A Silent Death

by Peter May

  *

  Condesa Fitness was accessed from the rear of the port, stairs leading up to a large fitness room with floor-to-ceiling windows giving on to the most spectacular view across the puerto and its marina. Sunshine angled in through smoked glass, and lay in strips across a carpeted floor that absorbed the grunts and strains of the half-dozen customers lifting weights and performing curls. The perfume of stale sweat hung in the air, along with discordant notes of cheap aftershave and supermarket deodorant.

  They were approached by a tanned, muscular young instructor wearing a black singlet and shorts. He eyed them warily.

  ‘Can I help you?’ he asked in Spanish.

  Cristina showed him the photograph of Cleland. Mackenzie said, ‘A customer of yours, we believe. Behind in his subscription.’

  Muscle man looked at the picture and shrugged. ‘So?’

  ‘You recognize him?’

  ‘Of course. Señor Ian.’

  ‘He was a regular?’

  ‘Two, three times a week maybe.’ He cocked one eyebrow. ‘Very fit.’

  ‘Did he come in with anyone else?’

  ‘No. Always alone. Nice guy. Great calf muscles.’ He glanced ruefully at his own. ‘I asked him how he managed to get muscles like that. He laughed and told me it was genetic. Me? I could work those muscles for years and never have calves that good.’

  ‘It’s a Scottish thing,’ Mackenzie said. ‘You need good calves if you’re going to wear a kilt.’

  The young man looked at him quizzically. ‘You are Scottish?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you wear the kilt?’ It was Cristina this time. She couldn’t keep the curiosity from her voice.

  Mackenzie shuffled uncomfortably. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t have the legs for it.’

  The gym instructor nodded, as if he suspected it all along. ‘So what’s this guy done?’

  ‘Killed a lot of people,’ Mackenzie said. ‘So if you can think of anything about him, anything at all that might help us track him down, you let us know.’

  The young man was clearly shocked. He shook his head. ‘Honestly señor, I couldn’t tell you the first thing about him. We would chat, you know, just blah. He told me he liked to sail. But I could have guessed that from his tan. You don’t get to be that colour from lying on a beach.’

  ‘Well if anything else comes to mind, give my colleague here a call.’ He turned expectantly towards Cristina. It took a moment for her to realize he was waiting on her to hand over a business card. She fumbled through the pockets of her uniform before finally finding a dog-eared card for the Policía Local, Marviña, which she thrust at the instructor.

  As they went back down the stairs Mackenzie said, ‘So already we’re getting a sense of this guy. He likes designer clothes, eats out a lot, but likes to keep himself fit. He goes sailing, buys expensive wine in Puerto Banus, and has two million stashed away in secret bank accounts.’

  He patted the pocket into which he had folded the bank statements.

  ‘We want to get these to your financial people as quickly as possible. The sooner we shut down his access to cash the sooner we start putting pressure on him. He can’t use Templeton’s credit cards, or cards from these accounts now either. So where’s he going to stay? With friends? How many of Templeton’s friends knew he was really Cleland? And I can’t see him shacking up in some drug dealer’s seedy apartment. He’s red-hot untouchable right now. Let’s squeeze him.’ He paused. ‘But above all, please, can we get something to eat?’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The light faded rapidly on the drive back up to Marviña. The sky beyond the mountains to the west glowed a deep crimson along a jagged horizon, the moon already visible in a deepening blue. Mackenzie looked back towards the sea that spread itself out below. It lay in narrow bands of blue and grey and green. There was not a hint of wind to ruffle the surface of the gentlest of swells, the Mediterranean slow-breathing in preparation for sleep at the end of a long day.

  Mackenzie realized he was tired as well as hungry. The first rush of adrenalin which had accompanied his initial attempts to pick up Cleland’s spoor had passed, leaving him hollow and depressed. Right now he should have been listening to Sophia singing to an audience of appreciative parents. He was very probably the only dad not to be there.

  As they were leaving the port, Cristina took a call on her mobile, then told him that the Jefe had booked him into a small hotel in the newly pedestrianized Marviña main street. She would, she said, take him there once she had faxed the contents of Cleland’s mailbox at Condesa to the Juez de Instrucción who was coordinating the search for the fugitive from Estepona. He would, she assured him, be able to get something to eat at the hotel.

