Authors: Adam Creed
Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #General, #FF, #FGC
Death in the Sun (19 page)
This year’s
lomo al horno
has been butchered, cooked and eaten and last year’s old wine, too fermented, too damn strong, is drunk. The thirteen men have found shade, and siesta. Staffe and Edu are the last ones sitting; Edu carving off chunks of his cousin’s ewe’s cheese. They have it with a Contraviesa
reserva
that Staffe knows is thirty euros a pop.
He also knows Edu doesn’t work and because he signs on, he has to do a bit of work on the roads when they fall into disrepair. At Christmas and
fiestas
, the council put him in a gang to erect the lights. He sells the odd bean to the co-operative, too, and he drives a brand-spanking Land Cruiser, favours Anejo rum in his
cuba libres
. Even without his visits to the Russian girls down on the coast, it doesn’t add up. Staffe remembers what his bastard niece, Guadalupe, had said about Edu not having anything to do with Barrington because he couldn’t make any money out of him. And how he parks the blame for where his life went wrong: the shame that was visited upon him, courtesy of Barrington.
‘This is fine stuff,’ says Staffe, sipping his wine respectfully.
‘I know the grower. He does me a deal. It would be wasted on this lot.’
‘You lead a grand life for a peasant,’ Staffe jokes.
Edu laughs. ‘You are a friend, Guilli. But you need to tread more carefully. The people here will forget, but you have to meet them half way.’
‘You’re right, Edu. Wise words. Friends and family are important.’
‘The most important thing.’
‘I told you about my parents, didn’t I?’
‘A terrible thing.’
‘I told Manolo, too.’ Staffe cuts off a chunk of ewe’s cheese with the goat’s-head knife, the one that was shoved into his mouth in Sacromonte. He offers it to Edu, off the blade.
Edu stares at the knife, says nothing and takes the cheese.
‘That journalist, Raúl, who drove past here just a few minutes before he died, was going to see the man who murdered them.’
‘My God, it can be a small world.’
‘He tracked him down to a place in Extremadura.’
‘Have some more wine.’
‘You didn’t tell Raúl about my parents, did you, Edu?’ He takes a sip of the wine. ‘I’m sorry. You didn’t know him, did you? I must be getting drunk.’
Edu wraps his hand around the goat’s head of the knife. ‘How is Manolo? We feared he might have done something stupid.’ He cuts a slab of cheese, hands it to Staffe.
‘You’re not exactly friends, are you?’
‘We got along all right. In small villages you can know too few people. Know them too well.’
‘How well did you know his mother?’
‘I didn’t care for the way she carried on.’
‘I’ve heard some ripe old tales about what went on up here with Barrington and the American.’ He nods up towards Jackson’s
cortijo
. ‘I don’t suppose that reflected too well on you and the family.’
‘It was nothing to do with me.’
‘I suppose they kept it secret.’
‘You and your secrets! Just because you don’t know something doesn’t make it a secret.’
‘I saw Immaculada the other day.’
‘She doesn’t see anybody.’
‘You must have hated Barrington.’
‘Not at all.’
‘So you have forgiven your sister?’
‘It’s not a question of that.’
‘But you carried his coffin.’
He says, quick as light, ‘Immaculada was too small to carry, so she asked me. What was I supposed to do?’
‘How long is it since you have seen her? She’s ill, Edu. Very ill. I know what it’s like when we leave things unsaid.’
‘You could have fooled me.’
‘It’s terrible when the words are trapped and the people who they are meant for aren’t here any more. It must be like that for Rubio.’
‘His wife’s not dead. She was never found.’
‘Found?’
‘She left, that’s all. She should never have come here in the first place.’
‘You must wonder what happened to Astrid. Such a beautiful woman. I bet someone knows where she went.’
A car grinds up the hill, throaty.
Staffe puts down his empty glass, stands up and stretches, theatrically. ‘Funny, Raúl coming up here, and planning to visit Extremadura to see the man who killed my parents. It’s strange, how things connect.’
‘Maybe they are just two actions.’
‘It would establish a hold over me‚ keep me in my place,’ he laughs, ‘if there was a chance I could catch up with that murderer, Etxebatteria.’
Edu looks over Staffe’s shoulder and his face slips a little. The Guardia Land Rover comes to a halt and Quesada gets out, tweaking his moustache. ‘Here. Have your knife back. I’m going to make coffee for this herd of old goats.’
*
Pepa is out of the loop. There is finite information in the world and this is what journalists are up against: chasing the same things as each other. Every now and again, you get a step ahead. That’s what Pepa has done, but now she must look through the other end of the telescope: see what everyone else has seen while her eyes have been focused on the past.
