'Check it out, will you?'
'If that's what you want, Den, sure. I'll call you tomorrow. This number, yeah?'
'Nah. I'm getting a flight back this afternoon.'
'Bloody hell, Den. Don't get manic about this. Softly, softly, yeah?'
'Don't worry, Dicko. I'll stop off in Europe. Germany maybe. I'll call you from there.'
'Just remember Europol, that's all. You're Most Wanted all over Europe.'
'I'll be okay. One more thing. I want you to get Vicky and that bastard Sharkey red-flagged. They leave the country, I want to know.'
'You're not asking much, are you?'
'I'm serious, Dicko. If they run, I want to know where they run to.'
'Don't do anything stupid, Den.'
'You can do it, yeah?'
Underwood sighed.
'Yeah, I can do it.'
'Cheers, mate. Let's talk again tomorrow.'
The line went dead in Underwood's ear. He felt his stomach churn and he popped a Rennie indigestion tablet into his mouth.
Donovan walked over to the convertible Mercedes. Doyle had the door open for him.
'You okay, boss?' he asked.
Donovan didn't reply. He tapped on the dashboard with the palms of his hands as Doyle climbed into the driving seat.
'Where to, boss?' asked Doyle.
Donovan's hands beat even faster on the dashboard as he tried to collect his thoughts. He'd flown to St. Kitts purely to meet the Colombian, but his return flight was to Anguilla, and that didn't get him any closer to London. He needed a ticket, he needed to speak to his sister, and he needed to confirm the collection of the several hundred kilos of Colombian heroin that was on its way to Felixstowe.
Doyle watched him nervously. Donovan hadn't explained what the problem was, but he'd overheard enough of the conversation with Robbie to realise that it was personal and that he had better tread carefully. He started the car and blipped the engine.
Donovan stopped beating a tattoo and his forehead creased into a deep frown.
'Oh shit,' he whispered.
'Boss?'
'Shit, shit, shit.' Donovan turned to stare at Doyle, but there was a faraway look in his eyes as if he was having trouble focusing.
'I need a computer. Now.'
'The resort, yeah?'
Donovan nodded. The Jack Tar Resort Hotel was supposedly for movers and shakers who wanted to escape from the trials and tribulations of the world of commerce, but it had a fully equipped business centre that was often better attended than the pool. Donovan leaned back in the cream leather seat and massaged his temples with his fingertips.
The mobile phone rang. Doyle had put it on the console by the gear stick and he grabbed at it with his free hand.
'Yeah?' He handed it to Donovan.
'It's Laura.'
Donovan listened in silence as his sister told him what had happened at the house. And how the safe had been emptied. Donovan cursed.
'Everything, yeah? No passport? No envelope?'
'The cupboard was bare, Den. Sorry.'
'Okay, look, Laura, I think you'd best keep Robbie away from school until I get back. If she's got his passport she might try to get him out of the country. Just tell the school he's sick or something.'
'Will do, Den.'
'And you know what to do if she turns up at your house?'
'She'll get a piece of my mind if she does, I can tell you.'
Donovan smiled to himself. He'd seen his sister in full flow, and it wasn't an experience to be relished.
'Do me another favour, Laura. Call Banhams in Kensington. Get them to change all the locks and reset the alarm with a new code. Any of the paintings missing?'
'Bloody hell, Den, how would I know?'
'Gaps on the wall would probably be a clue, Laura. Hooks with nothing hanging from them.'
'I'm so pleased that you haven't lost your sense of humour, brother-of-mine. I didn't see any missing, no.'
Donovan considered asking his sister to arrange to put the paintings into storage, but figured they'd probably be safe enough once the house was secured. The last time he'd had them valued was five years ago, and they'd been worth close to a million pounds in total. The art market had been buoyant recently and Donovan figured they'd probably doubled in value since then. Vicky didn't share his love of art and he hadn't told her how much the paintings were worth.
'I'll call you later, Laura. And thanks. Tell Robbie I love him, yeah?'
Donovan cut the connection and tapped the phone against his chin. Changing the locks and resetting the alarm was all well and good, but Donovan knew that he was shutting the stable door after the horses had well and truly bolted.
Doyle drove into the hotel resort, giving the uniformed security guard a cheery wave, and pulled up in front of Reception.
'Wait here,' said Donovan. He walked quickly through the huge reception area, his heels clicking on the marble floor. He jogged up a sweeping set of stairs and pushed open the door to the hotel's business centre.
A pretty black girl with waist-length braided hair flashed him a beaming smile and asked him for his room number. Donovan slipped her a hundred-dollar bill without breaking his stride.
'I'll just be a couple of minutes,' he said. He sat down at a computer terminal in the corner of the room and said a silent prayer before launching Internet Explorer and keying in the URL of a small bank in Switzerland. He was asked for an account number and an eight-digit personal identification number.
Donovan took a deep breath and prepared himself for the worst as he waited for his account to be accessed. The screen went blank for a second and then a spreadsheet appeared, listing all transactions for the account over the past quarter. Donovan sagged in the leather armchair. There was just two thousand dollars left in the account.
He left the bank's site and tapped in another URL, this one for a bank in the Cayman Islands. Ten minutes later and Donovan had visited half a dozen financial institutions in areas renowned for their secrecy and security. His total deposits amounted to a little over eighty thousand dollars. In total sixty million dollars was missing.
Mark Gardner flicked through the channels but couldn't find anything to hold his attention. Reruns of old comedy shows that he half-remembered watching, films that he'd already seen on video, and shows about cooking or decorating. He looked up as Laura came into the room holding two mugs of hot chocolate.
'He's asleep,' she said, handing him a mug and sitting down on the sofa next to him. She swung her legs on to his lap and lay back, resting the mug on her stomach.
'What do you think he's going to do?'
'Robbie?'
'Your brother.'
Laura ran a finger around the lip of her mug.
'He'll look after Robbie. You know how much his son means to him.'
'I thought he wasn't allowed in the UK. I thought the cops were after him.'
'He was under surveillance.'
'He was Britain's most wanted,' said Gardner.
'Tango One, they called him.'
