The Watchman (29 page)

Dawn winced as thistles tore at her ankles.

"Perhaps I'm not so ideally dressed after all," she remarked, glancing down at her strappy sandals.

"You look fine," said Alex.

The path led on to a custom-built road flanked by white-rendered houses. Some of these were occupied and had cars on their drives and defiant little gardens of bougainvillea and hibiscus in front of them, but most stood empty.

Alex was struck by the desolation of the place. These deserted villas were, in a very real sense, the end of the road. You would come here and slowly forget everything.

Dawn must have been feeling the same, because to his amazement she slipped her arm through his.

"In every dream home a heartache," she murmured.

"Yeah. I'm beginning to feel seriously in need of a drink."

"This bar is actually on the sea, is it?"

"That was the impression I got," said Alex.

"Shall we ring one of these bells and ask?"

They looked at each other, laughed nervously, then Dawn strode over to the nearest house. The sign read "Tangmere'.

The door was opened by an elderly man in a cravat and an RAF blazer. A vague house coated figure, presumably his wife, peered nervously behind him.

"We're looking for Pablito's," began Alex, shielding his stitched-up ear with his hand.

"Over the road, face the sea, track at eleven o'clock between Sea Pines and Casa Linda. ETA three minutes. Calling on young Denzil?"

"Yes."

"First-rate chap. Darkish horse, of course, but then that's the rule rather than the exception out here. Tempt you inside for a minute or two? Raise a lotion to the setting sun?"

"Perhaps some other time," said Alex guiltily, seeing the poorly concealed desperation in the other man's eyes.

"Very good. Dunbar's the name. Usually here."

Alex and Dawn set off down the track and saw the bar almost immediately. It was a blockhouse of a place, finished in a rough brownish render which matched the stony seashore. A neon design, not yet illuminated, showed palm trees and a sunset. Around the building stood half a dozen wooden benches and plastic topped tables. A rusting motorcycle leaned tipsily against one wall.

"I am definitely overdressed," said Dawn, picking her way awkwardly over the shingle.

"Whereas my pimp's outfit is spot on." Alex grinned.

As they approached Pablito's they saw that they had taken a very indirect back route and that, in fact, a narrow road led straight to the front entrance. The swing doors in front of the building were half open. Inside, the place looked more spacious than its exterior suggested. A bar ran the length of one wall and on one of its stools a fat, heavily tanned man in a sarong, perhaps forty-five, was watching football on a wall-mounted television. Behind the bar a twenty something woman with bleached blonde hair polished lager glasses. A cigarette smoked in an ashtray at her elbow.

As Dawn and Alex peered over the swing doors, the woman assumed a practised smile.

"Come on in, loves. We're still in injury time, as you can see, but make yourselves at home. What can I do you for?"

Alex turned to Dawn. From the corner of his eye he could see the blonde woman staring at the dressings on his face.

"What's it going to be, pet?"

Dawn smiled sweetly at him.

"Ooh, I think a Bacardi Breezer might just get me going!"

"One BB coming up. And for you, my love?"

"Pint would be nice."

The man on the stool scratched his stomach and looked up.

"Tell you, that Patrick Viera's a bloody liability. Someone's going to put his lights out one of these days. Staying locally, are you?"

"Puerto Banus," said Alex.

"Very nice. Come over on the 1615?"

Alex nodded, helped Dawn on to a bar stool and with due consideration for his lacerated thigh, sat down himself "Exploring the area, then?"

The features were pufFy with alcohol, but the eyes were shrewd. And beneath the gross brick-red body, Alex saw, were the remains of a disciplined physique.

On the broad forearms were the marks of tattooes removed by laser.

"We wanted to get away from things for a few days." Alex winked at Dawn and allowed his hand to stray to the dressing on his cheek.

"And as you can see, I've had a bit of a bang-up in the motor. We reckoned we were due some quality time."

"Well, you've come to the right place for that." The fat man's eyes flickered over the knife wounds.

"What game you in, then?"

"Den, love, leave the poor man alone," said the woman, clattering over to the optics in her high-heeled mules.

"He hasn't set foot in here more'n two minutes and already you're.

"No, it's OK," said Alex.

