When Devlin reached the foyer, they were pushing Viktor Levin on a trolley into the receiving room.
‘Sister Anne-Marie’s on Ward Three. She’ll be right down,’ he heard one of the ambulancemen tell the young sister in charge. The driver of the bread van stood there helplessly, blood on one sleeve of his overall coat. He was shaking badly. Devlin lit a cigarette and handed it to him. ‘What happened?’
‘God knows. We found this car a couple of miles up the road. One was dead beside it and him in the back. They’re bringing the other in now.’
As Devlin, filled with a terrible premonition, turned towards the door, the ambulancemen hurried in with Billy White’s body, his face plain to see. The young sister came out of the receiving room and went next door to check White. Devlin stepped in quickly and approached the trolley on which Levin still lay, moaning softly, blood congealing in a terrible head wound.
Devlin leaned down. ‘Professor Levin, can you hear me?’ Levin opened his eyes. ‘I am Liam Devlin. What happened?’
Levin tried to speak, reached out one hand and got hold of the lapel of Devlin’s jacket. ‘I recognized him. He’s, here.’
His eyes rolled, there was a rattle in his throat and as his grip slackened, Sister Anne-Marie hurried in. She pushed Devlin to one side and leaned over Levin, searching for a pulse. After a while, she stepped back. ‘You know this man?’
‘No,’ Devlin told her, which was true in a sense.
‘Not that it would matter if you did,’ she said. ‘He’s dead. A miracle he didn’t die instantly with a head wound like that.’
She brushed past him and went next door where they had taken White. Devlin stood looking down at Levin, thinking of what Fox had told him of the old man, of the years of waiting to get out. And this was how it had ended. He felt angry, then, at the brutal black humour of life that could allow such a thing to happen.
Harry Fox had only just arrived back at Cavendish Square, had hardly got his coat off, when the phone rang. Ferguson listened, face grave, then placed a hand over the mouthpiece. ‘Liam Devlin. It seems the car with your man, Billy White, and Levin was ambushed just outside Kilrea. White was killed instantly, Levin died later in the hospice at Kilrea.’
Fox said, ‘Did Liam get to see him?’
‘Yes. Levin told him it was Cuchulain. That he recognized him.’ –
Fox threw his coat on the nearest chair. ‘But I don’t understand, sir.’
‘Neither do I, Harry.’ Ferguson spoke into the mouthpiece, Til get back to you, Devlin.’
He put the receiver down and turned, hands out to the fire. Fox said, ‘It doesn’t make sense. How would he have known?’
‘Some sort of leak, Harry, at the IRA end of things. They never keep their mouths shut.’
‘The thing is, sir, what do we do about it?’
‘More important, what do we do about Cuchulain?’ Ferguson said. ‘That gentleman is really beginning to annoy me.’
‘But there isn’t much we can do now, not with Levin gone. After all, he was the only person who had any idea what the bastard looked like.’
‘Actually, that isn’t quite true,’ Ferguson said. ‘You’re forgetting Tanya Voraninova, who at this precise moment is in Paris. Ten days, four concerts, and that opens up a very interesting possibility.’
About the same time, Harry Cussane was at his desk in the press office of the Catholic Secretariat in Dublin talking to Monsignor Halloran who was responsible for public relations.
From his comfortable chair, Halloran said, ‘It’s a terrible thing that such a significantly historical event as the Holy Father’s visit to England should be put in such jeopardy. Just think of it, Harry, His Holiness at Canterbury Cathedral. The first Pope in history to visit it. And now…’
‘You think it won’t come off?’ Cussane asked.
‘Well, they’re still talking away in Rome, but that’s how it looks to me. Why, do you know something I don’t?’
‘No,’ Cussane told him. He picked up a typed sheet. ‘I’ve had this from London. His planned itinerary, so they are still acting as if he’s coming.’ He ran an eye over it. ‘Arrives on the morning of 2.8th May at Gatwick Airport. Mass at Westminster Cathedral in London. Meets the Queen at Buckingham Palace in the afternoon.’