No Enemy but Time by Evelyn Anthony Page A

times.’
    â€˜I was assigned to look after him for a while,’ Harvey answered. ‘We got on very well. He was a high risk at one time. We became friendly.’
    â€˜The wife too? How did she take to you, Major? I gather she’s pretty pro-Irish.’
    Michael Harvey said, ‘She didn’t want them to shoot her husband; I didn’t think she was particularly pro-anything. Besides, she grew up there. So did I, as a matter of fact.’
    â€˜Did you?’ Brownlow felt he’d been rebuked and it irritated him. An arrogant bugger, he decided. He sat up straight and became official. ‘The view is, she’s gone over to look for her brother. He’s a right bastard.’ He dared the Major to defend him . ‘We’ve had a lot of conflicting information from over there. The story goes that he’s fallen out with his friends in the Provos, and he’s either on the run, or they murdered him and dumped the body. The nasty part is that, either way, it could be a ploy to get Mrs Fraser into the Republic, where they can pick her up.’
    â€˜That seems the most likely. Would the brother connive at it? The whole disappearance could be a put-up job.’
    Brownlow shook his head. ‘No way. She’s his one soft spot, from what we know about him. I think he’s at the bottom of a bog with a hole in his head and they’re waiting to scoop her up at the right moment. As I explained to Fraser, we can’t say a word to the Irish police because that bloody country’s like an echo chamber. One word, and everyone gets to hear of it. The Provos have got contacts everywhere. So it’s got to be handled from our end and with the utmost security. And discretion,’ he added. ‘We want Mrs Fraser brought back home, but no shoot-outs. No repercussions.’
    â€˜Is that the official instruction,’ Harvey asked him, ‘or just a general directive?’
    â€˜A general directive,’ Brownlow admitted. ‘Nobody can tell you how to do your job.’
    â€˜Doesn’t stop them trying,’ was the retort. He looked at his watch. ‘There’s been no publicity. From what you said on the phone, she’s kept a low profile too, which is lucky. Our one chance of sorting this out is to get to her before the Provos know for sure she’s in Ireland. So I’ll be on my way.’ He stood up. ‘I’ll be in touch. With any luck, I could be back this evening. If I’m not, things have gone wrong. But I’m optimistic. She’s not a fool, and she knows what she’s dealing with.’ He shook hands and went out.
    Brownlow pinched his lip between finger and thumb. He knows Claire Fraser a bloody sight better than he let on, he thought. That’s why the husband picked him. He’s not just a trigger man. Brownlow had been dealing with human vagaries for thirty years. The Major had closed ranks when he criticized Mrs Fraser, and by implication, Ireland. He shook his head. He would never understand them. And by ‘them’ he meant the English who identified with a country and a people that had never accepted them. He wondered whether Major Harvey, ex-Green Jackets, Wellington and Sandhurst and Ulster undercover expert, would describe himself as Irish. He wouldn’t be the least surprised.
    The flight to Dublin took just on an hour. Michael Harvey read the newspapers while the stewardesses offered drinks and the passengers examined each other at the start of the flight. He put the papers away and leaned back, gazing out of the window at the bright banks of sunlit cloud as they reached thirty thousand feet. He thought of Claire Fraser, and the first time they had met, at Brandon Manor in the heart of the Cotswolds.
    It was three years ago, when her husband was a new Cabinet Minister and there was a scare that he might be a target for the IRA. Informers named him and two other public figures. Michael Harvey was