Either paramilitary thug or...

Or what? Killian couldn't place it.

Killian watched him as he ordered a cheeseburger. He watched him still as he found a seat as far from Killian as you could possibly get in this restaurant. He was a pro - didn't look once in Killian's direction, not even by "accident".

Killian took a couple of photographs of him with his camera phone and sent them to Sean.

"Urgent," he texted as his subject line and added: TAIL - FRM CRRCK WHO?.

"Excuse me, sir, can we sit?" a woman asked Markov.

She was with her son.

It was his own fault, he was hogging a corner table for six. Markov glanced at Killian, but that old fool was still reading his newspaper, totally oblivious to the fact that there was anyone on him.

Markov grunted and the woman sat down.

The boy had red hair and a gap-toothed smile like a comic-book character. He didn't eat his food, instead he played with the freebie, which was a plastic paratrooper with a working chute.

Parachute.

Markov flinched.

He could see it coming: another voyage down into the dark of the lizard brain.

Perhaps Mexico had been a mistake.

Getting soft was all right. Soft was good. Soft was the future. Marina wanted to get married and move to Henderson. He should marry her. He should marry her and get her pregnant and have kids and wait until the property market completely bottomed out and then buy in Henderson.

He closed his eyes and thought about Marina riding her bike to UNLV in her pink T-shirt.

Pink T-shirt.

Marina smiling.

Pink...

Eventually the boy and the woman left.

Killian was still reading his newspaper. Markov shook his head. How could a man like that who had never lived ever hope to outwit him?

Killian's phone rang.

It was Sean.

"Tell me about our boy," Killian said.

"Mary thinks she knows him from somewhere, I sort of think so too. He's got that sort of face."

"Paramilitary?"

"Definitely not Irish. Mary's saying she knows him from the sheets. From America."

"f.u.c.king Forsythe. This is him, I'll bet you a ton. A tail on me. A f.u.c.king double cross."

"Relax Yojimbo, you don't know anything."

"I know Forysthe, I know his ways. He's tailing me to get an angle. I find the girl, our boy over there takes her in."

"I doubt it.. .however, if that's the worst-case scenario, what are you going to do about him?"

"Who knows? Keep an eye on him. For now."

"Do you have any leads on our girl?"

"It's not as cold as I thought it was going to be. A trail to Donegal."

"Coulter's bound to have checked Donegal of all places."

"I don't know. That's why he came to us, isn't it? He digs pyrites, we dig gold."

"Yeah. Okay. And if I can come up with a name I'll call you back."

"Sure thing."

Killian hit the red b.u.t.ton and folded the Guardian. He window-peeped. On the other side of the gla.s.s it was raining and grey and everything was falling back into the pattern. That oh-so-predictable pattern he'd left behind. Divorce work, missing persons, heavying. Him on a case in a McDonald's on a highway in the rain with a girl at the end of it and some Aryan Nation nutcase on his a.s.s. Where was this new life he'd promised himself? This new era that was supposed to be well in place before the time he turned forty? This? This was bulls.h.i.t. Of course it wasn't entirely his fault. No one could have foreseen the crash. What he needed was an older brother in the legit world or friends in the legit world, people who read the FT, people who could a.n.a.lyse trends, see ahead. Sean was connected but he knew s.h.i.t about the world outside the racing pages of the Daily Mirror. You needed to spread yourself out.

The skinhead had finished his food now and still wasn't looking in Killian's direction at all which showed patience. Killian turned the phone on its side and zoomed in on him. He was only about five-nine but big- shouldered, wiry, strong. His lips formed two little rose hips and his cheeks and eyebrows were scarred. He wasn't bad looking though and he was still young - if he let the hair grow he could pa.s.s for a civilian. Poor sap. A decent mentor would have told him. I'll bet he is a foreigner, Killian thought. He looks like a G.o.dd.a.m.n Kraut.

The tail's face vibrated and a moment later the phone rang. It was Mary asking if he wanted her to book a hotel room in Donegal. He said no. He'd play it by ear. He hung up, cleared his table and went to the bathroom. Went he got back out to the restaurant the skinhead still wasn't looking at him but he'd put his jacket back on and had his car key in his hand.

Nice.

Killian walked out to the car park and drove to the motorway.

Traffic was bad and it was nearly seven by the time he hit Letterkenny - too late to go to that address along the coast. He called Sean and asked if he could get Mary to book him a hotel after all. In two minutes she got him a room at the Quality Inn and the satnav took him there.

He parked the Ford underground and checked in. They gave him room number 505, which was far from the street noise and had a view of the water.

He asked the concierge for a decent fish restaurant and was directed to the Silver Kettle on Francis Street. It was a huge, popular joint with excellent food and he was halfway through a dinner of sea ba.s.s and sauteed spuds when he noticed the tail, sitting at a corner table reading a newspaper.

Not too shabby.

Killian ignored him for the rest of the meal, took an Ambien with the last of his wine, paid, went back to his room, locked the door and asked for a 7.00 a.m. alarm call.

He set the bedside radio alarm and the alarm on his phone for five.

