Part 7 (2/2)
”Well, we'll see who's right, so off you go, and leave it to Uncle Roper.”
Dillon returned to the computer room, hair damp but looking refreshed, wearing an open-necked black s.h.i.+rt, black bomber jacket, and black velvet jeans. to the computer room, hair damp but looking refreshed, wearing an open-necked black s.h.i.+rt, black bomber jacket, and black velvet jeans.
”Not bad,” Roper told him. ”But it's time you saw the barber.”
”Never mind that.” Dillon poured two whiskeys and handed one over. ”What have you got for me?”
”You're going to love it. I've found a good deal about Murphy and the lady, who's fifty, by the way.”
”Good G.o.d.” Dillon was genuinely astonished. ”I'd never have believed it. She's a handsome woman.”
”I agree with you, her picture's coming up now from an ident.i.ty card. There she is. At least she doesn't look like a prison warden. To summarize, her mother, Mary Ryan, was born in Derry in 1934, she trained as a nurse, married a Patrick Daly when she was twenty-five. Caitlin, her only child, was born in 1959. In 1969, with the civil rights business, there was serious marching in Northern Ireland. The Dalys were in a mixed housing area, and armed men in hoods broke in one night and shot Patrick Daly dead in front of the mother and Caitlin, who was ten at the time. The family had friends in London, so they fled to Kilburn.”
Dillon looked grim. ”Not good, not good at all.”
”Her mother-a trained nurse, remember-got a job at the Cromwell Road Hospital, and they lodged in Kilburn with a cousin, who was a widow. As Caitlin is a year older than you, I wonder if you ever knew each other?”
”I came to Kilburn later than that, when I was twelve, but I can't recall a Daly. What did she do then?”
”Went to St. Mary's College, London, to train as a teacher. Member of the students' union, president of Fairness for Ireland Committee, left-wing activist, vice president of the Civil Rights Committee, third-cla.s.s honors degree in English, teaching certificate.”
”Spent too much time marching,” Dillon observed.
”Teacher in various Catholic schools. Then, in 1984, her mother packed it in as a nursing sister and took the job of housekeeper at the church, and they moved in together, and so continued until the old lady died last year.”
”And Caitlin is still there, still teaching it would seem, and still without a man.”
”Not true. She's got one, in a way. Listen to Murphy's story and her position is explained, but not in the way you might think. I'll roll his file round and read it, particularly 1979.”
”The year my father was killed.”
”Can you remember the date?”
”Of course I can. November thirteen. How could I forget that?”
”Well, Murphy went on secondment to Londonderry in January for six months to be a priest with them at the Little Sisters of Pity's St. Mary's Priory. Read it.”
Which Dillon did. He shook his head. ”I never realized that. I'd stopped going to church, and I was finished at RADA by then. Kilburn was pretty working cla.s.s, so I was used to keeping my head down about being an actor.”
”So you lost touch with him. But I've got a report he sent to his bishop, telling him how bad it was in the war zone and how impressed he'd been with the priory as a nursing home and the efforts of the nuns to help the sick and needy against the odds. His intention was to have a hospice called Hope of Mary, and he intended to recruit nuns from the Little Sisters of Pity. This would cost money, but the bishop responded to his enthusiasm. Murphy registered a charitable trust, called Requiem, and the church agreed to buy a suitable house on mortgage for him on the condition he was responsible for raising the operating costs.”
”And he has, presumably?”
”In spades. See the photo of him here in full regalia, another when he was made Monsignor. He proved irresistible to many businessmen and a sensation in the city. The hospice is paid off, including all improvements, and they've started ones in West Belfast, Dublin, and now one in the Bronx in New York.”
”That's a h.e.l.l of a lot of money, when you look at it. A h.e.l.l of an achievement. I wonder where it came from?”
”He certainly seems to have the golden touch.”
”And where does Caitlin figure in all this?”
