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‘Oh yeah. He went out for a recce … but someone was there already, diving where the wreck is supposed to be. Whoever it was musta whacked him and Trish.'

‘Who do you think that was?'

‘Not sure, but Liam's been putting all this together and he thinks someone overheard him and Fioretti planning when they were out in Florida and decided to go for the diamonds first. He reckons the only time that could have happened was when they went out on a fishing boat owned by Fioretti and maybe one of the crew members was working for someone else and passed the info on … nobody's sure.'

Henry visualized the face of Jack Hoyle in the background of Lottie's photograph, wondering if it was him and what his connections were with organized crime in Florida. Interesting ones, he thought. But where the hell was Hoyle? So far, with Karl Donaldson's help, the FBI in Florida had been trying to trace him but no one had seen him in Key West for a few weeks and certainly not on the
Silverfin
. Rumour was that Hoyle was double-crossing Fioretti by acting as a double agent for some other nameless hood out there and feeding that person any information he could glean from conversations overheard on board the boat which, it seems, Fioretti often used for planning criminal activities, well away from snooping Feds. Instead, it was his own staff snitching on him.

‘Who's Jack Hoyle?' Henry asked.

Cherry stared blankly. ‘No idea.' Henry believed her.

Henry took all this in, the first real interview about Percy's death, knowing there was much more to learn and that he would get to the bottom of it and would finally destroy the criminal enterprise that was the Costains. If it was the last thing he did before retirement.

‘So why did Liam come over here from Ireland?' he asked Cherry towards the end of this particular interview.

‘Too much heat over there, wanted to whip the Costains into shape over here. Big plans to turn them into something international … would've succeeded if you hadn't turned up when you did.'

‘I doubt it,' Henry said. ‘And why did you marry him, Cherry?'

Cherry gave a long, deep sigh, rested her head sideways on the palm of her hand and said wistfully, ‘Fucked if I know.'

The interview went on for much, much longer but in the end there had to be a break and, as Cherry was taken back down to the cells, Henry's head was swimming with it all. In his jacket pocket, he felt his mobile phone vibrate. He took it out and saw the caller was unidentified. He half-thought of not answering, but did.

‘Henry Christie,' he said.

‘Henry Christie,' came a voice he knew well. ‘How the hell are you?'

‘What do you want?'

‘You still interested in Jack Hoyle?'

‘Why?'

‘Because at this very moment in time,' Steve Flynn said, ‘I'm looking right at him but, get this, he has no idea that I'm here.'

H
e had been watching for three days and nights from the second floor apartment in which he'd been ensconced with Karen.

The information from Eduardo, the old sailor, had been correct.
Destiny
was moored in Puerto de Mogán, almost under Flynn's nose, as Mogán was the next port along the coast from Puerto Rico. Eduardo had told Flynn the boat had sailed in from Lisbon seven days before and was registered to a boat hire company in Lagos, on the Algarve. That was all the old man knew, but it was enough for Flynn. He'd found the boat.

After Eduardo had passed Flynn the information, he and Karen drove over to Mogán and, after checking out the marina and finding that
Destiny
wasn't in, they spent the day mooching arm in arm like real tourists and lovers through the market lining the fisherman's quay, and eating and drinking at a few of the bars and restaurants that lined the port.

Destiny
motored in smoothly at five that evening. Flynn and Karen had been able to watch her tie up from the cover of one of the restaurants, sitting at the back of the terrace behind multi-coloured bougainvillea and trailing geraniums. From that position, though, they had only been able to watch the boat's activity from a discreet distance but they saw two divers cleaning their equipment, then leaving the boat in a battered four wheel drive.

‘Hired help,' Flynn said to Karen.

That left two people on board and Flynn, who could now see properly through one recovering eye and one good eye, recognized Jack Hoyle and one other man, unless there were others who had not shown themselves.

Flynn and Karen dawdled in the restaurant for another hour, happy in each other's company but tense from the situation, particularly when Hoyle and the other man, looking as if they had showered and changed, hopped over the side of the boat and began walking towards them. Flynn flipped the cost of the meal on to the table and he and Karen exited via the back of the restaurant, on to the tight, pretty streets of the port, which was known as Little Venice.

