by Anna Smith
Michael had only been staying with the Woolards for a few days when he noticed the attention Connie was getting from the young man, her personal trainer from the hotel beach club nearby. In fact, he’d even heard them one afternoon when he returned to the villa while Oliver was out on business. He didn’t blame her. He assumed Oliver knew about Connie’s little distractions while her husband was empire-building across the world. If he did, he had never spoken about it, but then ‘all’s fair in love and war’ was Oliver’s motto.
The days Michael had spent with his friends in their sumptuous villa in the hills high above Marbella had been idyllic, filled with leisurely lunches, and lavish dinners in nearby restaurants where the Woolards were adored. It had become an annual jaunt for the Home Secretary: an opportunity not only to catch up with his old friend, but also to get away from London and do exactly what he wanted – as long as he managed to give his private protection officers the slip. And when he felt the urge, he had only to make a phone call to a contact on the Costa and something would be discreetly arranged, to his particular taste and at an address not too far away …
As they got into the car, they both looked up to where Connie was blowing them a kiss from the terrace. In the back seat, Michael glanced up again and thought she looked slightly forlorn. Oliver’s mind, though, was already miles away, focusing on his next business.
When the Daimler dropped them on the harbour, close to the yacht, the two men were greeted by an elegantly dressed but stern-faced East European man in his thirties, who raised his eyebrows enquiringly as though waiting for them to introduce themselves.
‘Would you be good enough to tell Mr Daletsky that Michael Carter-Smith is here, please?’ He smiled engagingly.
The man said nothing, but beckoned them to follow him. As they did so, Michael noticed the bulge of a gun on the back of their escort’s finely tailored suit. They walked up the gangplank onto the yacht. Moored discreetly at the far end of the harbour and as big as a cruise liner, it was a splendid, gleaming vision in the setting sun. Here, multi-million-pound floating palaces took pride of place, far enough away from the people who merely thought they were rich with their half-a-million-pound yachts. There was so much money here in the port it was mesmerising; and most of it was dirty. But none of that bothered Carter-Smith.
On the open deck, wearing cream flannels and a black shirt, and surrounded by sycophants, stood Viktor Daletsky, oil baron, electronics magnate and exporter. He also had other credentials on his formidable CV, if you believed the tabloids. And a small, deep scar on his cheekbone told of a way of life far removed from the one he was living now. But nobody knew enough, or had enough proof, to write about it.
As Michael and Oliver walked onto the deck, Daletsky excused himself and made his way towards them.
‘Michael.’ His Russian voice was deep and rich. He stretched out his hand. ‘So glad you could come. How are you my friend?’ he said, flicking a glance at Oliver.
‘I’m very well, Viktor, very well indeed. How are you?’ He turned his body towards Oliver. ‘This is Oliver Woolard, of Woolard Institutions, who we’ve spoken about a few times … ?’
Daletsky raised his eyebrows and shook Oliver’s hand vigorously.
‘Oliver. I am very pleased to meet you. Very pleased. I hope we can have some time to talk tonight.’
He ushered them towards a podium where a waiter was opening a bottle of Krug. Three stunning, very young, Eastern European women stood by. Oliver’s eyes lit up.
‘Some champagne,’ Daletsky said, handing Michael a champagne flute so fine he could have shaved with it. Then one to Oliver.
‘We must drink to new friends.’ He raised his glass. ‘To new possibilities.’ He made eye contact with Oliver.
‘To new possibilities,’ Oliver said, as one of the young girls sidled a little closer to him.
Daletsky took a mouthful of his champagne then put down his glass. He looked across the deck and nodded to a tall man in a black suit who had just arrived.
‘Excuse me, for the moment, gentlemen.’ He crossed to greet the newcomer, who stood silently surveying his surroundings.
Daletsky lowered his voice, but Carter-Smith heard him address the man as Leka.
CHAPTER 4
As usual, the splendour of the five-star hotel was lost on Rosie. By the time she arrived at the Puente Romano in the heart of Marbella, her head was already buzzing, thinking how she could take the story forward so she’d have a good line for Monday’s paper.
