Drink With the Devil (23 page)

“This nice Jewish girl shot dead Norah Bell,” Dillon said.

Devlin stopped smiling. “Jesus, big for the Protestant cause, that one.”

“And I killed the boyfriend, Ahern,” Dillon said. “They were in London to knock off the American President.”

Hannah looked strained and Devlin put a hand on hers. “It is not on you, any of it, girl, it’s the world we live in. Now, a Bushmills whiskey to put me to sleep and we’ll go home.”

He shouted the order across to the barman, turned back with a smile, then suddenly frowned. “I’ve had a thought.”

“And what would that be?” Dillon asked.

“They’ve got to go looking for the site of the
Irish Rose
.”

“That’s right. Somewhere off the Down coast. We landed in the general area of Drumdonald and Scotstown.”

“I’m not thinking of that. I’m thinking they have to go looking, which means chartering a boat, but more than that, wouldn’t they need diving equipment?”

Dillon nodded. “Of course.”

“And you, they tell me, are an expert in that field these days.”

“I’ve done my share. What are you getting at?”

“Well, they’ve got to get that equipment from somewhere, and Dublin isn’t exactly saturated with firms in that line of business.”

“No, it wouldn’t be,” Dillon said.

“What if I told you there’s a firm called Seahorse Supplies on the edge of Dublin that’s owned by an old IRA hand called Tony Bradley? Served under Jack Barry, did five years in Portlaoise Prison. Now if you were Jack Barry and you needed diving equipment, where would you go?”

“Seahorse Supplies,” Hannah Bernstein said.

Devlin smiled and raised his glass in a toast. “Exactly, which is where we’ll go first thing in the morning. Everything comes to he who waits.”

I
T WAS EIGHT-THIRTY
the following morning when Tony Bradley turned his Land Rover into the car park outside the Seahorse Supplies warehouse. The staff didn’t clock on until nine, but he always liked to get there early. There were a number of vehicles parked already to do with other businesses nearby. He walked through them and paused to get out his keys. There was a small Judas gate in the great sliding doors for easy access. He unlocked it and there was a step behind him.

“Good man yourself, Tony.”

Bradley turned and found the three of them behind him, but it was Devlin he recognized immediately. “Dear God, Liam Devlin.”

“And another old friend. Surely you haven’t forgotten Sean Dillon.”

Bradley knew fear then of the kind that made his stomach contract. This had to be heavy, he knew that. “Sean, it’s been a long time.”

He glanced at Hannah nervously. “And who might you be?”

“She’s with us, that’s who she is, so in you go,” Dillon told him and pushed him in through the Judas gate.

Bradley was very frightened now. “I’ve done nothing. What is this?”

“Sit.” Dillon pushed him down on a packing case.

“A question or two, then we’ll let you go,” Devlin said. “You had Jack Barry here.”

He deliberately made it a statement of fact and it worked. “That’s right,” Bradley said eagerly. “Yesterday afternoon.”

“Buying diving equipment?”

“Yes, he was here with an American, a Mr. Sollazo. He was the expert. Hired a load of diving gear. I thought it was something to do with the Organization with it being Jack.”

“I’m afraid not,” Devlin told him. “Jack’s been a bit naughty. Up to no good, you might say. Colum O’Brien and the Army Council would not be best pleased.”

“My God,” Bradley said, “and how was I to know that?”

“Yes, you’re in bad trouble, old son,” Devlin told him. “So you’d better retrieve your position. Colum O’Brien doesn’t know of your part in this so maybe I can help.”

“Anything,” Bradley moaned.

Devlin turned to Dillon. “You’re the diving expert?”

Dillon lit a cigarette and said to Bradley, “Tell me what they took.”

Bradley hurriedly went through the list as he remembered it. “I think that’s all.” He paused, then added quickly, “No, I was forgetting the Master Navigator. I gave them the new model.”

“And a demonstration?” Dillon asked.

“More than that. The American gave me some bearings and I punched it in for them. Those things are like a homing device. They take you straight to the place.”

“Which was where?” Hannah cut in.

“How would I know, it was just bloody numbers.” He was getting upset. “I’ve told you all I know.”

“Except where they were going when they left,” Devlin said.

“Barry lives in Abbey Road, everyone knows that.”

“Only he isn’t there,” Devlin said gently. “Now where else might he be?”