She is reading the news agencies’ feeds for the last week, and keeping a particularly keen eye on anything to do with the death of Raúl Gutiérrez and the murdered Dane.
Nothing tasty emerges. Most of the ‘noise’ around Almería focuses on the council’s inability to borrow funds. Talk is of rubbish piling up on the streets and no
fiesta
lights at Christmas. Perhaps Pepa chose a good week to be away.
She clicks on ‘Today’s streaming’ and waits for the files to load. The clerk smiles at her. All morning, Pepa is the only person who has been in the Ayuntamiento.
Pepa has one finger on the function key, another on ‘Page down’ and the minutes fly by. She pauses briefly to read that fifty-seven minutes ago the head of the council in Roquetas del Mar called for the acceleration of legalising illegal homes. She presses her finger again and the headlines flurry.
Then her fingers pull away from the keyboard, as if they are scalded. Pepa catches her breath, double clicks on the headline, gets a one-paragraph summary.
Forty-four minutes ago, police in Mojácar reported the death of a foreigner. Unidentified, the body was washed up onto rocks between Mojácar and Garrucha. The local
brigada
said the body was handed to the police in Almería as they had received fresh intelligence about hashish trafficking from Africa and were liaising with forces all along the coast, as far as Algeciras.
Pepa asks the clerk if she can print again, and the clerk leaps into action, hovers over the printer and hands the pages to her precious client.
Going down the stairs, intent upon collecting the Englishman, Pepa considers whether she has missed the real story here: another foreign body on the coast. Narcotics are in the air, and foreigners, too. The farmers are fighting back against the golf developers. Should she be down there; not up here?
*
The clerk sits at the work station. The journalist’s seat is still warm and she looks out of the window‚ watches her car rollick over the speed bumps, then clicks the computer’s ‘Print history’ icon. She hits the print command and back at her own desk, Señorita Sanchez reads each of the pieces once, then calls her uncle, returning to the warm seat in the window, waiting for him to pick up.
*
‘As I remember him, Agustín was everything Manolo was not,’ says Quesada, accepting a glass of Laphroaig.
‘You talk as if he is a thing of the past,’ says Staffe.
‘That boy
is
a thing of the past, as far as we are concerned. He went back to Germany to live with his grandparents. They wanted him to go to a German university. Once Rubio went to the funny farm, he was never coming back.’
‘Wasn’t he here a few weeks ago?’
‘If he was, he behaved himself. I didn’t see him.’
‘What do you think happened to Astrid Cano,
brigada
?’
‘She was out of her element here. She found something that suited her better.’
‘And left her sons?’
‘She was a strange woman.’
‘Comisario Sanchez would have known her. Wasn’t he in Almagen in those days?’
‘He lived in Mecina, but he was based here for a while.’
‘So he’d have known Raúl.’
‘You should ask him about it.’ Quesada smiles, as if he has won a point.
‘And he left soon after Astrid disappeared.’
‘People come and people go, Señor Wagstaffe.’
‘Why exactly did Sanchez leave Almagen?’
‘Look where he is now. That kind of ambition needs a bigger cage.’
Staffe thinks that ‘cage’ is a strange word to employ. He studies the unflappable, small-town Quesada. ‘Was Sanchez in on the paintings,
brigada
?’
‘You shouldn’t ask me such things. A
comisario
“in” on something? Please. I like you, Inspector, but you shouldn’t place me in such a position.’
‘Barrington reinvented himself late in life and produced his best work. That would attract Astrid; and Jackson, too. Almagen must have been quite a place back then.’
‘I’ll tell you what I know, Inspector.’
‘Please do.’
‘I know Jackson Roberts trafficked drugs.’
‘He gave you information, and you turned a blind eye to him and built a career . . .’
‘Please!’ Quesada takes a deep breath. ‘How do you get on if you never listen? I said I know Roberts dealt drugs and I know your brother-in-law was here years before you paid for your sister’s place. Paolo de Venuto could be in custody like that!’ He clicks his fingers. ‘I have a file on him this thick.’ He holds his hand out, as if placing it on a child’s head. ‘And he’s growing weed up there now and your pregnant sister knows all about it.’
‘You haven’t arrested him.’
‘Maybe he and Jackson knew what was in those woods when Jackson got him to buy the land. Maybe you knew. But the important thing for you to understand is if I know these things, then others do, too.’
‘You mean Comisario Sanchez.’
