Tango One Read online

  "Okay if I see him?" asked Donovan.

  "Sure," said Laura.

  They stood up and Laura took Donovan upstairs. She pushed open the bedroom door and stood aside so that Donovan could see inside. Robbie was lying on his front, his head twisted away from the door so that all he could see was a mop of unruly brown hair on the pillow. He tiptoed over to the bunk bed and knelt down, then gently ruffled his son's hair.

  Robbie stirred in his sleep, kicking his feet under the quilt.

  "Don't worry, Robbie, I'm here now," Donovan whispered. He felt a sudden flare of anger at Vicky and what she'd done. Betraying him was bad enough, but to let her son witness her betrayal, that was unforgivable.

  He slipped out of the bedroom and Laura closed the door quietly. They went back downstairs and into the conservatory.

  Donovan picked up his whisky and soda and paced up and down. Laura sat down next to Mark, her hand on his knee.

  "Has she called?"

  Laura nodded.

  "Day before yesterday. She said she wanted to speak to him, but I said he was asleep and told her to call back today. She didn't."

  "She calls again, just hang up, yeah?"

  Laura nodded.

  Mark leaned forward, his hands cupping his gin and tonic.

  "No offence, Den, but how much trouble are you in?"

  Donovan smiled thinly. A very angry Colombian on his trail and sixty million dollars missing from his bank accounts. Quite a lot, really.

  "I'll be okay," he said.

  "The police are going to be after you, aren't they?"

  Donovan's smile widened. About the only good news he'd had so far had been from Dicko telling him that the police didn't have anything on him yet. He shook his head.

  "They'll be watching me, but there's no warrant. And I'm not planning on being a naughty boy while I'm here, Mark. Cross my heart. I don't intend to be here more than a few days."

  "I wasn't being .. . you know .. ." said Mark. He tailed off, embarrassed.

  "I know. It's okay."

  "It's just that we've got a business .. . obligations .. ."

  "Mark!" protested Laura.

  "Leave him alone!"

  Donovan held up his hand to silence her.

  "Laura, it's okay. Honest. I understand what he means. Mark, I'll be keeping my nose clean, I promise. And I'm really grateful for what you and Laura are doing for Robbie."

  Mark leaned over and clinked his glass against Donovan's. They toasted each other.

  "I'm sorry, Den. Bit stressed, that's all."

  Donovan waved away his apology, then asked Laura if she'd had the locks changed. She went into the sitting room and came back with a set of gleaming new keys and a piece of paper on which she'd written the new code for the burglar alarm system. Donovan took them, drained his glass and then gave his sister a big hug.

  "I'm off," he said.

  "I'll drop by and see Robbie tomorrow, yeah? And don't tell him I was here tonight, okay?"

  Donovan shook hands with Mark, then left through the french windows, keeping in the shadows as he headed back down the garden.

  "Who was that masked man?" whispered Mark.

  Laura put her arm around his waist.

  "He's really pissed off, isn't he?" she said.

  "Understatement of the year."

  "God, I hope he doesn't do anything stupid."

  "I think it's too late for that." Mark put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer to him.

  Donovan flagged down a black cab and had it drop him a quarter of a mile away from his house. He put his hands in the pockets of his bomber jacket and kept his head down as he walked along the pavement on the opposite side of the road to his house. He walked slowly but purposefully, his eyes scanning left and right under the peak of the baseball cap. There were no occupied cars, and no vans that could have concealed watchers. A young couple were leaning against a gate post devouring each other's tongues but they were way too young to be police. An old lady was walking a liver-coloured Cocker spaniel, whispering encouraging noises and holding a plastic bag to clean up after it.

  Donovan checked out the houses opposite his own. There was nothing obvious, but if the surveillance was good then there wouldn't be. He walked on. At the end of the road he turned right. Donovan's house was in a block which formed one side of a square. All the houses backed on to a large garden, virtually a small park with trees and a playing field big enough for football, though the garden committee had banned all ball games. Dogs had also been forbidden to use the garden, and there was a string of rules which were rigidly enforced by the committee, including no music, no organised games, no shouting, no drinking, no smoking. Donovan had always wondered why they didn't just ban everyone from the garden and have done with it.

