Stephen Leather - The Long shot

The last article appeared ten days after the body had been discovered and detailed the arrival in Washington of Ballantine’s sister and how she had flown back to England with the body. There were no further stories, and Joker assumed that the murder had remained on the Washington police’s unsolved list. It hadn’t been hard for Joker to imagine what Manyon had gone through during the hours he’d been tortured. He’d been in the farmhouse in Northern Ireland when Mary Hennessy had gone to work on Mick Newmarch. Joker rubbed his left wrist as he drove. It still bore the scars he’d made trying to wrench himself free from the handcuffs Hennessy had used to secure him to the radiator. Newmarch had told them everything, of course, no amount of training or spirit could withstand the sort of things Hennessy did with her knife. Joker would never forget Newmarch’s screams, nor the look of pleasure, almost rapture, on Mary Hennessy’s face as she’d used the blade.

A horn sounded behind him like the warning cry of some prehistoric monster and Joker realised he’d been drifting across the lanes of the highway. A huge truck roared by, the name of a meat packer on the side, its massive wheels only inches from his door. His knuckles were almost white, so hard had he been gripping the steering wheel, and he could feel sweat dribbling down his back despite the cold air streaming from the air-conditioning.

The newspaper library also had copies of every telephone directory in the United States, and Joker had gone through the ones for the Washington area, writing down the numbers of all the aircraft leasing companies, flying schools and local airlines. There was no home listing for a Patrick Farrell in the Washington City directory so he widened his search to the surrounding areas: Maryland, Laurel, Anne Arundel, Montgomery and the Greater Baltimore area to the north, and Arlington, Fairfax and Prince Georges to the south. He found only one P. Farrell and that was in a town called Laurel, about midway between Washington and Baltimore. In the Montgomery County Yellow Pages he found a Farrell Aviation listed and he’d smiled to himself, unable to believe his luck. If the surname hadn’t been used in the company name he’d have had to call round about three dozen aviation firms. There was a pay phone in the lobby of the Washington Post and he’d used it to call the company. A bored-sounding secretary had told him that there were two Patrick Farrells, father and son, the father owned the company, the son ran it. She’d given Joker directions to a small airfield some twenty miles north-east of Washington.

As he drove to the airfield, Joker wondered if it was the father or the son that Matthew Bailey had contacted. There was no way of knowing. The son would be nearer Bailey’s age, but the father was more likely to have emigrated to the States from Ireland, giving him stronger connections with the IRA. He was going to have to play it by ear.

In the trunk of the rental car was Joker’s suitcase. He’d checked out of the Washington motel that morning and was planning to find a new place closer to Laurel. He had no definite plan as he drove along the Interstate 95, other than to check out the company and maybe sit outside for a while, on the off-chance that Bailey visited. He’d used the Visa card to buy a pair of powerful binoculars and they were in a plastic carrier-bag on the back seat.

The airfield was difficult to find — there were no signposts and eventually Joker had to ask for directions at a filling station. It was surrounded by trees so Joker didn’t see it until he was virtually on top of it. It turned out to be little more than a grass strip with a few hangars and a single-storey brick building on which there was a sign which said Farrell Aviation and a logo of a green propeller with a hawk above it. A line of small planes faced the grass landing strip, many of them with covers over their cowlings as if they didn’t get flown much. The asphalt road Joker was on wound through the trees and curved behind the hangars before widening out into a large area in front of the Farrell Aviation building where several cars were parked. Joker slowed his car down and pulled up in front of a hangar which had a large ‘For Rent’ sign on the door with the telephone number of a Baltimore real estate company. A bearded man in blue overalls appeared from the neighbouring hangar, wiping his hands on a rag. He stood looking at Joker for a second or two and then walked over. Joker got out of his car and stood looking up at the hangar.

“You interested?” the man said. His voice was laconic, almost sleepy, but his eyes were sharp and alert.

“Could be,” answered Joker, “but not for me, my brother-in-law services small planes, he’s looking for a base near Baltimore.”

“You’re English, right?” said the man.

Joker nodded. “Yeah, my sister married a guy from Boston. You get much business here?”

The man shrugged. “Not really, not what you’d call passing trade. There’s no Flight Service Station here, and no fuel. You have to pull your own business in, pretty much. What sort of work does your brother-in-law do?”

“Small planes, Cessnas mostly. He buys up wrecks, does them up and sells them. There’s always a market for 152s and 172s.”

“Oh sure,” the man agreed.

“You run your own business?” Joker asked.

“Yeah, routine servicing mainly. I have my regulars and there’s a small flying club based here. We used to have a flying school but they closed.”

“What about Farrell? They do okay?”

The man nodded. “Leasing, mainly. They own most of the hangars here. They do an eye-in-the-sky service for a few radio stations — you know, watching the traffic jams, stuff like that. And they do some film and television work. They do okay.”

“Farrell? That’s an Irish name, right?”

“Pat’s Irish all right,” said the man. “He’s even painted green stripes on most of his planes.”

Joker took a pen from his jacket pocket and wrote down the name of the company handling the leasing of the empty hangar. “I’ll pass this on to my brother-in-law,” he said. “Thanks for your time.”

“Sure, hope you decide to move in. It’d be good to have fresh faces around.”

The man walked back to his hangar while Joker climbed back into his car. He drove slowly down the road and through the trees. There were many other things he wanted to ask the man, but he knew that he would be pushing his luck if he’d prolonged the conversation — it wouldn’t take much to set alarm bells ringing over at the Farrell building.

A few hundred yards before the asphalt road joined the main highway, Joker saw a track which wound into the trees and he stopped for a closer look. It appeared to be overgrown and hadn’t been used in a while. There was no-one around so he turned off the road and drove cautiously down the track. When he was sure he was far enough away from the road so that he couldn’t be seen, he stopped the car. He took his binoculars from the back seat and his bottle of whisky from the trunk, and walked through the trees. He walked for half a mile or so until he reached a spot where he could see the front of the Farrell building in the distance, but remain well hidden from the airfield. He dropped down next to a wide chestnut tree and sat with his back propped up against it. His view was restricted by the trees between him and the airfield but he could see the cars parked in front of the building, and the main entrance. He focused the binoculars on the car number plates and found that he could read them easily, so he knew he’d have no problem seeing the face of anyone who went into or came out of the building. He uncapped the whisky bottle and drank deeply. He might be in for a long wait, but he had nowhere else to go.