‘I can’t answer that,’ says Quesada, closing his eyes and crossing his hands in front of his face, signalling that his patience is exhausted.
They each take another draught of the good stuff. Staffe waits, eventually says, ‘With your contacts – would you be able to find out where Santi Etxebatteria is? Could you help me?’
‘That’s a very uncertain world you’d be entering, Inspector.’ He smiles, points at Pepa, walking quickly towards him. Knowing that she comes bearing news, Quesada walks past Staffe, says under his breath. ‘There’s another body. Be careful, Inspector.’
Pepa is looking across the sierra through the telescope on El Nido’s terrace. She breaks off to call Staffe to hurry up. ‘We have to get to Mojácar.’
Inside Marie’s
cortijo
, Staffe watches Harry pack his small world into a medium-sized suitcase.
‘I don’t see why we have to move down to the village,’ says Marie.
‘The baby is coming. What if there are complications?’ says Staffe.
‘Complications? You think I’m in danger up here, don’t you? Why would I be in danger in my own home?’
Paolo sits on the edge of the bed, staring at the floor. Marie knows something is wrong because Paolo isn’t high and he seems happy they’re going down to the village. She says, ‘Are you packing, Paolo?’
‘I have things to do here. I’ll follow you.’
‘You have to come, Marie,’ says Staffe, kneeling beside her. He wraps his arms around her. ‘Please just do it. All I want is for no harm to come to any of you.’
‘You’re going to have to tell me what’s happening, Will.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Then I won’t go.’
‘I want to go!’ shouts Harry.
Staffe reaches into his pocket and unfolds the printout of Raúl’s article on the Omagh and Donostia bombings. He hands it to Marie.
She gasps; puts a hand to her mouth, and slowly, her eyes become glassy and red. But she begins to smile. ‘I haven’t ever seen this photograph before. Mum looks like you, Will. I always thought you looked like Dad. But you were hers, weren’t you?’
‘Was I?’
Marie reads the piece, says quietly, so Harry can’t hear, ‘Gutiérrez. He’s the one who died. He wrote this years ago and then he comes up to our mountain and he drives his car off a bridge. Christ, Will. And there’s more, isn’t there? He was up here while you were ill, I told you I’d seen him snooping. And that body in the woods. It’s not from the war, is it?’
‘You and Harry need to take my house until the baby is born. We’ll know more soon, and everything will be all right. I promise.’
Marie wants to believe Staffe, the way you always want to believe everything your father says to you. She hugs her brother tight, says, ‘I love you, Will. You know that. But it’s not your promise to make‚ is it? You can’t promise everything will be all right.’ She looks at Harry, who despite everything is suddenly happy behind his eyes.
A loud knock resounds on the door.
‘I have to get going,’ calls Pepa. ‘And I’ve seen goats. Up by Manolo’s
cortijo
.’
‘I heard bells the day before yesterday,’ says Marie. ‘Manolo must be back. He’ll be taking them up the Silla Montar. You’re practically in Granada once you get over there.’
Many years ago, Barrington convened long parties for his London set: artists and novelists; musicians and poets. In his memoirs, he claims to have walked from Granada to Almagen in a single day with his friend and playboy, Wesley John. The second day Staffe spent in Almagen, a young, fresh-faced aspiring writer had collapsed through the doors of Bar Fuente on the stroke of midnight. He said, over and again, ‘Fucking Barrington. Bastard liar.’ The young writer had set off from Granada at three o’clock that morning, in the steps of Barrington. His fact was Barrington’s fiction.
Staffe looks at the Silla Montar, imagines some day climbing it, ambling down into the great city – the opposite way the last Moor had come. He remembers what the Moor’s wife had said when he wept salt tears at leaving his beloved Granada. ‘Don’t cry like a woman for what you couldn’t fight for like a man.’ He says to Pepa, ‘I have to go up there.’
‘To Manolo’s
cortijo
? You think that’s where they’re holding him? It’s probably a trap.’
‘There’s something up there I need to get.’
‘Gustav’s will? I bet it’s not all that’s waiting for you.’
‘I have no choice. Manolo is my friend, Pepa.’
‘You can’t be sure of that and I can’t come with you. I have to get down to Mojácar, try and get to see that new body.’
‘There’s no point trying to persuade him,’ says Marie, hugging her brother. ‘He won’t be told – until it’s too late.’
*
The goat bells knock out a soundtrack to the last hundred yards of Staffe’s climb up to Manolo’s place. Smoke rises from inside the
cortijo
and two red Bultaco scrambling bikes lean against the goat shed.