  The garden could be entered from the back doors of the houses, but many of them had been converted into apartments, and those on the upper floors, considered as poor relations by the omnipotent garden committee, had to use a side entrance. One of the keys on the ring that Laura had given him opened the black wooden gate that led to the garden. Donovan stopped to tie his shoelaces, taking a quick look over his shoulder. A black cab drove by, its "For Hire' light on, but other than that the street was deserted. Donovan opened the gate and slipped inside.

  He stood for a minute listening to the sound of his own breathing as his eyes became accustomed to the gloom. There were lights on in several of the houses, but most of the large garden area was in darkness. Donovan walked across the grass, looking from side to side to check that no one else was taking a late evening stroll. He was quite alone. For all he knew, the committee had probably issued an edict forbidding residents from using the garden after dark.

  He walked quickly to his house. A flagstoned patio area was separated from the garden by a knee-high hedgerow and a small rockery, and as he walked across it a halogen security light came on automatically. There was nothing Donovan could do about the light but he took off his baseball cap. If any of the neighbours did happen to look out of the window, it would be better that they recognised him and didn't think that he was an intruder. As he unlocked the back door, the alarm system began to bleep. He closed the door and walked to the cupboard under the stairs and tapped out the four-digit number that Laura had given him. The alarm stopped bleeping. Donovan left the lights ofF just in case the house was under surveillance.

  Donovan went into the kitchen and took a bottle of San Miguel out of the fridge. He opened it and drank from the bottle.

  "Home sweet home," he muttered to himself. It had never felt like home, not really. During the past three years he doubted if he'd spent more than eight weeks in the house. Vicky had bought all the furniture and furnishings, with the exception of the artwork, assisted by some gay designer she'd found in her health club. Donovan couldn't remember his name, but he could remember a close-cropped head, a gold earring and figure-hugging jeans with zips up either leg. He might have been a freak, but Donovan had to admit he'd done a terrific job with the house. Turns out he'd studied art at some redbrick university and he'd been impressed with Donovan's collection some of the rooms he'd designed around the paintings, much to Vicky's annoyance.

  Donovan went into the study and checked the safe, even though Laura had already told him that it was empty. He stared at the bare metal shelves and cursed. He wondered if Sharkey had been with her when she'd emptied it. Vicky would have thought about the passport, and probably regarded the cash as hers, but would she have realised the significance of the Spar-buch passbooks in the manila envelope? Donovan doubted it, but Sharkey certainly would have known what the passbooks were, and what they were worth. Donovan slammed the safe door shut and put the painting back in place. He ran his fingers along the gilded frame and smiled to himself. Luckily Sharkey was as ignorant of art as Vicky. The oil painting of two yachts was more than a hundred years old, and together with its partner on the opposite wall was worth close to half a million dollars. They were by James Edward B
uttersworth, an American painter who loved yachts and sunsets, and both were used to good effect in the two pictures.

  Donovan walked around the ground floor and satisfied himself that none of the works of art had been taken. They were all where they should be. Pride of his collection were three Van Dyck pen and brown ink drawings, preparatory sketches the Dutch master had made for a huge canvas that was now hanging in the Louvre. They featured a mother and daughter, and Donovan had bought them shortly after Robbie was born.

  Donovan walked slowly upstairs, his hand on the banister. He imagined Robbie doing the same. Hurrying back from school, then rushing upstairs to see his mother. Catching her in the act. Donovan couldn't imagine how Robbie must have felt. Donovan had never seen his mother kiss his father, much less seen them in any sexual situation. Sex wasn't something that parents did. To find his mother in bed with someone else must have ripped the heart out of Robbie's world. Donovan's lips tightened and his free hand clenched into a fist. He'd make sure Vicky paid for what she'd done. Sharkey, too.

