The Eagle has Flown Read Free Page A

through a chink in the curtain. Cars parked everywhere so it was impossible to see if I was being watched.
     
     
I left by the kitchen door at the rear of the house, I walked cautiously up the back alley and quickly worked my way through a maze of quiet back streets J thinking about it. It had to be a security matter, of course. Some anonymous little department at DI5 that took care of people who got out of line, but would that necessarily mean they'd have a go at me? After all, the girl was dead, the file back in the Records Office, the only copy recovered. What could I say that could be proved or in any way believed? On | the other hand, I had to prove it to my own satisfaction and I hailed a cab on the next corner.
     
     
The Green Man in Kilburn, an area of London popular with the Irish, featured an impressive painting of an Irish tinker over the door which indicated the kind of custom the place enjoyed. The bar was full, I could see that through the saloon window and I went round to the yard at the rear. The curtains were drawn and Sean Riley sat at a crowded desk doing his accounts. He was a small man with cropped white hair, active for his age, which I knew was seventy-two. He owned the Green Man, but more importantly, was an organizer for Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, in London. I knocked at the window, he got up and moved to peer out. He turned and moved away. A moment later the door opened.
     
     
'Mr Higgins. What brings you here?'
     
     
'I won't come in, Sean. I'm on my way to Heathrow.'
     
     
'Is that a fact. A holiday in the sun, is it?'
     
     
'Not exactly. Belfast. I'll probably miss the last shuttle, but I'll be on the breakfast plane. Get word to Liam Devlin. Tell him I'll be staying at the Europa Hotel and I must see him.'
     
     
'Jesus, Mr Higgins, and how would I be knowing such a desperate fella as that?'
     
     
Through the door I could hear the music from the bar. They were singing 'Guns of the IRA'. 'Don't argue, Sean, just do it,' I said. 'It's important.'
     
     
I knew he would, of course, and turned away without another word. A couple of minutes later I hailed a cab and was on my way to Heathrow.
     
     
The Europa Hotel in Belfast was legendary amongst newspaper men from all over the world. It had survived numerous bombing attacks by the IRA and stood in Great Victoria Street next to the railway station. I stayed in my room on the eighth floor for most of the day, just waiting. Things seemed quiet enough, but it was an uneasy calm and in the late afternoon, there was a crump of a bomb and when I looked out of the window I saw a black pall of smoke in the distance.
     
     
Just after six, with darkness falling, I decided to go down to the bar for a drink, was pulling on my jacket when the phone went. A voice said, 'Mr Higgins? Reception here, sir. Your taxi's waiting.'
     
     
It was a black cab, the London variety, and the driver was a middle-aged woman, a pleasant-faced lady who looked like your favourite aunty. I pulled back the glass panel between us and gave her the ritual Belfast greeting.
     
     
'Good night to you.'
     
     
'And you.'
     
     
'Not often I see a lady cab driver, not in London anyway.'
     
     
'A terrible place that. What would you expect? You sit quiet now like a good gentleman and enjoy the trip.'
     
     
She closed the panel with one hand. The journey took no more than ten minutes. We passed along the Falls Road, a Catholic area I remembered well from boyhood and turned into a warren of mean side streets, finally stopping outside a church. She opened the glass panel.
     
     
'The first confessional box on the right as you go in.'
     
     
'If you say so.'
     
     
I got out and she drove away instantly. The board said 'Church of the Holy Name' and it was in surprisingly good condition, the times of Mass and confession listed in gold paint. I opened the door at the top of the steps and went in. It was not too large and dimly lit, candles flickering down