Confessional

by Anthony Masters

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why didn’t they arrest him?’ But she knew the answer.

  He sighed impatiently. ‘They wanted to know why he was going to Barcelona. There’s a complication though.’ He paused. ‘The Spaniards lost him of course,’ he said with satisfaction and Alison could have hit him for his insular superiority.

  ‘Are you saying he’s been sent to Spain to kill Tomas? That they’ve let him go and now I’m to join Tomas’s bodyguard in the hope that if Hooper arrives I can identify him before he strikes?’ she asked incredulously.

  ‘I’m not saying anything. But you’ll be seconded to Interpol. There’s one of those smooth Frogs who’s friendly with the Tomas family. Heycroft’s planning to ask him to help you.’ Alison caught a knowing look in Mackintosh’s eyes and rose abruptly to her feet.

  ‘I’ll think it over.’

  * * *

  Eduardo surfaced, dived again, but was soon forced back to the blinding light. The sun reared above him threateningly, burning white, merciless in its Mediterranean intensity. He gasped, stared round, panic making him nauseous. A man was lying on the patio, moving a little and then lying still. He was surrounded by servants and security men. Caterina, the maid, was standing to one side, shouting and being shouted at, but the sound seemed a long way off, as if everything was still under water. Eduardo swam to the side, looking round him like a trapped animal. Was he in shock? Why couldn’t he hear properly? Then he realized he was hearing, and that a number of people were yelling at each other without making any sense. Eduardo could stand it no longer. ‘What the hell’s going on?’ he roared, pulling himself out of the water. He turned back for a moment and grabbed at the towel that was lying on the side of the pool. Gathering what little dignity he felt he had left, Eduardo walked towards the milling confusion, all too conscious that he had soiled both his trunks and the pool. But in the light of what was happening embarrassment was irrelevant.

  ‘I’m very sorry, señor. It was your maid’s boy-friend.’

  ‘Who?’ Eduardo stared at the security man as if he was an imbecile.

  ‘They had a row and he ran out of the house. But he ran the wrong way and started coming towards the pool. His name is David Arias.’

  ‘What have you done? Shot him?’ Eduardo was beginning to shiver.

  ‘No – Luis – he pistol-whipped him.’

  ‘Who was that who came over the fence? I thought he was going –’

  ‘It was Enrico. He’s just been drafted in. We radioed for assistance –’

  ‘And Enrico came over the fence,’ said Eduardo acidly. He felt an acute sense of anti-climax. Depression swept over him; there was no resolution.

  David Arias was a callow-looking youth with an incipient moustache. He lay there with his eyes closed, a great bruise coming up on his forehead which the maid Caterina was tending nervously. The three security men hovered over them like a flock of anxious hens.

  ‘Get up,’ shouted Eduardo and the boy struggled to his feet.

  ‘I’m sorry, señor. Very sorry.’ Caterina was beside herself with anxiety. ‘He ran the wrong way –’

  ‘How many times has he been here?’

  ‘Many times. You said I could have my friend visit me. You said –’

  ‘Shut up.’ Eduardo turned to the guards with sudden angry realization – that not only had he just received a terrible shock, but now it looked as if he was going to have to apologize for it. He felt desperately tired; if only they would all go away and he could just fall asleep somewhere. ‘This looks like my fault – I should have told my secretary to inform you …’ He paused, impatient at the convoluted chain of command. ‘I should have told you that I said she could have this visitor.’ He turned back threateningly to Caterina. ‘You see what trouble you’ve caused.’

  ‘I’m very sorry –’

  ‘You’re lucky you’re going to keep your job.’

  ‘Thank you, señor.’ She looked as if she was going to embrace him and Eduardo took a couple of steps backwards.

  ‘Does he need medical attention?’

  ‘No – no, señor. He will be fine.’

  Arias was on his feet now, his hand to his face, his eyes on the ground.

  ‘He’s not to come to this house again,’ snapped Eduardo. ‘Do you understand, Caterina?’

  ‘Yes, señor.’

  ‘And do you understand, young man?’