  He pushed open the door to the master bedroom. The door to Vicky's wardrobe was open. There were lots of empty hangers inside and one of her suitcases was missing. Donovan went over to the bed. He stared at the sheet, picturing the two of them, Sharkey and his wife, screwing their brains out in his bed. Vicky had been a virgin when she'd met Donovan, and clung to her virginity for a full three months before surrendering it to him on her seventeenth birthday. They'd married a year later, and so far as Donovan knew, she'd been faithful to him throughout their marriage. He'd been her first and only lover, that's what she'd said. Usually affectionately, though occasionally, when she suspected that he'd been playing around, she'd thrown it in his face like an accusation. However, he'd never doubted that she'd been true to him, that he was the only man who'd ever taken her. Until Sharkey.

  Donovan picked up the quilt and threw it on to the bed. Maybe Sharkey hadn't been her first affair. Maybe there'd been others. Maybe she'd been screwing around behind his back for years. He felt his heart start to pound and he kicked the bed, hard, cursing her for her betrayal. He walked around the upper floor of the house, checking the bedrooms but not really sure what he was looking for. It was more territorial; it was his house and he wanted to pace out every inch of it. He'd sell it, of course. Soon as he could. He wanted nothing more to do with it. It was tainted. He hated the place, he didn't want to spend a minute longer there.

  He went back downstairs, reset the alarm and let himself out through the back door. The security light came on, blasting the patio with stark halogen whiteness. Donovan pulled on his baseball cap and hurried off across the grass.

  He unlocked the gate leading out of the garden, checked that there was no one around, then slipped through the relocked it. He put his head down and his hands in his pockets and walked briskly along the pavement.

  As he walked past a dark saloon he heard a car door open. Donovan tensed. He'd been so deep in his own thoughts that he hadn't noticed anyone sitting in any of the parked cars. He took a quick look over his shoulder. A large man in a heavy overcoat was walking around to the boot of his car, jingling his keys.

  Donovan turned away and walked faster. Two men were walking along the pavement purposefully towards him. They were big men, too, as big as the man who was opening the car boot behind him. Donovan stepped off the pavement but they were too quick for him. One grabbed him by the arm with shovel-like hands and the other pulled out something from his coat pocket, raised his arm and brought it crashing down on the side of Donovan's head. Everything went red, then black, and Donovan was unconscious before he hit the ground.

  Donovan had bitten the inside of his mouth when he was hit and he could taste blood as he slowly regained consciousness. The left-hand side of his head throbbed and he was having trouble breathing. The room was spinning around him and Donovan blinked several times, trying to clear his vision. It didn't do any good, everything was still revolving. Then he realised it wasn't the room that was spinning. It was him.

  He'd been suspended by his feet from a metal girder with rope, and his hands had been tied behind him. His jacket was bunched around his shoulders and he could see his socks and the bare skin of his shins. His nose felt blocked and his eyes were hurting and he had a piercing headache. He'd obviously been hanging upside down for a long time. He coughed and spat out bloody phlegm.

  Two pairs of legs span into view. Dark brown shoes. Grey trousers. Black coats. Then they were gone. Machinery. A dark saloon car. Welding cylinders. A jack. A calendar with a naked blonde with impossibly large breasts. A workbench. Then the legs again. Donovan craned his neck but he couldn't see their faces.

  One of the men said something in Spanish but Donovan didn't catch what it was. He knew who they were, though. Colombians. He coughed and spat out more blood.

  He heard footsteps and a third pair of legs walked up.

  "Hola, hombre," said a voice.

  "Que pa saT Donovan twisted around, trying to get a look at the man who'd spoken. It took his confused brain several seconds to process the visual information.

  A short, thickset man in his mid twenties. Powerful arms from years of lifting weights. A neat goatee beard. It was Jesus Rodriguez, Carlos Rodriguez's nephew and a borderline psychopath. Donovan had seen him several times in Carlos Rodriguez's entourage but had never spoken to the man. He'd heard the rumours, though. Ears cut off. Prostitutes scarred for life. Bodies dumped at sea, still alive and attached to anchors.

