone,” Nolan said, “and won’t come back ever.”
“Enough bloody nostalgia,” Kelly put in. He opened a drawer in the desk and took out a pistol and silencer and three clips, which he pushed across to Nolan, then took out the same for himself. “We’ll go for a drive, check out Ferguson ’s gaff and Dillon’s.”
Nolan loaded his weapon, a Colt automatic, and Burke and Cohan watched him. “That sounds sensible. Do it like the movies.”
“To hell with that. I remember when we
“The bowsers had to virtually wall off the city, the Bank of England, the lot. God, you had to keep your head down at that time.”
“There was a bar called Grady’s in Canal Street. A leftover from the Victorian times. There was a canal running down to the pool with a bridge over it. I stayed there more than once in the great days when I was on the run.” Kelly nodded as if to himself. “Grady died years ago, but a fella told me the other week his wife, Maggie, still runs it. She must be seventy-five if she’s a day.” He turned to Nolan. “Let’s check out Grady’s, for old times’ sake.”
Nolan said, “That’s a great idea. Spend some time there before the Dark Man.”
Kelly turned to Burke and Cohan. “Why not join us, say about six, give the Dark Man the chance to warm up? We’ll have a couple of glasses to start the evening off.”
“And why not?” Cohan said. “We’ll see you there. Come on, Jack.”
Nolan took down a reefer coat from a peg, whistling tunelessly. He loaded his Colt, screwed on the silencer, and Kelly said, “Come on then, Jimmy.”
And Nolan swung to look at him, eyes wild, and from somewhere deep inside, it all burst out. “What in the hell happened to us, Patrick?”
“It’s simple, Jimmy, we lost the war.” Kelly patted him on the shoulder. “Let’s go, old son, and make the best of it.”
They went out to the snug, where Fahy, who had been listening at the door to all the comings and goings, was suddenly busy polishing glasses behind the door.
“We’ll be out for the day,” Nolan said.
