by Nick Oldham
‘What are you going to do?’ she asked him.
‘Kill him?’ Flynn suggested.
At that, Karen stopped him dead and swung him around to face her. ‘Flynn!’ she admonished him with one syllable and the look in her eye.
‘OK, I won’t kill him, even though I want to. But I want to know what he’s up to.’
‘So keep an eye on him?’
‘How, exactly?’
‘Just above the restaurant is an apartment for rent. That would give you a good view of the marina … maybe?’
And for the next three days and nights, Flynn had been sitting just inside the sultry apartment watching the comings and goings of Destiny.
Jack Hoyle and the other man were staying on board and the two divers arrived at nine each morning. They sailed at ten – Hoyle at the helm – and were gone until five each day. Flynn guessed that they were out on the water near GuiGui where he had first encountered them, searching for whatever it was they believed to be down there.
He wasn’t certain what he should do for the best, apart from wanting to come face to face with Hoyle again. Problem was, Flynn was intrigued by what was going on, wanted to know what they were searching for, and he knew that the best policy – instead of running at the problem like a bull – was to chill back and watch for any change in behaviour when they returned to port that might indicate a ‘find’.
On the third day, Karen – despite having enjoyed spending time with Flynn – said, ‘Enough’s enough, Steve. We both have to get back to the real world so can’t we just let this be, now? Adam’s constantly texting me and he’s getting frantic for Faye to be available, even though it’s pretty quiet.’
Flynn took his time considering her words, knowing they were sensible.
It was just after five p.m. and both were on the balcony of the apartment when Destiny smoothly entered the marina from her day at sea. They watched her moor, the boat controlled expertly by Hoyle, the divers acting as crew. They went through the usual rigmarole, cleaning the diving gear, then the two divers leaving for the night. Flynn had discovered they were staying in an apartment in Puerto Rico, so they definitely were hired help.
When they had gone, Hoyle sat on the deck of Destiny, relaxing in the declining heat of the day, his head tilted back. Flynn wondered if he had killed Costain and the girl – and was pretty sure that was the case.
Karen was watching Flynn carefully, still waiting for his response, hoping he would see sense and back off.
Instead, he picked up his mobile phone and called Henry Christie.
Henry could not quite keep the look of disbelief off his face as he listened to Steve Flynn recount the story of his last week on earth. Flynn had only agreed to tell Henry (almost) everything on the understanding that it was all off the record and if Henry repeated any of it, he would simply deny ever saying a word.
‘So what it boils down to is that you were picked out of the blue by Scott Costain to take him on a trip where you then bumped into a boat full of people who took pot shots at you; then you were kidnapped by Jack Hoyle and escaped somehow,’ Henry said dubiously, ‘and then just happened to walk into a double murder scene.’
‘Nutshell,’ Flynn said. Then, to lighten the moment, and poke a shitty stick at Henry, he said, ‘And how is the lovely Alison?’
He enjoyed seeing Henry’s face scrunch into annoyance. Henry knew Flynn had a bit of a thing for Alison and suspected the pair of them shared a secret that, in some way, would bond them for the rest of their lives.
‘Let’s just keep on target, eh? You’ve dragged me all the way out here, told me this pretty silly tale and, pleasant as it is to sit here, I don’t see Jack Hoyle.’
On receiving the call from Flynn the day before, Henry had taken a chance and booked a flight to Gran Canaria due to leave Liverpool at six the next morning, with a return flight for the day after that. Not finishing work until after ten, Henry had hurtled up to Kendleton, where the Wild Geese were providing a disintegrating level of protection for Alison, but two of them who were not drunk promised to stay overnight. Henry threw some items into a rucksack, then drove down to Liverpool airport, arriving there at two, and crashed out until he stumbled tiredly on to the plane, where he fell asleep again with his chin on his chest.
He landed at Las Palmas at ten thirty a.m.; there he was picked up by Flynn in Karen’s Fiat Panda and driven to Puerto de Mogán. In spite of the weather, the drive was frosty right from Henry’s first comment, which had been, ‘This better be good.’
