6

The sound of the approaching helicopter jerked Russell out of his doze. He lay there with his eyes closed, trying to bring back the dream. Emelisse Alabri had been walking along the street, looking back over her shoulder as if she thought she was being followed. He supposed it had been himself doing the following. Strangest of all had been the location: the local shopping street in Twickenham, where he had grown up.

The helicopter was landing now, on the area of cleared ground which was otherwise used as a baseball diamond. It was the fifth such arrival in the ten days Russell had been on Tortuga, but he had no idea of who or what was being brought in or taken out. He supposed it might be a good idea to find out, but he seemed unable to shake off the mental lassitude which had afflicted him ever since the chloroforming. The causes of this might well be in part physical, but, even if so, Russell had no doubt they were also partly psychological. The more he found out about his new home, the more despairing he felt.

As yet he had not been obliged to do anything more than familiarize himself with the medical procedures. Emelisse had escorted him around the camp, showing him the dormitories where the orphans slept and the dusty space beneath the coconut palms where they went to school. She had not bothered to point out the security features, but then there had been no need to. The walls were real enough, and so were the Kalashnikov AK47s carried by the T-shirt-wearing guards. The atmosphere was not oppressive – two Kalashnikovs had provided the goalposts for an ongoing game of football – and in a way this made things seem even more depressing. The dreadful normality of the whole place made Russell almost want to cry.

After the camp, the hospital had been a revelation. Here everything – technical equipment, instruments, clothing, furnishings – was spotless and new. Nearly all of it was American-manufactured, and as far as Russell could tell no expense had been spared in procuring the best. Even the small outpatient clinic, where Emelisse did her best to function as a normal doctor, was well equipped, presumably as part of the bargain she had made with Joutard’s devil.

The guided tour had taken place during his third day in the camp, and he had not seen much of her since. One day she had come by with some books in French, and pointed out sections which she said he should familiarize himself with. The books had all been printed in Paris, and one bore the inscription ‘for Emelisse, with love from Jean-Pierre, August 17, 1983.’ Russell had asked her if she had ever been to France; she had told him that was where she had studied medicine. He had wanted to ask her more, but the look in her eyes had not been encouraging.

He tried to remember what she had been wearing in his dream. He had only ever seen her in the white coat, and he didn’t think it had been that.

His watch said it was almost five o’clock – another hour and he could go in search of food. He got up and removed the Rachmaninov tape from the cassette recorder, and looked through his deceased predecessor’s collection once more. Brahms, he decided. If he stayed chez Joutard long enough he might even grow to like the stuff.

It was time he gave some serious thought to getting out of the bloody place. He couldn’t believe escape from the camp itself would pose any serious problems, but getting himself beyond Joutard’s reach probably would. The first thing he needed was a precise fix on where he was, and work out a few options for . . .

The rap on the outside door was swiftly followed by the appearance of Emelisse in the living-room doorway. ‘Time to go,’ she said.

‘Where?’

She was already halfway out of the door. ‘To work,’ she said over her shoulder.

He hurried after her. This was the moment he had been dreading. Even if everything went right, and he found he could do what was needed, there was still the overwhelming sense of wrongness. As they walked briskly across the camp towards the hospital he told himself once more that a single kidney operating at fifty per cent of its full capacity could perform all the blood-cleaning operations necessary to a normal healthy adult.

It might be true, but it begged more questions than he had answers for.

He followed Emelisse in through the hospital doors, feeling like he was stepping out of one world and into another. These rooms, with their shiny machines and sterile furnishings and efficient air-conditioning, belonged to the rich man’s world. It was only a freak of geography that had placed them here. That and the warped logic of global supply and demand.

Two young Haitian women were already scrubbing up in the washroom, chattering to each other in a language Russell didn’t understand. They couldn’t be much older than fourteen, he decided, and the pale-blue smocks they were wearing made them look like boarding-school girls getting ready for bed.

One of the other two doctors – the only other European in the camp, an overweight Frenchman named Bodin – was examining himself in the mirror. Seeing Emelisse appear behind him he muttered something sarcastic under his breath. She ignored him, and he turned to leave, casting red-rimmed eyes in Russell’s direction as he did so. The Englishman could smell brandy on the man’s breath.

