Sharkey put his hand over the bottom of the phone.
"It's the lawyer. You've got to sign some papers." Vicky visibly relaxed and Sharkey realised that she thought the call might have been from her husband.
"Stewart? Are you there?"
"Relax, David. It's okay. What about faxed copies? Would that do?"
"Has to be originals, I'm afraid. Is there any possibility of you both coming to the office in the next few days?"
"Absolutely none," said Sharkey. He winked at Vicky and she took a quick sip of her champagne.
"You'll have to have them couriered out here," he said.
There was a pause as if Hoyle had taken the phone away from his mouth, then he coughed.
"That's fine," he said.
"Where shall I send them to?"
"Have you got a pen?" asked Sharkey.
Juan Rojas put away his mobile phone.
"See, that wasn't so hard, was it?" he asked Hoyle.
Hoyle had sagged against the wooden cross. The strength had gone from his legs and all his weight was on his wrists.
"Please don't kill me," he sobbed.
"Wouldn't that be the ultimate thrill for you?" asked Rojas.
"Bit like Christ, dying on the cross."
"I don't want to die," Hoyle moaned. Urine splattered on to the carpet and Rojas wrinkled his nose in disgust.
"No one wants to die," said Rojas.
"No one's ever begged me to kill them." A thoughtful look crossed his face.
"Actually, that's not true. There was a man once, in Milan. After what we'd done to him, he really did want to die. Begged and begged." Rojas smiled.
"I've no wish to kill you, David. None at all. I'm going to leave you here for a couple of days. One of my men will come in to give you water." He nodded at the sodden carpet.
"Might even put a bucket under you. After forty-eight hours we'll let you loose. We'll still have the videos, so I'd expect you to hold your tongue about what's happened." Rojas walked up close to Hoyle, taking care not to stand in the damp patch of carpet.
"Say thank you, David."
"Thank you," said Hoyle weakly.
Rojas grinned and slowly zipped up the mouth slot on the black leather mask.
Donovan took the portable RF detector off before driving the Range Rover to Robbie's school. The traffic moved at a snail's pace, and yet again most of the vehicles on the road seemed to be mothers on the school run.
Donovan switched his cassette player on. Oasis. He smiled as he remembered the coincidence that he and Louise had the same tape. They'd chatted for the best part of an hour in Starbucks. She was a smart girl and seemed to be making a good living as a dancer. Like Kris, she kept insisting that she didn't go with customers, but Donovan couldn't help wondering how else she could afford the Audi roadster. Still, he figured it wasn't any of his business. She'd given him her mobile number when she'd dropped him off at home and asked him to call her some time. She'd also made a point of telling him the address of the club where she danced. Twice.
Robbie wasn't at the gates when Donovan arrived at the school. A young mother with four schoolgirls in the back of a Mercedes four-wheel drive pulled out in front of him and he whipped the Range Rover into the space.
He tapped his fingers on his steering wheel as he waited. Being a single parent wasn't so bad, he thought. It was a bit of a nuisance having to drive Robbie to and from school, and the early mornings were a pain, but Robbie was clearly low maintenance. Once Donovan had his money back, maybe he'd stay in London. He had enough to live comfortably for the rest of his life. Very comfortably. When Vicky had been in the picture, Donovan had been driven to keep putting deals together, partly because of the desire to keep increasing his fortune, but also because he enjoyed it. He got a buzz out of outwitting the various agencies that were tasked with defeating the drugs barons. There was nothing like putting together a successful multi-million-pound drugs deal, of arranging the finance and the shipping, moving people and money around the world like pieces on some gigantic chessboard, followed by the elation of carrying it off successfully. Some of the best parties he'd been to had been in the wake of successful drug deals. Donovan smiled to himself. Could he turn his back on that? Would he be satisfied doing the school run until Robbie was old enough to drive? Years of shopping at Tesco and ferrying sports kit and helping with homework?
Robbie ran out of the school gates, waving at Donovan. Donovan grinned and waved back. Yeah, he thought, maybe he would at that.
"How did the match go?" Donovan asked as Robbie climbed into the passenger seat and tossed his sports bag into the back.
"Won 3 1," said Robbie.
"My pass gave us the second goal."
"Good for you," said Donovan and gave his son a high-five.
"How are you at grocery shopping?" he asked as he started the car and edged out into the line of four-wheel drives.
"Mum always does .. ." Robbie corrected himself quickly.
"Did the shopping. During the day. She said it was quieter."
"Yeah, well, I didn't do too good a job when I went on my own. Thought you might have a better idea of what we need. Okay?"
"Okay," said Robbie.
When they got to the supermarket, Donovan pushed a trolley while Robbie ran from shelf to shelf, grabbing at tins, bottles and packets and tossing them in. He stocked up with essentials including washing-up liquid, and soap, things that Donovan would never have thought of until he'd run out.
"Can you do spaghetti?" Robbie asked.
"Sure," said Donovan.
"You boil it and throw it against the wall. If it sticks, it's cooked."
Robbie laughed and put two packs of spaghetti into the trolley, along with several jars of bolognaise sauce, then they walked together to the checkout.
"What are you going to do, Dad?"
"About what?" asked Donovan.
"About work. You can't just sit around the house all day."
"Your mother seemed to manage quite nicely."
Donovan paid for the groceries and he and Robbie took the carrier bags out to the Range Rover.
"What do you do, Dad? Your job?"
"You know what I do. I'm a businessman."
"But what do you actually do?"
Donovan got into the front seat and opened the door for Robbie. Robbie got in and fastened his seatbelt.
"What's brought this on?"
"Nothing. It was my friends, that's all. We were talking about what our dads did, and I said you were back and they were asking what you did. I said you were a businessman, but they were asking what sort of business and I said you were out in the Caribbean and they were asking what you did out there. That's all. I think they thought it was strange that I didn't know. Like it was a secret."
"It's no secret, Robbie," said Donovan, starting the engine.
"It's boring, that's all. Import-export. I buy and sell things. Move them from country to country."
"But what sort of things?"
"Anything. Whatever people want to buy and sell. You buy at one price and if you can sell at a higher price, you make a profit. Sell a lot of it and you make a lot of profit. Simple. You don't need a PhD to understand that."
"Yeah, but I still don't know what it is you sell."
"Commodities. Could be anything. Cement, say. I might buy cheap cement and sell it to a construction company in America. Or I might buy fertiliser in Argentina and sell it in China."
"And that's why you had to be in Anguilla a lot?"
Donovan frowned.
"Your friends were asking why I was in Anguilla?"
"No, that was me. You never really said why you were away such a lot."
"It was business, Robbie. Swear to God."
Robbie nodded.
"I know," he said, as Donovan started the car and drove home.
The Increment moved in just before midnight. Major Gannon and his staff sergeant sat in one of three high-speed inflatables, bobbing in the Atlantic just a few miles from where the ocean merged into the English Channel. The major was in radio contact with a sub skimmer some ten miles away to the west.