Drink With the Devil (14 page)

“How generous,” Ferguson said. “Though remembering how you made six hundred thousand pounds out of that Michael Aroun affair in ninety-one, Dillon, I’d say you can afford it.”

“True, Brigadier, true.” Dillon leaned over the parapet and looked down at the waters of the Thames flowing by. He said to Hannah, “You notice the rather synthetic carpet we’re standing on is green?”

“Yes.”

“Notice where it changes to red? That’s the House of Lords end, you see, just there where the scaffolding goes down into the water.”

“I see.”

“Great on tradition, you Brits.”

“I’m Jewish, Dillon, as you well know.”

“Oh, I do. Granddad a rabbi, your father a professor of surgery, and you an M.A. from Cambridge University. Now what could be more British?”

At that moment Carter appeared and approached them impatiently. “Right, Ferguson, please don’t waste my time. What have you got to say?”

“Dillon?” Ferguson said.

“I think your security is shot full of holes,” Dillon told Carter. “Too many people, twenty-six restaurants and bars, scores of entrances and exits not only for MPs but staff and workmen.”

“Come now, everyone has a security pass, everyone is checked.”

“Then there’s the river.”

“The river? What nonsense. It’s tidal, Dillon, and the current is lethal. Never less than three knots and sometimes five.”

“Is that so? Then I’m sorry.”

“I should think you would be.” Carter turned to Ferguson. “May I go?”

Ferguson looked at Dillon and the Irishman smiled wearily. “The great conceit of yourself you have, Mr. Carter. A little bet with the man, Brigadier. I’ll turn up on the Terrace on Friday morning when the President and the Prime Minister are here, and all quite illegal. Mr. Carter gets five hundred pounds if I fail, and a five-pound note if I succeed.”

“You’re on, damn you,” Carter told him and held out his hand to Ferguson. “Shake on it.” He started to laugh. “What an amusing little chap you are, Dillon,” and he walked away.

“Do you know what you’re doing, Dillon?” Ferguson demanded.

Dillon leaned over the parapet and looked at the water swirling fifteen feet below. “Oh, yes, I think so, especially if the Chief Inspector here can come up with the right information.”

F
ERGUSON’S SUITE OF
offices was on the third floor of the Ministry of Defence overlooking Horse Guards Avenue, and it was an hour later that Dillon and Hannah Bernstein went into her office.

She sat down at her desk. “All right, what do you want?”

“The biggest expert on the Thames River. Now who would that be? Someone in Customs and Excise or maybe the River Police.”

“I’ll try them both,” she said.

“Good. I’ll go and make the tea while you’re doing it.”

He went into the outer office whistling and put the kettle on. When it had boiled, he made the tea, arranged the cups and a milk jug on a tray, and took it in. Hannah was on the phone.

“Thank you, Inspector.” She put the phone down and sat back as Dillon poured the tea. “How domesticated. That was the River Police telling me who the greatest expert on the river Thames is.” She turned to her computer and tapped the keys. “Subject coming up, Dillon. Not River Police, not Customs, but a London gangster.”

Dillon started to laugh.

T
HE INFORMATION ROLLED
on the screen. “Harry Salter, aged sixty-five, did seven years for bank robbery in his twenties, no prison time since,” Hannah said. “But look at his record from Criminal Intelligence. Owns pleasure boats on the river, the Dark Man pub at Wapping, and a warehouse development worth more than one million pounds.”

“The cunning one, him,” Dillon said.

“A smuggler, Dillon, every racket on the river. Cigarettes, booze, diamonds from Holland. Anything.”

“Not quite,” Dillon told her. “Look what it says. No drug connection, no prostitution, no strip clubs.” He sat back. “What we’ve got here is an old-fashioned gangster. He probably objects to men who swear in front of women.”

“He’s still a gangster, Dillon, suspected of killing other gangsters.”

“And where’s the harm in that if they leave the civilians alone? Let’s see his picture.”

It rolled around and Dillon studied the fleshy face intently. “Just as I expected. Fair enough.”

“Well he looks like Bill Sykes to me,” Hannah said.

“Known associates?”

“Billy Salter, age twenty-five, his nephew.” The information came up on the screen again. “Six months for assault, another six months for assault, twelve months for affray.”