‘What are you going to do?' she asked him.

‘Kill him?' Flynn suggested.

At that, Karen stopped him dead and swung him around to face her. ‘Flynn!' she admonished him with one syllable and the look in her eye.

‘OK, I won't kill him, even though I want to. But I want to know what he's up to.'

‘So keep an eye on him?'

‘How, exactly?'

‘Just above the restaurant is an apartment for rent. That would give you a good view of the marina … maybe?'

And for the next three days and nights, Flynn had been sitting just inside the sultry apartment watching the comings and goings of
Destiny
.

Jack Hoyle and the other man were staying on board and the two divers arrived at nine each morning. They sailed at ten – Hoyle at the helm – and were gone until five each day. Flynn guessed that they were out on the water near GuiGui where he had first encountered them, searching for whatever it was they believed to be down there.

He wasn't certain what he should do for the best, apart from wanting to come face to face with Hoyle again. Problem was, Flynn was intrigued by what was going on, wanted to know what they were searching for, and he knew that the best policy – instead of running at the problem like a bull – was to chill back and watch for any change in behaviour when they returned to port that might indicate a ‘find'.

On the third day, Karen – despite having enjoyed spending time with Flynn – said, ‘Enough's enough, Steve. We both have to get back to the real world so can't we just let this be, now? Adam's constantly texting me and he's getting frantic for
Faye
to be available, even though it's pretty quiet.'

Flynn took his time considering her words, knowing they were sensible.

It was just after five p.m. and both were on the balcony of the apartment when
Destiny
smoothly entered the marina from her day at sea. They watched her moor, the boat controlled expertly by Hoyle, the divers acting as crew. They went through the usual rigmarole, cleaning the diving gear, then the two divers leaving for the night. Flynn had discovered they were staying in an apartment in Puerto Rico, so they definitely were hired help.

When they had gone, Hoyle sat on the deck of
Destiny
, relaxing in the declining heat of the day, his head tilted back. Flynn wondered if he had killed Costain and the girl – and was pretty sure that was the case.

Karen was watching Flynn carefully, still waiting for his response, hoping he would see sense and back off.

Instead, he picked up his mobile phone and called Henry Christie.

Henry could not quite keep the look of disbelief off his face as he listened to Steve Flynn recount the story of his last week on earth. Flynn had only agreed to tell Henry (almost) everything on the understanding that it was all off the record and if Henry repeated any of it, he would simply deny ever saying a word.

‘So what it boils down to is that you were picked out of the blue by Scott Costain to take him on a trip where you then bumped into a boat full of people who took pot shots at you; then you were kidnapped by Jack Hoyle and escaped somehow,' Henry said dubiously, ‘and then just happened to walk into a double murder scene.'

‘Nutshell,' Flynn said. Then, to lighten the moment, and poke a shitty stick at Henry, he said, ‘And how is the lovely Alison?'

He enjoyed seeing Henry's face scrunch into annoyance. Henry knew Flynn had a bit of a thing for Alison and suspected the pair of them shared a secret that, in some way, would bond them for the rest of their lives.

‘Let's just keep on target, eh? You've dragged me all the way out here, told me this pretty silly tale and, pleasant as it is to sit here, I don't see Jack Hoyle.'

On receiving the call from Flynn the day before, Henry had taken a chance and booked a flight to Gran Canaria due to leave Liverpool at six the next morning, with a return flight for the day after that. Not finishing work until after ten, Henry had hurtled up to Kendleton, where the Wild Geese were providing a disintegrating level of protection for Alison, but two of them who were not drunk promised to stay overnight. Henry threw some items into a rucksack, then drove down to Liverpool airport, arriving there at two, and crashed out until he stumbled tiredly on to the plane, where he fell asleep again with his chin on his chest.

