Money is the Root . . .

The two fishermen from Andratx had finished their business and were having a drink before heading home. As they waited for the barman to bring their drinks, a young woman approached their table. Neither of the men spoke more than a smattering of English, but they understood there was some problem connected with the child on the poster. The skipper nodded to her, folded the flyer and stuck it in his shirt pocket, merely to be polite.

“David, that was the bank on the phone,” shouted Sylvia. “Something about a deposit, can you phone them back?”

David was on the roof, assisting the tilers with the last of the repairs. In the past weeks the hotel had been fully refurbished and was now ready for guests. The wiring and the plumbing were state of the art and every room had been brought up to standard. All their money was gone, but they still had a thousand euros a month to tide them over until the first guests arrived.

“I’ll call them when this is finished.”

The afternoon flew past as the men endeavoured to get the job done and David forgot all about the call until later that evening. “What was the call from the bank about?”

“I don’t know, they wanted to speak with you, did you not call them?”

“No, I didn’t finish until late in the afternoon. I’ll call them tomorrow. The boy’s money should be in the account by now.”

“We have stopped the payment as you requested, Miss Coyle. It is payable to a Mr D. Smith in Andratx. This is the second payment. It was set up on the 20th September for an indefinite period.”

“D. Smith? Do you have any further information on this individual?”

“Sorry, the account is not held at one of our branches so we have nothing more.”

“Thank you. I want to close the account now and ensure no other payments are made to D. Smith.”

The payments had been organised the day after she was arrested and this would have been, as the bank official said, the second instalment. Erin was sure she was on to something. She debated with herself as to whether she should contact the police or go straight to Nick the Greek. Correctly surmising that her father’s friend would act more quickly than the police, she made her way to his office.

“But there should have been a thousand euros paid into my account yesterday.”

“So what is the balance?”

“Shit,” he muttered. What the hell had gone wrong? “It’s a transfer that comes from the Bank of Andalucía in Marbella.”

“There’s nothing you can do?” He slammed the phone down on the cradle.

David stormed into the kitchen where his wife was feeding the baby. “Well, you can stop that right away,” he grabbed the spoon from her hand. “He gets nothing till we get what’s due.”

“What’s up? What’s the matter? And don’t be stupid, we can’t just stop feeding the child.”

“Oh yes we can. He gets not one morsel of food until this is sorted.”

The first contact number he had went to voicemail immediately.

The second went to voicemail after a few rings, asking the caller to leave a message and someone would get back to them.

“The money hasn’t gone in to my account and the child will not be fed until we get paid,” he screamed. “Phone me back the moment you get this message,” and again he smashed the phone down.

“You’re kidding?” asked his wife. “Surely you’re not going to deprive this child of food? It will be a misunderstanding, something between the banks.”

“Well the choice is yours, your children get fed or this one, you decide, but with no money, there is no food.” And again he stormed out. David was a nice man and a good father, but his one big failing was his temper and when he was roused Sylvia and the kids shipped out until he was calm again.

Ryan was hot, feverish and dehydrated; other than a few sips of water he’d had nothing to eat for nearly ten hours. Even the crying had stopped.

“I don’t care what you say, he has to have something. What will happen when this gets sorted and you’ve starved the poor mite to death? A fine pickle we’ll all be in then.”

David was beyond reasoning with. The money was three days overdue and he was desperate. Why was no-one returning his calls?

Since Bobby’s death Canon O’Farrell had felt truly alone for the first time in his life. He was well aware that many would say he deserved it; he, himself, was sure he did, but that didn’t ease the deep sadness he felt at losing Bobby.

He had stopped answering the phone and hardly ventured out, there didn’t seem to be much point these days. As he rose from his armchair, he was alerted by the new message alert on his mobile. He supposed he’d better answer. He picked the phone up to see over twenty voicemails from an unknown number. He listened to the messages becoming increasingly more and more threatening and knew he had to do something. He couldn’t leave Bobby’s child to die at the hands of strangers. In fact, he would go and remove the boy and rear him himself.

As she prepared her husband’s shirt for the laundry, the fisherman’s wife came across the flyer he’d taken from the girl earlier in the day. Like her husband, she could speak little or no English, but it didn’t take much to decipher what the message was. A reward of five hundred thousand euros for a baby, just like one the English woman had brought into the shop only a few days ago. That would explain why no-one had known she was pregnant.

She picked up the phone “Hola . . .”

“Hello, David,” the priest spoke.

“What the hell is going on? The money didn’t come through.”

“I’m sorry, but Bobby met with an accident. I should have made arrangements to have the transfer done, but I quite simply forgot. I take it the child is okay? You weren’t stupid enough to carry out your threats?”

“No, of course not,” the hotelier was beginning to panic. The child had barely made a sound this morning.

“I’ll transfer the money tomorrow and I’ll come and see him in a few days.”

Thank God, he had breathing space. They had to make the boy well again. His wife was right. He was stupid.

Please God, make this right.

“Erin, we’ve had a call from someone in Andratx who thinks she knows where Ryan is.” Bridget spoke quickly. “We have to get there now, before someone alerts them.”

Erin was with Nick the Greek when she received Bridget’s call. On hearing the new information he immediately said, “We’ll take the chopper; we can be there in about an hour. We should meet the caller first to get our facts right. No point in going in all guns blazing if it’s the house next door, or the wrong child.”

Meanwhile Bridget was on the phone to her husband. “Please, Paddy, come over. Things are moving and I would feel much better if you were here, or at least on your way.”

Ryan was clammy and feverish. His breathing was shallow and he was floppy and lifeless.

“You stupid, stupid man. God knows what they’ll do to you if he dies, and I’m damned sure he’s not far off it.”

“The young bloke is dead, some accident or another. It’s only the old one left and he’s no problem. We’ve got until the end of the week to get the boy sorted.”

The sound of a helicopter passing overhead drowned out the rest of the conversation.