Tango One (13 page)

Clare shook his head. He was finding it difficult to concentrate. The man's voice seemed to echo in Clare's ears, as if he were talking at the end of a very long tunnel.

“From the German, Sparen, which means save, and Buck, which means book. Brilliant concept, isn't it, for guys in your line of work? An anonymous account operated under a password. No signature, no identification, completely transferable. He who has the passbook and codeword has the money. Got yours just before the deadline, didn't you? Smart boy, Marty. Austria stopped issuing Sparbuch accounts in November 2000. You had the inside track on that, I bet. You can still get them in the Czech Republic, but Austrian schillings are so much more confidence-inspiring than Czech crowns, aren't they?”

Clare slumped in his chair. He felt as if a strap had been tightened across his chest and every breath was an effort of will.

“Are you okay, Marty? Not having a heart attack, are you? Though I have to say, the Dutch do have an excellent health care system.”

“Who grassed me up?” gasped Clare, his hand on his chest.

“Who do you think?”

Clare frowned. Sweat was pouring down his face. He rubbed his hand across his forehead and it came away dripping wet.

“By the way, I think you were being a tad optimistic on your figure of a thousand times my annual salary. I reckon at best you've got five million quid salted away and CAB know where pretty much all of it is.”

Clare's mind was in a whirl. The only person who knew about the Sparbuch account was his wife Mary, and he trusted her with his life. The realisation hit him like a punch to the solar plexus.

“Mary.”

The man grinned.

“Ah, the penny has finally dropped, has it? She was none too happy with your arrest situation the two Slovakian girls .. .”

Clare closed his eyes and swore. The man with the camera.

“You bastard,” he whispered.

“The women, plus the fact that CAB were prepared to cut her a deal on the house and the Irish accounts pretty much puts your balls on the fire, Marty.”

Clare opened his eyes.

“What the fuck do you want?” he asked.

“A chat, Marty.”

“About what?”

“Den Donovan.”

Donovan spent the night at the Hilton Hotel in Kingston. He checked in wearing a Lacoste polo shirt and slacks, but when he checked out of the hotel in the morning he was wearing baggy denim jeans, a T-shirt that he'd bought in a gift shop in Rasta colours with "I Love Jamaica' spelled out in spliffs, and a woollen Rasta hat. If the receptionist thought his attire incongruous for a business hotel, she was professional enough to hide her opinion behind a bright smile of perfect teeth.

Donovan knew that he looked ridiculous, but then so did most of the Brits returning home after two weeks of sun, sand and sex in Jamaica. The worst that would happen was that he'd get a pull by Customs at Stansted, but they'd be looking for ganja, not an international drugs baron.

He settled his account with American dollars and tipped the doorman ten dollars for opening the back door of a taxi and putting his suitcase and holdall in the boot. It was a thirty-minute ride to the Norman Manley International Airport. Donovan had no idea who Norman Manley was, or why the Jamaicans had named their airport after him, and he didn't care. The only thing he cared about was that it was a relatively easy place to fly to the UK from.

He put on a pair of impenetrable sunglasses and joined the hundred-yard-long check-in queue for the charter flight. Honeymooning couples who were just starting to think about what married life meant back in dreary, drizzly England; middle-aged holiday makers with sunburned necks, keen to get back to good old fish and chips; and spaced-out fun seekers who were biting their nails and wondering if it really had been a good idea to tuck away their last few ounces of Jamaican gold into their wash bags There was a sprinkling of Rasta hats, several with fake dreadlocks, and lots of T-shirts with drugs references, so Donovan blended right in.

It took almost an hour to reach the front of the queue. He handed over the passport and ticket and flashed the Jamaican girl a lopsided grin.

“Wish I could stay longer,” he said.

“Honey, you can move in with me any time,” laughed the girl, 'but you'd have to lose the hat."

“I love my hat,” he said.

“Then it's over, honey. Sorry.” She checked the passport against the name on the ticket. Donovan's travel agent had worked wonders to get him a seat on the charter flight. A scheduled flight would have been easier, but there'd be more scrutiny if he arrived at Heathrow. Holidaymakers returning to Stansted would barely merit a second look. The agent must have had a pre-dated return ticket issued in the UK and then Fed-Exed it out to Kingston. It had arrived first thing that morning as Donovan had been eating his room service breakfast. The unused Stansted-Jamaica leg section of the ticket had already been discarded. It was that sort of creativity that merited the high prices the agent charged. Donovan was paying more for the cramped economy seat to Stansted than it would have cost to fly first class with British Airways.

