Solo - Jack Higgins [28]
The assistant who had first greeted Morgan in the shop on his arrival, a tall, thin young man called Garvey, dressed in a dark suit and black tie, stood on the other side of the coffin.
The girl's eyes were closed, lips slightly parted, touched with colour, the face heavily made up.
Garvey said, 'The best I could do, Mr Pool.' He turned to Morgan. 'Massive cranial damage, sir. Very difficult.'
But Morgan didn't hear him for as he looked down on his daughter's face for the last time, bile rose into his mouth, threatening to choke him. He turned and lurched outside.
When he was ushered into Harry Baker's office by Stewart later that afternoon, Baker was standing at the window looking out. He turned.
'Hellow, Asa. It's been a long time.'
'Harry.'
'The good Reverend's been talking, has he?'
'That's right.'
Morgan sat down and Baker said, 'George Stewart, my inspector.'
He sat himself behind the desk. Morgan said. 'All right, Harry. What can you tell me?'
'Nothing,' Baker replied. 'Security rating, priority one. Special Branch are only supplying the muscle. DI5 is in charge. Group Four which has new powers, directly from the Prime Minister himself, to coordinate the handling of all cases of terrorism, subversion and the like.'
'Who's in charge?'
'Ferguson.'
'He would be. God in heaven, it's like coming round full circle, isn't it? When can I see him?'
Baker glanced at his watch. 'In about thirty-five minutes at his flat in Cavendish Square. He prefers to see you there.' He got to his feet. 'Come on - I'll take you myself.'
Morgan stood up. 'No need for that.'
'Orders, old son.' Baker smiled. 'And you know how Ferguson feels about people who don't carry them out.'
Brigadier Charles Ferguson was a large, kindly-looking man whose crumpled suit seemed a size too big. The only military aspect to his appearance was the Guards tie. The untidy grey hair, the double chin, the half-moon spectacles with which he was reading the Financial Times by the fire when Morgan and Baker were ushered in, all conspired to give him the look of some minor professor.
'Asa, my dear boy, how nice to see you.'
The voice was slightly plummy, a little over-done, rather like the ageing actor in a second-rate touring company who wants to make sure they can hear him at the back of the house.
He nodded to the man servant, an ex-Gurkha naik, who waited patiently by the door. 'All right, Kim. Tea for three.'
The Gurkha retired and Morgan looked around the room. The Adam fireplace was real and so was the fire which burned there. The rest was Georgian also. Everything matched to perfection, even the heavy curtains.
'Nice, isn't it?' Ferguson said. 'My second girl, Ellie, she did it for me. In interior decorating now.'
Morgan moved to the window and looked into the square. 'You always did do rather well for yourself.'
'Oh dear, are you going to be tiresome, Asa? That is a pity. Very well, let's get it over with. You wanted to see me?'
Morgan glanced across at Baker who was seated in a leather armchair on the other side of the room, filling his pipe. 'According to Harry, it was the other way round.'
'Was it?' Ferguson said cheerfully.
The Gurkha came in with a tray which he placed by the fire and retired. Ferguson picked up the teapot
'For Christ's sake,' Morgan exploded violently.
'All right, Asa. You are by now aware that the man who shot Maxwell Cohen is the same one who knocked down your daughter in the Paddington tunnel. Am I correct?'
'Yes.'
'And you'd very naturally like to get your hands on him. And so would we. So would the intelligence organizations of most of the major nations. You see, the one thing we do know for certain about the gentleman involved is that he's performed the same sort of exercise with monotonous and rather spectacular success, all over the world, for something like three years now.'
'And what's being done about it?'
'You can safely leave that to us. I've been