He and Emelisse scrubbed their hands with the iodized soap, tied each other’s smocks, and went through into the room set up for surgery. The line of four parallel operating tables made it look like an updated set for the TV series MASH. On three of them naked bodies were laid out on sheets. On the far table the last doctor, a bald, middle-aged Hispanic man with a small thin moustache, was already at work.

‘Forty minutes,’ he told Emelisse. She nodded. ‘We’ll start in ten,’ she told the others.

‘Why not now?’ Russell asked.

‘So that we all finish at roughly the same time,’ she said.

That made sense. Russell looked across the room, and suddenly realized that though the two unattended patients were hooked up to tubes, needles and various monitoring sensors the one on the far end was not.

‘What’s Calderón doing?’ Russell asked Emelisse.

‘Harvesting,’ she said coldly. ‘The boy died a couple of hours ago. The helicopter brought in the body.’

‘Harvesting what?’ Russell asked.

‘Kidneys, corneas and as much bone tissue as he can manage in the time.’

‘Why not the heart and the liver?’ Russell asked, though he thought he already knew the answer. Somehow it felt better talking than simply watching.

‘The time factor, I assume.’ She seemed nervous too. ‘They wouldn’t survive the journey.’

‘How long does a heart last?’

‘I don’t know exactly. Six hours? Something like that.’

‘And kidneys?’

‘More like thirty-six.’

That made sense, Russell thought. Unless they were flying them into the US, which would surely be too risky. Of course, for all he knew the organs were being supplied to some private clinic on another island.

‘Why bone . . .’ he started to ask, but his voice dried up. Across the room the Puerto Rican doctor had just lifted the kidneys from the dead boy, still with the main vessels attached, and was carrying them across to the table nearby, where a pan of cold solution was waiting to wash off the blood. He then placed the kidneys in a clear plastic box about ten inches square, one of four in a row which sat on a slightly larger box surrounded in blue casing. These were perfusion machines, whose task was to pump cool preservative through the detached organs until they were transplanted into another patient.

Four boxes for four doctors, Russell thought. If the time factor was tight, then the more operations they could perform simultaneously, the more profit per delivery.

And the more lives could be saved, said another voice inside his head. More people with their sight restored. All Americans, no doubt. All rich by the world’s standards. But human beings nevertheless.

The doors behind swung open, and two trolleys were rolled in, each carrying an unconscious young Haitian. One was a boy, one a girl. Russell guessed they were both about sixteen.

They were transferred on to the operating tables, the cotton shifts they were wearing undone and left hanging down towards the floor.

The Frenchman and one of the nurses took up position on either side of the boy, leaving the girl for Emelisse and the other nurse. Russell stood behind the doctor’s shoulder, and set himself to concentrate on something for the first time in ten days. He was about to receive his first and last lesson in safely removing a kidney from a live donor.

Emelisse lost no time, making the major incision with an electric scalpel that cauterized the blood vessels as it cut through the thin layers of fat and muscle. Then she used retractors to ease the kidney into view from its position behind the liver in the abdominal cavity.

So far it all seemed pretty straightforward, Russell thought, and said so.

‘It is not a difficult operation,’ she said. ‘But it does require care. One little mistake and you can traumatize an artery or abrade the renal vein. The patient can die, particularly with the sort of after-care we have here.’

She asked the nurse to wipe her brow, and took a long, searching look at the pulsing kidney and the area around it. ‘See here,’ she told Russell, ‘we have to clamp these, cut through them here and here, cut through the ureter exactly here, lift out the kidney and then suture everything back together again.’

‘Just a plumbing problem,’ he said, more lightly than he felt.

He watched her do it all. After the kidney had been removed and placed in its clear plastic box she began the delicate work of restoration. She had good hands for such work, he thought. Nimble, steady hands. There was no doubt that it was tiring work, but she only stopped once to flex her fingers before the final stitching together of the original incision.

Glancing across at her, Russell saw the skin stretched tight across her cheek-bones, the lips drawn rigidly together. It was as if she had drained the tension out of her fingers by pouring it into her face.

Midway through the process the nurses had carried out the three boxes and their four kidneys, and as the last stitches were threaded Russell heard the helicopter taking off into the night. He looked down at the face of the unconscious girl and felt as if he was seeing it for the first time.

