Blood Red

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘First we check into the very nice, very large hotel that I’ve booked us into.’

  ‘What if Justine’s there as well?’

  ‘She won’t be. I’m ninety per cent certain that I know where she’ll be staying. Once we’re settled in, I suggest that to avoid any chance of the two of us being spotted, even in a city with a few hundred thousand visitors, we go and spend the day with our friend Lavorante. Oh yes, and we’d better get tickets for the night tour.’

  Alex grinned at me. ‘You’re a diamond, Primavera, but you’re flawed, thank God. We don’t need tickets; we’re the police.’

  Fifty-six

  ‘You’re looking for a woman.’ Lavorante laughed across his coffee table. ‘You’ve come to the right place, Inspector Guinart. Would you like gypsy, Arab, Chinese, South American, African, or, of course, East European? All available in Granada, and very reasonably priced. Or you could have German, or Scandinavian, or even French; they’re here too, if rather more expensive.’ He looked at me from under the Boris Karloff eyebrows. ‘But not British, senora,’ he added. ‘Not that I know of, anyway.’

  ‘That’s comforting.’ I took a card from my bag, wrote a name on the back and handed it to him. ‘If you call this place,’ I said, ‘you might find that the one we’re after is registered. She’s none of the above, by the way; she’s Spanish.’

  ‘Discreet, mind,’ Alex warned.

  Lavorante spread his arms wide. ‘Do I look like the unsubtle type?’

  He went to the desk, in his surprisingly spacious and elegant office, picked up the phone and made the call. ‘You’re right,’ he grunted as he came back to us. ‘She’s there and she’s in her room.’

  ‘We could check to see whether she’s bought a ticket for the tour through the hotel,’ Alex suggested.

  ‘We could,’ I agreed, ‘but we know she’s going there anyway, plus, I suspect that she’ll have bought privately.’

  ‘So,’ he said checking his watch, ‘we stay here for another five, six hours.’

  ‘It would be just like the thing for us to go for a coffee and sit at the next table to Justine, suppose she decides to go out for some fresh air. There’s no reason why she shouldn’t either.’

  ‘You don’t need to lock yourselves in,’ our host told us. ‘I’ll take you somewhere damn few tourists will go, especially a lady on her own. A couple of hours and we’ll head off. Meantime . . . enjoy my city.’ He took a DVD from a pile on the table, stuck it into a player and switched it on. It was an elaborate story of the history of Granada; even I found it fascinating, and I’d already had the unofficial guided tour. It ended with a section on the Alhambra, useful advance information for Alex.

  When it was over, Lavorante told us to go with him; we slid into a patrol car and he murmured an instruction in the driver’s ear. He nodded, and headed for the Albacin, then up past the road that leads to Goats’ Hill, and beyond, higher still. ‘Are those caves?’ I asked Lavorante, as we drew to a halt.

  ‘They sure are,’ he said. ‘Pick us up here at nine,’ he told the driver. ‘These are the caves of Sacromonte, where the gypsies live and where you will see the best flamenco in the world. Come on.’ He led us into what I’d thought was a dwelling; it turned out to be a small theatre, with tables set below a stage. A woman came towards us, dressed in pure Romany style. ‘Big Jorge!’ she bellowed. ‘Good to see you again.’

  ‘Can we eat?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course. And drink.’

  ‘Maybe but not too much. We have something to do later.’

  ‘What do you want?’ she asked. ‘The tortilla?’

  By that time I knew what was in it; I declined, with a show of regretful thanks, and settled for a ridiculous amount of jabugo ham, with tomato bread and hard manchego cheese. We washed it down with a carafe of red wine and then another. Alex and I were abstemious, but it occurred to me that if Big Jorge was having a quiet night, I wouldn’t like to see him on a bender.

  And they danced for us; three girls, two men, with three guitarists playing behind them and singing the sort of songs that makes it worth learning Spanish just to understand them.

  When Lavorante looked at his watch and nodded to us that it was time, I didn’t want to leave. But I remembered what we were there for. I reached for my money clip in my bag, but the big man shook his head. ‘These people are friends of mine; don’t offend them.’