“How would I know?” Bradley said wildly.

Dillon produced his Walther with the Carswell silencer. “I’m wondering whether a bullet in your left kneecap might improve your memory.”

“For God’s sake, Sean.” Bradley was terrified and then he remembered. “Just a minute. The last time I saw Jack Barry was in a pub in Ballyburn. I was driving down from Dundalk and I stopped for a drink and there he was in the corner of the bar.”

“And what happened?”

“We had a crack and he told me he had an old farmhouse just outside the village. He’d intended to walk back, but I gave him a lift. It was an old place, all a bit run down. He said he didn’t use it much since his wife died.” He was desperately searching for more information and found it. “There was a sign on the gate where I dropped him. Victoria Farm. I remember because he made a joke about it being a Brit Royal Family name.”

There was sweat on his face now. Devlin said, “There, that wasn’t too hard, was it?”

“The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?” Dillon said softly. “It better be, Tony boy, or I’ll be back to take care of that left kneecap.”

He turned away and moved to the Judas gate, Hannah at his side. She murmured softly, “You really are a bastard, Dillon.”

“Yes, well, it gets results, girl dear, and that’s what counts.”

Devlin smiled and put an arm around Bradley. “Cheer up, Tony, it may never happen, but if you try and get in touch with Barry or speak of this to anyone, I’m afraid Dillon will be very annoyed indeed, and you know what that means.”

“Not a word, I swear it.”

“Good man yourself,” Devlin said and left him there.

Dillon and Hannah were waiting beside Devlin’s silver Toyota saloon. “The game’s afoot, as Sherlock used to say, so to Ballyburn, and you can drive, Sean. I’m getting old.”

Dillon got behind the wheel and Devlin held the rear door open for Hannah. “You don’t look pleased. You didn’t like it back there.”

“I never do when I see the way he operates.”

“Yes, well, he always was the hard man, our Sean,” and he went round to the other side and joined her.

A
T
V
ICTORIA
F
ARM
they all had breakfast in the kitchen. When it was finished, Kathleen cleared the table and stacked the plates and strangely enough it was Mori who helped her when her uncle, Barry, and Sollazo went out. She half expected Mori to make a pass at her, was all ready for it. Instead, he filled the sink with hot water and put the dirty dishes in.

“Leave them to soak. Less work that way.”

“And what’s got into you, you big lump?” she demanded.

He laughed. “My father owned a restaurant in Palermo. When I was a kid I worked there all the time in the kitchen. Later I was a waiter for him.”

“Then you took to the gun.”

He shrugged and said calmly, “It paid better.”

When she went into the sitting room the three of them were looking at the map. “That’s it, then,” Barry was saying. “Up to Dundalk, then across the border. No trouble there these days since the peace talks. You can drive straight through.”

“And then Scotstown,” Sollazo said.

“Exactly. We might make it in a couple of hours, two and a half at the most.”

“And who is we?” Kathleen asked.

“Sollazo and me,” Barry told her. “You can stay here in Mori’s tender care.”

“You’ve got your bloody cheek.”

“Yes, well I’m in charge. Mr. Sollazo and I will drive up to Scotstown with the diving gear. Kevin Stringer at the Loyalist thinks he has a suitable boat. We’ll check it out. If it’s okay, Kevin can stow the gear and we’ll return. We’ll probably be back here by five.”

She glared at him, then looked at her uncle. He shrugged. “All for the best, Kathleen.”

“If everything is on course, we’ll all drive up to Scotstown in the morning,” Barry said.

“Oh, do what the hell you like,” she said and stormed out.

T
HE
T
OYOTA COASTED
down the hill outside Ballyburn. Dillon slowed and there it was, the opened five-barred gate, the sign
Victoria Farm
, and the farmhouse beyond.

“Pull up in the lay-by,” Devlin said. “I’ve got some glasses in the glove compartment.” He rummaged inside and found a pair of Zeiss binoculars. “Just let me take a look.”

He stood beside the Toyota and focused them on the station wagon in the farmyard, and at that moment the house door opened and they all came out, Barry, Sollazo, Mori, and the Ryans.

“Christ,” Devlin said. “It’s the whole damn bunch of them. Jack Barry for starters. Take a look, Sean.”

Dillon took the binoculars, focused them, and nodded. “Barry, Michael, and sweet Kathleen.”