Since the kid went missing yesterday, a formidable pack of big hitters from UK newspapers and television would be there already. They would be all over this story, pushing for exclusives, while theories and motives on the kidnapping were aired and dissected over hearty dinners by journalists on bloated expense accounts. They were always bloated when they went out of town on a job – especially on a foreign. Most hacks saw expenses as a kind of fine for taking you away from your own bed, your family, and what the rest of the world call a life, and replacing it with the frenetic round-the-clock graft of an assignment abroad.
The bottom line for Rosie was this: if she was abroad on a story, someone was dead – usually, a lot of people were dead. That kind of shit got to you after a while. So what if she ate some decent lobster washed down with a glass or two of vintage wine. It was by way of compensation for making her the dysfunctional human being that all frontline journalists eventually became.
At the hotel reception, she checked in and had a quick shufti round the main bar to see if there were any other hacks around. If there were, she didn’t recognise them. Rosie didn’t like working with the press pack when there was a big story on the go. There was the one advantage that you never missed anything, but it also meant you had to share, and she didn’t like sharing – in case she managed to dig up something by herself. She’d once said she was a lucky reporter when, as a youngster, she’d had a great run of exclusives against the odds. But a wily old news editor told her you made your own luck in this game. Always keep two steps ahead of the pack and you wouldn’t miss out, he’d said. It was good advice.
In her beachfront room, she threw open the doors leading to the private terrace and took in the view of the tantalising deep-blue sea. The room was luxurious and massive, with a bed that would take at least five people – all of it perfect if you were here for a few days pampering. Rosie plugged in her laptop and connected to the hotel’s internet.
Two emails. One from Marion confirming the cash, and the other from McGuire with forwarded copy from the newsdesk. McGuire’s message was curt: ‘This is all we have so far. Hope you can do better. x’
The copy was more detailed. There were three couples on this holiday, each with a villa about a ten-minute walk from the others. The men had all gone to university together and had been friends for fifteen years. The missing kid was called Amy Lennon, only daughter of Jenny and Martin. The dad, a property dealer, was boss of Lennon Properties, a Glasgow family estate agents with interests in Scotland and abroad. He took over from his father, Martin senior, who had died six months ago. That didn’t ring any bells with Rosie. The mum was an insurance broker. Amy would be four at the end of August. The story was that the little girl had been sound asleep in her bedroom at the beach-side villa the couple were renting on Mijas Costa. The mother was having a shower while her husband was out on his four-mile morning jog. When she came out of the shower, Amy was gone. As she read those particular words, Rosie winced, imagining the mother’s horror when she discovered her child was gone. She read on.
The next name was one she did recognise – Jamie O’Hara. A well-known Glasgow criminal lawyer, he’d made his name getting crooks off the hook for everything from murder to drugs to extortion. O’Hara was a big shot who relished the limelight, and though he was not yet forty he’d already made pots of money defending the kind of arseholes Rosie would gladly have strung up. She knew him, but not well, and she didn’t particularly like him. Apart from anything else, he was far too handsome fo
r his own good. His wife, Alison, was a chemist. O’Hara’s story was that he was out for a walk and had decided to drop in to say hello to the Lennons, but as he approached the villa he was met with Jenny running out of the house screaming that Amy was gone. He immediately called the police, and Martin.
The other couple were the Reillys, John and Margaret. For the past five years they’d been living in France, where she taught English and he was trying to build up a small vineyard so he could export his own wine. They had been at the market together in Fuengirola when Amy went missing and knew nothing until they received a telephone call from Alison O’Hara.
