There was a Daimler parked immediately before the building. In front of it a Rolls Royce and behind it a black Ferrari F40. Doyle was fairly sure that these cars belonged to Sheikh Karim El Roustam.
He climbed the three steps that led to the front door and rang the buzzer.
There was a small video screen above the panel and Doyle turned towards it.
‘Yes,’ said a metallic-sounding woman’s voice.
‘My name’s Doyle. I was sent here by Cartwright Security.’
‘Who’s your contact?’
‘Melissa Blake.’
There was a loud buzz and the door opened. Doyle stepped into the hallway of the house and waited.
He knew a little about art (he’d had a book when he was a kid called World Famous Paintings, or something like that, and certain images had stuck in his mind) and he was sure that one of the paintings hanging opposite him was a Gainsborough. Next to it was a Constable. He was pretty sure they weren’t copies.
There was other stuff he didn’t recognise. More modern. He didn’t doubt for one second, however, that it was just as expensive.The marble floor he was standing on, he reasoned, probably cost more than he’d earned in his life.
It was across this marble floor that Melissa Blake approached him. He could hear her heels clicking on the polished surface as she descended from the staircase ahead of him.
Doyle watched her approvingly. She had blond hair, just past her shoulders.
Deep-brown eyes. Finely chiselled features and cheek bones you could have cut cheese with. Doyle suppressed a smile. She was wearing a dark-grey jacket and trousers, and a crisply iaun-dered and almost dazzlingly white blouse, fastened to the neck. Early thirties, he guessed. She shook his hand.
‘I’m Melissa Blake,’ she said smiling. ‘My friends call me Mel.’
‘I’m Sean Doyle. I haven’t got any friends.’
She smiled even more broadly, revealing several hundred pounds’ worth of dental work and a previously unseen dimple.
She held his hand a moment longer then gently slid free of his grip.‘Mr Cartwright told me to expect you.’
‘What else did he tell you?’
‘What he felt was relevant. You used to be in the Counter Terrorist Unit, didn’t you?’
Doyle nodded. ‘What about you?’ he wanted to know. ‘How did you end up in this line of work? It’s not the kind of thing you usually find women doing, is it?’
‘You’d be surprised. The demand for women bodyguards has grown over the last four or five years. Some women clients feel more comfortable with another woman. I can earn more than most men.’
‘So what did you do before this?’
‘I was a policewoman. Undercover’
‘Why’d you leave?’
‘I got involved in a sexual harassment case. My boss tried it on once too often. I went to his superior and reported him but nothing happened. Next time he tried it, I broke his nose. He had me transferred, i resigned.’
Doyle shrugged. ‘Shit happens,’ he murmured.
She smiled again. It was a warm, infectious gesture.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I’ll show you around.’ She led him towards the wide staircase at the end of the hallway.
Doyle felt his shoes sinking into the carpet as he climbed. ‘Where’s the Sheikh?’ he asked.
‘He’s out with my colleague, Joe Hendry. He should be back soon.’
‘What about his wife?’
‘She’s in her room. First thing to remember is that when you’re around them, you don’t speak unless
you’re spoken to. Most of the servants speak some English but they tend to keep themselves to themselves.’
‘How many are there?’
‘Twelve.’
‘Jesus, where do they all sleep?’
‘On the upper floors.The Sheikh and his family have the entire lower and first floor’
‘What about you and Hendry?’
‘We’ve got rooms on the second floor.’
She led him towards another flight of stairs, past more expensive paintings and sculptures.
‘Cartwright said he was paranoid about assassination,’ Doyle said. ‘Does he have reason to be?’
‘He’s worth over fifty million. They say his oil wells pump out the stuff at about sixty-four grand a second. I’d say that was reason enough, wouldn’t you?’
Doyle nodded.
‘He’s more worried about his son though,’ Mel continued. ‘Kidnapping.’
‘I didn’t know he had any kids.’
‘One boy. He’s eleven. Son and heir, that kind of thing. The Sheikh’s very big on that. That’s where you come in.’
Doyle looked surprised.
‘You travel with him to school every day,’ Mel said. ‘Make sure he gets there okay. Then you go and pick him up. Two of the Sheikh’s attendants will go with you.’
‘I didn’t know I was being hired as a fucking babysitter.’
She turned and looked at him.‘Watch your language, Doyle.You never know who’s listening.‘Again that infectious smile.
He nodded and exhaled wearily.‘Shit,’ he murmured, but under his breath.
BELFAST:
Declan Leary couldn’t remember how many pubs he’d been in since arriving in Belfast two hours earlier. Five. Six. More?
He’d drunk pints in the first two then switched to still mineral water with ice. To anyone who cared to look, he might just as easily have been drinking vodka.
He knew that what he was doing wasn’t exactly an ideal method of finding the killers of his brother but, at the moment, it was all he had.
He sat at bars and listened to conversations while he gazed blankly at his paper. He sat in booths and tried to pick up names, sometimes whispered.
Anything that might point him in the right direction.
He moved around the Woodvale and Shankill areas without detection. A Catholic
looked no different to a Protestant, he reasoned. They were all supposed to be human beings, divided merely by religion and beliefs.
That was the way it should have been. But it was not the case. It hadn’t been for over four hundred years and, as far as men like Declan Leary were concerned, it would continue like this for another four hundred.
Despite the promises of the Good Friday Agreement, Catholics and Protestants, for the most part, still kept themselves to themselves. Proddies stayed away from the Ardoyne and Turf Lodge, just as his kind kept out of Woodvale and the Shankill.
Except tonight.
Leary wondered what the mathematical probability was of bumping into one of his brother’s killers in these circumstances. He found it was best not to even consider the astronomical odds.
So, what are you going to do?
He sipped his mineral water and watched a group of men gathered around a pool table.
At the bar there was a television set perched high above the optics. Those seated opposite were watching, barely able to hear because of the noise coming from the jukebox and the incessant chatter inside.
Any one of you bastards could have shot my brother.
He saw two young women enter.The first was wearing a white mini-dress and attracted many admiring glances. She tottered uncertainly on precipitous high heels. Her friend, dressed in imitation-leather trousers and a