Emelisse either followed his gaze or read his mind. ‘When they remove organs in America the surgeon never sees the donor’s face,’ she said.

‘I think this is better,’ Russell said.

She looked at him, and for the first time her expression towards him seemed to soften slightly. Then she turned away and told the nurses to take over. They re-wrapped the girl in her cotton gown and wheeled her away on a trolley to join the boy in the recovery room.

Emelisse and Russell undid each other and washed once more.

‘Will you have a drink with me?’ he asked.

She shrugged. ‘Why not.’

Outside, darkness had long since fallen, but the breeze from the sea had not yet picked up, and the air seemed hot and sticky. A huge yellow moon had just emerged above the palms in front of them, and drums resounded from across the camp.

‘I always hated World Music,’ Russell murmured.

‘They’re burying the boy,’ she said, starting to walk towards his bungalow. There was nothing accusatory in her tone, but she had a knack of making him feel in the wrong.

‘What’s left of him,’ he said.

‘If people have souls, I expect his managed to get wherever it was supposed to go.’

He sighed and changed the subject. ‘Why bone tissue?’ he asked. ‘Is it worth that much?’

‘You must be kidding,’ she said. ‘Fresh powdered bone sells for about $200 a gram. That’s four times more than the street value of cocaine.’

‘Powdered bone?’ He suddenly remembered the noise he had heard through the wall during the operations – it had sounded like a coffee grinder. ‘What’s it used for?’

‘Mostly replacing skeletal areas that have had to be removed, usually because they’re cancerous. Lengthening deformed spines. Dental work. There are hundreds of uses.’

‘How long does it last?’

‘I don’t know. Long enough, obviously. Calderón has an expensive toy next door for freeze-drying it.’

‘What brought him here – just greed?’

‘Mostly, but not just. Curiosity. He’s a researcher at heart.’

‘So was Mengele.’

She sighed. ‘Calderón was disbarred in Puerto Rico.’

‘What for?’

‘He hasn’t said. Illegal abortions would be my guess.’

‘And Bodin – what’s his excuse?’

They had reached his door. He reached to push it open for her, but she beat him to it.

‘Take a seat,’ he offered, as she walked into the main room ahead of him. ‘What would you like to drink? Comrade Joutard has supplied me with rum, whisky and beer. Haitian beer, I’m afraid.’

‘Whisky,’ she said.

He poured two glasses and took one over to her. She was slumped on the sofa, eyes closed, looking utterly exhausted.

‘You need some sleep,’ he advised.

She half smiled. ‘Tell me something I don’t know.’

He sat down opposite her. ‘What about Bodin? Where does he come from?’

‘Martinique, he says. He’s just a pig. I’ve always had the feeling that he’s wanted by the police, but he’s never admitted it. He just drinks and lusts after the girls. So far, the boys have been pretty good at protecting them.’

‘That reminds me,’ Russell said. ‘I thought organs for transplants had to be tissue-matched, or the chances of rejection got too high.’

‘The ones we send are tissue-matched. All the boys and girls here have been typed. The two we operated on today are good matches for the recipients, whoever they might be.’

‘You mean there’s a shopping list?’

‘You could call it that.’

He stared into his glass for a moment, then raised his head. ‘And what about you?’ he asked. ‘Were you struck off? Are you on the run?’

‘You know why I’m here.’

‘I don’t know how you got here. How come your English is so good? Were you born here?’

‘In Port au Prince. My mother was French, my father is African. Our family wasn’t socially acceptable, but we had plenty of money. I went to medical school in Paris, and while I was away my mother died. My father moved to America with my two brothers, and I joined them there. I worked in a Boston hospital for four years.’

‘Why did you come back?’

‘There’s one doctor to every three hundred people in Boston, about one to every six thousand here.’

It was the sort of answer Sibou would have given him. The two of them obviously had more in common than being beautiful. ‘So how did you get tied up with Joutard?’ he asked.

‘That’s a long story,’ she said, looking at her watch and getting wearily to her feet. ‘And maybe I’ll tell you it some other time. Right now I should be looking in on the two children.’

‘You and Dr Bodin.’

‘Dr Bodin is not a great believer in post-operative care.’

