He was not much taller than Thorne, but looked a good deal fitter. His hair had the kind of blond streaks that Louise called 'bird-shit highlights', while the three-quarter-length shorts, beaded necklace and salmon-pink shirt made him look more like a small-time drug dealer than a big-time secret squirrel. Perhaps that was the idea, Thorne thought. He pictured his own, more conservative collection of shorts and polo shirts, bought a few days earlier with his warm-weather allowance of M amp;S vouchers. He guessed that anyone with an eye for such things would mark him out for what he was straight away.
He decided that he didn't much care.
'Good flight?' Fraser asked.
'It was easyJet,' Thorne said.
They sat in Fraser's Punto for a few minutes, waiting for the air conditioning to kick in before heading away. Listening to the agent's easy chatter, Thorne wondered if, first impressions aside, he should perhaps give the man the benefit of the doubt. Hadn't he taken an instant dislike to Andy Boyle? Hadn't he thought that Anna Carpenter was a pain in the neck when he had first been lumbered with her?
Perhaps Fraser would surprise him, too.
The SOCA man watched as Thorne held sticky palms towards the air vents. 'This is chilly, mate,' he said. 'You want to try being here in August. I promise you, you'd be sweating like a rapist.'
Perhaps not…
The road from the airport was clogged with traffic, squeezing between building works every quarter-mile or so that narrowed the lanes. The carriageways were separated by a seemingly endless line of palm trees and, for the first twenty minutes, snaking slowly through the built-up outskirts of Malaga, drab-looking apartment blocks and retail strips crowded in from both sides. Furniture stores, DIY warehouses and restaurants, with as many English signs as Spanish.
Fraser took a call and, in a London accent that was sounding increasingly affected, told whoever he was talking to that Thorne was in the car with him. He said his passenger was clearly feeling the heat and laughed at the response. He hummed his agreement to a few things and promised to call back later. After hanging up, he turned the radio on and found an English station; some Radio Essex reject proudly announcing a programme of back-to-back eighties classics.
Spandau Ballet gave way to Kajagoogoo.
'We should probably give you a day or two to get settled.'
'I don't need a day or two,' Thorne said.
Fraser shrugged. 'You might want to feel your way into things is all I'm saying. There's not much on today, anyway.'
'You got more stuff for me to read?'
'Oh yeah, we'll go through everything tonight over dinner. But you know, softly-softly-catchee-monkey, all that.'
'Way past that with Alan Langford,' Thorne said.
Fraser looked at him, placed a finger to his lips. ' If he's who we think he is, you start saying that name too loudly and we might just as well be wearing pointed hats.'
Thorne nodded. As Brigstocke had guessed might be the case, SOCA suspected that Alan Langford was a man they had been observing for some time, and information about him had been faxed through piecemeal in the weeks since the shooting. Details of the new life Langford had made for himself in Spain. Some of his nice new friends and not so nice business associates.
His new name.
The traffic had eased and, despite the high-rise sprawl of Torremolinos in the distance, their clear view of the coast – arcing south-west towards Gibraltar – was spectacular. The sea was shining to the left of them, crashing against the beaches in waves far bigger than Thorne had expected.
'Nice, isn't it?' Fraser asked.
' Looks nice,' Thorne said.
Five minutes later, Fraser drifted across to the right-hand lane and Thorne clocked the sign for the turn-off.
Benalmadena.
'Where the photographs were taken,' Thorne said.
Fraser nodded, said, 'Seems as good a place as any for some lunch. You hungry?'
Thorne had found it easy to resist the lure of easyJet's in-flight catering service. But even if he had fancied something on the plane, he could not have justified using up a fortnight's expenses on one cup of coffee and a sandwich.
'Yeah, I could eat,' he said.
They found a small restaurant in a parade of shops and bars just across from the beach, where people were sharing tapas around large upturned barrels. Fraser told Thorne that he'd do the honours and, having put away one small beer and asked for another, ordered food for both of them in fluent Spanish. Thorne let him get on with it. He was happy enough, for the time being at least, to let the SOCA agent play his games, as well as a little relieved at having been spared giving a demonstration of his own ignorance.
Waiting for the food, Thorne watched an old man a few feet away pulling a large octopus from a vat of boiling water. He snipped off pieces with large scissors, laid them on a wooden plate alongside slices of waxy-looking potatoes and, after a liberal sprinkling of salt and paprika, drizzled the dish with olive oil.
Pulpo a feira.
The reason why the boat in the picture had been in Benalmadena. The one clue that had helped them find Alan Langford. If they had found him…
Thorne nodded towards the old man. 'Can we try some of that?'
'We've got plenty coming, trust me.' Fraser noticed Thorne watching him as he finished his second beer, said, 'It's not even a third of a pint.' He winked. 'It's all about fitting in, right? Looking the part.'
Thorne shrugged and went back to his sparkling water.
'Listen, don't think this isn't hard graft,' Fraser said. 'Trust me, mate, I'd rather be in Tottenham.'
'Right.'
'Straight up. It's mental here, I'm telling you.' He stabbed at the top of the barrel with a finger, counting off a predictable list of the criminal fraternities. 'We've got the Albanians, the Russians, the Irish, the Brits… and the locals aren't exactly Boy Scouts, either. Gun-running, vice like you wouldn't believe and multi-million-pound property scams in every resort you can name. The armed robbers could teach the lads back home a thing or two, and I don't need to tell you about the drugs.'
He didn't, but he proceeded to anyway. Thorne was given more or less the same lesson he'd received from Silcox and Mullenger, but he sat and listened politely. He'd already decided that 'innocent abroad' might be a useful persona to hide behind.
Fraser pointed out to sea. 'Ninety miles up the coast, Africa's so close you can almost swim across. They usually drown, so who cares, but we've caught a few with lifejackets stuffed full of all sorts.'
'Jesus.'
'I swear.'
Thorne could easily believe it. He knew the lengths people would go to for drug money, and he couldn't help wondering if some of those who risked their lives in such a way might be working for Alan Langford. He knew that those further down the chain recruited their mules and dealers from the streets of British cities: no-hopers in Nottingham or Sheffield peddling wraps of coke outside downmarket nightclubs who would jump at the chance of a free plane ticket and a few months in the sun. Who wouldn't think it strange to be asked if they were strong swimmers.
The food came and they both got stuck in. Thin and crispy shrimp tortillas and fiery Padron peppers. Deep-fried anchovies and huge clams eaten straight from the shell with lemon and salt.
A hundred yards away, on a corner, Thorne could see the sign for a Burger King. He sucked down another clam and nodded across. 'Why the hell would anyone want to go there when you've got this?'
'To be honest, you can get a bit sick of the local stuff,' Fraser said. 'Sometimes you just want a decent bit of stodge.'
'Right, like a nice kebab back in Tottenham.'
Fraser took off his sunglasses and stared. He was clearly unsure if Thorne was taking the piss and, despite the smile that eventually appeared, Thorne could see that, whatever else Call-Me-Pete might be, he certainly wasn't soft. As soon as the shades went back on, Thorne looked away, and Fraser followed his eye-line to where two women were standing topless at the edge of the beach.