Jack Higgins - Rough Justice

To that, there was no answer. ‘I see, sir.’

‘If you call round to Wapping this afternoon with the documents in your file, there’s an old boy called Frobisher who’ll go through them with you. All the necessary work’s been done. You just pretend at the hospice and look busy. Sister Maria Brosnan expects you Monday.’

‘What about my identity?’

‘It’s all in the file, Harry, courtesy of the forgery department of MI6.’

‘And weaponry?’

‘I’m afraid you’re expecting too much there. After all, you’re a travelling civilian heading into the war zone. There’s no way you could go armed.’

‘I see, sir, it’s we-who-are-about-to-die-salute-you time.’ It was a statement, not a question, and Miller carried on, ‘What you really want aren’t the Stingers on that boat. This is all about Kelly, the publican of the Sailor who has fallen out of favour with the Provos, and this Liam Ryan who you say is a psychopath.’

‘Two years ago, he formed a breakaway group, no more than a dozen people, calling it the Irish Liberation Movement. Wholesale butchery, torture, kidnap – his favourite pastime is removing his victim’s fingers with bolt cutters. Bad news for the Republican movement as a whole. The word is the Provos put their best enforcer on the case. Eight of Ryan’s people are known to have been executed for certain, but perhaps more.’

‘But not Ryan?’

‘A will-o’-the-wisp with all the cunning of a beast. He’s one of the few big players who’s never been arrested, so there aren’t prison photos. He’s always avoided cameras like the plague, a bit like Michael Collins in the old days, but we have one anyway.’

‘How is that, sir?’

‘He took out an Irish passport five years ago under a false name. There’s a copy of the passport photo in the file.’

Miller had a look at it. The face was very ordinary, cheeks hollow, the whole thing desperately stilted, the face of some little man for whom life had always been a disappointment. Miller replaced it.

‘Thanks very much, sir. Would you have told me all this if I hadn’t asked?’

‘It’s the name of the game.’ Glover shrugged. ‘I’d get on with it if I were you.’ He patted the file. ‘I’ll put the word out that you’re off on a spot of leave.’

The office was empty when Miller went in, so he sat at the desk and checked out the contents of the file. There was a passport in the name of Mark Blunt, aged twenty-four, a surveyor by profession, a London address in Highbury. He’d been to Italy once, France twice and Holland on a day trip from Harwich. The photo had the usual hunted look and made him look thinner.

He worked his way through the survey reports referring to various parts of the Priory in Belfast. It was all laid out simply and made perfect sense. There was also a Belfast street map, some photos of the Priory and the docks.

So far so good. He put the file in his briefcase and pulled on his raincoat, tense and slightly worked up. The door opened and Alice Tilsey came in.

‘You clever bastard,’ she said. ‘Off on leave, are we? How in the hell did you work that?’

‘For God’s sake, Alice,’ he said. ‘After a year in the Corps, I’d have thought you’d have learned when to keep your mouth shut and mind your own business.’

A look of total contrition and horror spread over her face. ‘Oh, my God, Harry, you’re going in-country, aren’t you? I’m so bloody sorry.’

‘So am I, actually,’ he said and left.

Mr Frobisher at St Mary’s Hospice in Wapping was obviously in his early seventies and looked it. Even his office seemed like something out of Dickens. He stood at a drawing table and went through documents with Harry, in the kind of faded voice that seemed to come from another time and place.

‘I produced these plans after a visit to Belfast a year ago. I thought we’d never be able to attempt the necessary work, but Monsignor Baxter’s explained that everything’s changed. We have money now. You aren’t a trained surveyor, of course. He told me he was sending you for what he termed a layman’s opinion.’

‘I’m that, all right,’ Miller said.

‘Yes, well, it’s all detailed very clearly. The cellars extend along the whole waterfront, and in places there is flooding. It’s the docks, you see.’

‘Thanks for the warning.’

‘You’re an ordinand, I understand. Monsignor Baxter said you might enter the priesthood.’

‘Perhaps,’ Miller told him. ‘I’m not certain.’

‘Belfast was not good during my visit. Bombs at night, some shooting. A godless place these days.’

‘The world we live in,’ Miller said piously.

‘I would warn you of the pub next door to the Priory, the Sailor. I had luncheon there on occasion, but didn’t like it. The people who frequented it were very offensive when they heard my English accent, particularly the landlord, an absolute lout called Kelly.’

‘I’ll remember that.’

‘Take care,’ Frobisher said, ‘and give my regards to Sister Maria Brosnan, the Mother Superior. She comes from Kerry in the Republic, a beautiful county.’

Miller left him and walked up to Wapping High Street. He happened to pass a barber’s shop, and on impulse went in and had his hair cut quite short. It emphasized his gauntness, so that he resembled the man in the passport photo more than ever.

His Savile Row suit was totally out of place, so he searched and found a downmarket men’s outfitters where he bought a single-breasted black suit, three cheap shirts and a black tie. He also invested in a shabby fawn raincoat, much to the surprise of the salesman he dealt with, as he’d gone in wearing a Burberry. Spectacles were not possible, because they would have had to be clear glass, a giveaway in the wrong situation.

He walked on, reaching the Tower of London, adjusting to thoughts of his new persona: someone of no importance, the sort of downtrodden individual who sat in the corner of some musty office, not to be taken seriously at all. Finally, he hailed a taxi and told the driver to take him to Dover Street.

When he arrived, opening the front door, Monica appeared from the kitchen at the end of the hall. ‘Guess who?’

He dropped his bags. ‘Why aren’t you at Cambridge?’

‘I decided, purely on impulse, to spend a weekend with my dear old Dad and my loving brother.’ She kissed him and pushed the bag containing the clothes with her foot. ‘What have you been buying, anything interesting?’

‘No, nothing special.’ He put the bag in the cloakroom and took off his decent trench coat. ‘Regarding the weekend, I’m afraid I’m only good for tonight. I’ll be going north on the train tomorrow.’

‘Oh, dear, where?’

‘Catterick Camp, Paratroop headquarters.’ The lies came smoothly, the deceit. He was surprised how easy it was . ‘A week at least, perhaps more. I report Sunday morning.’

She was disappointed and it showed. ‘I’ll just have to hope that Dad’s not doing anything. Come on into the kitchen. I’ll make you a cup of tea.’

There is an old saying that in Belfast it rains five days out of seven and it certainly was raining on the following Monday morning when Miller went down the gangway of the overnight boat from Glasgow. He carried a canvas holdall which contained his file and the barest of necessities: pyjamas, underwear, a spare shirt and a small folding umbrella. He raised it and proceeded along the quay, in the cheap raincoat and suit, making exactly the impression he had wanted. Having examined the streetmap thoroughly, he knew where he was going and found St Mary’s Priory with no difficulty at all.

It looked out over the harbour as it had done since the late nineteenth century, he knew that from the documents in his file and because that was the period when Catholics were allowed to build churches again. It had a medieval look to it, but that was fake, and rose three stories high, with narrow stained-glass windows, some of them broken and badly repaired. It had the look of some kind of church, which the pub down the street from it didn’t. A sign swung with the breeze, a painting of a sailor from a bygone age on it wearing a faded yellow oilskin and sou’wester. A long window was etched in acid Kelly’s Select Bar . In spite of the early hour, two customers emerged, talking loudly and drunkenly, and one of them turned and urinated against the wall. It was enough, and Miller crossed the road.