‘Do you want any help?’

‘No. But thanks for the drink.’

The screen door slammed shut behind her. Russell poured himself another glass of Joutard’s whisky and sat back down again. The drums seemed to have fallen silent, and the only sounds from outside were the chirping of the crickets and the hum of a distant conversation. He wondered where the helicopter was now, and where it was headed. Somewhere out there four people who spent a lot of their life on dialysis machines were about to get another shot at normality. Two more people would probably get the chance to see again. As for the bone . . . well, that was worth four times its weight in cocaine.

If he tried to escape there was no chance she would come with him. And if he failed he might well end up on Dr Calderón’s table, minus both kidneys and corneas, his bones compacted for transport in a jar.

Russell wondered if they’d play the drums for him. As if in answer, the mesmerizing rhythms started up again somewhere in the darkness outside.

Four days after their summons to the CO’s office in Poole, Callum Marker and Rob Cafell found themselves between flights in Miami Airport, with three hours to waste before their connection departed for Providenciales. Cafell had bought himself a paperback history of the SEALs in Vietnam, and was devouring it with his usual single-mindedness, apparently oblivious to the fact that the plastic seat on which he was sitting had been designed by either a Martian or a sadist. Marker, meanwhile, was prowling through the waiting and shopping areas, reminding himself that there were few places on earth he hated more than modern airports.

It was because they were the negation of travel, he thought. He and Cafell had come five thousand miles and everything looked the same, smelt the same. The same products were on sale, even the same foods. ‘Home of Whopper values’ one sign told him. That just about summed it up.

Cheer up, he told himself – you’ll soon be eating conch stew beside the shining sea. At least that was what the brochures had promised them.

The wait seemed endless, but at least the American Airlines flight was called on time. The plane was only two-thirds full, and both men managed to grab window seats, from which they watched Miami Beach and the setting sun fall away behind them. Within a few minutes they were flying over the Bimini Islands, and soon after that the first of the Bahamas. The ocean below seemed crowded with boats.

They flew east into the approaching night. Not much more than an hour later their plane was touching down on the runway of what seemed an almost deserted airport. Marker felt a sense of pleasure walking down the steps on to the tarmac – it was so much nicer than being sucked into a terminal building by one of those telescopic corridors. A hundred yards away the lights of the two-storey terminal building beckoned, but in every other direction there was only darkness. Benidorm it wasn’t.

The two men went through passport control, and then collected their luggage before going through customs. The officer simply waved them through, which rather devalued all the effort they had put into creating an inspection-proof hide for the handguns inside their diving gear.

Outside, a line of taxis, and only taxis, was waiting. Marker, who had done some overland travelling in South-east Asia during stints in Hong Kong and Brunei, recognized a monopoly when he saw one, and cheerfully accepted the quoted price for transport to their hotel.

‘That’s a fortune,’ Cafell muttered behind him.

‘You want to walk five miles?’ Marker asked. They had now been up for about eighteen hours, and he felt exhausted.

‘Not a lot.’

‘Well, get in then.’

They both got in, leaving the driver muttering about how much gear they had. He then leaned against his bonnet for a while, presumably hoping for more passengers, but eventually accepted that none was coming.

The drive took about twenty minutes, and offered little indication of what the island looked like. They passed through two small shopping centres but the rest was darkness, until the taxi breasted a low hill and a shimmering ocean filled the windscreen. The Coconut Cove Hotel – one of the newest on the island – sprawled along low cliffs above a wide, sandy beach, and a grove of the relevant palms stood just beside the men’s allotted cabin.

Inside it the rooms were clean and pleasantly furnished.

‘You can have the bedroom,’ Marker said. ‘I’ll take the convertible couch here.’

‘You want to watch TV in bed, don’t you?’

‘Privilege of rank.’

By the time they’d unpacked it was gone eight. They walked up to the hotel restaurant, looked at the menu, and realized that they had already had enough meals that day. A pint in the bar seemed like a better idea, but even that was hard to finish.

‘I’m going to call it a day,’ Marker decided, with two inches of beer still waiting. ‘Gonk is calling,’ he added, using the Marine slang for sleep.

