‘Going home?’
‘Uh — naw — using one of the service apartments tonight. Need an early start.’ This meant he would be staying within the confines of the embassy in one of the tiny en-suite rooms at the rear of the building. They were known colloquially as ‘hell holes’ and the team had been granted special permission to use them whenever necessary.
‘Yeah, me too,’ she said, smiling. ‘How about a drink first? The night is young.’
Donaldson eyed her. ‘Yeah, maybe,’ he drawled.
‘How about food? I bet you haven’t eaten since that croissant this morning, have ya?’
In a reply that said it all, Donaldson’s stomach growled loudly and they both chuckled.
‘You’re right,’ he said patting his tummy. He was suddenly famished. He guessed it wouldn’t do any harm to go get a bite to eat with Jo because he didn’t intend it to go any further than food. Even though he’d had a very terse conversation with his wife earlier that evening when she’d castigated him for never coming home and being obsessed with work. The conversation had frozen after he’d announced his intention to bed down overnight at the embassy.
‘There’s a new Chinese on Curzon Street — opens late,’ Jo suggested.
‘Chinese sounds good,’ he said but there was a touch of hesitation in his voice. ‘Er… just need to make a couple of quick calls, actually,’ he fibbed. ‘Time zones, etcetera,’ he explained. ‘Won’t take long… see you at the staff exit in five?’
‘Yeah, no probs.’ Her eyes shone brightly at him.
Donaldson waited for her to go before using his mobile phone to call Karen. He didn’t call the home number, but her mobile instead (even though he still insisted on calling them cellphones). She did not answer. He left a faltering, apologetic message on the answering service and felt utterly guilty about going out for some late night nosh with the stunning Jo.
He rose reluctantly, resolving to enjoy the food and the company, and nothing else. He was, after all, starving. He jerked his jacket off the back of his chair and shrugged himself into it, checked the desk — computer closed down properly, drawers locked — and was about to head for the door when the desk phone rang shrilly.
Had he been less conscientious he would have ignored it.
He scooped it up. ‘Karl Donaldson, Homeland Security.’ He squinted at the display but did not recognize the caller number.
Nor did he get to bed that night.
‘Karl, this is Don Barber from the Madrid office.’ From the tone of those few words he knew the news was bad, but he didn’t have any idea what it would be. He knew Barber well. He was ex-special forces who had left the army after distinguished service in the Kuwait theatre, got himself a law degree and joined the FBI. They’d actually worked together for a short spell in the mid-nineties before their paths diverged. Barber had made a good career for himself and at that time headed up the FBI Madrid office. Instinctively, Donaldson checked the wall clock — midnight plus ten — one ten Spanish time.
‘Don — wassup?’
‘It’s Shark,’ he said, his voice jittering, spreading a horrible feeling of iciness through Donaldson.
‘What about him?’
‘I’m really sorry to have to tell you this, but he was shot to death a little earlier this evening in a place just outside Palma, Majorca.’
Donaldson sat down numbly. ‘Tell me everything,’ he said…
‘Anyway, FBI man, why you so interested in three dead Italians?’ Fazil wanted to know.
‘I’m a law enforcement officer, that’s all you need to know. This is simply an information-gathering interview.’
‘I don’t have to speak to you, then.’ Fazil blew out several lazy rings of smoke, now completely relaxed since being allowed the cigarettes.
‘That depends, my friend…’
‘On what?’
Donaldson wiped a hand across his brow. It came away damp with sweat. ‘The days of rules are well past. On the face of it I will obey the rules — of interview, of Human Rights, of fairness — but underneath I will be operating on a different level, like the feet of a duck.’ Donaldson wiggled the first two fingers on his right hand to imitate a duck’s feet. ‘I will throw you to the wolves if you don’t cooperate with me.’
Fazil eyed him cynically.
‘I can be your friend or your enemy. Your choice.’
‘Mr Donaldson.’ Fazil smashed out the stub of his cigarette in the ashtray. ‘I have killed a Maltese police officer in a firefight. I will be found guilty of that and I will be incarcerated on this stinking island for many, many years. Even that thought will not make me talk to you.’ His dark eyes looked down and his wide nostrils flared.
Donaldson caught the first BA flight from London Gatwick to Palma later that morning, three years before. Don Barber met him at the airport, hustled him through customs into a waiting car, which was driven for less than ten minutes to the beach front restaurant in Can Pastilla where the shooting had taken place the evening before.
The bodies had all been removed but otherwise the scene was as it had been, and the road in front of the hotel was cordoned off to through traffic. The local police scientific team was working the scene as professionally as anything Donaldson had ever witnessed.
He and Don Barber were allowed under the tape and Barber walked him through what had happened with the permission of the senior police officer present, who could only speculate as to why two FBI agents were here.
‘Hell,’ Donaldson said afterwards. ‘Where are the bodies now?’
‘Palma mortuary.’
‘And do we have anything?’
‘Only the names of all three victims.’
‘What about evidence from the scene itself?’
‘We could have something,’ Barber said, consulting a flip over notepad he had with him. ‘From the waiter, who despite being in shock, has given us a pretty good description of the shooter — which I’ll come to later — it seems that another customer went to the restroom, which was then visited by the shooter. He then returned to the table, then opened fire. Bam!’ Barber said bitterly. ‘Paella everywhere. But don’t get excited, we don’t know if the shooter left any traces in the john or at the table. I reckon it’s doubtful, but I’ve got our own crime scene guys on the way from Madrid and I’ve asked the locals to hold back a bit — not that I’m saying they aren’t doing a good job. But obviously they are very interested as to why the FBI is sniffin’ around, though.’
‘As they would be.’ The two men looked at each other knowingly.
‘Anyway, pal, back to basics,’ Barber said. ‘Just before our shooter visited the john, another customer went in a few minutes before him, then afterwards immediately left the joint.’
Donaldson blinked.
‘I might be adding up to five here,’ Barber said, ‘but I’m guessing this could be the delivery man — and he was sitting right there.’ Barber pointed dramatically to a table in the back corner of the restaurant. ‘And his stuff hasn’t been cleared away, which could be useful, scientifically.’
‘That’s supposing he was involved in some way.’
‘If he isn’t, fair enough… but we’ll see what comes of it.’
Donaldson imagined the crime taking place, based on how it had been described to him. Suddenly he felt quite ill.
Shark wasn’t his man, not directly, but he knew him, knew what his task was, but above all knew what it felt like to lose an undercover agent. He patted Barber on the shoulder and said, ‘I’m real sorry, man.’
‘Yeah,’ Barber snorted, his eyes moist. Barber was Shark’s controller. ‘Fuck,’ he added. Then, ‘I want you to find the killer, Karl. I’ve cleared it with your boss. Hope you don’t mind.’
‘I can prove you were at the scene of a multiple homicide in a restaurant in Majorca three years ago — and I know you were the person who delivered the weapon to the man who carried out the murders.’
Fazil chuckled derisively.
Donaldson went on, ‘You were sitting at a table in the same restaurant. You went to the toilet a few minutes before the killer. You secreted a weapon underneath the lid of the toilet cistern.’