  Outside, night had all but fallen. Our driver was waiting, as ordered. To take us down one hill and then up another, the one on which the Alhambra stands. By the time we got there, it was just short of ten, and buses were starting to arrive at the top of the rise above the entrance. We went straight there; Lavorante badged the guy on the gate and he let us in.

  ‘Over here,’ the cop said, leading us into the one dark corner of the square, in front of the great ramparts of the Alcazabar, the citadel. Even in the gloom I was afraid that his bulk would give us away, but he seemed to have the gift of making himself smaller, for as the visitors began to arrive, not one of them looked in our direction.

  There were more than I’d expected, enough for someone to hide in their midst, if she was worried about being spotted. But she wasn’t.

  Alex saw her first, bringing up the rear of a group of about thirty. He nudged me and pointed. Lavorante whistled softly in the darkness. ‘Hey,’ he whispered, ‘a looker and no mistake. What’s she done, this lovely woman?’

  ‘Murdered her mother and her mother’s lover, after she found out that they killed her father.’

  ‘In L’Escala? But this is the thing that Gerard did. You heard yourself, he said so.’

  ‘Now that I think about it very carefully, Jorge, he didn’t say any such thing. All he did was acknowledge the so-called brilliance of Valdes’s theory, and said that he would sign his name to it. Actually, he admitted nothing.’

  We waited until the group was inside and followed them, moving slowly, keeping to the shadows in case Justine should glance behind her. We followed the stone path that leads to the courtyard of the citadel, slowly, for the guides were taking their time, but eventually it opened out, into a big rectangular space.

  ‘Here,’ said Lavorante. We followed him and stood behind a yellow floodlight, against a wall, completely invisible even to someone who was daft enough to stare straight at it. We watched Justine as she slipped into the shadows also, looking about herself, as the parties made their way round, back towards the way they had come, and on to the next stage of the tour. I checked my watch; it was just luminous enough: ten thirty.

  She began to move, not worried about concealment any more, stepping out of the shadows and on to the path that led to the great square battlements of the highest point in the city, the watchtower of Granada.

  We hung back until she had reached the enclosed stairway that leads to the very top, and vanished from our sight, before we followed, moving quickly along the path, and as silently as we could. Lavorante never made a sound. He led the way up the stairs, I followed and Alex brought up the rear. We were in no hurry, for there’s no other way out.

  The soft light flooded the square summit of La Torre de la Vela as we reached the last of the steps. The captain stood aside, to let Alex and me go ahead.

  He’d slipped in ahead of her. I’d seen him, but I’d said nothing; it was enough that Alex and Jorge were looking for Justine. They were standing in the corner to our left, against the ramparts with an inadequate, incongruous little rail on top, beyond the bell tower, at least thirty metres away, and maybe more, but we could see them clearly. They were kissing, and I do not mean once on each cheek, Spanish style. His hands were by his side, and her left arm was wound around his neck, her palm on his shoulder. Her right hand, though, was moving up slowly, from his waist. We watched as it stopped, fingers splayed, in the very centre of his chest.

  She’d have pushed him then, I know it for sure, over the edge and down to his death, if I hadn’t shouted when I did.

  ‘Justine!’
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br />   She broke away from him and spun round, staring at us as we stepped out from the doorway and into the light.

  He looked at us too . . . no, he looked directly at me . . . but in a different way, with a serene resignation that I’d never seen before.

  ‘Gerard?’ a bemused Alex murmured beside me.

  ‘Santi!’ I screamed, for I knew what he was going to do.

  He smiled at me, the lovely man, then leaned backwards over that useless rail, and disappeared, making not a sound as he plunged into darkness.

  Fifty-seven

  We all stared at Justine, and she stood looking back at us, regaining her composure with every second.

  ‘Primavera,’ Alex whispered, ‘what . . .’