  Now, as they left the police station, she pointed their SUV up the hill to where the main street wound slowly through the heart of this ancient hill town. White buildings with doors and windows picked out in ochre, black-painted wrought-iron Juliet balconies overlooking the newly paved street, a network of fine cabling stretched between yellow-tiled roofs to support a mosaic of coloured sails to shade pedestrians during the heat of the day.

  In gaps between buildings, where streets fell away left and right, Mackenzie could see a patchwork of fields dipping into the valley, then rising again to where the Sierra Bermeja pushed its rugged peaks up into a darkening sky.

  The Hostal Totana stood near the end of the street, on the corner of an alley that dropped down to the church below, next door to a farmacia and opposite a bar whose patrons sat out at tables on the pavement, drinking beer and wine, smoking and indulging in rowdy conversation that echoed along the street.

  Cristina dropped him at the door and told him that someone would contact him in the morning.

  ‘Not you?’ Mackenzie was almost disappointed. Getting used to one person was bad enough. Having to break new ground with someone else was a prospect he did not relish. Better the devil you know.

  ‘I have to take my sister to hospital in the morning. Usually Paco would do it, but right now he is in hospital himself with a bullet in his leg.’

  Mackenzie watched her drive off before lugging his new purchases and overnight bag into reception. His room was on the top floor. There was no lift, and he was breathing heavily by the time he got there. It was tiny. A small double bed with head-and foot-boards. And he knew that it would not be long enough to accommodate his height. Meaning a night curled up on one side, or the other. A constant process of leg-bent rotation and very little sleep.

  He sat disconsolately on the edge of the bed and supposed that at least it would have clean sheets. They had told him downstairs they served food in the bar, though a glance at the menu had revealed an unappetizing choice of fast foods and tapas, and he wondered if he could summon the energy to go back down. But the rumblings in his stomach told him that fasting was not an option. Wearily he stood up again and carefully hung his new shirts and trousers in the wardrobe, wire coat hangers rattling on the rail. He put his socks and pants in a drawer and propped a couple of pairs of trainers on the shoe rack.

  French windows led to a small balcony that looked down on to the street. He could see and hear the drinkers across the way, but those at the tables immediately below were obscured by a canopy above them.

  Darkness had fallen suddenly. Street lights illuminating white buildings in burned-out patches snaked off in two long strings down the hill. He slipped his phone from his breast pocket and checked the time. It was likely that Sophia would be home by now.

  His attempt to reopen his previous conversation with her on the Messenger app failed. Neither was he able to open a fresh window. After restarting the phone he tried rebooting the app, but each time it would only take him back to her final message – a sad face.

  In frustration he opened his Facebook app and quickly discovered that she had unfriended him. A terrible sense of melancholy welled up inside to exclude all other emotion. Unfriended by his own daughter! When he had told Beard that no one
liked him very much, he had never imagined that might also apply to Sophia.

  A burst of raucous laughter rose from the street below on the warm night air, and he wondered if he had ever felt quite so lonely.

  He turned back into his room to shut out the sound of other people’s happiness, and made his way downstairs to try and find something on the menu to feed his appetite. But he had little relish for anything other than alcohol to drown his sorrows. As he stood at the bar waiting to be served, a small boy entered from the street and stood looking around. With little hesitation he headed directly for Mackenzie the moment he saw him.

  ‘Señor Mackenzie?’ he asked.

  Mackenzie looked at him in surprise. He was a slight-built boy of around nine or ten. An unruly tangle of jet-black hair fell across a high forehead above a wide smile. He made Mackenzie think of Alex. ‘Yes.’

  The boy stuck out his hand. ‘I’m very pleased to meet you. I’m Lucas.’

  Mackenzie shook the boy’s hand, and was surprised by the strength of his grip, as well as by the quality of English for one so young.

  ‘Cristina is my mother. My father says you are to come and eat with us.’

  Mackenzie was taken aback. ‘You live nearby?’

