Crossfire

23

My arse was numb. I'd been parked on a hard plastic chair in A and E for the best part of four hours and still hadn't been called to see a doctor. Maybe I shouldn't have told the triage nurse I'd gouged my arm at work with a chisel. I should have been more upfront about being brassed up by a 7.62 short. At least it was getting a rest in the foam sling they'd given me in the land of Pizza Hut delivery.

The only entertainment left after London Lite and a couple of Sunday supplements people had dropped under the chairs was the flat-screen TV on the wall above the reception desk. It played without sound, and there's only so much BBC 24 tickertape reading you can take. Besides, I didn't like what I'd been seeing.

Two Polish builders were sitting next to me, one with half a finger hanging off and the other making more noise than if it was his injury and he'd lost a whole hand. Two teenage girls with huge earrings and their hair scraped back went on much too loudly about who was having who on their estate, and who'd had whose kid.

I stared down at the Bergen between my feet, getting even more angry with Dom as I thought about Pete's few possessions stuffed into my side pouch. It hadn't been an attack while filming, and it couldn't have been an ND (negligent discharge). The rumour mill would have exposed it by now.

But I'd find out who had done it and why, and Dom was going to tell me the truth if it was the last thing he did. But the fucker had evaporated.

The Big Mac and fries I'd blocked my arteries with at the on-site McDonald's an hour ago were making me thirsty. A kid came in with a bloodstained T-shirt wrapped round his hand. Within minutes, he was called to the only free cubicle. There was time to go and get a drink.

I checked the dressing wasn't leaking as I'd ripped the wound open on the way back to the UK. My Bergen strap had scraped down my arm as I took it off and its weight had ripped the stitches from the skin.

Trolleys lined both sides of the corridor, loaded with old people coughing up shit. I couldn't tell if they were waiting for A and E or were just overspill from the wards.

The two Poles got very excited about something on the TV. I looked up to see, for maybe the tenth time since I'd been sitting there, the crystal-clear, black-and-white images of me tumbling into the sewage and Pete being my hero. Of course, the part where he'd killed people had been cut. Cameramen don't do things like that.

It was being played over and over again, not only because it was great bang-bang but also because it was being pushed out as a tribute to Pete — and to Platinum Bollocks, of course, for filming it. As for me, being security, thankfully I didn't get a mention. I was just 'a member of the crew'. No TV company wants it known that they have protection. It isn't good for the image.

I watched as I got hit and dropped like a bag of shit. The Poles were loving it. Real live bang-bang, filmed by a real live Polish hero.

I'd booked myself on to the next day's two p.m. Royal Jordanian to Amman. The flight had had the world's most obvious sky marshal sitting in the galley by the cockpit door. Kitted out in a very sharp suit and some of Russia's finest steel sticking out of his holster, he was even scaring the flight attendants.

We landed at three thirty, but there were no useful connecting flights till the morning. I'd spent last night on an airport bench because I wanted to be sure of a ticket for the nine a.m. BA to Heathrow the moment the desk opened — only to discover when it did that the airline will put you up in a hotel if you're waiting overnight for a connecting flight.

It had been last night that I fucked up my arm again. I sort of let them think I was a wounded soldier and they upgraded me to business all the way through to London.

I'd taken the fast train to Paddington, jumped into a cab and got the driver to take me to Guy's. I could have walked round the corner to St Mary's, but south London was more my stamping ground. Going to Guy's was a trip down Memory Lane.

Besides, it was closer to Brockwell Park.

24

I tried Dom's mobile for the fifth time since landing. Still only voicemail.

I rang Moira again. 'Has he called in yet?'

'No. Have you heard anything?'

'Nothing. I'm in London.'

There was a long pause. Something not very good was about to happen.

'Listen, Nick, with Pete gone and Dom missing, there isn't any reason to keep you on. That's it, I'm afraid. Send me an invoice for the days worked and I'll get our accounts department to sort it out.'

She wasn't one to mess about, was she?

'Nick, I have to go.'

So, that was it, then. No more pay cheques from TVZ 24.

A very pissed-off voice paged a doctor on the Tannoy. They might have installed CCTV since the 1970s, but some things about the place hadn't changed. The woman's voice sounded exactly the same as the reception staff had when I'd been there as a nine-year-old leaking red stuff.

I lived on the Tabard Estate, a few streets away, in a block of council flats thrown up after the war. They'd been built on a newly vacant site. Demolition had been cheap, courtesy of the Luftwaffe.

All the houses were given names associated with Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Apparently the pilgrimage had started from the Tabard Inn or somewhere. We ended up in Eastwell House: Eastwell was one of the stops along the pilgrims' route, they'd said. I'd never read the Canterbury Tales. I'd thumbed through the Canterbury Messenger once while waiting for a train back to Shorncliff barracks when I was a boy soldier, but that probably didn't count.

I went to a primary school near the chocolate factory, which for some reason us kids thought was owned by Bob Monkhouse. Another rumour flying round was that the sweet shop in Kirby Grove had a shed behind it stacked with Coca- Cola and R. White's lemonade. One dinner-time, a gang of us set off to scale the wall. Like a dickhead, I volunteered to be first up. I hadn't taken account of the broken glass set into the concrete along the top. I fucked myself up big-time. Blood poured from my lacerated hand, but I knew Guy's was just a couple of minutes away. I ran all the way there. They did their stuff, and told me to go home. I didn't argue. After that I was forever grazing my knees and elbows and taking myself off to Guy's, then home for the rest of the day.

All I needed now were a few new sutures and some more antibiotics to counter any infection in the wound and the shit I must have swallowed. They'd do it, no trouble. This was south London. It wasn't like they didn't know how to treat gunshot wounds. Once they'd sewn me up and handed out some more antibiotics and painkillers, I'd be looking for Dom, and my first stop would be Tallulah and Ruby's. They were the real casualties. My arm would heal.

I stuck it out for another twenty minutes as old people vomited into plastic containers and called for their forty-something children, who were wandering round, trying to find out why their parents had been abandoned in the corridors.

It depressed the shit out of me, and reinforced my own plans for old age. I wasn't going to hang about. Once I started pissing in my pants, it was time to drop myself.

I got to my feet, picked up all my worldly goods in my Bergen, and asked the Polish builders to keep my seat for me.

At the coffee machine, I scrabbled in my pocket for change with my free hand, when a gravel-voiced Ulsterman piped up behind me: 'It's all right, boy, I'll get that.'

I didn't turn. I knew who it was. I could feel his roll-up tobacco breath against my ear. My heart sank.

'Shirley Temple, if I remember right?' A worn brown leather-covered arm brushed past my face and a big freckled hand threw a quid into the slot and punched 'white no sugar' with a nicotine-stained forefinger.

25

Sundance saw the expression on my face. 'Don't worry, boy, we're not carrying. We're not going to hurt you.'

We? Where there was Sundance, you also got Trainers. I looked round and, sure enough, he was sitting a little further down the corridor. He was there to block a getaway, but he seemed more intent on checking out the nurses, cleaners, female patients, anyone with a pair of tits. His forearms rippled below his short-sleeved shirt as he worked a roll-up. His Red Hand of Ulster tattoo had just been lasered off last time I saw him, and all traces of it had now disappeared.

I didn't care what Sundance said. I was fucking concerned. They had kicked the shit out of me once before just because the Yes Man, the arse-hole they worked for, felt in that kind of mood. He'd given me a brief to kill a kid, which would send a warning to his father. I hadn't complied, so Sundance and Trainers had introduced me to the Yes Man's alternative brief: go to Panama and kill the father. If not, Kelly, a child who was my last remaining link with the human race, would die.

I'd nicknamed him Sundance because of his thick, blond, side-parted hair and Robert Redford looks, back in the days when Bob was young enough to play Paul Newman's mate. The years hadn't been kind. His face had dropped an inch or two, and the parting had widened to take in much of the top of his nut.

And Trainers? He'd got his name because he wore them all the time and they were the first thing I'd seen of him when they were kicking me to shit.

They'd obviously kept hitting the weights since their days in the H Blocks, but still looked bulked-up rather than honed. With their broken noses and big barrel chests they wouldn't have been out of place outside a nightclub in ill-fitting dinner jackets and Dr Martens. But they were in the Good Lads' Club now, and worked for the Firm.

Sundance nodded down at my arm as the cup dropped on to the tray. 'Had a bit of a rough time there, eh? I saw it on the news. Hit a bone?'

I shook my head. He glanced up again as the cup filled. 'Fucking chaos out there, eh?'

As if he'd know. Guys like him were just muscle, not two brain cells to rub together. They stayed local, within the M25. These days, they were probably used to fight the new enemy — anyone with a towel on their heads. They probably went round intimidating young Muslim men, trying to turn them into sources in the mosques.

'It has its moments,' I said. 'So, what the fuck are you after?'

Sundance lifted the steaming coffee from the machine and presented it to me. 'The boss wants to see you at the office.'

I took the plastic rim with my thumb and forefinger, but I'd gone off the idea. In fact, I suddenly felt sicker than I had when I came into this fucking place. 'When?'

'Eight thirty tonight.' He reached into his jacket and pulled out a white envelope. 'Here.' He slapped it against my chest. The end had been ripped open and I could see cash.

'It's for being a good boy and agreeing to see the boss. Extension two seven double eight. There's a taxi waiting outside. It'll take you to Harley Street and get that arm of yours sorted.' Sundance pushed his fist harder into me. 'You'll die waiting for these fuckers to take a look at you, and you've got an appointment this evening.'

I took the envelope and he backed off.

'See you later, boy.'

'Don't hold your breath. There's somewhere I've got to go first.'

Sundance's head leapt towards mine. His face was just inches away. 'The boss said half eight, so be there.'

It would have been stupid to get big-time with those two, but I was sorely tempted.

He shifted so his eyes drilled into mine. 'If you're one second late we'll be seeing you again, only without the smile. You understand, boy?'

Yes, I knew exactly what he meant. 'What's he want to see me for?'

He pointed to the screen. The tribute to Pete was coming to an end. 'To do with that pal of yours.'

They lumbered off down the corridor, thighs rubbing against each other. I didn't breathe again until the two brick shithouses had disappeared through the door.

I opened the envelope and counted eight hundred pounds in fifties. The Harley Street address was written on the back. The wad had started out as a grand, for sure. They'd deducted a few expenses. I headed outside. The cab could take me to Pete's — or, rather, Tallulah and Ruby's — instead. I'd have to get my arse in gear if I was going to make it to the Yes Man on time.

I usually got dragged in because they had a job no one else in their right mind would take. But I'd have put good money on that not being the case today. I would be there on time, and for reasons that had nothing to do with those two reading me my horoscope.

26

It was about four miles dead south from the hospital, a journey that would have taken ten minutes in the middle of the night. I'd been sitting in the cab for the best part of half an hour, and we probably had another mile to go. I had to be back up with the Yes Man at Vauxhall in an hour and a half, and I didn't want to be late. My arm hurt enough as it was.

I leant forward to the dividing window. 'Mate, can you wait when we get there? I'll be half-hour, max.'

'No problem for me, son. It's your clock.'

One of the Firm's alias-business-cover accounts would be picking up the tab. There were hundreds of ABCs dotted round the world. They financed operations, provided cover jobs, and generally acted as conduits for cash the Firm needed to move into various foreign pockets. ABCs spared government ever having to know what was done in its name. Politicians like to hear about results, not how the Firm achieves them.