Hannah had got out of the Toyota and he passed the binoculars to her. She took a look. “The other two are Sollazo and his minder, Giovanni Mori,” she murmured to Devlin. “We had photos of them faxed from Blake Johnson.” She stiffened. “Barry and Sollazo have got into the station wagon. The others are going inside.”

“Out of here quick,” Devlin said to Dillon.

They scrambled in and Dillon drove away quickly and took a side turning. He stopped. “Give them a couple of minutes to see if they come this way. If not, I’ll reverse and try and catch them up.”

It was Hannah a moment later, watching through the rear window, who said, “There they go.”

“And with luck, to where we all want to be,” Devlin said. “So after them, Sean.”

D
ILLON STAYED WELL
back, Devlin acting as lookout, and the amount of traffic on the road gave them plenty of cover. Drogheda was twenty miles, Dundalk another twenty, and they were just under the hour as they passed through the town.

“The border soon,” Devlin told Hannah. “Then we cross over to Warrenpoint if it’s the Down coast as it must be, we’ll go through Rostrevor and down to Kilkeel and take the coast road.”

“Which would bring us to Drumdonald and Scotstown, the area where we landed after the
Irish Rose
went down,” Dillon observed.

“What was the name of the pub you went to in Scotstown?” Hannah said.

“The Loyalist,” Dillon laughed. “The wrong name entirely. Kevin Stringer, who runs it, worked for Barry for years.” He frowned and turned to Devlin. “What do you think?”

“That it sounds promising. We’ll see. Now I’ll take a little nap and you young ones keep alert.”

A
FTER
W
ARRENPOINT
,
THE
traffic thinned out, but there were still vehicles on the road, private cars and the occasional truck, enough to give cover if Dillon stayed well back. It started to rain, sweeping in from the Mourne Mountains.

“Sweeping down to the sea as the song says,” Devlin commented. “A grand sight.”

“It certainly is,” Hannah said.

There were two cars and a large farm truck ahead of them and the station wagon in front. Devlin said, “One thing, if we are going to end up in Scotstown or some such place, we have a problem. Fishing villages only on this coast, a jetty, a harbor, a few boats. Strangers stick out like a sore thumb.”

“We’ll have to go gently,” Dillon said. “Wait and see.”

T
HE RAIN INCREASED
into a solid downpour, and Barry, at the wheel of the station wagon, swore softly. “The curse of this country.”

“You can say that again,” Sollazo said.

“Kilkeel coming up. There’s a grand cafe on the road just before we go through. I don’t know about you, but a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich would go down fine.”

“Suits me,” Sollazo told him.

A few moments later, they came to the very place and Barry turned into the car park. There were several trucks, a few cars, and he parked beside them. There was a filling station and garage with a sign that said
Patrick Murphy & Son
. The cafe was at the other end of the car park. They ran through the rain and went in.

Dillon pulled the Toyota in between two trucks and switched off the engine. Hannah said, “I’ll go and see what’s happening. I need the toilet anyway.”

She got out and hurried away through the rain. “A darling girl,” Devlin said.

“She saved my life once and took a bullet in the doing,” Dillon told him.

“Jesus,” Devlin said. “A nice Jewish girl like that.”

“I remember what Ferguson told me she said once,” Dillon said. “It was after she shot Norah Bell, the bitch had stabbed me in the back twice. She said I’m not a nice Jewish girl at all. I’m a very Old Testament Jewish girl.”

Devlin laughed. “God save us, if I wasn’t seventy-five years of age I’d fall in love with her.”

“Seventy-five?” Dillon said. “It’s the great liar you are.”

Hannah came back and leaned down. “They look settled. I saw Barry give the waitress an order. Look, I’m thinking about what you said, Liam, about us standing out like a sore thumb whenever we get where we’re going. That might apply to you more than me. I mean, if it turns out to be Scotstown, for example, this Kevin Stringer would know you, Sean, even you, Liam.”

“He
could
recognize me,” Devlin said. “I was well known in these parts, mainly because I was born in the country.” He grimaced. “Sometimes it’s hell being a living legend.”

Hannah said, “Not me. I’m just an English tourist or I could be. That garage has a car hire sign. Pass me my shoulder bag and I’ll go and see what I can get. If our friends leave before I’m ready, just go. I’ll follow the coast road Drumdonald and Scotstown way. I’ll find you.”