“With these.” Dillon held up the photos. “We find Brown.”
“Well, we can’t put him on bloody television,” the Brigadier said.
“Then we’ll have to find another way.”
The President switched off the Codex in his sitting room, sat there for a while, and then buzzed for Teddy, then he went and poured a whiskey. He was drinking it when Teddy came in.
“Anything I can do, Mr. President?”
“I’m beginning to think there’s nothing anyone can do. I’ve just spoken to Blake. The good news is that Riley has put a face to the phoney lawyer on the video.”
“That’s great,” Teddy said.
“The bad news is that Judas has kidnapped Chief Inspector Bernstein. Not one, Teddy, but two to worry about now. He told Ferguson it was to keep him in line.”
“The sadistic swine,” Teddy said.
“Which is true, but doesn’t help at all,” the President told him.
“One thing we do know,” Dillon said. “He’s a lawyer, because he told Riley that he was, isn’t that true, Dermot?”
“Definitely.” Dermot frowned. “He knew his way round, knew the system. I had a sod of a prison officer in charge of me and Brown sorted him with no trouble at all. Anyway, what about me? Anything more I can do?”
“Not really,” Ferguson said. “Go and wait in the outer office. I’ll have someone arrange a bed for the night. We have rooms here for special circumstances. I’ll see you’re on your way back to Ireland in the morning.”
“Thanks.” Dermot turned to Dillon. “Sorry, Sean.”
“Not your fault. Good luck, Dermot.”
Riley went out. Ferguson said, “What in the hell do we do?”
Dillon smiled suddenly. “I’ve just had a thought. We could go to the man who has the widest knowledge of criminal lawyers of any man I know, because he’s used them so much.”
“And who in the hell do you mean?”
“Harry Salter.”
“Good God, Dillon, the man’s a gangster.”
“Which is exactly my point.” Dillon turned to Blake. “Are you game?”
“I sure as hell am.”
“Good, we’ll get a car from the pool and I’ll show you something of the murkier side of the London underworld.”
• • •
“Harry Salter,” Dillon said to Blake as they drove along Horse Guards Avenue, “is in his late sixties, a dinosaur. He did seven years for bank robbery when he was in his mid-twenties. Never been in prison since. He has warehouse developments, pleasure boats that show you the delights of the Thames, and he still hangs on to his first buy, a pub on the Thames at Wapping called the Dark Man.”
“And he still works the rackets?”
“Smuggling mainly. Illegal duty-free cigarettes and booze from Europe. Big business since the Common Market has exploded. Diamonds from Amsterdam are a possibility, too.”
“You haven’t mentioned drugs or prostitution,” Blake said. “Could we possibly be into an old-fashioned gangster here?”
“Exactly. Mind you, he’ll blow your kneecap off if you cross him, but that’s business. He’s your kind of people, Blake.”
“Well, I look forward to meeting him.”
As they moved down Wapping High Street, Blake said, “I wonder why Judas didn’t snatch Hannah at the same time he took you in Sicily?”
“He needed her to go back to Ferguson as a witness to what happened is my guess. Sure, he could have taken her, too, and got in touch with Ferguson personally, but leaving it to her made it stronger. It meant that Ferguson knew beyond any doubt that what had happened was true.”
“Yes, that makes sense.” Blake nodded. “But I think we have an unstable guy here. He likes to play games.”
“He certainly does.”
“You’ve used Salter before?”
“Oh, yes, he helped me out on a little gig I had a while back where I had to prove I could breach security at the House of Commons and make it to the terrace by the river front. He doesn’t run much of a gang these days, just his nephew, Billy, a real tearaway that one, and two minders, Baxter and Hall. The rest is accountants and an office, all legitimate.”
They turned along Cable Wharf and pulled up outside the Dark Man. It was an old-fashioned London pub, a painted sign of a sinister-looking individual in a black cloak swinging in the wind.