Markov nodded. Kill Mrs Coulter and Killian but spare the kids. Made sense. "I understand, take care of the wife and her friend, but not the children," Markov said.

"Exactly. Now the most important part of all of this is the computer. You must get the laptop. That's crucial."

"I know that already."

"I don't have all the information about their location or who they are with. I'll call you back in five minutes."

"Do that."

"One final question."

"Yes?"

"How much more money?"

"A lot more money, but you must get the computer, and you gotta leave the kids."

"Wait a minute, you don't want me to bring the children with me?"

"You can't bring them with you after you've just taken care of their mother, can you? Just take care of her and her friend and get the computer. Someone will leave an anonymous tip about the kids."

"Okay. I'll call you back when I've done my a.s.sessment."

"Do that."

Markov put the heroin syringes in one of his jacket pockets and the ski mask in the other. Kill the wife, kill Killian, leave the drugs paraphernalia in the cabin, get the laptop, leave the island, call the police. Some kind of drug deal gone wrong. A tragedy but not completely unexpected with her family history.

He got out of the car and walked over to the ferryman.

"Good morning," Markov said.

"Morning," the ferryman replied. "Will you be wanting a ride over now?"

"How many on island?" Markov asked.

"I'm sorry?"

"How many people on the island?" Markov repeated.

"At the moment?"

"Yes."

"Who are you after?" the ferryman asked suspiciously.

"I am supposed to meet friend. Tall man, you must see him?" Markov said with a grin.

The ferryman nodded. "Aye, I know the very bloke. Aye, he's over there."

"He is alone?"

"No. Andy's gone for a couple days but there's a woman over there too. Your mate and some doll with her two bairns. You just missed your mate by the way, I only just let the big fella over a wee while ago."

"On the island, only two adults, two children?"

"Aye."

Markov looked at the ferryman. Unfortunately he was a complication. He reached into his jacket, took out the Colt and shot the ferryman in the heart. The ferryman's eyes widened, blood foamed at his lips, he tried to speak and then he fell sideways to the deck, dead.

Markov called Bernie "It's on," he said.

"Good. I'll call you-know-who."

"No, don't call anyone until it's done. More professional that way."

"Absolutely. Of course. You just give me the nod."

"I will."

Markov bounced the rubber stress ball and pulled on the ski mask.

He got onto the odd, flat little boat, slid off the mooring ropes and pressed the red b.u.t.ton which started the motor. It putted into life and he steered it away from the dock. When he was a good bit out into the lough, he shoved the ferryman's body into the water.

A thick fog was rolling down the lough from the sea, which suited Markov perfectly. If someone was on sh.o.r.e and looking out at the ferry they wouldn't notice something amiss until he was close to sh.o.r.e.

What was obviously the dock was looming out of the mist. Markov would need one hand on the steering wheel and one on his gun. He took out the ACP and pointed it at the sh.o.r.e and steered the boat towards a wooden jetty bedecked with tyres.

When the ferry was a few metres away, he killed the engine and let it drift. It b.u.mped up against the dock with a dull concussion. He jumped off, tied the boat to a bollard and crouched with the gun perpendicular to his body.

He breathed, waited, stared into the fog.

No one was here.

He looked down the jetty into a sort of meadow. A path led through it towards a wood, but because of the mist he couldn't see anything beyond that.

No sign of houses or people.

Still, it was a small island, they couldn't be too far away.

He looked at his watch. It was 9.16.

Killian would only just have gotten the phone call from the kid. He wouldn't be expecting him for another two hours. What an a.s.shole.

He listened and thought that he could just make out children's voices in the distance. Maybe he couldn't see the family but he'd certainly hear them.

He stood there for a moment and thought and checked the Colt and put it back in his trousers.

A lot more money, Bernie had said.

It was obvious why the laptop was worth "a lot more money".

Blackmail material.

It had to be blackmail material on Richard Coulter, one of the richest men in Ireland.

If they'd pay "a lot more money" as a finder's fee, they'd pay ten times that to get it back. Millions.

Maybe the smart move would be to take everyone out, get the computer, fly to Nevada and look at it with Bernie. They could cook up a completely new play together.

Markov took out his rubber ball and bounced it off the deck, catching it in his left hand ten times.

