blonde highlights or vibrators or whatever and leave the men to put the world to rights over a bottle of ten-year-old malt.'
'I can't wait.'
'Look, we want a result, we've got to press the right buttons.' She narrowed her eyes.
'And all that male-heroic, bimbo girlie stuff is a million miles from your own enlightened, neo feminist views, right?'
'Absolutely,' said Alex.
'I'm the original new man, me.
The seat belt sign came on and a broad swathe of brilliant Mediterranean blue appeared beneath them. It was 4.15 local time.
The drive from Malaga airport took the best part of forty minutes in their hired Mercedes. It was a beautifully clear day, the air was warm and the pace of the traffic on the coast highway leisurely. From Malaga to Marbella seemed to be one long strip of holiday, golfing and marina developments. Some of these were completed, some were still at the bricks-and-mortar stage and all offered extravagantly generous terms to potential buyers.
'We should put a deposit down on a condo.' Alex yawned contentedly as they bypassed Marbella.
'We can retire here and play golf when we finally hang up our shoulder holsters.'
'Endless boozing with retired villains,' said Dawn acidly.
'I think not.'
'Oh, get a life, girl! The sun's shining. We're on the Costa del Sol. Let's at least try to enjoy ourselves.'
'There's something very creepy about this place. Where are all the young people, for a start?'
'Having sexy siestas would be my guess. That or lying on the beach.'
'Hm. Planning the next Brinks-Mat robbery more likely.'
'Look,' said Alex, 'there's the sign for El Angel.'
They drove past the turning and on to Puerto Banus, where they had booked accommodation for two nights. The Hotel del Puerto, they discovered, was a class act. A fountain surrounded by dwarf palms played in the reception area and their luxurious balconied room overlooked the port.
The room was a double. Alex had no reason to suspect that Connolly would check their accommodation, but he knew two singles would definitely spook him in the unlikely event that he did bother. Dawn had not been enthusiastic about a shared bed and Alex had drily promised to sleep on the floor.
And here they were. Beneath them sparkling white yachts rocked gently at anchor, and on the quay side expensively dressed holiday makers sauntered past the bars and shops. Even Dawn brightened at the prospect before them and when Alex suggested they went down for a snack she readily agreed.
He unzipped his bag on the double bed, stripped uncomfortably to his boxer shorts the wound in his thigh was particularly painful after the journey and replaced his jeans and T-shirt with lightweight chinos and a Hawaiian shirt printed with dragons. The stitches he covered up with Elastoplast.
'How do I look?' he asked Dawn.
, 'Like a beaten-up pimp,' said Dawn.
'If you'll excuse me, I'll change in the bathroom.
She re-entered in a short cocktail frock in her signature dove-grey and the faintest suggestion of scent. Her hair and her eyes shone. Alex stared at her.
'You look..
'Yes, Captain Temple?'
I as if you're on holiday.'
'Good,' she said.
'Let's go.'
They chose a bar more or less at random. It was a little past five in the evening, and the glare had lifted from the sea and the gin palaces in front of them. The tables near them held middle-aged men in yachting gear and much younger women with implausibly huge breasts.
Their food arrived, plus a couple of Cokes. Alex had warned Dawn that some fairly serious drinking lay ahead. From his pocket he took a small plastic container holding a dozen ephedrine tablets. These, drawn from the Fairlie Clinic, had the dual effect of sharpening the senses and keeping drunkenness at bay.
'Bottoms up!' He grinned, downing two of them and handing the container to Dawn.
'Cheers!' rejoined Dawn rather more soberly. She took two and placed the container in her bag for safe keeping.
'Glad to see you're taking deodorant,' observed Alex, peering A down into the bag.
'Things could get a bit sweaty.'
'Funny guy,' said Dawn.
'It's actually a can of Mace. Anyone tries any monkey business including you they go down.'
'Riot girl, huh?'
'You bet.'
The drive took fifteen minutes.
El Angel was a very different proposition from Puerto Banus. Not so much a village as an arbitrary strip of land between the highway and the sea, it comprised a clutch of new and not-so new hacienda-style developments. The largest of these a bowling and fast-food centre was windowless and uncompleted, and from the weathered appearence of its plaster work had clearly been so for some time. A large painted sign showed the development as its architects had envisaged it~ bustling, youthful and cosmopolitan but in truth it looked merely forlorn.
Parking the Mercedes on the highway, Alex and Dawn followed the track towards the sea. This passed through low scrub and between areas which had clearly once been intended to be gardens.
Now, however, they only contained builders' rubble, rusting angle iron and other construction detritus. The evening breeze carried a strong smell of dogshit.
Dawn winced as thistles tore at her ankles.
'Perhaps I'm not so ideally dressed after all,' she remarked, glancing down at her strappy sandals.
'You look fine,' said Alex.
The path led on to a custom-built road flanked by white-rendered houses. Some of these were occupied and had cars on their drives and defiant little gardens of bougainvillea and hibiscus in front of them, but most stood empty.
Alex was struck by the desolation of the place. These deserted villas were, in a very real sense, the end of the road. You would come here and slowly forget everything.
Dawn must have been feeling the same, because to his amazement she slipped her arm through his.
'In every dream home a heartache,' she murmured.
'Yeah. I'm beginning to feel seriously in need of a drink.'
'This bar is actually on the sea, is it?'
'That was the impression I got,' said Alex.
'Shall we ring one of these bells and ask?'
They looked at each other, laughed nervously, then Dawn strode over to the nearest house. The sign read 'Tangmere'.
The door was opened by an elderly man in a cravat and an RAF blazer. A vague house coated figure, presumably his wife, peered nervously behind him.
'We're looking for Pablito's,' began Alex, shielding his stitched-up ear with his hand.
'Over the road, face the sea, track at eleven o'clock between Sea Pines and Casa Linda. ETA three minutes. Calling on young Denzil?'
'Yes.'
'First-rate chap. Darkish horse, of course, but then that's the rule rather than the exception out here. Tempt you inside for a minute or two? Raise a lotion to the setting sun?'
'Perhaps some other time,' said Alex guiltily, seeing the poorly concealed desperation in the other man's eyes.
'Very good. Dunbar's the name. Usually here.'
Alex and Dawn set off down the track and saw the bar almost immediately. It was a blockhouse of a place, finished in a rough brownish render which matched the stony seashore. A neon design, not yet illuminated, showed
