by Kitty Sewell
‘Mr. Luna, as far as I’m concerned, there is no smell of putrefaction whatsoever. I cannot see a just cause for entering the premises.’
Sebastian felt his nerves begin to give way. He’d come this far, they’d have to conclude the business. He could take no more waiting. ‘I’m telling you, Constable Garcia. My fiancée, my sister and I… we all have been disturbed by it. The smell is far worse in the central patio. It must surely be coming from one of the bedrooms. You can see that Mr. Montegriffo is not here, and he’s not been here for at least a week. I’m telling you, he’s got a very large cat…’ His voice had risen and he saw Stagnetto and Garcia exchange glances.
‘Let’s wait a day or two,’ Garcia began.
‘No!’ Sebastian insisted. ‘We can’t take any more of this.’
He suddenly thought of a card he could pull that might just sway them to act. ‘Listen. My fiancée is extremely distressed about what happened to Mrs. Cohen in our apartment.’ He glared meaningfully at Stagnetto. ‘You see the connection, don’t you? I expressly asked you to get rid of all the evidence because I didn’t want her to find out, but you left the greasy stain on the floor where Mrs. Cohen’s remains had decomposed…God knows for how long. The truth came out and since then she’s been suffering anxiety and nightmares. Just last week we had to move out of the bedroom, she couldn’t stand another night in there.’ He gestured to the door. ‘Now Mr. Montegriffo is missing and there is a distinct odour of decay coming from his apartment. I’m afraid I don’t think my fiancée can live here under these conditions…’ He knew he should stop there, before he went too far.
Stagnetto looked suitably perturbed by this turn. He took the bobby by the arm and moved him aside a little. ‘Venga, Malcolm. Abrimos la puerta. I’ll fix the lock at my own expense. Montegriffo lo entenderá. He’s a reasonable man.’
The policeman still did not look convinced, but after a brief hesitation pulled out a metal card and a small tool from his pocket and with his back to them began fiddling with the lock. ‘Damn,’ he said under his breath. ‘It’s a ten-bolt security job. It’s no good.’
‘Let me,’ said Sebastian, and before either man could react, he’d aimed a kick at the door with such force that the wood of the door frame splintered with a deafening crack. The door slammed open and bounced hard against the hall wall, ricocheting back and hitting him on the toe.
The two men stared at him, open mouthed. Sebastian stared at the door, wondering where on earth he’d got the power to kick a door frame out of a wall.
‘That was a bad idea,’ said PC Garcia, not without a tinge of admiration.
‘That’ll cost to put right,’ said Stagnetto, pulling a large handkerchief from his pocket to wipe sweat off his brow.
The deed was done and Sebastian, both his head and heart pounding, hung back in the hallway as Garcia and Stagnetto went in. He heard the two men talking in rapid Yanito as they wandered around the apartment, but there were no sudden silences or exclamations of surprise, shock or disgust.
‘Nothing,’ said Garcia through clenched teeth as they came back out. ‘No cats, rats, birds or other beings, alive or dead, anywhere in this apartment. Perhaps there is garbage left in the inside patio, Mr. Luna, or a dead rat in the floorboards of your own apartment.’ He indicated the wreckage of the door with an indignant gesture. ‘You’ll have to settle up with your rental agency regarding the damage caused here. And you’d better try and explain this to Mr. Montegriffo. Luckily for you he is a very decent person.’
Sebastian was so shocked by the outcome of the search he could only nod. Where had the body disappeared to? What had happened to it? The man was dead, he’d been stone dead when he lay on his bed. Stagnetto was talking to him, but he couldn’t grasp what he said. They were looking at him and he knew he was expected to respond in some way.
‘I’ll pay for the damage. Do you know any good carpenter? I’m…I feel…very stupid,’ was all he could manage.
