said to Mordecai, “Where’s Charlie?”
“Oh, I gave him the nod a couple of minutes ago. He went ahead to get the car warmed up. I mean it’s spawn of the north time out there, Harry, we’ll have the bleeding Thames freezing over next.”
Flood laughed and they went down the steps and started along the pavement. When it happened, it was very quick, the rear doors of the van parked on the other side of the road swinging open, the men inside rushing out and crossing the road on the run. They all carried baseball bats. The first to reach them swung hard. Mordecai ducked inside, blocked the blow and pitched him over his hip down the steps of the basement area behind.
The other four paused and circled, bats ready. “That won’t do you any good,” Billy Watson said. “It’s leg- breaking time.”
There was a shot behind them, loud in the frosty air and then another. As they turned, Charlie Salter moved out of the darkness reloading a sawed-off shotgun. “Now drop ’em,” he said. “Unless you want to be jam all over the pavement.”
They did as they were told and stood there waiting for what was to come. Mordecai moved close and looked them over, then he grabbed the nearest one by the hair. “Who are you working for, sonny?”
“I don’t know, mister.”
Mordecai turned him and ran him up against the railings, holding his face just above the spikes. “I said who are you working for?”
The youth cracked instantly. “Jack Harvey. It was just a wages job. It was Billy who pulled us in.”
Billy said, “You bastard. I’ll get you for that.”
Mordecai glanced at Flood, who nodded. The big man said to Billy, “You stay. The rest of you, piss off.”
They turned and ran for it. Billy Watson stood looking at them, his face wild. Salter said, “He needs a good slapping, this one.”
Billy suddenly picked up one of the baseball bats and raised it defensively. “All right, let’s be having you. Harry Flood-big man. No bloody good on your own are you, mate?”
Mordecai took a step forward and Flood said, “No,” and moved in himself. “All right, son.”
Billy swung, Flood swayed to one side, found the right wrist, twisting. Billy cried out and dropped the baseball bat and in the same moment, the American half-turned, striking him hard across the face with his elbow, sending him down on one knee.
Mordecai picked up the baseball bat. “No, he’s got the point, let’s get going,” Flood said.
He lit a cigarette as they went along the street. Mordecai said, “What about Harvey? You going to stitch him up?”
“I’ll think about it,” Flood said, and they moved across to the car park.
Billy Watson got himself together, held onto the railings for a while. It was snowing a little as he turned and limped across the road to the van. As he went round to the driver’s side, Myra Harvey stepped out of the entrance of a narrow alley, holding the collar of her fur coat up around her neck.
“Well that didn’t go too well, did it?”
“Miss Harvey,” he croaked. “I thought you’d gone.”
“After my uncle dropped me off, I got a taxi back. I wanted to see the fun.”
“Here,” he said. “Are you telling me you expected it to go like it did?”
“I’m afraid so, sunshine. My uncle gets it wrong sometimes. Lets his emotions get the better of him. You really think five young punks like you could walk all over Harry Flood?” She opened the driver’s door and pushed him in. “Go on, get over. I’ll drive.”
She climbed behind the wheel, the fur coat opened, and the miniskirt went about as high as it could.
As she switched on, Billy said, “But where are we going?”
“Back to my place. What you need is a nice hot bath, sunshine.” Her left hand squeezed his thigh hard and she drove away.
SEVEN
THE FLIGHT FROM Jersey got into Heathrow Terminal One just after eleven the following morning. It took half an hour for Dillon’s case to come through and he sat smoking and reading the paper while he waited. The war news was good for the coalition forces. A few pilots down in Iraq, but the airstrikes were having a terrible effect.
His case came and he walked through. There was a rush of customers, as several planes had come in at around the same time. Customs didn’t seem to be stopping anyone that morning, not that they’d have found anything on him. His suitcase contained a change of clothes and toilet articles, no more, and there were only a couple of newspapers in the briefcase. He also had two thousand dollars in his wallet, which was in twenty hundred-dollar bills. Nothing wrong with that. He’d destroyed the French passport at the hotel in Jersey. No turning back now. When he went back to France it would be very definitely a different route, and until then the Jersey driving license in the name of Peter Hilton was all the identification he needed.
He took the escalator to the upper concourse and joined the queue at one of the bank counters, changing five hundred dollars for sterling. He repeated the exercise at three other banks, then went downstairs to get a taxi, whistling softly to himself.
He told the driver to drop him at Paddington Station, where he left the suitcase in a locker. He phoned Tania Novikova on the number Makeev had given him, just on the chance she was at home, and got her answering machine. He didn’t bother to leave a message, but went out and hailed a cab and told the driver to take him to Covent Garden.
In his tinted glasses, striped tie and navy blue Burberry trenchcoat he looked thoroughly respectable.
The driver said, “Terrible weather, guv. I reckon we’re going to see some real heavy snow soon.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised.” Dillon’s accent was impeccable public school English.
“You live in London, guv?”
“No, just in town for a few days on business. I’ve been abroad for some time,” Dillon said glibly. “New York. Haven’t been in London for years.”
“A lot of changes. Not like it used to be.”
“So I believe. I was reading the other day that you can’t take a walk up Downing Street anymore.”
“That’s right, guv. Mrs. Thatcher had a new security system installed, gates at the end of the street.”
“Really?” Dillon said. “I’d like to see that.”
“We’ll go that way if you like. I can take you down to Whitehall, then cut back to Covent Garden.”
“Suits me.”
Dillon sat back, lit a cigarette and watched. They moved down Whitehall from Trafalgar Square past Horse Guards with the two Household Cavalrymen on mounted duty, wearing greatcoats against the cold, sabers drawn.
“Must be bleeding cold for the horses,” the cabby said and then added, “Here we are, guv, Downing Street.” He slowed a little. “Can’t stop. If you do, the coppers come up and ask you what you’re doing.”
Dillon looked across at the end of the street. “So those are the famous gates?”
“Thatcher’s folly, some twerps call it, but if you ask me, she was usually right. The bloody IRA have pulled off enough stunts in London during the past few years. I’d shoot the lot of them, I would. If I drop you in Long Acre, will that do, guv?”
“Fine,” Dillon told him and sat back, thinking about those rather magnificent gates at the end of Downing Street.
The taxi pulled into the curb and Dillon gave him a ten-pound note. “Keep it,” he said, turned and walked briskly away along Langley Street. The whole Covent Garden area was as busy as usual, people dressed for the extreme cold, more like Moscow than London. Dillon went with the throng and finally found what he wanted in an alley near Neal’s Yard, a small theatrical shop, the window full of old costume masks and makeup. A bell tinkled when he went in. The man who appeared through a curtain at the rear was about seventy, with snow-white hair and a round, fleshy face.
