Rough Justice (20 page)

“There’s a way of doing things, a proper way, sensible diplomatic overtures. Not Ferguson’s way and not your way. You’re going too far. For God’s sake, man, it could be the death of you, can’t you see that?”

Miller sometimes called him Simon because he knew it annoyed him. “My dear Simon, I didn’t know you cared.”

“What’s the point?” Carter said. “Carry on like this and see where your stupidity gets you.” He went downstairs.

Miller checked a few things, then called Ellis, went outside and got into the Mercedes when it arrived, and told Ellis to make it the House of Commons. He went in at the St. Stephens Entrance, went through the central lobby to his office, then down to the House and passed the bar. The debate was about some aspect of housing policy, the speeches very partisan, and suddenly he was so bored he couldn’t stand it anymore. He went to the Whip’s Office, said he had something to do for the Prime Minister for three days, a common occurrence, and left the House, calling Ellis on his Codex.

He told him to take him to Dover Street, but when he got there, there was no Olivia, so he phoned and found her at the hairdressers. “Do you fancy lunch?” he asked. “A run out into the country, perhaps?”

“Good God no,” she said. “I’ve got a working lunch with Colin, then the whole afternoon I have a run-through with my new understudy. Francine’s been offered a play at the West Riding Playhouse. Management has told her she can go.”

So that was that. “I’m going away for a day or two. I’ll leave you Ellis full time. I’ll take the Mini Cooper. Is that okay?”

“I suppose so. Where are you going?”

“I haven’t been to Folly’s End for ages. I feel like getting away for a day or two. It’s time I checked the place out.”

She sounded perfectly cheerful. “If that’s what you’ve got to do, that’s what you’ve got to do. Tell Ellis where I am. He can pick me up from here.”

He changed into casual clothes—black velvet cords, black shirt, bomber jacket—and threw a few things in an old duffel bag, found a trench coat, and went downstairs. The Mini Cooper was parked at the curb, covered by a resident’s parking permit like many townhouses in Mayfair. Ellis was pulled in farther along, waiting for him, sitting behind the wheel, reading the
Mail.

Close by was a man in a yellow oilskin jacket with a yellow handcart. He was sweeping the pavement with slow, deliberate strokes.

Miller said, “Change of plan, Ellis. Madame is at the hairdressers. That’s Joe Hansford.”

“What are you going to do, Major?”

“I think I’m going to go down to West Sussex, Folly’s End, for a couple of days. I’ll have a check on how things are at the cottage.”

“We haven’t been there for a year at least.”

“I know, Ellis, time I did. On your way now.” He closed the door and Ellis drove off. Miller nodded cheerfully to the sweeper, went back to the Mini Cooper, got inside, and drove away. Within minutes, he was driving out into Park Lane and turning up toward Marble Arch.

His intended destination was a few miles along the coast from Bognor Regis, not even a proper village, just an inlet where there was room for half a dozen boats to anchor, a scattering of cottages, and a pub called Smugglers’, and behind it what was left of the grass runways of a Battle of Britain fighter station, Haddon Field. His father had bought one of the cottages after the Second World War for five hundred pounds. The times spent there had been one of the most cherished memories of childhood. He couldn’t wait to get there.

 
 
ABDUL, THE SWEEPERS’ FOREMAN,
had done Dover Street himself and reported what he had overheard to Ali Hassim on his mobile.

“You’ve done well,” Ali told him. “It doesn’t need to be a full-time operation. Just tell your boys to keep an eye out generally and report anything of interest.”

He searched a shelf above his desk that contained a series of travel handbooks covering most parts of the country, and found what he was looking for, an area map of West Sussex, and soon located Folly’s End. He thought about it, then phoned a member of the Brotherhood, who worked for a financial house in the City.

“Are you available?” he asked.

“Since my promotion, I’m in charge of my own destiny. What is it you want?”

“Come round to the shop and I’ll tell you.”

 
 
SAM BOLTON
was actually Selim. His story was simple. His mother was Muslim and despised by her people for marrying his English father, who raised him in a totally Christian culture. His father had died during his first year studying accountancy at London University, and his mother had returned to her Islamic faith. There had been those who had seen distinct possibilities in a handsome young man in a good suit who seemed English and had an excellent background in the City. The truth was that Bolton wasn’t in the slightest religious and accepted his sleeper role in the movement more out of a sense of adventure than anything else. The other truth was that Ali, wise in the way of the world, was perfectly aware of the situation.

