by Rob Jones
He looked outside. Winter’s night had fallen early on the city, and then Lucia washed her hands and put the salad bowl in the fridge. “I’m going for a shower.”
She walked out of sight and Pablo lit a cigar. He stepped out onto his modest balcony to smoke it in the night. No stars tonight, instead the lights of the city reflecting off the bottom of a bank of low cloud, so he watched the traffic as is trundled along the avenue outside their apartment.
The doorbell rang.
Distracted by the smell of the fideuà and the third glass of valdepeñas, Pablo walked to the door and looked through the spy hole.
Señora Vidal was standing in the hall, and she looked nervous. She was a good neighbor and an easy person to get along with but tonight something in her eyes made him afraid.
Pablo raised the cigar to his mouth and unlocked the door.
“What’s the matter, Mariana?”
The response was a devastating gunshot to her temple.
Her dead body slumped to the floor and then a man in black charged into view, a smoking gun in his right hand.
It was the man who had followed him from the museum.
All his night terrors of the last few months were now a cold, hard reality and racing toward him with a snarl on its face.
He tried to slam the door on the man but it was too late. The assassin was stronger and had wedged his boot over the threshold. He fired a series of shots from the silenced pistol and the bullets ripped through the acoustic tiles of his drop ceiling and planted themselves into the plaster behind them. The man grunted and angrily threw the gun down to the floor, indicating to Pablo the small mercy that it was empty, but then the assassin wrenched a large knife from a holster on his belt and made a second charge toward him.
Pablo fought back, forcing the door against the man’s arms. The assassin howled in pain, but he was stronger and with a second effort the door was smacked back against the hallway wall and the man in black was now inside his inner sanctum. His broad chest heaved like an animal’s, and Pablo caught the smell of beer and Schmalzler snuff as the man padded forward and took a swipe at him with the knife. The flash of the blade in the low light made Pablo gasp with terror at the realization this was really happening, and worse, would Lucia be next?
The man swiped the knife again, and this time Pablo stumbled backwards, knocking ornaments off his shelves and tables and nearly tripping over in the process. He felt his heart rate quicken and his breathing became shallow and panicked. So they had found him at last. He had not been as careful as he thought.
Or someone had betrayed him.
He had spent the past few months dreading this moment, but had always told himself he was clever enough to avoid detection.
Now he knew different, and Mariana Vidal was dead because of his complacency.
The man lunged forward and grabbed his neck. They fell to the floor in a macabre tumble and Pablo hit his head on the floorboards, nearly knocking himself out. The sound of the Buena Vista Social Club drifted peacefully through his concealed speakers, its relaxed tempo mocking the horror of the moment as he fought for his life.
TWO
Lucia Serrano sung along to the radio in the steam-filled bathroom as she washed her hair and began to rinse out the shampoo. The vanillas and peaches of the body wash mingled with the hot steam and kept the earthier aroma of Pablo’s famous fideuà out of her mind.
She heard a loud banging noise from somewhere in the apartment. Pablo must have knocked something over. She smiled and shook her head at his clumsiness, praying it wasn’t the salad she had prepared earlier. When she got out of the shower she wanted a glass of chilled white wine and a sit down, not a job picking up chopped red onion and tomatoes.
But there was nothing she could ever do to pay back Pablo for everything he had done for her. She owed him so much, and if picking up after his clumsiness was the price to pay then so be it. She smiled at the thought of him forgetting his keys every morning, or knocking his wine glass off the table with his elbow while righting the world’s wrongs. He was old enough to be her father but then, así es la vida, she thought with a shrug.
Another crash from outside the bathroom made her suspicious – perhaps he had fallen? He was much older than she was, she thought again, but not at that stage, she hoped. A long period of silence followed and she put the thought out of her mind, instead focussing on their dinner date with her old college lover. Over a decade had passed since she had seen him, and she had so much to tell him.
*
Ten yards away, Pablo strained to suck air through the man’s vice-like grip. It felt like he was trying to breathe through a thick blanket being held tight over his mouth.
“Please... what do you want?”
“Where is it?”
“Who are you?”
“Answer my question or I will crush your windpipe and then take my aggression into the bathroom – your girlfriend is very pretty.”
He was choking now, and felt the surge of pressure as his blood was trapped in his head by the man’s violent grip on his throat. He began to see stars forming in his peripheral vision. “Please! Leave her out of it, you animals.”
The devil above him grinned. “So you know us after all.”
“I will never tell you what you want to know,” he said, and he meant it. He knew who had sent this man, and he knew how dangerous he was. He knew what they wanted, and not even Lucia’s life was worth defending if it meant stopping these maniacs. At least he had hidden the code, and somewhere where it would mock the bastard who had ordered his execution.
The man squeezed tighter, and Pablo felt his gloved fingertips punching down into the soft flesh of his throat. It felt like he was going to tear his windpipe out.
“I want the code. Where is Liška?” With the effort of choking his victim, the man grunted the words out like an angry beast. “And I want Perses.”
“I don’t know what you... mean...”