The area hadn't changed much, apart from a one-way system and traffic-lights every few yards. We headed round the edge of the park and turned into Croxted Road. Pete was definitely local-boy-done-good. The Victorian three-storey terraced houses came complete with bay windows and shiny door brasses and must have been going for at least half a million.

'Just drop us here, mate. There's a parking spot to the right.'

I got out and took a couple of big breaths. I wanted to be sure I said the right thing. These people were grieving. I couldn't fuck up.

I hit the doorbell.

A few seconds later there was a voice the other side. 'Is that you, Nick?'

I'd called earlier to check she was in.

The door opened. Tallulah was tall, a good foot taller than Pete. She was wearing a baggy red jumper. Her feet were bare. The shock of long, wavy, hippie-girl hair I'd seen in the photographs and movie clips was tied at the nape of her neck.

She shook my hand blankly. 'Come on in…'

I followed her past a sitting room and stairs, then down a couple of steps towards a new-looking kitchen-conservatory. She steered me into a room just before it on the right. Maybe she didn't want me to comment on how nice the extension was and ask for the builder's name.

It was a family room, with a sofa, TV, toys, a beaten-up computer. A window gave out on to a small but perfect garden. Pete's seven-year-old was playing on a swing.

'Ruby?'

There was no doubting whose block she was a chip off.

Tallulah stood a couple of steps away from me, arms folded. She smiled. 'I told her Daddy's gone to heaven. You know what she said? "Is he making a film about God?" '

On the wall behind her were pictures of Pete doing camera stuff, and the three of them on holiday, all the normal gear. A couple of cut-glass cameras stood on the first shelf above his desk; awards he'd won for doing the job he loved.

She offered me tea but, fuck it, I had no time for that.

I didn't sit down but Tallulah did, expectantly.

I unzipped the side pouch of my Bergen and handed her the bag containing Pete's belongings.

'Thank you so much for doing this, Nick. You don't know what it means to me.'

She lifted out his things one by one, laying them on the lid of a pink mini-piano at her feet. She almost caressed each item.

She took out his wedding ring and the tears came. I just stood there, thinking maybe tea would have been a good idea. 'The station's looking after you, I hope?' I said.

Tallulah closed her fingers round the gold band. She looked up and sort of nodded.

I didn't understand.

She pointed at the shelf. An opened envelope stood between the two glass cameras. 'They cremated him in Basra.' Tallulah reached for a fistful of Kleenex.

'Oh…' I thought about the donor card I'd seen amongst his stuff at Basra airport. 'I thought…'

'I know, it doesn't make sense. He always wanted the bits that still worked to go to someone who needed them.'

Her head dropped.

'Do you mind if I have a read?'

She took the memory stick from the bag and plugged it into the PC. As she sat down in front of the screen I took out the single sheet of A4 and unfolded it. The embossed FCO crest was top centre. There was no extension under the main Whitehall number. The signature block belonged to David Morlands, but there was no departmental accreditation.

I stood behind her and read the six stark, sterile lines that had been sent to a grieving wife. 'I don't understand, Tallulah,' I lied. 'Maybe there was a mix-up and they thought he was a soldier.'

I was glad she couldn't see me. I was trying to sound compassionate, but really I wanted to scream at the top of my voice that this was bollocks. There wasn't going to be a David Morlands anywhere in the FCO.

Tallulah stroked some strands of hair away from her mouth. 'But they bring soldiers home in coffins, don't they? I wouldn't have expected them to drape him in a flag or any of that, but they should have got my permission for cremation, surely.'

The screen filled with the pictures of Ruby that Pete had shown me.

What was I going to do? Tell her my suspicions? What was the point in making these two's lives even more complicated, especially when I had no proof? 'Have you heard from Dom?'

'You're the first to come. The station's been sorting out for me to go to Brize Norton to collect the urn. But I don't really care about that, Nick. I just wish he'd been brought home the way he wanted.'

She clicked on a movie clip I hadn't seen. Pete was in the garden in a pair of orange Hawaiian shorts I could only hope he'd been ashamed of, trying to push Ruby's ice-cream cone on to her nose.

'Me, too. Maybe if Dom calls you could ask him to get in touch. Maybe tell you where he is.'

Her shoulders lifted again as she fought back a new wave of grief.

'You know, Tallulah, I think Pete and Dom might have had a fall-out these past couple of weeks. Maybe that's why he hasn't called — you know, feeling a bit guilty.'

She bit her bottom lip as she stared out of the window. 'He said Dom had become withdrawn. They used to be so open with each other. It was depressing the hell out of Pete. He said Dom had got one-tracked about some drug story. He made a joke about him being more addicted to the story than the junkies were to the heroin.'

'That sounds like Pete…'

She tilted her head. 'He was always shielding me like that. A few weeks ago Dom had him filming dirty old men in Dublin. They supplied young guys with drugs, then had sex with them. God knows what was really going on.' She smiled bravely, but she couldn't stop the tears. 'He was going to ask the station about changing jobs. He wanted to spend more time…'

It was all too much. I reached for the box of tissues.

'Tally! Tally!' Ruby ran into the room. She froze as she spotted the stranger.

'Ruby, this is Nick. He's a friend of Daddy's.'

'Hello, Ruby.' I crouched down and held out my hand. A small and grubby one reached out, very shyly, and clung to it.

'I knew a little girl just like you once. She used to play on her swing, kicking her legs so she got really high. But not as high as you. You were really good.'

Ruby's hand fell from mine. She shifted from one foot to the other. 'What's her name?'

'Kelly.'

I got up slowly.

'My daddy's with God. He's shooting.'

She was proud of the jargon her dad had taught her. As she craned her neck to peer up at me I saw Pete craning his to look in the columns outside Basra Palace. She was his spitting image. His legacy was going to be hanging about for another few decades for sure.

'I know. Your daddy's so good at what he does that God wanted him on his team.'

She folded her arms and tilted her head. 'Are you a reporter?'

'No.'

'Well, I'm going to be a producer.'

'I see. Like Moira?'

'Yes. Daddy says she's a richid producer.' She paused. 'Does that mean she's very rich?'

'Richid?' I looked at Tallulah for help.

She couldn't help smiling. 'He may have said wretched…'

I smiled back. 'Not Pete's favourite person, I think. He said that, as far as she was concerned, news was more about the bottom line than the front line.'

And then something clicked.

Pete was freelance. If he'd filmed in Dublin, he'd have been paid. He would have raised an invoice. Even if it was for cash, he was so methodical he'd have kept a record.

'Tallulah, do you mind if I ask you something? The cremation… Dom acting strange… There are some things that don't quite make sense. I don't know what I'm looking for, but maybe there's a file or something… Maybe the station had them filming stuff they didn't want to do. Maybe they were playing silly buggers. You know what a stickler Pete was. He would have minded about stuff like that. Did he have an office? Maybe I could…'

She wiped away a tear and gave me a big smile. 'Oh, Nick, you are sweet.' She tried to laugh. 'You're going to look for porn or his mistress's love letters and spirit them away, aren't you?'

'Got it in one. Look, I know he didn't get on with the producer, maybe there's—'

'Nick, please, do — it's a lovely idea. But leave the porn where it is. I may as well take the bad with the good. It's the first on the right at the top of the stairs. I'll go and put the kettle on.'

I sat at Pete's desk, feeling sad and angry in just about equal proportions. The three of them had had it all in front of them. Whoever had killed Pete had also gunned down a lot of dreams.

The desk faced the window and looked down on the garden. Ruby was back outside, playing on her swing. She sang a little song to herself. I watched her for a while, but my mind was elsewhere. I had a perfect mental picture of Kelly doing exactly the same thing. It was no time at all before she hadn't wanted to play on swings any more. It would happen to Ruby, too, in a year or two…

Fuck it. Time to cut away from that shit.

It was an uncluttered office, as I'd expected. There was a desk, the swivel chair I was sitting in, a filing cabinet, shelves containing hundreds of labelled video-cassettes and DVDs. Sudan, Darfur, Baghdad. Anywhere that had seen conflict, Pete had shot some film.

Family pictures were Blu-Tacked to the walls. A framed portrait of Dom and Pete in black tie stood on the desk. Between them they held an Emmy aloft like it was the FA Cup. Both wore huge grins as they basked in the moment, partners in crime.

I could smell perfume. Tallulah had been here very recently… as if sitting in his chair, in his room, might somehow bring him back.

Pete had said he'd miss the camaraderie if he gave up the front line, and then he'd laughed. Now I realized why. He was already a member of a much stronger unit. I wondered what it must be like.

I got up and looked along the spines of the VHS and DVD cases. All were neatly and precisely labelled, including several for Kabul 2006, but none said Dublin. There wasn't anything dated this year.

The Mac was on screen-saver. I hit a key and had a look at the desktop. It was packed with folder icons. I did a search for Dublin. Nothing. Then anything with D as a first letter. I got a QuickTime film of Dubai: Pete mucking about with Ruby in a water park. I even searched for Dirty Old Men. Nothing. Not even any porn.

Ruby's song floated up from the garden as I pulled open P — Z, the bottom of the three drawers. I opened a folder marked VAT. Pete had done himself proud. All the returns were in date order, but there weren't any receipts or invoices.

Dublin with a D.

I pulled open the top drawer, A — J. There was nothing labelled Dublin, but there was a hanging folder labelled 'Invoices'. As I opened it, Ruby was drowned by a jet lining up on Heathrow.

The folder was stuffed with receipts, ready for Pete to process. A sheet of A4 was addressed to TVZ in Dublin: '2 DAYS FILMING — DUBLIN.'

His rate was £200 a day, plus hotel, flight and van hire. The invoice was for the attention of Moira Foley, Head of News, but it had been returned. Scrawled across the bottom in thick felt tip was: 'WHAT JOB? DON'T TRY TO PULL THE FUCKING WOOL OVER MY EYES — YOU'RE NOT SMART ENOUGH.'

A yellow Post-it note was stuck next to Moira's kind words. On it, in neat biro, was: 'Sorry about the misunderstanding — here's the cheque — All best, Dom.'

'Here we go.' Tallulah came in with a mug in each hand.

I closed the file and replaced it. 'Tallulah, I'm sorry, I've just realized the time.' I tapped my arm. 'Hospital appointment. I didn't find anything, but I will. I promise you.'

She put the mugs on the desk and a couple of fresh tears rolled down her cheeks as she gave me a hug. Her face burnt. Her gorgeous green eyes were puffy and swollen.

'Who's Kelly, Nick? Your daughter?'

'No, I was a bit like you, really. I sort of landed up looking after her.'

'Was? You mean you're not looking after her any more? She's grown-up now?'

'She got to be sixteen, then went to show God how to use a swing.'

I left her to it and saw myself out. My arm was throbbing, and so was my head.

27

The evening was still warm when the cab dropped me at Vauxhall station. Even the daffs were pushing up here and there. I crossed to a traffic island, leather bomber over my right arm, the other in a sling.

It wasn't just the weather that had changed since the last time I was here. The roads were plastered with big red Cs to show the start of the congestion zone, while CCTV and number-plate-recognition cameras had sprouted everywhere.