The check-in girl ran him off a boarding card and handed it back to him with the passport.

“I'd wish you a good flight but it looks like you're flying already,” she laughed.

Donovan bought a pre-paid international calling card and phoned the number in Spain. The answer machine kicked in again and Donovan left another message. The Spaniard could be difficult to get hold of at times, but that was because his services were so much in demand.

Vicky Donovan put her hands up to her face and shook her head.

“I can't do this, Stewart. I can't.”

Sharkey reached over and massaged the back of her neck.

“We don't have any choice, Vicky. You know what he's capable of ”But running isn't going to solve anything, is it? He'll come after us." A car horn sounded behind them and Vicky flinched.

“Relax,” said Sharkey.

“He's miles away.”

“He'll be on his way. And if he isn't, he'll send someone.” She looked across at Sharkey, her lower lip trembling.

“Maybe if I talk to him. Try to explain.”

“He was going to find out some time, Vicky,” said Sharkey.

“We couldn't carry on behind his back for ever.”

“We were going to wait until Robbie was older, remember?” Tears welled up in her eyes.

“I can't leave Robbie. I can't go without him.”

“It's temporary.”

“Den won't let us take him, Stewart. You know how much he loves him.”

Sharkey shook his head.

“He left him, didn't he? He left both of you.”

“He didn't have a choice.”

“We all have choices.” Sharkey took her hand. He rubbed her wedding ring and engagement ring with his thumb. The wedding ring was a simple gold band, but the engagement ring was a diamond, and sapphire monstrosity that had cost six figures. Sharkey knew its exact value because he'd been with Donovan when he'd bought it from Maplin and Webb with a briefcase full of cash. Vicky had shrieked with joy when Donovan had presented it to her, down on one knee in a French restaurant in Sloane Square. Now Sharkey hated the ring, hated the reminder that she was Donovan's woman.

“He'll calm down eventually,” he said soothingly, even though he knew that it would be a cold day in hell before Den Donovan would forgive or forget.

“I'll get a lawyer to talk to him. We'll come to an arrangement, don't worry. Divorce. Custody of Robbie. It'll be okay, I promise.”

Sharkey stroked Vicky's soft blonde hair and kissed her on the forehead. She wasn't wearing make-up and her eyes were red from crying, but she was still model pretty. High cheekbones, almond-shaped eyes with irises so blue that people often thought she was wearing tinted contact lenses, and flawless skin that took a good five years off her real age. She would be thirty on her next birthday, a fact that she was constantly bringing up. Would Sharkey still love her when she was thirty? she kept asking. Would he still find her attractive?

“We shouldn't have taken the money, Stewart. That was a mistake.”

“We needed a bargaining chip. Plus, if we're going to hide, that's going to cost.”

“You'll give it back, won't you?”

“Once we've sorted it out, of course I will.” He smiled and corrected himself.

“We will, Vicky. We're in this together, you and me. I couldn't have moved the money without your authorisation. And I'm the one who knew where it was. And where to put it.”

Sharkey pulled her towards him and kissed her on the mouth. She opened her lips wide for him and moaned softly as his tongue probed deep inside. He kissed her harder and she tried to pull away but Sharkey kept a hand on the back of her neck and kept her lips pressed against his until she stopped pulling away and surrendered to the kiss. Only then did Sharkey release her and she sat back, breathing heavily.

“Christ, I want you,” said Sharkey, placing his hand on her thigh.

“We've time. We don't have to check in for our flight for three hours.”

"Stewart.. said Vicky, but he could hear the uncertainty in her voice and knew that he'd won. He pulled her close and kissed her again and this time she made no attempt to pull away.

Donovan stayed air side when he arrived at Stansted. It had been the flight from hell. The teenager occupying the seat in front of him had crashed it back as soon as the wheels left the runway and didn't put it upright until they were on final approach to land in the UK. Donovan had downed several Jack Daniels with ice, but the seat was so small and uncomfortable that there was no chance of sleeping. Plus, there was the small matter of the four-year-old sitting behind him who thought it was fun to kick the seat in time with badly hummed nursery rhymes.