‘You get yourself a chair, Luna, and guard this door until I get back with my maintenance man,’ said Stagnetto. ‘It’ll be a while. We’ll have to try and get the materials to replace the door frame, and a temporary lock as we can’t put the old lock back without the key. With some luck perhaps the actual door can be salvaged.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Most likely we won’t be able to get what we need tonight, so we’ll have to bolt some sheets of ply to the opening somehow. Let’s just hope Mr. Montegriffo is away another day. He’d have a hell of a shock coming home to his front door demolished and his apartment bolted shut.’
Just as they were leaving, Mimi came walking up the stairs with the black cat in her arms. She stopped to take in what she was seeing, her mouth half open and a frown forming under her fringe. She recognised Stagnetto and nodded, then stared at the ruined door and the debris and wood fragments on the floor.
‘It’s all right,’ Stagnetto said to her, his voice gentle. ‘I can see that the cat is okay, and you’ll be glad to hear that there was nothing else untoward in Mr. Montegriffo’s apartment. Whatever the smell…there is certainly none coming from in there.’
‘What smell?’ said Mimi, innocent as a child
Eva
She arrived home from the dive to find Sebastian sitting on the steps of the first-floor landing. He was resting his forehead on his knees, a strangely passive posture for a man who was usually so dynamic. He looked like a little boy lost and she hurried up to him. Then her eye took in a definite change in the landscape. Carlo Montegriffo’s front door was not where it should be and the door frame was in splinters.
‘My God, has there been a burglary?’ she asked, staring at the wreckage.
Sebastian lifted his head and looked at her. ‘I’m just keeping guard until a carpenter arrives,’ he said evasively.
‘Hey, that’s good of you.’
‘Please, my love, can you get me a glass of water,’ he said, reaching for her hand. ‘And give me a kiss before you go.’
She was puzzled but intuitively she knew that it was best not to ask too many questions, sensing that Sebastian was the culprit. No doubt the broken door had something to do with Mimi’s visits there, though when Sebastian had been down last week ranting at Carlo, it turned out Mimi hadn’t been there after all.
In the days that followed, Sebastian seemed to come back to himself, in fact, for a few days he was almost inappropriately elated. Her partner was more complex a person than she’d realised, and it pained her to realise how little she understood him. What mattered most was that the intimacy and warmth between them had been restored, which made her own ghosts retreat for a while. The renewed strength of their love made her feel safe. While Sebastian’s powerful aura surrounded her, surely nothing could touch her.
*
One breezy afternoon she came home to find the apartment empty. She kicked off her shoes and got a glass of wine from the fridge. She grabbed the book she was reading and, with her drink, made her way towards the terrace. True to his word, Sebastian had brought home a catalogue, and together they’d ordered a fine-looking rattan sofa and a triangular sail which she’d fastened to the poles for the clothesline, providing hours of afternoon shade. Her phone rang just as she was about to sit down. Assuming it was Sebastian, she went to look for it. She should have known better. Sebastian rarely called before he was ready to come home, and five o’clock was far too early.
With her heart beating, drum-like, in her chest she listened to the silent breather for a full minute, trying to think of a strategy. It had been a lifesaving idea to go across the border for a phone with a Spanish number. Spain was a big country. Obviously she was au fait with the directive: always cut a nuisance caller off. But she didn’t have the courage to dismiss this caller.
‘What do you want from me?’ she said at last. ‘At least tell me that.’
Still the silence, the breathing, not heavy but in some way impatient, exasperated even, willing her to speak.
‘Montegriffo… Is that you? Is this r
eally necessary?’
She knew it wasn’t him, but just saying his name reassured her. Who knew, perhaps it was him…or some other person in Gibraltar that was so against the Frontiers Development Project that he’d go to any length to get its perpetrator off the Rock.
As she listened to the breathing man – for the sound and depth was definitely that of a man – she saw herself packing her suitcase; no not a suitcase, a bag. She saw herself on a ferry to Morocco, or handing Jonny Risso a wad of Gibraltar Pounds as he dropped her off somewhere along the Costa del Sol where she could get lost amongst millions of foreigners and find passage to some other remote corner of the world.