  Arias nodded dumbly, though Eduardo could not tell whether the boy was merely inarticulate, or as deeply shocked as he was, or simply overawed by being harangued by the Minister.

  ‘Get out then – and Caterina…’

  ‘Yes, señor?’

  ‘Bring me a large vodka – I’m going to change.’ He looked back into the pool and saw a small turd floating into the shallows. He would get Paco to inform one of the gardeners.

  Two security men had settled back into the shade while the third returned, via the house rather than the fence, to patrol outside. His vodka finished, Eduardo lay, eyes closed, near the fountain and as far away from his guards as he could get. Anita, his wife, was in Girona, doing a little gentle shopping with their chauffeur/bodyguard in attendance, and his son Salvador was wind-surfing, watched by more security men in a motor launch. It just couldn’t go on. Now this absurd mistake, the unbelievable trauma of it all, a ludicrous climax to a year of misery – and no resolution or relief. Larche would have to come out here – he was the only policeman he trusted. Larche was discreet, calm and civilized; the kind of urbane Frenchman he would like to have around him at a moment like this. They had known each other at the Sorbonne and had seen each other from time to time ever since. They weren’t close friends, more good acquaintances, which was just what he wanted. He’d ring him now, talk it all through with him again. He needed the calm, still voice of reason immediately, even if it was only on the end of a telephone. But maybe his request would be a painful one for Larche, who had suffered his own family tragedy last year.* Eduardo shrugged. He could but ask him. He levered himself up on one elbow and felt for his towel, but before he could go inside and make the call in the privacy of his office, the telephone was brought to the poolside by his secretary, Julia Descartes.

  ‘Who is it?’ snapped Eduardo. ‘I’ve had an appalling shock and I want to relax – not prattle on the phone.’

  ‘I know, sir.’ She was all professional sympathy. ‘But it’s Father Miguel. I thought you might like to have a brief word as he said it was very urgent.’

  Impatiently, Eduardo took the phone. ‘Miguel?’

  The old man’s voice was faint and halting. ‘Eduardo?’

  ‘I’m here.’

  ‘We’ve got to put an end to all this speculation.’

  ‘I wish we could.’

  ‘I have certain information that may interest you.’

  ‘What sort of information?’ asked Eduardo guardedly.

  ‘I can’t discuss it on the telephone,’ said Father Miguel more sharply. ‘I want you to make the journey to the valley urgently. Tomorrow at four. I’ll see you in the confessional box, the one with my name on the outside.’

  ‘Isn’t that a rather strange place to meet?’

  ‘It’s the most private,’ Father Miguel replied firmly.

  ‘But there are rooms, offices …’

  ‘All buzzing with other priests. Think what a flutter it would cause if the Minister for Home Affairs talked to me in such places. But in the privacy of the confessional – what could be more natural?’

  ‘Very well,’ Eduardo agreed reluctantly.

  ‘So you’ll be there?’

  ‘I’ll be there,’ replied Eduardo slowly. Maybe there was some hope, he thought, but, afraid of being disappointed, he was determined not to be too expectant.

  Eduardo telephoned Larche from his study which overlooked the Medas islands with their bird sanctuary and reef, now regularly despoiled by rapacious divers. His own island was thankfully a considerable distance from the tourist beaches and hote
ls on the mainland and was screened by the observatory on the highest rocky crag of the Medas. Seabirds perched overlooking Molino like so many thousands of spectators, but the human variety, even if they came in the largest of their yachts, were not allowed to penetrate the line of buoys festooned with warning notices.

  ‘Marius, it’s Eduardo.’

  ‘Very good to hear from you.’ Larche’s voice was warm, welcoming, and Eduardo could picture him, sitting in the airy office at the top of the building with a coffee – a good coffee. In fact he was trying to cope with a hangover acquired at an Interpol conference followed by a dinner the night before, and was drinking a clandestine cognac.

  Eduardo began to tell him what had happened, realizing his voice was uneven, his shock all too apparent. He had forgotten, however, what a good listener Marius Larche could be – quite unaware, in reality, how comatose he was that particular morning.