The man’s rage grew more visible. He grunted in frustration and then went to ask another question, but no sooner had the words been spat from his lips, than Pablo’s world grew dimmer and then black. The grip on his throat tightened, and then the sound of the man’s gravelly words was replaced by the sound of one of his neighbors screaming at the door. He must have seen Mariana’s body.
Pablo heard the word police, but then he felt his chest constrict and burn. He realized he was having a heart attack, but before he could panic there was a strange whining sound in his ears.
And then he was gone.
*
Lucia switched her hair dryer off and smiled at the thought of how far she had come as she pulled on her favorite red dress. From life on the streets to a plush apartment in Chamberí and a fantastic career. She had heard you should never give up on your dreams, and now she knew it was true.
She put on a splash of perfume before slipping on her watch and stepping out of the bedroom. As she made her way along the short corridor she thought she could smell burning – the fideuà, she guessed.
Not unlike Pablo, she thought with a sigh. He was probably outside on the balcony smoking his cigar and getting knee-deep in a differential equation. She had doubted his claim that he had truly turned away from physics and wanted to spend the rest of his life restoring works of art, but to give him his due, he was working hard at his new career. Like her, Pablo was a dreamer who would never give up on his dreams.
She saw smoke now, billowing out into the hall and a second later the alarm went off. It was then, with the ear-piercing shriek of the smoke alarm in her ears that she saw the front door. Someone had smashed it in and it looked like there had been a scuffle in the hall. The table was tipped up and Pablo’s antique Bakelite phone was upside down on the floorboards.
She felt her pulse speed up and her mouth started to go dry. Something was very wrong, and when she turned the corner into the front room she saw what it was, and screamed as the terrible truth dawned on her. Pablo was sprawled on t
he floor on top of a sea of smashed smoked glass – what had previously been their coffee table. His throat was horribly slashed and his eyes bulged in their sockets, full of terror and pain, all strained and bloodshot. Blood had spilled out in a thick, gelatinous pool around his head.
She took a step back, and was suddenly filled with horror at the thought of the killer still being in the apartment. She sprinted along the hall, her mind confused and pulsing with cortisol. She swung open the front door and screamed again. Mariana Vidal was dead on the floor with a gunshot would in her temple, and a few steps behind her was another neighbor. He looked at her with horror, a telephone in his hand.
“What happened?” Lucia said, her head spinning.
“Stay where you are!” Señor Suarez said tersely. “I’m calling the police!”
Lucia Serrano’s past meant she knew the police would never give her a fair chance. It also meant she had more than enough experience of the fight or flight response when it came to dangerous situations, and while everything told her to wait for the police and tell them all she knew, something in her heart told her to run.
And so she ran.
THREE
Outside the Casino de Salamanca, the Madrid night was unusually cold for December but typically relaxed. Cars drove by, young couples in scarves and peacoats laughed hand in hand along the pavement. A soprano sax sung out a gentle jazz melody played subtly beneath the murmur and hum of the happy crowd.
Burned-out soldier and former MI6 agent Harry Bane looked at the empty whisky glass for a long time before deciding to order just one more for the road. The road, in his case, was nothing more than the short walk to the elevators and then pushing the button for the seventh floor. The drink arrived and Harry took a sip – a single malt was a single malt wherever you went in the world. That was its great charm.
In a city like this, his hometown of Oxford seemed a million miles away, but at least tonight they had the weather in common. According to the app on his phone, it was barely nudging five degrees at home and sleet was predicted. He imagined the icy rain pouring over his home in Jericho but shook the thought from his mind with the last of the spirit, knocked back in one.
He liked Madrid, especially the casinos, but this time he wasn’t in the city to play the tables. He was here to meet with an old friend. In fact, Lucia Serrano had been more than an old friend, but their relationship was too many trips around the sun to remember now, back when they were at college together. He hadn’t seen her for so long he doubted if he could even recognize her.
Lucia and her boyfriend were late, and nowhere in sight, so he turned and moved back into the lobby. The casino was always busy and tonight was no exception. He surveyed the main gaming room from the top of the red carpeted steps. It all looked very familiar to him. These places always had the same vibe, whether you were in Vegas, Monte Carlo or Sun City, and he should know. These were the places where he threw his life down with the dice, where his existence turned on the flip of a card.
He returned to the bar and took up the barman’s kind offer of a Laphroaig on the house. It was never a good sign when spirits arrived on the house. It was in his hands in seconds – thick crystal tumbler, no ice, just a splash of mineral water. A sip brought the familiar warm peaty spice to his lips, and then it burned its way down before hitting the bloodstream seconds later.
He couldn’t help but shoot a quick glance at his reflection in the glass door. Not bad for thirty-nine, he said to himself, and adjusted his tie and pocket square. It was a smart white polka dot affair on steel blue silk that he kept casually in the breast pocket of his Italian suit.
His hair was dark brown, and combed back neatly, a hangover from his military days, and his eyes a pale grey-blue inherited from the Russian mother he never knew. He pulled himself up to his full six-feet two-inches and returned a smile from a tall, blonde woman who was walking toward him.
