I didn’t take a second to decide; the cheery presence of Mac Blackstone was just what I needed, even if he wasn’t quite the man he had been. ‘Book it,’ I told him.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Absolutely. Book it, then send me an email with your arrival time; I’ll pick you up.’
‘Not at all, I’ll get a taxi.’
‘You’re not that rich; I’ll pick you up. I won’t tell Tom, though; he still likes surprises.’ I remembered something. ‘By the way, there’s someone here who says he knows you; Matthew Reid, from East Lothian.’
‘Is he, by God? In that case, I’d better bring the golf clubs.’
I ended the call and then went back to my voice messages. As I had expected, the second was from Gerard; timed less than an hour earlier. ‘Primavera,’ he said, his voice calm, ‘I need you to call me. Something has happened. Use my mobile, as usual.’ I’d always made a point of not calling him at the parish residence, for fear of embarrassing Father Olivares, the old priest.
I did as he asked. I could hear engine noise as he answered. ‘Where are you?’
‘I’m on my way back from Figueras. I had an office to perform, for Angel Planas.’
‘I know what’s happened,’ I told him. ‘In fact, I’ve seen what happened. Alex came for Justine, not long after you left, and I went with them.’
‘You did? Angel didn’t mention that when he called me.’
‘Angel was upset at the time, as you’d expect. Gerard, I need to see you.’
‘Of course. You must be upset too.’
‘That’s not why. Can you come here?’
‘Yes. I’m only five minutes away.’
‘Then I’ll open the garage and wait for you there; drive straight in when you arrive.’
I left a note on the table for Tom, in case he came home and wondered where I was, then took the winding internal stair that leads down to the garage, where I opened the door with the remote. Gerard’s five minutes were closer to ten, but eventually he arrived, parking between my Jeep and our bikes. As he climbed out of the car I saw that he was wearing a black short-sleeved shirt, with a flash of clerical white showing at the front of the buttoned collar. I closed the door and led him upstairs, and into the kitchen.
‘This is a terrible thing,’ he said, as I handed him a bottle of water from the fridge.
‘You’ve seen the body, then? That’s where you were?’
‘Yes, I went to bless him.’
‘When are they going to do the autopsy? Did anyone say?’
‘That man Gomez, from Girona, was there. He said they hope it can be done this evening. I asked him why the haste; he said that they have to be absolutely certain about the cause of death.’
As he took a drink, I reached out and touched his collar. ‘Take it off,’ I told him. He looked at me, blankly. ‘Please,’ I added.
‘As you wish.’ He reached round to the back of his neck, fiddled around for a second or two, then flicked his fingers. The collar loosened and he drew it out; it was a complete circlet, nothing like the thing that Gomez had shown us.
‘Is that the one you had on Friday night, in your jacket?’ I asked, puzzled.
‘Yes.’ He folded it twice and slipped it into a pocket in his shirt.
‘I thought you guys just wore a wee insert thingie.’
‘Some do, but not us; we’re traditionalists. Would you like to see my hair shirt also?’ He smiled and reached for a button of his shirt. ‘I don’t think that would compromise us.’
I was flustered, didn’t know what to do, or say. ‘Bollocks,’ I stammered, highly inappropriately. ‘Stop it. I’m sorry, I was only wondering . . .’
