Once the job had been done a velvet hush had fallen over everyone. Soho, north and south of the river, there was just a blank look on everyone’s face. The man in charge had power and used it. Not a single one of the troops had gone on the rampage after the victory. Usually there is always some lush who gets too much beer in him and can’t resist a drowsy pillow confidence to some tart on the police list. I could imagine the frustration of the police over the whole thing. They had a good idea how it had been worked and of some of the people in it, but they had nothing which would stick. It was happening more and more – the new technology in crime, and the superb planning. Layer above layer of authority, nobody knowing anyone except in the unit he worked with, and, somewhere at the top, the director-general of the whole operation…

  However, the police did have one thing. Arthur Fairlawn. They never made public what clue they had to him, but they made public the fact that they wanted him for questioning about the robbery – and the press had made the most of it. He was a mystery man. Known to every big crook in London, but never photographed, never fingerprinted… And he had a girlfriend – Albertina Brown. At least she was his last known girlfriend – though she swore that she hadn’t seen him for over a month, and that their friendship had come to an end sometime before that.

  I sat there and read through some of the interviews the press had had with Bertina. She’d been in the public eye for over a week at the time. And somewhere in Scotland Yard she must have been questioned very, very thoroughly. By God, she’d handled me well when I had walked in and asked about Arnold Finch, because Arnie Finch just had to be Arthur Fairlawn. Now, I knew it. I knew about Arthur’s double life, and I knew why it was a big laugh that he couldn’t collect his inheritance. He was out of the country and never coming back.

  The robbery had taken place on February 2nd, and the police had been shouting for him by February 5th. That meant he had done a skip on the 3rd or 4th. And he could have taken the diamonds with him, and what nicer cover than innocent, plastic-travelling Arnold Finch who often went to Ireland and never had any customs trouble.

  I rang for Wilkins.

  I said, ‘You’ve got contacts with the Aer Lingus people?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Check and see if a Mr Arnold Finch flew to Ireland any time between the 2nd and 5th of February last. If he did, see if you can find out if he had a hired car waiting over there. Anything they’ll come across with. And if Finch did fly on any of those dates get me a flight for Monday, but make it for not later than mid-day.’

  She nodded and went.

  An hour later she was back. Arnold Finch had flown out on a morning flight on the 3rd February to Shannon – and he always had a hired car waiting. She handed me a slip of paper with the name of the Shannon car hire firm. They had offices in the airport building.

  Then I said, ‘It’s the Hatton Garden thing. Arnold Finch is Arthur Fairlawn.’

  ‘Then you should inform the police immediately.’

  ‘And get pushed out? The papers say it was a two-and-a-half million steal. They exaggerate. Say a million. The reward for recovery on that should be at least five per cent. And recovery is my speciality.’

  ‘You should go to the police.’

  ‘Nonsense. There are two stockholders in this company. You and me. The first duty of a good businessman is to declare a fat dividend. We need one.’

  She went out, banging the door.

  I picked up the phone and dialled a man I knew in Lloyds. Now that I had a lead with the smell of cash in it, I was neglecting nothing. Arthur Fairlawn had been well-known in the Ascanti Club. Bertina – said the newspaper reports – had first met him there. Anything with an Ascanti Club connection had my interest, even Suma Tung into whose handbag I had taken a nosy peep. My Lloyds friend gave me what I wanted in a few minutes. The SS Dahlman was a general freighter, mixed cargo, anything she could get within limits. She was owned by Dahlman Long and Company, a London firm. Most of the time she ran a rough schedule between Hong Kong and Antwerp through the Panama Canal, picking up what charters she could on the route. Her principal charter owner on the Atlantic side was the Agencia Ganero, Panama City. He’d never heard anything fishy about her, but if I had, he’d like to know. Then he asked me if I’d like a game of golf and I said no I was going to Ireland, and he said take your sticks and try Ballybunion, the greatest golf course in the world, I said I had other fish to fry and he said be sure to remove its skirt first, and then I rang off because that kind of conversation could go on for ever… when you’re speaking to a member of Lloyds, that is.

