‘Anyone like a drink?’ he asked. He and Hannah were sitting on either side of a large cluttered kitchen table.
‘No thank you,’ Hannah answered.
‘Well, I’ll join you,’ Dillon told him, ‘just to stay friendly.’
‘You don’t look to me as if you’ve ever been friendly to anyone in your life, my old son,’ Gordon said. ‘Scotch all right?’
He splashed whisky into two glasses and handed Dillon one. The Irishman went and stood by the door.
Hannah said, ‘Albert Samuel Goldberg, known as Gordon. I checked you out. Quite a record. Bookie’s runner as a kid, professional boxer, nightclub bouncer, then you were mixed up in that gold bullion robbery at Heathrow in March, seventy-three. You served three years.’
‘Ancient history.’
‘Grievous bodily harm, assault with a deadly weapon. Armed robbery in seventy-nine. You got ten years and served seven. Lately you’ve been Frank Sharp’s chauffeur and minder. He always looked after you, didn’t he? But then he wasn’t the one who went to prison. It was idiots like you.’
‘Frank was good to me. He was good to all his boys.’ He swallowed his Scotch. ‘But like I said, all ancient history, so what is this?’
‘You said you didn’t know who your boss was meeting at Highgate and that you’d no idea what the meet was about?’
‘That’s what I told those guys from Scotland Yard and that’s what I told the coroner’s inquest.’
Hannah leaned back in her chair. ‘Then why is it I don’t believe you?’
‘Fuck you, darling,’ Gordon told her. ‘And mind you, that’s not a bad idea.’
‘Naughty, that,’ Dillon said. ‘Bad language to a lady brings out the worst in me.’
‘Well fuck you too,’ Gordon said and reached for the whisky bottle.
Dillon’s hand came out of his trenchcoat pocket, clutching the silenced Walther. There was a dull thud and the whisky bottle shattered in Gordon’s hand.
‘Jesus Christ!’ He jumped up, soaked in whisky. ‘What’s going on here? I didn’t count on shooters. What kind of police are you?’
He reached for a kitchen towel and Dillon said, ‘Just keep thinking Gestapo and we’ll get along. I’m very good with this thing. I could shoot half your right ear off.’
He levelled the Walther and Gordon put up a hand and cowered away. ‘For God’s sake, no!’
‘Dillon, stop it!’ Hannah ordered.
‘When I’m finished.’ He lowered the Walther. ‘I could say you’re going to tell me the truth because Frank Sharp was a friend of yours and you’d like to see the people responsible pay.’ Gordon mopped himself shakily with the kitchen towel. Dillon continued, ‘But we’ll forget about loyalty, morality, all that good old English rubbish. We’ll say you’re going to speak up in the next five seconds because if you don’t I really will shoot your ear off.’
‘Dillon, for God’s sake,’ Hannah said.
Gordon put up a hand defensively. ‘Okay, I give in. Just let me get another drink. I need it.’
He found another bottle of Scotch in a cupboard and opened it.
Dillon said, ‘You knew it was this Russian Silsev that Sharp was meeting in the cemetery?’
‘Yes, Frank told me. The meet was at the Karl Marx statue. I asked if he wanted me along, but he said no.’
‘And you knew what the meeting was about?’ Hannah said.
‘It was to do with drugs. Frank said this Silsev geezer was KGB working in London but he had connections with this Moscow Mafia.’
‘And what are we talking about?’ Hannah asked.
‘Heroin. Frank said a street value of maybe a hundred million.’
‘I see.’ She nodded. ‘And that’s all you know about it?’
‘On my mother’s life. Frank said this guy had approached him and no other mob in London. Told him he was offering him the deal of a lifetime.’
‘So no one else knew?’
‘Of course not. I mean, why would this Silsev geezer approach anyone else? Frank was the number one man in the East End for years.’ He poured a little more Scotch, hand shaking.
Dillon said, ‘You just sat in the car, waiting for him?’
‘Like I told the cops and I didn’t hear a thing. The gun must have been silenced. I sat there reading the paper until I got worried and went looking.’
‘And you saw nobody?’
‘Like I told the police, nobody.’
‘Think hard,’ Dillon said, ‘It’s raining heavily and getting dark and you’re sitting there at the wheel with the newspaper and no one came out.’
‘I’ve told you.’ Gordon paused, frowning. ‘Here, just a minute. Yes, that’s right.’ It was as if he was looking back and recreating the scene. ‘Yes, this big bike came out through the gates. The guy in the saddle wore black leathers and one of those black helmets you can’t see through.’
‘Bingo,’ Dillon said. ‘Give the man the star prize.’
‘God, you were a bastard in there, Dillon,’ she told him as they drove away. ‘Don’t ever do that to me again.’
‘It got a result,’ he said. ‘Exact description of our mystery rider from Belfast and you now know what Silsev and Sharp were up to.’
‘My God,’ she said. ‘Heroin at a street value of a hundred million pounds. It doesn’t bear thinking of.’
‘Well, don’t,’ he said. ‘Let’s call in at Mulligans in Cork Street. Smoked salmon and champagne.’
‘I’m driving, Dillon.’
‘I know, girl dear. I’ll drink the champagne for you. You can content yourself with the smoked salmon.’
He sat back, grinning, and lit a cigarette.
WASHINGTON LONDON WASHINGTON 1994
It was raining in Washington, driving in from the river through the late afternoon as the large sedan moved along Constitution Avenue towards the White House. In spite of the weather, there was a sizeable crowd in Pennsylvania Avenue, not only tourists but a fair smattering of journalists and TV cameras.
The chauffeur lowered the glass screen that separated him from the rear. ‘It’s going to be difficult getting at the front without them recognizing you, Senator.’
Patrick Keogh leaned forward. ‘Let’s try the East Entrance.’
The sedan turned up East Executive Avenue, pulled up at the gate, where the guard, recognizing Keogh at once, waved them through. The East Entrance was used frequently by White House staff and by diplomatic visitors who wanted to avoid the attention of the media.
Keogh got out and said to the chauffeur, ‘Don’t know how long I’ll be, on this one,’ and went up the steps.
When he got inside he found a Secret Service agent on duty, talking to a young Marine lieutenant in razor-sharp uniform. The lieutenant snapped to attention. ‘Good evening, Senator.’
‘How