He stared at me, then as if a penny had dropped he shook his head, and started to chuckle. ‘And I can guess why,’ he said. ‘You went with Alex and Justine to Planas’s house, because Gomez wanted to talk to you. When you were there, he showed you what he later showed me, and told you as he told me what his colleague had sworn it was. You know, Primavera my dear, we all accept that our Maker moves in mysterious ways, but the means by which He allowed an idiot like that man Garcia to become an inspector of the Mossos is beyond all comprehension. It seems that once upon a time he was in Africa, and met a missionary who wore a short insert to his collar, to make it more bearable in the extreme heat. When he found that piece of plastic in Senor Planas’s hand, he decided in his wisdom that the dead man had ripped it from the neck of an assailant. That is the theory he put to Gomez. However, when the intendant took a closer look, after you and Justine had left, he saw some faded writing on the material. What he thought he read was “Rev Rivularis”. He admitted to me that he entertained the fleeting notion that this might have been the name of the owner, until his eye was caught by a pot on the top of the wall beneath which the body had been found, with a small, fairly recently, planted tree in it. Senor Gomez is gardener enough to know a Majesty palm when he sees one, and resourceful enough to do some very quick research, to discover that the botanical name of this genus is “Ravenea Rivularis”, “Rav” for short. So the officially revised theory of the police is that as Planas fell over the wall, he grasped the palm in a vain attempt to pull himself back, and ripped the circular white plastic label from its trunk.’
I felt that the floor was crumbling away from beneath me. I had been afraid that . . . Christ I’d been a bigger idiot than Garcia. ‘Gerard,’ I mumbled, ‘I’m . . .’
He stepped towards me, cupped my face in both of his hands and kissed me on the forehead. ‘You were afraid. You feared that I might have given in to the baser instinct that I confessed to you, and that I might have gone to chastise Planas. You were afraid that I might have gone too far, and scared him to death. Or even pushed him over that wall.’
‘No,’ I protested. ‘I’d never have thought that, not for a second.’
‘Yet you did your best to protect me. I heard from Gomez that you told Alex that I had been with you all evening and into the next day, that I dropped you off and went home, as Father Olivares would have been able to confirm, if it had been necessary. He and I sat together for an hour, over a bottle of very fine garnaxa; my senior likes a liqueur before he retires.’
‘I told him the truth.’
‘I know, and I’m grateful.’ He paused, and tilted my head up until he was looking into my eyes. ‘Most of all I’m grateful that you did not try to give me a more personal alibi.’
‘I thought about it. Sorry.’
‘Don’t be,’ he said. ‘I might have thought about it too, if the circumstances had been different and there had been no other way out. You never know how strong your will is, until it’s tested.’
‘I’d have backed you up, but it would have been a waste of time. Nobody would have believed us. You’re not the type to two-time Jesus.’
Sixteen
Gerard had just gone when Tom returned. Remembering what I had promised Ben earlier, I called him and told him what had happened. He seemed genuinely shocked; if the fact that his problem had gone for good crossed his mind, he gave no hint of it. All I heard in his reaction was concern for Angel Planas.
That might have been all there was to it. Indeed I thought it was, for around twenty-four hours.
Tom and I had a small disagreement over dinner, when I told him he’d already had his ice cream allocation for the day, but otherwise we spent a quiet evening. There was a Spanish league football match on telly, Barcelona against Osasuna; Tom’s a Barça fan, as are most of the kids around here. The local L’Escala team even plays in the same colours. It was a late kick-off, with a school day looming, but I didn’t want two fights in one night so I let him stay up to watch it.
I had an eye on it too, but not too closely. My mind kept wandering back to the scene in Planas’s garden, filling with the sight of the swollen, flyblown corpse of the detestable little man with whom I’d had such a bitter confrontation, less than a day before he died. I thought about Angel too, and the look on his face when he’d a
rrived in the garden. His father might have cut him out of his life, but clearly, the animosity hadn’t been mutual. Just before half-time in the game I went into the kitchen, found his number in the telephone directory and called him.
I’d half expected his phone to be on answer mode, but he picked up. I told him who was calling, and how sorry I was.
‘That’s kind of you,’ he said. ‘I believe you mean that. I’m sorry also, for the trouble that my father caused you. I guess that will be resolved now.’
‘It had been anyway; an accommodation had been reached.’
I heard him gasp, then laugh softly. ‘You made my father compromise?’ he exclaimed. ‘I’m impressed. You must be a formidable woman. How did you do it?’
‘We negotiated.’
‘Ah, then there was money involved . . . or did you play cards for his approval?’
‘He laid down a condition; I don’t think he believed that I’d accept it, but I did.’