  ‘Just across town. It’s only five minutes. My father sent me. My mother didn’t want me to come, but my father said it would not be hosp . . .’ he struggled with the word, ‘hospitable, to let you eat alone on your first night in Spain.’ This time he held out his hand for Mackenzie to hold, and gave him a wide smile. ‘I will take you.’

  Lucas led Mackenzie down the length of the main street and into the Plaza del Vino above the fire station. A colourful town plan was mounted on one wall opposite a massive mosaic of winemakers trampling grapes. Everything about Marviña seemed related in some way to wine. On the far side of the square, whitewashed apartment blocks stepped down the hill like terraces in a vineyard. Cristina lived at the top of the hill in a street called Calle Utopía. In Marviña, utopia was a tiny two-bedroom apartment on the first floor with a view of other apartments out back, and a row of shops out front. The planners had contrived somehow to build homes without views in a town surrounded by them.

  When Lucas opened the door to the apartment and called out to announce their arrival, a young man with startling blue eyes in a deeply tanned face hurried out from the living room to greet them.

  ‘Holà, holà,’ he said, and he grasped Mackenzie’s hand in both of his to pump it enthusiastically. ‘I’m Antonio, welcome. Excuse me for not speaking English, but Cristina says your Spanish is impeccable.’

  Mackenzie raised an eyebrow in surprise. ‘Did she?’

  Antonio ruffled Lucas’s hair, and Mackenzie wondered if the boy had inherited the gene which was already leading to early hair loss in his father. ‘Come in, come in.’

  They squeezed past a coat stand laden with jackets and hats and scarves and into a cramped, square living space with a dresser and dining table, and an oversized L-shaped settee gathered around a coffee table. A small TV on a stand burbled in the corner beside French windows leading on to a small balcony. What little floor space remained was booby-trapped with discarded toys and shoes.

  Antonio was suddenly self-conscious, as if seeing for the first time his own living space through someone else’s eyes. ‘Excuse the mess,’ he said, and started scooping away jackets and laundry to create sitting space on the settee. ‘Lucas, put those toys away in your room.’

  Obediently the boy did as he was told, gathering plastic trucks and models of Star Wars characters and a couple of footballs into his arms to carry away to his bedroom.

  Through a door opening off the living room, Mackenzie saw into a tiny kitchen. Cristina, pot in hand, swung into view. She wiped a forearm across her forehead and glared at him. She was out of uniform now, and if anything seemed even smaller in jeans and a T-shirt. Her hair tumbled freely around her shoulders, and she looked harassed. Mackenzie thought that if he’d met her like this in the street he might not have recognized her. ‘Sit at the table, I’m about ready to serve up,’ she said, and vanished from view again.

  Antonio grinned at him. ‘Always chaos in here,’ he said, and waved Mackenzie into a seat. Lucas returned from his bedroom to claim the seat opposite Mackenzie and sit watching him with unabashed curiosity. Antonio drew in a chair beside his son and said, ‘Didn’t seem right that you should be eating on your own up at the hotel. Where did you learn your Spanish? At university?’

  ‘Never went to university,’ Mackenzie said. ‘I taught myself all my languages.’

  Antonio’s eyes opened wide. ‘All your languages? How many do you speak?’

  ‘Four if you include English.’

  Antonio whistled softly. ‘That makes me feel very inadequate. My English is very poor. Lucas speaks it better than I do. Don’t you, son?’

  Lucas blushed.

  ‘We send him to a private Catholic school near Estepona. They teach half his subjects in the medium of English. It costs an arm and a leg, and we have to drive him there every day. But you have to make sacrifices, don’t you? Can’t put a price on your children’s future.’

  Mackenzie felt a stab of guilt, and wondered if it could be said that he had made sufficient sacrifices for his.

  Almost as if he sensed it, Antonio said, ‘Do you have any yourself?’

  Mackenzie nodded. ‘Two.’ But he didn’t want to elaborate. That would only lead to the subject of his marriage and his separation from Susan. Subjects he did not want to discuss with strangers, but would feel obliged to do so if they asked. He was rescued by a flustered Cristina carrying two steaming plates of spaghetti bolognese to the table. She placed one each in front of Mackenzie and Lucas and hurried off to get another two, while Antonio poured red wine into their glasses.

