“He came to me.”
“He’s been quiet a long time. I assumed he was dead.”
“I can assure you he is not.”
“He came to you in Belfast?”
“Aye.”
“When?”
“This morning. The Ulster lad in Bulgaria who died? It was Campbell Coyle’s son.”
Sir Allen’s jaw dropped at this, and then he recovered and said, “Bloody hell. Never heard the lad’s name. Just knew he was young.”
Now a voice spoke behind Glazebrook, at the door between the library and the second-floor hallway. It was gravelly, low, grave.
And Irish.
“Twenty-four years old, squire.”
Glazebrook did not turn around to face the speaker there. He just looked at Tully with wide eyes. Tully, in contrast, shut his own eyes tight, then gave a little nod.
“I’m sorry, Sir Allen,” Bill Tully said. “I truly am. Knew he was on the property; didn’t know he was going to come in.”
Now Glazebrook launched to his feet, turned, and looked at the man standing there. A figure was in the room, out of the light of the fire, in acorner in front of a row of shelves of leather-bound books. He was twenty feet from the hall doorway, twenty feet from Sir Allen.
Half-hidden in the shadows, he was hard to make out. Only that he was not tall, not short. A riding cap on his head, a beard, a raincoat shining wet.
But no other features could be discerned.
With a spin back to Tully, the older man said, “What the fuck have you done, bringing him here?”
Bill Tully responded. “He promises no violence.” His voice sounded meek when he said it, as if he did not believe the words he was saying. He added, “Sir Allen Glazebrook, Campbell Coyle. Code name Whetstone. Whetstone, Sir Allen. Code name Juggler. Former deputy director of the United Kingdom’s security service.”
Coyle said, “How ya keepin’, squire? You’re looking quite well.”
The older man’s hands had balled into fists. “You’ve never bloody met me.”
“Television, and such, is what I mean, yeah?”
Still looking at Coyle, Glazebrook raised his voice a little to address the other Irishman in the room. “Tully…you have brought this murderer into my home?”
“I murdered foryou, didn’t I?” Coyle said.
“At first,” Glazebrook replied. “Yes. And then…and then when you’d done what we asked of you…you went on killing, didn’t you?”
“Man’s gotta make a livin’. Seemed right, the only thing I was ever good at. You should know, yeah? For every bastard I put in the cold earth, you ordered the death of ten from behind your desk. Just because you kept those soft hands clean doesn’t make you the gentleman here, does it, squire?”
Glazebrook kept his eyes locked on the shadowy intruder, but he spoke to the other man in the room. “William Tully…I’ve always quite liked you…for an Irishman. But know this…if I die right here where I stand, I’ve got people who will know you were here. They’ll come for you, and they will kill you.”
“In old Billy’s defense”—Campbell Coyle spoke now from the shadows over by the bookshelves—“I was comin’ here whether or not I had afriendly intermediary along with. You might want to thank your old colleague, because our introduction could have happened very differently, and this way seems peaceful enough so far, yeah?”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
“If you’re not afraid, why is you lookin’ at me with a face like a smacked arse? I’d say you are nothingbutafraid.”
“I have my own cards to play.”
