The smell of infidel decadence.
His work completed, Sallum sat, placing himself opposite the door, the gun in his hand, ready to react if anyone came in. The meeting was scheduled to last half an hour, and he had another seven minutes to wait. To leave early would be suspicious. He would take the time to adjust the robes and the veil, to get his breath and his pulse-rate back under control.
He started to stretch. Always exercise after an execution, he reminded himself.
He checked the pistol, then placed it back inside the belt of the jeans he was wearing beneath his robes.
I still have four bullets in the gun. Enough if I have to fight my way out of here.
He stood up and walked calmly towards the door. If I die, what of it? he reflected, glancing down the length of the corridor. I have killed three infidels today. The sacrifice of my own blood would be an honour.
The chatter and buzz of the early-evening cocktail hour had started, and Matt glanced through the restaurant. Janey, the manageress, was holding court at the bar, regaling an elderly couple with some of the more salacious local gossip. Out on the balcony a group of muscled men were sitting at a table covered with open beer bottles and empty crisp packets. Three of them Matt recognised. Local gangsters, they worked the informal, underworld trade routes between Essex and Marbella, shipping stolen cars, guns, drugs, anything that turned a quick and easy profit. The other three he hadn't seen before, but judging by the whiteness of their complexions they were fresh off the plane. Looking for work, probably. Or making a delivery. As long as they kept to themselves, and paid for the beer and the food, nobody at the Last Trumpet would bother them. Along the Marbella coastline, that was the only way you stayed in business.
'You OK, Matt?' said David, a former paratrooper now doing security work for some of the Arab bankers who kept houses along the coast.
They can see it in my eyes, Matt thought, and in the way my shoulders are sagging. 'Keeping my chin up,' he answered. 'You?'
'Touch of bother up at the big house,' said David. 'One of the lady sheiks went a bit crazy, slapped one of the cleaning girls around a bit. You know what those Arabs are like, they treat the servants like scum. Anyway, this girl's brother goes crazy, starts coming up to the house looking to defend the honour of their family. Usual Spanish macho bullshit — a lot of lip and not much action.'
'Let me know if you need some help,' said Matt. 'The way I'm feeling I could use a good scrap.'
'Need extra money, Matt?' David took a sip on his glass of beer. 'I'd have thought you'd be doing OK with your share of this place. I spend enough money in here to pay off Victoria Beckham's credit-card bills.'
Matt grinned. 'I can always use a bit more.'
On the TV screen Sky Sports was playing, showing a Newcastle-Sunderland game, but apart from Keith, the local Geordie, nobody was very interested. It was mostly a Southern crowd along this stretch of the Marbella coast. Boys from Essex and Kent and London with their Barbie-doll girlfriends, at home among their own kind. The Northerners tended to settle further along towards Torremolinos. To Matt, they were even more foreign than the Spanish.
Matt swung open the door to the back office. He only owned a fifth of the bar, and Janey was the manageress, but he always looked after the back office — the main reason, he sometimes suspected, that Damien had wanted him to come in as an investor. Damien had been looking for a man he could rely on to add up the night's takings and get the cash into the bank the following morning without getting robbed. Matt also made sure there was no trouble at the bar.
Maybe Damien wanted me to keep an eye on Gill as well, Matt considered as he sat down in front of the computer. The three of us were like one big family, always running in and out of each other's houses. Gill just didn't like her family much, not when she grew up and realised what it was her Dad and her brother actually did for a living. She came out here to get away from that — and then she was stupid enough to fall in love with me.
Matt rubbed his eyes, trying to focus on the numbers. The bar was a living. If only I had been a bit more sensible, he thought. I might still have Gill, and we might be going on our honeymoon in Marrakech in a couple of weeks' time.
The light was flickering on the computer screen. Matt took another sip of the Coke he'd poured at the bar and switched on to the internet, waiting patiently while the modem searched for the connection. The software took an age to load, but Matt didn't mind waiting. He suspected the news was not going to be good.
He had learnt about trading shares just after getting out of the SAS and picking up a job bodyguarding Harry Stroller, an American internet entrepreneur who had made five hundred million dollars from floating his company during the dotcom boom — and then seen the value of the business double in the next year. Despite their different paths through life, Matt and Harry were men chiselled from the same stone: they were the same age, 35, they were both physically fit and mentally alert, they both liked to drink beer and chase girls, and neither of them minded taking a risk. The only real difference, Matt sometimes reflected as he sat for hours outside board meetings, was that Harry could programme a computer and work a spreadsheet, and Matt could throw a knife and fire a gun. Harry's skills paid millions, and Matt's just a few thousand. And when you get that close to the big cake, you want a slice of it for yourself.
After three months the two men had become solid friends, disappearing to bars together after Harry was through with his work. He'd started giving Matt share tips, and at the height of the dotcom bubble that was a valuable commodity. Harry knew from the bankers and brokers he talked to each day exactly which stocks were about to fly and when, and he passed the information on to Matt. Whether it was exactly legal or not, Matt wasn't sure. But he wasn't about to shut down a goldmine by asking anyone.
Soon, the tips became a lot more valuable than the job. Harry was paying a thousand dollars a day to protect him, but Matt was making five or ten times that just by trading shares. At the end of the job he had made enough to buy him his share in the Last Trumpet, to invest in a flat in London, to get a new silver Porsche Boxster, and to leave over enough to keep trading. The restaurant gave him a stake in a real business, something he could work at, and be proud of.
But by the time Matt stopped working for Harry he was addicted to trading. And he made the biggest mistake of all. He thought he was clever. He carried on trading shares, but without Harry to tell him what to buy and sell, every share he bought went down instead of up. The money quickly evaporated, and then the debts started to mount up.
It wasn't greed. I was just trying to make the money for you, Gill. To give us a decent life together.
Matt looked at the computer screen, where the shares in his portfolio were displayed in neat tables. Ten different stocks, all of them purchased in the last six months. All of them with borrowed money. And all of them trading heavily down.
At a rough calculation, Matt reckoned he owed a half-million. And the people he owed it to didn't just charge interest. They didn't just downgrade your credit rating. They killed you.
TWO
Matt glanced towards Alison once, looked away, then found his eyes moving back towards her. A seven, maybe. No, make that an eight. Borderline nine, even.
Bad thought, Matt. You've got enough problems without eying up other women.
She was tall, with blonde hair that tumbled down the back of her neck, and a strong athletic build: a woman, Matt judged, who knew her way around the gym as well as the bedroom. She was wearing tight leather trousers and a pink silk blouse with the top two buttons undone. A single string of pearls was wrapped round her neck, there was a one-diamond earring glittering on either side of her face, and just enough cleavage on display to hook your interest.