‘It’s a fit and proper person test, Peter. That’s why they need a lawyer to sign it.’
‘There are plenty of lawyers in Gibraltar who’ve known Siri for a year.’
‘Then there are plenty of lawyers in Gibraltar who’ll say they have.’
The two men stared at each other, and Spike caught something in Peter’s eye that he’d never seen before, that he didn’t like. But then it was gone, and Peter was all smiles again. ‘Why don’t we discuss it later, Spike? When you’re less, well . . .’ He cupped a palm over the knob of his cane and pushed himself to his feet. ‘She’s here all week!’ he wheedled over one shoulder as he opened the door.
34
On the night of Drew’s party, there were no Rock Apes lurking on the approach to Dragon Trees, just a long line of executive cars preparing to avail themselves of the valet parking that Sir Anthony had provided for his guests. A stubby tongue of red carpet extended from the main entrance. ‘Feels more like a victory parade,’ Jessica observed, as they paused outside to let her catch her breath.
She’d found the walk harder tonight, Spike could tell. He took her hand, half-hoping she might go into labour there and then, if only to escape an evening of small talk. As usual, she seemed to read his mind. ‘No such luck, Spike, I’m afraid.’
They were welcomed at the door by a tall blonde dressed in a black Nehru jacket that stopped midway down her skinny thighs. She ushered them over the threshold with a megawatt smile, then recalibrated her face for the next guest. The party was already in full swing, black-suited waiters and waitresses sweeping past them with silver trays – crystal flutes of champagne, smoked salmon blinis, miniature beef Wellingtons and Scotch quail’s eggs. The uniform attractiveness of the staff was striking, and Spike found himself wondering if they were ‘resting’ actors and models who’d been flown in from London for the day. The irony was that the amount the party had cost would probably exceed that which it would generate, but Spike knew this was less about fund-raising than about establishing Drew as a serious candidate for Chief Minister.
The view through the glass cube was as breathtaking as Spike remembered, the shipping lights of the Straits flashing beneath a spangled dark-denim sky. Illumined against it was the man of the moment, flanked by two women, the younger and more attractive of whom Spike knew worked for the Gibraltar Chronicle. Hovering beside them was the owner of GibFuel, the Rock’s largest ship-bunkering company, adjusting his yarmulke as he sourced kosher pickings from the passing trays.
At first glance, Drew looked every inch the promising candidate. This evening, he’d gone for a pale lightweight suit, which on a heavier man might have drawn unfortunate reminiscences of the Man from Del Monte, but which complemented Drew’s clean-cut freckled complexion perfectly. By his standards, he’d acquired something of a tan since they’d last met, and Spike wondered if he’d been dragged to a salon by some newly employed stylist. But he knew Drew too well to miss the telltale shadows beneath the eyes – signs of sleepless nights and stressful meetings. He paused for breath to offer Spike and Jessica a wave, then returned to his attentive entourage.
‘Jessie?’ Spike looked round to see a petite brunette embracing Jessica. There was something oddly familiar about her delicate, elfin features.
‘You remember Sofia Peralta, don’t you, Spike?’ Jessica prompted, and then it made sense. Marcela’s great-niece.
Spike leant in to kiss her on both cheeks. The last time he’d seen Sofia she’d been an awkward teenager, sulkily waiting tables at Marcela’s to pay for her gap year. People had always said she was bright, and the day she’d got her degree results from Cambridge, Marcela had done the unthinkable, clapped her hands together and said that drinks were on the house. Jessica had been surprised when Sofia had decided to move back to Gib after graduation, but perhaps, like so many of her overqualified peers, she just couldn’t find work in England. So she’d taken an entry-level role in the online gaming industry three years ago. But her dress was so simple and well cut that Spike suspected it must be very expensive, and there were diamond solitaires sparkling in her ears, so maybe she’d inherited some of her great-aunt’s famous work ethic after all. ‘How are you feeling?’ she asked Jessica.
Jessica sighed. ‘Enormous.’
‘You look radiant.’ Sofia squeezed Jessica’s hand, then turned her hazel eyes to Spike. ‘And what about you, Spike? Ready for impending fatherhood?’ The anxiety he felt must have been obvious, as both women looked at each other and laughed, the first unaffected sound Spike had heard all evening.