Ali didn’t think Bolton had any need to know what the mission was really about, nor who Miller really was. Bolton looked puzzled when Ali gave him the name, and checked him out on the laptop.

“So why him?” he asked, looking at the laptop on his knees. “He seems a typically pin-striped MP, except for his patch in the Falklands, and enjoyed a totally deskbound career.”

“Appearances can be deceptive.”

“Do you know more than you’re telling me?”

“See what you make of him.”

“If that’s a challenge, you’re on.” Bolton closed his laptop. “You do realize I haven’t had breakfast. I’ll stop at a Little Chef on the way.”

“You intend to go as you are?”

“You mean dressed like this, an accountant from one of the best investment firms in the City, on his way to Bognor Regis in his Audi and lost in the labyrinth of country roads that is West Sussex?”

“Go with my blessing, you rogue, and Allah protect you.” Ali patted him on the cheek as Bolton went out.

 
 
MILLER HAD A GOOD
fast run from London through Guildford all the way to Chichester and down to the best of West Sussex, into a complex of country roads that he remembered well. It was a two-and-a-half-hour run, so he was at Folly’s End about half past one.

There were sailing boats anchored in the inlet, a solitary motor cruiser, four cars outside the pub. He parked the Mini Cooper, walked down to the shingle beach, smelling the same salt smell from childhood, then turned to Smugglers’. When he went into the bar, two couples were sitting in separate booths, working their way through ham salads, beer on the tables.

Behind the bar, polishing a glass, was the publican, Lizzie Arnold, a widow for seven years now, one son away in the Army, a paratrooper. She was forty-five and comely, a local farmer’s daughter. Miller had known her forever.

“My God, look what the cat’s brought in.” She leaned over the bar and kissed him. “It’s been too long. Where have you been?”

He held her hands across the bar. “Oh, here, there, and everywhere. You wouldn’t want to know. Everything okay at the cottage?”

Stepping in through the door, Sam Bolton had heard all this and did an excellent impersonation of someone who didn’t have the slightest idea where he was.

“Excuse me.”

Lizzie took a key from one of many hanging on a board behind the bar. “Everything’s in apple pie order, Harry.” He started to move out, and she said to Bolton, “What’s your problem, my love?”

“I’m down from London, managed to hit Chichester, and as it’s Bognor Regis I’m making for, I thought I’d find a scenic route, cut into the country, and I seem to have got thoroughly lost.”

Miller said from the door, “You certainly have, but she’ll put you straight. I’ll be back, Lizzie.”

He went out, and Bolton said, “I suppose I could do with some lunch while I’m here, and a pint of beer. But just the one, I’m driving.”

He really was a handsome devil, she thought, and pumped his beer.

“I’ll just lock my car.”

“No need round here, love, believe me.”

“I’ve got some really important papers in there for the client I’m seeing in Bognor.”

He slid behind the wheel of the Audi, reached under the dashboard, and dropped a flap that held a Walther PPK. He slipped it into the briefcase he was carrying as he returned to the pub. He was probably being foolish, but the pin-striped MP in the laptop was one thing and the man in black cords and bomber jacket wearing Ray-Ban Wayfarers was something entirely different. He was now perfectly certain that Ali had not been honest with him, had involved him in something that was more than it seemed.

She had his beer waiting at a corner table. “My trade is mainly in the evening these days, so I’m finished for lunch. Steak-and-ale pie, and fries out of the microwave. Any good?”

“Just bring it on,” he said, and started to drink his beer.

 
 
THE COTTAGE
was in first-rate condition, not a trace of damp, the smell of polish everywhere, the kitchen spotless. Miller picked up the photo of his mother. She’d been the most important thing in his life for the first five years and then tragically died in childbirth with Monica. He kissed the photo as he always did, replaced it on the sideboard, then took out his Codex and contacted Roper.

“It’s Harry. I’ve taken the day off. I’ve come down to a hamlet called Folly’s End on the West Sussex coast. We’ve had a cottage here for years.”

