chauffeur. Continued to live at the same address through all the years.’
‘Wife—family?’
‘No evidence of a marriage.’
‘It sounds like a bad play if you ask me,’ Tony said. ‘The old woman, widowed all those years, and the son, a right cosy couple, just like Norman Bates and his mum in the movie.’
‘Could be.’ Roper’s fingers moved over the keys again. ‘So, he’s been in the private-hire business for twelve years. On the Ministry’s approved list for the last six. Owned a first-class Amara limousine, approved by the Cabinet Office at Grade A level.’
‘Which explains somebody as important as the general getting him.’
‘And yet it just doesn’t add up. How long have you been in the military police, Tony?’
‘Seventeen years, you know that.’
‘Well, you don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes—what’s the most interesting thing here?’
‘Yes, tell us, Sergeant.’ They both glanced round and found Ferguson leaning in the doorway.
‘Aside from the cards, the nature of the targets,’ Doyle said. ‘Blake Johnson, Major Miller and you, General—you’ve all worked together on some very rough cases in the past.’
‘I agree, which means, Major,’ Ferguson said to Roper, ‘we need to take a look at the various matters we’ve been involved in recently.’
‘As you say, General. I’m still intrigued by the religious element in the prayer cards, though, and the IRA connection.’
His fingers moved over the keys again. The borough of Kilburn appeared on the screen, drifted into an enlargement. ‘There we are, Green Street,’ Roper said. ‘And the nearest Roman Catholic church would appear to be Holy Name, only three streets away, the priest in charge, Monsignor James Murphy. I think we should pay him a visit. It might be rewarding.’
‘In what way?’ said Ferguson.
‘Pool would have been a parishioner at this Holy Name place. The priest might be able to tell us where he comes into it.’
‘All right, go talk to him, but you know what Catholic priests are like. Seal of the confessional and all that stuff. He’ll never tell you anything.’
‘True,’ Roper said, ‘but he might talk to a fellow Irishman.’
‘Dillon? Yes, as I recall, he lived in Kilburn for a while in his youth, didn’t he? Have you spoken to him about what you just found out about Pool?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Well, get on with it, for heaven’s sake.’ Ferguson turned to Doyle. ‘Lead on to the kitchen, Sergeant. I need a pot of coffee, very hot and very strong.’
‘As you say, General.’
They went out and Roper sat there thinking about it, then called Dillon, who answered at once.’Any progress to report?’
‘I’m afraid you’ve got enemy action,’ Roper said. ‘Ferguson found a prayer card in the driver Pool’s wallet.’
Dillon reached over and shook Miller awake. ‘You’d better listen to this.’
Miller came awake instantly and listened to the call on speaker. ‘Can you explain anything more? I mean, the driver and so on.’
Roper went straight into Henry Pool, his background, the facts as known. When he was finished, Dillon said, ‘This notion you have about seeing the priest at Holy Name, I’ll handle that. I agree it could be useful.’
‘On the other hand, Pool was only half-Irish, through his mother.’
‘They’re sometimes the worst. De Valera had a Spanish father, and was born in New York, but his Irish mother was the making of him. We’ll be seeing you around breakfast time. We’d better have words with Blake, I promised to call him back.’
He switched off and Miller said, ‘Sean, you were a top enforcer with the IRA and you never got your collar felt once. Do you really think this is some kind of IRA hit?’
‘Not really. Most men of influence in the Provisional IRA are now serving in government and the community in one way or the other. Of course, there are splinter groups still in existence—that bunch called the Real IRA, and rumours that the Irish National Liberation Army still waits.’
‘INLA,’ Miller said. ‘The ones who probably killed Mountbatten and certainly assassinated Airey Neave coming out of the underground car park in the House of Commons.’
‘True,’ Dillon said, ‘and they were the great ones for using sleepers. Middle-class professional men, sometimes university-educated, accountants, lawyers, even doctors. People think there’s something new in the fact that Islamic terror is able to recruit from the professions, but the IRA was there long before them.’
‘Do you believe IRA sleepers still exist?’ Miller asked.
‘I guess we can’t take the chance they don’t. I’m going to call Clancy.’
Clancy said, ‘This really raises the game,’ once they reached him. ‘I’m sitting at Blake’s bedside now. I’ll let you talk to him, but don’t talk too long. By the way, we’ve established that Flynn’s American passport was a first-class forgery.’
Blake said, ‘That you, Sean?’
‘It sure is, old stick,’ Dillon said.
‘Clancy filled me in about Miller and me and some sort of possible IRA link with these prayer cards.’
‘And we’ve now discovered the same card in Ferguson’s driver’s wallet, and I hear the guy who tried to waste you, Flynn, had a false American passport.’
Blake laughed weakly. ‘I’ll tell you something funny about him, Sean. When I had him covered and told him to give up, he didn’t say, “Fuck you.” He said, “Fug you.” I only ever heard that when I was in Northern Ireland.’
‘Which shows you what gentlemen we are over there. Take care, ould son and sleep well.’ Dillon switched off and turned to Miller. ‘You heard all that, so there we are.’
Miller glanced at his watch. ‘Two hours to go. I’ll try to get some sleep.’ He closed his eyes and turned his head against the pillow behind him, reaching to switch off the light.
Dillon simply sat there staring into the shadows, the verse from the prayer card repeating endlessly in his brain, remembering a nineteen-year-old actor who had walked out of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art to accept an offer to work with the National Theatre, and the night when the local priest in Kilburn called to break the news to him that his father, on a visit to Belfast, had been caught in a firefight between PIRA activists and British troops and killed.
‘A casualty of war, Sean,’ Father James Murphy of the church named Holy Name had said. ‘You must say your prayers, not only the Hail Mary, but this special one on the prayer card I give you now. It is a comfort
