Part One
MINDORO ISLAND,
One Year Later
1
I was sitting in Tina's Sunset Restaurant, watching the outriggers shuffle lazily through the clear waters of Sabang Bay, when Tomboy took a seat opposite me, ordered a San Miguel from Tina's daughter, and told me that someone else had to die. It was five o'clock in the afternoon, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and up until that point I'd been in a good mood.
I told him that I didn't kill people any more, that it was a part of my past I didn't want to be reminded of, and he replied that he understood all that, but once again we needed the money. 'It's just the way the cookie crumbles,' he added, with the sort of bullshit 'I share your suffering' expression an undertaker might give to one of his customers' relatives. Tomboy Darke was my business partner and a man with a cliche for every occasion, including murder.
Tina's was empty, as was usually the case at that time of day. It was right at the end of the collection of bars and guest houses that pass for the small tourist town of Sabang's main drag, and tucked away enough that few of the tourists ever used it, so I'd known as soon as Tomboy had asked to meet me here that something was up. It was the sort of place you went to when you wanted to talk without anyone else listening. So I talked. 'Who's the target?'
He paused while the beer was put down in front of him, then waited until Tina's daughter was out of earshot. 'The bloke's name's Billy Warren,' he said quietly. 'He's on the Thursday flight out of Heathrow, arriving in Manila Friday morning.'
'Today's Wednesday, Tomboy.'
'I know that,' he answered, running his fingers through what was left of his hair. 'But you know what they say. Time waits for no man.'
'What's he done, this Warren?'
'No one's saying anything at the moment, it's all very hush-hush. But he's running away from something – something serious. Just like you. Except this time, someone wants to kill him for it. He ain't going to be whiter than white, put it like that.'
'How much are they offering for the job?'
'Thirty thousand US. A lot of money.'
He was right, it was. Particularly here in the Philippines. The business we ran – a small hotel with dive operation attached – didn't take much more than that in a year, and thanks to Al Qaeda's continued efforts to mangle Western tourism in the Far East, things weren't likely to improve much in the year ahead. By the time we'd paid the staff, the local authorities and covered our running costs, we cleared maybe a third of that in profit. Paradise is nice, but it rarely makes you rich.
I took a sip from my beer. 'Someone must want him dead very badly.'
He nodded and pulled a soft-top pack of Marlboro Lights from his pocket, lighting one. 'They do. Not only that, they want him to disappear. No trace.'
'That's not going to be very easy in Manila.'
'It ain't going to be in Manila. As soon as he arrives, he's getting a cab down to Batangas, and a boat across to Puerta Galera.' Puerta Galera was the nearest main town to us and Mindoro Island's main port. 'He's got a room booked at the Hotel California on East Brucal Street. It's already been paid for. He's been told that you're going to meet him there to give him instructions and a briefcase full of money. What you need to do is get him out of the room and take him for a drive. One that he don't come back from.'
'If I accept the job.'
'Yeah,' he said with some reluctance, 'if you accept the job. But you know how things are at the moment. We need this cash. Badly. I wouldn't ask you if we didn't, you know that.'
'We've been in this place how long? A year? And you want me to take someone out five kilometres down the road. Don't you think that's just a little bit risky?'
'No one'll ever find the body. We're getting fifteen grand up front. All we need to do is provide photos proving it's been done and we'll get the balance of the cash. And that'll be the end of it.'
That'll be the end of it. I'd heard that one before. 'Last question. Who's the client?'
'Pope. Same as last time.'
'No doubt doing it on behalf of someone else?'
Tomboy nodded vaguely. 'No doubt.'
The mysterious Mr Pope. An old criminal contact of Tomboy's from London, he'd first got in touch a year ago with a business proposition, having tracked down Tomboy all the way to Sabang, which must have taken some doing. The business proposition had been the execution of Richard Blacklip, a British paedophile on the run from the law in the UK who was heading to Manila on a false passport. Someone Pope knew – apparently one of his victims, who was now an adult – wanted Blacklip dead, and Pope had asked Tomboy if he could organize someone reliable to carry out the task.
It might have seemed like a strange request for most people, but Tomboy Darke had been a career criminal all his life (albeit more of a ducker and diver than a man of violence) and had spent many years moving in the sort of circles where such things occasionally happened, and where people weren't so hesitant in asking the question.
And, of course, Tomboy had known just the man.
I sighed loudly, not wanting to get involved in a repeat performance.
He took a huge gulp from the neck of the beer, dragged on the cigarette and looked me right in the eye. 'I know you don't want to do it. I don't much want to do it, to be honest with you. But this is big money, and I'm telling you, this bloke's no angel. He's fleeing London for the back-end of nowhere, meeting someone to get a caseload of cash off them so he can start a new life a long way from prying eyes. Does that sound like someone with a clear conscience to you?'
He had a point there, but if there's one thing I've learned in life, it's never to take anything you're told at face value. I'd made that mistake before, and it had almost cost me my life. In the three years since I'd left England, I'd tried to put all that behind me, to start afresh. Just like this guy Warren was trying to do. But you can never escape the past for ever, as he was about to find out.
I continued looking at Tomboy and he continued looking at me. I was thinking that there might be a way round this. A way of getting the money, doctoring a few photos, and not having to kill anyone. I suspected that he was just thinking about the money. Even so, I told him what he wanted to hear.
'All right,' I said. 'I'll do it.'
2
Tomboy drank the rest of his beer and ordered another one from Tina's daughter. He then spent the next few minutes flirting with her while she leaned against the table opposite, a cloth in one hand and a smile on her face that was wide enough to be friendly but had little in the way of depth.
He said he bet that all the boys were chasing after her, and told her what a pretty young thing she was. She was a pretty young thing too but I doubted if she was a day over sixteen – while Tomboy was, if my memory served me correctly, the grand old age of forty-two, which made the whole thing look a little tasteless. He winked at me now and again, between jokes and compliments, just to demonstrate that it was nothing more than light-hearted banter, but I could see the hint of desperation in his act. He might have thought he was messing about, but, like a lot of men whose looks are fading as their waistlines expand, he needed to believe he still had that elusive 'something' the girls always go for. Unfortunately, he didn't. As well as being about three stone heavier than he had been back in the old days in London, the booze had reddened his nose and cheeks and scattered them with clusters of broken veins, while his precious blond locks – the pride and joy of his youth – had been reduced to a few desperate strands on top and a scraggy ponytail at the back.
But that didn't stop him. He asked Tina's daughter what she liked most in a man. 'Apart from the obvious,' he added, chortling.