Hassan Shah said calmly, 'I'm so sorry, I must have called the wrong number.'

'Probably not, sir. This is the personal effects room, where we store the belongings of those brought in dead, to be claimed later, of course. Could you give me the name of the individual you were trying to call?'

Shah took a huge breath to steady himself. 'Selim Lancy.'

She answered at once. 'Oh, yes, he was brought in quite recently. Knocked down by a bus in Wapping High Street.'

'And killed,' Shah said. It was a stupid remark, but involuntary.

'Of course, sir, he's here waiting for a post mortem. You're a relative?' she asked.

'No, I employed him on occasion.'

'Could I have your name? It may be of use if there are identification problems.'

'I'm so sorry, but I suddenly feel very upset. I'll have to call you back.'

He switched off and sat there. The consequence of the business he was in was death, sometimes of a few, sometimes of many. You had to harden your heart: he had learned that a long time ago. Strange, then, that he felt genuine sadness in Lancy's case. Considering what had gone before, it was obviously not an accident. The Salters had to be behind it – them and Ferguson.

Ferguson had been a problem for too long, but he seemed to live a charmed life; it was rumoured he had even walked away from a car bomb. Perhaps, after all, the best solution was the old-fashioned way as used by the IRA for years. A silenced pistol loaded with hollow point cartridges, the bullet in the back of the head one lonely night in the rain and dark. Or in the back in a crowd, the target falling to the ground, the assassin calmly walking away.

All it required was a man with nerves of steel, and probably one who liked his work: a man like Lancy. Justin Talbot certainly liked his work, and was mad enough to take any chance. In fact, he was beginning to worry Shah, who for some time now had decided it was a good thing that Talbot did not know his identity. Perhaps the temptation of putting a bullet in the back of Shah's own head on a dark rainy night might have proved too great.

But all this would have to wait, for suddenly the most important thing in his life was an old Muslim woman in the cancer ward at St Luke's Hospital who did not know that her best beloved son had gone to paradise, leaving her alone. Professor Hassan Shah had no idea how to break the news to her, but it had to be done. It was a matter of honour, but at this time of night she would be asleep. He would leave it till the morning.

There was another matter that needed taking care of, also a matter of honour. He made a call on his special mobile and spoke to the man who answered it.

'Hamid, this is the Preacher. I have traffic for you, starting now. A photo and address will be in your laptop in five minutes. Deliver punishment at once with extreme prejudice. Osama's blessing on you.'

There was a short pause and then the reply. 'Allah is great and Osama is his Prophet.' It was just past midnight. Billy Salter had been with Roper for the past hour, getting filled in on the reason for Dillon's sudden trip to Ulster, and now he was driving down from Wapping High Street to the Dark Man. There were lamps here and there, three on the jetty that had the Linda Jones tied up to it, a few scattered around the car park. Not that there were many vehicles around at that time of night, with the pub closed since eleven, Dora's implacable house rules. There were lights on at the back of the building in the private quarters, but otherwise it was quiet and remote, with only the river noises to be heard.

He parked the red Alfa Romeo Spider, got out and stretched, for he was exhausted, hardly surprising after the events of the evening. He stood by one of the lamps at the beginning of the jetty and inhaled that wonderful river smell that was the Thames; it was where he'd grown up and it always made him feel better.

When he turned, a man was standing there, medium height with longish hair, wearing a leather bomber jacket. 'Mr Salter.' The voice was very soft.

'Who the hell are you?' Billy demanded.

'The Wrath of Osama.'

His hand swung up, there was the dull thud of a silenced weapon, and two rounds hit Billy around the heart. The force of the blow was enormous, sending him staggering on to his back. He breathed deeply as he had been trained to do, trying to stay conscious.

The man came forward to finish him, and Billy's right hand found the silenced Colt.25 with hollow point cartridges in his ankle holster. As the man leaned over, Billy shot him between the eyes.

Billy sat up, coughing and feeling sick, then unbuttoned his coat, ripped open his shirt, and felt for the two rounds sticking in the nylon-and-titanium vest he was wearing. Finally, he got up and went to the body and examined it. The face was covered in blood and the back of the skull was fragmented. He got down on his knees and searched it, but all he found were empty pockets. There wasn't even a mobile.

He went and sat on a bench by the pub entrance and called Roper, who answered at once. 'Did you forget something?'

'I've got a disposal. Make it fast. I'm outside the entrance to the Dark Man. The geezer was waiting for me. Said he was the Wrath of Osama, then shot me twice in the heart, or thought he did. He said my name. I think it was a revenge thing. I bet the bloody Preacher sent him.'

'I'm calling it in now. You go inside.'

'God damn it, no,' Billy said. 'I'm sick of it.'

He switched off his mobile, went down to the jetty to the Linda Jones, and sat on the stern seat, waiting.

After a while, a dark van appeared, pulled in front of the pub, and two men in black overalls got out, produced a body bag, eased the corpse into it and closed the door. They would see to it that the inconvenient corpse turned to six pounds of grey ash within two hours.

Billy walked down towards them and the door of the pub opened. Billy said to one of the men, 'Many thanks, Mr Teague.'

'Are you all right?' Teague asked.

'Well, the bastard did shoot me twice but, thanks to the Wilkinson Sword Company, I'm still here.'

'Thank God for that,' Teague said. 'We'll be on our way.'

Billy turned and found Harry looking grim and Dora in a dressing gown behind him. Harry Salter said, 'Well, at least we know where we are with this Preacher fellow. He means business and we've got to be ready for him.'

'Harry, I couldn't bloody care less,' Billy said. 'Just lock all the doors so nobody can break in, and let me go to bed. I've had it.'

10

The following morning, Harry Miller appeared in the computer room, hair wet from the shower and wearing a track suit. It was just before noon and he was yawning.

'I thought you'd have slept longer,' Roper said. 'You don't exactly look your best.'

'I'll pull round. Any word from Ferguson?'

'Not yet, but when he does surface, wait for the fireworks.'

'And why is that?'

'Let me begin at the beginning. Night before last, Sean and Daniel took themselves off to Belfast.'

Miller was astonished. 'But what the hell for?'

So Roper told him everything. Miller sat there, mesmerized, and when the story was finished, said, 'So Mickeen Oge has just been delivered to Rosedene, and Dillon and Holley are on their way back to Belfast, after creating mayhem at Collyban which even managed to involve Jean Talbot?'

'Exactly. I talked to Sean just this morning. What will the brand-new Chairman of Talbot International have to say about his beloved mother and our gallant friends getting involved in a brawl in the worst kind of Republican pub?' Roper smiled. 'It's quite bizarre, isn't it?'

Miller was grinning; just couldn't help it. 'I don't think that's the way Ferguson will describe it. That's quite a bit of event while we were gone.'