‘We’re not going to call Franklin tonight?’ Cafell asked, after looking round to make sure no one was in earshot. Feeling a trifle paranoid, he reminded himself who they were probably up against, and how easy it would be to get seduced by the atmosphere of this place into relaxing their guard.

‘We’ll call him tomorrow,’ Marker said. ‘Take the day to get acclimatized, and see him in the evening.’

‘I hope he has some ideas,’ Cafell said, ‘because we haven’t.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ Marker countered with a grin. ‘If all else fails we can always use you as bait. You see Jurassic Park?’

‘No.’

‘Well, everyone remembers the goat.’

It was only about five in the morning when Marker woke up. Ten in the morning in England, he reminded himself.

His partner seemed to have adapted more quickly. Marker had to pass through the bedroom on his way to and from the bathroom, but Cafell didn’t stir, unless an almost melancholy whistling sound counted as such.

Marker dressed, left a note saying he’d be back by nine and went out. The sun was rising above the island, and he managed to coax one of the kitchen staff into supplying him with a premature cup of coffee. Down by the hotel’s small jetty a number of boats were tied up – rowing boats, paddle boats and canoes. They had to be there for the use of guests, Marker told himself. None of the rowing boats had any visible oars, but someone had been carelessly kind enough to leave a paddle in one of the canoes.

Murmuring mental thanks to this unknown benefactor, Marker stepped in and cast off. The water was smooth and, as became increasingly apparent with the brightening light, almost unbelievably clear. Once he was out a couple of hundred yards Marker just let the canoe drift, and watched the sun rise across the low hills of the island, turning the waters to a shade of turquoise which any kingfisher would have envied.

After all the hustle and bustle of the last few days, and particularly the frenetic boredom of ten hours’ flying the day before, sitting in the gently bobbing canoe felt like the most relaxing massage for the soul anyone could have devised.

He had always felt calmed by the sea. Calmed and comforted. Often challenged, but never threatened. Ever since he was a small boy Marker had cherished the feeling that the sea was his real home.

He had grown up in north London’s Highgate, or at least that was where the house the family called home was situated. Both his parents were actors, and fairly successful ones at that, if almost continuous employment could be so called. Neither was famous, although both by now had the vaguely familiar faces of people who had been playing small parts on TV for the best part of thirty years. During Marker’s childhood most of their work had been in the theatre, and he had been packed away to boarding school as soon as he was old enough. His most abiding memories of the time were the long summer holidays spent beside the sea, at the resorts where his parents were appearing. The evenings had been spent backstage, the days with the sea, swimming or sailing with his father.

Public school had been an isolating experience. He was tough enough for the school thugs to give him a wide berth, but uninterested in either academic work or team sports. It was only in the Navy cadets that he discovered challenges of lasting interest, and the school had at least shown the sense to encourage his already prodigious skill as a swimmer and diver.

At fourteen, after seven years at the school, he had been brought back to London by his parents. Their work was now almost exclusively in TV or the capital’s theatre, and at last the house in Highgate became something of a home. Marker was sent to the local comprehensive, where he found a world utterly different from any he had previously known. His school work didn’t improve much, but he found his new schoolmates a much more interesting bunch than the ones he had left behind. For a time other loves like music and films and girls vied with the sea for his attention, but when it came time to leaving school there was no real conflict in his mind. Marker’s ambition was to work at sea, and of all the options he considered, joining the Marines seemed the one with the most potential. And once that was decided, he knew he would settle in the end for nothing less than the best – the SBS.

First, of course, he had needed to make the grade as a Royal Marines officer. Marker could remember the first day as clear as yesterday, clearer in fact. He had arrived at the training centre in South Devon on a sunny September morning, and realized that most of the other young men around him were much more nervous than he was. Even some of the ones who had come straight from university had looked lost and lonely. Not for the first or the last time, Marker had appreciated the edge his childhood had given him when it came to self-reliance.

But, as he had found out much later, there had also been a price. The inner-directedness which made him such a proficient SBS officer also made it hard for him to share his life. In one of their final rows Penny had told him she had only stayed for the sex. Their bed was the only place in which he knew how to give of himself.

She had probably been right, Marker thought, as the canoe drifted slowly out from shore. He had been selfish – there was no doubt of that. She had wanted them to have a child, and he had wanted to wait until they were permanently settled in one place. He hadn’t wanted to do to his own children what his parents had done to him.

