That was it for the day, as far as sightseeing was concerned. I was able to concentrate on the cathedral, but as soon as we were outside my mind headed back home. It was early evening: I wondered how long it would take the London team to reach St Martí.
As it happened, the word got there before the reality. Santi and I were sitting in a pavement bar in Plaza Nueva, contemplating a litre jar of sangria that had just been delivered to our table, trying to guess from our first taste what was in it, apart from ice, when my mobile sounded. ‘Gerard,’ I said as I took the call, ‘say hello to your twin.’
I handed the phone to Santi. They exchanged very few words before he passed it back. ‘Sounds agitated,’ he whispered.
‘What have you done?’ Gerard asked.
‘You might call it direct action,’ I replied. ‘What’s happened?’
‘I’ve just had a visit from Alex. He told me that they’ve all been chucked off the case, him, Gomez, everyone. There’s a team on its way from Barcelona, senior officers, to take over. And he said something else, a story he’d been told by his boss, that some specialists are coming over from London, at the request of Madrid, to re-examine Planas’s house and your storeroom.’
‘Are they indeed?’ I said. ‘Poor Alex; I hope he isn’t too upset.’
‘Very far from it. Given your involvement, he’s relieved to be having no more to do with it. Gomez isn’t though; he sees it as a personal and professional slur.’
‘Maybe if he’d been a bit more professional, it wouldn’t have happened.’
‘Primavera, did you have anything to do with this?’
I chuckled. ‘Gerard, do you think I can make a phone call to Madrid and this sort of thing happens?’
‘My dear, I would put nothing past you. Is this going to work in your favour?’
‘It can’t make it any worse, but yes, I believe it will.’
‘I’ll pray for it.’
I laughed again. ‘You mean you haven’t been?’
‘Of course I have. Morning, noon and night.’
‘Then maybe they’re being answered.’
‘So God’s hand is in this, not yours?’
‘Not unless he’s in a wheelchair.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Never mind. I hope I’ll be able to tell you all about it very soon.’
‘Let’s hope so, and not on a slow boat to Morocco. Don’t tell Santiago, though, not yet; he still needs to be totally innocent of all knowledge of this business.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I promised. ‘I won’t let any harm come to either of you.’
Forty-three
Mark Kravitz had asked me to sit tight for a couple of days, but I wasn’t sure I could manage that; I was too pumped up, and I was missing Tom too much. I knew one thing, though, knew it for certain. For me even to contemplate disappearing had been a sign of weakness, and I had rediscovered my courage. No way was I running; I was innocent and I was going home, to proclaim it if necessary.
I thought all this through that evening as night fell and as Santi and I were eating, again, in yet another restaurant that he knew, along the Camino del Sacromonte, a fairly short walk from Goats’ Hill. I did something else too; I sent Tom a text from my illicit mobile. I suppose it was possible that the police might have been able to trace me, if they were monitoring his phone, but since that was a pay and go type too . . . not even I would be crazy enough to give an eight year old a contract phone . . . I doubted that they could. All it said was, ‘Hello son, miss you, love Mum,’ but as soon as I had sent it I felt tons better.
He’d have been in bed by that time, so he must have had it beside him, switched on just in case. The reply came through inside a minute, in what passes these days for English: ‘Miss u 2. Where r u?’
I smiled as I flashed back, ‘Secret mission. C u soon.’
Our main courses arrived as I finished. Santi had insisted that we eat Andalusian, so we had begun with pescadíto frito, a mix of deep-fried fish that’s as far away from a haddock supper as you’re ever going to get, and we were moving on to la tortilla sacromonte. He insisted that we had that because that’s where we were, but he refused to tell me the ingredients. Afterwards, when I bothered to look them up, I was glad that he hadn’t, for it was fantastic, and, modern woman though I am, I would not have gone knowingly for anything that involved lamb’s brains and bull’s testicles. (A guy did call me a ball-breaker once, but I doubt if he meant it literally.)