  At the end of Eduardo’s flurried explanation Marius said, ‘You can’t go on taking the strain like this. You’re in a miserably isolated position.’ He swallowed the last of his cognac and wondered about having some more. It was obviously going to be a day when people demanded things of him and he wasn’t up to it.

  ‘I almost feel like resigning.’

  ‘Will that make it go away?’

  ‘Good question. I even shat in my own pool –I expect they’re draining the water away now and removing the turd I left in there. No doubt they’ll find some face-saving cover story for it all.’ He could hear Larche chuckling at the other end and then smiled himself, but the smile didn’t last long.

  ‘Is there anywhere you can go for a while?’

  ‘It won’t blow over, Marius. If I can’t get away from it on Molino, where can I? What’s more – I don’t have any faith in the way I’m being protected, or the action that’s being taken over the bombardment of threatening letters and calls I’m getting. They’ve been going on a long time – too long. I want you to join the investigation. I know Interpol is involved; it can be arranged for you to come. You’re a good policeman – a good organizer. And you’re my friend.’

  Larche sighed. ‘I can’t just come in and take over a high-powered case like this. Have you forgotten who you are?’

  ‘No,’ said Eduardo bitterly. ‘I just think other people have. What happened today was such a bad breach in security.’ He began to tell him about the swimming pool incident all over again and Larche listened patiently and sympathetically.

  ‘I’m on another case, that’s the problem.’ His heart sank at the thought of it. He was trying to cope with the case of a child abducted to Venice by his Italian father – a man who was a known pederast. He was on the run with the boy in the city and so far there was no trace of either of them.

  ‘I want you to come, Marius. I’ve got to have someone I can trust here – and in an official capacity. I can’t take any more of this.’

  There was a short silence, during which Eduardo could sense Larche thinking how unwelcome he would be to the Spanish police.

  ‘If you could speak to Sabier I could be with you in a couple of days,’ he said at last. ‘I could delegate what I’m doing. Can you wait – hang on for a day or so?’

  Eduardo felt a surge of relief. The local police, the Cesid, the army, all shrank into insignificance beside Larche. And why? The answer went back a long way to a night in a Parisian back street when they were staggering home together after a drunken party. The gang of muggers had pounced suddenly – three of them – and Eduardo, terrified, would have handed over everything he possessed. But Marius had been angry and with remarkable fury had despatched all three youths with his fists and his head and his feet. Eduardo had never seen anything like it, would never have expected such blind temper from anyone as ostensibly civilized as Marius Larche. But his single-mindedness had reassured him – the sheer force and thoroughness of his attack. Afterwards Marius had said, ‘I hated them – they were violating me. That’s what used to happen at school – I’d go crazy.’ It was this passion, this protection that Eduardo so desperately needed now; someone close to him who would keep him in the picture, not just guard him but interpret what the hell was going on. Maybe he just needed Larche as some kind of symbol – a talisman– but he needed him very badly and he was determined to get him, whatever anyone said, however much bureaucracy railed against the decision.

  ‘I’ve just had a call from Father Miguel,’ continued Eduardo uneasily. ‘And that’s another mystery. You remember him? He says he has some information for me – and I have to go to the Valley of the Fallen tomorrow to see him. Of course he’s an old man so whether or not he’s talking nonsense I couldn’t say. But he’s a good friend, even if he is going senile, and I reckon I should go.’

  ‘I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,’ said Larche. ‘You’re still in shock. Where’s Anita?’

  ‘In Girona.’

  ‘Will she be back soon?’

  ‘Yes. The house is full of security men and servants. But you’ll reassure me more than any of them,’ he added persuasively.

  ‘What good can that old rogue priest do you?’ Larche sounded admonishing.

  ‘He has his ear to the ground …’

  ‘Maybe he isn’t functioning …’

  ‘I’ve decided to go, Marius.’ Eduardo was adamant. ‘However enfeebled he is nowadays he still knows what’s going on. And that’s what I don’t.’

  ‘The Valley of the Fallen?’ Larche mused. ‘That place gives me the creeps. Are you sure the security will be tight enough?’

