The Midnight Bell

“Yes, but who’s going to watch your back,” Roper said. “You’re getting to be worse than Sara. Tell her to use the Land Rover and take care.”

Which sent Hannah running out of the door smiling.

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THE LATE AFTERNOON RAIN came with a sudden rush at Highfield Court that sent Sadie Cohen running upstairs to see that no windows were open. She checked all the bedrooms, finishing with Hannah’s, where she found one open a little.

“Naughty girl,” she muttered. “Typical.”

Not that she meant it, for she had come to realize for some time now that Hannah was the daughter she’d never had. Hannah, who’d lost her mother and father to the car bomb in Northern Ireland that had killed them and crippled her, returned her affection completely. The fact that she was Catholic and Sadie Jewish was irrelevant.

Sadie slammed the window down, peering out because this was her favorite view, high up on the fourth floor of the house, the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square no more than a couple of hundred yards away.

It never failed to please, and she looked down at the garden, which was at its best, flowers in season, poplar trees swaying, but then she frowned at a flash of yellow down there. A man in an oilskin jacket stepped out of the rhododendron bushes, stood there in the rain, then stepped back into cover.

Sadie went downstairs, entered the kitchen, opened a large wooden drawer, and took out a sawed-off shotgun and a packet of cartridges. She loaded the weapon quickly, then went out in the hall, approached the front door cautiously, and waited, the shadow of a man outside.

Her Codex sounded, and as she pulled it out one-handed to answer, the shadow vanished from view.

“Sadie Cohen,” she said.

“Hi, love,” Hannah replied. “Sara and I are on our way. Should be with you in fifteen minutes.”

“You’ll be welcome,” Sadie told her. “Because we appear to have a guest in the garden. Could be others, too.”

“Remain inside,” Hannah told her. “Intruder,” she said to Sara, and called Roper. “Where’s Dillon?”

“When he turned up and found you gone, he said he’d join you,” Roper told her. “I’ll check and tell him to put his foot down.”

“Dillon’s on his way,” she told Sara, who said, “That’s a comfort. I bet it’s the Brotherhood. They’ve tried before, three or four pretending to be seeing to waterworks or drains or something like that.”

Hannah produced her Colt .25 and checked it. “Well, the bastards can bring it on as far as I’m concerned.”

“I couldn’t agree more, love.” Sara was smiling. “Isn’t it great to be a woman?”

“Absolutely,” Hannah told her.

“So as the great Bette Davis said, ‘Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night,’” and Sara put her foot down hard as they roared away.

SADIE TURNED OFF the hall light, but as the darkness had increased considerably and very quickly, she switched on the garden lights. The conservatory was in darkness, and she stood there beside the Schiedmayer concert grand in the study, waiting and watching.

There was some sort of movement out there. She waited, then switched on the conservatory lights, illuminating two men in yellow oilskin uniforms peering in the window.

They backed away hurriedly into the darkness, and Sadie was filled with fury, turned the key, and flung open the door.

“Who the hell are you?” she called. “Get out of this house.” She went down the terrace steps, cocking the sawed-off. “I’ll shoot without hesitation,” which she did, firing one barrel into the night sky.

One of the men jumped out of the thicket behind her, grabbing at her wrist, forcing the sawed-off up, and tearing it from Sadie’s grip. A second came to his aid, trying to control her as she kicked, and two more men in yellow oilskins ran in through the open gates to help them.

The Land Rover arrived just after that, swerving in, Sara braking so hard that she sprayed gravel over everyone. She slid from the driver’s side, drawing her Colt, and Hannah joined her on the other side, weapon in hand.

“All right,” Sara cried. “That’s enough.”

The one who had picked up the sawed-off said, “I don’t think so, Captain Gideon. If you and the girl don’t put down your weapons, I will blow your housekeeper’s head off.”

On the instant, Hannah shot off the lower half of his left ear.

He cried out, blood spurting, and dropped the shotgun, and Dillon seemed to slide in at the wheel of the Mini at the same time, spraying another wave of gravel.

“My goodness, but you girls have been having fun,” he said, as he got out.

“What kept you, cousin?” Hannah demanded.

One of the men reached down to grab the shotgun, and Dillon kicked him in the face. The man fell over, and the others cried out in protest.

Dillon said, “Line up and shut up, or someone else could lose half an ear.” He turned to Hannah. “There you go, stealing my favorite party trick.”

“It runs in the family,” she told him. “The way they treated Sadie, they got what they deserved.”

“On that point, I wouldn’t argue with you.” Dillon turned to the lineup. “Who’s going to tell me who sent you, although I don’t expect to be surprised.”

They stared at him stony faced, and no one said a word except Dillon, who told them exactly what he thought of them in harsh but fluent Arabic. They stared at him in astonishment, and he returned to English.

“So let’s try again, and I would suggest that one half ear a night is enough.”

The man with the ear bleeding into the handkerchief he held against it said, “Imam Yousef Shah, although I suspect you know that.”

“As it happens, I do, so what would your name be?”

“Hamid Abed.”

“Well, keep better company is my advice. Take them to their van, Hannah. Send them on their way, and you have my permission to shoot anybody who makes a false move. Keep an eye on her, Sara, while I help Sadie indoors. She’s shaking.”

Hannah shepherded them outside to their yellow van and waited for them to scramble in. Hamid still held the handkerchief to his ear as he turned to her.

“You use that gun like a soldier. Who taught you to do that, memsahib?”

“The Provisional IRA,” she told him.

“Allah preserve me.” He was shocked. “And the leg? You are crippled?”

“Car bomb,” she said. “When it comes down to it, you lot are just beginners. Off you go, Hamid Abed, and try to behave yourself in the future.”

The van drove away; Hannah turned and walked back to Sara, who said, “What was that all about?”

“He wanted to know where I learned to shoot.”

“And you told him the IRA?”