Stephen Leather - Tango One

"Laurence has told me so much about you."

Donovan looked at Patterson and arched an eyebrow.

"Has he now?"

"Just that you were a valued client with a matrimonial problem," said Patterson.

Lau dropped her files and notebooks on to the coffee table and lowered herself down on the sofa next to Donovan. It creaked under her weight and Donovan found himself sliding along the black leather towards her.

He pushed himself away from her to the far end of the sofa.

Patterson handed Lau the injunction and she read through it quickly, her brow furrowed. Donovan looked across at Patterson, who nodded encouragingly. Donovan shrugged. Lau clearly hadn't been hired for her looks, so he could only assume that she was a first-class lawyer.

"Your wife says she believes that you intend to take your son to Anguilla. Is that true?"

"I have a house there."

"But your matrimonial home is here in London?"

"If you can call it that," said Donovan bitterly.

"It didn't stop her screwing my accountant there."

"Your primary residence is here in the UK, though? Is that the case?"

"It's complicated."

Lau peered at him over the top of her bottle-bottom lenses.

"Try to enlighten me, Mr. Donovan. I'll do my best to keep up." She flashed him a cold smile.

Donovan nodded, accepting that he had been patronising.

"I'm sorry. Yes, the family home is in London, but for various reasons I don't spend much time in the country. I have a home in Anguilla Robbie and his mother have stayed with me there for weeks at a time. I don't see why he shouldn't be allowed to go there now."

Lau nodded thoughtfully. Her lips had almost disappeared, leaving her mouth little more than a fine horizontal slash.

"I think it might be best if you enlighten Julia as to the nature of your problems in the UK," said Patterson.

Donovan grimaced.

"Den, it stays in this office," said Patterson.

Donovan sighed.

"Okay." He turned towards Lau.

"I was top of the police and Customs most wanted list," he said.

"Tango One. Everywhere I went I was followed. My phones were tapped, my bank accounts were looked at, my friends were put under surveillance. It made it impossible for me to operate."

"Operate?" said Lau.

"To put deals together. To do what I do. So I left the country. In the Caribbean the authorities are more… flexible."

Lau nodded thoughtfully but didn't say anything.

Donovan pointed at the injunction.

"We can get that overturned, right?"

"We can fight this, of course. If nothing else, forbidding him the freedom to travel with his father is a breach of your son's human rights. I must counsel you, however, that this is probably the first shot in what will almost certainly develop into a salvo. I would expect your wife very shortly to move to get custody of your son."

"No way!" said Donovan sharply.

Lau held up a hand to quieten him.

"There's no point in your wife simply stopping you from taking him out of the country. If you have sole custody, that injunction cannot stand. If I were advising your wife, I would have told her to rush through this injunction, but then to apply for sole custody on the basis that you are an unsuitable parental figure."

"Bollocks!"

Lau looked at him steadily, unabashed by his outburst.

"That would be my advice to her, Mr. Donovan. Please don't take offence, I am sure you are a commendable father, but your wife is going to portray you in the worst light possible. You have, I understand, no gainful employment."

"I'm not short of a bob or two," said Donovan.

"That's as maybe, but you don't have a job. Nor, I understand, do you spend much time in the family home."

Donovan exchanged a look with Patterson. He wondered how much Julia Lau knew about his dealings. Patterson's face provided no clue.

"I travel a lot," said Donovan.

"Exactly, but any court is going to want to see your son in a stable environment."

"So I've got to get a nine-to-five job, is that it?"

"Not necessarily, but you'd have to show some legitimate means of support. Your wife will do all she can to demonstrate that you are not a suitable parent."

Patterson leaned forward.

"What about Den's other… activities? Is she likely to bring them out into the open?"

Lau pushed her glasses a little higher up her bump of a nose.

"I doubt that her counsel would recommend that. If she were to highlight any, shall we say, criminal activities, that would be evidence that she was aware of them, and if she were to have profited from them would thereby identify herself as an accomplice. She'd be risking any assets she had. If I were her counsel, I would be advising her to stick to more parental concerns. Your lack of a regular job, your frequent absences from the family home, personal traits."

"Personal traits?"

"Abuse, physical, verbal or psychological. Whether you'd shown an interest in raising Robbie prior to the separation. Did you, for instance, attend parent teacher meetings? Take Robbie to the doctor?

The dentist? School sports days?"

Donovan grimaced. He'd fallen down on all counts.

"Now, in view of your wife's infidelity, which under the circumstances I think will be uncontested, we can make a very good case for you being granted custody of Robbie."

Donovan relaxed a little. Finally, some good news.

"However," continued Lau, 'even if you were to be granted sole custody, that doesn't necessarily mean that you will be allowed to take Robbie overseas."

"Why not?" interrupted Donovan.

"Because even if you are granted sole custody, your wife would still have visitation rights, and those rights would be compromised if your son was living outside the country."

"But she's the one who left," protested Donovan.

"She went running off with her tail between her legs."

Lau scribbled a note on a yellow legal pad.

"Do you know where she is?"

"I've got people looking."

"If we could show that she is herself resident overseas, I think there might be less of a problem convincing a court that you be allowed to take Robbie abroad."

"We'll see," said Donovan. If he did find out where his errant wife was, custody wouldn't be an issue. A sudden thought struck him. He nodded at the injunction.

"Her lawyer did that, right?"

Lau nodded.

"If we get to a custody battle, could she do it all through her lawyer or would she have to appear in court?"

"Oh, she'd have to be there," said Lau.

"Quite definitely. The judge might well have questions for her, and we'd have to argue against their case. You'd both have to give evidence."

Donovan smiled and sat back in the sofa. If the mountain couldn't go to Mohammed, maybe he could get Mohammed to come to the mountain. If she wanted Robbie, she'd have to come and get him.

"There is the question of a retainer," said Lau.

"Julia," said Patterson, frowning.

"Den is a long-standing and valued client, there's no need…"

"That's okay, Laurence," said Donovan, taking a thick envelope out of his pocket. He handed it to Lau.

Lau opened the flap. If she was surprised by the wad of fifty-pound notes inside, she did a credit job of concealing it. She ran her thumb along the notes. Ten thousand pounds.

"Cash," she said thoughtfully.

"That'll do nicely."

Donovan looked over at Patterson and the two men grinned. Donovan nodded. Julia Lau was okay.

Sitting outside the headmistress's study brought back memories of Donovan's own schooldays. Donovan's alma mater was a prewar soot-stained brick building in Salford, with half a dozen Portakabins at one side of the playground for overspill classes. Most of the school's pupils left at sixteen, and in all the time Donovan was there he didn't recall anyone going on to university. Robbie's school was a world apart, all the children squeaky-clean in uniforms that cost as much as a Savile Row suit and no more than twenty pupils in a class.