Henry’s mind had been swimming with exhaustion and, as nothing was spoiling, Flynn had shown him to the spare bedroom in the apartment where Henry stripped off, climbed into the slightly musty bed and fell asleep.
Just before five that afternoon, having had a boccadillo and a long cold beer, Henry was sitting with Flynn and Karen on the balcony, looking towards Destiny’s mooring. Flynn had explained how this point had been reached.
‘He’ll be here soon,’ Flynn said confidently, ‘and when he does turn up, what are you going to do?’
‘Make sure it is him first, then tell the police and have him arrested.’
‘On what grounds? I’m only surmising that he had something to do with Costain’s death.’
‘I have an arrest warrant with me,’ Henry revealed, ‘just in case. Suspicion of theft of a million pounds. Got it signed by a tame magistrate last night. You reckon he took that drug dealer’s money, so let me speak to him properly about it. Anything else can be addressed when he’s locked up … such as murder. Will that do?’ Henry did not wish to expand on this and tell Flynn anything about Hoyle being photographed on the same boat as two murder victims, or about four million pounds’ worth of diamonds that could be in a chest in a wreck off the Gran Canarian coast. That wasn’t his business to know.
Flynn’s face creased with a smile of pleasure. ‘Nicely.’
‘Now all we have to do is wait for him to show up.’
‘He’ll come. We saw him sail out this morning.’
Destiny did not return to port at the usual time. This made Flynn start to fidget and exchange glances with Karen, who tried to give him reassuring looks. Nor was the boat there at six p.m., or seven p.m.
‘Talk about wild geese,’ Henry muttered at one stage.
They ate a meal of spaghetti bolognese, accompanied by chilled water, at the restaurant below the apartment, little conversation passing between the men.
‘She’s here!’ Karen said at last, breaking the tension and pointing to Destiny as she entered the marina and was manoeuvred gently into place by the jetty. Although darkness had fallen, she was clear to see under the bright lighting of the port.
The first thing that struck Flynn was that it was the man who had been with Hoyle, rather than the two divers, who dealt with securing the mooring ropes. Previously it had been the divers who had done all the hard work required when bringing a boat in, but this time Flynn couldn’t even see them. He knew they had gone out on the boat with Hoyle that morning.
‘Odd,’ he said quietly.
When the boat was moored, he expected to see the divers cleaning off their equipment with the hoses as they had done on every other night. There was no sign of them at all.
Karen had noticed this change too. She exchanged a glance with Flynn and said, ‘I don’t like this.’
Henry looked at them both. ‘Like what?’
‘Divers this morning, no divers tonight,’ Flynn said. He stood up and walked a short way down the road and peered into the car park behind the block, then returned and sat down. ‘Their car is still parked up,’ he said, then, ‘There’s Hoyle.’
Henry looked and saw a man on the deck of Destiny, leaning over and looking at the water for some reason. The man then looked in their direction, put his hand over his eyes to shade them, then turned away and went into the boat.
‘That’s him,’ Henry confirmed. ‘He’s still got a plaster over his nose.’
‘Oh yeah,’ Flynn
said, recalling the head-butt.
‘I wonder where the divers are,’ Karen said. ‘I think I’ll walk to the end of jetty and have a look, tourist style,’ Without giving either of the men time to disagree, she stood up and sauntered along the crowded jetty, past Destiny, stopped at the end and looked into the water like many of the other tourists did, then strolled nonchalantly back and sat down. ‘No sign of any diving gear,’ she said.
‘It was there this morning. Shit,’ Flynn said. ‘Something not right here.’ He looked at Henry. ‘D’you want to pay him a visit?’
‘Only after I’ve briefed the local cops.’
‘What?’ It was Flynn’s turn to scrunch up his face.
‘I don’t want to screw anything up procedurally,’ Henry bleated, ‘otherwise he could walk. You’re jumping to conclusions here, thinking something bad has happened. Maybe he’s dropped the divers off somewhere else.’
‘Tell you what, Henry,’ Flynn said, rising from his seat. ‘I’m going to have my moment with that bastard now. Know why? Because I counted four out and only two have come back and that tells me something.’
