The door flew open, and the warder’s face hardened as he sized up the situation. He took out his radio with a wearied shake of the head.
But Spike was already on his feet. He caught the warder’s cuff. ‘It’s fine,’ he said, gesturing at the documents on the ground. ‘I just tripped.’ At the edge of his vision, Spike saw Massetti raise his head in surprise. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow,’ he added, as he wiped the blood out of his eye with one thumb. ‘We’ll talk more then.’
3
Spike hesitated outside the restaurant, fingering the hastily applied Steri-Strips that criss-crossed his left eyebrow. Then he straightened his tie and walked inside, hearing the small brass bell above the door give its familiar tinkle.
The restaurant was busy for a Tuesday. And tonight, each table gave a fair representation of the castes that made up modern Gibraltarian society. Even in the wake of Britain’s vote to leave the EU, the Rock’s appeal as a financial centre endured. Spike recognised at a glance the sweating recruits for the online gaming companies, so fresh off the plane from London that they hadn’t had time to adjust their wardrobes to the climate. The tax lawyers, liquoring up non-doms, their raucous laughter failing to conceal that telltale sharpness behind the eye. The insurance brokers – yesterday’s boom industry – in their sensible suits with a touch of the idiosyncratic thrown in: the spotted bow-tie, the statement jewellery. There was even the odd bored-looking Russian or Italian, ignoring his surgically enhanced wife, here under sufferance to see out his required period of tax residency. The only soldiers and sailors these days were frozen in time, immortalised in the sepia photographs on the walls – the Ark Royal at anchor, her cheering crew unaware that just a few weeks later she’d be cut in two by a German U-boat.
Ignoring the barrage of glances at his damaged face, Spike sought out Jessica and found her sitting at their usual table, tanned arms folded across her narrow chest, giving no hint of the baby bump hidden below. If she’d heard the bell she didn’t look up, just stared at the empty ceramic jar on the table in front of her. Spike knew what that meant. He wasn’t just late, he was six breadsticks late.
Sensing his presence, Jessica turned, and he tried to gauge how much trouble he was in from the expression in her dark eyes. Fearing the worst, he raised a hand to his wound in mitigation. She conceded a small smile. ‘One of your better excuses, I suppose.’
‘Sorry.’ Spike leant in to kiss her, catching a hint of the citrus scent she knew that he liked. The restaurant chatter ramped up around them as Spike squeezed onto the cracked red banquette opposite her, the sad low croak of Nina Simone just audible beneath the babble.
Jessica reached up and twisted his chin to get a better view of his injury. Not especially gently, he thought.
‘Well?’ She flicked up her eyes to meet his. He was about to tell her all about it, when Marcela Peralta appeared at his shoulder with a starched white napkin filled with ice. As ever, Spike couldn’t help but be impressed by the restaurateur’s efficacy and discretion. ‘Thanks, Marcela,’ he said, as he gingerly dabbed the cold compress against his eye.
Marcela just arched a blackened eyebrow and placed two leather menus embossed with her name on the table. Then she glided away, brittle bird-like body swamped by the flowing silk robes that she favoured for evening service. No one knew her real age: the more vicious members of her circle hinted that she was over ninety, but Spike had never dared ask.
Jessica sighed. ‘That’ll keep tongues wagging in the Old Town for a few days.’
‘I’m sure Marcela has more juicy things to gossip about,’ Spike replied, distracted by the pinkish hue that had come away on the napkin. The cut was deep: maybe he should have got it stitched.
‘Here.’ Jessica snatched the ice from him in exasperation. He flinched as she pressed it into the socket. He was going to have an impressive shiner; he wondered how that would play out in court tomorrow. ‘Shall we order?’
Marcela had her back to them, perching at the counter on her swivel stool, scribbling away as usual. As if by telepathy, she raised a hanging wing of silk, and one of her devoted Spaniards jumped to her silent command and approached their table.
Orders despatched to the kitchen, Spike covered Jessica’s hands with his. ‘So how was the viewing?’
She took a sip of iced water, then let slip a grimace of heartburn. ‘Same as the last one. Great view, crappy flat.’
