“Ex-Sergeant Michael Dillane.”
“I want him questioned before we move on Smiley, so hold steady — no need to jump the gun. We’ve waited long enough, so a few more hours to check out this Dillane character won’t hurt us.” He stood up and clapped his hands. “Good work all round. Let’s keep the energy up and fingers crossed.”
The team split up and went back to their desks as Langton crossed to Anna. He reached for her left hand. “Where’s your ring?”
“Being made to fit properly. It was a little bit big, and I was afraid to lose it.”
“I always believed it was unlucky to take it off before the wedding.”
“Ah, don’t say that.”
“Just joking, and well done. I know this dog-and-security-guard scenario came via you, so the romance hasn’t made you lose your touch.” He glanced at his watch and then turned to Barolli. “Soon as you get Dillane sorted, let me know. In the meantime, check out his boot-camp job, and everyone get ready to pull in John Smiley.”
Barolli gave him the thumbs-up. There wasn’t one member of the team who didn’t feel the adrenaline buzz. As Langton had said, it had been a long haul up to this point.
Ex-Sergeant Michael Dillane agreed to come in for an interview. He said it was convenient, as it was his day off and he had intended drive to London. Barolli had fudged the reason for the meeting, not wishing to tip him off in case he contacted John Smiley. All he said was that it was an urgent matter and concerned an ex-Para.
At five-fifteen, Michael Dillane showed up. He was driving a beat-up white Ford Escort van, on which, by the sound of it, the exhaust was cracked. Barolli watched Dillane parking from the incident-room window.
“You are not going to believe what this guy looks like. He’s wearing camouflage gear and a mountain hat.”
Barolli hurried to the reception to bring Dillane to interview room one. Anna gathered the files, pleased that Mike Lewis had agreed she should conduct the interview with Barolli.
“Your call on him, Travis, but I’ll be next door watching it go down on the monitors.”
“I appreciate this, Mike. Thank you.”
Michael Dillane was, as Barolli had described, wearing army jungle fatigues with a wide leather belt buckled too tightly. Not that he was overweight; on the contrary, he oozed muscles and had the sloping shoulders of a weight lifter. He was about five feet ten but had a huge presence and, as they were to discover, a personality that went with it. When he removed his wide-brimmed hat, he had a shaved head and sat with his legs spread wide apart, his feet encased in heavy studded boots. His thick hands had tattoos across the knuckles, and his shirt was open almost to his waist. He refused coffee but asked for a bottle of water.
Barolli introduced himself and Anna, thanking the man for agreeing to come in and talk to them.
Dillane lifted his hand and wagged a stubby finger. “Once a Para, always a Para, and if one of my mates is in trouble, I’m here for them.” He had round button eyes, a nose that looked as if it had been broken many times, and a wide wet mouth.
“Tell us about this boot camp, Michael.”
Anna was surprised by his thick Manchester accent.
“It’s a private company, partly subsidized by the government. We take on real hardline kids that basically everyone else has given up on. We get junkies from wealthy families, gang members — you name it. We get the dross of humanity that’s between fifteen to twenty, and we kick them into shape — not literally, of course, but we get them into shape physically, and then the shrinks take over.” He smiled. “I do the physical. Nothing works better than exercise and routine.” He flexed his muscles. “So who’s the reason I’m here?”
“We’ll get to that in a moment,” Barolli said, and then asked Dillane to go back to a period when he worked security.
“I’ve done a lot. How far do you want me to go back?”
“Maybe five years. You’ve worked for numerous companies?”
“That’s true. You ever seen how many security companies are listed nowadays? Thousands of them, and mostly bloody amateurs, but I’m done with that. They don’t pay on time — real aggravation — so this job is working out well for me. It’s been two years now.”
“Can you recall a period when you escorted prisoners, specifically to Barfield Prison?”
“Yeah, I done that quite a bit. It was a long time ago, though, at least five or six years now.”
“Do you recall driving a prisoner called Cameron Welsh?”
He shook his head.
“Went down for a double murder. Cocky bloke, well educated?” Barolli reminded him.
“I dunno. To be honest, I never gave them much thought when I was working.”
Barolli set down the mug shots of Cameron Welsh. Dillane picked them up and sucked in his breath.
“He was driven to Barfield Prison with a Mafia guy,” Barolli said.
“Right, yeah, it’s coming back to me...”
“So you remember Cameron Welsh?”
“More the Italian geezer. I remember him.”
“Tell us what you remember.”
“It was a right farce. The prison authorities were panic-stricken that the Mafia guy might be sprung, know what I mean? That he might have connections. He looked more like a weedy little bloke to me than some kind of godfather.” He frowned, cracking his knuckles. “Hang on — yeah. Now I think about it, that guy Welsh was in the first wagon, too; we were tailing them in the second with the dogs.”
“You were a dog handler?”
“That’s right. Nimrod, he was mine for nearly eighteen months. Fantastic animal and really intelligent. He could bring down an elephant, no problem.”
“Your dog?”
“That’s right. When I moved on, I was gonna take him with me, but he sort of belonged to the company. I mean, I had him at home with me when I was working for them, but when I left and went on to doing the doors, they kept him.”
“So you had the dog for how long?”
“I just said I had Nimrod for about eighteen months, and I tell you, when I walked away from the kennels, it broke my heart. He had this look on his face I’ll never forget — looking at me as if to say, ‘What’s going on? How come I’m not going with you?’ Broke me up.”
“When you did the convoy to Barfield—”
“Done quite a few runs there,” Dillane interrupted.
“Can we concentrate on the occasion you drove to Barfield with the two prisoners Cameron Welsh and—”
“He’s still there, isn’t he, this Mafia geezer?”
“So is Cameron Welsh,” Anna said quietly.
Dillane turned toward her. This was the first time she’d spoken. Up until this moment, he had directed his entire conversation toward Barolli.
“Has this got something to do with him?” the big man asked. He looked from one to the other, his wide, flat face registering confusion. “What’s going on?”
“Did you at any time have any conversation with Welsh?”
“No, he was in the wagon up front.”
“So you never spoke to him?”
“No. When we got to the prison, we were out with the dogs as the two guys were led in, like, and he did come up to me. In fact, he was not really talking to me, he was interested in Nimrod, and I had to warn him to stay back. He was leashed — the dog, not the bloke!” He gave a loud chortle and then lifted a hand, gripping it into a fist. “Hadda hold on to him tight, like, almost as if he knew the bloke was a bad ’un.”
“Cameron Welsh?”
“Yeah, and he straightened up and stepped away, scared-like, you know? And that was about it.”