She sank down into a chair in the hallway and massaged her forehead with thumb and forefinger, keeping the breather company in his silence. He just went on breathing, as though willing her to say more. That was what he wanted: a reaction – any reaction. But she was tired of running.
‘Adrian,’ she said finally. ‘I know it’s you?’
The breather stopped, only for a second, but he stopped. So it was him.
‘Yeah,’ he said in a low raspy whisper. ‘Chantelle.’
She rang off, dropping the phone to the floor where it clattered along the floor tiles. A wail escaped from her throat and she clamped her hands over her mouth. She’d get rid of the phone, she’d go away for a few weeks… perhaps if they moved to some little village across the border. No, it was never going to work. Never! He was shrewder, more determined than she gave him credit for.
He’d find her. It was only a matter of time.
Sebastian
He lay back on the bed trying to have a rest. Gradually cutting down on his medication had alleviated the worst of his migraines, so it made sense to try and reduce it further. Despite the stress he’d been under since the altercation with Montegriffo, and then the bizarre disappearance of the body, the phase-down of his medication seemed to have had no adverse effects whatsoever. It was a clear sign that he no longer needed it.
The mystery of Montegriffo wouldn’t leave him alone, however. Since there’d been no visit from the police, no interview conducted or arrest made, it probably meant that the body had been discovered by a cleaner, or a colleague, or a fellow Catholic, and removed from the premises, then deemed to have died from natural causes. But surely everyone in town – Stagnetto and PC Garcia included – would have known about his death and informed him? Yet what possible other explanation could there be? Part of him felt high on the fact that he might not end up in prison, removed from the women he loved and his career ruined for all time, but he now understood just what that ridiculous word ‘closure’ meant. He wanted closure, he needed closure.
He closed his eyes and tried the visualisation exercise he’d been taught in hospital, imagining himself on a beach, lying in the sand, listening to the waves wash over small round pebbles. Palm trees shaded him, a breeze wafted the air and he was supposed to become suffused with bliss. The problem with that was that he disliked sand, couldn’t stand bright sun light and hated being idle. Lying on a beach was a form of torture. That psychologist had read him all wrong. What made him feel good was power and control. He was a creator and initiator, proactive and in charge. Getting joy and relaxation out of a passive stance to life was for the weak and timid.
His thoughts went back to the small world within the apartment. He was so happy that Eva seemed to have forgiven him his bizarre behaviour, he couldn’t keep his hands off her. At the same time he was painfully aware of how this display must make Mimi feel, believing she had been dumped by her boyfriend without so much as a word of explanation. In some perverse way, he was happy to have been the instrument of her deliverance. Poor Mimi. From her very beginning she’d been denied the love she deserved. Jane gave birth to her, but as with him, there was not a morsel of love for her to chew on. Only Dad had been crazy about her, but the insidious spectre of Alzheimer’s had soon begun to show and he’d found it hard to cope with a lively and precocious daughter.
Sebastian thought back to the first time he’d laid eyes on his little sister. He had just been released from a year-long spell in hospital, age nineteen. He’d come out of there a grown man, a new man, full of energy, enthusiasm and focus.
Dad signed him out. During the drive home Sebastian had a lot to say, and talked nonstop about his new vision. He’d had a dream only a few weeks earlier where he’d become the world’s leading structural engineer. He knew the dream was prophetic, and from this day onwards he was going to focus on its realisation.
Dad glanced at him. ‘Prophetic?’
‘Don’t worry Dad. I said vision, not illusion.’
After a short silence, Dad said, ‘We have a surprise for you when we get home.’
‘Oh, no,’ Sebastian said, laughing. ‘What is it? A dog?’
Dad laughed too. ‘No, not exactly.’
‘A gerbil, then? A parrot? Last time it was the tarantula, very appropriate!’
‘Getting hot,’ Dad said, still with a laugh, but one that sounded more like Santa’s hollow ‘Ho Ho Ho’.