The railway arches were no longer the shabby tyre warehouses and dodgy MOT centres I remembered from four or five years ago. They'd been turned into trendy wine merchants and bathroom stores. There was even a gay club and sauna, and a wine bar with little aluminium tables and chairs outside trying to keep the office workers there all night with happy-hour wine deals and free dips. The sauna lights flashed enticingly.

MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, the Firm, the Office: everybody had a different name for it. Some insiders had even called it Caesar's Palace when it first went up, and it wasn't hard to see why. It was a beige and black pyramid with its top cut off, and large towers at either side. There was even a terrace bar overlooking the river. It only needed a few swirls of neon and you'd swear you were in Las Vegas. Maybe it would become a super-casino when it had had its time.

I'd always preferred Century House myself, the old SIS building near Waterloo station. It might have been 1960s square minging architecture with droopy net curtains and antennae all over the roof but it was a lot handier for the bus and tube, and much more homely. And the old guy who ran the greasy spoon on the corner had served real food — dead animals and snacks with so many E numbers they glowed in the dark.

Even at this time of night, the multiple lanes of city traffic rumbled along like a slow-motion explosion. I crossed at the lights. I'd never expected to come face to face with the Yes Man again, but it wasn't like I had a whole lot of choice. The Firm had known where to find me within hours of my landing at Heathrow. Maybe it was the flight manifest, maybe face-recognition cameras at the airport. Whatever, if I tried to run they'd lift me before I got a mile down the road. Then they'd do more than ask for their envelope back.

This wasn't the Women's Institute, and it wasn't just a cake-baking session I'd be refusing to attend. The people who worked in the building in front of me killed for a living. It was pointless running: I'd just die knackered and out of breath. I didn't want to be a body pulled from a car crash just for saying no to a meeting. Besides, I wanted to find out what job he had in mind. I was pretty sure that the reappearance of the Yes Man at this precise moment in my life was no coincidence.

And, anyway, I'd just got the sack. There might be cash involved. When you live at the bottom of the food chain you have to take a bite of the shit sandwich when it's shoved in your face. Maybe that was why I'd never found it hard to get on with Africans, Arabs, squaddies, whoever. They soon discovered I was like them — waist deep in the shit-pit and happy to get my head up enough to take a few breaths occasionally before I got pushed back down.

I followed a couple of suits along the pavement. They must have been the night shift. They disappeared behind the steel fencing of 85 Albert Embankment and into the pyramid. I followed.

28

I wondered how an arsehole like the Yes Man fitted in with life behind the triple-glazed windows, these days. I'd heard the Firm's new leadership matched the new building: younger, meaner, more aggressive. If the Yes Man was still the boss of deniable operators, the Ks, it could only mean he'd slipped off the greasy pole. Good. Fuck him and the boils on his neck.

The physical threat had increased since 9/11 and the Firm had obviously been given a big wad of cash to boost its security. I entered via a single metal door and got funnelled towards six perspex security cubicles that looked like giant test-tubes. A small queue of suits had formed. They placed their bags on an X-ray machine and waited in line to swipe their card and enter their PIN. If they got accepted, the perspex door opened and they stepped inside. A pressure pad on the floor made the door close behind them again, trapping them in the capsule.

All sorts of tests would be carried out during the next couple of seconds. For starters, the air would be analysed for traces of weapons or explosives. If the electronics were happy, the door in front would open, releasing them into the inner sanctum.

A perspex cylinder wasn't for the likes of me. I had to go to the visitors' desk, where a woman in her forties with thick-rimmed glasses sat behind a bulletproof screen. She looked at me a bit sadly. The words 'disappointing' and 'divorce settlement' were written all over her.

I put my mouth close to the microphone. 'I have an appointment. Extension two seven double eight.'

'You need to fill this in.' She pushed a ledger under the glass. 'Do you know the name?'

'No, sorry. Can't remember.'

She picked up a phone and checked a monitor to her left that must have held the internal-numbers list. 'Do you have a picture ID?'

I fished out my passport and held it open on the photo page. 'He's expecting me at eight thirty. What's his name again?'

She gave me another of her sad looks as she hit some keys. I signed in the two marked boxes in the ledger and passed it back under the window.

With the phone still to her ear, she tore my signed strip from the ledger and folded it into a small plastic holder with a blue ribbon to go round my neck. She pushed it under the glass. The badge was blue too, and said, 'Escorted Everywhere'.

She put down the receiver. 'Wait over there. Someone will be along to collect you.'

I tried to get a smile out of her and held up the pass at the window. 'That's good. I'd only get lost.'

It wasn't going to happen. I wandered over to a backless black leather settee with chrome legs.

The doors of the security pods opened and closed as they chomped their way through the queue. A young clerk appeared, dressed in a black suit, checked shirt and a tie with a knot that was far too big for the collar. He had the kind of madly enthusiastic smile they normally only teach you at estate-agent school. He held out a hand. 'Mr Stone?'

I stood up and followed suit.

'If you'd like to go through that glass door to your right, I'll meet you on the other side.'

I nodded at the X-ray machine and held up my bomber. 'You want this in there?'

'No, the room will detect anything.'

A female guard buzzed the door open. A sign on the wall opposite told me to stand still until instructed to move. I couldn't hear any machinery or sucking sounds as the atmosphere was extracted to check for weapons or explosives residue, but I was sure it was happening.

The clerk appeared at the other side of the glass exit. The door clicked open.

The walk to the lifts took us over ivory marble floors, past grey slate walls. No wonder the building had come in at twice the estimate.

We whooshed upwards.

'Which floor we going to?'

'Fifth.'

It would have been pointless asking him more. Even if he'd known the answers he wouldn't have told me.

We stepped out into a world of grey carpet tiles and white-emulsioned walls. I felt conned, like when a hotel invests in a big makeover down in Reception but as soon as you get upstairs it's all shite — and tough, you've already checked in.

We set off down a bare corridor. There were no names on the doors, only acronyms I didn't understand. The armed services are fanatical about the fucking things, and the Firm had fallen into step. Even when I was in the Regiment and working here, I'd only been able to remember up to the three-letter ones.

Vauxhall Cross was a category-A post, which meant that, like Beijing, Moscow and other major stations abroad, it had an HPT (high potential threat) from terrorism and sophisticated HIS (hostile intelligence services). Operatives from the TSD (technical services department) in Milton Keynes ensured that the building was protected from HTA (high-tech attack).

The triple glazing didn't have anything to do with the government's new green policy. It was a safeguard against laser and radio-frequency flooding techniques as every HIS and his dog tried to hear what you were talking about. There were even techniques now to read the radiation from computer and photocopying machines, so every bit of machinery in the building was specially shielded. If anyone got on a boat and spent the day bobbing up and down on the Thames pointing technical stuff at the decapitated pyramid, they'd be wasting their fare.

The corridor opened up left and right into open-plan offices. Men and women bent over computer screens, processing information, collating, whatever the fuck they did to support the five hundred officers running round overseas. There was little noise apart from the air-conditioning and the rustle of deli bags as people weakened.

We came to an office at the far end. No acronym on this door. The clerk took me straight in without knocking. 'He'll be with you soon.'

I walked into what looked like a solicitor's office. There was a round, beech-veneer IKEA table, with a telephone in the middle, and matching chairs with leatherette seats.

At the far side of the large room was a desk. I wandered over to have a look at the framed pictures among the files by the PC monitor. They were of the Yes Man and his loving family, all smiles, and, judging by the ages of the kids and the generosity of his hair, the pictures were a few years old.

I looked out of his large window, almost the length of the room, at the bright lights of the railway-arch shops the other side of the road. Headlights moved noiselessly in both directions. The motorbike shop was still there. I really wanted to get a new one. I missed riding.

The Yes Man hadn't been given an office with a river view, but at least he got catering. A full cafetière and a small mountain of shortbread fingers sat on a nearby tray.

Maybe things weren't as bad as I'd thought.

29

The door opened. The Yes Man had two buff folders in his hand. He was exactly as I remembered him: five foot six, florid complexion.

'How was Harley Street?'

I held up my arm a little, as if he could see through the dressing. 'Haven't been yet. In the morning.'

He wore a dark business suit, with a white shirt and a scarlet tie. On his left hand he still wore a wedding ring.

I pointed through the window. 'Changed a bit since I was here last.'

He was busy pulling a chair from under the table. 'My new office?'

I joined him at the long table but kept a three-chair distance. 'New shops. The gay place. You lot get corporate membership?'

He stared at me across the table, not enjoying my joke. I smiled even more broadly. 'It says it's got a sauna.'

The Yes Man pushed one of the folders across the table and started to pour the coffee. Even upside-down, I could read the stencil UK EYES ALPHA, which meant it was for the eyes of MI5, MI6, Special Forces, GCHQ and Whitehall only, and never to be read by a non-British citizen. There was no yellow card paperclipped to the cover. This was still an unaccountable document, a mere draft or proposal. That normally meant they hadn't found anyone stupid enough for the job.

The cover sheet was stamped with various acronyms, like O2G2/OPS and IO/GN, all meaningless to me. They'd have been senior officers, though, who'd signed it off as read. Like every organization, the Firm liked to cover its arse.

The best part of any MI6 file, as far as I was concerned, had always been the title, and this one said simply: 'The Need to Locate Dominik Condratowicz, Polish TV Journalist'.

The reports themselves might be full of gobbledegook, but the titles were always bang on the money. The best one I'd ever seen was: 'The Need to Assassinate President Milosevic of Serbia'. There hadn't been a yellow card on it, though, which was probably the reason he'd ended up in the dock at The Hague instead of dead in a Belgrade gutter.

I opened the folder to find just two printed pages of A4. The document might have been stamped by whoever had had to read it, but the signature page on the inside flap was missing.

The two pages included a digital photograph, probably from his passport application. It was definitely Dom.

I looked up. 'Locate? Don't the Firm know where he is? I assumed you—'

'He's disappeared. Nobody's heard from him.'

I ran a thumb over my stubble. 'He was pretty shaken after what happened, by all accounts. I left messages for him, and made arrangements for Media Ops to look after him when he turned up. It was all I could do before I flew out. I had some other stuff to see to here. Then I was going to make some calls. You sure he isn't just off on some story?'

'I don't believe so.' The Yes Man reached for the coffee and nudged a full cup my way. 'I'm still trying to sift through what I can rule in and what I can rule out. Did he mention anything out of the ordinary while you were there? Anything about his home life, family, Dublin, that sort of thing? Anything that might give us any indication of his whereabouts or plans?'

'Nothing. He just got on with his job, really. I'm not exactly a bosom buddy.'

The Yes Man sat forward and took one of the shortbreads. 'Did he say anything about his work, perhaps?'

I had to give him something or he'd know I was fucking him about. Which would mean Sundance and Trainers being told to fuck me about. 'Nothing much. I know he was fixated on the heroin trade, but on the whole Dom kept things close to his chest.'

The Yes Man sat back with his brew, deep in thought.

'You don't think he's been lifted, do you?'

He pursed his lips. 'It's a scenario, Nick.'

I frowned, and not just because of what he'd called me. If Dom was being held, the decision whether or not even to try to rescue him would be made very high up. It all boiled down to PR. What was the propaganda value of a rescue? Would it actually be better for the government if the fucker died? Would a nice beheading online get the public sparked up? Chances were, the Regiment had only gone in for that charity worker Norman Kember because somebody had done their sums and worked out there was more mileage in a recovery than a beheading. I could just hear the discussion. 'He's already done the interviews to camera. We've seen him making his statements online. Public opinion has already reached the height of shock and horror. There's nothing to be gained by letting him be killed. He's old, he's a peace worker. Let's see if we can get him back before his head rolls.'