  That done, I took my hat and went out to Wilkins.

  I said, ‘If anyone calls, say you haven’t seen me since yesterday afternoon. Then you can ring your father and tell him only to buy smoked haddock for one. I’m taking you out to dinner tonight.’

  I went down and bought some cigarettes at the shop next door, and then walked down to Miggs’s place.

  He was in his office doing his accounts, his face all screwed up like that chap who had to roll a stone uphill for all eternity.

  I said, ‘I’ll buy you an abacus for Christmas.’

  He said, ‘You’ll buy me a Guinness round the corner right now. What’s a discount of one and a half per cent on three pounds eleven shillings and tuppence?’

  I told him and we went round to the pub.

  After we’d taken the head off our drinks, I said, ‘What did you ever hear about the big diamond steal in Hatton Garden early this year?’

  ‘Nothing. And I don’t want to. It’s poison.’

  ‘Think.’

  He punished the drink a bit, sucked one of his back teeth, and then said, ‘It’s murder even to be curious about it. So you can imagine what it must have been like to be in it and careless. Industrials are big business. They don’t give the trouble that fancy stones do. No cutting, no fences. You flog ’em straight, usually to some foreign buying agency that isn’t interested in asking questions.’

  I said, ‘Do you know anything about Arthur Fairlawn?’

  ‘Look,’ said Miggs, ‘take my tip. Lay off. I told you this thing is poison.’

  That night at dinner with Wilkins I got the same warning. She knew me better than Miggs so, in her way, she could punch harder.

  ‘You’re still set on going to Ireland?’

  ‘Still set. You know the facts. Why shouldn’t I? I know something the police don’t. Fairlawn is Finch. Like a good businessman I’m going to keep my advantage for a bit. The more I learn – the more it may be worth.’

  ‘You could be killed. For once in your life be sensible and go to the police.’

  ‘And get a nice big “thank you” and no more? That’s no way to satisfy bank managers.’

  ‘You’re determined?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Slowly she finished her peach melba and then she said, ‘I’ve booked a room for you – from tonight – at the Albion, Brighton. You can get the late train down. Stay there until it’s time to come up for your plane.’

  I looked at her in surprise, rusty hair, red nose, cold-misty eyes, and then I gave her hand a pat.

  ‘Good old Wilkins,’ I said. ‘Come on let’s dance.’

  She got up and danced. It was a waltz, and she was a good dancer. Three times a year I took her out. Always to Quaglino’s, which was her idea of heaven – and I suppose there are worse ideas. Always one sweet sherry before dinner. Always smoked salmon, sole, one glass of Chablis, peach melba, then a dance, then coffee, and after that a taxi to Charing Cross so that she could be back in Greenwich by eleven in time to get the old man’s bedtime cocoa. I wouldn’t have had her any different for a lakh of rupees. There are women and women, but damned few Wilkinses.

  Before she went through the station barrier, she handed me a cloakroom ticket.

  ‘I went round and packed your case this afternoon. It’s waiting at Victoria for you. No need to go back to your flat. And be careful.’

  I spent the weekend in Brighton alone. On the Monday I was in Shannon by mid-day. The rain was coming down steadily, topping up the peat bogs and making the roadside ditches run high with Guinness-coloured water.

  I didn’t have any trouble with the car-hire people – at least, not suspicious trouble… none of the, ‘And be Jasus now, why would you be wanting to know?’ They remembered Mr Finch, and why not, the nice gentleman that he was, and always hired his cars from them for the Killarney trip. But when I pinned them to the February 3rd trip, there was a lot of argument because he’d driven off by himself and had never returned the car. They had had to send a man to pick it up after getting a phone call from him. And now, was it from Kenmare or Glengarriff? There were two schools of thought, but it was finally sorted out that Kenmare had been the doctor who had broken his leg walking on Macgillycuddy’s Reeks… the great gentleman he was and telling stories all the way back… you remember now, Mike, the fine one about the padre and the Protestant minister… I was given two or three samples of the doctor’s repertoire, and finally found that Finch had left the car at a hotel in Glengarriff called O’Toole’s, from where it had been collected… And no trouble at all, sir.

