Rough Justice

by Higgins, Jack

  Roper said, “Well, I’ll take that on board.”

  “How’s Harry?”

  “I had a brief word. He’s hoarse and slow, but Maggie said he’s been propped up and is managing to do a little reading.”

  “That’s encouraging. I’ll go now. See you soon.”

  HE LOOKED IN at the saloon, found Monica and Helen having a glass of wine, Billy green tea. There was the remains of a meal on the table.

  “Did you want something to eat?” Monica asked.

  “Not really, but Ferguson might. I’ll join him in the wheelhouse.”

  He found Ferguson listening to the radio weather forecast. “Winds five to six,” he said. “Could be worse. How are you?”

  “Winding down. I’ve spoken to Roper. He tells me Harry is improving. I’ll spell you if you like.”

  “Yes, I would. What are the others doing?”

  “They’ve eaten. Now they’re having a drink.”

  “A satisfactory result. The Russians won’t be pleased, it’s put a dent in things for them, but they won’t do anything about it, just clean up the mess. That’s all they can do for the moment.”

  “And pay us back next time?”

  “Of course. The name of the game, Sean.”

  He went out and Dillon sat there, the wheel on automatic, and lit a cigarette. After a while, the door opened and Monica found him. She reached for the cigarette between his lips, smoked it herself for a moment, and then gave it back.

  He said, “I had to take that chance with Quinn.”

  “I never doubted you.”

  “They tell me you had to shoot somebody.”

  “A very objectionable man, Nolan’s pal, who was helping abduct me.”

  “Does that give you a problem?”

  “I haven’t had time to sort out whether it does. My life has totally changed in just a few weeks—everything is different, and I’m different with it. I don’t know what that means.”

  “It could be you take a deep breath and go back to the gleaming spires of Cambridge University and dinner at high table. You’d be a sensation with the students if they knew what you’ve been up to.”

  “Well, they won’t, will they?” She took his left hand and held it firmly. “But you do.”

  They sat there together, the Avenger plowing on into the night.

  London

  End Game

  15

  TWO O’CLOCK OF THAT SAME MORNING AT HOLLAND PARK, ROPER SAT IN front of his screens, a glass of whiskey in his hand, running through the computer the material he had put together concerning the Miller affair, everything that he considered to be of any significance, even matters before Miller’s time that had in any way related to the Broker.

  The link with Al Qaeda, with Drecq Khan, who had been empowered to organize the Army of God, the involvement with the Provisional IRA during the final years of the Troubles, Volkov, the Russian factor, so important. A man of a certain international stature, the Broker had to be. From his voice, a Westerner, although no one had every suggested he might be an American. Upper-class English, because as one person had described him, he sounded posh.

  Roper reached for the whiskey, drank a little, and said softly, “But then, the bugger also speaks rather good Arabic.” He laughed. “So does Dillon, so does Harry Miller, so what does that prove?”

  Sergeant Doyle appeared. “Here you are again, Major Roper, overdoing it. What am I going to do with you?”

  “I’ve had the good word from both Dillon and General Ferguson. They’re on their way back from the Irish venture, and it’s been a total success. They’ll be in Oban in the morning, where Lacey and Parry are waiting. Probably here around noon.”

  “Well, that’s good, sir. Can I get you anything?”

  “Answer a riddle for me that I can’t answer myself.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “Who the bloody Broker is. You’ve been involved enough around here and long enough to have heard him mentioned in a number of important matters.”

  “That’s true, sir, so what’s the problem?”

  “Identity, Sergeant. You’ve been a military policeman for long enough to know that’s the first order of priority in any crime, knowing who you’re looking for, and in this case, all we have is a voice on the phone. To everyone he’s been involved with, even at the level of General Ivan Volkov, President Putin’s personal security man, he’s always been a voice on the phone. One person after another in this affair has described him that way, someone reminiscent of an Oxford professor but who speaks Arabic.”

