"Don't look at him, look at me. He's not your problem, I am."
Doyle's eyes watered from the pain and he glared at the Colombian.
"Good," said Rodriguez soothingly.
"Anger is good. So much more productive than fear. Anger makes the body and the mind work more efficiently, but fear shuts everything down. So how is your mind working now? Your memory returning, is it? Where is he?"
Doyle felt hands running around his waist but when he tried to look down Rodriguez jerked his head up.
"How deep do you think the pool is at this end?" asked Rodriguez.
"What?"
"The pool? Twelve feet, do you think?"
Doyle swallowed nervously.
"This is stupid."
Rodriguez let go of Doyle's hair and slapped him twice, forehand and backhand. He had a chunky diamond ring on the little finger of his right hand and on the second blow it sliced through Doyle's cheek. Doyle felt the flesh part and the blood flow but he wasn't aware of any pain. It was as if his whole body had gone numb. Rodriguez was right. Fear was totally unproductive. His body was shutting down. Preparing for death.
"Are you calling me stupid?" hissed Rodriguez.
"No." Doyle tried to touch his injured cheek but the man on his right twisted his arm up behind his back.
"There must be something wrong with my ears, then, because I thought I heard you say I was stupid."
"I said it was stupid. The situation."
Rodriguez smiled without warmth.
"The situation? That's what this is, a situation?"
The man with the weightlifter's forearms knelt down in front of Doyle, his face level with Doyle's crotch. He had the chain in his hands and he passed it around Doyle's waist and fastened it with a small padlock. The man leered at Doyle as he stood up.
"I meant that it's pointless getting heavy with me. Den's the one you want."
"Which is why I'm asking you for the last time. Where is he?"
"London."
Rodriguez frowned.
"London? He said he was wanted in England. He said he couldn't go back."
"His wife's been screwing around. He's gone back to sort it out."
Rodriguez started to chuckle. So did the man with the weightlifter's forearms.
"Sauce for the goose, that's what you English say, right? Donovan's dick is hardly ever inside his pants."
Doyle said nothing. The man with weightlifter's forearms walked behind him and Doyle heard the umbrella base being pushed along the floor towards the pool. The chain tightened around Doyle's waist, and his heart began to pound.
"Carlos, don't do this," Doyle said, his voice a dry croak.
"Where is my money?"
"What money?"
"The ten million dollars that Donovan was supposed to pay into my account yesterday."
"He didn't say anything to me about money. I swear."
The umbrella base received another push and it grated across the tiles. It was only a foot away from the edge of the swimming pool, and the chain was now taut. The two men either side of Doyle shoved him closer to the pool.
"I swear!" Doyle screamed.
"Help me! Somebody help me!" His voice echoed around the pool area.
"Scream all you want," said Rodriguez.
"The hired help want to live as much as you do, my friend. They won't interfere. And they will have a sudden lapse of memory when the police arrive." He sniggered.
"They might even say you were acting suicidal." Rodriguez dangled the padlock key in front of Doyle's face, then tossed it into the far end of the pool. The shallow end.
"How do I get in touch with him?" Rodriguez asked.
"He said he'd call."
"He has no cell phone in London?"
"He doesn't trust them."
"His house in London. You have the number?"
Doyle nodded at his mobile phone, next to his beer on the white cast-iron table by the sun-lounger.
"It's in my phone. Look, if he calls I'll tell him you want to talk to him. I'll tell him how pissed off you are."
"You will?" said Rodriguez, smiling affably.
"That's so good of you."
"Oh Jesus, please don't do this to me."
Rodriguez grinned at the man with the weightlifter's arms.
"Now he's asking for your help, Jesus." He pronounced it the Spanish way. Hey-zeus.
"Maybe he thinks you've a softer heart than me."
Jesus grinned and said something to Rodriguez in rapid Spanish. All four men laughed.
"Please don't .. ." begged Doyle.
Rodriguez nodded at Jesus, and Jesus put his foot on the umbrella base and shoved it into the pool. At the same time, the two men holding Doyle pitched him into the water. There was a loud splash and all four men scattered to avoid the water as the concrete block and Doyle disappeared under the surface.
Chlorinated water lapped over the edge of the pool a few times, then the surface went still. The four Colombians peered into the water, shading their eyes against the burning afternoon sun. Doyle was waving his arms and legs around like a crab stranded on its back and a stream of bubbles burst from his mouth and rippled to the surface. Jesus looked at his watch.
"What do you think?" he asked.
"Ninety seconds?"
"Nah," said Rodriguez.
"Less. He didn't catch his breath when he went in."
The Colombians laughed and watched as Doyle died.
The dyed-blonde receptionist looked up as Donovan walked down the stairs. She smiled.
"You go out?" she asked.
"Just for a couple of hours."
"You leave key?"
Donovan shook his head.
"Nah, I'll keep it with me." He walked up to the counter. She was holding a book.
"What are you reading?"
"I learn English." She held up the book and showed it to him.
"I go school every morning."
Donovan took the book, flicked through it and handed it back.
"Your English is great," he said.
"Where are you from?" He looked into her eyes as he talked. They were a deep blue with flecks of grey.
"Poland. Warsaw."
"Great country. Beautiful city. Amazing art galleries."
She raised her eyebrows in surprise.
"You have been to Warsaw?"
"I've been pretty much everywhere." He winked at her and put on his baseball cap.
"Catch you later."
Donovan walked down Sussex Gardens towards Edgware Road, confident that the hotel was still a safe area. The receptionist had shown no signs of tension, no fear, no look in the eyes that suggested that someone had told her that she was to report his movements, that he was anything other than a tourist passing through. Now he knew what her regular reactions were, he'd easily spot any changes.
Donovan walked along Edgware Road, stopping to look in several shop windows. Each time he stopped he checked reflections to see if anyone was following him. That was the beauty of Edgware Road: white faces stuck out.
At the corner of Edgware Road and Harrow Road was a pedestrian underpass. Most people used the pedestrian crossings at the traffic lights above ground, but Donovan walked slowly down the sloping walkway whistling softly to himself.
Underground there were public toilets, a news agent and a shoe repair shop, but more importantly there were half a dozen exits. Donovan loitered for a while until he was satisfied that no one had followed him down, and then he walked quickly up the stairs that led to the Harrow Road exit, close to Paddington Green police station. Donovan kept his head down Paddington Green was where the Metropolitan Police's Anti-Terrorist Squad was based, and the area was saturated with CCTV cameras.
Donovan knew that there were more than a million CCTV cameras scattered across the United Kingdom, giving it the dubious distinction of having more of the prying electronic eyes per head of population than anywhere in the world. More than two hundred thousand new cameras were added every year. On average, aUK citizen going about his lawful business in the capital would be captured on three hundred cameras on at least thirty different systems every day. They were in shops, office buildings, in ATMs, on buses, there was almost nowhere that wasn't covered. The police already had access to all the networks, but their ultimate aim was to have them all linked and tied to the Mandrake face recognition system. While the ordinary citizen probably wasn't over-concerned about the lack of privacy, believing the police line that no one but criminals had anything to fear from saturation CCTV coverage, Donovan was far from being an ordinary citizen.