Sebastian looked him over. Dad had aged. He wasn’t a big man but had always had a presence, with his bushy grey hair and the moustache he liked waxing into bizarre styles. He seemed to have lost pride in his appearance somewhat. The moustache looked like a small lifeless creature draped over his mouth and his belly obscured his belt with the shirt half hanging out.
‘I’m mighty glad you’ve decided to focus on engineering. Papito would have been so proud and happy you’re following his footsteps,’ Dad said, ‘But son, you’ve got to look after yourself. Dr. Matthews has moved mountains for you. You must go and see him to thank him.’
‘Yeah, yeah…’ He felt like a ten-year-old. He’d had enough of being emotionally frail and treated like an invalid. He didn’t need Dr. Matthews to move mountains. He was going to fucking move them himself.
Despite his protestations, Dad helped him with his bag. Jane waited for him in the living room, though she didn’t get up to greet him.
‘Hello, Mother.’
‘Welcome home, Sebastian.’
She’d not come once to see him in hospital, but then he’d not expected her. She looked good, as usual, but tired. Suddenly he noticed that beside her on the sofa was a baby. He stared at the little thing, sleeping soundly on a blanket, its long eyelashes casting shadows over the rosy cheeks.
‘Whose baby is that?’ he asked, mystified.
‘Ours,’ said Jane.
‘Yours? Are you serious? Yours and Dad’s?’
She looked affronted. ‘I said so.’
‘I thought you’d be too old to have kids.’
‘I’m forty-three, Sebastian. You call that old?’
‘No, of course not, but…why did you want to?’ he said, turning to Dad who had come in behind him. He couldn’t believe that the old man had it in him. Jane had never allowed him to touch her – as far as anyone could remember – but who knew what went on behind closed bedroom doors? ‘You’re a bit past childrearing, both of you, aren’t you? Dad, you’re over sixty.’
‘Who cares?’ said Dad, bounding up to the sofa, arms already outstretched.
‘Don’t touch her,’ Jane hissed. ‘For Christ’s sake, don’t wake her up.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Imogen,’ said Dad, sitting there gazing down at the little one, a picture of a besotted father.
‘I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.’
Dad didn’t even look up when he spoke. ‘We felt it would be too stressful for you. You were quite unwell, remember?’
‘A sister! Bloody hell!’ Sebastian groaned. ‘Don’t ask me to babysit, okay? I’ve got to get my head down if I’m ever going to be an engineer.’ He sat down on the sofa and looked at the baby. You couldn’t deny that she was cute. Imogen…it was too grownup a name for such a little thing. Mimi, he thought. Hi, Mimi.
‘We’ll manage,’ said Dad, throwing Jane a warning glance.
‘I
wouldn’t have had her, but your wonderful father insisted we keep her,’ said Jane sarcastically. ‘She wasn’t planned, that’s for certain. All of us have to pull our weight. You too, Sebastian. You must help. I’m not doing this alone.’
Sebastian looked at his parents, an incongruous pair from the start, Jane marrying for money and status, Dad for youth and beauty. There had been no love between them then (she’d said so herself), and even less now. It was astonishing that they were still together, especially her with him. The whole thing felt wrong. Dad shouldn’t have exerted his own will, not on something as colossal as this. He saw suddenly how the future might look. He was the one with the youth and the energy.
Mimi
‘Off to paint the town black?’ Eva asked as she was leaving the apartment.
It was irritating to have to justify her movements; even so it was kind of comforting that Eva actually cared where she went.
‘I’m just going out for some air,’ she said and pulled the door shut.
She went downstairs and knocked on Carlo’s door, as she had every day for eight days. She had a good excuse, she wanted to give back some of his poems with her annotations. There was no answer to her knock and she had to accept the obvious, Carlo was avoiding her. She was almost sure that Sebastian had engineered this somehow. On the other hand, Carlo didn’t seem like a guy who’d be easily intimidated, and she could not overlook that he’d cared enough to have her followed.