  So, I collected my own car, and then I waited outside the airport. I had little reason to think that there might be any connection between Suma Tung and Arthur Fairlawn – except the Ascanti-Club-cum-Billings one – but I never minded wasting a little time on a long shot. My money was on Fairlawn, but I didn’t mind having a flyer on Suma.

  Suma arrived an hour after me, and was met by a chauffeur-driven car. She was wearing a little green suit with a yellow silk scarf at her throat. Her car, driven fast, went by me in a cloud of spray. I could never have kept up with it, even if I’d known where she was going. In the next four-and-a-half hours I did one hundred and fifty miles, mostly through low clouds studded with donkey carts on the wrong side of the road.

  When I reached Glengarriff, to my modified surprise, Suma’s car was parked outside O’Toole’s Hotel, which didn’t look much. In case she should be staying there, I found myself a bed and breakfast place down the road, a plate of cold mutton and boiled potatoes for dinner, and went early to bed on a lumpy mattress, listening to the rain running over the gutters.

  When I woke the sun was shining cautiously, not making any big promises, and the whole house was full of a delicious smell of eggs and bacon.

  Over breakfast my landlady, Mrs Leary, said, ‘You’ll not be staying long, I suppose?’

  ‘It depends,’ I said.

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘But you’re not for the fishing or the golf, that’s plain.’

  ‘True,’ I said.

  ‘You’d like more bacon?’ She took my plate from me and went into the kitchen. I didn’t protest. It was good bacon and she cooked it the way my sister in Honiton did, just on the curl and with a touch of brown to the fat. While I waited, I read a holiday information folder on Glengarriff which I’d picked up at Shannon. For some reason I don’t understand I read guidebooks and information pamphlets the way other people go for pornography.

  Glengarriff – Gleann Garbh – meaning Rugged Glen. Pop. 400. On the edge of the sea, in the lap of the Caha Mountains, a country of rare grandeur. Then there was something about rocks and boulders thrown together in tumultuous confusion – I’d like to have watched that from a safe distance – all clothed in luxuriant foliage. The harbour dotted with a hundred islets and guarded at its entrance by the loveliest of them all, Garnish Island. I liked that – in fact I could see something of the great spread of water from the window, but not much because it had begun to rain again even though the sun was shining somewhere behind us above the Caha Mountains.

  The landlady came back with the bacon and said, ‘Is it true what I hear about the Duke of Edinburgh, then?’

  I said, ‘I shouldn’t think so.’

  ‘I should hope not,’ she said. ‘Them dirty newspapers. And he’s a fine man.’

  ‘None finer,’ I said, and added, ‘They tell me that this place boasts an unusually mild climate. Sub-tropical plants flourish in the open. And all because the warm waters of the Gulf Stream lap along the shore.’

  ‘Every word is God’s truth. Though there’s a touch of east in the wind this morning. That’s not to say it would spoil the fishing. Are you fond of fish?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Then I’ll get some for supper. There’s salmon or sea trout. Or maybe mackerel, conger, pollack, whiting or mullet? Myself, there’s nothing to touch hake – just plain boiled.’

  ‘Sea trout sounds good.’

  ‘It is that, though I doubt we’ll get any, it being Tuesday.’ Before I could ask why, she dumped the tomato sauce bottle at my elbow. ‘You should try that. The schoolteacher makes it in her spare time. Tell me, is it true what them dirty newspapers are saying about your Prime Minister?’

  ‘Probably,’ I said.

  ‘Aye,’ she nodded. ‘They did the same for De Valera.’ She took my plate from me. ‘Well, I can’t stand here gossiping all day.’

  Five minutes later, as I was going out of the house she called to me from somewhere at the back, ‘That’s your fancy is it, then? A nice piece of boiled hake?’

  ‘Nothing finer.’

  I walked up to O’Toole’s. The Tung car was gone. I went into the hotel hall. Two picture-postcard stands flanked the desk. Behind was a shelf of little green plaster goblins. Below them, her back to me, was a girl setting out a tray of tweed ties and scarves.

