Dwyer drove Trevor Armstrong home. Jameson and Dennison were back at Oxford Circus not because Trevor needed them to work late but because he needed to be alone with Dwyer. Dwyer was his man, especially in this.
Night smothered London and the sky was orange with the reflected lights from the city. The River Thames was black but, here and there, sprinkled with gems of light from the buildings along the Embankment. The new buildings beyond Tower Bridge loomed up hideously in the night sky. The modern architecture did not even try to blend into the graceful Georgian landscape that had preserved an idea of the city for two centuries. Trevor stared out the side window and began to speak in a clear, distant voice to Dwyer, as though Dwyer might be a disembodied spirit sent to converse with a disembodied Trevor.
“Where did he go?”
“To a public house in Paddington. I waited for him and even went into the public bar to spot who he was meeting. Looked like an Irish fellow, you know how they look. Wore a tweed coat and I caught the accent when he went to the bar for a whiskey. He drank Paddy.”
“I know who it must be,” Trevor said.
“Then he gave me the slip. Not that I think he spotted me but I think he was just doing something out of habit. The man I was following went back to the washrooms and never came out. After a while, the Irishman went back to his hotel. It’s one of the little hotels down the street from Paddington Station.”
“I want to get away from the police on Friday. I have to meet this same man at Heathrow. We’ll be making an exchange.”
“This isn’t about Allison. Or the kid.”
“No. This is about our survival, Dwyer.”
The little man thought about it. The car swept along and everything about the night was crowded. London had a sense of cars, lorries, buses, and streets filled with people. It was a rare, warm November night and there was a gay spirit to the city that infected every stone and street.
“Dennison and Jameson aren’t in on it.”
“You and me, Dwyer.”
“Like from the beginning, boss.”
“Exactly.”
“But what’s it about?”
“I’ve been blackmailed.”
Dwyer said nothing for a long time. Then: “I figured that.”
“When did you figure it?”
“When I saw that book that was in the mail on the sideboard. It was the movie that was showing on One forty-seven when it went down. And when the cops came, you had thrown the envelope in the toilet and flushed it and the book was on the shelf in the library. I just figured two and two.”
“And you were smart enough to say nothing.”
“That’s right, boss.”
“All right. A man wants me to give him a lot of money to leave EAA alone. I don’t know if he had anything to do with the first bombing. But he certainly killed my household. I’m… in a bind, a financial bind. I owe a lot of money for a lot of stock purchases I’ve made. I can’t afford to see EAA go through… any period of doubt. In six months, Dwyer, we’ll be out of London and out of the airline business. And we’ll be very, very rich.”
“You’ll be rich.”
“I told you to buy EAA at forty-four.”
“I put everything in it.”
“Believe me, before this is over, it’ll be bid at a hundred.”
“I believe you, boss,” Dwyer said.
“What I have to do is, I have to give him the money. On Friday. At Heathrow. A lot of money in a suitcase.”
“All right,” Dwyer said.
“Then I want you to get the money back for me,” Trevor said. He did not look at the other man. “Do you think you can do that?”
“I can do that,” Dwyer said.
“I mean, you can’t terrorize him or threaten him or anything. That isn’t what I mean,” Trevor said.
“Don’t worry, boss. I know just what you mean.”
Trevor sighed. For the first time that day, for the first time since it began, he felt at ease. Dwyer was loyal. Dwyer knew exactly what he meant for him to do.