  I was shivering with horror at what had just happened. At least thirty seconds must have passed before I was able to speak. ‘You didn’t know they were twins, did you?’ I said at last. ‘Nobody on your team did, and Jorge here never mentioned it. As for me, it took me too long to work it out. Gerard and Santi were monozygotic; identical twin brothers. That means, Alex, that they were born with identical DNA. It wasn’t Gerard’s you found, it was his brother’s; Gerard knew that right away, and he confessed to protect him. He even forbade Valdes from contacting Santi, to stop him finding out and making the connection.’

  ‘And was he protecting her too?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I suspect that he was, if only because he didn’t think he had a choice. Santi only came to L’Escala a couple of times; he and Justine must have met on one of those visits. The priest’s identical brother, the airline pilot with pads in Madrid and Granada: I’ll bet he was a trophy to her. Just like Angel Planas is.’

  ‘Angel?’

  ‘Yes. When Elena was with Ben, Justine took his scalp, so to speak. Remember the story about her fainting during her sister’s wedding? That wasn’t because of the heat, it was because she was pregnant. By him, by Santi? She’ll never say, but Angel believed it was his. She had a termination in a clinic in Barcelona, she made Angel pay for it, and the poor guy’s been under her control ever since.

  ‘He called me yesterday evening and told me all of it, after his wife had given him a real grilling about where he was on the night his father was killed. He’d spun her a story about a business conference, but he was really with Justine, on her insistence, in the Hotel Bon Retorn in Figueras. To be her alibi, if necessary, I guess. Only she wasn’t with him all night. She drugged him, probably with the same stuff she used on me, then slipped out to kill Planas and kidnap her mother; he woke up when she climbed back into bed, once Santi had taken Dolores to wherever they kept her, till Justine was ready to get rid of her.

  ‘Santi was a really nice guy, you know; he had everything going for him. He must have been completely besotted to have done what he did for her. I don’t believe he killed anyone. I’m sure Justine did that, but he helped her to set up the accident scene and to get Dolores out of there, then later to plant her at my place. Yet she was going to dispose of him too, as you’ve just seen.’

  ‘You knew him,’ Lavorante said, more a statement than a question.

  ‘Yes. Gerard asked him to go to Granada and look after me. Ironic, isn’t it?’ I thought about our time together. ‘And yet I never felt threatened by him. I should have guessed much earlier about the twin thing, but it never occurred to me for a moment, because Santi was so nice.’

  ‘Yeah,’ the big cop whispered. ‘He was all that.’

  ‘I’m surprised he let you leave,’ Alex murmured.

  I hadn’t considered that point. ‘I didn’t tell him I was going,’ I replied. Maybe if I had, he might not have been so nice . . . I banished the thought.

  ‘How did they get into the place?’ he pondered. ‘It’s still clear that the old man was taken by surprise.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘But I’ll make a guess. Santi and Gerard’s father was a locksmith. There’s a back gate in Planas’s garden wall, and if you check, I’ll bet you find that it’s been picked, just as the lock on my store was opened without a key.’

  ‘All of that. Why?’ Lavorante asked. Justine was walking towards us, her dark hair falling around her shoulders, her eyes shining. She had gathered herself together completely. Indeed, it was more than that; an aura of triumph seemed to embrace her.

  ‘Because she worshipped her father,’ I told him. ‘I could see it in her eyes the first time we met, and every time she spoke about him after that.’

  She stopped, a few feet away, and looked directly at me, as calm as anyone I’ve ever seen. ‘I’ll give you that much,’ she said. ‘I worshipped my papa.’ Then she looked at Alex, with a sneering smile. ‘Now go ahead and prove the rest of it.’

  Fifty-eight

  They couldn’t. They didn’t even have enough evidence for Captain Lavorante to be able to hold her that night, or to detain her at all. She walked out of the Alhambra, went back to the Palacio de los Patos, and checked out next morning. We found out later that she took a taxi to Granada-Jaen Airport, and flew to Madrid; I’m sure she had a key to Santi’s apartment. She never came back to L’Escala and nobody’s seen her since that night. Through a lawyer, she sold her town house in Carrer del Mig, and her mother’s place, which she’d inherited automatically, as the older child. Elena didn’t get a cent.