‘What?’
‘They’ve found what they’re looking for and they’ve killed any witnesses.’
He pushed away the table. Henry shot up. ‘That’s a hell of a conclusion … let’s get the Spanish cops here, then go in,’ he said.
Flynn had a think about it, then shook his head. ‘Nah.’ He turned to go just as a long limousine drew up across the road and the back door opened. A short, very dark-skinned man dressed in a silk shirt, black silk trousers and Gucci loafers climbed out, said something to the driver of the limousine, then started to walk along the jetty.
Henry took hold of Flynn’s arm and pulled him back behind the bougainvillea, then spun quickly around himself when a big hand clamped down on his shoulder. Karl Donaldson and another man were standing behind him.
‘Siddown, guys,’ Donaldson said to Henry and Flynn. Both men complied, Flynn doing so without hesitation. He knew Donaldson, had met him on a few occasions and knew his match when he saw it. All the men and Karen sat back at the table.
‘What’re you doing here, Karl?’ Henry said. He hadn’t seen or heard from his friend for a couple of days but knew he’d been working on the American connections from his office in London.
‘That,’ he said, pointing to the man walking confidently along the jetty towards Hoyle, ‘is Ronnie Brinscoe, and he is the man who we believe owns Jack Hoyle, the one financing the parallel deal to bring up the diamonds, hence Destiny and the divers.’
‘Diamonds!’ Flynn blurted, and shot an accusatory look at Henry. ‘They’re after diamonds? What diamonds?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Did you know this?’ he demanded. Henry just opened the palms of his hands in a gesture that said, yep.
‘How did you find this out?’ Henry asked Donaldson, not caring too much about Flynn’s feelings.
‘By field agents talking to people, being detectives … it happens, y’know?’ Donaldson explained. ‘And we have a guy in Brinscoe’s organization, which helps. Brinscoe and Fioretti are at loggerheads over every single piece of turf from Fort Lauderdale to Key West. Seems Hoyle is Brinscoe’s man in Fioretti’s set-up. He overheard Costain and Fioretti talking while out fishing and pitched the whole thing to Brinscoe, who let Hoyle run with it, hoping to find the diamonds first.’
‘Why is Brinscoe here?’ asked Henry.
‘To oversee things? We’re not sure, but we couldn’t get an agent to follow him from the US, so I hopped on a plane this morning from Gatwick, teamed up with this guy here –’ he jerked a thumb at his companion – ‘Jamie, down from the FBI Madrid office.’ Henry nodded at him. ‘Heard you’d headed south and I guessed our paths might just cross.’ He raised his eyebrows, smiled, then turned to Karen and said, ‘Ma’am,’ very courteously. She just stared back at the very good looking man with her eyes all a-goggle.
‘We think something may have happened today,’ Henry started, seeing Flynn roll his eyes in disgust and mouth the word ‘we?’ Henry ignored him and continued, telling Donaldson about the divers – or lack of them – concluding, ‘It looks odd, according to Flynn. Their car is still here.’
Donaldson took it all in, said, ‘It would be very nice to pay these guys a visit while they’re on board.’ He looked at his colleague. ‘What are the chances of getting a Spanish team together qui—’
His words were interrupted by the sound of six gunshots from the far end of the jetty. Three double taps.
Sometimes, Hawke thought, you had to take the chances that were presented to you. Especially when served up on a plate.
He knew all about the diamonds and their possible value if they were ever found at the bottom of the ocean (which he doubted), and that his boss Fioretti would love to get his hands on them and let them sprinkle through his fingers. His boss would absolutely love that … but he knew something else he would love even more: the brutal death of his main rival, Ronnie Brinscoe, a guy Fioretti hated with a vengeance. And if he could get the diamonds as well, even better, but getting diamonds from the sea bed was not his job. His job was to kill people on his boss’s orders – which is why he had come to Gran Canaria after leaving the UK on a false passport.
His job here was to hunt down the people who had killed Scott Costain and his girlfriend, and also the people employed by Brinscoe who had already started searching for the diamonds. Hawke knew they were one and the same and were using a motor cruiser called Destiny – information that had come from Scott Costain before he was killed – so it was simple for Hawke: find Destiny and then everything else would slot into place.