Would the Yes Man help make the risk assessment? If the danger of SAS casualties was too high, the troopers would stay in their tents. The PR gain wouldn't be worth the pain, especially if the hostage got killed in the attempt. Maybe that was what this was about. They were going to send in Ks. It was a matter of economics as much as anything else. It cost the taxpayer three or four million pounds a time to train an SAS trooper. All I'd cost was the price of a cremation.

I scrolled down the page. Dom had read English literature at Krakow University and found a job straight away on a Polish national newspaper. The rest was platinum-plated history.

Now was the time to ask. 'He's not a British national. What do you want him back for?'

The Yes Man sighed and pushed the second folder across the table. 'Because Dominik Condratowicz is not just a journalist, Nick. He's an asset.'

30

People paid by Her Majesty's Government to provide information or 'keep their eyes open' are known as 'assistants', 'onside' — or 'assets'. Journalists have perfect cover because it's their job to investigate and be nosy. The Firm pays them, but only just enough to establish the contract. Money isn't the issue. They usually become assets for reasons of ideology, or simply to get themselves the inside track on any good leaks.

Frontline reporters aren't the only ones approached and asked if they'd like to 'do something interesting' for HMG. Newspaper editors are sometimes onside, though they're unlikely to be recruited directly. The Firm needs permission from the foreign secretary for that level of stuff, and they hate asking a politician for anything. They wouldn't like to be refused. On the other hand, if journalists are recruited early in their careers, it can eventually mean high-ranking assets in most news and media organizations. Whatever, reporters are the one group the Firm never fucks over: they never know where even the lowliest local stringer will land up.

The Yes Man tapped the folder in front of me. 'Unfortunately, there is mounting evidence that Dominik Condratowicz should be seen in an entirely different light.' He lifted the cover. 'This is what happened to one of our people last year.'

I opened the folder to see half a dozen colour eight-by-tens of a young Arab, maybe early twenties, sitting on wet concrete. He was held upright by a pair of over-inflated forearms. The right one had an ageing scar that looked like a badly laid railway track. I flicked through the pictures with no idea if the man was dead or alive. His body was a mess of cuts, bruises and burns. His face was so swollen his eyes were forced closed and his lips were like plastic surgery gone wrong.

'They were taken in Afghanistan. An illegal prison. Freelance bounty-hunters, normally torturing their victims for information about the Taliban and al-Qaeda.'

I shrugged. 'There's a lot of those guys about over there. It's the new Wild West. Bad things are going to happen.'

'Condratowicz was in Kabul at the time, ostensibly filming a documentary. I have to ask myself whether there's more to that than meets the eye.'

One of the pictures was a wider shot of the room or cell. The door had a sheet of steel screwed over it and a gaoler's spyhole. The last one showed a tabletop with the legs removed, bolted to an oil drum. It looked like an oversized see-saw, but I knew this was no game. Two buckets of water stood next to it. A tap stuck out of the wall. A fat roll of clingfilm sat on a pile of empty hessian sandbags.

Waterboarding is guaranteed to get its victim telling everything he knows, and even some things he doesn't — anything to keep breathing. The physical experience is like being trapped under a wave. But that's fuck-all compared to the psychological horror. Your brain screams at you that you're drowning. And the reason I knew all this was because the Americans and the Brits had invented this shit.

'Then we have a major drugs haul unearthed in Basra, and yet again it happens that Dominik Condratowicz is in town. There is more. Believe me, I could go on. Stack up enough of them, Nick, and you have to start asking yourself whether they're not coincidences, but positive correlations.

'I know that he was with the FCO in Basra the day before a raid that resulted in the confiscation of a huge haul of heroin. What are we to make of that? Was Condratowicz colluding with others to misbrief the military for certain ends — for example, to disrupt or stamp out any competition to their trade? I just don't know. I don't know any of what he's been up to for sure, but I've started to wonder, for example, how a television reporter can afford a seven-million-euro house in the best street in Dublin…'

The Yes Man fixed his gaze on the garish neon across the road. The pause wasn't to give me a chance to ask a question. It was to give his words time to sink in.

He cleared his throat. Even in profile, he looked appalled. 'So, has he been abusing his position as an asset to help others ship heroin out of Afghanistan? I don't know. Might he have been doing it for the last two years? I can't be sure. Has he profited to the tune of millions? Nick, you look at pictures of that house and can't help asking yourself the question…'

He settled his gaze on me. 'I suspect this is a large and far-reaching network. People in the FCO could be involved. Maybe people in this very building.'

'Do you think the cameraman was implicated? The story is that he got shot by insurgents.'

He shook his head. 'Like everything else in this mess, I can't say for sure, but I very much doubt it.' He placed his cup carefully back on its saucer. 'Perhaps he saw something he shouldn't… Who knows? But get Condratowicz back to me and it's one of the things I stand a chance of finding out. You're independent of us, Nick, and that suits us very well. There's much less risk of anyone getting tipped off. You—'

I raised an eyebrow. 'Dom was against the heroin trade. Vehemently against. He wanted to expose it, not encourage it.'

The Yes Man leant across the veneer. 'Afghanistan now produces over ninety per cent of the world's heroin. One of the trafficking routes is into Iran and thence Iraq, alongside Iranian weapons and ordnance. The network knows this. They know those weapons kill British soldiers, they know the drug money finances terrorism, but it hasn't stopped them. So what would prevent them killing a cameraman who got in their way?'

He sat back. 'I know we haven't always seen eye to eye, and I know you probably feel you don't owe me too many favours, but this isn't about you and me, Nick. Think about the soldiers. Think about their families. This has got to stop. Bring me Condratowicz and I promise you it will.'

'Is there any kind of trail?' There was no harm in asking.

'The FCO made some enquiries. They say he left Basra with a fixer, and crossed the border into Iran soon after. But in the light of what I've told you, can we trust what they say? I've had to soft-pedal. I don't want anybody to find out who's looking for him — the whole network could go to ground. But your name came into the equation, Nick, and it started me thinking. You know the man. You know his habits, the way he thinks. You, I believe, are the best chance I have of reeling him in.'

31

Rain dripped off the canopy outside Arrivals as I stood in line for a cab. The bus would have been just as quick, but I wouldn't have learnt as much. It was a long time since I'd been there, and a chat with a cabbie's the best way of getting up to speed.

That was the excuse I gave myself. In truth, I wanted to squeeze myself a bit more thinking time. I needed to be in control of the situation and keep on my toes. Bullshit baffles brains, but the Yes Man was spinning too much of it my way. He must take me for a complete dickhead if he thought a few rubber stamps on a folder were going to make me think it now had a yellow card.

The only known points of contact for Dom that remained were the station, his wife and his stepson. I'd told the Yes Man to have surveillance put on Dom's mobile and his wife's, all landlines and the house computer. No flies on him. He already had that in hand with his Irish counterparts.

OK, so there was no signature page on the inside flap and never would be. That didn't matter. I was going to use the Yes Man and all his resources to help me find Dom. But after that it would be me who found out what he knew — and dealt with it, if necessary.

Siobhan had been Dom's last point of contact. He had called her from the COB before he'd permanently closed down. I should have gone straight there, but his file hadn't revealed that much about him, let alone her. It wasn't known if she worked, spent her days in the gym or just shopping. What was the point of getting there early and hanging around for hours on the street corner? It made more sense to go where I was going.

The driver of the cab that rolled towards me had to have been seventy if he was a day. There were creases in his face that even a steam press wouldn't get out.

'O'Connell Street, mate.' I jumped into the back with all my worldly goods still in my Bergen. The Yes Man had sorted me with a UK bank account, and I now had ten thousand euros in cash in my pocket. I'd drawn it all out because that gave me control of it. He wouldn't be able to track my movements whenever I made a withdrawal. I hadn't got changed. My clothes could have done with a bit of attention from that steam press as well.

'Been to Dublin before, have you, sir?'

We nosed out into a queue.

'Many times, but not for maybe twenty years. Stag parties, rugby matches… You know the sort of thing.'

'A bit of that still goes on. But you'll see a lot of changes. A rags-to-riches story, Dublin is. I wish I was young enough to enjoy it.'

I'd had enough fun mixing with the stag and hen parties and rugby supporters, but that had had nothing to do with getting drunk enough to vomit over a policeman. We used the weekends to our advantage when I was in the Regiment. We used to come down here from the north on a Friday night to lift people Special Branch wanted to have a private one-to-one with.

The last time, it had been just like this: grey, wet and miserable. But instead of driving the couple of hours down we'd flown to London and out again on a Friday night Five Nations special. The pubs heaved with Brits in rugby shirts, so we'd blended in nicely in the ones we'd bought duty-free at Heathrow. Our target was a Provisional IRA war-council member, who'd thought he was safe conducting PIRA's drug-trafficking activities in the South.

Connor McNaughten spent most of his time in Dublin, only venturing up to Belfast or Londonderry to kneecap someone or collect another suitcase full of profits from the Provos' drug rackets. Towards the end of the war, once most of the PIRA ASUs (active service units) had been wiped out, it had felt as if most of our operations were against drug barons rather than terrorists.

We lifted him in the early hours of Saturday morning when he was out on the piss. We dragged him into the boot of a car that had been driven down by one of the other lads, and took him north, straight to Castlereagh police station. The big stone fortress was the Abu Ghraib of Northern Ireland. No fucker, no matter how hard they were, wanted to be interrogated there by Special Branch. Go into Castlereagh and you'd come out minus a couple of fingers and with a few bones bent out of shape. And it wasn't a myth. Twenty-four hours, maximum, that was the longest anybody ever lasted before they spilled whatever beans they had to spill.

Connor was a little fat boy, but hard as fuck. He lasted more than twenty hours, and after that SB had a grudging respect for him.

Later, he was bundled back into a car boot and returned across the border before the weekend of Dublin jollity was over. Once back in the city, with his right hand short of a pinkie, I'd told him in no uncertain terms that if he breathed a word to anyone about what had gone on Special Branch would spread the whisper that he'd come up with the information willingly.

All that was required of him was that he went back to his seedy little existence, and when called upon for information, he would give it. Otherwise he'd be lifted for another night or two at the castle, or bubbled to the Provos. Some choice: lose a couple more fingers or have a paving slab dropped on your head. No wonder we ended up with more supergrasses than Kew Gardens.

All that has stopped since Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley started their power-sharing love fest. I wondered what Sundance and Trainers made of it. After all those years fighting with the UDA, and the Prod 'never surrender' business, that was exactly what the Loyalists — and Nationalists — had done. They probably saw it as a total waste of a war. I doubted I'd ever ask them. I liked having teeth and unbroken bones.

As for Connor, he'd kept well quiet about his little visit to the castle and done as he was told. But even better than that, he'd become a Dublin Sinn Fein councillor a year later. It meant the Brits had a source there, too.

I looked out of the window as we nudged through the outskirts. The driver was right. Dublin had gone from rags to riches since Ireland had joined the EU, and it obviously wasn't just the Irish themselves who were fuelling the economic miracle. We passed a billboard advertising a newspaper. All the text was in a foreign language, but I recognized 'Polski'. 'You got many Poles here?'

