Adolfo and Raymondo had been twins. Raymondo was the oldest, and, as such, he had been the real apple of his father’s eye. He had arrived ten minutes before his twin, a protracted delivery that was contrasted by the ease with which Adolfo had followed. Felipe often joked to his wives that that had been the first indication of his character; if he could, Adolfo would always let someone else do all the hard work for him. Raymondo had been shot dead by the army two years ago. Felipe knew that the older boy had exercised a degree of control over his brother. Adolfo had reacted badly to his death and that, combined with the sudden removal of his brother’s restraint, had led to all this blessed nonsense with the girls.

“It is good to see you, Padre.”

Felipe sat and made busy with the menu. “Have you eaten here before?”

“When it opened.”

“What is good?”

“The steak. Excellent. And we should get some wine. They have a very well stocked cellar.”

He summoned the waiter and ordered an especially fine Burgundy. The man offered to pour but Felipe dismissed him.

“Adolfo,” he began, pouring for his son. “There are things we need to discuss.”

“Yes, Padre.”

“The Italians?”

“Pendejos! It was easy. No survivors.”

“Good.”

“Have they tried to contact you?”

“No,” Felipe said. “And they won’t.”

He looked at the boy. He was wide-eyed and avid, desperate for his approval. He wondered, sometimes, if that need was the reason for the way he was. Amongst other things, the men called him El Más Loco.

The Craziest One.

“You did well, Adolfo. I couldn’t have asked for more. But tonight?”

He frowned. “Yes. I know.”

“What happened?”

“I’m as unhappy as you, Padre.”

“That is doubtful.”

“I’m still trying to find out.”

“Were you there?”

“No.”

“She was just a girl. It is a simple thing, is it not?”

“It should have been simple.”

“And yet it wasn’t.”

“She has been difficult to find. Her culo boyfriend was less careful. We have been following him, and he led us to her. There was a third person, a girl, they were meeting her there — another of her stories, no doubt. I put five men on the job. Good men. They have always been reliable. As you say, it should have been easy. They went into the restaurant but, as they were carrying out their orders, they were attacked.”

“By whom?”

Adolfo could not hide his awkwardness. “One of the cooks.”

“A cook, Adolfo?”

“At first. And then two policemen.”

“This cook — who is he?”

“I’m going to visit the proprietor. I’ll know more after I have spoken with him. Whoever this puto is, he isn’t just a cook. He threw a knife halfway across the room and hit Javier, and then he knew how to use an AK. I’m thinking he was a soldier.”

“And the police?”

“They will be easier to find. Don’t worry — they will all be punished.”

“Make sure that they are. They work for us, Adolfo, not against us. Remind them. Make an example out of them.”

“I will.”

“It is important, Adolfo. I’m meeting the gringos tomorrow. They are cautious men. There must not be any doubt that we are in control. This kind of fuck up makes us look bad. If they think we cannot get rid of a journalist who has been writing about us, how will they trust us to control this plaza? Do you understand?”

He look crestfallen. “Yes.”

He steepled his fingers and looked over them at his son, his brows lowering, his Botoxed forehead crinkling a little into what passed for a frown. “This whole mess would have been unnecessary if it wasn’t for your” — he searched for the right word, each one more distasteful than the last — “problem. I will hear no more excuses about it: it has to stop. I’ve told you too many times already. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Padre. It will — it has. No more.”

“Very good. You have money, connections, power — you don’t need to take your women. They will come to you.” Felipe looked up; the waiter was at the edge of the room, shuffling nervously from foot to foot. Felipe smiled and beckoned him over. “Now then. Shall we order?”

17

Later that night, smelling like grease and blood and cigarettes, Milton stepped out of the police station and stood with his back to the wall for a quiet smoke. There, away from the noise of the kitchen, the snarled abuse in the holding pens, the smell of gunpowder, away from the familiarity of boiling fat and plates that burned to the touch, the startling profanity of the kitchen, the weirdness and the drained-out sensation of being a short-order cook at the ragged end of a long, bad night, and then the sudden shock of violence and death, all of reality came crashing back in on him. Here was only the night, the dark, the fecund stink of uncollected trash and the distant highway roar, the ticking sound as the earth gave up the stored heat of the day, the wet pressure of breathing in the humid soup and the fat black cockroaches that crawled through the gutters. The night was warm and fuzzy from the refinery stacks on the other side of the border, from street dust and smoke. The low sky glowed orange. Milton knew that he had travelled far from London and what had happened there, far away from his job and the blood that still dripped from his hands. Suddenly, the thought of going back to the squalid dormitory room with the other men, of smoking cigarettes through the window, trying to read his paperbacks in the glow of his torch or watching Mexican football on Telemundo, too exhausted to sleep, was not what he wanted to do at all. Standing rigid, eyes aching, feet throbbing, blood humming in the hollows behind his ears to fill the sudden quiet, he stared up into the night and the stars, and decided. He pushed himself off the wall. He would get as much sleep as he could and then, first thing tomorrow, he would head for Hospital San Jose.

That girl, whoever she was, was in trouble.

And he was going to help.

DAY TWO

“Just a Cook”

I shot a man in Reno

Just to watch him die Johnny Cash, “Folsom Prison Blues”

18

“Take a seat, Miss Thackeray,” the man said.

Anna Thackeray did as she was told. The office was impressive, well-appointed, spacious and furnished in the tastefully understated fashion that said that money had not constrained the choices that had been made. There was a wide picture window that offered a view of the Thames toiling sluggishly under a gunmetal grey sky. The room was light and airy. Military prints on the walls. Silver trophies and two photographs in luxurious leather frames: one was of the man on the other side of the desk in his younger days, in full battle dress; the other was of a woman and three children. A central table held a bowl of flowers, and there were two comfortable club chairs on either side of an empty fireplace.

The international HQ for Global Logistics was on the same side of the Thames as the more imposing building in Vauxhall where the important decisions were taken but that was as far as the similarities went; it was built in the sixties, with that decade’s preference for function over form, constructed from red brick and concrete, its anonymous five floors all rather squat and dowdy when compared to the Regency splendour of its neighbours or the statement buildings of government that had been constructed more recently. A grand terrace had been smashed down the middle by a three hundred pound Luftwaffe bomb and this unpromising building had eventually sprouted from the weed-strewn bombsite that had been left. The windows were obscured with Venetian blinds that had been allowed to fade in the sunlight; the staircase that ascended the spine of the building was whitewashed concrete and bare light bulbs; the lift — when it worked — was a dusty box with four walls of faux wooden panels and dusty mirror. And yet the drab obscurity of the building was perfect to cloak its real purpose. The government organisation that did its work here lived in the shadows, a collection of operatives that was secret to all but those with the highest security clearances.