‘We could always do up Dad’s place. Get a bigger mortgage.’
‘I see little enough of you as it is.’
It was a circular discussion they’d been having for months, so they were both grateful when the food arrived. Marcela’s chef had outdone herself tonight, Spike thought, feeling his mouth water as he admired the whole sea bass recumbent on its bed of grilled cherry tomatoes, the wilted beetroot greens he knew would have been picked that day from the restaurant’s kitchen garden. He waved away the waiter, hearing his father’s voice in his head as he scored the point of the knife down the lateral line and eased the white flesh away from the bone: ‘Genoese migrants, son – we know our way round a piece of fish.’
‘How was work?’ Spike asked.
‘They’re benching me.’ Jessica suddenly looked weary. ‘Despite the fact I don’t start maternity leave for another six weeks. Highlight of my day was an ID parade.’ She tipped up the fish with her knife, considered the veined green discs of fennel beneath, then wrinkled her nose and pushed the plate away. Raging hunger which dissipated after two mouthfuls: another of the gods’ many and varied ways to torment the pregnant. ‘So who was it?’ she asked.
‘My new client.’ That surprised her. ‘Christopher Massetti.’
Jessica made an ‘Ouch’ expression, suggesting that the name was not unknown to the police. Spike was about to enquire further when Marcela reappeared, her shrewd green eyes roving over the debris, checking that glasses had been refilled, appetites sated. Beneath Marcela’s cropped silver hair, her face was indented with hundreds of tiny lines, but soft as a peach, Spike knew, having been engulfed into her rose-water-scented embrace many times as a boy. Somehow, somewhere, the cupid’s bow of crimson lipstick had been carefully reapplied. ‘So?’ She glowered down at them like an ageing film star demanding affirmation of her genius.
Spike stifled a smile. He knew what Marcela expected of her customers. ‘The fennel was particularly delicious.’ And it was true. He could still taste a hint of aniseed on his tongue.
But Marcela had already turned her attention to his companion. ‘I hear it can be helpful for those in your condition.’ To Spike’s surprise, Jessica blushed. Having achieved the desired effect, Marcela looked back at Spike. ‘And how is your father? Health still troubling him?’ She pressed her scarlet lips together in sympathy. ‘We’ve missed him at our bridge nights.’
Spike grinned back, knowing from a recent conversation with Rufus that the sentiment was not reciprocated: ‘These women, son. It’s like Orestes being pursued by the Furies.’ ‘Dad’s on great form. He’s been helping out with Charlie. Says it’s given him a new lease of life.’
A look of confusion crossed Marcela’s face.
‘Charlie lives with us now,’ Spike explained. ‘We made it official.’ He felt Jessica squeeze his hand. ‘We’ve adopted him.’
Marcela reached down to ruffle Spike’s dark hair. ‘I remember you coming here as a little boy. You were always a favourite, even then. And now you have a child at home,’ she continued, as the plates vanished around them. ‘And a baby on the way.’ She picked up Jessica’s left hand to study the small daisy-shaped engagement ring, its petals comprised of yellow and white diamonds. ‘At least there’s a ring, I suppose. But you young people do make a habit of putting the cart before the horse, don’t you?’
Spike gave a sheepish smile. ‘It’s all happened pretty fast.’ He saw Jessica flash him a look across the table. When it came to Marcela Peralta, his fiancée and father were of one mind: a little went a long way.
‘We sh
ould get the bill,’ Jessica said firmly, as she pushed back her chair. ‘I’ll just be a minute.’
Spike helped her up, watching her wend her way as gracefully as possible between the tables towards the lavatories. Marcela patted Spike’s arm. ‘She’s lovely, Spike. You’re a lucky man.’ Then she glided away to the next table.
4
When they got back to Chicardo’s Passage, the house was already in darkness. The state-of-the-art baby monitor had been left on the kitchen table beside the incinerated remains of an M&S steak-and-kidney pie, and through its tiny speakers, Spike could just make out the gentle rhythm of Charlie’s breathing.