'They even have their own TV show. Good people, I like them. We have all sorts. We got those Lithuanians, Africans, Spanish, and loads of those little Chinese fellas. We've even got a mosque.'

'That it?' I was looking at a silver pole pointing skywards over the city centre.

He chuckled as he wove in and out of the traffic. 'Bertie Ahern wanted to build some sort of sports stadium, but in the end they decided on a spire instead. We call it Bertie's Pole… or the Stiffy on the Liffey.' His face creased into another thousand lines. He enjoyed that gag so much he jumped the lights. Not because he was impatient, he just hadn't seen them.

We drove down a street I sort of recognized. I remembered it in a shit state, women selling fruit and veg and bits of fish from babies' prams. Now there were African hairdressers, Arab delis, Chinese restaurants and loads of Internet shops. Places selling coconuts and all sorts. It reminded me of parts of New York, the city where you think everybody smokes because the new laws have driven the lot of them outside.

And judging by the size of the huddle puffing away on the pavement, TVZ 24's entire staff had been recruited on the other side of the Atlantic.

32

Glass doors hissed open. Ahead, a torrent of water coursed down a huge angled sheet of steel. Beautiful people glided over white tiles doing important things with a mobile in one hand and a paper cup of cappuccino in the other.

I went up to the reception desk. An entire wall of flat screens showed footage of Pete fucking about with his cameras, getting ready to film. A tickertape caption announced the sad death of one of the station's finest cameramen.

'Hello, my name's Nick Stone. I'm here for Moira Foley.'

The girl had a little Bluetooth thing in her ear. She gave me a big smile and tapped her keyboard.

'She is expecting me. We spoke this morning.'

I'd called on the pretext of seeing Moira about my invoice. I needn't have worried about getting a meeting. She was the one who asked me.

My name obviously turned up on her monitor. Now the receptionist was tapping phone keys. 'Could you sign in here, please?'

By the time I'd done so and she'd finished her call, a machine had spat out a nice little plastic credit card with my name printed on it to hang round my neck on a nylon tape.

'Would you like to take a seat over there? Someone will be down.'

It was just like the office at Vauxhall Cross, only with a hint of politeness. They even had black, steel-framed leather settees. Above them, glass cabinets were crammed with silver and glass trophies. They'd obviously won a lot of awards and didn't mind everyone knowing.

I pulled my invoice from my bomber. Three hundred euros a day for ten days, printed out at an Internet café near Paddington station on the way to the airport.

Another battery of flat screens showed Dom waffling with an attractive, petite Arab woman in her thirties. Her head was covered with a white scarf. The rest of her garb was long and black. As they talked, they walked across a dustbowl strewn with rubble. It just had to be Afghanistan. The mountains in the background gave it away — and if they hadn't, the figures in blue burqas did. They scuttled about like big blue pepper-pots. The camera focused on her head. She waffled away silently above the caption: 'Afghan women's aid worker'. She seemed too un-weathered and beautiful to be working in the dust.

A new caption told me this was an excerpt from Veiled Threats, the documentary that had made Pete and Dom famous. It had won two Emmys and a host of other stuff. The station was very proud of them.

The tribute was working. It made me think of Pete fucking about with his tin hat on.

'Mr Stone?'

I dragged myself back from the last time I'd seen him. I didn't know why the Polish accent surprised me. It was a Polish station, after all, and I knew the voice. I looked up to see a girl in jeans and a polo-neck jumper.

'I'm Katarzyna. Everyone calls me Kate.'

I stood up and shook hands with a very smiley young woman. She looked just as her voice had told me she would. She pointed at my arm, a little unsure what to say. She managed, 'Ouch,' and a sympathetic smile.

'It's OK. What do I do with this?' I held up my invoice.

She took the sheet of A4. 'I will try and get a cheque for you today.'

I followed her to the lift. She was embarrassed. She was seventeen or eighteen, just starting out in life. She was getting the hang of it and wasn't quite sure how to act, and I was fed up with it. We didn't say any more to each other. I was fine about it and so was she.

The lift doors opened and three of the smokers rushed in to join us. The reek of nicotine breath filled the metal box.

The doors opened again into a large, open-plan office. Again, it could have been Vauxhall Cross if it hadn't been for the trendy water-bottle dispensers and coffee machines. People were on the phone or hunched over their PCs. Worktops were littered with piles of magazines and newspapers. At the far end the newsreaders' desks were in plain view so we could see how hard-working they were. That particular section, however, was cut off by soundproof glass so the newsreaders could shout at each other and call each other dickheads without it going on air.

Glass-walled offices lined the left side of the big open space. My very quiet new mate led me to a fanatically tidy desk. A woman I assumed was Moira sat behind it.

She wasn't what I'd been expecting. For starters, I wouldn't have predicted the inch-thick layer of makeup. She was maybe mid-fifties, and didn't show a wedding ring. Maybe she was trying hard to compete with the likes of Kate. A far-too-thin blouse revealed her bra, and the look continued with a mini-skirt and knee-high boots. Her hair was jet black. Her eyelashes were so long they looked like spiders' legs. Either everyone was too scared to tell her, or they disliked her so much they couldn't be bothered.

'Come in, Nick.'

Her accent was as Irish as Bertie's Pole, and her arrogance levels twice as high. She glanced at my friend. 'Coffee.'

I turned to Kate. 'No, I'm fine.' I'd always hated the girl-go-get-coffee thing. I'd had enough of it myself when I was a young squaddy, getting pushed around from pillar to post. I didn't wish it on others, especially if the order came from someone like Moira.

I sat down where she pointed. 'I'm sorry to have to let you go.' She settled back behind her desk. 'If it was up to me, I'd have kept you on. But the MD took the view he'd paid for close protection and not got it. Did you bring the invoice?'

'Got nothing else to do, have I?'

She leant forward, hoping her expression of deeply sincere concern would help us move on from the sacking. 'How's the arm, Nick?'

'Fine. I had it cleaned up this morning in Harley Street.'

She took a breath but I beat her to it. 'Don't worry, I'm not billing. Look, I've been calling Dom but still can't get an answer. You heard anything?'

Her face fell. 'I was hoping you might have. That wife of his — you've met her?'

'No.'

There seemed to be no love lost there.

'Well, she says he's taken a break. You know, clearing his fucking head or something. She won't say where he is, when he's coming back.' She raised her hands in frustration. 'I'm trying to run a news organization here.'

'Has he done this before?'

They dropped back on to the table. 'No — but, then, he hasn't had a cameraman killed before either. That bloody wife of his, she knows where he is.'

'Did he say anything about filming in the city before we left?'

'He's my war correspondent. He doesn't do new one-way systems. That was just the fucking cameraman trying to get some expenses out of me. Old habits die hard.'

She sat back, her hands stretched out on the desk. The spiders' legs flashed up and down. 'Perhaps we could arrange some extra work? Here in the studio? We've got a great story, all this great footage, but no one to follow it up. We could get massive exposure on this. All the outlets have been clamouring.'

She looked at my arm. 'You're a film star now, Nick. What about you giving an interview, just talking to camera, nothing hard, telling us what happened? You could talk us through it. They're hungry out there, Nick. People want to know the pain you've gone through. It would be a lasting tribute to Dom's cameraman.'

Moira couldn't have pulled off concerned if there'd been a gun to her head.

I stood up and so did she. She was waspish. 'You're wasting an opportunity to tell the world what happened. If you don't do it, there are others who will.'

I had to put her right there and then, before she barged her way into their lives and fucked them up even more. 'Do not go near Pete's family. They've had enough shit already. If you do I'll go to the BBC — in fact, any fucker — and do the interview with them.'

Her face went red with anger, which was quite an achievement, given the thickness of her makeup. 'Then your invoice will take a fucking long time coming through, that's all I can say.'

I walked out.

Kate had been hovering outside. She followed me to the lift. As the doors closed, she jumped in.

'Mr Stone, I knew she wouldn't pay you if you said no, so here… I prepared.' Out of her bag came a wad of euros and a receipt for me to sign.

'You'll burn in hell for this, Kate. Thank you.'

She smiled, then got embarrassed and looked down. 'She's already asked Peter's family.'

'What did they say?'

'They said no. I think that is good thing.'

'So do I, Kate. So do I.'

We shook hands by the steel waterfall and I headed for the door.

'There is one more thing, Mr Stone.'

I turned.

'She really didn't believe Peter's invoice. But he had been filming in St Stephen's Green. You wouldn't believe how tight she is. She wouldn't reimburse Dom for his donation to the refuge either.'

'The one in their documentary?'

She nodded. 'It's very close to his heart.'

33

'Herbert Park in Ballsbridge.'

The cab edged out into traffic.

'One of the embassies, sir?'

'Nah, just an old mate who's moved there. Smart area, is it?'

He chuckled. 'On the Dublin Monopoly board, the roads in Ballsbridge are the fockin' big bucks squares.' He threw a newspaper to me. 'Here, have a read of that. We're going to be stuck in the rush-hour for a while.'

He wasn't wrong. We were surrounded by commuters with their heads down and telephones to their ears as they made their way home.

The street-lights glowed on the paper through the rain-stained windows. I opened it up on a big spread about extraordinary rendition. A cleaning woman had boarded a supposedly empty American plane to find a prisoner handcuffed, hooded and wearing an adult nappy. The Irish government were hugely embarrassed: they'd given public assurances that war-on-terror 'rendered' prisoners didn't come anywhere near the place on their way to Guantánamo Bay or the CIA's secret prisons in Afghanistan, Pakistan or wherever their interrogators had been able to set up shop.

The piece said:

We used to do it out of this very city, only it wasn't called rendition in those days. They were just lifted. It got me wondering if Special Branch had ever used waterboarding. We never hung around at the castle long enough to see what went on. Better not to know, and have a clean pair of hands.

I checked the property pages but there was nothing for sale in the whole suburb of Ballsbridge, let alone Herbert Park.

'What do the houses go for round here?'

'Put it this way, last time you were here you could have picked up one of these little beauties for fifty thousand punts. Last one I saw advertised went for well over seven million euros. We're nearly there. Which end?'

I folded the newspaper. 'Drop us off here, mate. I'm going to walk down and surprise them.'

I paid him thirty euros and walked along Herbert Park in the rain, looking for number eighty-eight. Actually, it wasn't really rain, not even drizzle, more a mist that soaked everything through. I pulled up the collar of my bomber, hooked my bag over my shoulder and started walking.

If Pete had done good, Dom had hit the jackpot. These were substantial four-storey red-brick houses set back from the road, with large rectangular windows, designed for the grand and merchant classes during old Dublin's previous heyday. Raised stone staircases led one floor up to very solid and highly glossed front doors. The ground floor was reserved for the servants. Either Dom had married into money or the Polish celeb mags paid much more than I'd imagined for their double-page spreads. Or the Yes Man hadn't been talking bollocks.

Lights were on in several of the houses, and curtains were open to display the gilded furniture and big chandeliers to best effect.

I was still trying to work out what to say to Siobhan. Did she know Dom was an asset? I wasn't sure how that worked with spouses. I'd never been put to the test.

I walked past 6 Series BMWs and shiny 4x4s.

For all I knew, Dom could be sitting at home with his feet up watching telly, and Siobhan was putting the kettle on to make him a brew.