“And—?”

“Roper, the only reason I’m still here at forty-five is because all those years in and out of Northern Ireland branded me. When I see some individual who’s out of the ordinary, I know him instinctively and beyond doubt to be suspicious. Some guy just appeared in the small pub of this tiny hamlet, claiming to have lost his way to Bognor Regis. No name, but I have the number of a silver Audi coupe.”

“Then give it to me,” which Miller did. He was back in seconds. “Samuel Bolton. Has a flat in Belsize Park. M.B.A. from London University, investment manager with Goldman-Greene in the City. Does that help?”

“I didn’t know his name when I asked you, so I’ll have to go and check. Is that it? Nothing else?”

“Except the fact that his mother was a Muslim and Iranian. She’s dead, by the way, heart attack five years ago, his father last year. It’s all here. These finance houses are very thorough. What is this, Harry?”

“I left my place in Dover Street this morning. I was giving my chauffeur from the Cabinet Offices his orders for the day, telling him I was coming down here in the Mini Cooper, and I saw something I’d never seen before.”

“What was that?”

“A man in a yellow oilskin jacket with a yellow trolley, and he was sweeping the street. He was a Muslim from his appearance, and he was close enough to hear me.”

“Army of God,” Roper said. “The sweepers, the Brotherhood. What are you going to do?”

“I told you in my Beirut report about Drecq Khan confessing that a man named Ali Hassim ran the Brotherhood. I’ll see what Bolton thinks about that.”

“Take care, Harry. The Brotherhood isn’t supposed to exist. However, if this guy Sam Bolton is an agent of such an organization, have you considered his purpose in being there?”

“Well, I could always ask him.”

 
 
A LITTLE EARLIER,
a speedboat had arrived in the inlet and Lizzie had come to the window and groaned. “Not him again.”

Bolton glanced out and saw the man at the wheel push the prow into the shingle of the beach, scramble over the side, and wade out of the water. He was big and powerful, wore a fisherman’s smock, and had tangled hair and was badly in need of a shave. The youth who scrambled out behind him looked about eighteen and was a younger version.

One of the couples on the other side of the bar glanced out, there was a hurried exchange, and they got up and left. The other couple looked distinctly worried.

“Trouble?” Bolton asked.

“Nothing but trouble. Seth Harker. He likes the fisherman look, but he’s a retired property millionaire from London who made it by walking all over people. Drunk as a lord most of the time, and the other idiot is his son, Claude, who’s permanently on something. I tried barring them, but it’s difficult. And there’s no man around the place until this evening.”

Harker came in laughing, followed by the youth, and the remaining couple who had been having lunch got up to go.

“Leaving, are you?” Harker roared, and as the young couple passed, his son patted the woman’s bottom.

“Nice arse on her, Dad.”

The couple hurriedly left and Lizzie came straight around the bar. “I’m not having that kind of conduct in my pub. I’m telling you for the last time, you’re barred, so get out.”

Claude Harker came up behind her, grabbed her close, and ran a hand up her skirt. “That’s nice,” he leered, absolutely coked up to the eyeballs from the look of him. “I like that.”

Lizzie Arnold was helpless, crying with rage as she struggled in his grasp, and Harker went behind the bar, laughing his head off, and helped himself to whiskey. Sam Bolton got to his feet and moved in.

“She doesn’t like that, you little toad, hadn’t you noticed?” He pulled Claude around, slapped him across the face and simply threw him away, then turned to Lizzie. “Are you all right?”

Seth Harker, moving surprisingly fast for such a big man, was through the bar flap instantly, had one arm round Bolton’s neck, and grabbed a wrist.

“Trouble is it, you bastard? You’ve come to the right place. Go on, Claude, do him up.”

Lizzie cried out in indignation. Claude Harker got one good punch in, and Miller arrived on the run behind him and punched him in the kidneys. Young Harker howled in agony, and Miller simply dragged him away to fall over a table.

Seth Harker seemed transfixed, staring at Miller in a kind of wonder. He released Bolton, who staggered away, blood on his mouth. Claude, pulling himself together, swung a wild punch at Bolton, who blocked it easily and punched him in the face.