'You think he's not been affected already by what she's done?'
'Sure. He'll hate her for it, but at the end of the day she's still his mother. And you're still his dad. I know this isn't easy .. .'
'You know fuck all!' hissed Donovan, banging the flat of his hand down on the table, hard. Several heads turned in their direction, but shouted threats weren't an unusual occurrence in the pub and when it became clear that no one was about to be hit, the heads turned back.
'Just take it easy, that's all I'm saying. I know you, Den. Red rag to a bull, this'll be. Like the Italians say. Best eaten cold, yeah?'
Donovan nodded. He knew that Underwood had his best interests at heart.
'Just watch my back, Dicko,' he said.
'I'll cover the rest of the bases.'
Donovan went back to the hotel and showered and changed. He ate a steak and salad and drank a glass of white wine at an Italian restaurant on the Edgware Road, reading a copy of the Guardian but keeping a close eye on people walking by outside. He paid the bill and then spent five minutes walking around the underpass before rushing above ground and hailing a black cab. He got to Hampstead a full hour before he was due to meet the Spaniard. He walked through the village, doubling back several times and keeping an eye on reflections in the windows of the neat cottages until he was absolutely sure he hadn't been followed.
He walked out on to the Heath, his hands deep in the pockets of his leather bomber jacket. He wore black jeans and white Nikes and his New York Yankees baseball cap, and he looked like any other hopeful homosexual trawling for company.
Donovan went the long way around to the place where he'd arranged to meet Rojas, and lingered in a copse of beech trees until he saw the Spaniard walking purposefully along one of the many paths that crisscrossed the Heath. A middle-aged man in a fawn raincoat raised his eyebrows hopefully but Rojas just shook his head and walked on by.
Donovan smiled to himself. Rojas was a good-looking guy, and he was sure that half the trade on the Heath would get a hard-on at the mere sight of the man. He looked like a young Sacha Distel: soft brown eyes, glossy black hair and a perfect suntan. His looks were actually an acute disadvantage in his line of work he could never get too close to his quarry because heads, male and female, always turned when he was around. Donovan could imagine the eyewitness reports the police would get: 'Yeah, he was the spitting image of Sacha Distel. In his prime.' That was why Rojas always killed at a distance. A rifle. A bomb. Poison. A third party.
Donovan waited until he was sure that Rojas was alone before whistling softly to attract his attention. Rojas waved and walked over the grass to the copse. He gave Donovan a bearhug and Donovan smelled garlic on his breath.
'Dennis, good to see you again.'
'Don't get over-emotional, Juan. I know you're going to be billing me for your time. Plus expenses. Plus plus.'
Rojas laughed heartily and put an arm around Donovan's shoulders.
'You still have your sense of humour, Dennis. I like that.'
Donovan narrowed his eyes.
'What have you heard?'
Rojas shrugged carelessly.
'I have heard that Marty Clare is in Noordsingel Detention Centre. And that the DBA want to put him in a cell with Noriega.'
'Bloody hell, Juan. I'm impressed.'
'It's a small world, my friend. So is it Marty you want taking care of?'
Donovan nodded.
'I hope you never get angry with me, Dennis.'
'But who would I hire to kill you, Juan? You're the best.'
'Bar none,' agreed the Spaniard.
'Bar none.'
'Soon as possible, yeah?'
'I took that for granted. My usual terms.'
'No discount?'
'Not even for you.'
They walked around the copse, their feet crunching in the undergrowth.
'There's something else.' Donovan told Rojas about his wife and his accountant and their departure through Heathrow. The Spaniard listened in silence, nodding thoughtfully from time to time.
'I want them found, Juan.' Donovan handed Rojas an envelope.
'There's their passport details, credit cards, phone numbers. They know I'll be looking for them and they'll be hiding.'
'I understand.'
'When you've found them, I need to talk to them.'
'You mean you want to be there when I .. .' Rojas left the sentence unfinished.
'I need some time alone with them. That's all.' Donovan wasn't prepared to tell the Spaniard about the missing sixty million dollars.
'You can finish up after I've gone.'
'Both of them?' asked Rojas, his face creased into a frown.
'Both of them,' repeated Donovan.
'Amigo, are you sure this is a wise course of action?' said Rojas.
'She is your wife. Business is business but your wife is personal. You punish her of course, but .. .' He shrugged and sighed.
'She fucked my accountant. In my house. In front of my kid.'
'And he should die. No question. But your wife .. .'
'She's not my wife any more, Juan.'
'The police will know.'
'They'll suspect.'
The Spaniard shrugged again, less expressively this time, more a gesture of acceptance. He could see that there was no point in arguing with Donovan. His mind was made up.
'Very well. You are the customer and the customer is always right.'
'Thank you.'
'Even when he is wrong.'
They shook hands, then Rojas reached around Donovan and gave him a second bone-crushing bearhug.
'Be careful, Dennis. And I say that from a business perspective, not from personal concern, you understand?'
Donovan grinned. He understood exactly.
The Spaniard winked and walked away across the grass and back to the path. Donovan watched him go until he was lost in the night then he turned and went in search of a taxi.
It was just after eleven o'clock when Mark Gardner got home. He dropped his bulging briefcase by the front door and tossed his coat on to a rack by the hall table.
'Don't ask!' he said, holding up a hand to silence her.
'But if Julie or Jenny ever express any interest in entering the advertising industry, take them out and shoot them, will you?'
Laura handed him a gin and tonic and went into the kitchen. Mark stood and walked through the archway that led through to a small conservatory. He flopped down on one of the rattan sofas and swung his feet carefully up on to the glass-topped coffee table. He sighed and sipped his gin and tonic as he looked out of the french windows. Scattered around the garden were knee-high mushroom-shaped concrete structures in which were embedded small lights. They'd been installed by the previous owner of the house, along with more than two dozen garden gnomes. The gnomes had moved out with the owner, but the mushroom lights had stayed, and while their friends constantly teased them for their lack of taste, Mark and Laura had grown to like the effect at night small pools of light that