He landed at Las Palmas at ten thirty a.m.; there he was picked up by Flynn in Karen's Fiat Panda and driven to Puerto de Mogán. In spite of the weather, the drive was frosty right from Henry's first comment, which had been, ‘This better be good.'

Henry's mind had been swimming with exhaustion and, as nothing was spoiling, Flynn had shown him to the spare bedroom in the apartment where Henry stripped off, climbed into the slightly musty bed and fell asleep.

Just before five that afternoon, having had a boccadillo and a long cold beer, Henry was sitting with Flynn and Karen on the balcony, looking towards
Destiny
's mooring. Flynn had explained how this point had been reached.

‘He'll be here soon,' Flynn said confidently, ‘and when he does turn up, what are you going to do?'

‘Make sure it is him first, then tell the police and have him arrested.'

‘On what grounds? I'm only surmising that he had something to do with Costain's death.'

‘I have an arrest warrant with me,' Henry revealed, ‘just in case. Suspicion of theft of a million pounds. Got it signed by a tame magistrate last night. You reckon he took that drug dealer's money, so let me speak to him properly about it. Anything else can be addressed when he's locked up … such as murder. Will that do?' Henry did not wish to expand on this and tell Flynn anything about Hoyle being photographed on the same boat as two murder victims, or about four million pounds' worth of diamonds that could be in a chest in a wreck off the Gran Canarian coast. That wasn't his business to know.

Flynn's face creased with a smile of pleasure. ‘Nicely.'

‘Now all we have to do is wait for him to show up.'

‘He'll come. We saw him sail out this morning.'

Destiny
did not return to port at the usual time. This made Flynn start to fidget and exchange glances with Karen, who tried to give him reassuring looks. Nor was the boat there at six p.m., or seven p.m.

‘Talk about wild geese,' Henry muttered at one stage.

They ate a meal of spaghetti bolognese, accompanied by chilled water, at the restaurant below the apartment, little conversation passing between the men.

‘She's here!' Karen said at last, breaking the tension and pointing to
Destiny
as she entered the marina and was manoeuvred gently into place by the jetty. Although darkness had fallen, she was clear to see under the bright lighting of the port.

The first thing that struck Flynn was that it was the man who had been with Hoyle, rather than the two divers, who dealt with securing the mooring ropes. Previously it had been the divers who had done all the hard work required when bringing a boat in, but this time Flynn couldn't even see them. He knew they had gone out on the boat with Hoyle that morning.

‘Odd,' he said quietly.

When the boat was moored, he expected to see the divers cleaning off their equipment with the hoses as they had done on every other night. There was no sign of them at all.

Karen had noticed this change too. She exchanged a glance with Flynn and said, ‘I don't like this.'

Henry looked at them both. ‘Like what?'

‘Divers this morning, no divers tonight,' Flynn said. He stood up and walked a short way down the road and peered into the car park behind the block, then returned and sat down. ‘Their car is still parked up,' he said, then, ‘There's Hoyle.'

Henry looked and saw a man on the deck of
Destiny
, leaning over and looking at the water for some reason. The man then looked in their direction, put his hand over his eyes to shade them, then turned away and went into the boat.

‘That's him,' Henry confirmed. ‘He's still got a plaster over his nose.'

‘Oh yeah,' Flynn said, recalling the head-butt.

‘I wonder where the divers are,' Karen said. ‘I think I'll walk to the end of jetty and have a look, tourist style,' Without giving either of the men time to disagree, she stood up and sauntered along the crowded jetty, past
Destiny
, stopped at the end and looked into the water like many of the other tourists did, then strolled nonchalantly back and sat down. ‘No sign of any diving gear,' she said.

‘It was there this morning. Shit,' Flynn said. ‘Something not right here.' He looked at Henry. ‘D'you want to pay him a visit?'

‘Only after I've briefed the local cops.'

‘What?' It was Flynn's turn to scrunch up his face.

‘I don't want to screw anything up procedurally,' Henry bleated, ‘otherwise he could walk. You're jumping to conclusions here, thinking something bad has happened. Maybe he's dropped the divers off somewhere else.'