Staffe needs to get his head straight before he goes in. All the way up, he has been trying to work out what enticed Raúl up here two weeks before the Dane even died in the plastic. Could it be something to do with himself and Santi Etxebatteria?
He pictures Etxebatteria buying the components for the bomb and staking out the restaurant; setting the device’s timer for the precise moment his parents were murdered and then, with the smell of charred skin still thick on the Vizcaya seafront, penning his letter claiming responsibility.
Months earlier, when Etxebatteria had lost his cherry, shooting a policeman in the head at point-blank range, he sent the widow a letter, asking if he could have his bullet back. Now, wanting to rebuild his life, Etxebatteria has said he is sorry, and the idea that he is granted some kind of amnesty makes Staffe more angry than ever: to think that such a man might access the motors of repentance.
Staffe feels the bile. He wraps himself around it, keeps it safe, like a mother would her young. He looks up to the tree line. Beyond the
cortijo
, there are pines, and cones; and to the right, beneath the Silla Montar, he sees the opening to a cave. They are here.
*
Pepa is up on Staffe’s roof, looking down into the valley. A couple of houses away, a pretty woman pegs out washing, a daughter at her skirts. Pepa shouts across to ask if she has seen a Moor in the village.
Consuela points into the valley, says, ‘Where the almonds stop. He’s by the third orange tree.’
Pepa narrows her eyes, scans the landscape. Eventually, she sees Yousef, shouts to Consuela, ‘Where is he going?’
‘Along the Camino Barrington.’
‘Where does it lead?’
Consuela says quietly, but in such a way that the sound carries, clear as turquoise shallows, ‘To the sea, of course.’ Then Harry appears, starts talking to the little girl. They sit on the low wall on the edge of the roof, forty perilous feet above the narrow street below, holding hands. In a different world.
Pepa’s phone chimes, indicating that she has a signal and she immediately leafs through her address book, highlighting ‘Jesús’. He picks up straight away, says, ‘Three guesses why you call me now.’
‘Have you heard about the body down in Mojácar?’ she says.
‘Why else would you call?’
‘You said you’d take me for dinner.’
‘Bad timing,’ says Jesús.
Pepa imagines somebody coming into the room he is in. ‘Are you unable to talk?’
‘That’s right.’
Pepa constructs questions to which he can answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’. ‘Have you seen photographs of the body?’
‘No.’
‘But is he a foreigner and a druggie – like Jens Hansen?’
‘From what I hear.’
‘I’ll be there about midnight.’
‘I’m not sure,’ he says.
‘In the
parador
and then we’ll go to the morgue.’
‘I’m not so sure I can.’
‘You’ve got to get me into that morgue, Jesús. You’re involved! Manolo’s your cousin. He’s in danger and it’s something to do with . . .’
The line falls dead. No signal.
*
Staffe knocks on the door to Manolo’s
cortijo
. He does it lightly and the weaker part of him wishes the place empty. He presses his ear to the wood, hears someone being berated. He thinks it is Jackson’s voice and he walks around the building, tries to peer in through the windows but the shutters are closed.
He treads lightly back to the main door and gently levers the latch. It relents easily. He steps inside and nobody is in the main room. The sounds are coming from the side room. It is definitely Jackson’s voice. Staffe feels for the goat’s head knife, runs fingers over its handle in his pocket.
Staffe recalls the last time he was here and visualises where Gustav’s will is. There is a trunk in the left-hand room and he should try to retrieve it now, but he hears a louder noise.
‘My God‚’ says Jackson.
Staffe peers into the amber-lit gloom. Jackson is sitting on the bed, his clothes covered in blood. The bed is crimson and lying across his lap is Manolo, his head in Jackson’s arms and staring straight at Staffe. His tongue is hanging from his mouth‚ throat slit‚ and Staffe steps into the room, his heart racing, his legs weak, his voice cracking as he says, ‘What have you done, Jackson?’
‘I found him like this. He was already dead when I got here.’
‘I walked all the way here and nobody passed me. I didn’t see a soul the whole time.’ Staffe’s legs are weak and he sinks to the floor, feels sick.
Jackson’s eyes are wild, but he talks quietly, ‘He had no kind of life, not really. He didn’t have a chance. Not after what happened.’ He gently slides his legs from underneath Manolo’s body and eases him down onto the blood-drenched sheets. He stands, walks towards the chest beneath the window and picks up a knife by the tip of its blade. ‘This is what did for him.’
Staffe looks on, open-mouthed as Jackson comes towards him, holding the knife by its blade. The handle is awfully familiar: a goat’s head carved from wood.