  "Oh, just hanging around," said Donovan, trying to sound confident even though he knew that if the Colombian had just wanted a chat he wouldn't have had him picked up and suspended from the ceiling. And the fact that Doyle hadn't called him to warn him about the Colombians meant that he probably wasn't able to.

  "You should have let me know you were coming."

  "Where's my uncle's money, Donovan?" said Rodriguez.

  Donovan stopped turning. The rope had twisted as far as it would go. He was facing away from the Colombian and all he could see was the black saloon. Its boot was open. That was how they'd got him to the garage. And if things didn't go well, it was probably how he'd leave.

  "Somebody borrowed it," said Donovan.

  "Well, amigo, I hope they're paying you a good rate of interest, because that loan is going to cost you your life."

  "I didn't steal your money, Jesus," said Donovan. The rope began to untwist and Donovan revolved slowly.

  "So where is our ten million dollars?"

  "I'm not sure."

  "That's not the answer I'm looking for, capullo."

  Donovan heard metal scraping and a liquid sloshing sound. Something being unscrewed. More sloshing. A strong smell of petrol. Then the three pairs of legs swung into view. One of the men was holding a red petrol can.

  Donovan's insides lurched.

  "Look, Jesus, I haven't got your money."

  The man with the can started splashing it over Donovan's legs. Donovan began to shiver uncontrollably. His conscious mind, his intelligence, told him that Rodriguez wouldn't kill him while there was a chance that he'd get his money, but he'd heard enough horror stories about the man to know how irrational he could be, especially when he'd taken cocaine. Rodriguez was a user as well as a supplier, and when he was using he was a nasty piece of work.

  "If you haven't got my uncle's money, then there's nothing for us to talk about, is there?"

  "I've been ripped off. By my accountant."

  "Where is he?"

  "I don't know."

  "Wrong answer."

  More petrol was slopped over Donovan's legs. It dripped down his chest and dribbled into his nose, stinging so badly that his eyes watered. He shook his head and blinked his eyes, hoping that the Colombian wouldn't think he was crying.

  "I'm looking for him. For God's sake, Jesus, he's ripped off sixty million fucking dollars."

  "Of which ten million is my uncle's."

  "If I had the money, I'd have given it to him. Yo
u think I don't know what happens to people who don't pay your uncle?"

  "If you didn't, you're about to find out."

  The man with the red can poured the last of the petrol down Donovan's back. It trickled down the back of his neck and dribbled through his hair. The fumes made him gag and he felt as if he would pass out again.

  "Why did you run, capullo?

  "Because I knew if I didn't pay, this would happen."

  Rodriguez snorted.

  "You thought you'd be safe in London, did you?"

  "No, but I thought if I could get enough time, I might be able to get the bastard. Get the money back."

  Rodriguez folded his arms and studied Donovan.

  "And how were you planning to do that?" he asked.

  Donovan forced a smile.

  "I thought I might hang him upside down and pour petrol over him. See if that works."

  Rodriguez stared at Donovan with cold eyes, then a smile slowly spread across his face. He threw back his head and laughed. His two companions stood watching Rodriguez laugh as if they didn't understand what was funny. Rodriguez wiped his eyes and shook his head.

  "You English, you always keep your sense of humour, no matter what. What's the expression you have? To die laughing?"

  "Killing me won't get your uncle's money back, Jesus. That's the one true thing in this situation."

  Rodriguez reached into his coat pocket and took out a gold cigarette lighter. Petrol was pooling on the floor below Donovan's head. Rodriguez crouched down and steadied Donovan with a gloved hand. He looked into his eyes.

  "Don't underestimate the fear factor, amigo," he said.

  "This will be a lesson to everyone else. Fuck with the Rodriguez family and you'll burn in hell." He patted Donovan on the face, then straightened up.

  Donovan panicked.

  "For God's sake, Jesus, I've got money. I can pay you some of it."

  "How much?"

  "I don't know."

  "Wrong answer, capullo." Rodriguez raised his hand and clicked the lighter.

  Donovan twisted around, thrashing from side to side.

  "Jesus, for fuck's sake, stop it."