The astonishing thing was, as had been said, the simplicity of it. He’d have to consider that again once Ryan had taken him fully into his confidence, of course. Not a bad fella, Ryan, a man hard to dislike. And then there was the girl. So much hate there in one so young and all blamed on the bomb which had killed her family. He shook his head. There was more to it than that, had to be, and finally he drifted into sleep.

KATHLEEN RYAN TOOK a cup of tea in to her uncle just before she went to bed. Ryan was sitting by the fire smoking his pipe and brooding.

“You think it will work?” she asked.

“I’ve never been more certain and with Keogh along-” He shrugged. “Fifty million pounds in gold bullion, Kathleen. Just think of that.”

“A strange one,” she said. “Can you trust him?”

“I’ve never trusted anyone in my life,” he said cheerfully. “Not even you. No, don’t you fret over Keogh. I’ll have my eye on him.”

“But can you be sure?”

“Of course I can. I know him like I know myself, Kathleen, my love. We’re cut from the same bolt of cloth. Like me he’s got brains, that’s obvious. He’s also a killer. It’s his nature. He can do no other, just like me.” He reached up to kiss her cheek. “Now off to bed with you.”

She went out and he sat back, sipping his tea and thinking of a lonely road in the Lake District, a road that not even his niece knew he had visited.

LONDON

THE LAKE DISTRICT

1985

TWO

IF THERE IS such a thing as an Irish quarter in London, it’s to be found in Kilburn along with a profusion of pubs to make any Irish Republican happy. But there are also the Protestant variety identical with anything to be found in Belfast. The William amp; Mary was one of those, its landlord, Hugh Bell, an Orange Protestant to the hilt, performing the same function in London for the Loyalist movement as Sinn Fein did for the IRA.