He collected his luggage and went through Customs without incident, still wearing his sunglasses and Rasta hat. Like most UK airports, Stansted had installed a video recognition system during the late 'nineties. Closed-circuit television cameras scanned passengers departing and arriving, cross-checking faces against a massive database. The system, known as Mandrake, was still in the test phase, but Donovan knew that his photograph, along with all other top players in the international drugs business, was in the database. The technology was almost ninety-five per cent accurate, final checking always had to be done by a human operator, but it could still be fooled by dark glasses and hats. Donovan had been told by one of the high-ranking Customs officers on his payroll that once the system had been debugged and was running smoothly, the airport authorities would insist that all head coverings and sunglasses be removed in the arrival and departure areas. They were already working out how to avoid the expected flurry of lawsuits from Sikhs and others for whom a covered head was an act of religious expression.

There were only two uniformed Customs officers in the "Nothing To Declare' channel and they were deep in conversation and didn't seem in the least bit interested in the charter flight passengers. Donovan knew that the lack of interest was deceptive the area was monitored by several hidden CCTV cameras, and Customs officers behind the scenes would be looking for passengers who fitted the profile of drugs traffickers. Donovan's Rasta hat and druggie T-shirt would actually work in his favour it would mark him out as a user, but no major drug smuggler would be wearing such outlandish garb.

Donovan passed through without incident. He shaved and washed in the airport toilets and changed into a grey polo neck sweater and black jeans. He kept his sunglasses on and carried a black linen jacket. He dumped the Rasta hat and T-shirt in a rubbish bin.

He had two hours to kill before his Ryanair flight to Dublin, so he stopped off at a cafeteria for a plate of pasta and a glass of wine that came out of a screw-top bottle, and read through The Times, the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail.

His seat on the Ryanair jet was if anything smaller than his charter seat, but the flight took just under an hour. There were no immigration controls between the UK and Ireland, so there was no need for Donovan to show his passport.

He collected his Samsonite suitcase, walked through the unmanned blue Customs channel and caught a taxi to the city centre. Donovan was a frequent visitor to the Irish capital. It was the perfect transit point for flights to Europe or the United States. From here he had the option of travelling to and from the UK by ferry, or of simply driving up to Belfast and flying to London on what was considered aUK internal flight.

The taxi dropped Donovan at the top of Grafton Street, the capital's main shopping street. It was pedestrianised and packed with afternoon shoppers: well-heeled tourists in expensive designer clothes rubbing shoulders with teenagers up from the country, marked out as the Celtic Tiger's poor relations by their bad skin, cheap haircuts and supermarket brand training shoe. Careworn housewives pushing crying children, groups of language students with matching backpacks planning their next shoplifting expedition, all remained under the watchful eyes of security guards at every shop front whispering to each other in clunky black transceivers.

Donovan carried his suitcase and holdall into the Allied Irish Bank, showed an identification card to a uniformed guard and went down a spiral staircase to the safety deposit box vault.

“Mr. Wilson, haven't seen you for some time,” said a young man in a grey suit and a floral tie. He handed a clipboard to Donovan, who put down his suitcase and holdall and signed in as Jeremy Wilson.

“Overseas,” said Donovan.

“The States.”

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” said the young man. He went over to one of the larger safety deposit boxes and inserted his master key into one of its two locks, giving it a deft twist.

“I'll leave you alone, Mr. Wilson. Give me a call when you're done.”

Donovan waited until he was alone in the room before putting his personal key into the second lock and turning it. He opened the steel door and slid out his box. It was about two feet long, a foot wide and a foot deep and heavy enough to make him grunt as he hefted it up on to a teak veneer desk with partitions either side to give him a modicum of privacy.

The single CCTV camera in the vault was positioned behind Donovan, so no one could see what was in the box. He lifted the lid and smiled at the contents. More than a dozen brick-sized bundles of British fifty-pound notes were stacked neatly on the bottom of the box. On top of the banknotes lay four gold Rolex watches, four passports and two burgundy-coloured hard-back account books. They were Czechoslovakian Sparbuch accounts, one with a million dollars, and the other containing half a million. With the appropriate passwords, they were as good as cash.

Donovan placed his holdall next to the metal box and packed the money into it, then put the passbooks and passports into his jacket pocket. He put the UK passport that he'd used to fly from Jamaica into the box, then replaced the box in its slot and locked the metal door.

He pressed a small white buzzer on the desk and the young man came back and turned the second lock with his master key. Donovan thanked him and carried his suitcase and holdall upstairs.