He knew what the tail would do. It's what he would do: "Hi, this is room number 505, I forgot what time I asked for an alarm call."

"Oh yes, of course sir, let me see...7.00 a.m."

"Thank you."

The Ambien kicked in and he was asleep by nine. He didn't dream and he woke before the alarm on a cold, foggy, rainy morning feeling refreshed. He cracked his door and saw no one. He went down the fire-escape stairs and by five-twenty he'd checked out and was on the N45 west.

He pulled in for petrol at a truck stop where the N56 met the R257. He got a coffee and did a lengthy spot check for tails. Nothing. He entered Dave's buddy's address in the satnav and followed the 257 into a bleak rainy country of new forest, slippery roads, and tiny wee places filled with fishermen, artists, German architects and nutcase survivalists.

The 257 became a local road, curving through big wet pine forests that were spiderwebby and dark and elemental and appealed to him. He wound the window down. The air was good. There was moisture in it and it was filled with ions and oxygen. The smell was tree fern and seaweed and a hint of mountain ash. Moss was growing in the petrol-station toilet where he stopped to get a Snickers bar and a coffee. He checked his directions with the petrol-station attendant, but the guy was from Belfast and before that, nine months ago, a delta city in Bangladesh.

But the satnav didn't let him down and he'd made it to Dave's buddy's cabin by 9.30.

A long stony beach, breaking surf, white caps dissolving into the sort of gentle haze Impressionists painted when they went to Normandy. The cabin itself was a box rough hewn from a dark hardwood with big windows facing the cold, Prussian-blue Atlantic which was minding its business and rolling by just a few hundred yards away. She liked the ocean did this girl, Killian thought. He killed the engine and got out of the car.

He rubbed his hands. Jesus, it was colder than it looked. It looked cold but it was colder than that. This G.o.dd.a.m.n wind was probably coming all the way from Greenland.

He walked across the cement car park to the cabin. He knew she was gone. No car. No sign of life. The cabin was locked, the lights off.

He lifted the lid off the garbage can.

Cans, a milk carton, cereal boxes. Nappies. Nappies? How old was that youngest kid? Five? What age did you stop wearing nappies? Killian knew that he should know the answer to that question but he didn't. He had a vague painful stab of guilt that he crushed by slamming the lid back on the garbage can.

He did a circuit of the cabin and peered in through the gla.s.s.

That stuff he thought was sea spray was really rain. He turned up the collar on his coat.

He banged on the wooden door.

"h.e.l.lo?" he tried. The haar fog that was smothering the littoral part of the beach took his voice and flattened so that it sounded unfamiliar and alien. It weirded him out. He had the feeling he was being watched. He looked back up the road for the tail but there wasn't a ghost of a car up there.

He examined the lock on the cabin door.

A rusted iron affair that he could have open in a minute.

"h.e.l.lo?" he tried again.

He took out his pick kit and smiled as the tines moved and the lock turned. He pushed open the door and attempted a third "h.e.l.lo".

The pen flashlight revealed a twenty-four-hour/two-day dust layer. Not much more. He found kids' clothes in a bottom drawer and a meticulous read-through of the yellow pages revealed nothing.

He went back to the garbage can and dumped it.

Zilch.

The place was a bust. He closed the door, locked it, went back to his car.

He sat in the Ford and got hungry waiting for the tail to come round the bend but the tail didn't come. No one came.

It was raining hard now. He flipped on the heat, tuned the radio but all he could get was Radio Iceland. In Icelandic.

He b.u.t.toned his coat and checked the pa.s.senger's seat for a hat he knew wasn't there.

"Stuff this," he said. He got out of the car and ran across the beach to the only other house here, which was a little further down the beach. He banged on the rickety door. There was no answer and he was examining the lock and thinking one good kick when a man peeked his head round a wood pile.

"Who are you?" the man asked. He was wearing an anorak and a Man City hat. His nose was red and his eyes yellow, watery. He had obviously seen the car in the car park and maybe he'd even seen Killian break into the cabin. He was a toting an ancient-looking air rifle and although it was early yet he had been drinking.

"Put that f.u.c.king thing down," Killian said.

"Asked you a question," the man persisted.

"Put that f.u.c.king thing down now!"

The man broke open the air rifle and showed Killian that it was empty "I'm looking for Rachel Coulter."

The man shook his head.

"Never heard of her."

"Thirty, brown hair, two kids, she was probably calling herself something else," Killian said.

The man nodded and walked over.

"Oh aye. Said she was called Julie."

"Two kids, brown hair, thirty-ish?"

"That's her."

"When she cut out?"

"Wednesday."

Two days ago. Could be anywhere by now.

"Say where she was going?"

"Are you a peeler?"

"No."

"Who are you?" the man asked with a cunning leer on his face. Killian handed him his card. The man leaned in. His breath was bad and yes there was booze on it. Those yellow eyes could be the early signs of renal failure.

"Did she say where she was going?" Killian repeated.

"What's it worth to you?" the man asked.

"Can we go inside?" Killian asked.

The house was s.h.i.te. Boards had sprung from the floor. The roof leaked. There were pictures ruined by moisture in antique frames. The TV was covered with a plastic sheet.