style="font-size:15px;"> ‘I’ll do the same here,’ Hernu said. ‘After all, he has to leave the country sometime. We’ll alert all airports and ferries. The usual thing, but discreetly, of course.’
They got up and Brosnan said, ‘You’re wasting your time. You won’t get him, not in any usual way. You don’t even know what you’re looking for.’
‘Perhaps, Martin,’ Ferguson said. ‘But we’ll just have to do our best, won’t we?’
Mary Tanner followed them to the door. ‘Look, if you don’t need me, Brigadier, I’d like to stay.’
‘Of course, my dear. I’ll see you later.’
She went to the counter and got two cups of tea. ‘The French are wonderful,’ she said. ‘They always think we’re crazy to want milk in our tea.’
‘Takes all sorts,’ he said and offered her a cigarette. ‘Ferguson told me how you got that scar.’
‘Souvenir of old Ireland,’ she shrugged.
He was desperately trying to think of something to say. ‘What about your family? Do they live in London?’
‘My father was a Professor of Surgery at Oxford. He died some time ago. Cancer. My mother’s still alive. Has an estate in Herefordshire.’
‘Brothers and sisters?’
‘I had one brother. Ten years older than me. He was shot dead in Belfast in nineteen-eighty. Sniper got him from the Divis Flats. He was a Marine Commando captain.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘A long time ago.’
‘It can’t make you particularly well disposed towards a man like me.’
‘Ferguson explained to me how you became involved with the IRA after Viet Nam.’
‘Just another bloody Yank sticking his nose in, is that what you think?’ he sighed. ‘It seemed the right thing to do at the time, it really did and don’t let’s pretend. I was up to my neck in it for five long and bloody years.’
‘And how do you see it now?’
‘Ireland?’ he laughed harshly. ‘The way I feel I’d see it sink into the sea with pleasure.’ He got up. ‘Come on, let’s stretch our legs,’ and he led the way out.
Dillon was in the kitchen in the barge heating the kettle when the phone rang. Makeev said, ‘She’s in the Hôpital St-Louis. We’ve had to be discreet in our enquiries, but from what my informant can ascertain, she’s on the critical list.’
‘Sod it,’ Dillon said. ‘If only she’d kept her hands to herself.’
‘This could cause a devil of a fuss. I’d better come and see you.’
‘I’ll be here.’
Dillon poured hot water into a basin then he went into the bathroom. First he took off his shirt, then he got a briefcase from the cupboard under the sink. It was exactly as Brosnan had forecast. Inside he had a range of passports, all of himself suitably disguised. There was also a first-class make-up kit.
Over the years he had travelled backwards and forwards to England many times, frequently through Jersey in the Channel Islands. Jersey was British soil. Once there, a British citizen didn’t need a passport for the flight to the English mainland. So, a French tourist holidaying in Jersey. He selected a passport in the name of Henri Jacaud, a car salesman from Rennes.
To go with it, he found a Jersey driving licence in the name of Peter Hilton with an address in the Island’s main town of St Helier. Jersey driving licences, unlike the usual British mainland variety, carry a photo. It was always useful to have positive identification on you, he’d learned that years ago. Nothing better than for people to be able to check the face with a photo and the photos on the driving licence and on the French passport were identical. That was the whole point.
He dissolved some black hair dye into the warm water and started to brush it into his fair hair. Amazing what a difference it made, just changing the hair colour. He blow-dried it and brilliantined it back in place, then he selected from a range in his case, a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles, slightly tinted. He closed his eyes, thinking about the role and when he opened them again, Henri Jacaud stared out of the mirror. It was quite extraordinary. He closed the case, put it back in the cupboard, pulled on his shirt and went into the stateroom carrying the passport and the driving licence.
At that precise moment Makeev came down the companionway. ‘Good God!’ he said. ‘For a moment I thought it was someone else.’
‘But it is,’ Dillon said. ‘Henri Jacaud, car salesman from Rennes on his way to Jersey for a winter break. Hydrofoil from St Malo.’ He held up the driving licence. ‘Who is also Jersey resident Peter Hilton, accountant in St Helier.’
‘You don’t need a passport to get to London?’
‘Not if you’re a Jersey resident, it’s British territory. The driving licence just puts a face to me. Always makes people feel happier. Makes them feel they know who you are, even the police.’
‘What happened tonight, Sean? What really happened?’
‘I decided the time had come to take care of Brosnan. Come on, Josef, he knows me too damned well. Knows me in a way no one else does and that could be dangerous.’
‘I can see that. A clever one, the Professor.’
‘There’s more to it than that, Josef. He understands how I make my moves, how I think. He’s the same kind of animal as I am. We inhabited the same world and people don’t change. No matter how much he thinks he has he’s still the same underneath, the same man who was the most feared enforcer the IRA had in the old days.’
‘So you decided to eliminate him?’
‘It was an impulse. I was passing his place, saw the woman leaving. He called to her. The way it sounded I thought she was gone for the night so I took a chance and went up the scaffolding.’
‘What happened?’
‘Oh, I had the drop on him.’
‘But didn’t kill him?’
Dillon laughed, went out to the kitchen and returned with a bottle of Krug and two glasses. As he uncorked it he said, ‘Come on, Josef, face to face after all those years. There were things to be said.’
‘You didn’t tell him who you were working for?’
‘Of course not,’ Dillon lied cheerfully and poured the champagne. ‘What do you take me for?’
He toasted Makeev who said, ‘I mean, if he knew you had an alternative target, that you intended to go for Major …’ He shrugged. ‘That would mean that Ferguson would know. It would render your task in London impossible. Aroun, I’m sure, would want to abort the whole business.’
‘Well he doesn’t know.’ Dillon drank some more champagne. ‘So Aroun can rest easy. After all, I want that
