The Killing Ground

Fly

“And the other? His papers are here. Fu

Fly

The man gave them to him. “It’s lucky we had another body bag in the van.”

“Where will you put them?”

“Oh, you wouldn’t want to know that, Mr. Fly

“No, I wouldn’t.” He took a bulging envelope from his pocket, stuffed with euros.

“It was supposed to be one, Mr. Fly

“So I’ll give you extra next time. Now get on with it,” and Fly

He found his car and drove away. It was unfortunate for Popov, but God alone knew what had happened to the man Levin. He’d have him checked out. He was a

AT THE GREEN TINKER at about two-thirty, the snug was down to old Bert Fahy behind the bar and two aging men enjoying a beer. Nolan and Kelly had been making calls, and the result was two cars turning up outside and four men entering the snug, one after the other.

They were all from Kilburn, the Irish quarter for over a hundred and fifty years, which is why its inhabitants were known as London Irish and hard men. Hard and wild where Da

Jack Burke and Tim Cohan were very different, members of the IRA since their youth, veterans of that long struggle of what the Irish had always called the Troubles. Both were in their late forties, hard, calm faces giving little away. It was the first time they’d met as a group and there was a hint of contempt in the way the older men looked at the younger. One thing was certain. The days of the IRA holding London in thrall were over, there was no disguising that by brave talk.

Da

Flanagan said, “I heard you were with the crew who knocked off that Muslim travel agency in Trenchard Street the other week. These Pakis have real cash in those places.”

Delaney said, “I heard twenty grand.”

The two older men didn’t say a word and Bert Fahy spoke up as the two aging men left their beers and made for the door. “What’s it to be, gents?”

“Let’s just make it Bushmills whiskey all round, large ones,” Delaney said. “If we’re talking business, I like to keep a clear head.” He put a line of coke on the bar in an abstracted way, whistling cheerfully, and sniffed it and drank the glass of Bushmills that Fahy offered him.

“Now that’s what I call good stuff, man. Go on, have a go.”

Flanagan did, also pausing to down his whiskey. “That’s so great, man, let’s do it again.”

Burke looked on with obvious disapproval. “Rots the inside of your nose, I hear.”

“If you indulge enough,” Cohan observed.

Delaney was really on a roll. “Your travel agency. Reminds me of that Paki store we turned over the other week in Bayswater. Big bastard with a beard. Wouldn’t open the safe. Young girl was serving, one of those things on her face with only the eyes showing. I pulled it off, the veil. Real good-looker. I mean, I’d have given her one if I’d had time.” He took a pistol from his pocket, a silencer on the end. “Put her over the counter and shot her in her right bum cheek. She never even screamed.”

“That was shock, you see,” Flanagan said.

“But he got the safe open bloody quick after that,” Delaney said. “And there was only eight hundred quid in it. Must have been to the bank. I’d have given him one, too, only we had to get moving.”

Burke turned to Cohan. “The great days are behind us indeed, Tim, if this is what we’ve come down to.”

“So it would appear.”

“You wouldn’t know how to have a laugh if you saw one,” Delaney told him.

“And you wouldn’t know how to handle serious business if it hit you in the face, sunshine.”

Delaney giggled again. “Last of the old brigade, a sort of Dad’s Army of the Provisional IRA.”

Burke grabbed him by the lapels. “Don’t take the piss out of the IRA, boy. I did a stretch at Long Kesh, the Maze Prison itself. In five minutes you’d have been on your knees in the shower room begging. And I’ve got one of these, too.”

He produced a silenced pistol from his pocket and held it up. Delaney pulled away, higher than ever. “But is it as big as mine?”

The door to the office opened and Nolan appeared. “Cut it out. Get in here.”

Kelly was sitting on one end of the desk. On the wall behind was the material Fly

Ferguson, Harry Salter, Billy, Dillon and Roper in his wheelchair. There was nothing on Greta Novikova, but Harry’s minders, Joe Baxter and Sam Hall, were represented.

“They look like nothing much to me,” Flanagan said.

“I agree.” Delaney nodded.

Burke said, “I recognize that bastard, Ferguson. Years ago, he was a colonel in Derry when they lifted a bunch of us.”

“Major General now. He’s the prime target, and I can tell you boys there is big money in this for all of us, you have my word on it.”

Cohan said, “How much?”

“A hundred grand, and my client is good for it, believe me.”

“But we’ve got to deliver the goods before we see any of that?” Delaney frowned.

Kelly, who had been silent, said, “So we do. Let’s have some plain speaking, I hate time wasting. If the terms aren’t satisfactory, there’s the door.”

“No need to be so butch,” Delaney said. “We might as well have a go. Nothing else on at the moment.”

Cohan said, “So what are we talking about?”

“The main targets are Harry Salter, and a lot of people will heave a sigh of relief if you manage to kill that one, and Charles Ferguson. The others are minders, back-up people, but Salter and Ferguson go down any way we can.”

“Any suggestions?” Burke asked.

“A bullet in the head is as good as anything.” Cohan nodded. “I wouldn’t hesitate to shoot Ferguson in the back if I saw him in the street on a wet night.” He looked at the photos again. “God save us, Sean Dillon himself, the Small Man some called him.”

“Looks like rubbish to me,” Delaney said.

“Chief enforcer in the movement for twenty years. Killed more men than you could imagine, boy.”

Cohan said, “He never got his collar felt once by the Army or the RUC.”

Delaney said, “You knew him then?”

“Only by reputation.”

Nolan cut in. “Have any of you been to the Dark Man, Salter’s pub at Wapping?” Nobody had. “That’s okay then. It’s Friday night so it should be busy. Go down there, mingle, get the feel of the place, the area. It’s on Cable Wharf. The pub is the first place Salter owned. There’s a development next door. It seems he’s turned an old warehouse into luxury apartments. He even keeps a boat along the wharf.”

“Anything else?” Cohan asked.

“Drive past Ferguson ’s pad in Cavendish Place, just to have a look, and Dillon’s at Stable Mews. That’s walking distance from Cavendish Place. Feel it all out, but carefully at this stage. We’ll speak again.”

Delaney said impatiently, “So what’s the point?”

Burke said, “To use the military term, so you’re familiar with the killing ground, stupid, and know what we’re talking about.”