‘Have you seen my great-aunt?’ Sofia was scanning the room.
‘Marcela’s here?’ Jessica said in surprise. ‘I didn’t think she would come.’
‘Nor me.’ Sofia hooked a hank of glossy dark hair behind one ear. ‘Eloise’s death has hit her pretty hard. She needs to slow down.’
‘There she is,’ Spike said. ‘Talking to our estimable host.’
Marcela and Sir Anthony were standing in a huddle at the back of the kitchen, whispering intently. One of Sir Anthony’s arms was in a sling, Spike saw, and his face looked dark and angry. Marcela leant in to whisper something to him, but he shook her off and she turned away.
‘Looks like a heated discussion,’ Jessica said.
‘I expect it’s about the catering – Auntie M doesn’t like to be overlooked.’ Sofia pulled a face. ‘I’d better go and rescue her.’
Spike suspected that the argument might have more to do with a fund-raising event that capitalised on the recent death of a mutual friend, but he put that out of his mind as they watched Sofia move through the crowd.
‘Be a while before I’m back in a dress like that,’ Jessica murmured.
Spike handed her a tumbler of elderflower pressé and kissed her cheek. ‘No contest,’ he said, and was rewarded with a smile.
35
Minesweeping canapés, Spike led Jessica over yards of polished cedar flooring to the west wing of the house. As a teenager, he’d always been awed by the vastness of Dragon Trees, and from the look on Jessica’s face, he could tell she felt the same. On numerous occasions, he’d heard Sir Anthony relate the tale of how the then Governor had built it in the eighteenth century as a summer-house for one of his many mistresses, and he knew that the only way to get a sense of its true size was to view it from the Straits – storey after storey huddled against the Rock.
When they finally reached the drawing room, Spike recognised the Bloomsbury-era oils that had once hung in the kitchen, now framed in antique gilt and over-lit on the panelled walls like in some gentlemen’s club. The sofas had been shunted to one side to make room for a trestle table displaying items for the silent auction.
Spike examined the list of lots, finding mostly vouchers for the dolphin safaris, spa breaks and personal-training sessions that were the staple entertainment of bored tax exiles counting down their days in Gib. But there were also a few antiquities, and his eye was caught by a rather lovely pair of Victorian watercolours of the lighthouse at Europa Point, which he imagined would fetch enough to fund a couple of advertising billboards for the Liberal Party and its thrusting new leader.
Recognising Peter’s well-liquored boom of a laugh, Spike turned and saw a triumvirate he would have preferred to avoid. Peter had donned his midnight-blue dinner jacket for the occasion, belly straining his silk cummerbund to its limits. Alan Cassar QC looked hot and thirsty, and between them stood a tall, androgynous figure in a black satin cigarette suit that Spike suspected was – but hoped was not – the infamous Siri Baxter. They were clustered around a replica of Alexander Calder’s 1936 sculpture, Gibraltar – the Rock hewn from hardwood, encircled like a witch’s hat by a smooth brim of walnut.
Spike tried to steer Jessica away, but it was too late. ‘Spike!’ Cane clicking in one hand, glass of champagne in the other, Peter drew Jessica into his moist embrace, leaving Spike to nod at Cassar, then turn warily to face Siri Baxter. ‘We haven’t met in person, Ms Baxter.
How do you do?’
Siri stood there and appraised him for a moment, one lean arm wrapped across her waist, clasping her elbow, her free hand toying with the stem of her champagne flute. With her magenta lips and short blonde hair waxed like that of a schoolboy from the 1930s, she looked like an elegantly malevolent character from an Evelyn Waugh novel. She held out a long, cool hand. ‘Your work for Bonanza has been outstanding, Mr Sanguinetti.’
Spike heard Alan Cassar let out a scoff. ‘He’s half-decent when he bothers to prepare.’
‘Alan’s known Siri for years,’ Peter confided. ‘They’re both patrons of the Royal Opera House.’
‘Do you care for the opera, Mr Sanguinetti?’ Siri asked.
‘Not especially.’
Siri’s watery blue eyes slid over to Jessica, fell momentarily on her belly, then returned to Spike’s face. ‘Maybe on your next trip to London we might change your mind?’
