‘A man after my own heart,’ Roper told him, and called to Ruby, ‘Another here, love, for Major Miller, and a repeat for me.’
Billy said to Ferguson, ‘So what’s Dillon doing at Kingsmere? I know he speaks Russian, but Levin, Greta and Chomsky are the real thing.’
‘Maybe they’re supposed to be encouraged by how well Dillon copes with the language,’ Roper said. ‘After all, he is still a Belfast boy at heart.’
‘Anyway, Simon Carter sanctioned it, and I wasn’t about to argue it,’ Ferguson said.
Miller surprised them all by saying, ‘You have to understand his logic. All Irish are bogtrotters, with faces like dogs and broken boots. By displaying Dillon with his Russian ability, his argument probably runs something like: If this animal can do it, so can you.’
‘Jesus, Major, that’s really putting the boot in old Carter.’
‘Who isn’t popular in our society,’ Roper told him. ‘And he loathes Dillon.’
‘Why, particularly?’
‘It goes a long way back, to when John Major was PM. Major was hosting an affair on the terrace of the House of Commons for President Clinton, and Simon Carter was responsible for security. Dillon told Carter the security was crap, and he laid a bet that no matter what Carter did, sometime during the affair he would appear on the terrace, dressed as a waiter, and serve the two great men canapés.’
‘And did he?’
It was Ferguson who said, ‘Yes. He got in from the river. Harry and Billy dropped him off overnight in a wet suit.’
‘Me being the biggest expert in London on the Thames,’ Harry said modestly. ‘You’ve got to get the tide just right, and the current can be a killer.’
‘President Clinton was very amused,’ Ferguson said.
‘But Simon Carter wasn’t.’ That was Miller.
‘No,’ Roper laughed. ‘Hates him beyond reason, perhaps because Dillon is what Carter can never be.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘Carter is the ultimate desk man,’ Ferguson put in. ‘He’s never been in the field in his life. Sean is someone quite beyond his understanding. He will kill at the drop of a hat if he thinks it’s necessary.’
‘And on the other side of his coin, he has an enormous flair for languages; a scholar and poet by inclination,’ Harry said. ‘Plays great piano, if you like Cole Porter, and flies a plane.’
‘And don’t forget, a bloody good actor in his day,’ Roper said. ‘A student at RADA, even performed with the National Theatre.’
‘And gave it all up, as he once said to me,’ Ferguson put in, ‘for the theatre of the street.’
Miller nodded, a strange alertness there. ‘Is that what he said?’
‘I remember it well. We have what you might call a special relationship. At a stage when he was no longer with the IRA, I was responsible for him ending up in the hands of Serbs and facing the possibility of a firing squad.’
‘And what was the alternative?’
‘A little judicious blackmail led him to work for me.’ Ferguson shrugged. ‘It’s the name of the game, but then no one knows that better than you.’
Miller smiled. ‘If you say so. I look forward to meeting him.’
‘He’s often found at the Holland Park safe house. You’re welcome there any time.’
‘I look forward to it.’
Harry Salter interrupted, ‘That’s enough chat. We’ve got some of the best pub grub in London here, so let’s get started.’
Later in the afternoon, Miller looked in at Dover Street and found his wife preparing for the evening performance. She was in the kitchen in a terrycloth robe, her hair up, preparing cucumber sandwiches, her personal fetish and absolute good-luck charm before every performance. He stole one and she admonished him.
‘Don’t you dare.’ The kettle boiled and she made green tea. ‘I’m going for my bath after this. Are you looking in on the show tonight? You don’t need to, I don’t expect you to be there every night, Harry. And anyway, I’m having a drink with the cast afterwards.’
‘I should check in at Westminster. There’s a foreign policy debate and I do have things to do. The PM’s asked me to interest myself in General Charles Ferguson’s security unit, just as an adviser.’
‘Oh, I didn’t tell you! I came home on the tube last night, and something truly strange happened.’
‘What was it?’
‘It was reasonably busy, quite a few people, and this man got on, a real thug and horribly drunk. He started working his way along, leering at women and putting his arm about one or two of the young ones. Of course, everybody, including the men, buried themselves in books and newspapers, or looked the other way.’
Miller felt anger stirring inside. ‘Did he bother you?’
‘I think he was going to, because he looked at me and started forward, but then he was distracted by a terribly young girl, and he went over and put his arm round her, and she was crying and struggling.’
‘What happened?’
‘There was a young black man who’d been reading an Evening Standard. He wore a raincoat over a very nice suit, gold-rimmed glasses. He looked like an office worker. He suddenly sort of rolled up the newspaper, then doubled it. He got up, holding it in his right hand and tapped the drunk on the shoulder. He said: Excuse me, she doesn’t like you. And you’ve no idea what happened next.’
‘Yes, I have. When you do that with a newspaper, it becomes brick-hard, like a weapon. I should imagine he rammed it up under the drunk’s chin.’
She was amazed. ‘How on earth did you know that? He went down like a stone and lay there vomiting. The train came into the station a few minutes later and we all got off and left him.’
‘And the young man?’
‘He smiled at me, Harry, and said, I’ve already seen Private Lives, Miss Hunt, you were wonderful. Sorry about what just happened. What terrible times we live in. And then he just walked off and disappeared up the escalator. But how did you know about the newspaper trick?’
He shrugged. ‘Someone told me once. Have a great performance, darling.’ And he went out the door. Olivia’s eyes followed him as he left.
At Westminster, he parked the Mini in the underground car park, walked up to his office and found far more paperwork than he had expected. Two hours flew by, then he went into the Chamber and took his usual seat on the end of one of the aisles. The debate concerned the secondment of British troops to Darfur to back up the United Nations force. It was difficult, with Afghanistan still a drain on military forces. As usual at that time in the evening,