  Two months ago, Angel Planas skipped town. He left to open the shop one morning and when Elena went there to join him, she found a note. It told her only that he was leaving, and had instructed his solicitor to make the business and their house over to her. He’d already disposed of the rest of his father’s property. So I guess Justine wasn’t blackmailing him after all . . . or she really is that good at manipulating people.

  Elena has what she has but she’s alone now. Maybe she’ll wind up back with Ben. I don’t know, but I hope so. Somebody deserves a happy ending out of all of this.

  Gerard didn’t come back either. He went home to Granada as soon as he was released from prison, the day after Santi died, to take care of his funeral. It may turn out to be one of the great regrets of my life that I flew home next morning without thinking about that. If I’d stayed, if I’d been there when he arrived, maybe lots of things would be different now.

  But then again . . .

  I had a letter from him a few days later.

  My dearest Primavera

  I’m sure that you will have heard me say this once before, on a recording, and I’ll admit it again. I love you. But I loved my brother too, and I loved Irena, and look what happened to them, so I hope you’ll understand that I’m more than a little afraid to expose you to the same danger.

  There is also the fact that I still love God, although for the first time since I made my vows to him, he has a rival. I have many things to discover. Do I still have my vocation? Am I the poison to people that I fear I might be? Can I learn to love myself, as well as to love others? For at this moment I do not.

  To find the answers to these questions, or as many as I can, I have taken leave from the priesthood. I’m going to enter a Benedictine monastery in Limerick in Ireland, for the next two years according to my present plan. There’s a boys’ school attached, and I’m going to teach Spanish.

  I ask you to do something that you may find difficult, but maybe not, maybe it’ll be easy for you. Please don’t visit me there or try to contact me. Get on with your life, look after your fine boy, and let me work things out for myself. I have a weakness for you, and if I saw you it would probably overcome me, just as that woman overcame my poor brother. May God forgive me for introducing them the first time he came to L’Escala, for I’ll never forgive myself.

  My love again, to you and Tom,

  Yours ever,

  Gerard

  It took me a couple of boxes of Kleenex to get through that one, I’ll tell you.

  I took his advice. I’m getting on with my life. I still have the falling dream every so often, but by and large I’m all right. I’ve settled into my job with the emba
ssy, and I’m doing a fair bit of travelling, thanks to a lady called Catriona O’Riordan, once of the Royal Green Jackets, would you believe, and latterly a sub-lieutenant in the Rifle Regiment. She looks after the house, she looks after Tom and she even helps me run my silly, self-indulgent information booth; plus she makes me feel secure.

  The wine fair happened, and was it ever a success. We sold two thousand tickets, the most we reckoned the venue could handle. Sales were sluggish at first, until finally, I used my secret weapon, my brother-in-law Miles Grayson. Like many famous Aussies, Miles has his own wine label, and it’s an expanding business. His latest acquisition is a small but high-quality producer, not far from the town of Cadaques, and one of the exhibitors at the fair. He’d never heard of it until I pointed him in its direction, but once he’d looked at the books and tasted the product he was hooked. When I announced that he would be on-site for all three days of the fair, the tickets went in the blink of a bloodshot eye.

  Tom’s handling Gerard’s absence. I showed him the letter. He didn’t shed a single tear. Far from it; he smiled, gave it back to me and said, ‘He’ll be back.’

  ‘Son,’ I began, but he let me get no further.

  ‘Read it again. That’s what it says.’

  I’ve tried, but I can’t share his certainty, his faith, I suppose. He’s nearer nine than ever now, and still acting as an altar server for Father Olivares, sometimes in the big church in L’Escala. The old man’s set aside any thought of retirement; I suspect that he’s keeping the seat warm for someone . . . just as I am, I suppose.

  I’ve decided that I will give him at least one of his two years. After that, if he hasn’t returned, I’ll either declare myself open for suitable invitations, or I’ll say, ‘Bugger this for a game of Benedictines!’ and head for Limerick.