"I'm a physical training instructor. And Dawn, well, Dawn's one of my best customers, aren't you, pet."

She giggled.

"I hope so."

This was the explanation that they had agreed on. If pressed, the suggestion was to be that Dawn was mar ned to someone else.

The fat man nodded and returned to the football, shaking his head at intervals to mark his disapproval of Arsenal's failure to wrest control of the game from Sturm Graz. As the final whistle blew he swung round on his bar stool and extended a large hand to Alex.

"I'm Den. Big Den, Dirty Den, Fat Bastard, whatever." He moved behind the bar and slapped the woman s tight, white-denimed rump.

"And this is Marie. Pull us a bevvy, love.

"Leave off! And for Gawd's sakes put on a bleedin' shirt." The woman reached for a lager glass and winked at Dawn.

"He wouldn't stand for it if I went about with my chest hanging out - I don't see why I should when he does!"

"When you've got a body like mine," said Den, 'you should share it with the world."

He emptied a half-glass of Special Brew in a single swallow, slapped his vast belly, reached for his cigarettes and leant confidentially towards Dawn.

"You know, I'm known locally as something of a fitness guru," he murmured.

Dawn giggled again.

"Well, I approve of your gym," she said, looking around her at the football pennants and the signed Eas tEnders posters.

Other customers began to arrive. Alex and Dawn nursed their drinks at the bar and listened to the amiable banter around them. Everyone else, it was clear, was a regular. Equally clear was that this unremarkable beach bar was a meeting place for expatriate criminal aristocracy. For the most part they were expensively if a little garishly dressed. The women looked a lot more like Marie than Dawn, favouring bleached-blonde feather cuts and uncompromising displays of orange cleavage. The men went for Ross Kemp buzz cuts pastel leisure wear and extensive facial scarring.

Den acted as host, drinking steadily and determinedly himself and ensuring that others' glasses were full. To Alex there seemed to be no clear line between paid for and complimentary drinks. No money was demanded of him and he assumed that he and Dawn were running up a tab.

At nine o'clock on the dot the Dunbars appeared, nodded courteously to Dawn and Alex, shook hands all round, drank a whisky and soda and a gin and tonic respectively, and left.

"The old boy flew Spitfires over the Western Desert," Den told Alex afterwards.

"Ten confirmed kills. Now he's living on twenty-five quid a week. I let him run up a tab and then cancel it when Remembrance Sunday comes round. Least I can do."

Alex nodded.

"I get him talking sometimes," Den continued, lighting a cigarette.

"Dogfight techniques. Aerial combat. And I tell you, get him on to all that stuff and you see the old hunter-killer light come back into those eyes. Know what I mean?"

Alex nodded again. He could feel the ephedrine now, racing through his system. Beside him Den ashed his cigarette and took a deep draught of Special Brew. The big man was sweating. Behind them the wives shrieked, Dawn among them.

Alex excused himself He needed a piss.

Edging through the crowd he made his way outside into the neon twilight and peered around. By the palm trees would do. Behind him he heard feet crunching on the shingle some other bloke on the same errand, he guessed.

Then something determined in the tread some grim regularity told him that it wasn't. As he half turned, glimpsing a heavy-set silhouette topped with the shine of a shaven head, a massive forearm locked chokingly round his throat.

"Forget the fitness bollocks, chum, who the fuck are you and what the fuck do you want?"

The voice was low almost a whisper. Alex struggled desperately to break free and lashed back with heels and elbows. The blows landed on flesh and bone but without result. The arm at Alex's throat was as solid as teak and tightening.

Pinpoints of light appeared before his eyes and there was a rushing at his ears. His attacker clearly didn't expect an immediate answer.

It was probably the ephedrine that gave Alex the extra couple of seconds of consciousness in which his scrabbling fingers found the other man's crotch.

Grabbing a sweaty handful of trouser, he clamped his left fist tight over the other man s scrotum and squeezed with all the force he could muster.

A high-pitched gasp of pain sounded in his ear and the arm at his throat loosened a fraction. Enough for Alex to whirl around, still clutching and twisting the other man's groin in his left hand, and hammer two rock-hard punches into his lower ribs with his right.