Penny had understood, but that was all. She hadn’t agreed. And now she was gone. And he was sitting in a canoe on a turquoise sea feeling sorry for himself.

‘Fuck a pig,’ he muttered to himself, and took charge of the canoe’s direction again, turning it in a long arc back towards the shore.

He found Rob Cafell halfway through breakfast, and helped himself from the self-service buffet.

‘Cabs offer tours of the island,’ Cafell told him, ‘or we can hire a four-wheel drive. Some of the roads are not exactly built yet, apparently.’

‘Hiring a car sounds better. Can we do it from here?’

‘No, but the place is only a mile or so away.’

‘Good.’ Marker looked at his watch. ‘And Franklin should be reachable by then.’

‘I’m ready to go.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Marker said, scooping up the last of the tropical fruit salad. ‘But you’re too good to be true.’

They collected the documents they needed and started up the road which led inland from the cove, declining several offers of a cab. It was hot – probably over twenty-five degrees already, though it was not yet eight-thirty – and there wasn’t much in the way of shade. The rolling terrain was covered with vegetation, but mostly in the form of scrub. In the open countryside trees were few and far between.

Leeward Rent-A-Car was situated on the other side of the island’s main highway, at its junction with the road from the hotel, and was just opening for business as they arrived. Marker left Cafell and the owner picking a vehicle, and went inside to use the phone. He dialled the clinic’s number and asked to speak to the administrative secretary.

‘Worrell Franklin speaking.’

‘Mr Franklin, the consignment of textbooks you ordered from London has arrived.’

Franklin smiled to himself. ‘Great. I’ll collect them this afternoon.’

‘You know where to come?’

‘Yep, thanks.’

‘Thank you,’ Marker said, and hung up.

Outside, Cafell was signing papers on the bonnet of a four-wheel-drive Subaru.

Within minutes they were on the highway, heading east.

They spent the next four hours exploring the island, from the Leeward Marina opposite Mangrove Cay at one end to the secluded, west-facing beach at the other. They briefly visited a conch farm, the ruins of an old slave plantation and a nature reserve. The only road they didn’t venture on to was the one which led down towards Arcilla’s house on Long Bay. There was no point in offering the enemy a free memory of their faces until they had a plan of action.

In the afternoon they hired a boat from one of the diving services on Grace Bay and tested their equipment on the undersea wall west of Provo, where the shallow waters of the island shelf abruptly dropped into the thousand-fathom depths of the Caicos Passage. Spectacular formations of rock and coral hung over the edge of the wall, and both men caught glimpses of sharks and rays cruising in the shadows. It all seemed a long way from Poole Bay.

‘Some people have to pay for all this,’ Cafell said, as they stripped off their wetsuits before taking the boat back in.

For Franklin the day passed by at a snail’s pace. He had only had one class to take, but, much to the amusement of his students, twice found his attention drifting helplessly away from the subject in hand.

Soon after five he left the clinic. The Coconut Cove was only ten minutes away by car, but he had decided on walking, and by a roundabout route at that. It might well be no more than paranoia, but several times over the past week he had felt that he was being followed.

After receiving the welcome but surprising news from Joss Wynwood, Franklin’s first reaction had been to sit and wait for the reinforcements to arrive. But this, he had quickly realized, would look suspicious. If he didn’t keep up his campaign of harassment against Sergeant Oswald and the authorities, then the opposition might get the idea that he had something else up his sleeve.

Now, striding purposefully down the dirt road which reached the northern coast some two miles west of the Coconut Cove, he was eager to meet the SBS men who had been sent out from England. He still had little idea of what any of them could do to find Russell, but over the past few days he had decided there must be more at stake in this matter than he knew. And that meant that the SBS men should have as much to tell him as he had to tell them. And then maybe between them they could build up a wider picture and come up with a suitable plan of action. He hoped this was true, because the only plan he had managed to formulate on his own was not one with which he felt at all comfortable.

Reaching the beach, Franklin walked down to the sea, took off his shoes and paddled around in the shallow water for several minutes, keeping one eye on the road he had arrived by. No walker appeared, and no car. If he was being followed, then it wasn’t with much thoroughness.

