Without Mercy Read Free Page A

remote. It reminded Dillon of the church of his childhood, in County Down, which was hardly surprising, for St. Paul’s Church was Anglo-Catholic, the oldest branch of the Church of England. However, it moved with the times enough to allow priests to marry and to allow a woman priest, and there she was now, a pleasant, calm woman in cassock and clerical collar who had just opened the door of the vestry and was ushering a young woman inside.
    She turned and there was immediate concern on her face. “Sean?” she said, then turned to the young woman. “Go in for me, Mary. Put the kettle on.” She closed the door and said anxiously, “Is it Hannah? She’s not . . .”
    “No.” Dillon put a hand up in a strangely defensive gesture. “Very poorly, but not that. The brain’s been cleared, so she’s been returned to Rosedene, but she’s not good. Bellamy’s worried about the cumulative effect of all her injuries in the past few years. It seems her heart’s not as it should be, but then, you’d expect that.”
    She embraced him, holding him tight for a moment. “My dearest Sean. You want to see me?”
    “As a psychiatrist or as a priest? God knows. Isn’t it what the truly wicked of this world do? Try and cover their backs?” His smile was cold and bleak. “Anyway, you’re busy. Perhaps another time.”
    He walked to the great door and opened the small Judas gate. “It’s appropriate, don’t you think, especially for someone like me? Judas was a political terrorist called a Zealot, and my branch of the great game was the IRA.”
    She shook her head gravely. “Such talk is pointless, Sean.”
    He said tonelessly, “Ashimov ran her down like a dog, quite deliberately. As I got to her, she was trying to haul herself up by the railings, and I told her, ‘You’re all right, just hold on to me,’ but there was blood on her face and I was afraid. It was different. Special in the wrong way. When I was driving back to Rosedene with her in the seat beside me, I swore I’d kill Ashimov if it was the last thing I did on top of the earth.”
    “I thought it was Billy who killed Ashimov.”
    “Yes, but I got all those others: Belov, Tod Murphy, even Greta Novikova. I’m very evenhanded, you’ve got to agree.”
    “God bless you, Sean,” she said calmly.
    For some reason it reminded him of Hannah’s last words to him at Rosedene. He recoiled, God knows why, stepped out through the Judas gate, stumbled down the steps to the Mini Cooper and drove away.
    Being a gangster was fine, flashy and showy and menacing, but Harry Salter had learned, at the right stage in his life, that the same talents employed in the business world could make you a fortune without costing you thirty years inside.
    The Dark Man at Wapping on Cable Wharf by the Thames was the first property he’d ever owned. It was like a mascot in spite of everything else he had now—the warehouse developments, the clubs, the casinos, the millions he’d made after giving up his career as one of the top guvnors in the London underworld. It was a second home, and it was there that Dillon found him.
    The bar was very Victorian: mirrors, a long mahogany bar topped with marble, porcelain beer pumps, Dora the barmaid reading the newspaper. Trade at that time of the afternoon was light. Salter sat in the corner booth with his nephew, Billy, and his minders, Joe Baxter and Sam Hall, were enjoying a beer at the bar.
    Roper in his state-of-the-art wheelchair wore a reefer coat, his hair down to his shoulders, his face a mass of scar tissue. Once a highly decorated bomb-disposal expert, his career had been terminated by one IRA bomb too many in Belfast. Soon, a new career had beckoned, and in the world of cyberspace he was already a legend.
    “So there you are,” Roper said.
    “And twice as handsome,” Harry Salter put in.
    Dillon went to the bar and said to Dora, “The usual.” She poured a large Bushmills, which he took down in a single swallow. He put the