Alex smiled and, as so often before, marvelled at the subtlety and accuracy of the Regiment's NCO grapevine.
"Speak no evil, hear no evil, see no evil," he said eventually.
"Like that, is it? Wise monkeys?"
"Something like that. Thanks, Stevo."
TWENTY-ONE.
He offered Dawn his resignation the next day.
"You can't just ... walk out!" she protested.
"You're the only one to have seen Meehan face to face."
"He's the one who's seen me, not the other way round, and I don't look exactly anonymous with these stitches all over me. I won't be able to get within miles of him."
"And Angela Fenwick? What's going to happen when he comes after her?"
"Your people are going to have to stop him," said Alex.
"It's as simple as that."
She stared at him.
"Alex." She hesitated over the use of his name.
"Please.
Don't make me beg you to finish the job."
"It's more likely to be Meehan who's finishing the job," said Alex wryly, touching his bandaged face.
"Alex." she lowered her voice.
"You can catch him and you can kill him.
You're the best. That's why we came to you.
He glanced over at her. Today she was dressed completely in steely grey the grey of her eyes.
"What would it take," she murmured, 'to keep you on the case?
In charge of the case, calling the shots?"
Would you credit it, he thought. She's actually schmoozing me. He closed his eyes. He'd never yet walked away from a challenge.
"You could have whatever..
"Spain," he intermpted her flatly.
She stared at him.
"We have to fly to Spain. There's someone we need to see." He gave her a censored version of the facts. She listened in silence.
"I don't see why you can't simply tell me who this man is, so that I can send someone over to talk to him."
"He won't talk to you or to anyone you send," said Alex firmly.
"It's got to be me. Once I've talked to this guy I'll hand the information over to you and you can do what you want with it. You brought me in for my speciali sed knowledge you might as well get your money's worth."
She looked at him uncertainly and he shrugged. If he could help MI-5 nail Meehan it might make up in some small way for his negligence towards George Widdowes. It was all that he had left to offer.
"If anyone knew Meehan," Alex continued, 'it was this guy. Day after day, week after week, down at that bunker in Tregaron .. . You get to know someone pretty damn well under those circumstances. You talk to each other because there's nothing else to do. Blokes I've trained I know things about them their wives certainly don't."
She nodded, took her mobile from her bag and left the room. By the time she returned he had finished the coffee. Her eyes travelled over the ugly, black scabbed stitches that cut across his face.
"Angela's flying to Washington this morning for two days and I think we can assume she'll be safe from Meehan during that time. But it means we have to get to Spain pretty much immediately and be back within forty-eight hours. Do you think you can travel in that state?"
They went first-class that afternoon. At the Fairhe Clinic they knew all about short recovery times, and the male nurse who had attended Alex the day before gave Dawn a swift tutorial on the care of knife wounds and packed a kit containing all the bandages, dressings and painkillers that she would need.
At Heathrow, at Alex's insistence, they had bought a beach bag and swimming kit. In Alex's case this had meant a pair of blue shorts, in Dawn's a red bikini that Alex had exchanged for the severe one-piece she herself had chosen.
"We've got to fit in," he told her as the plane circled Malaga airport.
"The more official we look the less he'll tell us. If we look like a couple of civil servants on expenses I can guarantee that he won't even speak to us. And we both know you look good in red!"
She'd ignored the last comment and reluctantly agreed, as she had agreed that no official mention would be made of their contact's name or location, and that whatever she learnt from the visit no criminal prosecution would be set in motion.
"The other thing you have to remember," Alex had told her, 'is that the world our man occupies is not run by Guardian readers but by hard-core criminals. The deal with girlfriends is that they wear a lot of lipstick, they're treated like princesses and when it's time to talk business they make themselves scarce. So when I feel that point's coming I'll expect you to do just that, OK?"
"I don't know why you need me along at all," she complained.
"To make the whole thing kosher. Our guy's sure to have some sort of woman in tow and a single male visitor unbalances the household. He constitutes a threat, a sexual challenge, a physical invasion all sorts of negative things. A man with a girlfriend, however, is quite another matter. You and his chi ca can push off and talk about blonde highlights or vibrators or whatever and leave the men to put the world to rights over a bottle of ten-year-old malt."
"I can't wait."
"Look, we want a result, we've got to press the right buttons." She narrowed her eyes.
"And all that male-heroic, bimbo girlie stuff is a million miles from your own enlightened, neo feminist views, right?"
"Absolutely," said Alex.
"I'm the original new man, me.
The seat belt sign came on and a broad swathe of brilliant Mediterranean blue appeared beneath them. It was 4.15 local time.
The drive from Malaga airport took the best part of forty minutes in their hired Mercedes. It was a beautifully clear day, the air was warm and the pace of the traffic on the coast highway leisurely. From Malaga to Marbella seemed to be one long strip of holiday, golfing and marina developments. Some of these were completed, some were still at the bricks-and-mortar stage and all offered extravagantly generous terms to potential buyers.
"We should put a deposit down on a condo." Alex yawned contentedly as they bypassed Marbella.
"We can retire here and play golf when we finally hang up our shoulder holsters."
"Endless boozing with retired villains," said Dawn acidly.
"I think not."
"Oh, get a life, girl! The sun's shining. We're on the Costa del Sol. Let's at least try to enjoy ourselves."
"There's something very creepy about this place. Where are all the young people, for a start?"
"Having sexy siestas would be my guess. That or lying on the beach."
"Hm. Planning the next Brinks-Mat robbery more likely."
"Look," said Alex, 'there's the sign for El Angel."
They drove past the turning and on to Puerto Banus, where they had booked accommodation for two nights. The Hotel del Puerto, they discovered, was a class act. A fountain surrounded by dwarf palms played in the reception area and their luxurious balconied room overlooked the port.
The room was a double. Alex had no reason to suspect that Connolly would check their accommodation, but he knew two singles would definitely spook him in the unlikely event that he did bother. Dawn had not been enthusiastic about a shared bed and Alex had drily promised to sleep on the floor.
And here they were. Beneath them sparkling white yachts rocked gently at anchor, and on the quay side expensively dressed holiday makers sauntered past the bars and shops. Even Dawn brightened at the prospect before them and when Alex suggested they went down for a snack she readily agreed.
He unzipped his bag on the double bed, stripped uncomfortably to his boxer shorts the wound in his thigh was particularly painful after the journey and replaced his jeans and T-shirt with lightweight chinos and a Hawaiian shirt printed with dragons. The stitches he covered up with Elastoplast.
"How do I look?" he asked Dawn.
, "Like a beaten-up pimp," said Dawn.
"If you'll excuse me, I'll change in the bathroom.