For once, I wasn’t drinking alcohol; I’d stuck to fizzy water and he was on Cruz Campo beer. We’d had a little white wine for lunch and the afternoon sangria had pushed me up to my self-imposed daily limit. (I’ve never believed all that arbitrary crap about weekly intake that the ‘experts’ feed us. I know what my body can and can’t take, and I make sure that I don’t push it to the edge too often, and hardly ever beyond it.) Apart from that, I had an additional reason to lay off. What had begun as an idea at the back of my mind had turned into a firm intention.
‘What did you think?’ Santi asked, as I finished.
I complimented him on his choice. ‘There have to be Andalusian restaurants in L’Escala,’ I added. ‘We have everything else. I must find one and give it a try.’
‘Gerard will know,’ he said. ‘He’ll also know if it’s any good, just by looking at the menu.’ He gazed at me. ‘You reckon you’ll be back soon, do you?’
‘I can’t hang around here forever,’ I told him. ‘Neither can you, for that matter. When do you have to be back?’
‘I have a flight out of Madrid Barajas to LAX on Friday,’ he admitted. ‘That means I have to leave Thursday at the latest.’
‘Do you have a flight home booked?’
He smiled. ‘Don’t have to do that. I can turn up at Lorca Airport and get on any flight. If it’s full, I’ll use a crew seat.’
There was nothing in what he said or how he looked, but I had a feeling that he’d rather be back home sooner than later. I said nothing to him, but right then, my mind was made up.
I didn’t have coffee; I was tired from my hectic day and didn’t want anything to get in the way of a good night’s sleep. I went to bed as soon as I got in, after I’d explored the menu of my temporary phone and found out how to set its alarm. It trembled on the bedside table at seven sharp, but I was up by then. I don’t know about you, but every time I set an alarm I’m always awake before it rings. I’d refreshed my dye job before we went out to Sacromonte, so all I needed was a quick shower, brush of teeth, and I was ready. I packed my bags, more carefully than I had a few days before, and climbed the stairs. If Santi had been there, I’d have said a proper ‘So long and thanks for everything’, but there was neither sight nor sound of him, so I took the notepad on the kitchen work surface and scribbled him a note that said much the same thing.
I suppose I should have asked him if it would be all right for me to take the Suzuki . . . bearing in mind that it was his, and not Gerard’s . . . but that didn’t occur to me until I was well on the road, until long after I’d reversed back down Goats’ Hill until I had room to turn, then driven carefully out of the Albacin and out of the city of Granada.
I hadn’t told Santi, but I was going home. I wasn’t pissing about on N roads and C roads either. I didn’t have a map, since the one that Gerard had given me had only covered his route, but I knew that Autopista Seven runs all the way up the coast and that it was probably going to be the shortest route and certainly the quickest, so that’s where I headed with my chestnut hair and my wrap-around sunglasses, looking for Murcia as a first step.
The little Suzuki wasn’t made for motorway driving. In addition, it was very hot and its ancient air-conditioning system had its limitations, so I had to make quite a few stops to let both the car and me cool down. I’d never intended to make it back in one day; I’d hoped I might have got as far as Barcelona, but reality kicked in and in the end I was happy to settle for reaching as far north as Valencia. (I had considered Benidorm as a pos
sible stopping-off point, but not for any more than a couple of seconds.)
I came off the motorway and made my way into the city centre looking for somewhere to spend the night. Eventually I settled on the Hotel Villareal, three star with a handy car park. If they’d insisted on ID I’d have turned and walked out, but I told the receptionist that I’d left my passport in the car, and when I paid cash in advance, any worries she might have had faded away.
The hotel didn’t have a formal restaurant, but I wanted to go out anyway. These days there are two things in the world that you can find simply by turning a corner in any city. One is a Starbucks and the other is a sign advertising internet access. I had to walk a little further than usual, but still I came up lucky in Valencia; I found both in the same place, and it was quiet. I bought myself a tall filter, Colombian, with a little milk, and chose one of the four unused computers, pleased to see that it too had a camera and a headset, undoubtedly so that little Annabelle from Anywhere, Indiana, could let her mom back home see that she was safe in Valencia, Spain.