Donovan walked to St. Stephen's Green and along to the taxi rank in front of the grand Shelbourne Hotel. A rotund grey-haired porter in a black uniform with purple trim took the suitcase from him and loaded it into the boot of the lead taxi. Donovan gave him a ten-pound note and kept the holdall with him as he slid into the rear seat.

“Airport?” asked the driver hopefully.

“I want to go to Belfast,” said Donovan.

“You up for it?”

The driver grimaced.

“That's a long drive and my wife'll have the dinner on at six.”

“Use the meter and I'll treble it.”

The driver's eyebrows shot skywards. He nodded at the holdall.

“Not got drugs in there, have you?”

Donovan grinned.

“Chance'd be a fine thing. No. But I've got a plane to catch. Do you wanna go or shall I give the guy behind the biggest fare he'll have this year?”

“I'll do it,” said the driver, 'but the wife'll have my balls on toast."

“Buy her something nice,” said Donovan, settling back into the seat.

“Usually works for me.”

The driver laughed.

“Yeah, wives, huh? What can you do with them? Can't live with them, can't put a bullet in their heads.” He laughed uproariously at his own bad joke and started the car.

Donovan looked out of the window, tight lipped. Flecks of rain spattered across the glass. It always seemed to be raining when he visited Dublin, and he couldn't remember ever seeing blue skies over the Irish capital.

The taxi pulled into the afternoon traffic and Donovan closed his eyes. He'd forgotten to call the Spaniard, but he could do that when he reached Belfast.

Stewart Sharkey nodded towards the bar.

“Do you want a drink?” he asked Vicky. Their flight hadn't been called and the boarding gate was only a short walk away.

Vicky shook her head.

“It's a bit early for me. You go ahead, though. I'm going to use the bathroom.”

“Are you all right?” asked Sharkey, putting his hand on her shoulder.

Tears welled up in her eyes.

“I don't know, Stewart. I don't know how I feel. I'm sort of numb, it's like I'm going to faint or something. Like I keep stepping outside my own body.”

“Good sex will do that every time,” joked Sharkey, but she pushed his hand away.

“This isn't funny,” she hissed. They'd checked into one of the airport hotels, and the sex had been quick and urgent, almost frantic. Sharkey hadn't even given her chance to get undressed and there had been no soft words, no caresses. Just sex. It was as if he'd wanted to show that she was his. That he could take her whenever he wanted. She'd wanted him, too, but not like that. She'd wanted to be held, to be comforted, to be told that it was all right, that he'd protect her.

“I know it isn't,” soothed Sharkey, 'but there isn't much else I can do just now except try to lighten the moment, right? We've got a plane to catch, then we can plan what we do next."

Vicky forced herself to smile.

“Okay,” she said.

Sharkey hugged her and she rested her head against his chest. He nuzzled his face into her. He could smell the cheap shampoo from the hotel room.

“You know I love you,” he whispered.

“You bloody well better,” she said, slipping her arms around his waist and squeezing him.

“I wouldn't want to go through all this for the sake of a quick shag.”

“It's going to work out, trust me.”

She squeezed him again, then released her grip on him and wiped her eyes.

“I look a mess,” she said.

“Go get your drink. I'll see you in a couple of minutes.”

She walked away quickly, her skirt flicking from side to side. It was one hell of a sexy walk, thought Sharkey. Vicky Donovan was a head-turner, and that might turn out to be a problem down the line. Men looked at stunning blondes with impressive cleavages and shapely legs, and the more men who looked at her, the more chance there was of someone recognising her.

Donovan thrust a handful of fifty-pound notes at the driver, making sure that he couldn't see inside the holdall.

“Sterling okay?” he asked.

“I don't have any Euros.”

“I suppose so,” said the driver, carefully counting the notes. His face broke into a smile when he realised how much money he was holding. He reached into the taxi's glove compartment and handed a dog-eared business card to Donovan.

“You need a lift again, you call me, yeah? The mobile's always on.”

“Sure,” said Donovan.

“Pop the boot, yeah?” The driver unlocked the boot and Donovan pulled out his suitcase. He walked into the terminal building and bought a business class ticket to Heathrow at the British Airways desk.