I neared number eighty-eight. The hall light shone through a glass panel over a wide, shiny wooden door. I couldn't see any movement through the front windows or upstairs. There were no milk bottles on the front step, empty or full, but that meant nothing nowadays. There was no condensation on the windows, but I wouldn't expect it. This was no minging old council house with poor heating and no ventilation.

I carried on past. Keeping a mental count of the houses, I reached the end of the street. The last time I'd walked past so many brand-new cars I'd been in a Kuwaiti showroom. This place was awash with money. I picked up a flyer from the pavement advertising a luxurious spa with a helipad on the roof in case you needed some emergency work on your cuticles.

I turned left at the end of the terrace and worked my way round to the back of the houses. There was a small service road about four metres wide that the gardens on each side backed on to. I walked past all the wheelie-bins and counted up to sixteen. Each property had a six-foot brick wall and either an old wooden gate or a fancy wrought-iron one. Mature trees towered over the gardens.

The lights were on at the back of eighty-eight on the first floor.

There was movement in what looked like the kitchen, but the blinds were half down. I couldn't ID the shadow, but it seemed too small to be Dom.

I turned back and it wasn't long before I was knocking with the heavy iron lion's head on the front door.

'Who is it?'

The voice was female and Irish.

'My name's Nick. I'm a friend of Dom's. I was with him last week in Basra.'

34

Siobhan was dressed in jeans, trainers and a black sweatshirt. Her big brown eyes were red-rimmed, and her short, straight hair needed a brush. She looked like she hadn't slept in days, but she was still beautiful. She must have been at least ten years younger than her husband.

'I know who you are.' She smiled weakly. 'You'll have to forgive me. I've been in bed for two days. It's a flu thing.'

I smiled back. 'Is Dom home?'

'I wish.' She touched my arm gently. 'How are you?'

'A few stitches, no bones broken.'

'He called me, and then I saw it on the news.' She bit her lip. 'I feel so bad about Pete. When is the funeral, do you know?'

I shook my head.

'His poor family…' Her voice was educated and soft, full of compassion.

I nodded slowly. 'I've been calling him for days and just get his voicemail. It's not like him. I'm worried maybe he's not picking up because he blames me. I feel responsible. I was supposed to be the one protecting them. I want to find him, clear the air.'

She started to look about her.

'Sorry for just turning up on the doorstep — your number's ex-directory but he gave me the address back in Basra. So…'

'Did you go to the studio? Did they tell you to come here?'

'No. Listen, Siobhan…' I hesitated. 'OK — I'll level with you. There's something about Pete's death that doesn't add up. I really need to talk to—'

She stepped aside. 'Please come in.'

I crossed the threshold and wondered if I should be taking my shoes off altogether instead of just wiping them like a madman to scrape off the wet grime. The highly polished black-and-white chequered tiles were clean enough to do surgery on.

I put down my Bergen. A crystal chandelier hung from the high ceiling. Landscape paintings gazed down at us from every direction. I caught a faint whiff of cigarette smoke.

'Nice place.'

'Thanks.' She was already walking down the hall. 'What can I offer you? Coffee, tea?'

We passed two antique half-tables. Glass trays held keys and change.

'Coffee would be great.'

We passed the open door to a front room or reception room, or whatever they called it in a house this size. I saw no framed prints on the walls of Dom being heroic with a microphone, just lots more landscapes. The mountains were too big to be Irish. Maybe they were Polish, or Transylvanian.

We finally arrived in the kitchen.

'After Pete got killed Dom just left me a message and did a runner. He OK? I was worried about him.'

It was a large knock-through that took up the whole of the rear of the building. In the far left corner, the steel banister of a spiral staircase disappeared into a round hole in the floor.

'Yes, he's fine, still out there. Moira got all excited about another story and Dom said he'd stay on and research it. He needed something to throw himself into, get his mind off things — you know Dom…'

There couldn't have been a bigger contrast with the antique stuff in the hall. We were in a world of stainless steel and glass, limed oak and spotlights. Four gas rings seemed to float in a polished granite island in the middle of the room. Nearby were a BlackBerry and a pack of Marlboro Lights, a lighter and the day's unopened mail. A dead, half-smoked cigarette balanced precariously on a mountain of ash and butts in a nearby ashtray. And, by the look of it, nicotine wasn't the only medicine Siobhan was taking for her flu. A bottle of white wine stood next to a glass. Both were half empty.

She followed my gaze. 'I'm sorry, would you prefer something stronger?'

'Thanks, but no.' I tapped my arm. 'Antibiotics…'

She selected a coloured capsule from a tin and dropped it into a sleek, cube-shaped coffee machine and closed a lever. They really did live in a Sunday supplement. One where the necks of two empty wine bottles stuck out of the recycle bin.

I didn't buy into the flu thing.

She'd been crying.

Mourning Pete? Possibly. But had they ever met? Pete said he'd never been to the house.

'Do you know how I can get hold of him? Has he got another number? I'd really like to talk to him.'

The machine spat a thin stream of coffee into a small cup.

'Me too.'

They were the first words she'd said that I really believed.

Her eyes stayed on the coffee machine. 'It's nothing unusual for him to be out of reach for weeks sometimes, while he's up in the mountains or wherever. It hasn't been a week yet. Work, it's just his way of dealing with things.' She fiddled about in a tin for another capsule. 'I think I'll join you.'

'So he's in the mountains? Still in Iraq?'

She shoved another capsule into the machine. 'I think he left some time yesterday. Sorry, my head's all over the place. Sugar?'

I shook my head. She placed stuff on a tray and got ready to move. 'Let's go in the front room.'

I followed her through double doors that had been punched through the dividing wall. She offered me a blue velvet two-seater on one side of the low coffee-table and sat down opposite.

The fireplace to my left was tiled. The black grate was far too shiny ever to have been used. The mantelpiece was covered with all the usual pictures of two people's lives together, but instead of picnics on the beach or family gatherings, they featured sailing boats or horses. There were also several of the same boy, from about ten to his teens.

'That Finbar? He's twenty now, isn't he?' There hadn't been much in the file about the boy either, only his name and DOB.

She stared at the row of grinning faces. 'Twenty-one this August.'

'He's the spitting image of you.' I kept my eyes on the frames. 'He still living here, or has he legged it?'

She turned back to her coffee. 'He's gone now.'

'This is the time you get to see more of Dom, eh?'

She gave another weak smile, but concentrated on her cup. The silence quickly became uncomfortable.

'He at uni?'

'He works. He's in the financial sector.' There was no gush of pride from a beaming mother.

'Here in Dublin?'

She put down her cup and gave a couple of short sharp nods instead of an answer. 'Excuse me — my cigarettes.' She waved in the general direction of the kitchen. 'It's a filthy habit, do you mind?'

I stood up with her, all smiles. 'Course not. I won't send you to smoke on the street.'

I sat down again and sipped the brew. She returned in a cloud of smoke. Her hand shook slightly as she sucked at her cigarette. She hadn't brought the packet and the lighter with her. She wanted me out.

I raised my cup. 'Thanks for the coffee, Siobhan. Sorry again to barge in on you. Can I leave my mobile number in case you need to get in touch?'

She went over to a small table covered with style magazines. She pulled open a drawer stuffed with pens, pencils, electricity bills, all the normal shit. Nestling among it all was a grey mobile phone.

I stood up. 'Can I use your loo before I head off?'

She did her general wave once more. 'Through the kitchen, down the stairs. First on the right.'

I left as she pulled out a pen and something to write on.

35

Once in the toilet the first thing I checked was the window. It was a wooden sash, as I'd have expected in one of these houses, but this one was new. The frosted glass was double-glazed, with a decorative brass latch in the centre of the frame. A hole each side indicated an internal deadlock operated by a star key. It didn't worry me. Keys tend to be left in toilets so no one gets embarrassed after a big hot curry. I dug about in the unit under the sink cabinet and found what I was looking for, right next to the Toilet Duck.

I pressed the flush, and unwound both deadlocks while it was noisy. I left the latch closed, so everything looked normal.

I replaced the key in the cabinet, and washed my hands with plenty of scented liquid soap. I wanted her to know I'd gone where I'd said I would.

As I came out again, a motion detector in the hallway gave me a flicker of blue LED. So did another at the top of the stairs.

The door opposite opened easily. It was a teenager's room. There were posters on the wall but no bedding, just a folded duvet on the mattress.

I took a step inside. Even if Finbar had moved out, there might be something that would give me a clue as to where he was now. I didn't care what the Yes Man had said about the boy not being important. If I found him, I might find Dom. That was why the Yes Man hadn't got a river view.

Nothing stood out at first glance. The laptop looked steam-driven, and the GameBoy wasn't even from this century.

Then something caught my eye. A Vodafone USB modem. They'd only come out a few months ago, but you couldn't move for the adverts.

By the time I rejoined Siobhan, there was a blank index card and a pen waiting for me on the coffee-table. I sat down with a big smile. I could smell the soap on my hands as I wrote out my number.

I got to my feet and handed her the card.

She looked at it as we headed towards the front door. I kept my eyes busy. The alarm-system keypad was midway up the wall. Another little blue light flickered below the picture rail.

I hooked my holdall over my shoulder.

She glanced past me at the dark wet street. 'Don't you want me to call you a cab?'

'It's OK. I'm going to walk for a while.'

We shared a nod. 'Thanks again for the coffee.'

I headed down the steps, and when I hit the street, I turned right. My mobile was out the moment I heard the door shut.

I hit the new number I'd burnt into my brain. It was fine to talk in clear. These mobiles were secure. Calls were masked by white noise, courtesy of the Firm's version of the Brahms secure speech system, developed by GCHQ. Not even the NSA could eavesdrop.

It gave four rings.

I pulled up my collar against the damp. 'You're sure the house only has their two registered mobiles and the landline?'

I heard the rustle of paper at the other end. 'Only three numbers registered. Why?'

'And just a PC desktop on broadband, yeah?'

'Correct.'

'I need to check something out tonight. I'll call you.'

There was no reply. The telephone went dead. Not much of a one for small-talk, the Yes Man.

I didn't give a fuck. I was in control, and I planned to keep it that way.

36

I must have looked a complete dickhead as I checked into the Conrad with my holdall and the world's supply of cheap shopping bags. The other guests' bags said Gucci and Hugo Boss, but mine were from Spar, a corner chemist's, an electronics shack and a charity shop. The receptionist had raised an eyebrow at the half-drunk two-litre bottle of own-brand cola sticking out of one of the carriers.

It was just as well she hadn't seen the rest of the stuff now spread out on the bed in my very swanky room. There were a couple of shower caps, floral-patterned with some frilly stuff round the sides, a notebook and pencil, a box of forty pairs of surgical gloves, a pair of scissors, a little keyring torch, and a SIM-card reader that I'd have to work out how to use before I left.

I also had some fishing-line. I hadn't been able to find an angling shop, so I'd bought a reel of four-pound breaking-strain stuff off one of the guys on the banks of the Liffey. Twenty-pound would have been ideal, but this would have to do.

There'd been an amazing number of druggies down by the river. Even at this time of night, young guys looking like ghosts shivered under blankets beneath a bridge not a stone's throw from Bertie's Pole. I tried to talk to one to ask where the fishermen hung out, but he just stared back, too out of it to string an answer together. This city really did have a problem. But then again, show me one that didn't.

I had also bought new boxers and socks and a couple of long-sleeved T-shirts. I might be spending the Firm's money on this posh room but even I wouldn't squander it on hotel laundry when it was cheaper to buy new.