  He laughed ‘Boloñesa. An Italian dish for your first night in Spain.’

  Cristina returned with the other plates, but was not amused. ‘Pasta is quick and easy,’ she said, ‘when you have been out working all day.’

  ‘We all work all day, cielo.’

  ‘But we don’t all have to make dinner when we get home.’

  Antonio’s smile was strained. ‘Except when your wife’s on the night shift being shot at.’

  Mackenzie sensed the tension between them and took a mouthful of spaghetti to avoid having to speak.

  ‘Nobody shot at me.’

  ‘No, just threatened to kill you and your family after you made him shoot his girlfriend.’

  Cristina glared at him, and flicked her eyes pointedly toward Lucas, as if to say not in front of the boy! But Lucas appeared not to be paying any attention, his eyes fixed on the TV screen in the corner, and Mackenzie thought he must have heard this script before.

  Antonio tried to laugh it off. ‘It’s a tough town this,’ he said to Mackenzie. ‘You wouldn’t think so to look at it. Especially since the ayuntamiento spent taxpayers’ money on the makeover. Tourists flock here in the summer. Beautiful buildings, wonderful views, delicious wine. Unaware of the gangs that operate out of the derelict housing developments on the outskirts. Boom town Marviña until the financial crash. You’ll have seen the consequences everywhere, all over the valley. Unfinished apartment blocks. Concrete skeletons. Cranes standing over them, like dinosaurs frozen in time. Most of them haven’t moved in over ten years, the companies that owned them long since gone bust.’

  ‘Breeding grounds for crime,’ Cristina said gloomily. ‘Squatters. Illegal immigrants. Drugs gangs.’

  Antonio used his fork to wind spaghetti into a ball in his spoon. ‘The kind of people the mother of my son has to mix with every day.’ He flashed a glance towards his wife.

  ‘Not really,’ Cristina said. She seemed weary. This was a well-rehearsed argument. ‘The men get to do all the fun stuff. I get to do paperwork, traffic duty and search female suspects. A little ironic since I actually topped my year at the police academy.’

  Antonio said to Mackenzie, ‘Her pa
rents were dead set against her joining the police.’

  Mackenzie was so far out of his comfort zone he had no idea how to respond. ‘They must be very proud of you,’ he said. It seemed like the right kind of thing to say.

  ‘They’re dead,’ Cristina said flatly, and Mackenzie wanted the ground to open up beneath him. But neither of his hosts seemed aware of it. Mackenzie wished Lucas had never found him, and that he was still sitting in the bar up at the Hostal Totana, enjoying a beer and a sandwich.

  He made a clumsy attempt to change the subject. ‘So what kind of area do the police here cover?’

  Cristina shrugged. ‘In Marviña we’re responsible for policing halfway to Estepona and all the way down the coast to Torreguadiaro. As well as a good swathe of territory inland. Just the mundane stuff. The juicy crimes go to the judicial police in Estepona or get referred to the homicide or drugs squads in Malaga.’

  ‘But drugs are your biggest problem?’

  ‘The root of all evil,’ Antonio said.

  Cristina nodded her agreement. ‘The users steal to feed their habit. The dealers diversify. Prostitution, people-trafficking. We know who most of them are, but it’s hard to get solid evidence. Usually we only ever nail them for personal possession or DUI, then they’re back on the streets again in no time. The big stuff . . . they hide that well. Safe houses up in the hills.’

  Mackenzie frowned. ‘Safe houses? What do you mean?’

  Antonio said, ‘Farmers get coerced into keeping the stuff for them. Innocents with no connection at all to the gangs. Drugs get hidden in barns and cowsheds. The really big stashes. And if it’s your farm they choose, you only object if you’ve grown tired of life.’

  Lucas slipped off his seat and started towards his bedroom. His spaghetti was only half-eaten. Cristina said sharply, ‘Where do you think you’re going? You haven’t finished yet.’

  ‘I’ve got homework to do.’ He looked back at them and delivered his coup de grâce. ‘Unless you want to help.’

  Antonio pulled a face. ‘Maths again?’