“Do you now, sur?” Skepticism mixed with something like hope in his voice. A gentleness began to spread over the flat, broken Irish face.
Devereaux went to the window and looked out at the sun trying to burn through the fog. “Which brings us now to our business, O’Neill.”
But O’Neill saw himself free now. “If it’s the same to you, and I appreciate your kindness, sur, I’d as soon be quit of the business if you think old Hastings has really gotten rid of that dossier—”
“No,” said Devereaux. “You’re quit of it when I release you. Sit down.”
O’Neill hesitated and then sat down again. The gloom replaced whatever hope had infected his features a moment before.
Devereaux thought the moment was right. He opened the brown envelope and took out ten one-thousand-dollar bills. He placed them on the sill of the window by O’Neill’s chair.
“Mother of God,” said O’Neill reverently.
“Indeed,” said Devereaux.
O’Neill simply stared and calculated. The money represented three years’ pay.
Finally: “Well, sur. That’s impressive, sur, it certainly is.” Somehow, the chains seemed lighter. “Impressive but not as impressive as what I have to tell you, lad. Not half as much.” How lightly they could be worn. “Me, the O’Neill himself, has more than enough information — and you’ve not heard the like of it—”
Devereaux watched him. He was not prepared to be surprised — he had heard the like of many things. He was surprised at his own feeling of fascinated revulsion at the look in O’Neill’s blue eyes as the Irishman watched the money laying on the sill.
“Well,” he began. “The Byes.” Byes meaning boys, and the Boys meaning the provisional IRA. “The Byes are puttin’ together a plan. Didja never hear of Lord Slough?”
Devereaux nodded. He had heard.
O’Neill ignored the nod: “The cousin of the Queen, he is. And the richest man in England.”
Devereaux tensed.
“Y’heard of him, all right,” said O’Neill. “The bloody world drinks his beer or drives his motorcars or reads his bloody papers or—” O’Neill’s eloquence left him; it was too unfair that this one Englishman should own the whole world when O’Neill had scarcely a piece of it.
“And—” said Devereaux. But he knew what O’Neill would say.
“Well, sur, the ‘and’ is that the Byes are gonna get him. Get the bloody great English Lord Slough, the cousin of the Queen of England—”
“Kidnap—” said Devereaux.
O’Neill’s eyes glittered with greed and mirth: “Oh, no, sur, not at all. Not at all. They’re gonna make him dance. They’re gonna get him fer good. They’ll make him dance with their guns, and when they’re through, Lord Slough will dance no more.” His voice carried an edge of patriotic glee—“Dance him, sur; they’re gonna kill the bloody man.”
Devereaux still stared, but O’Neill did not see him. His voice continued to rise:
“How’s that for ten thousand bloody dollars’ worth of information? How’s that, me lad? How’s that bloody suit you, that the Byes are going inter England itself and kill the richest man in the land and a member of the royal bloody family!”
Devereaux did not arrive at Blake House until shortly after eight P.M., when the hum and bustle of west London’s traffic had finally settled down for the November night.
There had been matters to settle in Edinburgh and questions to puzzle out.
First, there was the matter of O’Neill’s information, which never went far beyond the bare outlines.
O’Neill had explained that he was not an insider. The talk of the coming assassination had been garnered in bits and pieces from a half-dozen sources. No one, he said, knew the exact membership of the gang who would effect the assassination, though a “Cap’n Donovan” was supposed to be involved.
Lord Slough would be killed sometime before Boxing Day, the day after Christmas. That was for certain. Devereaux had probed at this date but O’Neill was adamant. That was the word in every quarter but nothing more specific.
Why? Where?
Finally, O’Neill’s confidence in his own information and its importance sagged under the weight of Devereaux’s question. There were too many things the Irishman didn’t know.
Too many things for it to be a lie.
The questioning had continued without interruption into the pale Scottish afternoon: Who else was part of Hastings’ information network? As Devereaux expected, O’Neill knew little. It had been a stab. Hastings had always submitted four names — code names — all with routine retainers and expenses, all paid for their scraps of information. But did they really exist or had Hastings fiddled with the facts again and created a bogus network to pad out his own salary?
Were some of the names real?
And why did the Boys want to kill the richest man in England? What would it accomplish? What did any of the chaotic acts of mad bombing of innocent people in Dublin and Belfast and London accomplish?
At last, O’Neill was allowed to leave, with a single thousand-dollar bill, and four more torn in less than half. They would be mated, Devereaux said, when O’Neill had the answer to his questions. O’Neill would be contacted by someone from the Section in Belfast.
By two P.M., Devereaux felt drained and confused. O’Neill was a greedy fool and his information — while valuable to an extent — was not worth Hastings’ proposed $100,000 exit money. Hastings was an experienced hand — what had he gathered beyond what O’Neill Knew? And why was O’Neill an important part of the total information that died with Hastings?
Devereaux tried to sort through his thoughts as he packed and left a five-pound note on the bed for the chambermaid who would inherit a monumental cleaning task. He checked out and had a drink in the hotel bar because the pubs were all closed for the afternoon.
In the bar, Devereaux noticed a copy of the Daily Mirror with the screaming headline that North Sea oil would make Britain a sheikdom. It read: Suddenly, We’re Very Sheik!
Sitting at the bar, he sipped his vodka as if it were medicine. It was too warm and the bartender gave ice grudgingly. Scotland was a country of cold rooms and warm drinks.
Devereaux finally realized he did not want this job and that had led to his confusion. His present laziness was induced by his hatred of the assignment: He wanted to clean it up quickly, to believe that Hastings had flimflammed the Section, that O’Neill’s vague information could be simply passed on to British Intelligence and forgotten.
But Hastings was dead.
His killer — very professionally — had garroted him. And then arranged his body to make it look like a fag killing. Hastings was a notorious homosexual and, Devereaux suspected, well known even in Edinburgh for his sexual preferences. Thus the severed penis.
Why kill him for nothing? Had the IRA done it?
Devereaux ordered a second vodka. The bartender did not add ice. Devereaux requested ice. The bartender placed the plastic ice bucket on the bar in front of him. Devereaux reached for a handful of cubes and let them fall into his glass with a splash. The bartender shuddered at such visible waste. Americans!
The IRA would not have killed Hastings that way. And certainly not to suppress something that even O’Neill knew about. Devereaux could not believe that British Intelligence was not onto such a simple plan. On the other hand, they might not be — but it was still not that important. Except to Lord Slough.
Parts.
Devereaux knew he had been keeping that word out of his thoughts so that he might not include it this evening when he talked to Hanley and disposed of the assignment. But there it was.