“Everything go off all right, sir?”
“Yes, Jack.” Ferguson handed him the Court order. “Give that to old Cox. Tell him we’d like the cremation carried out this afternoon.” He glanced at Jenny. “Three o’clock suit you?”
She nodded, paler than ever now. “No problem.”
Ferguson turned to Lane. “You heard. There were a couple of men in Court, by the way. Dillon had his doubts about them.”
“How could he tell?” Lane asked, ignoring the Irishman. “Were they wearing black hats?”
“Jesus, would you listen to the man?” Dillon said. “Such wit in him.”
Lane scowled, took an envelope from his pocket and held it out to Ferguson. “As you ordered, sir.”
“Give it to him then.”
Lane pushed it into Dillon’s hand. “A damn sight more than you deserve.”
“What have we got here then?” Dillon started to open the envelope.
“You need clothes, don’t you?” Ferguson said. “There’s a charge card for you in there and a thousand pounds.”
Dillon took the rather handsome piece of plastic out. It was an American Express Platinum Card in his own name. “Sweet Joseph and Mary, isn’t this going a little over the top, even for you, Brigadier?”
“Don’t let it go to your head. It’s all part of a new persona I’m creating for you. You’ll be told at the right time.”
“Good,” Dillon said. “Then I’ll be on my way. I’ll get spending.”
“And don’t forget a couple of suitcases, Dillon,” Ferguson said. “You’re going to need them. Lightweight clothing, it’s hot out there at this time of year, and if it’s not too much trouble, try and look like a gentleman.”
“Wait for me,” Jenny called and turned to the other two men. “I’ll go with Dillon. Nothing else to do and it will help me kill time. I’ll see you back at the house, Admiral.”
She went down the steps and hurried after Dillon. “What do you think?” Travers asked.
“Oh, she has depths, that girl, she’ll make out,” Ferguson said. “Now let’s get moving,” and he led the way down to the car.
As the Daimler was driving along Whitehall toward the Ministry of Defence, the car phone sounded. Lane, sitting on the pull-down seat, his back to the chauffeur, answered, then glanced up at Ferguson, a hand over the receiver.
“The Deputy Director, Brigadier. He says he’d like an updating on how things are going. Wonders whether you could meet him and Sir Francis at Parliament. Afternoon tea on the Terrace.”
“The cremation is at three,” Ferguson said.
“You don’t need to be there,” Travers told him. “I’ll see to it.”
“But I’d like to be there,” Ferguson said. “It’s the civilized thing to do. The girl needs our support.” He said to Lane, “Four-thirty to five. Best I can do.”
Lane confirmed the appointment and Travers said, “Very decent of you, Charles.”
“Me, decent?” Ferguson looked positively wicked. “I’ll take Dillon along and introduce him. Just imagine, Sean Dillon, the Carlos of our times, on the Terrace of the Houses of Parliament. I can’t wait to see Simon Carter’s face,” and he started to laugh helplessly.
Dillon and Jenny made for Harrods. “Try and look like a gentleman, that’s what the man said,” he reminded her. “What do you suggest?”
“A decent suit for general purposes, gray flannel perhaps and a blazer. A nice loose linen jacket and slacks, it really does get hot in St. John at this time of the year, really hot.”
“I’m yours to command,” he assured her.
They ended up in the bar upstairs with two suitcases filled with his purchases. “Strange having to buy an entire wardrobe,” she said. “Socks, shirts, underwear. What on earth happened to you?”
“Let’s say I had to leave where I was in a hurry.” He called over a waiter and ordered two glasses of champagne and smoked salmon sandwiches.
“You like your champagne,” she said.
Dillon smiled. “As a great man once said, there are only two things that never let you down in this life. Champagne and scrambled eggs.”
“That’s ridiculous, scrambled eggs go off very quickly. Anyway, what about people? Can’t you rely on them?”
“I never had much of a chance of finding out. My mother died giving birth to me and I was her first, so no brothers or sisters. Then I was an actor. Few friends there. Your average actor would shoot his dear old granny if he thought it would get him the part.”
“You haven’t mentioned your father. Is he still around?”
“No, he was killed back in seventy-one in Belfast. He got caught in the cross-fire of a firefight. Shot dead by a British army patrol.”
“So you joined the IRA?”
“Something like that.”
“Guns and bombs, you thought that would be an answer?”
“There was a great Irishman called Michael Collins who led the fight for Irish freedom back in the early twenties. His favorite saying was something Lenin once said: ‘The purpose of terrorism is to terrorize, it’s the only way a small country can hope to take on a great nation and have any chance of winning.’ ”
“There’s got to be a better way,” she said. “People are fundamentally decent. Take Henry. I was a tramp, Dillon, drugged up to my eyeballs and working the streets in Miami. Any man could have me as long as the price was right and then along came Henry Baker, a decent and kindly man. He saw me through the drug unit, helped me rehabilitate, took me to St. John to share his house, set me up in business.” She was close to tears. “And he never asked me for a thing, Dillon, never laid a hand on me. Isn’t that the strangest thing?”
A life spent mainly on the move and one step ahead of trouble had left Dillon with little time for women. They were there on occasions to satisfy an urge, but no more than that and he’d never pretended otherwise, but now, sitting there opposite Jenny Grant, he felt a kind of warmth and sympathy that was new to him.
The crematorium was in Hampstead, a red brick building, reasonably functional looking but surrounded by rather pleasant parkland. There were poplar trees, beds of roses and other flowers of every description. The Daimler arrived with Dillon sitting up front beside the chauffeur, and Ferguson, Travers and the girl in the rear. Old Mr. Cox was waiting for them at the top of the steps, discreetly dressed in black.
“As you’ve asked for no kind of service I’ve already had the coffin taken in,” he said to Ferguson. “Presumably the young lady would like a final look?”
“Thank you,” Jenny said.
She followed him, Travers with a hand on her arm, and Ferguson and Dillon brought up the rear. The chapel was very plain, a few rows of chairs, a lectern, a cross on the wall. The coffin stood on a velvet-draped dais pointing at a curtained section of the wall. Music played faintly from some hidden tape recorder, dreary anodyne stuff. It was all very depressing.
“Would you care to see the deceased again?” Mr. Cox asked Jenny.
“No, thank you. I just wanted to say goodbye. Let him go now.”
She was totally dry-eyed as Cox pressed a button on a box in the wall and the coffin rolled forward, parting the curtains, and disappeared.
“What’s through there?” she asked.
“The furnace room.” Cox seemed embarrassed. “The ovens.”
“When can I have the ashes?”
“Later this afternoon. What would your needs be in that direction? Of course some people prefer to strew the