“A hot-tempered lad.”

“And these two, Joe Baxter and Sam Hall, more of the same, Dillon. A very unsavory bunch.”

“Who might just suit my purposes.”

“Except for one thing.”

“And what would that be?”

“The River Police had a tip-off. Salter and his gang will be down river tonight at nine in one of his pleasure boats, the
River Queen
. There’s a Dutch boat coming in called the
Amsterdam
. The
River Queen
will be at anchor off Harley Dock. As the
Amsterdam
goes past, one of the stewards throws a package across. Uncut diamonds. Two hundred thousand pounds.”

“And the River Police waiting to pounce?”

“Not at all. They’ll be waiting for the
River Queen
to berth at Cable Wharfe by Salter’s pub, the Dark Man, at Wapping. They’ll pick him up there.”

“What a shame. It could have been such a lovely relationship.”

“Anything else I can do for you?” Hannah Bernstein demanded.

“Not really. I can see you’ve shafted me pretty thoroughly and taken pleasure in it. I’ll just go away and think again.”

A
T EIGHT-THIRTY
, D
ILLON
was waiting on Harley Dock in an ancient and inconspicuous Toyota van he had borrowed from the vehicle pool at the Ministry of Defence. He was already wearing a black diving suit, the cowl up over his head. Occasionally a boat passed on the river and he sat behind the wheel of the Toyota and watched through a pair of infrared night glasses as the
River Queen
arrived and anchored. There was movement on deck, two men and two more on the upper deck wheelhouse.

He waited and then there was a noise of engines down river and the
Amsterdam
appeared, a medium-sized freighter. With his night glasses, he could actually see the man at the rail and the bundle he hurled. It landed on the pleasure boat’s canopy.

The freighter moved on and Dillon was already clamping a tank to his inflatable. He picked up his fins, moved to the edge of the dock, and pulled them on. Then he pulled on his mask, reached for his mouthpiece, and jumped.

H
E SURFACED BY
the anchor line, pulled off his inflatable and the tank, then his fins, and fastened them to the line. He waited for a moment, then went up hand-over-hand.

He went in through the anchor chain port and crouched on deck, listening. There was the sound of laughter coming from the deck cabin and he went forward, stood and peered through a port hole. Salter was there, his nephew Billy, Baxter, and Hall. Salter was cutting open a yellow life jacket at the table. He took out the cloth bundle.

“Two hundred grand.”

Dillon unzipped his diving suit and took out the silenced Walther. He went to the door, paused, then threw it open and stepped inside.

“God bless all here.”

There was silence, the four of them grouped around the table like some tableau, Harry Salter and his nephew seated, Baxter and Hall standing, beer glasses in their hands.

Salter said, “And what’s your game, then?”

“Open the bundle.”

“I’m fucked if I will. I don’t think you’ve got the bottle to use that thing.”

Dillon fired on the instant, shattering the whiskey glass on the table at Salter’s right hand, doing the same thing to the beer glass Baxter was holding. Billy Salter cried out sharply as a jagged splinter of glass cut his right cheek.

There was silence and so then Dillon said, “More?”

“Okay, you made your point,” Salter said. “What do you want?”

“The diamonds — show me.”

“Tell him to get stuffed,” Billy said, a hand to his cheek where blood flowed.

“Then what?” Salter asked him.

He unfastened the cloth bundle. Inside was a yellow oilskin pouch with a zip fastener. “Open it,” Dillon ordered.

Salter did as he was told and tossed the pouch across where it fell at Dillon’s feet. He picked it up, unzipped the front of his diving suit, and stowed it away. He half turned and took the key out of the door.

Salter said, “I’ll find you. Nobody does this to Harry Salter and gets away with it.”

“And didn’t I hear James Cagney saying that in an old gangster film on the
Midnight Movie
show on television last week?” Dillon grinned. “I know it doesn’t look it right now, but I’ve actually done you a good turn. Maybe you can do me one sometime.”

He slipped out and closed the door. Hall and Baxter rushed it but too late as Dillon turned the key in the lock. He vaulted over the stern down into the water, retrieved his inflatable jack, air tank, and fins and pulled them on. Then he went under the surface and swam back to Harley Dock.

