deposit boxes and inserted his master key into one of its two locks, giving it a deft twist.
'I'll leave you alone, Mr. Wilson. Give me a call when you're done.'
Donovan waited until he was alone in the room before putting his personal key into the second lock and turning it. He opened the steel door and slid out his box. It was about two feet long, a foot wide and a foot deep and heavy enough to make him grunt as he hefted it up on to a teak veneer desk with partitions either side to give him a modicum of privacy.
The single CCTV camera in the vault was positioned behind Donovan, so no one could see what was in the box. He lifted the lid and smiled at the contents. More than a dozen brick-sized bundles of British fifty-pound notes were stacked neatly on the bottom of the box. On top of the banknotes lay four gold Rolex watches, four passports and two burgundy-coloured hard-back account books. They were Czechoslovakian Sparbuch accounts, one with a million dollars, and the other containing half a million. With the appropriate passwords, they were as good as cash.
Donovan placed his holdall next to the metal box and packed the money into it, then put the passbooks and passports into his jacket pocket. He put the UK passport that he'd used to fly from Jamaica into the box, then replaced the box in its slot and locked the metal door.
He pressed a small white buzzer on the desk and the young man came back and turned the second lock with his master key. Donovan thanked him and carried his suitcase and holdall upstairs.
Donovan walked to St. Stephen's Green and along to the taxi rank in front of the grand Shelbourne Hotel. A rotund grey-haired porter in a black uniform with purple trim took the suitcase from him and loaded it into the boot of the lead taxi. Donovan gave him a ten-pound note and kept the holdall with him as he slid into the rear seat.
'Airport?' asked the driver hopefully.
'I want to go to Belfast,' said Donovan.
'You up for it?'
The driver grimaced.
'That's a long drive and my wife'll have the dinner on at six.'
'Use the meter and I'll treble it.'
The driver's eyebrows shot skywards. He nodded at the holdall.
'Not got drugs in there, have you?'
Donovan grinned.
'Chance'd be a fine thing. No. But I've got a plane to catch. Do you wanna go or shall I give the guy behind the biggest fare he'll have this year?'
'I'll do it,' said the driver, 'but the wife'll have my balls on toast.'
'Buy her something nice,' said Donovan, settling back into the seat.
'Usually works for me.'
The driver laughed.
'Yeah, wives, huh? What can you do with them? Can't live with them, can't put a bullet in their heads.' He laughed uproariously at his own bad joke and started the car.
Donovan looked out of the window, tight lipped. Flecks of rain spattered across the glass. It always seemed to be raining when he visited Dublin, and he couldn't remember ever seeing blue skies over the Irish capital.
The taxi pulled into the afternoon traffic and Donovan closed his eyes. He'd forgotten to call the Spaniard, but he could do that when he reached Belfast.
Stewart Sharkey nodded towards the bar.
'Do you want a drink?' he asked Vicky. Their flight hadn't been called and the boarding gate was only a short walk away.
Vicky shook her head.
'It's a bit early for me. You go ahead, though. I'm going to use the bathroom.'
'Are you all right?' asked Sharkey, putting his hand on her shoulder.
Tears welled up in her eyes.
'I don't know, Stewart. I don't know how I feel. I'm sort of numb, it's like I'm going to faint or something. Like I keep stepping outside my own body.'
'Good sex will do that every time,' joked Sharkey, but she pushed his hand away.
'This isn't funny,' she hissed. They'd checked into one of the airport hotels, and the sex had been quick and urgent, almost frantic. Sharkey hadn't even given her chance to get undressed and there had been no soft words, no caresses. Just sex. It was as if he'd wanted to show that she was his. That he could take her whenever he wanted. She'd wanted him, too, but not like that. She'd wanted to be held, to be comforted, to be told that it was all right, that he'd protect her.
'I know it isn't,' soothed Sharkey, 'but there isn't much else I can do just now except try to lighten the moment, right? We've got a plane to catch, then we can plan what we do next.'
Vicky forced herself to smile.
'Okay,' she said.
Sharkey hugged her and she rested her head against his chest. He nuzzled his face into her. He could smell the cheap shampoo from the hotel room.
'You know I love you,' he whispered.
'You bloody well better,' she said, slipping her arms around his waist and squeezing him.
'I wouldn't want to go through all this for the sake of a quick shag.'
'It's going to work out, trust me.'
She squeezed him again, then released her grip on him and wiped her eyes.
'I look a mess,' she said.
'Go get your drink. I'll see you in a couple of minutes.'
She walked away quickly, her skirt flicking from side to side. It was one hell of a sexy walk, thought Sharkey. Vicky Donovan was a head-turner, and that might turn out to be a problem down the line. Men looked at stunning blondes with impressive cleavages and shapely legs, and the more men who looked at her, the more chance there was of someone recognising her.
Donovan thrust a handful of fifty-pound notes at the driver, making sure that he couldn't see inside the holdall.
'Sterling okay?' he asked.
'I don't have any Euros.'
'I suppose so,' said the driver, carefully counting the notes. His face broke into a smile when he realised how much money he was holding. He reached into the taxi's glove compartment and handed a dog-eared business card to Donovan.
'You need a lift again, you call me, yeah? The mobile's always on.'
'Sure,' said Donovan.
'Pop the boot, yeah?' The driver unlocked the boot and Donovan pulled out his suitcase. He walked into the terminal building and bought a business class ticket to Heathrow at the British Airways desk.
Before checking in he took his holdall and suitcase into the toilets and pulled them into a large cubicle designed for wheelchair access. He put most of the money into the suitcase, since it was less likely to be noticed there than in the holdall. He wasn't committing an offence by flying from Belfast to London with bundles of fifty- pound notes, but he didn't want to attract attention to himself. He kept one passport, one of the UK ones, in his jacket pocket and hid the rest in a secret compartment in his wash bag.
He washed his hands and face, checked his reflection in the mirror, and put his dark glasses back on. Belfast Airport was saturated with CCTV cameras, and like all British airports was equipped with the face-recognition system that he had successfully evaded at Stansted. He took the Panama hat from his holdall and put it on his head at a jaunty angle.
He checked in for the flight and winked at his suitcase as it headed off on its lonely journey down the conveyor belt.
He bought aUK telephone card and called the Spaniard from a payphone. This time the Spaniard answered.
'Fuck me, Juan, where the hell have you been?'
