“I don’t think you’ll find him around. He’s left his keys with me in case there are any problems.”

“Did he say when he’d be back?”

“No. I had to phone when there was a water board problem.”

“And spoke to him?”

“No – somebody else. Drumore Place, they said. I left a message.”

“You’ve been very kind,” Billy told her, and left.

A couple of streets away, he pulled up behind Flynn and Donald and conferred. Flynn said, “Drumore, now that’s in County Louth on the coast, a known fact, so you’ve got your link with Kelly. You did a good job there, taking that bastard out.”

“We just need confirmation that Bell really has taken over.”

Flynn said, “It’s a strong IRA area and Josef Belov’s been a power in the land. Everybody’s behind him, and that includes the IRA. They’ll never let go in Ballykelly and Drumore.”

“Fine. I just want to confirm that Bell is running things now, so what do I do?”

“Go to the Irish Hussar for your lunch and ask questions. They’ll suspect you straightaway, because you don’t drink. Let’s see what happens.”

“Great. Lead the way,” Billy said.

The Irish Hussar was on a cobbled street fronting the River Liffey. The police vehicle coursed by and turned into a parking bay. They drove round to the side alley and went in.

The bar was old-fashioned, rather Victorian, everything an old-fashioned pub should be: plenty of bottles crammed behind the bar, mirrors, mahogany, a fresco painting of Michael Collins holding the Irish tricolor high on Easter, 1916. The modern changes were the tables crammed in, making the pub more a restaurant than anything else.

Billy chose a table by a bow window. A young waitress descended on him. “Will you be eating?”

“Considering that the smells from the kitchen are driving me potty, yes I am.”

“So what can I get you?”

“Orange juice.”

Three young men at a nearby table appeared to find this funny. Billy smiled. “Please. And I’ll have the Irish stew, since I’m over from London for the day.”

She hesitated. “You don’t have an Irish accent.”

“Well, when you’re London Irish, that isn’t likely. What’s your name?”

“Kathleen.”

“Well, Kathleen, I’m an Irish Cockney who seeks orange juice and Irish stew.”

She smiled. “Coming up.”

Billy tried Dillon on his mobile and found him. “How are things?”

“Not too bad. I’ve been mulling over what’s happening about Killane and Hannah. Frankly, I think uniform branch at Scotland Yard are dragging their feet.”

“Be fair,” Billy said. “Maybe there’s not much coming up.”

“You could be right. What about you?” Billy went through it. Dillon said, “I remember Flynn. Give him my best. He’s good, Billy.”

Kathleen returned with an orange juice and his stew and crusty bread. “There you go. Anything else?”

“I’m here on business,” Billy said. “Supposed to catch up with a Liam Bell, only he seems to be away.”

She stopped smiling and Billy attacked the stew. “This is fantastic. So, you’ve no idea where he is? I understand he comes here all the time.”

“I wouldn’t know.” She turned and fled and the three men at the next table stopped talking and looked at Billy in silence.

The stew was so good, he actually finished it and washed it down with the orange juice. The looks from the three men said it all, and Billy checked the.25 Colt in his waistband at the rear. No point in delaying things. These bastards obviously wanted to have him, so they might as well get on with it.

He called Kathleen over and gave her a twenty-pound note. “Jesus, that’s too much.”

“It’s been a sincere sensation,” he said, and smiled. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

Suddenly, she smiled. “My God, I don’t know who you are, but I think you will.”

Billy reached over, kissed her on the cheek, went out of the pub and turned into the alley at the side. The three young men from the next table erupted after him, and Billy turned to meet the rush, not afraid, he never was. Years on the street had taken care of that.

“Now then, lads, what’s the problem?”

One of them grabbed him by the tie. “You’ve been asking after a good friend of ours, Liam Bell, you English bastard.”

“Now, that’s not nice,” Billy said. “And me as Irish as all of you.” Which was perfectly untrue.

One of them said, “You don’t even have an Irish accent.”

“I didn’t know you needed one.”

The man pulled his tie, the other two moved in, Billy pulled the Colt.25 from the back of his waistband and fired between their legs at the cobbles. He kept a hand on the one who clutched his tie and wiped the Colt across his mouth. The others jumped back.

“I’ll only say this once, otherwise you can have it in the knee. Where’s Bell?”

The youth was quaking. “He was recruiting for a job in Drumore up in County Louth last I heard.”

Billy released him. “There you go. It wasn’t too hard, was it?”

He replaced the Colt and one of the other two took a swing at him. There was a minor melee, and Flynn and big Donald came running round the corner. A few pokes from Donald’s stick were enough. They went off, dejected, one with a handkerchief to a bloody face.

Flynn stuck a cigarette in his mouth. “You don’t take prisoners, do you?”

“I could never see the point.”

“Neither could I. Let me know what the outcome is. I’m fascinated.”

“That’s a promise,” Billy said. “You can rely on it. Regards from Dillon.”

He got in his car and drove back to the airport.

Dillon showered and changed, wondering how Billy would make out in Dublin, then drove round to Holland Park. He found Roper in the computer room with Ferguson. “Any word on Billy?” he asked.

“Not yet. You’re expecting a lot, Dillon, but then you always did.”

“I just expect people to come up to expectations. Coming up with the goods is another way of looking at it, which Scotland Yard seems to be rather spectacularly failing to do in Hannah’s case.” He turned to Roper. “Any news at all from the Murder Squad?”

“It’s early days, Sean. You’re expecting too much.”

“It’s one of their own we’re talking about,” Dillon said.

“Leave it alone,” Ferguson said. “This is a job for uniform and Special Branch and certainly not for us. You don’t interfere.”

“Sounds definite enough,” Dillon said. “I’ll give it my consideration.” And he went out.

Levin had been on his tail since leaving Dillon’s cottage in Stable Mews, which could have been difficult with someone of Dillon’s experience, but there was London traffic to help. Not that he was exactly inexperienced himself, and he stayed well back and followed.

Dillon went to Mary Killane’s place. He really was worried that the Murder Squad didn’t appear to be making much progress. Where she had lived, Kilburn, was the most Irish area of London. There were pubs there that would make you think you were back in the old country. Republican, Protestant, take your pick.

Dillon was an expert on all of them, had lived there as a boy newly come from Belfast with his father, so if you were a nice Catholic girl who was going out for a drink, you’d never go to a Prod pub, only a Catholic one. Mary Killane didn’t have a car, so you were talking about walking unless she’d a fella who picked her up at the flat. In any case, within a reasonable walking distance to here, there were a few Catholic pubs.

Most were clean enough. He showed her photo and got nowhere. There were others that had IRA connections, especially from before the Peace Process, there being little action in London these days. One such was the Green Tinker, the landlord one Mickey Docherty. A huge IRA supporter in the old days, he’d been picked up twice although nothing had ever been proven.

Dillon found him just before noon, when the bar was empty except for two old men in cloth caps drinking ale at a corner table and playing dominoes. Docherty was reading the Standard at the bar, and the look on his face when he saw Dillon was comical.