Someone he’d not thought of in some time: his other informer, Pearse Campbell.
“I’m not here because I want to be,” he had said the first time they met. “And I’ll tell you as much.”
“No, you’re here because you solicited underage prostitutes.”
“They were covert British operators and you know it. We both do,” Campbell had said.
Jeremy had looked straight out through the windshield at the fading lines in the cement. “We’ll protect you,” he said. “Not because we want to, but because we’re covert British operators.” He did not want to be anyone’s friend. But his demeanor did not help, and Pearse pled ignorance to every question. “Then what the hell do you know except how to go on a pull for little boys?” Jeremy said.
“I know that bombs sometimes end up in funny places, Allsworth,” Campbell said. “I know that sometimes even handlers aren’t jammie. They are on their way to meet an informer and they end up in five hundred little pieces of bacon. Fancy pigs, but still crispy.”
Jeremy had told Wilmington about the meeting, and the next week Campbell was found shot in the stomach. The man who had since been given the name Wright had been irritated by the investigation into Campbell’s death, had said, “Quite a lot of water to boil over news that disappoints no one.”