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Rosie.'
     
     
He kissed her cheek and she walked away rapidly, passing
     
     
Dillon safe in the shadows. He moved to the nearest window and peered in. Ryan was sitting at the bar with a glass of beer, reading a newspaper, totally alone. Dillon eased open the kitchen door and entered.
     
     
The saloon was very old-fashioned and ornate with a mahogany bar and gilded angels on either side of a great mirror, for the Sailor dated from Victorian times, when sailing ships had moved up the Thames by the dozen each day to tie up and unload at the quay. There were rows of bottles on glass shelves, beer pumps with ivory handles. Ryan was proud of it and kept it in apple-pie order. He loved it like this at night, all alone, reading the Standard in the quiet. There was a slight eerie creaking of a door hinge, a draught of air that lifted the paper. He turned and Dillon entered the bar.
     
     
'God save the good work,' Dillon said cheerfully. 'There's hope for the world yet. You can actually read.'
     
     
Ryan's face was like stone. 'What do you want, Dillon?'
     
     
' "God save you kindly" was the answer to that,' Dillon said. 'And you an Irishman and not knowing.'
     
     
'You've no right to be here. I'm clean.'
     
     
'Never in a thousand years.'
     
     
Ryan stood and opened his jacket. 'Try me. I'm not carrying.'
     
     
'I know. You're too clever for that.'
     
     
'You've no right to be here. You're not even Scotland Yard.'
     
     
'Granted, but I'm something more. Your own worst nightmare.'
     
     
'Get out now.'
     
     
'Before you throw me out? I don't think so.' Dillon lifted the bar flap, went behind, reached for a bottle of Bushmills and a glass and filled it. 'I won't drink with a piece of dung like you, but I'll have one for myself. It's cold outside.'
     
     
Without a flicker of emotion, Ryan said, 'I could call the police.'
     
     
'What for? I'm not carrying myself,' Dillon smiled as he lied. 'You see, old son, this is a new agenda, what with the Northern Ireland Secretary, Sinn Fein and the Loyalists with their heads together in Belfast working away at the peace process. I mean, who needs guns any more? My boss wouldn't like it.'
     
     
'What do you want?' Ryan asked. 'What is this? You've been on my back for years.'
     
     
'Just making my rounds,' Dillon said. 'Just to let you know I'm still on your case. The Semtex you supplied the Birmingham and London units - how many bombings was it used for? Three? Four housewives in that shopping mall in Birmingham. We know it was you, we just can't prove it. Yet.'
     
     
'You can talk. How many did you kill for the cause? For nearly twenty years, Dillon, until you turned traitor.'
     
     
'But I never sold drugs or used young girls for prostitution,' Dillon said. 'There's a difference.' He swallowed the rest of the Bushmills and put the glass down. 'It's cold outside and dark and I'll always be there in the shadows. To vary an old IRA saying, my day will come.'
     
     
He turned and walked to the kitchen door and Ryan exploded. 'Fuck you, Dillon, fuck you. I'm Tim Pat Ryan. I'm the man. You can't treat me like this,' but the kitchen door was already closing softly.
     
     
Ryan, beside himself with rage now, hurled back the flap, opened the old-fashioned cash register, fumbled at the back of the drawer and found the Smith & Wesson.38 pistol he always kept there fully loaded, turned and headed for the kitchen.
     
     
Lady Helen Lang had paid off the cab outside the George Hotel in Wapping High Street. Remembering the street map, she crossed the road and turned into a narrow lane. Hedley, caught behind two cars at a red light, saw her go. He swore softly, took off on the green and moved into the same lane. But there was
     
     
no sign of her, even when he turned his lights on fully. It was a maze of decaying warehouses and narrow criss-crossing streets. What in the hell was she playing at in a place like this? Frantic with worry, he started to cruise