  Doyle said, “Well, begging your pardon, Major, but maybe he is an Oxford professor who speaks Arabic. There were some funny buggers in our business produced by the Cambridge system, weren’t there?”

  “You’re quite right. Burgess, Maclean, Kim Philby, all worked for the KGB. I’ve put some of the relevant facts together like a documentary, and it’s not long. I’ll show it again and see what you think. Run your copper’s eye over it.”

  He lit a cigarette and leaned back in his wheelchair. Doyle, genuinely interested, watched instantly. When it was over, he said, “You’ve got some really good stuff there. In fact, you’ve built a hell of a case against him to which no court in the world could deny a guilty verdict.”

  “Guilty, the anonymous man,” Roper said.

  “Where did you get those photos of Fahy?”

  “That was Teague and his disposal team. They found them when they cleared the flat and garage.”

  “What I found particularly interesting was Fahy’s dying confession. I felt a certain sympathy for the poor sod, but that was only because of his wife.”

  “So you’re a decent guy.”

  “The statements that made up his confession, given to you by Dillon and Major Miller, don’t vary an inch. The business of the motorcycle deliveryman in leathers giving him the envelope containing the key was so bizarre it had to be true.”

  “Do you think he was the Broker?”

  “God, no.”

  “Why are you so sure?”

  “A copper’s nose, Major Roper. After years of practice, you learn to go with your instinct. First suspicions are right most of the time.”

  “And yours tells you the guy on the motorbike wasn’t the Broker?”

  “It just doesn’t seem probable. He was compelled by Fahy to make that bank draft an open one. As I understand it, anyone who had it in their possession could have used it. That’s why the messenger was delivering an envelope with just a key. He didn’t know it was for a locker at this Turkish bath place. The Broker told Fahy that over the phone.”

  “You’re right, that’s an interesting point.”

  “I accessed the place’s membership list. There’s no card in the name of Smith and Company, and it’s impossible to check all the Smiths in London. It’s a dead end there.”

  “I suppose so. Think it has anything to do with the gay subculture?”

  “I doubt it. That was long ago. All kinds of people come and go now. No fuss.”

  Doyle said, “I suppose that’s why he chose it. Nice and quiet. People minding their own business.”

  “When you say he, you mean the Broker?”

  “Who else? The bike messenger delivered a key and had no means of knowing where it fitted. If the Broker was that cautious, he’d never risk anyone else delivering the envelope to the locker. He’d do it himself.” He shook his head. “He put the bank draft in the locker, then gave the key to the messenger somewhere else.”

  Roper poured another whiskey and drank it. “So simple—so bloody obvious, so why didn’t I see it before?”

  “You were expecting the computer to think for itself, and they don’t. We’re still a long way from conceptual thought with those things.”

  Roper’s fingers danced over the keys, and he produced the Web site for The Turkish Rooms on the screen. “There you go, Tony—a steam room, marble slab massage, an ice-cold pool. You’ll love it.”

  “I
see.” Doyle grinned. “You want me to look the place over?”

  “After you’ve provided me with a bacon sandwich and a cup of tea. It opens at nine-thirty.” He reached for a cigarette. “London has more CCTV cameras in place than anywhere else in the world, did you know that?” He grinned. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  AFTER DOYLE had left, Roper stayed by his screens. Pain, as usual, was ever present in his bomb-ravaged body, but he held off taking the most effective of his pills, poured another large whiskey, and sat there reviewing the situation. Perhaps the Broker was doing exactly the same thing somewhere, considering what to do, wondering what might happen.

  Roper went out through the corridor to the entrance hall, opened the front door, wheeled his chair into the porch, and lit a cigarette, staring out at the rainswept courtyard, feeling himself at the end of something in a way he never had before. Doyle found him there when he drove into the yard and got out of the car.

  “Are you okay, sir?”

  “I’ve been better, Tony. How did you get on?”

  “Fine. Geezer called Harvey in a tracksuit was on duty. Grenadier Guards in his day. I flashed my ID card and he was very civil. Guided tour, cup of coffee in the café. Ten percent off as a serving soldier.”

