'Okay, Juan, go ahead.' Rojas gave him the number.
'That's aUK mobile, yeah?' asked Donovan.
'Yes. A roaming GSM.'
'Can we find him through the number?'
Rojas whistled through his teeth.
'If it was a landline, I have contacts in the phone company who could help us, but mobiles are a different matter. I can certainly find out which numbers he has called, but locating the handset would require a warrant and would have to be done at a senior police level or by one of the intelligence agencies. Even in Spain I think it unlikely I would be able to do it. In France .. He left the sentence unfinished.
'Okay, Juan. Thanks anyway. Onwards and upwards, yeah?'
'There is one other thing, amigo. Just so there is no misunderstanding down the line. Sharkey is paying me a quarter of a million dollars not to hurt his accomplice. The man we picked up in Paris.'
'I have no problem with that, Juan.'
'It is always a pleasure doing business with you, amigo.'
Donovan cut the connection.
'Who was it?' asked Robbie, flicking through the channels on the TV.
'None of your business,' said Donovan.
'And get your feet off Louise's coffee table. Haven't you got homework to do?'
'Tomorrow's Saturday,' said Robbie.
'I've got the whole weekend.'
After dinner, Robbie gathered up their plates and took them into the kitchenette.
'You've got him well trained,' said Louise.
'He's doing it to impress,' said Donovan.
'I'm not,' said Robbie.
'Do you want a coffee?' asked Louise.
'Or something stronger? I've got whisky. Or beer?'
Donovan looked at his watch.
'I've actually got to be somewhere. I'm sorry.'
'You're not going out?' Robbie called from the kitchenette.
'Business,' said Donovan.
'It's okay, Robbie, we can watch TV,' said Louise.
Donovan scooped up the mobiles off the sideboard and put them in the pockets of his jacket.
'You be good, yeah?' he said to Robbie.
'Do you want to borrow the car?' asked Louise.
Donovan shook his head.
'Nah, I'm going to be using taxis.'
'There's that paranoia again,' teased Louise.
'It's not that. It's just that where I'm going, it's likely to get broken into.'
Louise tossed him a door key.
'In case you get back late,' she said.
'Save you waking me up.'
Donovan thanked her and went outside in search of a black cab.
The address PM had given him was in a row of terraced houses in Harlesden. Donovan could feel the pounding beat of reggae music through the seat of the cab long before they reached the house. The driver twisted around in his seat.
'Are you sure about this?' asked the driver.
'It looks a bit ethnic out there.'
Donovan could see what the man meant. Haifa dozen burly men in long black coats were standing guard at the open door to the house, four with shaved heads glistening in the amber streetlights, two with shoulder-length dreadlocks. A dozen young black men and women were waiting to be admitted, moving to the sound of the pounding beat inside. Several were openly smoking joints. It was the sort of street the police never patrolled. If they turned up at all it would be mob-handed with riot shields and mace. Parked both sides of the street were expensive BMWs and four-wheel drives, most of them brand new.
'Yeah, this is it,' said Donovan, handing the driver a twenty-pound note.
'Keep the change, yeah?'
'Thanks, guy,' said the driver.
'Good luck.'
Donovan got out of the cab and the driver drove off quickly without putting his 'For Hire' sign on.
Donovan walked to the head of the line of people waiting to go in. He nodded at the biggest of the bouncers, who was wearing an earpiece and a small radio microphone that bobbed around close to his lips.
'I'm here to see PM,' said Donovan.
The man nodded, his face impassive.
'He expecting you. Third floor. Door with 'Fuck off' on it.'
'That would be irony, would it?' asked Donovan.
'That would be the way it be,' said the man.
Donovan pushed his way through the crowded first floor and found the stairs. The air was thick with the smell of marijuana and sweat, and the music was so loud his teeth vibrated. Teenagers sitting on the stairs drinking beer from the bottle looked up at him curiously as he walked up to the second floor. The wooden stairs were stained and pockmarked with cigarette burns.
One of the second-floor bedrooms had been converted into a bar. There were tin baths filled with ice and loaded with bottled beer, and a table full of spirits and mixers. Two black guys with turtle-shell abdomens and red and white checked bandanas were passing out bottles and shoving banknotes into a metal box without handing back change. There were several white girls around, predominately thin and blonde and baring their midriffs, but no white males. Donovan was attracting a lot of attention, but there didn't seem to be any hostility, just curiosity.
One small man with waist-length dreadlocks and a vacant stare grinned at Donovan, showing a mouthful of gold teeth, and offered him a puff at his soggy-ended joint, but Donovan just shook his head.
He went up to the third floor of the building. At the top of the hallway two young blacks wearing headsets and almost identical Nike hooded tops, woollen hats, tracksuit bottoms and trainers, moved aside without speaking to Donovan. The big man must have told them he was on his way up.
The 'Fuck Off sign was written with black lettering on a gold background. Donovan knocked and the door opened partially. A pair of wraparound sunglasses reflected Donovan's image back at him in stereo.
'Den Donovan,' said Donovan.
The man opened the door without speaking. Donovan walked in to the room. Half a dozen West Indians were sitting around the room on sofas, most of them smoking spliffs and drinking beer. Sitting behind a desk was a young black man with close-cropped hair wearing what looked like a Versace silk shirt. Around his neck hung a gold chain the thickness of a man's finger, and on his left wrist he wore a solid gold Rolex studded with diamonds.
'PM?'
The man at the desk nodded.
'Den Donovan.'
'I know who you are,' said PM. Standing behind PM was a black man well over six feet tall dressed in a black suit and grey T-shirt. He had shoulder-length dreadlocks and a goatee beard.
Donovan smiled amiably.
'Charlie and Pvicky said I should swing by. Pay my respects.'
'What happened to my money, Den?'
'Your money paid for the coke, and the coke is sitting in one of The Queen's warehouses,' said Donovan. He walked over to a sofa and sat down.
'It's swings and roundabouts. A percentage of deals go wrong. You have to live with that. Build it into your price.'
'That don't answer my question.'
