Doyle watched him nervously. Donovan hadn't explained what the problem was, but he'd overheard enough of the conversation with Robbie to realise that it was personal and that he had better tread carefully. He started the car and blipped the engine.
Donovan stopped beating a tattoo and his forehead creased into a deep frown.
"Oh shit," he whispered.
"Boss?"
"Shit, shit, shit." Donovan turned to stare at Doyle, but there was a faraway look in his eyes as if he was having trouble focusing.
"I need a computer. Now."
"The resort, yeah?"
Donovan nodded. The Jack Tar Resort Hotel was supposedly for movers and shakers who wanted to escape from the trials and tribulations of the world of commerce, but it had a fully equipped business centre that was often better attended than the pool. Donovan leaned back in the cream leather seat and massaged his temples with his fingertips.
The mobile phone rang. Doyle had put it on the console by the gear stick and he grabbed at it with his free hand.
"Yeah?" He handed it to Donovan.
"It's Laura."
Donovan listened in silence as his sister told him what had happened at the house. And how the safe had been emptied. Donovan cursed.
"Everything, yeah? No passport? No envelope?"
"The cupboard was bare, Den. Sorry."
"Okay, look, Laura, I think you'd best keep Robbie away from school until I get back. If she's got his passport she might try to get him out of the country. Just tell the school he's sick or something."
"Will do, Den."
"And you know what to do if she turns up at your house?"
"She'll get a piece of my mind if she does, I can tell you."
Donovan smiled to himself. He'd seen his sister in full flow, and it wasn't an experience to be relished.
"Do me another favour, Laura. Call Banhams in Kensington. Get them to change all the locks and reset the alarm with a new code. Any of the paintings missing?"
"Bloody hell, Den, how would I know?"
"Gaps on the wall would probably be a clue, Laura. Hooks with nothing hanging from them."
"I'm so pleased that you haven't lost your sense of humour, brother-of-mine. I didn't see any missing, no."
Donovan considered asking his sister to arrange to put the paintings into storage, but figured they'd probably be safe enough once the house was secured. The last time he'd had them valued was five years ago, and they'd been worth close to a million pounds in total. The art market had been buoyant recently and Donovan figured they'd probably doubled in value since then. Vicky didn't share his love of art and he hadn't told her how much the paintings were worth.
"I'll call you later, Laura. And thanks. Tell Robbie I love him, yeah?"
Donovan cut the connection and tapped the phone against his chin. Changing the locks and resetting the alarm was all well and good, but Donovan knew that he was shutting the stable door after the horses had well and truly bolted.
Doyle drove into the hotel resort, giving the uniformed security guard a cheery wave, and pulled up in front of Reception.
"Wait here," said Donovan. He walked quickly through the huge reception area, his heels clicking on the marble floor. He jogged up a sweeping set of stairs and pushed open the door to the hotel's business centre.
A pretty black girl with waist-length braided hair flashed him a beaming smile and asked him for his room number. Donovan slipped her a hundred-dollar bill without breaking his stride.
"I'll just be a couple of minutes," he said. He sat down at a computer terminal in the corner of the room and said a silent prayer before launching Internet Explorer and keying in the URL of a small bank in Switzerland. He was asked for an account number and an eight-digit personal identification number.
Donovan took a deep breath and prepared himself for the worst as he waited for his account to be accessed. The screen went blank for a second and then a spreadsheet appeared, listing all transactions for the account over the past quarter. Donovan sagged in the leather armchair. There was just two thousand dollars left in the account.
He left the bank's site and tapped in another URL, this one for a bank in the Cayman Islands. Ten minutes later and Donovan had visited half a dozen financial institutions in areas renowned for their secrecy and security. His total deposits amounted to a little over eighty thousand dollars. In total sixty million dollars was missing.
Mark Gardner flicked through the channels but couldn't find anything to hold his attention. Reruns of old comedy shows that he half-remembered watching, films that he'd already seen on video, and shows about cooking or decorating. He looked up as Laura came into the room holding two mugs of hot chocolate.
"He's asleep," she said, handing him a mug and sitting down on the sofa next to him. She swung her legs on to his lap and lay back, resting the mug on her stomach.
"What do you think he's going to do?"
"Robbie?"
"Your brother."
Laura ran a finger around the lip of her mug.
"He'll look after Robbie. You know how much his son means to him."
"I thought he wasn't allowed in the UK. I thought the cops were after him."
"He was under surveillance."
"He was Britain's most wanted," said Gardner.
"Tango One, they called him."
"Tango just means target. It means they were looking at him, it doesn't mean he's done anything wrong."
"There's no smoke without fire."
"Yeah, and an apple a day keeps the doctor away. Are we going to swap cliches all night? Den's Den and that's the end of it."
"I know, love, and I think the world of him. And Robbie. But I don't want us to get caught up in the middle of something."
Laura took her legs off her husband's lap and sat up.
"Like what?"
"I don't know what. But Vicky's got a temper and you know what Den's like."
"What, you think they're going to come in here with guns blazing?"
"You know that's not what I mean, but there's going to be one hell of a court battle over Robbie. They'll both want custody."
"She got caught sleeping around, Mark. It'll be open and shut."
"It's never open and shut in British courts. It'll be a dirty fight, thousand-pound-an-hour lawyers at thirty paces."
"That's not our problem."
There was a scuffling at the doorway and they both jumped. Laura's hot chocolate slopped over her knees.
It was Robbie, rubbing his eyes.
"I can't sleep," he said.
Laura put her mug on the coffee table, and went over and hugged him.
"What's wrong, Robbie?" she asked.
"I had a bad dream," he said.
She led him over to the sofa. Mark shuffled over to make room for them. He put a hand around Robbie's shoulder.
"You'll be okay, Robbie."
"Where's Dad?"
"He's coming," said Laura.
"I want my dad," said Robbie, and the tears started to flow again.
"I know you do," said Laura. She looked across at Mark and he shrugged. There was nothing either of them could say or do to make things any easier for Robbie. All they could do was to wait for Den Donovan.
Laura put her cheek against the top of Robbie's head and whispered softly to him. After a while the tears stopped and a few minutes later he was snoring softly. Laura smiled at her husband.
"I'll put him in Jenny's room. I don't want him sleeping on his own tonight."
"Good idea," said Mark.
"Shall I take him up?"
Laura shook her head.
"He's not heavy." She carried him upstairs. Seven-year-old Jenny was fast asleep on top of her bunk bed. Jenny had shared a room with her sister until Julie had declared that she was too old to be sharing and had insisted on a room of her own. At the time Julie had been all of four years old and Jenny had been three. Jenny had insisted on her own list of demands including keeping the bunk bed for herself, and a change of wallpaper.