LITMIR.BIZ

       3

      The Lear jet they were using stood on the apron in front of one of the hangars. It was very official-looking, with RAF roundels, and the two pilots who stood waiting by the cabin door wore RAF overalls with rank insignia.

      As the Daimler stopped, Ferguson said, ‘All nice and official. It should make things easy at Malta.’ He took a small leather case from his pocket and gave it to Hannah Bernstein. ‘You’ll find a hypodermic in there, ready charged. Just give our friend Hakim a shot in the arm. He’ll stay on his feet, but he won’t know what time of day it is, and here’s a passport I got Forgery to make up for him. Abdul Krym, British citizen.’ He took another from his inside pocket and passed it to Riley. ‘There’s yours, Irish variety. I thought it would go better with the accent. Thomas O’Malley.’

      ‘Now isn’t that the strange thing?’ Riley said. ‘And me with a cousin once removed called Bridget O’Malley.’

      ‘I haven’t the slightest interest in your family connections,’ Ferguson told him. ‘Just get on board, there’s a good chap, and try doing as you’re told.’

      They all got out and approached the Lear. Flight Lieutenant Lacey, in command, was an old hand and had been attached to Ferguson’s section for two years now. He introduced his fellow pilot, Flight Lieutenant Parry.

      Ferguson said, ‘How long to Sicily, then, Flight Lieutenant?’

      ‘Headwinds all the way today, Brigadier. Can’t see it taking less than a good five hours.’

      ‘Do your best.’ Ferguson turned to the others. ‘Right, on you go and good luck.’

      The Brigadier watched as they went up the steps, one by one. The door closed. Ferguson stepped back as the engines started and the Lear taxied away to the far end of the field. It thundered along the runway and lifted.

      ‘Up to you now, Dillon,’ he said softly, then turned and walked back to the Daimler.

      It was all a dream, Riley decided, and he might wake up in his cell at Wandsworth instead of sitting here on the leather club seat in the quiet elegance of the Lear. It had all worked out as Brown had promised.

      He watched Hannah Bernstein, glasses removed, take some papers from her briefcase and start to read them. A strange one, but a hell of a copper from what he had heard, and hadn’t she shot dead that Protestant bitch, Norah Bell, when she and Michael Ahern had tried to assassinate the American President on his London visit?

      Dillon came through from the cockpit area, slid into the chair opposite. He opened the bar cupboard. ‘Would you fancy a drink, Dermot? Scotch whisky, not Irish, I’m afraid.’

      ‘It’ll do to take along.’

      Dillon found a half-bottle of Bell’s and splashed some into a couple of glasses. He passed one to Riley and offered him a cigarette.

      ‘Cigarettes and whisky and wild, wild women, isn’t that what the song says, only not for the Chief Inspector. She thinks I’m taking years off my life.’

      She glanced up. ‘And so you are, Dillon, but you go to hell in your own way.’

      She went back to her work and Dillon turned to Riley. ‘The hard woman, but she loves me dearly. Tell me, was that a fact about you having a cousin called O’Malley?’

      ‘Jesus, yes,’ Riley said. ‘Didn’t I ever mention her? My mother died when I was five. Derry, that was, and I had a ten-year-old sister, Kathleen. My old man couldn’t cope, so he sent for my mother’s niece, Bridget O’Malley, from a village called Tullamore between the Blackwater river and the Knockmealdown Mountains. A drop of the real old Ireland that place, I can tell you.’

      ‘And she raised you?’

      ‘Until I was eighteen.’

      ‘And never married?’

      ‘She couldn’t have children, so she could never see the point.’

      ‘What happened to her?’

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