Evading a furious, windmilling series of counter-punches Alex staggered back, gagging for breath. He could see the man clearly now, a muscle-bound enforcer with a spider's-web tattoo inked across his thick neck. Alex had vaguely registered him in the bar earlier. The tattoos were certainly prison work.

His face distorted with pain, the gorilla advanced on Alex, who backed away fast. This wasn't about interrogation any more, it was about revenge. At that moment a slender figure rose from the shadows beside the entrance and a jet of spray cut the air.

The enforcer roared with the unaccustomed shock, pain and anger. His hands clamped themselves to his eyes, and Alex took advantage of the moment to kick him as hard as he could in the balls. With an agonised sigh, the man crumpled to the shingle.

"Can't leave you alone for a moment, can I," said Dawn, stepping into the light from the neon sign and returning the Mace to her bag with a self-satisfied smile.

"I guess not," said Alex, his heart pounding with adrenalin. He looked down at the groaning figure at his feet.

"Did you follow me out?"

"Put it like this I thought all that traditional East End hospitality was a bit too good to last."

"Well... Thank you!"

"What the bloody 'ell's goin' on 'ere, then?"

Framed in the bar's entrance was Connolly, drink in one hand, cigarette in the other. From the surprised look on his face the scenario was not at all the one he expected. I was supposed to be the one on the ground, thought Alex. Begging for mercy and admitting to being a police officer, presumably.

Connolly's look of surprise was quickly suppressed and he gave the fallen man a brisk kick in the guts.

"Get up, yer big fuckin' nelly!"

The enforcer writhed and Connolly turned concernedly to Alex.

"Sorry, chum, was Key here being impertinent?"

"He asked me a question and then tried to strangle me before I had a chance to answer.

Connolly shook his head, marched into the bar and returned with a jug of water, which he emptied over Key's head.

"You just can't get decent help for love nor money these days..."

Slowly and unsteadily Key dragged himself to his feet, clutching his groin. His T-shirt was sodden and a dark orange stain covered the left side of his face, where the Mace pepper spray had struck him. He managed a rueful grin, his eyes still streaming, and extended a shaky hand to Alex.

"Sorry, mate, overreacted a bit there!"

"No problem," said Alex, amazed that the man was able to stand at all. Now that the adrenalin from the fight was ebbing away the stitches on his own face were beginning to throb.

"All friends again?" asked Connolly with a dazzling smile.

"Marvellous. Key, take the lady inside, open a bottle of champagne the Moat, not that dago muck and make her comfortable. And wipe yer boat race while you're about it!"

The gorilla nodded meekly and signed that Dawn precede him through the swing doors.

"I'm sorry about that, mate," said Connolly, turning back to Alex.

"But you'll understand I've got to keep an eye on the security side of things."

Alex nodded.

"You're not Old Bill, I know that much. But you're something. That's no sunlamp tan on your hands and neck, any more than those are car crash injuries on your face and arm. And I didn't see the rumble just then, but..."

"Stevo sent me," said Alex quietly.

"I didn't want to alarm Marie."

Connolly emptied his glass.

"Stevo? I don't know any Stevo."

"Jim Stephenson from "B" Squadron in Hereford. That Stevo. I'm Regiment, Den."

"Go on."

"I'm in "D" Squadron. Seconded to RWW, like you were.

"So when did you join?"

For five minutes Connolly subjected him to a series of questions about Regiment personalities, extracting details that only an insider would have known.

He slipped in a trick

VI

question, asking if that idle short-arse Tosh McClaren was still around and Alex confirmed that yes, Tosh McClaren was still around, and he was still 6 foot 2 tall.

After a time, Connolly appeared satisfied that Alex was who he said he was.

Sensing this, Alex looked him in the eye.

"Listen, Den, I'm not trouble, OK? I just want to talk."

Connolly stared at him in silence. He looked tired, pufFy-faced and a little sad.

And strangely vulnerable, thought Alex, for a man who had once been known as the SAS's toughest

NCO.

"You're not a talker, son, you're a shooter. It's written all over your face."

"I'm looking for someone, Den, that's all. Help me and you can rest easy about the Park Royal job. No more cover stories, no more looking over your shoulder for the cops."