Drink With The Devil

“And where would they be?”

“The three at the end of the bar. They’re no more seamen than my arse.”

“So what are they up to?”

“God knows.”

“Then I’ll get out of it.” Dillon swallowed his Bushmills. “I’ll say goodnight to you.”

The two old women were leaving and Dillon followed them along the wharf aware of a police van parked in a courtyard to the left, a police car across the road.

“A trifle conspicuous,” he said softly, reached Wapping High Street, and doubled back. He found what he wanted, another disused warehouse, carefully negotiated stairs leading to the first floor, and crouched on one of the old loading platforms beneath a crane. He had a perfect view of the river, the wharf, and the Dark Man. He took out his infrared night glasses, focused them, and the River Queen came into view.

AS THE RIVER QUEEN docked all hell broke loose. The police van and car that Dillon had noticed earlier drove onto the wharf and at the same time two River Police patrol boats moved out of the shadows where they had been waiting and pulled alongside. As uniformed police came over the rail, they found Hall and Baxter tying up. Salter and Billy came out of the saloon and looked up at the half dozen policemen on the wharf. The line parted and a tall man in his fifties in the uniform of a Superintendent came forward.

“Why it’s Superintendent Brown, our old friend, Billy,” Salter said. “And how are you, Tony?”

Brown smiled. “Permission to come aboard, Harry,” and he climbed down followed by the other police officers.

“So what’s all this?” Salter demanded.

“Well, Harry, I know there wouldn’t be anything in the pub. You’re too smart for that and we’ve turned you over often enough. However, I’ve reason to believe you’re carrying an illegal shipment of diamonds on this vessel to the amount of two hundred thousand pounds. Very silly, Harry, to slip like that after all these years.” Brown turned to the sergeant at his elbow. “Read him his rights, and the rest of you, start looking.”

“Diamonds on the River Queen.” Salter laughed out loud. “Tony, my old son, you really have got it wrong this time.”

IT WAS ALMOST ONE o’clock in the morning when they finished. Salter and his crew were sitting at the table in the saloon playing gin rummy when the Superintendent looked in.

“A word, Harry.”

The police had finished their fruitless task and were getting into the van. The two patrol boats started up and moved away. It was raining now and Salter and Brown stood under the canopy on deck.

“So what gives?” Salter asked.

“Harry, I don’t know what happened tonight, but I had what seemed like the hottest tip in my life.”

“Well, whoever your snout was, I hope you didn’t pay the bastard.”

Brown shook his head. “You’re getting old, Harry, too old to do ten years in Parkhurst. Think about it.”

“I will, Tony.”

Brown clambered up onto the wharf and turned. “We’ve known each other a long time, Harry, so I’ll do you a favor. I’d be very careful in future about the Dutch end of things.” He got in the police car beside his driver and they moved away.

“Jesus,” Billy said. “We could all have gone down the steps for a long time. That bastard back there when he took the stones, what was it he said? That he’d done you a good turn.”

“That’s right, quite a coincidence,” Salter said. “Only I don’t believe in them. Anyway, let’s go up to the pub and get a drink.”

DILLON WAITED UNTIL all was quiet, then went back down the stairs of the old warehouse and walked to the pub. There was a light on in the saloon, and when he looked in he saw Salter sitting on a stool at the end of the bar. Billy, sticking plaster on his face, sat drinking at one of the tables with Baxter and Hall. Dillon moved on, turned up the side alley, and looked in the kitchen. The barmaid was drinking a cup of tea and reading a newspaper.

He opened the kitchen door. She looked up in alarm. “I see the peelers have gone,” Dillon said.

“Christ, who are you?”

“Old friend of Harry’s. If he’s as bright as I think he is he might even be expecting me. I’ll go through to the bar.”

HARRY SALTER DRANK his Scotch and waited, looking at his reflection in the old Victorian mirror behind the bar. A small wind touched his cheek as the door opened, there was a sliding sound as the yellow oilskin bag slid along the bar and stopped in front of him.

“There you go,” Dillon said.

The other three stopped talking and Salter lifted the bag in one hand, then turned to look at Dillon standing there at the end of the bar in his old reefer coat. Dillon took out a cigarette and lit it, and Salter, a crook from the age of fifteen, knew trouble when he saw it.

“And what’s your game, my old son?” he asked.

“It’s him,” Billy cried. “The fucking bastard.”

“Leave off, Billy,” Salter told him.

“After what he did? Look at my bleeding face.” Billy picked up the Lager bottle in front of him, smashed it on the edge of the table, and hurled himself at Dillon, the broken bottle extended. Dillon swayed to one side, caught the wrist, and hammered Billy’s arm against the bar so that he howled with pain and dropped the bottle. Dillon held him face-down on the bar, Billy’s arm tight as an iron bar.

“God, Mr. Salter, but he never learns, this nephew of yours.”

“Don’t be a silly boy, Billy,” Salter said. “If he hadn’t nicked the stones down river we’d be booking in at Tower Bridge Division Police Station with the prospect of going down the steps for ten years. All I want to know is the reason for all this.” He smiled at Dillon. “You’ve got a name, my old son?”

“Dillon – Sean Dillon.”

Salter went behind the bar and Dillon released Billy, who stood there massaging his arm, then went and sat down with Baxter and Hall, his face sullen.

Salter said, “You’re no copper, I can smell one of those a mile off.”

“God save us,” Dillon said, “I’ve had enough trouble with those bowsers to last me a lifetime. Let’s put it this way, Mr. Salter. I work for one of those Government organizations that isn’t supposed to exist.”

Salter stood there looking at him for a long moment, then said, “What’s your pleasure?”

“Bushmills whiskey if you don’t have Krug champagne.”

Salter laughed out loud. “I like it, I really do. Bushmills I can manage right now. Krug I’ll supply next time.” He took a bottle down from the shelf and poured a generous measure. “So what’s it about?”

“Cheers.” Dillon toasted him. “Well, the thing is I wanted to meet the greatest expert on the Thames River, and when I accessed the police computer it turned out to be you. The trouble was that no sooner did I find you than I discovered I was going to lose you. Someone I work with, very big at Special Branch, found out the River Police were going to stiff you.”

“Very inconvenient,” Salter said.

“Well, it would have been, so I decided to do something about it.” Dillon smiled. “The rest you know.”

Salter poured himself another drink. “You want something from me, that’s it, isn’t it? Some sort of kickback?”

“Your expertise, Mr. Salter, your knowledge of the river.”

“What for?”

“You may have read in the papers that the President of the United States and the Prime Minister are to meet on the Terrace at the House of Commons on Friday morning.”

“So what?”

“I think the security stinks and I have to prove it, so sometime after midnight on Friday morning I want you to help me float in to the Terrace. I’ll hide out in one of the storerooms behind the Terrace Bar and give them a nice