‘My poor old papa; his face must have been a picture. No wonder he had a heart attack.’
I was surprised. ‘You’ve had the autopsy result already?’
‘No, but the police officer came to see us earlier this evening. He said that it was almost certainly the cause.’
‘When will you hold the funeral? I’d like to attend.’
‘I can’t plan anything until the police release the body, but I’m hoping for Wednesday morning, at the latest.’ He chuckled. ‘Do you want to make sure that he doesn’t climb out of the coffin? I suspect that many of the mourners will be thinking that way.’
‘I’ll attend out of respect, nothing else; respect for you and your wife.’
‘She may not go herself. I’m trying to persuade her, but the choice will be hers. She has every reason to stay away. I won’t hold it against her if she does.’ He took a breath. ‘Senora, this problem you had with my father . . . nobody’s going to hear of it, are they?’
‘Not from me, I promise you.’
‘That’s good. It’s my family name that he discredited, after all.’
‘Then I’ll do nothing to blacken it.’
I told him I’d see him at the funeral, and hung up. Then I remembered Mac’s call. I went into the study, switched on my computer and went online as soon as it was booted up. (Tom has his own, but I supervise its use.) I had three emails waiting for me, one from my sister, one from my friend Shirley Gash, who was on a cruise from Dubai to Singapore, and as he’d promised, one from Mac. I left the others for later, and went straight to his. It confirmed that he’d be landing at Girona late afternoon on the following Tuesday, and ended, ‘Remember, keep it a surprise for the wee man.’ I smiled, thinking that he might be surprised himself when he saw how much the ‘wee man’ had stretched since his last visit, then closed down.
The teams were on their way out for the second half when I went back to the television room. Barça were doing all right, but I couldn’t summon up any real interest. My mind was full of thoughts of wine fairs . . . ‘Maybe I should find one and visit it, to understand better what they were all about’ . . . of wet weather plans . . . ‘Is this house really big enough to hold all those stands, or should I try to persuade the mayor to let us have the old foresters’ house, on the other side of the church, as a back-stop in case it rains?’ . . . and inevitably, although I tried to push the awful image away, the scene in the garden of José-Luis Planas . . . ‘After all that bloody drama, they’ve settled for the obvious. The old man was so pumped up by his battle with me, that his arteries seized up, he had a wobbler and he fell over the garden wall. And if that’s so, Primavera, does that mean that you were responsible for his death?’
‘Not bloody likely,’ I said aloud.
‘What?’ Tom asked.
‘Nothing. Sorry, I was talking to myself.’
He shrugged, as if that was normal adult behaviour and turned back to the game, leaving me back in old Planas’s garden, trying to put my finger on something about the scene that was not quite right.
Seventeen
Tom was as bright as the sun next morning, as usual. Late nights don’t affect him at all. In truth I was the grumpy one, as I’d had a rough night, interrupted, unusually, by some pretty bad dreams from the recent and more distant past.
I didn’t let him see that though, as I gave him breakfast, then waved him goodbye as he set out for school on his bike, along the car-free seafront passageway. One or two other kids live along the way, and by the time they get to the only proper road they have to cross . . . and that’s supervised . . . they’ve formed a small peloton.
Once he’d gone, the niggly feeling came back. I fought it off by catching up on some housework; my usual Monday chores . . . changing the beds, laundering sheets and pillowcases, and doing the rest of the weekend’s wash . . . then, when I was finished, slipping on a bikini, and going down to the beach to swim. That didn’t last long, for there was a heavy swell coming in, probably the aftermath of a storm far out at sea. I went back home, stripped off my damp suit, and stretched out on the lounger on my private terrace, hoping that I might catch up on some of my lost sleep, but someone was working on the renovation of a house in the village, and the din of their machinery put paid to any chance of that.
