East Brucal Street's a quiet and surprisingly leafy little road about fifty yards long and dotted with mango trees, just off Puerta Galera's raucous main drag. The Hotel California, halfway down it, is a small, two-storey establishment with an open-air restaurant on its second floor that fits in nicely with the surroundings. It's owned by an ex-Vietnam War veteran who's not the sort of man you'd want to get in an argument with, but who was quite friendly with Tomboy and could be trusted not to take too much notice of who was passing through his establishment. At three hundred pesos a night for a double room with bathroom, it's a good-value place to stay. Particularly so for Billy Warren, as his one night there had already been paid for in cash by Tomboy.

It was two thirty on a hot, sunny Friday afternoon and the street was quiet. A couple of cars were parked up but there didn't seem to be anyone around. I pulled up ten yards past the front of the hotel, outside a collection of rusty corrugated-iron sheets that had somehow been fashioned into a shop selling house plants, and dialled the mobile number I'd been given.

Warren answered after five rings. 'Hello?' The tone was neutral, a little rough around the edges, and not betraying any nerves.

'My name's Mick Kane,' I told him without preamble. 'I've been told to deliver something to you, and to give you certain instructions. I'm outside, just up the street in a blue Land Rover. Can you come down?'

'I've never seen a blue Land Rover before,' he informed me helpfully.

'Well, now's your chance. You can even have a drive in it if you want. There's a bar at the Ponderosa golf club. It's fifteen minutes up the road. It'll be quiet up there this time of day, so we can talk.'

'So, you want to take me for a drive, do you?' His tone was suspicious, but there was something mocking in it too, as if he was letting me know he knew my motives. 'Here I am all on my lonesome in a fleapit of a country where, according to the BBC, life is dirt fucking cheap, and I've just been invited to get in a car with a man I've never met before, but who's apparently got a load of money for me, and go for a country jaunt?'