I booted up and Skyped Mark Kravitz. He wasn’t in the wheelchair, but in a leather swivel, so I guessed that he must be having a good day with the MS, or as good as they’ve become for him. ‘Where are you now?’ he asked.
I told him.
‘I said to give it a couple of days,’ he reminded me.
‘I know, but I thought I might as well spend them travelling. Have you heard any more from our well-placed friend?’
He nodded. ‘Two things. The first is that the Scotland Yard people have found several more DNA traces on the sites they’re examining, and preliminary tests show that one in particular is common to all three. Good news? It’s not yours. Bad news? Well, not all that bad, but it doesn’t rule you out completely. They could suggest that you had an accomplice. However, if they do, they’ll run into a problem. The second message I’ve had from our friend is that he’s pulled a string or two in the Foreign Office. They’ve been getting grief from the Scottish Nationalist government in Edinburgh because there’s nobody in our embassy set-up with responsibility for looking after Scottish interests in Spain, and in Catalunya in particular. So a special counsellor has just been appointed.’
In my own wee box on screen, I saw my mouth open. ‘Are you going to tell me who it is?’ I asked.
‘Do I need to? It’s you.’
‘Can he do that? Without my agreement?’
‘Are you going to refuse?’
‘What do I gain from it, apart from a job I never asked for?’
‘Diplomatic immunity, Primavera. It means that you’re untouchable by the Spanish police without the consent of our government.’
‘So I’m an honorary consul or some such?’
‘No. They only have limited immunity. Your appointment makes you a diplomatic agent; suppose you as much as parked your car in the wrong place and it got towed, they’d have to bring it back.’
‘How long will it last?’
‘Until you resign, or they fire you for incompetence. It’s a real job. I told you yesterday that you should get a life. Well, this is it.’
‘But what do I do?’
‘That’s to be defined by the Foreign Office, after the Scottish First Minister’s put his two groats’ worth in. But broadly, you’ll represent Scotland in Spain. They’re not talking full-time, not yet; two days a week, salary pro rata.’
‘But it’s a scam.’
‘No it’s not. How often do I have to say it? It’s for real. Yes, there is a potential downside: if the Spanish authorities insist on charging you with murder, you’ll still be tried. But in London, not in Spain, under the British system. The Crown Prosecution Service would need to be satisfied that there’s a case to answer, and from what I know of the CPS they’ll need a hell of a lot more proof against you than the Spanish had, even before the Met team got involved.’
I stared at him and at the small image of myself. ‘I’m going to need some time to get my head round this,’ I said. ‘There’s so much to consider. I’m not moving out of L’Escala.’
‘Why should you? You’ll have travel and other expenses; you can hire a live-in housekeeper to look after Tom when you’re away. Primavera, I could recruit somebody for you. There are female ex-soldiers out there just now, with Afghan and Iraqi experience, looking for civilian jobs.’
He was so earnest that I laughed. ‘One step at a time, Mark,’ I protested. ‘Let me get home first, and let the police catch whoever set me up. When that’s done I’ll decide all the rest. It’s nice to be immune, I’ll grant you. But I want to be seen to be innocent as well, beyond the shadow of even the most unreasonable doubt.’
Forty-four
Given my new and entirely unexpected status, I had a moment of wishing that I’d booked into a five-star hotel, but the Hotel Villareal suited me fine for that one night. I did a little more shopping while I was out, a nice loose white top that I reckoned would be cool on the road next day, and a box of those items that I’d found in Gerard’s bathroom cabinet and which I expected to need myself by Friday at the very latest. As I paid the pharmacist’s assistant, I felt a surge of guilt as my first, involuntary, suspicions came back to me. Maybe I’d tell him when I got home, for a laugh, but I was sure we’d have other, serious, things to talk about. During my crisis, my real feelings had been revealed, and maybe his too . . .
What had he said? ‘It may be that when your troubles are over, our troubles will begin.’