  “And the security aspects, what about that?”

  “CCTV cameras in the entrance and inside. He was joking about that and the lack of privacy in the changing rooms, but he said it’s all these health and safety laws they have to observe these days.”

  “But sometimes useful,” Roper said.

  “Do you think you’d be able to access them, sir?”

  “If the CIA can infiltrate the London railway stations, I should be able to penetrate The Turkish Rooms.”

  But he hesitated, and Doyle said, “You’re worried about this, aren’t you? What exactly are you looking for, sir?”

  “You mean who, don’t you? Now that we may be close to identifying the Broker . . . I wonder if I want to know.”

  He shook himself. “Make sure I’m not disturbed, Sergeant,” he said, and he glided back into the computer room.

  GETTING INTO THE SYSTEM turned out to be as easy as he thought. Once in, he found a choice of cameras, but it was the one covering the locker room that he wanted. He fast-forwarded it to the right date, then slowed it down after the time code indicated noon. He watched intently, going into close-up. No one was in the locker room, as Fahy had said, and then as the time code indicated twelve-twenty, a man in a fawn raincoat appeared. Roper could see only his back as he moved in quickly from the right. He unlocked number seven, took out a manila envelope, and turned, pausing to open it and to take out what was obviously the bank draft. Roper recognized Sean Fahy clearly, it was without doubt the man on the three or four photos Teague had supplied from the garage. Fahy didn’t even smile, simply locked up as ordered and walked away.

  Roper moved back to just before the moment Fahy had arrived and put the episode into his copying system. When he was satisfied with what he had, he took the whole thing back to nine-thirty, opening time, and started to work his way through. It was ten-fifteen before two aging men came in talking, opened a locker each, and removed a terry-cloth robe. They undressed, talking amicably, put on the robes, and hung their clothes up in their lockers. They closed and locked them and vanished to elsewhere in the building, still talking. After that, there was nothing, and Roper pushed it on. Eleven o’clock and still nothing, eleven-fifteen, and he was beginning to wonder, and then it happened, just as he’d hoped it would. A man in a navy blue raincoat came into view, as Fahy had, moving in quickly from the right so Roper could only see his back. He had two manila envelopes ready in his left hand, placed one in the locker, then took out the key and dropped it in the other. He turned, sealing it, so ordinary, a furled umbrella hanging from his wrist, and walked away. Roper pulled back to enlarge the picture and watched him walk away through the door, knowing beyond any shadow of a doubt that he had finally found the Broker.

  BAD WEATHER CONDITIONS had delayed takeoff at Oban, and it was three in the afternoon when it finally landed at Farley. Ferguson decided to go straight to his flat at Cavendish Place and offered to drop Helen Black off at her house in his Daimler.

  She kissed Dillon and Billy on the cheek and hugged Monica hard. “A remarkable few days. I won’t say we must do it again sometime, it doesn’t seem appropriate.”

  “Exactly,” Monica said.

  Harry arrived at that very moment in the Bentley in answer to Billy’s call. He got out and embraced his nephew. “Been a naughty boy again, have you?”

  “We all have,” Dillon told him. “But we won’t go into that now. Billy will fill you in on the juicy bits. If you could drop Monica off at Rosedene, that would help. They’ll drop me at Stable Mews in a Farley car.”

  “Could you come with me, Sean, to Rosedene?” she asked.

  “If you’d like me to.”

  “I would.” She took his hand lightly for a moment.

  “Then of course I will.”

  “We’ll catch up later,” Ferguson called, and they all dispersed.

  AT ROSEDENE, Maggie Duncan emerged from her office and greeted them in reception. “I’m glad you’re back. He’ll be pleased to see you.”

  “He’s well, is he?” Monica asked eagerly.

  “The truth is he’s still very poorly. The viciousness of the stabbing has not helped at all, but he’ll be so pleased to see you.”

  Dillon said to Monica, “You go, have a bit of quiet time with him. I’ll avail myself of the facilities and have a good shower. I’ll see you in a while.”