She sat beside him and ordered a gin and tonic with a wedge of lime. She wore a sparkling wristwatch on a slim, tanned wrist and moved with the elegance of a supermodel.
“My name’s Harry,” he said. “Harry Bane.”
They shook hands. “I’m Anaïs.”
“What are you doing for New Year’s Eve this year?” he asked. It was only a couple of days until the celebration and an easy way to start some small talk.
“I’m seeing friends in Switzerland.”
They spoke for a few moments and Harry was delighted to learn that Anaïs was indeed a supermodel from Luxembourg in town for a few nights on a photoshoot for Armani. On the one hand he was upset Lucia hadn’t shown, but on the other, an evening with a swimwear model would fill the void.
As Anaïs sipped her drink, Harry noticed in the mirror behind the bar as a woman in a red dress entered the room. She started arguing with the casino’s floor manager. He gave a double-take and realized there was something familiar about her, but she was too far away to see properly. For a crazy moment he thought it could be Lucia, but dismissed the thought from his mind. Lucia had short hair and a pierced nose... but then it had been a few years.
He set his whisky glass down on the counter of the bar and watched the young woman with interest. She was now at the entrance to the bar and on closer examination she looked like she had blood on her hands and was demanding to see him as she argued with the floor manager again. His mind raced to identify her and he considered leaving by a fire exit – he’d escaped a lot of angry women that way.
He looked around the large room and saw most of the other punters had also now started to take note of what was unfolding at the entrance. He was sure the casino had never witnessed anything like this before, and trust him to be in the middle of it. He watched as the floor manager padded over to him and wrung his hands apologetically.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Allow me to apologize sincerely, Mr Bane, but the young lady is demanding to speak to you. You can see she is clearly deranged and we will call the police and have her removed. Please don’t allow this to spoil your evening.” The floor manager’s eyes flicked from him to the blonde woman sitting beside him, and then back up to the Englishman.
Harry looked up at the young woman at the door and then at the Cartier Baignoire on the wrist of the woman sitting next to him at the bar. He wondered what kind of woman would be wandering around Madrid alone and with blood on her hands, and then he wandered why such a person would want to speak to him. He just knew this was not going to end well, and resigned himself to the fact his perfect evening was about to come crashing down round his head yet again.
“What does she want?” he asked.
“It’s impossible to tell. She is hysterical as you can see and demanding to talk with you in person. She says you will want to hear what she has to say. She says it is a matter of life and death. Her name is Lucia Serrano.” As he said these last words, the floor manager snorted with contempt and dismissed his own words with a flick of his wrist.
“Oh my God...” Harry turned on his chair and took a closer look at the woman. “It is Lucia.”
Standing up now, Harry was now sympathising with the floor manager who seemed to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He turned to Anaïs, and smiled. “Do you mind?”
Now it was the model’s turn to sigh, which she did with undisguised disappointment as she got up from her chair. “I see you have other business to attend to.”
Harry turned to the floor manager. “It’s okay, Felipe,” he said as he watched Anaïs leave the bar. “I know this lady and I’ll deal with it.”
He walked over to the woman and realized that it really was Lucia from all those years ago – but she was barely recognizable. The punkish dyed hair was gone and replaced by glossy brown hair which bounced on her shoulders, and there was no sign of a single piercing. He guessed she made her statements some other way these days, but his mind was quickly diverted to the blood smeared on her hands.
The other guests were horrified. He walked to over to
her and looked in her eyes. They were pale brown, bright but clouded with fear. “Harry... thank God.”
“Lucia?”
She nodded. “The very same.” She tried to smile but nothing came. Time might have changed her appearance beyond recognition, but her voice was unchanged, and her accent was true sevillana. Harry looked again at her hands and saw the traces of dried blood on them. She had clearly tried to clean them up but in her haste had made a pretty bad job of it.
He raised his eyes from the bloody hands to her eyes. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t shake hands, even after all these years.”
“Please, Harry – I am desperate. I need to talk with you at once.”
“What is all this about?” he asked her. “I thought we were meeting for dinner?”
“There was no time to call you. Something happened to Pablo.”
“Your boyfriend?”
She nodded.
Things began to get a little clearer.
“Where is he?”
“Please, Harry – you don’t understand. Something terrible has happened.”
Harry saw a look of genuine anguish on the woman’s face. “What?”
“We were attacked in the apartment.”
She looked like she was about to faint. He took a step toward her and reached out to steady her. “When?”
“Just now. I came here immediately because I knew you were here.”
“I’d given up – as you saw. What the hell is all this blood, Lucia?”
She began to cry. “It’s Pablo’s.”
“Is he all right?”
The woman looked terrified. He noticed her hands were shaking a little and her mascara was smudged by her tears. “I’m scared, Harry. Pablo is dead.”
FOUR
For a moment Harry wondered what the joke was, but the look in Lucia’s frightened eyes told him there was nothing funny about the situation. He studied the anguish on her face and was suddenly aware that the other people in the bar were staring hard at the two of them.