The white top wasn’t needed next morning. It had poured during the night and Thursday promised to be much cooler than the week had been until then. In fact, it rained again mid-morning when I was close to Tarragona, so hard that I had to come off the road for a while, since the Suzuki’s wiper blades were even less use than its air conditioning, and since the detachable hard-top wasn’t too well sealed.
Thanks to that it was well into the afternoon by the time I reached and passed Girona Airport. I gave some thought to going straight to the school and surprising Tom by picking him up, but I decided that our reunion would be better at home, since one of us was going to cry, and I doubted that it would be him. So instead, I pulled in at a picnic area and called my landline number, in the hope that Mac would be in.
He was, and he must have been carrying the cordless phone, so quickly did he answer. ‘Aw Jesus, lass,’ he exclaimed. ‘Am I glad to hear your voice! Where are you?’
‘I’m on my way home.’
‘Can you?’
‘Yes. I may not be completely in the clear, but I’m safe from arrest.’
‘I’ve been hearing things,’ he said, ‘about the investigation. Tom made me take him to Can Coll last night, and the guy there was saying something about a team from London being flown in. I asked him who made that happen, but he said that he hadn’t a clue. Apart from that there hasn’t been a lot of talk that I’ve heard, although I’m sure there’s been some behind my back.’ He paused. ‘They searched the house, of course; on Friday.’
I’d expected that. ‘Messy?’
‘No, they were tidy; your friend Alex was there and he made sure that everything was put back in its place. Apart from your computer, that is. They took that away; brought it back this morning though. I was surprised by that; I thought they’d keep it longer. The man Gomez was going to take Tom’s computer too, but Gerard asked to see the court order that would let him, and he backed off.’ He chuckled. ‘He’s a tough guy, your priest; if it came to the bit, he doesn’t look like he’d take any prisoners. I’m pleased that he’s on your side. I take it he helped you get away?’
‘Not over the phone, Mac,’ I warned, ‘not even now.’
‘No, maybe not,’ he conceded, ‘but it’s obvious that’s what Gomez thinks. There was real antagonism between them; he didn’t come right out and accuse him, but it was written all over his face.’
‘It doesn’t matter what Gomez thinks. He’s back in Girona counting paperclips.’
‘Is he indeed? Is that co
nnected with the guys from London arriving?’
‘Yup.’
‘And you know about it?’ I could hear him pondering. ‘Has your brother-in-law been leaning on people?’
‘Hopefully, he still doesn’t have a clue about it. Anyway he’s in America; there isn’t anyone he could lean on even if he wanted to. No, there’s somebody else who believes in me and reckoned that he owed me a favour.’
‘If he can do that for you,’ he growled, ‘keep him in mind the next time I need one. When will you be back?’
‘Half an hour; open the garage door for me and make sure there’s a space clear.’
‘You on wheels?’ He sounded surprised.
‘Yes, and I want to keep them out of sight; I don’t want anyone asking how I came by them.’
I ended the call and got back on the road. As I passed over Viladamat and approached the St Martí junction, my last fear was that the Mossos might be waiting here as they do from time to time as a matter of routine, but it was clear, as was the big roundabout outside the village. I took the short route up to the garage. Mac had opened the door as I asked; I swung in carefully, just in case there was something in my way.
I’d barely applied the handbrake before the door started to close, and before Tom stepped out from behind the Jeep. I jumped out of the Suzuki and he jumped at me; I hugged him for about a minute, until he got too heavy for me to hold up any longer, and I had to set him back on his feet. I’d been right about the tears too.
‘Mission accomplished,’ I told him, wiping them away. ‘No more unexplained absences, I promise.’
‘It’s all right, Mum,’ he said. ‘I’ve had fun with Grandpa Blackstone.’ I wasn’t quite sure how to take that until he looked up at me, smiled, and added, ‘But Charlie and I are both glad you’re back.’ He looked back over his shoulder, to something that leaned against the wall, something that hadn’t been there when I’d left. ‘Do you like my new bike?’
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