Especially for tonight, I'd bought some grey trousers in a charity shop and yet another shitty brown fleece. I'd also picked up a black balaclava I'd found on a shelf of odd gloves and woolly hats. In the old days, the housing-trust shop would have made a few bob selling them in this part of the world. I'd given the old dear at the till a big grin when I'd handed it over. 'Let the good times roll.'

None of the stuff needed much doing to it, apart from a bit of remodelling to the cola bottle. I poured myself another glass before tipping the rest away and giving it a rinse. Then I took off the wrapper, and cut off the top and bottom to leave an open cylinder. It was Blue Peter time. I cut up the side of the cylinder and flattened out the rectangle I'd created on the floor, then cut the biggest circle I could from its centre. It curled into a tight brandy snap as soon as I let it go and that was it, I was almost done.

All I had to do now was shove everything in the cupboard, jump on the bed, get my boots off and check out the room-service menu while I read the instructions for the SIM-card reader. I wouldn't be leaving until dark o'clock.

I finished off the glass of flat cola. It was just like old times. I remembered being pissed off as a nine-year-old when my mum wouldn't buy real Coke because it was too expensive. I wondered if it had been the same for Pete over Brockwell Park way. I shoved a couple of antibiotics down my neck and ordered up a steak sandwich and chips.

Siobhan's compassion for Pete had been convincing, I supposed. And she clearly missed Dom terribly. But she'd avoided eye contact on every other subject. She had to be the only mother on earth who wouldn't open up about her little boy when given half a chance. Well, tonight we'd be finding out what she was hiding.

After my sandwich, it was downstairs to the business suite to get online and see if I could find Finbar on the electoral register. I'd trawl Facebook and MySpace too. I had a few hours to kill.

37

I heard someone come out of a back gate and the sound of a garbage bag landing in a wheelie-bin. A dog got a bollocking for something or other.

I was standing outside the toilet window. I'd been playing Peeping Tom since about midnight. I'd had to wait more than two hours for Siobhan to go to bed, and then another hour or so to give her time to nod off. It was really unusual for someone to be up as late as two during the week. My brain worked overtime. Could she have been waiting for a call from Dom on that second mobile of hers? I'd find out soon enough.

I had one last feel about in my grey trousers and shitty brown fleece pockets to make sure I hadn't overlooked any coins or anything that was going to rattle or fall out. ID-wise I was sterile — no wallet, no credit cards. It wasn't about what would happen if the police caught me. With luck, that was when the Yes Man would come into his own. It was to do with leaving nothing behind. Why take stuff on target you don't need? All I had was forty euros shoved down my socks in case there was a flap and I had to run for a taxi.

I checked that the fishing-line I'd looped round my wrist hadn't unravelled.

I could feel my mobile in the inside pocket of my fleece and checked again that it was turned off before rezipping. You can never tell when the bad fairy might pay you a visit and sprinkle the fuck-you-up dust.

Finally, I checked that all the other bits and pieces for the close target recce were good and secure in their pockets. Everything I was taking in was tied to my clothes with fishing-line.

As a car rumbled along the street I pulled the curled-up cola-bottle disc from the front of my fleece. I shoved it up through the narrow gap between the two sash window frames and watched it curl round the other side.

'Lottie, you bollix!' Wheelie-bin man was getting pissed off with his little furry friend. 'Come here!'

I wiggled the plastic circle until it rested against the brass latch, then turned and pulled it along the frame. The latch started to swivel open under the pressure of the coiled plastic.

The device was also magic for opening Yale locks on doors. Credit cards don't work like they do in Hollywood because there are two right-angles to negotiate before getting to the deadlock. As long as you keep on turning and pushing, the curly stuff will get round them and push the bolt open. But it wasn't so easy, these days, to find nice thick plastic bottles. This going-green business was fucking up the method-of-entry trade for sure, but luckily the cheap stores' own brands were still up to spec.

Within seconds the window was unlocked. I pulled the plastic back through and put it down at my feet.

The bottom of the frame was stuck, but it didn't take much effort to budge it. I pushed up, just a couple of centimetres at a time. When it was open as far as it would go, I heaved myself up on my stomach. Once inside, I made sure I kept on my knees instead of my feet.

I was sitting on the varnished wooden floorboards. I cocked my head and listened, tuning in to my new environment. I'd just been making a lot of movement and wanted to be sure nobody had heard it and was reacting. I'd also opened a window. Even when people are asleep, their eardrums can be sensitive to minute changes in air pressure. It was probably caveman survival stuff — you needed a little advance warning if a brontosaurus was coming into the cave to eat you.

I waited a little longer. There was no rush. The hard part was done. This toilet area was the buffer zone between the outside and the in.

There was still no movement, no late-night snackers raiding the fridge in the kitchen above me. No sound from a radio or TV.

I pulled the two plastic shower caps from my jeans and put them over my boots, tucking them in at the sides for extra grip. I didn't want to mark the tiles or drag in any of the wet, grimy shit from the street. Siobhan was probably not out there with the Hoover every day, but people notice these things. And while she didn't look like the kind of girl who pulled on the Marigolds, staff have eyes too.

The next problem was going to be the motion detectors. Was the house zoned? Did she put the alarm on when she went to bed? Chances were she didn't, but I had no way of telling. All I knew was that when she had finally thrown her hand in, there wasn't a long delay between her coming out of the kitchen and the hallway light turning off. She'd not had time to stop and tap in a code, just turned off the light and walked straight up the stairs. I didn't think she'd gone to the pad I'd spotted in the hallway. But for all I knew there might be another upstairs.

I took the black balaclava from the front of the fleece and pulled it over my head. I had cut out two holes for my ears. In the dark they're more important than eyes so there was no sense in keeping them covered.

Easing down the handle a fraction at a time, I opened the door a couple of inches. The hinges didn't squeak. I opened it some more and slipped out of the buffer zone.

The first thing I looked at was the blue light on the motion detector. It flickered as it sensed me. I held my breath, waiting for the initial warning tone that normally kicks in after about twenty seconds.

Nothing happened.

I rocked backwards and forwards. The motion detector kicked off again and the blue light flickered — but again, no response.

I went back into the toilet, pulled the window closed and eased the latch back into place. Everything had to look normal while I was inside the building. It wasn't very likely she was going to come all the way downstairs to use the plumbing, but if she did, that was the job fucked.

Back in the hallway, I stopped, looked and listened. The wool of the balaclava was warm and wet around my mouth. I let my jaw drop open so that all the internal noises like breathing and swallowing didn't intrude. The house was almost completely silent: no ticking clocks, not even the common night creaks as bits of the building settled after the day.

First stop was the boy's bedroom. I eased myself in and pulled the keyring torch from my pocket. The fishing-line attaching it to my jeans belt loop had to unravel before I was able to get the beam shining where I wanted it.

The laptop and modem were still in place. I'd deal with them later if I could. The mobile was the priority. The laptop would take some fiddling. If I was compromised I'd deck whoever it was, then leg it with the laptop and maybe her handbag or something so it looked like a burglary.

I closed the door and took a few careful paces to the spiral staircase. I put my foot on the first step, right against the wall. It took my weight without protest.

I headed up, taking each step gingerly.

Slowly, slowly, my head came level with the kitchen floor. No lights were on. A little ambient glow from the end of the street washed through the rear window, and a little more from the adjoining door from the front room. The only other source was the standby lights on the microwave, cooker and all the other gadgets.

The smell of cigarettes and pizza got stronger as I moved up the stairs.

The empty delivery box sat with its lid open on the wooden island, alongside an empty bottle and a glass with only a drop left in it. The mail had been opened and lay next to the now overflowing ashtray.

Slowly and deliberately I made my way through the double doors and into the front room. The neck of yet another bottle stuck out of the bin.

The drawer had been pushed right in. I made a mental note. That was exactly how I had to leave it. She would know every detail of this house and its contents, whether she realized it or not. Maybe the drawer was really hard to close, and had to be given a bit of extra force that took it less than flush with the front of the desk. If I didn't do exactly the same, her alarm bells might ring.

I eased my left hand under the drawer, lifted the handle with my right and pulled, slowly but firmly.

The drawer opened six inches, enough to expose the grey plastic mobile sitting in the bottom-right corner. I studied its exact position in relation to the biros and bits of paper, then lifted it out.

I took off the back. No way was I going to switch it on and let it blurt some happy tune. A quick sniff of the SIM card was all I needed.

The stairs creaked.

And then the hall lights came on.

38

I pushed the drawer shut and dropped behind the blue velvet two-seater. The mobile phone was still in my hand.

The slap of flip-flops approached along the tiled hall floor. They came at normal walking pace, not agitated, not tentative, and padded into the kitchen.

The spotlights went on.

The movement in the kitchen would cover my noise. I half turned, reached up, opened the drawer and pushed the phone as far back as I could. Siobhan or whoever it was might come for it. Perhaps I'd find out where Dom was just by listening. If not, I'd wait, as planned, until I could copy the SIM card.

The feet slapped their way down the kitchen stairs. There was nothing to tell me whether they were Dom's, Siobhan's, Finbar's, or someone else's altogether.

I was waiting to hear the toilet door close but it didn't. Soon the feet were heading back up the stairs.

There were a few noises I couldn't make out, and then the unmistakable pop of a cork. Seconds later came the glug of pouring, then the click of a cigarette lighter. I could smell smoke.

Fingers began clicking at a keyboard. I heard a couple of sighs and sniffs.

I was pretty sure it was her now. She carried on typing.

I inched my way to the corner of the settee. It was in shadow, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't in her line of sight.

I moved my head until I could just see her with one eye, keeping my mouth open to control my breathing.

She was sitting on a stool at the island, sideways on to the open door. She was wearing mule-type slippers and a towelling dressing-gown. Her hair fell forward as she looked down at the screen. She wasn't reading. She was waiting.

She reached for the wine bottle, poured herself a second glass, and wiped her nose on her dressing-gown. Halfway through the second mouthful, she slammed the glass on to the worktop. She needed both hands to work the keys.

Whatever she was reading wasn't good news. Her face contorted and a gasp turned into a sob. Tears ran down her cheeks. She refilled the glass with trembling hands and tried to compose herself, drink and smoke at the same time.

She sniffed some more as she placed her cigarette on a corner of the ashtray, the only vacant spot left for it. Then she got up, walked away from me and disappeared down the stairs.

I was out from behind the sofa and heading for the kitchen.

I heard the toilet door close.

Cigarette smoke worked its way through the wool and into my nostrils as I looked at the screen. The Sony laptop was a few years old, but had USB ports. The white Vodafone modem dangling from one was about half the size of a pack of playing cards. It would contain a SIM card, but there was no time to extract it.

I read the screen. She was replying to a Hotmail. The sender had had plenty to say but I didn't have time to read it. The important stuff was in the header. The message was timed at 8.37 a.m. GMT today. The laptop told me it was now 04:10, so the email had come from the east.

The toilet flushed.

I pulled the notebook and pencil from my pocket and scribbled the IMEI and SN numbers from the back. They'd mean something to somebody who knew about that shit. I wrote down both Hotmail addresses.

I moved quickly and was back behind the settee before she settled down at the island again. A few seconds later, she was pounding the keys.

