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