It hadn’t taken him long, using the internet, a few phone calls, a chat with a few people, including an old salt in the marina in Puerto Rico who, for a few drinks and a handful of euros, had happily told him that Destiny was moored in Puerto de Mogán. The only downside to that particular conversation was that the old man admitted someone else had asked him the same thing, but then claimed he didn’t know who that guy was and that he hadn’t told him anyway. Hawke didn’t have the time to follow that up.
Hawke had been in Mogán for two days now, having booked into a hotel some way back from the waterfront, but he had seen Destiny arrive back on that first evening whilst eating a nice meal at a restaurant that looked directly down the jetty where she moored.
He’d watched the divers leave Destiny and then, later, two other men – one of whom Hawke instantly recognized as Jack Hoyle, the English guy who basically ran Fioretti’s sportfishing boat out of Key West.
Hawke kept his face down over his food as Hoyle and the other man walked past within feet, and up into the resort. Hawke followed them and watched them walk into a restaurant to eat. He later followed them back to the boat, where they bedded down for the night.
Next morning he watched the divers arrive and climb aboard Destiny and sail out of harbour. He killed the day by driving up to Las Palmas where, in the back streets, he easily sourced a 9mm handgun and twelve rounds of ammunition, which would have to be his weapon for this particular job. He’d had to leave his kit back in the UK, where, he’d learned, things had really gone badly for old man Costain and his girlfriend when the cops busted them. Hawke only hoped there wouldn’t be a backfire into his boss’s operation in Florida, as the two were closely linked.
Not his problem.
That evening he chose a different restaurant to eat at on the waterfront, which had a slightly different view of Destiny’s mooring. But the boat did not arrive until late, and without the divers, a fact that put a cynical grin on Hawke’s face. Instinctively he knew they were dead divers.
He waited for Hoyle and the other man to leave the boat, because he’d decided that he would take them both out just as they waited for their table at whatever restaurant they decided to eat at. His car was only a dash away and he would be gone. Just keep it simple and fast.
The arrival of the limo threw that plan into disarray, especial
ly when he saw who stepped out of it. None other than Ronnie Brinscoe. Hawke had to make himself breathe normally at the sight of the guy in his silks and slippers. A new plan – if it could be called a plan – formulated instantly in his brain and he was up, walking towards the jetty, shouldering his way through the strolling tourists who, unwittingly, would be his cover.
He was working it through as he stepped on to the jetty.
He needed to time it so that he was right behind Brinscoe at the moment he was alongside Destiny. The time when his back would be visible to Hawke. Hopefully the other two, Hoyle and the other guy, would be facing him. Like a little trio. Hawke was working it out – Brinscoe first, two to the back of the head. Double tap. Bang, bang. Then even before he fell, instantly taking out the others, head shots, still from a close distance. And that would be it, over in two, maybe three seconds. Turn, then walk – not run – through the tourists, head low, toss the gun sideways into the water, use the cover of the shock and chaos. Kill and go.
He should never have raised his eyes, even once. But he did, and as Henry scrambled through the tourists, following Donaldson, Flynn and the other FBI guy towards the sound of the gunshots, some rushing towards him to escape whatever had happened, others rushing towards it, he saw the one man walking away who didn’t quite fit, the one with his head down, the one not panicking or excited and, maybe because there was some almost spiritual connection between the two of them, this man and Henry looked into each other’s eyes across the jetty and neither one of them could disguise the instant recognition.
Hawke hadn’t disposed of the gun. It was still tucked down the waistband of his pants at his lower back, his hand still gripping it as he walked away from the scene of death. He drew it and pivoted towards Henry, dropping into a combat stance, but was buffeted by a female tourist who saw the gun and screamed. Hawke smashed the gun across her face, knocking her brutally out of the way, brought the weapon back to aim again at Henry – but all he saw was a blur of speed, Henry charging low across the jetty, moving faster than he had ever done since he had played rugby for the county.