Before checking in he took his holdall and suitcase into the toilets and pulled them into a large cubicle designed for wheelchair access. He put most of the money into the suitcase, since it was less likely to be noticed there than in the holdall. He wasn't committing an offence by flying from Belfast to London with bundles of fifty-pound notes, but he didn't want to attract attention to himself. He kept one passport, one of the UK ones, in his jacket pocket and hid the rest in a secret compartment in his wash bag.

He washed his hands and face, checked his reflection in the mirror, and put his dark glasses back on. Belfast Airport was saturated with CCTV cameras, and like all British airports was equipped with the face-recognition system that he had successfully evaded at Stansted. He took the Panama hat from his holdall and put it on his head at a jaunty angle.

He checked in for the flight and winked at his suitcase as it headed off on its lonely journey down the conveyor belt.

He bought aUK telephone card and called the Spaniard from a payphone. This time the Spaniard answered.

“Fuck me, Juan, where the hell have you been?”

“Hola, Den. {Que pa saT ”I'll give you que pasa, you dago bastard. My world's going down the toilet tit first and you're sunning yourself on some bloody beach."

“I wish that were true, amigo. I have only just got back from .. .” the Spaniard chuckled to himself.. . 'wherever I was," he finished. Like Donovan, Juan Rojas had a serious distrust of the telephone system.

“You will no doubt read about it in the papers, manana. So what can I do for you, my old friend?”

“Same old, same old,” said Donovan.

“I'd like a face to face.”

“Amigo, I am only just off a plane,” said Rojas.

“Don't fucking give me amigo, you garlic-guzzling piece of shit, are you gonna help me or do I have to call the Pole? The way the currency is, he's a lot cheaper than you are.”

“If this is your idea of romancing me, I have to tell you, old friend, it's not making me wet between the legs.” He paused, but Donovan knew that he'd got the Spaniard's attention so he said nothing. Eventually Rojas broke the silence.

“Where?” he asked.

“Remember the last time we met in the UK?”

“Vaguely. My memory isn't what it was.”

“The park.”

“Ah. Where the animals were.”

Donovan frowned. The animals? They hadn't met at the zoo. It had been on Hampstead Heath. Then he smiled. It was the Spaniard's idea of a joke. They'd seen several cruising homosexuals, and when they'd walked past one, Rojas had pulled Donovan close and planted a noisy wet kiss on his cheek.

“Yeah, Juan. The animals. Tomorrow, okay? Same time as before, plus two, okay?” Nine o'clock at night. Dark.

“I will be there, amigo, with a huge hard-on for you.”

Donovan laughed out loud and hung up.

He sat in the business class lounge sipping a Jack Daniels and soda until his flight was called.

Vicky splashed water over her face and then stared at her reflection in the mirror above the washbasins. She looked terrible. Her eyes were red from crying and her skin was blotchy around her nose. She put her hands on her cheeks and pulled the skin back. The wrinkles vanished as the skin tightened across her cheekbones. Twenty-nine going on fifty is how she felt. She hated what she saw in the mirror. She looked tired and scared and hunted.

She took a lipstick from her handbag and carefully applied it, then brushed mascara on to her lashes. She put her face close to the mirror and admired her handiwork. Even if she looked like shit, she might as well look like shit in full warpaint. She stood up straight and pulled her shoulders back, then turned her head right and left. Twenty-nine. Thirty next birthday. God, how could she be thirty? Thirty was halfway to sixty. She shuddered at the thought of grey hair and mottled, wrinkled skin and receding gums and brittle bones. Or maybe not. Maybe with a good plastic surgeon and if she ate right and gave up smoking and drinking she could put off the decay for a further decade.

She walked out of the ladies'. To her left was a rank of public phones. She stopped and stared at them. No calls, Stewart had said. Calls could be traced, and he'd insisted that they both throw away their mobiles before leaving for the airport. She fumbled in her handbag and pulled out her purse. She had a British Telecom card that still had several pounds on it. She picked up the receiver of the phone in the middle of the row and slotted in the card, then tapped out the number of Robbie's mobile. It rang through immediately to his message bank and she cursed.

It was three o'clock, so he was probably still at school, and the teachers insisted on penalty of detention that all phones were switched off in class. They were the new must-have accessory and had long passed the stage of being a status symbol. Virtually every pupil now had a phone, so status came from having the latest model, and Robbie's was state of the art, a present from Den.

She was about to hang up, but then she changed her mind.

“Robbie, it's Mum. I just called to say hello. You I know I love you, don't you?” She paused, as if expecting an answer.