She kept it up for another twenty minutes before I heard another glug followed by a click. The stool grated on the floor and her mules clacked back down the stairs accompanied by a few more sniffs and sobs. Seconds later they came back up, and towards the front room. She carried on past and up the stairs. I looked out. Her glass had gone but not the cigarettes.

I moved down the hall to the kitchen.

She'd left the mail. Only a couple of letters were open. One had a green motif and was headed Dublin Drug Outreach. It was addressed to Finbar in St Stephen's Green. Maybe he did live here and his mail was forwarded. Maybe she was picking it up for him. I read the letter quickly. He hadn't attended any sessions for the last four weeks and had made no contact with his mentor. They were worried about him.

The letter underneath was from an estate agent. He was jumping for joy that she'd accepted an offer for €6.5 million for 88 Herbert Park.

There was a noise upstairs. Probably her going to the bathroom again, but maybe not. I wasn't going to risk going back for the mobile in the drawer. Fuck it, it was time to go.

Back in the toilet, I unwound the fishing-line from my left wrist. I'd already prepared the loose end into a three- or four-strand loop. Four-pounds breaking strain was a little weak. I put the loop over the end of the latch, fed the free end through the gap between the frames and opened the bottom window. Then I grabbed the free end of the line and pulled it through.

I lowered myself into the garden. A couple of dogs a few houses away were too interested in growling at each other to worry about me.

Gripping the line to keep it taut, I pulled the window closed. It took just one smooth pull for the latch to flick across, and the loop jumped free. The internal frame locks weren't a worry; nobody ever checks them.

I made my way to the back wall, pulled myself up and rolled over the top, the way I'd got in. There was a gate, but I couldn't use it. I wouldn't be able to bolt it again once I was streetside.

I turned left and headed up the service road. I got out my mobile and dialled as I walked.

It rang just once.

'I couldn't get the mobile but I think they're in contact via Hotmail. She's using a modem.' I read him the IMEI and SN numbers. 'But listen, there's more. There's a letter from an estate agency — Fitzgerald Drum Maguire & Walshe. It was addressed to just Mrs, not Mr and Mrs. She's selling the house.'

This time I closed down before he did. He would have to wait for me now.

The time difference on the email was four and a half hours. She had taken a couple of minutes to read the thing before going into water-fountain mode. There was only one time zone that was four and half hours ahead of GMT, and I was prepared to bet good money on finding a man called Baz there.

I was feeling quite pleased with myself, until I walked out on to the main road and looked down to see my boots still covered with the two flowery shower caps.

39

At least it had stopped raining.

You could smell the money round St Stephen's Green. Not as strongly as down Ballsbridge way, but it was getting there. The park was beautifully kept and dotted with memorials to the great and good. There wasn't a statue to celebrate EU subsidies yet, but it was only a matter of time.

I came out at the northern edge of the square and counted down the numbers to the one on the letter. It was an elegant Georgian townhouse. The big black door looked just like the one at 10 Downing Street, even down to the large fanlight and thickly glossed white columns. Black railings lined the stone steps.

I carried on past with my takeaway latte in one hand and a big map in the other, then parked my arse on a doorstep a couple down and played the dickhead tourist. Leaning against my Bergen, I spread the map on my lap and got very interested in orienting it with the street.

A guy in painter's overalls came out of the black door and fetched some brushes and rollers from a Transit. He went back in.

The Yes Man mightn't have thought it worth checking this place out, but I did, for two reasons: Pete had filmed there and Finbar lived there. And it looked like I'd been vindicated. I'd been expecting a junkie's squat, but it was smart enough to be the Saudi embassy.

The two windows on the top floor, the third storey, were open. The guy in overalls eventually appeared behind the one to the right.

None of the windows at the front had curtains or blinds. The ceilings had no lights hanging. Just like the flat being decorated, no one was living there. Was the whole place being made ready to go on the market?

There were four buttons on the polished brass entryphone. I pressed number four.

'Hello there?' He sounded much older than the guy in overalls, and a forty-a-day man.

'I'm a friend of Finbar's, number four — can you let me in?'

He didn't answer but the door buzzed. I pushed it open. There was a strong smell of fresh paint.

'Up to the top.' A head came over the banister. 'Hope you got oxygen.' He chuckled to himself and disappeared.

The four pigeonholes held nothing but flyers for pizzas and taxis.

I headed up. The building had been gutted and rebuilt. New deep-pile carpet was laid on York stone. I reached the top floor, where the smell and gleam of fresh white gloss nearly overpowered me.

The head turned out to belong to the older of two guys. His overalls looked like a Jackson Pollock painting. Not much of an ad for his decorating skills. I followed him through the open door. Dustsheets covered the floor. A third guy clutched the top of a very tall ladder and worked his brush over an elaborate ceiling rose.

'This Finbar lad is very popular. You're the second one to come looking for him in as many days.'

'Who was the first?'

'His mum. Well, she said she was. She took his post.'

'We were supposed to meet up today.'

He winked. 'Who? You and his mum?'

'Finbar. Young lad — twentyish?'

'Never seen him.'

'Who gave you the job — his mum?'

'No. All the places we do belong to one of these fancy London property companies. We finished this building a few months ago. Got the call to come and redo this flat before the whole thing's sold.'

'Oh… I thought he owned it.'

He shook his head. 'Like I said, it's a developer.'

'So you never saw Finbar… You don't know where he's gone?'

'Not a clue. I didn't even know anyone was living here until his mum came round.'

'Thanks anyway. If he turns up, can you tell him Chris called?'

My mobile rang as I headed down the stairs. I knew the Yes Man had been wrong not to go down this route. I tried not to crow. 'The house is going cheap and the stepson lived in a flat that—'

'Stop wasting time. We know this. Once you do your job we can do ours. We traced the email.'

'Afghanistan?'

For once, the Yes Man was silent.

'It's the only place I know that's four and a half ahead.'

'Quite so. The email was sent from Kabul.'

'Is it Dom?'

'Possibly. They claim to be from him, and there have been a number of exchanges. If so, they're using him to negotiate with his wife.'

'I want to see them.'

I hit the street and headed for the main. 'Any idea why he went to Afghanistan?'

'Heroin? Looking after his interests? He was probably lifted by the local Islamafia or one of the bounty-hunter groups — they know he has cash. I'm trying to discover which group may have him.'

'OK, I need you to make sure this mobile works over there. I need a visa, a cover story, and a laptop with Internet access. I want to be able to read any more emails coming through while I'm there. Also, as much mapping and photography as you can lay your hands on.'

I waved down a cab. 'I can't talk. I'll be coming into City airport. I'll call to confirm.'

I threw my Bergen on to the back seat and jumped in.

40

Arrivals buzzed with City boys and girls flying in from Europe with a few more zeroes on their annual bonuses. Most were being met by men in grey suits who held up name cards. It made the Yes Man easy to spot. He'd taken off his jacket and tie, and was in a checked business shirt with gold cufflinks, suit trousers and shiny black shoes.

I aimed for the coffee shop. 'I've been up all night. You want one?'

'No, thank you.'

I asked for the large latte-and-muffin deal, and was just about to organize a mortgage to pay for it when he got his money out.

We didn't exchange another word until we were through the automatic doors and walking past the lines of cabs and buses. The airport was slap in the middle of Docklands. Blocks of new million-pound apartments stood uncomfortably alongside estates built to house dockers after the Blitz.

'You get all the gear I asked for?'

The Yes Man clenched his jaw. Maybe he wasn't used to meeting in public. He certainly wasn't happy taking orders from his underlings. 'Yes, and I have the emails. You're right, by the by. He launders money via a property company here in the City. We knew that. We had it covered.' The Yes Man pulled an A4 sheet from his pocket. 'There have been three emails from Dominik, starting last Sunday. All originate from the same location in Kabul. The ransom is eight million US.'

I gave him a frown. 'If he's the big-time drugs baron, why the need to sell the house?'

He was getting annoyed now. 'He has the cash, believe me. He probably wants it to look as if they're giving up everything, just to keep the price down. Back to the matter in hand…'

I read the page. Dom's emails were basically messages of love and hope. Siobhan's were about progress in raising funds.

She'd spoken to Patrick, she said. I presumed he was their money man. Patrick was trying his best to liquidate their portfolio.

I was right: it hadn't been the flu making her sniffy and red-eyed in the kitchen last night. Maybe she didn't normally drink or smoke. Whatever her state of mind, she was on the ball enough to ask for proof of life each time. Last time, she must have asked him about a suit, because Dom's email started:

It ended:

One thing we knew for sure, then: up to the point he wrote those words, he was alive. They could only have come from Dom.

Proof-of-life statements are an important part of any hostage deal. A trained negotiator would also be looking for clues that Dom was either bullshitting or under duress. Prone-to-capture troops and business people working in hostile zones have a ready-prepared under-duress sign, and maybe even a coded means of identifying locations. All Dom's had been sent at around eighty thirty, local. That was why she had been up, online and waiting.

We'd reached a bank of pay stations for the short-stay. I handed him back the sheet. 'Any idea yet who's lifted him?'

Criminals would demand a ransom and hold out for it. Only if it didn't eventually materialize would they offload him in a fire sale to another gang — or, in Afghanistan, the Taliban. That was when things usually turned nasty. Each gang would sell him on to the next like a girl passed between sex-traffickers; he'd spiral down a chain of extremist groups with life getting worse and worse until he ended up with one who didn't want anything except to hack off his head in front of a camera.

The Yes Man shook his head. 'It could be freelancers, it could be another drug cartel. I don't know and don't care.' He put the sheet into his pocket and paid for his ticket. 'I just want him back and in a fit state to talk.'

We stalled as four guys walked past with suit-carriers over their arms and overnight bags trundling on wheels behind them.

'Is he emailing anybody else?'

'No.'

The Yes Man had phenomenal electronic firepower at his beck and call. Using the Echelon system, GCHQ could capture radio and satellite communications, telephone calls, faxes, emails and other data streams nearly anywhere in the world.

'This could all be bullshit to get the cash from the house and fuck his wife off.' He gave me a strange look and I wondered if he thought I'd lost my marbles. 'Why not?' I raised my palms. 'We don't know what the fuck is happening.'

He did it again. I suddenly realized it was the profanity and not the idea he didn't like.

'There's no other traffic from that or any other email address while the user is logged on. But his emails have all been sent from the same location.'

He'd stopped by the boot of a navy Audi A4 and produced a key fob from his trouser pocket. He pressed it and the boot unlocked. A laptop bag was sitting on top of picnic blankets and wellington boots.

'Everything you need is loaded in here. New ACA, the lot. The Read Me file will start you off. If you have information, you send it directly to me the moment it happens.'

He handed me the case. 'The password is your old army number. You know how to work Schubert?'

I nodded. GCHQ had developed the secure hard drive and email system so not even the Americans could suck it up. There wasn't anything to know about it. It just, like, worked.

'Good. The mobile will still be secure there.'

He unzipped the front pocket of the bag to show me the airline tickets.

He took a step closer, as if airport car parks had ears. I could see inside his collar. He'd been squeezing that boil.

'I want to keep foremost in your mind the sensitivity of this operation. There are people in the FCO in Kabul, embassy officials, who may well be part of the problem. We need him back without anyone knowing.'

He held out a hand, but shaking wasn't what he had in mind. 'Why don't you let me have your own documents, for security? I'll hold them until you get back.'

I zipped up the laptop and put it over my shoulder. I smiled, shook my head and walked away.