In the corner of his vision, Spike could see Jessica biting her lower lip, struggling to hold her temper. He picked up her hand and squeezed it. ‘That’s very generous, Ms Baxter. But I don’t have any trips to the UK planned in the short term. As you can see, Jessica and I have a busy time ahead of us.’
Siri gave a confident, empty smile, as she searched the room for more amenable prey. Then she turned for the door and Peter hurried to catch her up, glowering back at Spike over his shoulder.
‘Unusual approach to client management, Spike.’ The amusement was clear in Cassar’s face. ‘But I can’t fault your judgment. If there’s one woman you don’t want to be trapped in a box with for a performance of the Ring Cycle, it’s Siri bloody Baxter.’ Catching sight of another QC, Cassar gave Spike an avuncular pat on the arm, then took his leave.
‘That was awkward,’ Jessica said.
‘Sorry,’ Spike replied, pushing open the door he hoped led to the library. ‘Peter’s been driving me mad.’
Spike was relieved to find the library largely unchanged. Running a fingertip along the mahogany writing desk that he’d always envied, he turned to the bookshelves, as packed with leather-bound classics as the Garrison Library in town. Trollope, Galsworthy and Dickens; Shelley, Coleridge and Tennyson. Authors and poets whose intimidating canons he had barely penetrated, something he knew that Rufus, a passionate reader, considered a baffling shortcoming. Spike had always hoped to remedy this, perhaps when he had more time, but now he had Charlie to think of, the baby coming – and a hefty mortgage to take on. He couldn’t see himself settling down after a long day in court with a copy of Crime and Punishment in the immediate future.
Jessica was looking at a framed picture on the wall. Spike crossed the frayed Moroccan rug to join her, and she pointed to a black-and-white photograph of a group of uniformed men lined up along the docks of Gibraltar Harbour. They were beaming with pride, medals pinned to their chests.
Spike recognised the bearded man in the admiral’s uniform from the trademark vacant look in his eyes. ‘King George V,’ he said.
‘Not him,’ Jessica chided, pointing at the stocky young man at the end of the row. The hawkish nose and thick swept-back hair were just the same. ‘Sir Anthony Stanford,’ Spike murmured, leaning closer. ‘Bloody hell. Is that a George Cross?’ Then Spike saw the card beneath the picture: ‘King’s Medal, 1945’. A war hero – he should have guessed.
But Jessica was tapping an impatient finger on the glass. Spike took a closer look: hanging around the young man’s neck, just visible above his collar, was a pendant. Spike tried to remember where he’d seen the teardrop shape before, then it came to him. The third man in Christopher Massetti’s photograph hadn’t been John Capurro at all. It had been Anthony Stanford sitting in that smoky bar with Esteban Reyes and Raúl de Herrera.
Hearing voices outside, Spike and Jessica stepped back, fidgeting like a couple of guilty teenagers as they waited for the door to open.
36
It was Drew who reacted first. ‘There you are,’ he called out, as though he’d been searching for the pair of them for hours. Sir Anthony said nothing, but the notches between his eyebrows evidenced his displeasure, and Spike wondered if they’d trespassed into some private domain. ‘I hope we aren’t intruding, Anthony,’ he said.
‘My fault, I’m afraid,’ Jessica cut in, offering her most demure smile. ‘I felt a little faint.’ She looked up at their host through her eyelashes and fanned her face: ‘All those people!’
Sir Anthony’s expression softened, and he waved away their apologies with his good hand.
‘It’s a hell of a party, Drew,’ Spike said.
‘Full of the great and the good,’ Drew shot back. ‘The perfect place for a hungry lawyer to hustle up some new clients. Or so your business partner seems to think.’
The sourness in Drew’s tone gave rise to an uncomfortable silence. ‘Looks like you’ve been in the wars, Sir Anthony,’ Jessica said.
The old man cupped an ear in irritation. He’d lost ground since they’d last met, the skin on his cheeks hanging more loosely, the shape of his skull more visible around the nose and jaw. It was his left arm that was injured, Spike noted.
‘What happened?’ Jessica asked.
‘Slipped in the shower – the silliest thing,’ Sir Anthony replied in a terse voice that made clear he was disinclined to discuss the matter further. He turned to leave, but Jessica called him back. ‘We’ve just been admiring your pictures.’ She pointed up at the photograph: ‘I thought I recognised this handsome young war hero.’