  ‘I thought you believed the risk was minimal – that my persecutor was a crank, a psychopath?’ But he was only goading Larche now, trying to make him uneasy, paying him out for being busy and too preoccupied with his own affairs.

  ‘I’m sure that’s the way it’s going to turn out,’ said Larche as reassuringly as a brisk nanny. ‘I think the threats will probably tail off – that there’ll be no resolution.’

  ‘I suppose that’s what I’m most afraid of,’ admitted Eduardo, his flash of temper giving way to honesty. ‘Then I’ll never know who it was, and whether they’ve really gone away – or not.’

  ‘I’ll come as soon as I can,’ said Larche, ‘but I warn you, they’ll resent me.’

  Eduardo Tomas rang off, leaving Marius Larche feeling puzzled. For a man who was so much in fear of his life, it was odd that he was proposing a long trip to Madrid to see the old priest. He might be a family friend, but he had a dubious reputation. What could he have to tell him? And if it was so important, why didn’t Miguel disclose it immediately? Did Eduardo have some other reason for asking him to drop everything and run to his side? But despite his curiosity and compassion Larche knew he couldn’t drop his current case indefinitely. He would, however, go to Molino and be supportive for a week or so.

  For a while he ruminated on his friendship with Eduardo Tomas, if being chums at the Sorbonne so many years ago could really be called friendship. That’s when they’d been close. Over the last few decades they had met infrequently – been friends at a distance – acquaintances really – and the closeness had largely evaporated.

  Late that afternoon, whilst still dealing with paperwork at his desk, Larche received another call, this time from London and a senior Scotland Yard officer with whom he had been in contact for some years.

  ‘It’s Alan Heycroft, Marius.’

  ‘Very good to hear from you.’ Larche was always at his most benign when uneasy and he went on to pursue enquiries about Heycroft’s nearest and dearest.

  When these exchanges were concluded Heycroft said, ‘This Tomas affair?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you connected?’

  ‘I’ve been asked out there.’

  ‘By the police?’

  ‘By Eduardo Tomas. I’ll be resented, of course, but –’ He broke off as Heycroft interrupted him.

  ‘As ever your reputation precedes you.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Larche waited for the fa
vour Heycroft was about to ask.

  ‘This is a very long shot but I’m sure that a hit man, code-named Hooper, flew to Barcelona last night. Our people thought they saw him at Gatwick, but the Spaniards lost him the other end. It may turn out to be a red herring but I’ve got this – this hunch that he could be after Tomas.’

  ‘I see.’ Larche suddenly felt extremely uneasy. Hadn’t he just dismissed Eduardo’s anxiety – practically told him that he was being hysterical?

  ‘We have a very bright young female.’ Heycroft somehow made the compliment patronizing. ‘Her name’s Detective Superintendent Rowe – Alison Rowe.’ He paused. ‘Some years ago she was injured in a shooting incident when her colleague was killed.’ He paused again but Larche made no comment. ‘The gunman was Hooper and I’m sure she can identify him. I’m sending her to Barcelona right away, but I want her to go further than that.’

  ‘Where?’ asked Larche, but of course he knew exactly what Heycroft was going to ask him.

  ‘I know you can get her on to that island.’

  Larche was about to minimize the problem again, to emphasize that many politicians received death threats every day of the week, then he stopped himself.

  Heycroft continued as persuasively as he could. ‘Obviously we’re not asking Rowe to lead a hunt for Hooper – that’s up to the Spanish police – but we’ve been after this bastard for five years now and I would like her to have access to the island. In the mean time, the Spaniards are finding her a hidey hole …’ Heycroft’s voice died away and there was an awkward silence. ‘Would you be prepared to help?’ he said eventually and Larche felt a stab of compunction at making it so difficult for him.

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ said Larche shortly, wishing that Eduardo’s call had not come when he was hung over and that he had agreed to help him with alacrity. ‘I’ll be going over there myself in a few days so I’ll try and steer your Detective Superintendent in the right direction.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Heycroft quickly. ‘That’s very good of you.’

  ‘Do you know where she will be staying?’ asked Larche wearily.

  ‘No – but Jervier will.’