The President’s Daughter

Riley, dressed only in prison denims, peered out. The yard, surrounded by high brick walls, was empty.

‘I’ll get soaked,’ he said in a hard Ulster accent.

‘No, you won’t. I’m being good to you.’ Jackson held out a small folding umbrella.

‘I’d rather go back to my cell,’ Riley said morosely.

‘One hour’s exercise a day, that’s what it says in regulations, then we bang you up for the other twenty-three. Can’t have you associating with honest crooks, can we? You know how much they’d like to get their hands on a piece of IRA scum like you. That bomb in the West End last week killed sixteen people and God knows how many injured. You’re not popular, Riley, not popular at all. Now get on with it.’

He shoved Riley into the rain and locked the door behind him. Riley pressed the button on the folding umbrella and it opened. He took a tin of cigarettes from a pocket, lit one with a cheap plastic lighter and started to walk.

Funny how walking in the rain gave him a lift and the cigarette tasted good. On the other hand, anything was better than the solitary life he led for twenty-three hours a day in that cell. So far he had endured six months of it, which only left fourteen and a half years to go. Sometimes he thought he was going mad when he considered the prospect of those years stretching into infinity. It wouldn’t have been so bad if they’d sent him back home to a prison in Ulster. At least he’d have been serving his time with old comrades, but here at Wandsworth.…

At that moment the door opened and Jackson appeared. ‘Get over here, Riley, you’ve got a visitor.’

‘A visitor?’ Riley said.

‘Yes, your brief.’ Riley stood there in the rain, the umbrella over his head and Jackson added impatiently, ‘Your brief, your lawyer, you stupid Irish git. Now move it.’

Jackson didn’t take him to the general visiting hall, but opened a door at the end of a side corridor. There was a table, a chair at each end and a large barred window. The man who stood there peering out of it wore a fawn Burberry trenchcoat over a dark brown suit. The white shirt was set off by a college-type striped tie. He had black curling hair a pleasant, open face and horn-rimmed spectacles. He looked around forty.

‘Ah, Mr Riley. I don’t know whether you will remember me. I was in court the day you were sentenced. George Brown.’

Riley played it very cool indeed. ‘Oh, yes.’

‘I’ve been retained to look into the question of an appeal on your case. There were certain irregularities, statements by witnesses which might well have been tainted.’ He turned to Jackson, who stood by the door. ‘I wonder if you’d mind stepping outside, Mr…?’

‘Jackson, sir’.

‘I think you’ll find if you check Section Three regulations, that where a question of appeal is being considered, a lawyer and his client are entitled to privacy.’

‘Suit yourself,’ Jackson said.

The door closed behind him, and Riley said, ‘What the hell is going on? I’ve never seen you in my life before and I’ve already had any hope of an appeal turned down by the Home Secretary.’

Brown took a leather cigarette case from his inside pocket and offered him one. ‘Fifteen years,’ he said, as he gave Riley a light. ‘That’s a long time. Bad enough here, but they’ll be sending you to Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight soon. Toughest nick in Britain and the hardest cons. Like the coffin lid closing when they get you in there. I know about these things. I am a lawyer, although naturally, my name isn’t Brown.’

‘What’s your game, fella?’ Riley demanded.

‘Sit down and I’ll tell you.’ Riley did as he was told and Brown carried on. ‘I’d like to make you an offer you can’t refuse, just like in The Godfather.’

‘And what might that be? A fresh appeal?’

‘No.’ Brown walked to the window and peered out. ‘How would you like to be free?’

‘Escape, you mean?’ Riley said.

‘No, I mean really free. Slate wiped clean.’

Riley was stunned and his voice was hoarse as he said, ‘I’d do anything for that – anything.’

‘Yes, somehow I thought you might, but there’s even more to it. Do as I tell you and you’ll not only be a free man once more, you’ll have twenty thousand pounds in your hand to start fresh again.’

‘My God,’ Riley whispered. ‘And who would I have to kill?’

Brown smiled. ‘No one, I assure you, but let me ask you a question. Do you know Brigadier Charles Ferguson?’

‘Not personally, no,’ Riley said. ‘But I know of him. He runs an intelligence unit specializing in anti-terrorism. They call it the Prime Minister’s private army. It’s got nothing to do with the SIS or MI5. I know one thing; it’s given the IRA a bad time in the last few years.’

‘And Sean Dillon?’

‘Jesus, is that bowser in this?’ Riley laughed. ‘Sure and I know Sean like my own self. We fought the bloody war together in Derry back in the seventies, and little more than boys. Led those Brit soldiers a right old dance through the sewers, but the word is Sean works for Ferguson these days.’

‘Tell me about him.’

‘His mother died giving birth to him and he and his dad went to London. Sean had a genius for acting. He could change himself even without makeup. I’ve seen him do it. The Man of a Thousand Faces, that’s what Brit Intelligence called him, and they never managed to put a finger on him in twenty years.’

‘His father was killed by British soldiers on a visit to Belfast, I understand,’ Brown said.

‘That’s right. Sean was nineteen, as I remember. He went home, joined the movement and never looked back. At one time he was the most feared enforcer the Provisional IRA had.’

‘So what went wrong?’

‘He never liked the bombing, though they say he was behind that mortar attack on Ten Downing Street during the Gulf War. After that, he cleared off to Europe and offered himself as a sort of gun for hire to anybody who’d pay. One minute he’d be working for the PLO, the next blowing up Palestinian gunboats in Beirut. He was even-handed, was Sean.’

‘And where did Ferguson come in? I’ve heard the story, but I’d like it confirmed.’

‘Well, among his other talents, our Sean can fly just about anything that can fly. He was running medicine for children into Bosnia and got shot down. It seems the Serbs were going to shoot him and Ferguson turned up and did a deal of some sort, blackmailed Sean into going to work for him.’

‘Set a thief to catch a thief,’ Brown said.

‘That’s about it. It hasn’t made him too popular with the Provos back home.’

‘Well, it wouldn’t, would it?’

There was a pause. Finally, Riley said, ‘Look, what do you want?’

‘Sean Dillon, actually.’ Brown smiled and offered him another cigarette. ‘Or to put it another way, the people I represent want him.’

‘And who might they be?’

‘None of your business, Mr Riley, but I think I can guarantee that if you do exactly as I say, you’ll have your freedom and we’ll have Dillon. Does that give you a problem?’

‘Not in the slightest.’ Riley smiled. ‘What do I have to do?’

‘To start, you apply to see the governor and ask for Ferguson. Say you have important information for his ears only.’

‘Then what?’