He thought about the incident in February 2000 in Grozny when the insurgents had captured an OMON officer and crucified him between the Chechen and Russian lines. He was a f.u.c.king OMON whose motto famously is "we give no mercy and expect none" so n.o.body wanted to risk their lives trying to save him, but his screams had gone on all night and he was young. He was yelling for his mother and begging his comrades to come and save him, but even in the dark they knew he was sniper bait and he'd probably been b.o.o.by-trapped too. It took Captain Zhiganov's arrival just after dawn for anything to get done. Zhiganov had a.s.sessed the situation in fifteen seconds, asked for a bolt action rifle and killed the OMON with one shot. Nothing in the entire Battle of Grozny had impressed Markov quite like that. Hesitation was the enemy. Boldness was the key. Captain Zhiganov had been one of the few competent officers in that whole theatre and, of course, later he'd been recalled to Moscow and subsequently court-martialled for some ridiculous offence. But Markov never forgot the lesson. You acted fast. You took a decision and you acted on it. You didn't prolong suffering.

He nodded and put the ball away.

He would know what to do when the occasion arose. He would act and act decisively. He looked at his watch again. 9.18. Yes. It was time. He turned off the phone and holding the ACP one-handed in front of him he walked along a trail that he a.s.sumed led to the cabins.

Markov's instincts were correct.

Killian was not expecting him.

Far from it.

At precisely that moment four hundred yards away on the other side of the island Killian was looking at the blurry, cheap, disturbing images on Richard Coulter's laptop and having an epiphany.

Now it all made sense.

And not just about this case.

Cosmically.

The big picture.

Everything that had happened in the last twenty years.

Coulter's career.

Even the whole Peace Process.

In the 1970s the Northern Ireland Housing Executive was the biggest landlord in Europe. Huge contracts were being given out to build new houses, flats, apartment blocks - it was money in the bank. During the Troubles it was the only sector that was growing.

How had someone like Coulter who had run a halfway house - a f.u.c.king borstal - suddenly become a player in that racket?

How? Because he'd been part of a circle of paedophiles. The secret society of secret societies. More exclusive than the Masons, the Orange Order, the Order of Buffaloes or the Hibernians.

Secret men who protected one another and who knew it would never come out.

Not here.

Not in darkest Ulster.

Of course there had been scandals before, but this was Ireland, where everything was hushed up and the various tortures children had undergone in Catholic orphanages hadn't been revealed until 2008.

And in the north where secrets went to the grave...

Killian understood why Rachel had run.

Coulter was a twist. An evil man. And she couldn't let her kids near him. He had prost.i.tuted the kids in his care, not for money, but for access. Access to power, access to contracts, access to protection.

And he had taken part in the fun and games too, maybe as a willing partic.i.p.ant, or perhaps to prove his bona fides, as a mutual protection against blackmail.

The four-minute film on the laptop was universal acid. It was the Malleus Maleficarum. It was poison.

It would destroy Coulter.

It would destroy Dermaid McCann. It would cripple Sinn Fein.

It would be a want-of-a-nail thing. A b.u.t.terfly effect. McCann's whole wing of the party, the pro-ceasefire IRA, would have their limbs cut out from underneath them.

There were already dark conspiracy theories about McCann and why the IRA had embraced peace after twenty years of struggle. Some said that McCann was a British agent or that he had been bought off by the Americans. Maybe that was true, maybe not, but this, this would destroy his credibility. If this came out Sinn Fein would fall apart, the power- sharing executive would collapse, the a.s.sembly would fail, Ulster would stagger back into the abattoir.

And Coulter? He'd be looking at several years and the loss of everything.

And then there was Tom of course.

Tom would be disbarred, disgraced.

Tom might be real engine behind all of this.

Killian's head was pounding.

This is why we shrink from people. We Pavee. Why we don't want their talk. Their hypocrisy and lies. We don't want them breathing near us. Humans were never meant to be this close to one another. We weren't meant to be in buildings. Architecture is based on a gigantic lie. Cities. We huddle for security, closer and closer until, like now, we are on top of one another. Stuck in these gla.s.s and steel and brick structures with all these other confused, unhappy people.

Rachel came back into the room. Her face was white. She was crying.

Killian put his arm around her. Coulter, you f.u.c.k. It had never really been about the kids had it? It had always been about this. That was why Tom had hired Ivan. Coulter had finally told him the truth.

"You see?" Rachel said. "You see?"

Her voice sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a ravine.

Killian nodded and closed the laptop.

"Did you watch the whole thing?" he asked.

"No. When I saw McCann and Richard that was enough. I had to get out of that house, I had to get the girls away from him, you see that, don't you?"

"Aye."