Jessica looked exhausted. Spike could tell that the heartburn was troubling her again, so he sent her up to bed while he heated some milk. But by the time he made it up to their room, she was already asleep, a pillow wedged between her knees and an as-yet unopened copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting on the mattress beside her.
Resisting the temptation to lie down next to her, Spike switched off the light and crept back downstairs. His briefcase was just where he’d left it, discarded by the front door in the dark hallway. He carried it through the bead curtain to the kitchen, then pulled out the grey Lever Arch file marked ‘R v Massetti’ and braced himself for the task ahead.
It took him more than an hour to wade through the witness statements and supporting documentation. From a defence counsel’s perspective, it made for depressing reading. The complainant, Dr Eloise Capurro, had provided a detailed dossier evidencing what appeared to be a sustained campaign of harassment by Christopher Massetti. If the prosecution needed just two instances when Dr Capurro had felt under threat of violence to make their case, they were spoilt for choice. Behind the next divider, Spike found a photocopy of Massetti’s criminal record. Amongst the panoply of alcohol-related minor convictions he might have expected, there was one that gave genuine cause for concern. Four years ago, Massetti had been convicted of ABH. The sentence had been suspended, but it meant that when it came to violence, the man had form.
Spike pushed the file away and tucked his hands behind his head, wondering once again what had possessed him to take the case. His business partner, Peter Galliano, would not approve, that much he knew. So far, Peter had been prepared to indulge Spike’s occasional forays back into the unprofitable world of criminal defence law where he’d begun his career – as long as such enterprises didn’t impact upon Peter’s grand plan to transform their two-man firm into a tax-advisory monolith. But the compromise was wearing thin, and as Peter’s ambitions intensified, so did Spike’s frustrations with corporate tax work. He’d never been particularly moved by money, and had always found criminal defence law rewarding, even if it came with its moments of wretchedness. He knew that Jessica understood that, despite the fact that he invariably found himself on the opposite side of the police.
It was one of the many things he admired about her, Spike thought as he gazed around the kitchen, finding everywhere the evidence of how she’d taken the Sanguinetti family in hand since he’d finally persuaded her to move in. At first, Jessica had been content to illuminate previously esoteric rituals, such as why the fridge needed to be cleaned, and what to do with fabric conditioner. But little by little, she’d made her presence felt in other more subtle ways. Rufus’s watercolour kit and prescription medicines, neatly tidied away into the wicker baskets she’d found in a thrift shop on Main Street. The alphabet magnets she’d known Charlie would love stuck to the fridge.
Hearing the click of the bead curtain, Spike turned to see his father hovering in the doorway. Over his striped pyjamas, Rufus Sanguinetti wore a grey cashmere cardigan that Spike suspected pre-dated his own birth. In any event, it had sustained so many generations of hungry moths that it looked as though Rufus had been peppered by machine-gun fire, yet had by some miracle survived.
‘Can’t sleep?’ Spike asked.
Rufus gave a stoic wave of the hand and lowered his gangly body into a wooden chair. ‘Thought I heard the boy cry out. That’s all.’
Spike stared at his father in wonderment. He had no memory of such solicitude during his own childhood. Maybe it came with old age.
Rufus laid his hands on the tabletop, which Spike recognised as a silent command for tea. So he got to his feet and flipped on the new electric kettle that Jessica had bought for them.
‘I wondered if the boy might fancy an egg for his breakfast,’ Rufus called out in that abrupt way he had when slightly embarrassed.
Spike turned in alarm. His father’s culinary skills were legend for all the wrong reasons. ‘There’s really no need, Dad. I can see to Charlie tomorrow.’
‘I’d say you’ve enough on your plate already.’ Rufus pulled the client file towards him and felt for his spectacles. ‘As in Christopher Massetti?’ he asked, looking up with a frown.
Spike nodded; he’d long since abandoned fears over client confidentiality when it came to his father. Turning back to the counter, he poured the boiling water into the blue enamel teapot, waiting for the leaves to infuse, thinking that the tea never tasted quite as good as it had from their whistling old cast-iron kettle.