Sir Anthony reached up to unhook the frame from the wall, and smiled for the first time that evening. Then he handed it to Jessica with a wink. ‘I can neither confirm nor deny.’
‘Typical.’ Drew rolled his eyes. ‘Ask Dad about his war and he starts spouting the Official Secrets Act.’
Spike turned to the bookcase and pulled out what he suspected was a Siegfried Sassoon first edition.
‘Do you like war poetry, Spike?’ Sir Anthony asked, the scepticism clear in his voice.
‘I’m no expert,’ Spike replied. ‘But the other day a friend mentioned a Spanish poet he’s discovered.’ Spike ignored Jessica’s attempts to catch his eye and looked instead at Sir Anthony. ‘Raúl de Herrera?’
Sir Anthony’s left knee buckled, and he knocked his injured arm against the bookcase. Drew stepped forward to help his father, but Sir Anthony pushed him away, face creased with pain. ‘Oh stop fussing, would you?’ His sling had rucked up, and he pulled it down over his wrist, trying to recompose himself. ‘We should get back. The auction will be starting soon.’ He raised his head. ‘You might find yourself in one of these photographs, Spike. Somewhere near the ox-eye window.’
The door closed, and Spike looked round to find Jessica glaring at him. ‘What?’ he said, automatically crossing his arms.
Jessica turned away with a sigh of resignation. ‘You never can leave well enough alone, can you?’
Spike just bit his tongue and followed her meekly across the room. The walls around the oval window were studded with pictures, and it took them a while to find the one Sir Anthony had mentioned. But there it was: a sun-faded Polaroid of the Sanguinetti family on Eastern Beach in . . . 1977? 1978? Spike plucked the frame from the wall and recognised himself, a tiny boy kneeling in the sand with his bucket and spade, blue eyes grave and watchful, skin the colour of melted chocolate. Rufus stood beside him in a pair of yellow Speedos that Spike had forgotten and hoped some day he would again, mouth open in the sort of toothy grin Spike hadn’t seen in years. Then his mother, sleek in a black swimsuit, staring at something off camera, far out to sea. Catherine Sanguinetti. Present but not present.
Spike passed the photograph to Jessica and she stared at it. ‘Your mother was very beautiful.’ She sounded surprised, and Spike realised with a pang of guilt that she probably hadn’t seen a picture of his mother before. Rufus didn’t like them around the house these days – said they made him feel maudlin.
Feeling Jessica’s hand on his sleeve,
he glanced round, hoping she wasn’t going to interrogate him further. But she wasn’t thinking about his mother at all. ‘This thing with Esteban Reyes. It intrigues you, doesn’t it?’ She looked into his eyes. ‘But there’s something you need to realise about cold cases, Spike. No one ever quite knows where they are going to lead.’ She reached forward and hung the picture back in place, and Spike was reminded of what Josephine Massetti had said to her son before she died: ‘There’s no point raking up the past.’ Christopher had ignored her warning and now Eloise Capurro was dead. It was a sobering thought, but Jessica hadn’t finished yet. ‘You know another thing?’ she asked. ‘If Christopher Massetti had really wanted to clear his father’s name, he would have done better not to have followed in his footsteps.’
37
The next morning, Spike blew on his coffee as he watched Peter Galliano stride around his office, wondering how long it would take before they could get started on the weekly work-in-progress update. Quite a while, he suspected, as Peter tucked his thumbs into his purple braces and puffed out his cheeks. ‘Siri Baxter! What a woman!’
Spike gave a diffident nod of the head.
‘The Russian market is opening up, and if you can handle yourself in that kind of environment, well . . .’
The stuffed Spanish wildcat on Peter’s overmantel peered down from its dusty case. For the first time, Spike sensed a note of exasperation in its glass eyes.
‘And your pal Drew seems to have made quite the impression,’ Peter continued. ‘Siri’s even considering making a donation to the Liberal Party.’ He slapped one palm on the desk. ‘She knows how to recognise talent, Spike. And that’s a real skill.’ He seemed to be waiting for Spike to agree.
A Thousand Cuts Page 10