The email went on to say that the Guarda Civil had launched an immediate full-scale hunt with helicopters and tracker dogs, and had at least a hundred officers scanning the beaches and nearby vacant villas and apartments. They’d said it was early days and they were confident they would find Amy. But at the bottom of the story, as it was describing the exact location, Rosie’s heart sank. The villa from where Amy vanished was only a minute’s drive from the main dual carriageway that goes from Malaga right along the coast and joins the motorway to Algeciras and Tarifa – the ports to Morocco. Within two hours of her being snatched, the child could be anywhere. She could have been taken to Portugal, or north towards France and the Netherlands. But if her kidnapper had gone to Morocco, that was a different story. She could simply vanish without trace.
Rosie sat down with a glass of ice-cold mineral water. She looked at her watch. The kid had now been missing more than a day and a half. She sighed. Soon they’d probably find a body. She hoped it would be soon, for the sake of the parents. Her mobile rang.
‘Buenos tardes, Rosie. Voulez vous coucher avec moi?’ It was Matt, full of the usual shit.
‘That’s Spanish and French both, you twat.’ Rosie was glad to hear from him. ‘Where are you?’
‘I’m in the bar, darlin’, and I’m starvin’. I just got here half an hour ago. Had a quick shower and change.’
‘I’m only just here,’ Rosie said. ‘Tell you what, Matt, I’m going to jump in the shower, then I’ll meet you downstairs for a drink, and we’ll have dinner.’ She was taking off her clothes as she spoke. ‘I’m going to put a quick call in to the cops, see if I can get anyone who speaks English. And find out if there’s any press stuff going on tonight or what. We don’t need it tonight, but I want to see what’s what for tomorrow. See if they’re going to put the parents up.’
‘Yeah,’ Matt said. ‘There were a couple of relatives of the other couples back in Scotland talking on the telly. But nothing much getting said. They’re all in a mess.’
‘Can imagine.’ Rosie was naked now. ‘See you downstairs in fifteen, Matt.’ She hung up.
Rosie made a call to the Guarda Civil in Marbella, and in her fractured Spanish asked if there was anyone dealing with press inquiries. She was put through to a man whose English was better than her Spanish. No. There would be no press conference with the family. They were still staying at the villa. There would be a press conference early tomorrow afternoon where the Guarda Civil would talk of their search.
CHAPTER 5
By eleven the following morning, there was a posse of press camped on the sidestreet close to the Lennon villa. Mobile TV broadcast units from Spain jostled for position alongside the British TV stations, and the whole place was buzzing with activity. Camera crews and sound men stood around smoking and chatting, waiting for something to happen.
The press pack were dotted all over the street. You spent so much time just waiting, you had to get used to the tedium. It was the reason why there was so much black humour around journalists on frontlines everywhere.
A few locals and some British tourists also stood around in the ghoulish way that people do when there is a big tragedy playing out. Rosie had walked away from the journalists and was talking to McGuire, who was barking at her down the phone from his home.
‘I don’t really give a fuck what these Spanish coppers say, Rosie. The Guarda Civil are like the Taliban. This couple have got to get the message that if they don’t get their faces in the papers, then everyone will lose interest in their kid.’
‘I know, I know,’ Rosie told him. ‘I was going to do it shortly anyway, but there are two cops on the door at the moment. I was going to stick a letter through.’
‘Yeah, yeah. Better idea. But tell them, Rosie, that the paper will give away posters in Monday’s edition for people to pull out and stick on their windows and cars. Tell them if anyone can get them huge publicity, it’s the Post. Our marketing people are already talking to people down on the Costa about putting up Find Amy posters done up like a Post front page all over the towns. That should look the business. We need to boost sales down there anyway.’
‘Yeah,’ Rosie said, wishing McGuire didn’t think marketing at a time like this.
She knew that television was always in a better position to get publicity than the papers, and that they would also be thinking posters. McGuire was right – you had to move quickly on someone else’s misery if you wanted to win points.
‘Tell you what, Rosie. Tell them we’ll put up a reward. Ten thousand pounds for information leading to getting Amy back.’
‘Has the managing director okayed that, Mick?’
‘Fuck the managing director. I’ll make sure it happens. Just do it, sweetheart. Get me something for Monday, something different.’