‘I overlapped with Christopher for a year at the Christian Brothers,’ Rufus began behind him. ‘He had a sharp mind. Particularly proficient at chess.’ Spike set down a chipped mug in front of his father and waited for more. ‘There was an incident with some of the boys in his year. Bullying in schools is not uncommon, of course, but the campaign against Christopher was particularly vicious. In those days, there was still an assembly each morning, and during prayers, the boys at the front of the balcony would take it in turns to spit onto Christopher’s head.’ Rufus cupped the tea in his hands and blew on it. ‘Looking back, I suppose the masters must have known what was going on, but received wisdom then was that children should be left to sort these things out between themselves. Let the natural order prevail, that kind of nonsense. And I suppose it did, in a way. There was a fight, and Christopher shattered another boy’s cheekbone. He was big for his age, even then. The boy lost the hearing in one ear, and Christopher was expelled. We lost touch after that, but I don’t think Christopher ever really got over it. Never settled into anything.’ Rufus shot Spike one of the disappointed looks that had proved invaluable over a teaching career which had spanned five decades. ‘I had heard he was volunteering at the Gibraltar Museum, but the demon drink . . .’ He peered over the rims of his half-moons and tapped his eyebrow. Spike scowled back like a teenager: ‘It’s not a beer injury, Dad. But thanks for asking.’
His father pushed himself to his feet. ‘Nice cuppa, son. Heaps better.’
Once he was gone, Spike spent another twenty unproductive minutes on Massetti’s file before his eyelids started to droop. He was just about to switch out the light when a thought struck him. It took him a quarter of an hour to find what he was looking for amongst his father’s crowded bookshelves, and then he climbed the steep creaking staircase and joined his fiancée in bed.
5
Whether it was Marcela’s fennel, or his decision not to drink alone at supper, Spike slept well that night, and found himself in buoyant mood the next morning as he once again made the steep climb up Engineer Road. The sun was high in the sky, but not yet strong enough to be oppressive, and on such a glorious day a person could believe that almost anything was possible – perhaps even the successful defence of an indefensible client, Spike thought as he walked into the interview room.
At first glance, things appeared to have improved overnight. Some kindly prison officer must have taken Massetti in hand, as his hair had been washed and combed, and he’d been provided with a serviceable blue suit for his court appearance.
‘Our case has been bumped to midday, Mr Massetti,’ Spike said. ‘So we have some time.’
Once again, Massetti made no reply, but today Spike had come prepared. He clicked open his briefcase and placed his father’s copy of Bronstein’s The Chess Struggle in Practice on the table betw
een them. Massetti inched forward for a better look, and for the first time Spike caught a spark of interest in his expression. ‘I don’t play myself. But I understand you’re fond of the game.’
Massetti laid a hand on the cover and drew the book towards him. He looked as though he’d dried out a little, Spike thought, the tremors less obvious. Then he spoke for the first time, his voice low and gruff. ‘Thank you.’
Spike delved back into his briefcase, fearing that if he stopped to acknowledge this minor breakthrough then he risked his client clamming up again. He pulled out a photocopy of Massetti’s criminal record and passed it to him. ‘You have a previous conviction for a violent crime, Christopher. That increases the chances of a prison term.’
‘Prison’s not so bad,’ Massetti replied.
Spike hesitated. For men like Massetti, he knew there could be some truth in that. He’d defended enough alcoholics to know that a clean bed and three meals a day might well trump hanging around a public park scrounging for loose change. But that kind of talk wasn’t going to help Massetti today. ‘You’re on remand, Christopher. General lock-up won’t be like this.’ Seeing Massetti drop his eyes to his feet again, Spike snapped his fingers in his face. ‘Come on, Christopher. This is serious!’
Massetti looked up, grey eyes unexpectedly challenging and alert. ‘I find that people usually let me down.’
A few years ago, Spike might have agreed. But things had changed. So he sat back and waited as his client drummed his thick fingers on the dust jacket of the book. Then, just as Spike was about to give up, Massetti sat forward and clasped his hands together. ‘All right, Mr Sanguinetti. What is it that you want to know?’
A Thousand Cuts Page 2
