Assassin (9 page)

‘You come,’ he said and jerked his dark head in the direction of the back room. He led her to the small space that had alarmed her before, carrying the little polishing cloth in
his thick, unwashed fingers. She followed him. In that tiny, cluttered room nothing had changed. No one else was there. Before saying another word, he shut the door.

Mak licked her lips. There was something in his eyes she did not trust.
Something.
But then, it had been there from the beginning, hadn’t it? Did he seem more nervous than before? He would not look her in the eye.

Just pay him and get out of here.

‘Do you have it?’ she asked him impatiently.

Javier nodded and paused.

A rope of tension slowly twisted inside her. ‘May I see it?’ she said.

He took his time washing his hands in a toilet basin, not using enough soap or effort to clean the stained nail beds, then he searched lazily through packages on top of a filing cabinet. Finally — mercifully — he handed her a manila envelope. She could feel the passport inside and, when she pulled it from its paper, she saw with some relief that it was just what she had ordered. He’d used the photograph she’d provided and the finished product looked authentic at a glance. She gestured to a small magnifier, the kind that was sometimes called a ‘loop’ in the modelling industry, which sat on the edge of a nearby box. Javier passed it to her so that she could examine the European passport in minute detail. Her face, framed by a curtain of black hair, sat next to the name of a stranger. His work was extremely good. She couldn’t fault it.

Outside she heard a sudden, muffled roar of applause. She jerked her head around and listened. Something was happening on the street.

With her passport now in hand, an even stronger sense of claustrophobia came over her. She twitched. Javier nodded
and she handed him his money in two thick envelopes. He counted it with irritating leisure while her eyes flitted about the room.
I need to get the fuck out of here.
Finally, she turned and went for the door herself, eager to get back onto the busy, narrow street, into the relative safety of the crowd of strangers. She wanted desperately to get away from the swarthy man and his untrustworthy eyes. To her relief, Javier held his ground in the small, awful room, leaving her to let herself out.

‘
Gracias
,’ she muttered and left him.

I have it.

Mak stepped out of the shop and pulled the metal shutter back up with a jerk. The street was even busier than before and she found herself pressed against the front of the shop.

There came a drumbeat, perhaps from a marching band she could not see. In response the crowd went up in thunderous applause again. She felt the urge to run, or to climb up, but there was nowhere to go. With effort she pressed through, gaining only a few feet, but then she stopped as two mounted guards pushed their way onto the street in front and the crowd leaped back. There was one white stallion and one black, and the guards wore beautiful uniforms, plumes of feathers atop their helmets. The crowd continued to back away, wary of the hooves. Behind the horses were two cleaners in green uniforms, holding brooms and pails, and more uniformed police. The police were clearing a path for someone, pushing the crowd back with open hands. Bodies pressed against her.

She looked left, looked right.

The shutter began to close behind her.

The Australian woman — or was she American? — emerged from Javier’s shop, stooping to get under the metal shutter.
She straightened and frowned, finding herself at the edge of the crowd. Hundreds more had arrived while she was inside. The shutter began to close behind her.

Yes. It is her.

Makedde Vanderwall looked like her photograph — tall and pale, with a slim build and long hair. He’d seen photographs of her looking like Claudia Schiffer, with blonde locks many women from his hometown would envy, but now she had black hair that did not suit her. She was still attractive, though. Today she was wearing jeans and a hooded top with oversized black sunglasses, evidently trying to blend in as much as she could, which wasn’t a lot. She was somewhat taller than Fausto and, with her height and bone structure, she stuck out in the busy crowd. She pulled her hood up, but it only made her more visible.

He could see Javier’s legs as the counterfeiter pulled the roller door down. Javier’s work was done. He had his money from her — he’d doubtless charged her a lot before sending her out to her death — and he’d brought her to precisely the right place at the right time. Now the rest was up to Fausto.