Darkness fell as he walked the two-mile stretch of beach, and the lights of the hotel grew brighter with every moment. In the bar he spotted the two men straight away, sitting with their cans of Heineken and reading a week-old Daily Express. He would have known them without the prearranged signs, simply from the fact that they both looked so fit.

When they got up to leave he waited a minute, and then followed them out to the beach. Half a mile to the east, when all were sure that they weren’t being followed, the two SBS men stopped and waited for Franklin to catch up.

They introduced themselves, and sat down with their backs against the abandoned hulk of a rowing boat. A large and lonely sapodilla tree towered above them, black against the sky. To left and right the empty beach stretched away into the darkness.

After Franklin had confirmed that he had no fresh news of Russell, they briefed him on the wider reasons for their presence.

‘Have you been keeping an eye on Arcilla’s house?’ Marker asked.

‘Not really. I’ve been up there a few times, but I can’t spend my life in a hide. I’ve got a job to do. And my mother’s visiting from England,’ he added with a rueful grin. ‘But we’ve got some friends up on Long Bay, and the guy at the marina isn’t what you’d call close-mouthed. Arcilla’s helicopter has made a couple of trips to who knows where; the last one was the day before yesterday. After dark both times, which sounds a bit suspicious. The boat hasn’t been back . . .’

‘The boat’s anchored between Muertos Cays and the Dog Rocks on the Cay Sal Bank,’ Cafell told him. ‘It’s a region of shallows between Cuba and Florida,’ he added. ‘Since it’s one of the prime drop sites for drug planes, the US Coast Guard checked the Tiburón Blanco out a few days ago. The identity of the owner didn’t exactly inspire confidence, but they can’t arrest a boat for sitting in international waters. And unless it’s waiting a hell of a long time for a drop, it’s probably doing what it says it is – treasure hunting. There are lots of known wrecks there, and quite a few more which no one has ever found. The Santa Lucia . . .’

‘I don’t think Worrell needs a run-down of famous wrecks,’ Marker interrupted. ‘Has Arcilla been here himself?’ he asked Franklin.

‘Not as far as I know. And there’s no reason to think he’s skulking in his villa. His sister’s behaviour hasn’t changed. Neither has the caretaker’s.’

‘We’re waiting for a complete run-down on Arcilla,’ Marker said. ‘Maybe that’ll give us some ideas. But the way I see it at the moment, the only thing of Arcilla’s on this island is his house. We have to get into it, one way or another. The question is how.’

‘I’ve been thinking about that for ten days now,’ Franklin said slowly, ‘and there’s not much doubt what the easiest way into it is. In all the hours I’ve watched the place I’ve seen three strangers go through the front gate – and all of them have been picked up by Tamara Arcilla at the Club Med-Turkoise.’

Cafell laughed. ‘You’re not suggesting one of us gets himself picked up . . .’

Franklin shrugged. ‘I don’t like it, but . . .’

‘The things a man must do for his country,’ Marker murmured.

‘Is she beautiful?’ Cafell wanted to know.

‘Yes, she is,’ Franklin admitted.

‘I know we’re both devastatingly good-looking,’ Marker said, ‘but what makes you think she’d pick one of us out of the crowd?’

‘It’s the low season,’ Franklin said, ‘and there’s not much of a crowd.’

‘I don’t know,’ Cafell said. It didn’t feel right, though he wasn’t sure why. James Bond did it all the time, and probably charged condoms to expenses.

Marker was looking out to sea, trying to think of an alternative. ‘What about a break-in?’ he asked.

‘You have a look at the place tomorrow,’ Franklin said. ‘It wouldn’t be difficult to get in, but to search the place thoroughly without getting caught . . . There’s always people there. And with the woman, well, there’s always the chance she’ll let something slip in conversation.’

‘Or talk in her sleep,’ Cafell offered.

‘What’s her taste in men?’ Marker asked.

‘All the ones I’ve seen her with have been dark.’

‘I’m afraid it’s up to you then, boss,’ Cafell said. ‘Of course I’ll give you detailed advice . . .’

Marker didn’t laugh. He could hear Penny screaming, ‘I only stayed with you for the fucking sex.’ There had to be some other way to do this.