  I said, ‘Is Miss Tung down yet?’

  The girl turned. She was young, dark, flashing-eyed, and with a pink-and-cream complexion that only soft rain and the Gulf Stream can produce.

  ‘Miss Tung?’

  ‘The Chinese lady.’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Is she down yet?’

  ‘She is not.’

  ‘Having breakfast?’

  ‘She is not.’

  ‘I’ve got an important message for her.’

  ‘Maybe, but she never stays here. Just garages the car. At least, that old devil Frost does.’

  ‘How will I reach her?’

  ‘Get Harry to take you out – like he did her last night.’

  ‘Harry?’

  ‘You might find him down at the pier where the Cork steamer used to be coming in.’

  ‘He’s a boatman?’

  ‘You could call him that.’

  ‘What do you call him?’

  ‘He’s my mother’s brother and a disgrace to a decent family one way and another when the whiskey’s in him. Though I’ll admit when he has the money he can be generous. ’Tis no secret. What he makes of a Chinese lady, I don’t know. He’s always on about the Communists and the anti-blood-sports people.’

  ‘They probably upset the fishing. Thank you very much for your help.’

  ‘You’re welcome. You’re from London?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘My mother was there in service when she was young. It sounds a dreadful place.’

  ‘It is.’

  She held up a blue tweed tie. ‘That would go fine with the suit you’re wearing.’

  I said, ‘I have other suits. I might take half a dozen.’

  She liked that – under the Dresden-china complexion lurked a shrewd businesswoman, and it was easy, while I dickered over ties, to learn that a Mr A. Finch – a great friend of mine – had stayed there for one night on the 3rd February. Just one night. Interesting.

  I walked down the road towards the pier where the Cork boats used to call.

  I stood above a stone slipway with three or four motorboats moored close to it and looked out over the harbour. It was more a long sea loch, studded with small islands.

  As I stood there with the soft rain coming down and the shy sunlight gilding it, a man in gumboots with turned-over tops, a damp velvet jacket, wearing a Homburg hat green with age and five or six trout flies stuck in the crown, came up from the slipway, wiped the rain from his face and said with a toothy grin, ‘A fine morning, sir.’

  ‘It is that.’

  ‘Aye, it is, and it could be better later.’ He then studied me closely, little curiosity furrows creasing his brown brow, and finally went on, ‘No offence, sir, but you’re wearing a tie already.’

  His eyes went down to the ties which I was holding absently in my hands.

  ‘So I am,’ I said, ‘but I like to have spares in case the weather changes.’

  ‘Oh, aye,’ he said.

  I pocketed the ties and said, ‘Where’s Harry this morning? I was told I could find him here.’

  ‘I’m Harry,’ he said. ‘From O’Toole are you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I see she over-sold you on ties. She’ll go far that one. Always talking of opening a shop. And she will one day. Must have over a hundred pounds in the bank already. Thinking of taking a trip, were you?’

  ‘I was. Just around the islands. Is that all right?’

  ‘My pleasure, sir.’

  It wasn’t difficult after that. Harry was a great talker. I heard all about the Chinese lady who was very pleasant. He’d taken her out to Gowduff Island, private property, some London millionaire’s place, never there much, and nobody liked him. Often had people to stay, though in the summer more than now, and a bloody great wall round the island, which was hardly decent. Two cases she’d had, one with three red stripes on it. First he’d taken out except the staff for months. They did say that some strange things went on out there. Though he couldn’t see that she looked the type, but then you never could tell.

  I showed him the photograph of Arnold Finch, and asked him if he remembered ever taking him out? He gave me a shrewd look, and then said, ‘It’s well I remember him. Early February, and a big pig-skin case.’

  Harry was a great one in suitcases.

  ‘Ever bring him back?’

  ‘No. But there are other boatmen. And they have their own launch. Friend of yours, sir?’

  ‘In a way. Is there a telephone out to the island?’

  ‘No, sir.’