There were many
policía
managing the crowd of spectators for the Semana Santa Good Friday procession, but that did not worry him. They were focused entirely on the procession, as was everyone else, including the woman. Their job was to keep the Cofradías, the brotherhoods, safe. The crowds in his hometown of Seville were yet bigger. That was where his mother would be, praying with the rest of the family. But Fausto was here for something else entirely. This crowd would permit him to get far closer to the woman than he could otherwise manage without arousing her suspicion.

Fausto moved in, foot by foot, keeping his face tilted in the same direction as everyone else, towards the direction of
the church. He would not take her too close to Javier’s shop, if he could avoid it. The counterfeiter would be unhappy with blood on his doorstep. The woman was looking around earnestly, clearly wanting to escape. If she found an opening, she might move quickly. She was only two metres away now, but the crowd was a thick wall between them. He wanted to get closer.

The stiletto was tucked up his sleeve, the blade waiting.

A drumbeat and a plume of incense.

The crushing crowd was unyielding, all the watchers facing the church, straining forwards to see some important person or event. They anticipated some sort of procession, from what Makedde could tell. The mounted guards had cleared a path in the street and now waited for the others. She shook her head. Surely Javier would have known this was not an ideal time to come and go from his shop? The streets were packed. It could take her some time to escape the area.

A band began to play. There was movement ahead.

Finally, Mak could make out the centre of the crowd’s focus.

She gaped.

Tall black cones became visible above the heads outside the church. They moved and swayed between the assembled bodies. She blinked and looked again. The cones were hoods, and they had eyes. She could now see a steady stream of figures, swathed entirely in black, wearing long robes and tall pointed hoods completely covering their faces, with only round holes cut out for the eyes. They were sombre, silent, their formal walk accompanied by the processional music. From what she could see, each black figure held aloft an ornate staff of gold
and silver, or tapestries decorated with images of Jesus. One figure held a large gilded crucifix, his hands cased in black gloves. The faceless spectres moved slowly into the street, single file. The crowd cheered. On every balcony of the hostel and from every terrace, people pressed against the railings, clapping or taking photographs.

Mak gawked, unused to the spectacle.

Each pointed hood was four feet high, perhaps taller, in some cases seemingly as tall as the person wearing it. These dark figures brought to mind the notorious Ku Klux Klan, or a team of medieval executioners. But no. They were the Nazarenos. The hooded penitents. In some part of her memory she recalled having read about them. She knew these processions were a centuries-old ritual in places like Seville and Granada, but they walked in Barcelona, too, it seemed. This was the Catholic brotherhood taking part in the traditional procession of Semana Santa. She could see that they were still filing out of the large medieval church she’d noticed earlier. Drummers beat their snares, marching between the penitents. It was odd. Spectacular. Mak pushed forwards to get a closer look. Yes. There were more of these hooded men with their hidden faces, these ones dressed in white. Another pulse of excitement went through the crowd and a second cloud of incense filled the air as a giant, gilded float emerged out of the arched entrance. A life-sized statue of a stooping Jesus appeared, his inert body appearing to be weighed down by an enormous cross strapped to his back. All around him the ornate golden float was decorated with angels and hundreds of fresh blood-red roses. It looked very heavy as it moved unsteadily into the crowd, shifting back and forth with the sway of the human bodies holding it up almost invisibly from underneath.

‘…
No puc veure!
’

Mak was tapped on the arm and turned to find a small, middle-aged Catholic woman articulating angrily with her hands. She was clearly complaining about Mak’s height.

‘
No puc veure!
’ she repeated, hands waving around above her.
I can’t see!

Mak put her palms in the air and shrugged. There was nowhere for her to go. She was as hemmed in as everyone else and it hardly seemed fair to pick on her, as she wasn’t as tall as the children on parents’ shoulders dotting the crowd. She bent down a bit at the knees and was promptly pushed sideways by another group jostling for a better position.

She felt a sharp stabbing pain in her side. A camera lens. It jolted her out of her awe.

Time to get out of here.