Finally, I gave up and settled for feeling like a pre-menopausal hag for the rest of the day. I showered, dressed, switched on my computer and cleared my mailbox, sending a reply to Shirley that said in essence, ‘Jealous as hell!’ and one to my sister in Los Angeles, that was an exchange of kid information, and some forward planning. It’s only when I speak to Dawn, or email her, that I feel the lack of a man in my life . . . in the fullest sense. Hers is great; even if he was an ordinary Joe, a bus driver, a computer salesman, whatever, he’d be great. The fact that Miles is one of the most famous men in the entertainment industry is irrelevant . . . almost.
Once my box was clear, Charlie and I left the house and went down to Ben’s wine shop. (The ‘Closed’ sign had been up all morning on the information booth, but there are very few callers on Mondays in the low season.) I still had the best part of two hours to kill before I was due at the town hall to collect the signed permission, and it had occurred to me while tossing on my lounger that now that the venue for the fair had been tied up, we’d better get on with the minutiae. Ben was having a quiet morning and so we were able to have a fairly productive hour, doing some rough planning of the layout of the stalls in the fairly confined square and working out what we were going to need in terms of glassware, tables, covers, and parasols . . . these would be essential to keep the sun off the stock. Ben also called Mercé, the designer who was working with him on the format of the tickets. She has a studio in the next street to the wine shop, so she was able to sit in on our impromptu conference and agree the last details.
‘What about the print run?’ I asked.
‘I’ve got a decent price for three hundred,’ Ben announced. ‘Plus fifty posters.’
‘Then the unit cost of a thousand, and a hundred and fifty posters will be much lower.’
‘We’ll never sell a thousand.’
‘Don’t you be so sure.’ I turned to Mercé. ‘Could you design an ad for the town council’s web page, and for the tourist sites?’
‘No problem. In fact, it already exists.’
‘I’ve got a website too,’ Ben explained, casually. ‘It’s called arrelsdelvi dot com. Mercé laid it out for me.’
‘Now you tell me! Let’s see it.’
I waited while he called it up on his laptop. It was fine, but no more than that, a simple one-page ad for the event that didn’t go anywhere. ‘Any thoughts?’ he asked.
‘Sure. It should explain what the punters get for their money, then we should list the producers who’ve agreed to appear, with links to their sites, and information on the wines that’ll be available for tasting. It should market the event as the centrepiece of a visit for people who’ve never been before. There should be a page of information about St Martí
itself, about the restaurants and the hotel and apartment accommodation available. And there should be information about us.’
‘Us?’
‘You, as founder and owner, Mercé as design consultant, and me as operations manager . . . especially me, and this is what it’s going to say about me: “St Martí resident and former wife of Oz Blackstone, sister of Dawn Phillips, and sister-in-law of Miles Grayson.” All the big search engines have thousands upon thousands of entries every day from people looking for one or more of those names. When your site turns up among the hits, the event goes global.’
He looked interested, but cautious. ‘Will it cost much?’
Mercé shook her head. ‘No, and it can be done very quickly.’
‘Then let’s do it. Any more bright ideas, Primavera?’
‘I’ll see what I can come up with, after I’ve collected the permission from the town hall,’ I told him. ‘Got to go there now.’
I didn’t expect to see Justine, but I was shown into her office when I arrived. She handed me an unsealed envelope. ‘There it is,’ she said, ‘with a note of what the fee will be. I don’t think it’ll scare you too much.’ I took a look; it didn’t.
I told her about my conversation with Angel, the night before, but she’d known; in fact she’d been at his house when I’d called, with her sister. ‘Elena’s decided to go to the funeral,’ she said, ‘which is a big relief for me. If she’d stayed away, I’d have felt honour bound to do the same. But I’m mayor, and he was a council member; if I wasn’t there it wouldn’t look good to the people who don’t know about the family difficulty, and very few do. Old Planas didn’t talk about it, and neither did Angel.’
‘Do they know yet when it’s going to be?’
‘No. I called Angel half an hour ago; he’d heard nothing from the police. They’d better get a move on. Already, tomorrow’s out of the question; if they don’t release the body soon, even Wednesday might be difficult.’
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