”Her mother worked at the housekeeping post at the presbytery till she was seventy. At that time, Caitlin just carried on, obviously by arrangement with Murphy, helping out but still teaching. When her mother got cancer, she packed in her job to nurse her, becoming more and more involved with Hope of Mary. The old lady died over a year ago, and Caitlin is still doing her job, but twins it with being executive director at the hospice.”
”Fascinating stuff. What else have you got?”
”Costello-c.u.m-Docherty, who tried to torch the Dark Man. Inspector Parkinson recognized him as a petty thief and drunk named Fergus Costello who'd apparently gotten religion over twenty years ago at a refuge for drunks and down-and-outs in Wapping High Street. It was interfaith, but Parkinson spoke of a charismatic priest who turned up there on occasion. So guess who it was?”
”Oh, I'm at the stage where I'm prepared to believe anything you say. But why the fake Irish pa.s.sport?”
”I don't know. He had a prison record as Costello, maybe he wanted to start fresh.”
”He must have known the right people. The pa.s.sport was an absolute ringer. But our Irish connection falls down when we consider Henry Pool, doesn't it? I know his wife was from Cork, but his father was a c.o.c.kney soldier, as I recall, so badly wounded in April 1945 in Germany he was immediately discharged and went to live in Kilburn with his wife, who produced Henry in 1946.”
”Poor old Ernest, he died of a stroke two years later. But I've discovered an Irish connection that wasn't immediately apparent. His wife, Mary Kennedy? Her father was killed by the highly irregular British police force known as the Black and Tans.”
”G.o.d help us,” Dillon said. ”The sc.u.m of the trenches. They'd frighten the Devil himself.”
”So when we consider Pool and the life he led at the beck and call of an embittered old woman who probably blamed him for being half English and drummed guilt into him every day of his life, I suppose you could say he'd be capable of leaving a bomb in the back of an English general's limousine.”
”I take your point. But Pool was the driver.”
”Yes, but Ferguson did say Pool appeared to be running away.” Dillon sighed. ”A h.e.l.l of a tragedy it would have been, Charles Ferguson's sainted mother being from Cork herself.”
”Actually, I did know that, but they say there are round eight million people of some sort of Irish extraction in the English population.”
”Exactly,” Dillon said. ”More than there are in Ireland itself.” He shook his head. ”So where does it all lead?”
”G.o.d knows,” Roper replied, and then Ferguson walked in.
”There you are,” Dillon said. ”When do we get going for Farley?”
”We don't,” Ferguson said. ”I decided a little extra security was called for, so I did a little sleight of hand. I apologize for not telling you, but I figured the fewer people who knew, the better. Svetlana, Katya, Alexander, and Bounine were all picked up by an emergency ambulance from the Royal Marsden Hospital, transferred to an anonymous people carrier, and delivered to RAF Biggin Hill in North London. They took off about twenty minutes ago. So that's that. Now, I've contacted Miller and the Salters and suggested that they join us to go over the new information. I asked Monica, too, but she's not feeling too good. She took a bit of a battering, remember. She thought she'd have an early night.”
It was no more than half an hour later that the Salters arrived in the Alfa, and, as they walked in, the gate opened again behind them, and Fox delivered Miller, who followed them in to the computer room, where they found Ferguson, Roper, and Dillon talking quietly. than half an hour later that the Salters arrived in the Alfa, and, as they walked in, the gate opened again behind them, and Fox delivered Miller, who followed them in to the computer room, where they found Ferguson, Roper, and Dillon talking quietly.
”So what is all this?” Harry Salter demanded. ”What about Kurbsky and the ladies?”
”Departed some time ago, and, if you'll all sit down, I'll explain the circ.u.mstances.”
He repeated what he'd told the others, emphasizing that what had alarmed him was the intruder at Belsize Park. ”He was not an ordinary thief bent on burglary, we know that because of the prayer card. Kurbsky's makeover was very effective, so I'm inclined to believe that he wasn't the target. Cochran was probably intent on obtaining what information he could from the women. How he learned about them, I don't know, but that's why I felt we had to take extra precautions.”
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