Clutching her valuable new passport tightly, Mak began to push through the sea of people. Thankfully, nearly everyone was shorter than she was, apart from the odd English or German tourist, so she could see the scene clearly. It was impossible to cross the street ahead now, she noticed. The Nazarenos were filing down the centre, walking slowly, carrying their staffs. She would not dare run between them. Crowd barriers and uniformed police blocked some areas, arms extended, barking orders. Getting back to La Rambla could prove difficult. She could not go back the way she had arrived. She had to fight through the other way, against the crowd, past Javier’s shop and into the back streets where the crowds would be thinner. She didn’t know the streets on this side of La Rambla, but she could circle back somehow, she was sure. Determined, she pushed against the throng, inch by inch, the crowd pouring into every gap of available space like water. Some yelled at
her again for blocking their view and finally, Mak relented, stooping down to half her height and holding her hands in front of her like a surfer diving under a wave.

Minutes later Mak broke out of the excited crowd, stood up to her full height again and looked back at the mad spectacle. The gilded float was moving up the street to further cheers and adoration, followed by still more hooded penitents, this time in red garb to indicate another brotherhood, the points of their hoods sitting up far above the crowd. It was quite a sight. All eyes were on them, showing Mak nothing but the back of thousands of people’s heads — except for a couple of faces that looked at her from the crowd. Two men. Watching her. The older one turned around again, but the closest was moving her way, still several metres back in the thick swamp of people. He looked frustrated. He, too, was trying to get out, she supposed.

Mak turned and she half strode, half sprinted up the street to an alley alongside a series of medieval-looking buildings, where she was quite surprised to catch a glimpse of a small courtyard full of dog kennels and cats, beyond wire fencing. Soon she was on the parallel street, Carrer del Carme, moving at a quick pace past an incredible set of double doors emblazoned with the pop-art painted face of a Chinese woman with scarlet hair, beneath the name
Rita Rouge
, and the exotic, filigreed El Indio building on the opposite side. La Rambla itself was still crowded by the time she reached it, but here, finally, she could breathe. She’d never seen the city so busy. She crossed the street, dodging between cabs, and cut down a narrow, curved street on the other side, barely wide enough for a car, making her way towards home.

I have my passport. I have it.

It was such a relief to make it out of there. And the crowd! It had been chaos.

She stopped.

Another procession was filing down Santa Ana. She spotted the huge float of a crowned Virgin Mary moving past, flanked in front and behind by more Nazarenos, this time wearing white robes and tall green velvet pointed hoods. The virgin herself moved stiffly through the crowd atop her rectangular, golden float, surrounded by hundreds of white, dripping candles, the float shaking slowly from side to side, shifting like a boat on the tide. From her angle Mak could see dozens of pairs of feet underneath, walking it along.

She’d have to go the other way.

Makedde doubled back, arriving at a plaza she recognised, and finally she got onto Carrer de Bertrellans — her street — entering from the other side. She was relieved to be near the car, which was parked in a rental space across the alley. It might take some time to get out of the centre of the city, but then she would be on the open road. Free. She pulled the graffitied metal shutters open with a screech, a plume of filth rising into the air.
Se Alquila Plaza De Parking
, the sign above her said. The Peugeot was there in the darkness of the tiny parking rental spot, amongst a dozen other small- to mid-sized European cars. This was Luther’s local wheels. Luther’s spot. She’d already packed it with his things — things she needed for the evening’s work.
Yes, Luther has been unwittingly generous
, she thought darkly.

In minutes Mak was driving down the narrow lane, headed for the square, moving at an agonisingly slow pace as she waited for pedestrians to pass.
Strange.
A man was at the end of her street, watching her, she thought. From his flushed cheeks
he looked like he’d been running, though he had his hands in his pockets. Her inner alarm bells went off. But then she blinked and he was gone. Was that the man from the crowd outside the church? No. It couldn’t be.

Feeling overly paranoid, she accelerated again before slowing for another group. Someone brushed against the car and she frowned. Only another block and she would be on the main street.