‘OK, Mick, I’ll do the letter now. Talk later.’ She hung up.
‘What’s the sketch?’ Matt said as she walked towards their hired car.
‘McGuire wants us to offer a reward, put up pull-out posters. The lot. He’s offering ten grand, and I bet he hasn’t even spoken to the management yet.’
Matt whistled. ‘Great. That’s brilliant. The bean counters will shit themselves. But they’ll go for it.’
Rosie was in the car writing a letter on hotel notepaper she’d brought with her. She knew she wouldn’t be the only hack looking for a way in. Despite what McGuire had said, Rosie knew in her gut that their only hope for Monday was a picture of the couple together and – if they were really lucky – a few words. If she wanted an exclusive, she would have to look further than the front door of the Lennon villa.
She was feeling a little rough from last night’s lengthy dinner with Matt. It was one of those nights where the banter bounced off the walls and the wine flowed freely, while frontline stories from past foreign sojourns were rolled out. Rosie drank plenty of wine, but she wasn’t that drunk. If it had ended there it would have been fine, but Rosie took a call from one of her pals on a London paper, and she and Matt went to join him and a few others in a bar in Marbella’s old town until three in the morning. It had been the usual battery of journos, old and young, in various stages of drunkenness. And despite the tragic story they were working on, it turned into a bit of a party, as these things often did. By two in the morning at least two of the hacks were belting out songs on the karaoke along with a few of the ex-pat Brits who hung around drinking with the press pack.
Rosie had bailed out when a knuckle trailer with a thick Glasgow accent, clearly wasted on cocaine, began to noise everyone up, pushing people around and shouting that the press were a bunch of wankers. Given that one of the London reporters was leading the singsong, he might have had a point. The place was busy with the collection of usual suspects you found in any Costa del Sol British bar. If you took a straw poll round the suntanned faces in the room, you could guarantee that at least three of them were on the Crimestoppers wanted list, and the bulk of the customers had the added glory of having done a stretch in jail. They had stories about the Old Bill that were so far fetched they had to be true. Everyone, it seemed, was ducking and diving, as you do on the Costa where asking too many questions to the wrong person could get you a bullet in the back.
The guy pestering Rosie made her uncomfortable because he was vaguely familiar. Her mind flicked through a filing system of Glasgow hoodlums down the years, and the phot
ofit she came up with was a minder for a coke dealer who’d moved to Marbella five years ago, but was killed in a car crash. When he squared up to Rosie and said he recognised her from somewhere, she did her best to ignore him and grabbed Matt so they could make a sharp exit. The last thing she needed down here was more aggro from Glasgow.
* * *
Now knackered after such a late night, she took a gulp from a bottle of mineral water and put the letter she’d written in her bag. The reporters she’d been drinking with last night were now gathered yards from the Lennon house. Without even glancing in their direction, Rosie walked up to the front door and knocked. She looked at the patio, at the children’s toys scattered around – the remnants of normality before the world caved in. A towel was draped over a chair, and a little red and white stripey bathing suit. A kid’s drinking cup. She could almost hear the laughter of a family enjoying an afternoon in the sun. Now the place looked empty and sad.
Rosie gazed out across the beach, where a few people out strolling had stopped to glare at the villa they’d seen plastered all over the TV news and papers. The sea was calm and flat, eerie in this atmosphere. Suddenly the door opened and a female Guarda Civil officer stood there. In Spanish, Rosie asked if she could speak to the parents. The woman answered in English that no she could not. Rosie handed her the letter. The policewoman took it, looked at it and did that little bored shrugging gesture with her shoulders that the Mediterraneans have turned into an art form, before closing the door in Rosie’s face. Rosie could sense the rest of the press pack straining to see. She knew a few of them, one or two whom she had turned over in her day, and they knew not to trust her. One grizzled older hack from a London paper came marching towards her.
‘What you doing, Rosie? Fucking everyone over?’
He looked rough. The last time Rosie had seen him was on the dance floor with a rose between his teeth at three that morning.