Jackson says, ‘You seen this before?’
‘One just like it was stuffed into my mouth. That was you, wasn’t it?’
‘You really have it in for me, don’t you?’
‘If you didn’t kill him, who did?’
‘You’re the fucking detective.’ Jackson walks past Staffe into the living room and lights up a cigarette.
Staffe says, ‘You know Manolo and Agustín stood to inherit a fortune. Their grandfather is dead.’
‘When did I turn from being a bad sonofabitch into a goddam oracle?’
‘But they would only gain if their mother is dead.’
‘Which she’s not.’
‘So where is she? And what did she do wrong, Jackson?’
‘Plenty. It was all fucked up. But I don’t know where she is.’
‘Didn’t they bury Astrid up in Paolo’s woods? Isn’t that why you got him to buy the land – to keep an eye on it. You have a hold over him.’
‘When you say “they”, who exactly is “they”?’
‘I can’t say who killed her, but I know you were having an affair with her, and Rubio knew it.’
‘I loved that woman, with all my heart but never quite enough. And yes, Rubio knew. But it was all right, it really was. We got along.’
‘Maybe Rubio killed her. I saw a film of the four of you. Or did Manolo find out? Or Agustín?’
‘Agustín?’ Jackson looks ruffled.
‘You were all onto a nice little number. Getting fat off the art.’
‘That was Barrington’s game.’
‘But then he lost it. And you were left with a world-renowned artist who couldn’t do it any more. But you can paint, can’t you, Jackson?’
‘Nice of you to say so.’
‘That painting of Gador in your
cortijo
, it’s one of yours. I’ve seen one similar.’
‘There are no others like it.’
‘I bumped into your friend Yolanda. She knows an interesting item when she sees it.’
Jackson walks around the table. ‘Knew it‚ you bastard. You didn’t think you could get away with just taking it‚ did you? I need that canvas. What you’ve done is theft.’
Staffe keeps an eagle eye on Jackson Roberts, puts his hand in his pocket, feels the goat’s head. ‘Is that why you lured me here – to get your precious canvas?’
Jackson goes into the bedroom. Staffe calls to him, ‘Passing your stuff off as Barrington’s is fraud.’
From here, Manolo looks as if he might be sleeping off a heavy one. In the low light, the sheets look brown.
Jackson comes back into the room, with the murder weapon. He places it heavily on the table. ‘I need that painting, Wagstaffe. You’re going to give it to me.’
‘The last Barrington? Why don’t you just knock up another?’
‘Don’t be a prick. He’s dead.’
‘What you mean is nowadays they can carbon-date when a piece was painted. Your game is up. Just one left, hey, from when he was alive. Before, there was plenty to go round. I bet you couldn’t paint them quick enough.’
‘You prick.’
‘Was Astrid onto you?’ Staffe turns, to look at dead Manolo. ‘Or Manolo?’
‘I didn’t kill him. I got here half an hour ago and it was already done.’
‘You were holding him all that time?’
Jackson, drenched in Manolo’s blood, holds out his arms, like Christ. ‘I saw him grow into a man. His father is a friend, for God’s sake.’
‘And you loved his mother. But you used him to lure me up here.’ Staffe reaches into his pocket, takes a grip of his goat’s-head knife.
‘I didnt say that.’
‘You made that film.’
Jackson sees him, shoots out a hand and grabs the handle of a bull-whip from the dresser. Staffe feels a terrible pain on his neck and in the same instant hears the clap from the whip.
The leather tail is around Staffe’s throat and as he tries to pull it free with both hands, his own knife clatters to the stone floor. Jackson walks backwards, tightening the grip on Staffe’s throat and Staffe has to follow, banging into the table, squealing because his windpipe is more and more constricted. Jackson stops. ‘You pick up tricks in war, Inspector. Once, in Vietnam, it took a slope two shoulders and a knee before he coughed up where his best friend was. But he coughed up. So, we’ll get there.’ He drops the handle of the whip, takes a step forward, and gets Staffe’s arm up his back. Expertly, he twists the shoulder joint to the very cusp of dislocation. ‘Now, tell me your theory, my friend.’
Staffe’s throat burns. ‘Barrington had lost it and you tried painting one for him. It was good. He worked on them with you. To be safe, you sold them abroad – to known collectors. Barrington gave the provenance and you split the money. Enough for everyone. Then Astrid got greedy.’
‘But she was a rich heiress. Remember?’
‘She got greedy for you. She wanted to be with you and threatened to expose you all. Any one of you could have killed her.’