  She kissed him briefly and went along the corridor.

  Maggie Duncan said, “That I should see the day.”

  “And you won’t.” He shook his head. “Maggie, you know the man I am and the life I live. You’ve been patching me up for years. She’s a wonderful woman, and it may sound corny to say she’s far too good for me, but it’s the truth.”

  “And have you told her that?” Maggie smiled. “I don’t know men. Go and have your shower, Sean.” She went back into her office.

  MUCH LATER, and having borrowed a fresh shirt from laundry, Dillon appeared at Miller’s room and found him sitting up and leaning against a recliner, his face quite haggard. Monica sat beside him, holding his hand and looking worried.

  “There you are,” he said. “Up to your old tricks, it seems. I’ve just made Monica tell me all about it. No more Volkov? And Quinn.” Miller shook his head. “One thing you can say about you and me, Sean, the body count is remarkable. Lying here feeling lousy and rather sorry for myself, I begin to query the point. It won’t bring Olivia back.”

  His distress was obvious, and it was at that point that Dillon realized how deeply damaged he was. “All we’re missing is the Broker.”

  “Suddenly, I’m not interested. Having just discovered that my sister’s joined the club by killing her first man at Drumore, I wonder where it’s all going to end and whether it’s worth it.”

  He was racked by coughing. Monica rang for the nurse, who came in, followed by Maggie Duncan. Dillon said, “I’ll get out of the way.”

  He went into reception, walked out into the porch of the front door, and smoked a cigarette, looking out at the rain. After a while, Monica joined him and stood beside him, her left arm around his waist as if seeking security.

  “He’s not good, Sean.”

  “I can see that.”

  “Not just in body, but in spirit.” They turned to go in and met Bellamy coming out of his office.

  “Ah, there you are. I’m glad you’re here. I need a word.”

  “I’d imagine you would,” Monica said.

  “First, his physical health isn’t at all good. Some pretty serious infection of the wounds haven’t helped. To be frank, I’ve a nasty suspicion that the knife supplied to the young woman was poisoned, certainly contaminated in some way. I’m having checks done on that now, so we’ll see. The other thing is his
mental state. He feels an enormous personal guilt because he had to kill that girl. He also feels a terrible guilt because his wife died in his place when he was the target. No reasonable argument is possible with him on that matter at the moment. If you don’t object, Lady Starling, I’d like to call in a colleague, one of the finest psychiatrists in London, as soon as possible to examine him and suggest proper therapy.”

  “I’d welcome it.” She turned to Dillon. “He’s just told me he feels he should resign his seat.”

  Dillon flared with anger. “Don’t let him do that, he was a good guy in all this. Volkov, Hassim, Fahy, and Quinn were bad people, the lot of them, responsible for so much evil and by intention.”

  “I know,” she said. “And the damn Broker still out there.” She was half crying. “I must go back to him, Sean. I’ll stay the night.” She gave him a brief hug and departed.

  “There it is,” Bellamy said. “Most unfortunate. I’ll speak to my colleague now. I’ll see you later, Sean.”

  He went to his office and Dillon went out into the porch, and Harry Salter’s Bentley drew up, Billy at the wheel. They both looked serious, and Harry leaned out of the window. “Glad you’re here. Get in and quick.”

  Dillon didn’t argue, only saying as Billy drove away, “Where’s the fire?”

  “Ferguson called me at the Dark Man,” Harry told him. “Said he wanted me and Billy to pick you up here and join him and Roper at Holland Park.”

  “What for?”

  “He said we’d find out when we got there, but nothing had ever been more important.”

  “Then put your foot down, Billy,” Dillon said.

  AT HOLLAND PARK in the computer room, the Salters, Dillon, and Ferguson watched the events at The Turkish Rooms unfold. At the last moment, as the Broker turned to walk away, Roper froze the image. There was a strange stillness for a moment, and then Ferguson spoke.

  “It’s so totally damning that it’s breathtaking.”