a serious head injury. He’s in a coma.’
‘Let’s hope he hangs in there,’ Stilwell said. ‘Anyway, something of a setback for you, your Chungking Covenant going up in flames. What will you do? Try to get Mao to sign another one?’
‘I doubt if I’ll ever get close enough to him again. It was always an “anything is better than nothing” situation. I didn’t really expect much to come out of it. Anyway, in my experience Chinese seldom give you a second bite at the cherry.’
‘I agree,’ Stilwell said. ‘In any case, the wily old bastard is probably already regretting putting his signature to that thing. But what about his supplies?’
‘Oh, we’ll see he gets those because I want him actively on our side taking on the Japanese. The Hong Kong business was never serious, Joe. I thought we ought to get something out of the deal if we could and the Hong Kong thing was all that the Prime Minister and I could come up with. Not that it matters now, we’ve got far more serious things to consider.’ He walked back to the wall map. ‘Now, show me exactly where those Japanese forward units are.’
Norah Bell got out of the taxi close to St James’s Stairs on Wapping High Street. She paid off the cab driver and walked away, a small, hippy, dark-haired girl in leather jacket, tight black mini-skirt and high-heeled ankle boots. She walked well with a sort of total movement of the whole body. The cab driver watched her put up her umbrella against the heavy rain, sighed deeply and drove away.
She paused on the first corner and bought an Evening Standard. The front page was concerned with only one thing, the arrival of the American President in London that day to meet with both the Israeli and British prime ministers to discuss developments in the Palestinian situation. She folded the newspaper, put it under her left arm and turned the corner of the next street, walking down towards the Thames.
The youth standing in a doorway opposite was perhaps eighteen and wore lace-up boots, jeans and shabby bomber jacket. With the ring in his left nostril and the swastika tattooed on his forehead, he was typical of a certain type of gang animal that roamed the city streets in search of prey. She looked easy meat and he went after her quickly, only running in at the last minute to grab her from behind, one hand over her mouth. She didn’t struggle, went completely still, which should have told him something, but by then he was beyond reason, charged with the wrong kind of sexual excitement.
‘Just do as you’re told,’ he said, ‘and I won’t hurt you.’
He urged her into the porch of a long-disused warehouse, pushing against her. She said, ‘No need to be rough.’
To his amazement she kissed him, her tongue flickering in his mouth. He couldn’t believe his luck as, still clutching her umbrella, she moved her other hand down between them, brushing against his hardness.
‘Jesus,’ he moaned and kissed her again, aware that her hand seemed to be easing up her skirt.
She found what she was looking for, the flick knife tucked into the top of her right stocking. It came up, the blade jumped and she sliced open the left side of his face from the corner of the eye to the chin.
He screamed, falling back. She said calmly, putting the point under his chin, ‘Do you want some more?’
He was more afraid than he had ever been in his life. ‘No, for God’s sake, no!’
She wiped the blade on his jacket. ‘Then go away.’
He moved out into the rain, then turned, holding a handkerchief to his face. ‘Bitch! I’ll get you for this.’
‘No you won’t.’ Her accent was unmistakably Ulster Irish. ‘You’ll find the nearest casualty department as fast as you can, get yourself stitched up and put the whole thing down to experience.’
She watched him go, closed the knife, slipping it back in the top of the stocking, then she turned and continued down towards the Thames, moving along the waterfront, finally pausing at an old warehouse. There was a small Judas gate in the main entrance. She opened it and went in.
It was a place of shadows, but at the far end there was a glass office with a light in it. It was reached by a flight of wooden stairs. As she moved towards it, a young, dark-skinned man moved out of the darkness, a Browning Hi-Power in one hand.
‘And who might you be?’ she asked.
The door of the office was opened and a small man with dark tousled hair wearing a reefer jacket appeared. ‘Is that you, Norah?’
‘And who else?’ she replied. ‘Who’s your friend?’
‘Ali Halabi, meet Norah Bell. Come away up.’
‘I’m sorry,’ the Arab said.
She ignored him and went up the stairs; he followed, noting with approval the way her skirt tightened over her hips.
When she went into the office the man in the reefer coat put his hands on her shoulders. ‘God help me, but you look good enough to eat,’ and he kissed her lightly on the lips.
‘Save the blarney.’ She put her umbrella on the desk, opened her handbag and took out a packet of cigarettes. ‘Anything in a skirt, Michael Ahern. I’ve known you too long.’
She put a cigarette in her mouth and the Arab hurriedly took out a lighter and lit it for her. He turned to Ahern. ‘The lady is part of your organization?’
‘Well, I’m not with the bloody IRA,’ she said. ‘We’re Prods, mister, if you know what that means.’
‘Norah and I were in the Ulster Volunteer Force together and then the Red Hand of Ulster,’ Ahern said. ‘Until we had to move on.’
Norah laughed harshly. ‘Until they threw us out. A bunch of old women, that lot. We were killing too many Catholics for their liking.’
‘I see,’ Ali Halabi said. ‘Is it Catholics who are your target or the IRA?’
‘The same difference,’ she said. ‘I’m from Belfast, Mr Halabi. My father was an Army Sergeant, killed in the Falklands War. My mother, my kid sister, my old grandad, all the family I had in the world, were killed in a street bomb planted by the IRA back in eighty-six. You might say I’ve been taking my revenge ever since.’
‘But we are open to offers,’ Ahern said amiably. ‘Any revolutionary organization needs money.’
The Judas gate banged below. Ali took the gun from his pocket and Ahern moved to the door. ‘Is that you, Billy?’
‘As ever was.’
‘Would that be Billy Quigley?’ Norah asked.
‘Who else?’ Ahern turned to Ali. ‘Another one the Red Hand threw out. Billy and I did some time together in the Maze prison.’
Quigley