On board the
River Queen
in the saloon Baxter stood on the table and unclipped the deck hatch above his head. When it was open, Harry Salter and Hall gave him a push up. A few moments later and he was outside the saloon door and opening it.

“Here, how’s my face?” Billy asked his uncle.

Salter inspected it. “You’ll live. It’s only a scratch. There’s sticking plaster in the medical kit in the wheelhouse.”

“So what are we going to do?” Billy demanded.

“Find out who shopped us,” Salter said. “Let’s face it, only a limited range of people knew about this job. So the sooner I run that bastard to earth, the sooner I’ll find our friend.” He turned to Baxter and Hall. “Haul up the anchor and let’s get out of here and back to Wapping.”

D
ILLON HAD STRIPPED
his diving suit, dressed in shirt, jeans, and his old reefer and was already making his way to Wapping. It was ten-thirty as he drove along streets that were deserted and lined by decaying warehouses of what had once been the greatest port in the world. Eventually he cut through a part of the city that was considerably more busy and eventually passed the Tower of London and reached Wapping High Street.

He parked the Toyota at the curb and proceeded on foot to Cable Wharfe. He had already checked out Salter’s pub, the Dark Man, earlier. It was almost eleven o’clock and closing time. A drink would give him an excuse to be in the area, so he walked along the wharf openly and went into the saloon bar. There were two old women at a marble-topped table drinking stout and three men at the end of the bar with beer in front of them, who looked as if they might be seamen, but only just.

The barmaid was in her forties, blonde hair swept back from a face that was heavily made up. “What’s your pleasure, sunshine?” she asked Dillon.

Dillon smiled that special smile of his, nothing but warmth and immense charm. “Well, if it’s only drink we’re talking about, let’s make it Bushmills.”

“Sorry, but you’ll have to drink up fast,” she told him as she gave him the Bushmills. “Closing time and I’ve got to think of my license with coppers around.”

“And where would they be?”

“The three at the end of the bar. They’re no more seamen than my arse.”

“So what are they up to?”

“God knows.”

“Then I’ll get out of it.” Dillon swallowed his Bushmills. “I’ll say goodnight to you.”

The two old women were leaving and Dillon followed them along the wharf aware of a police van parked in a courtyard to the left, a police car across the road.

“A trifle conspicuous,” he said softly, reached Wapping High Street, and doubled back. He found what he wanted, another disused warehouse, carefully negotiated stairs leading to the first floor, and crouched on one of the old loading platforms beneath a crane. He had a perfect view of the river, the wharf, and the Dark Man. He took out his infrared night glasses, focused them, and the
River Queen
came into view.

A
S THE
R
IVER
Q
UEEN
docked all hell broke loose. The police van and car that Dillon had noticed earlier drove onto the wharf and at the same time two River Police patrol boats moved out of the shadows where they had been waiting and pulled alongside. As uniformed police came over the rail, they found Hall and Baxter tying up. Salter and Billy came out of the saloon and looked up at the half dozen policemen on the wharf. The line parted and a tall man in his fifties in the uniform of a Superintendent came forward.

“Why it’s Superintendent Brown, our old friend, Billy,” Salter said. “And how are you, Tony?”

Brown smiled. “Permission to come aboard, Harry,” and he climbed down followed by the other police officers.

“So what’s all this?” Salter demanded.

“Well, Harry, I know there wouldn’t be anything in the pub. You’re too smart for that and we’ve turned you over often enough. However, I’ve reason to believe you’re carrying an illegal shipment of diamonds on this vessel to the amount of two hundred thousand pounds. Very silly, Harry, to slip like that after all these years.” Brown turned to the sergeant at his elbow. “Read him his rights, and the rest of you, start looking.”

“Diamonds on the
River Queen
.” Salter laughed out loud. “Tony, my old son, you really have got it wrong this time.”

I
T WAS ALMOST ONE
o’clock in the morning when they finished. Salter and his crew were sitting at the table in the saloon playing gin rummy when the Superintendent looked in.

“A word, Harry.”

The police had finished their fruitless task and were getting into the van. The two patrol boats started up and moved away. It was raining now and Salter and Brown stood under the canopy on deck.