THEY MOVED ON THROUGH VARIOUS CORRIdors, and finally went out onto the Terrace overlooking the Thames, Westminster Bridge to the left and the Embankment on the far side of the river. A row of tall Victorian lamps ran along the parapet.
There was quite a crowd, visitors as well as MPs, enjoying a drink from the Terrace Bar.
Dillon hailed a passing walter. “Half a bottle of Krug non-vintage and three glasses.” He smiled.
“On me, Brigadier.” “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 3/ou 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. Oranddad 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.”
“Ther 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 so.r.”
“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 z53 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 b. low. “Oh, yes, I think so, especially if the Chief Inspector here can come up with the right information.”
FERGUSON’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 Bemstein 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,7 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 corn
ing up, Dillon. Not River Police, not Customs, but a London gangster.” Dillon started to laugh.
THE 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.