"Like a bull in a china shop, you mean?"
Something vibrated on Donovan's hip. He wondered if it was the car, and he shifted position, but the vibration continued.
"You weren't hot headed. You were cold. Calculating."
Donovan reached into his pocket, figuring that it must be one of his mobile phones that was vibrating. Then he remembered that device that Knight had given him and he stiffened.
"What's wrong?" asked Louise, looking at him sideways.
"Cramp," lied Donovan. It was the RF detector. The car was bugged. He was talking about beating a man to within an inch of his life and the car was bloody well bugged. She was setting him up. Louise was leading him on, getting him to talk about it, getting him to confess. He made a play of rubbing his side. What the hell was he going to say? What had he said already? Had he given them enough evidence already?
The Oasis track ended. The lights changed to green and Louise pulled away, but she kept looking across at him.
"Are you all right? Do you want me to pull over?"
Donovan shook his head. The next track started. Suddenly realisation dawned. He reached out and switched the tape off. The detector stopped vibrating immediately.
"Not an Oasis fan, huh? Thought you would be, both being from Manchester."
"How do you know that?" asked Donovan. He hadn't told Kris where he was from.
"Oh, give me a break, Den," she laughed.
"That's hardly an Oxbridge accent you've got there."
Donovan pressed the start button again. The tape restarted. So did the vibration. He switched it off. The vibration stopped.
"Make your mind up," she said.
Donovan smiled and relaxed back in the bucket seat.
"Sorry," he said.
"I'm jumping at shadows at the moment."
They arrived at Robbie's school. Robbie was waiting outside the gates, peering down the road. He didn't notice Donovan sitting in the passenger seat of the Audi.
"Won't be long," said Donovan, climbing out of the sports car with Robbie's bag.
Robbie frowned as he saw Donovan getting out of the Audi.
"Who's that?" he said, looking through the windscreen.
"A friend," said Donovan, holding out the sports bag.
"A girlfriend?"
"She's a friend and she's a girl, so that would make her a girlfriend, right? Now do you want this, or not?"
Robbie took the bag.
"A thank you would be nice," said Donovan.
"Who is she?"
"She's just a friend. Okay? I helped her and she came around to the house to say thank you. Then she said she'd give me a lift to drop your gear off. You know I hate driving in the city."
"You're a terrible driver," Robbie mumbled.
"I'm a great driver," Donovan protested.
"You lose your temper too easily. You keep hitting the horn. And you don't use the mirrors enough."
Donovan stood up.
"I'll pick you up tonight, yeah? In the Range Rover."
Robbie nodded.
"Okay." He held up the bag.
"Thanks for bringing this."
"You give them hell. Score lots of goals."
"I'm a defender, Dad."
"Defenders can score. Don't let them put you in a box. You see an opportunity to go for the goal, you take it, right?"
"It's a team game, Dad," laughed Robbie, and he ran off.
Donovan went back to the car. He grunted as he climbed back into the passenger seat. He felt too old to be getting in and out of low-slung sports cars.
"Everything okay?" asked Louise.
"He thinks you're my new girlfriend."
"As opposed to an old one?"
"As opposed to his mother."
"Ah," said Louise, putting the Audi into gear.
"Starbucks okay?"
"My favourite coffee." He stared silently out of the window.
"Penny for them?" asked Louise, stopping to allow a pensioner drive her Toyota out of a side road.
"Robbie says I'm a crap driver."
"And are you?"
"I don't think so, but what guy does, right?"
"Quickest way to end a relationship," laughed Louise.
"Tell a guy he's lousy in bed or that he's crap behind the wheel of car."
"You in a relationship right now?" asked Donovan. Immediately the words left his mouth he regretted them. It was a soppy question.
Louise didn't seem bothered by his probing. She shrugged.
"Difficult to have any regular sort of relationship, doing what I do," she said.
"Great way to meet guys, though," said Donovan.
Louise raised her eyebrows and sighed.
"Yeah, right. I'd really want to go out with the sort of guy who thinks shoving twenty-pound notes down a girl's g-string is a sensible way to spend an evening."
"Beats sitting in front of the TV," said Donovan with a smile.
"And would I want to go out with a guy who knows what I do for a living? What does that say about him?"
"You mean, if a guy really cared for you, he wouldn't want you to do what you do?"
"Exactly."
"Maybe he'd think it better you have a career. My soon-to-be ex-wife never did a day's work in her life. She went from her father's house to mine. From one provider to another."
"Soon-to-be ex-wife? You're getting divorced?"
"Something more permanent, hopefully," said Donovan. Then he shook his head.
"Joke."
"Didn't sound like a joke," said Louise.
"I'm still a bit raw," said Donovan.
"You'll heal. Here we are." She parked the car at a meter and jumped out before Donovan could continue the conversation. She fed the meter and locked the car, then went into the coffee shop with Donovan. He reached for his wallet but she slapped his hand away.
"No way. My treat, remember? Cappuccino okay?"
Donovan got a table by the window while Louise fetched their coffees.
She sat down opposite him and slid a foaming mug over to him. She clinked her mug against his.
"Thanks. For what you did."
"It was a pleasure."
Louise sipped her cappuccino and then wiped her upper lip with a serviette.
"I don't want you thinking I'm a victim, Den. A damsel in distress, maybe, but I'm not a victim. I fought back." She took off her sunglasses. Her left eye was still puffy and the redness had given away to dark blue bruising.
Donovan smiled.
"You should see the other guy," he said softly.
"I kneed him in the nuts and he probably wouldn't have done this if he hadn't caught me by surprise. Doing what I do, I know how to handle men."
"I'm sure you do," said Den, straight faced.
She grinned and put her sunglasses back on.
"You know what I mean. There's a psychology to it. A way of maintaining control."
"I'm sure there is."
"He caught me unawares. It won't happen again. I am really grateful, Den. You barely know me, but you were there when I needed someone. Friends, yeah?"
Donovan nodded enthusiastically. He picked up his mug and clinked it against hers again.
"Definitely," he said.
"You've been a bad boy, haven't you?" said the woman. She was in her late twenties with shoulder-length red hair. She was wearing a black leather miniskirt, thigh-length black shiny plastic boots with four-inch stiletto heels and a black mask, the type that Catwoman used to wear in the old Batman TV show. She had a riding crop in her hands and she flexed it as she paced up and down across the blood-red carpet.
"Yes, mistress," said David Hoyle. Hoyle was naked and tied at his wrists and ankles to two planks of wood that had been nailed together to form an X-shaped cross that stood in the middle of the room. On his head was a black leather hood with holes for his eyes and a zipper across his mouth.
"And what happens to bad boys?" asked the woman, slowly running the crop from his left knee up to his groin.
Hoyle's scrotum contracted in a reflex action that was part fear and part sexual excitement. It was the mixture of emotions that he craved, that kept him returning to the basement flat in Earl's Court. The fear and the excitement, followed by a relief that was far more intense than he'd ever had with his wife in almost twenty years of marriage.