The Spanish secretary eventually put me through to a harassed but amiable reporter called Christina who sounded as if she should still have been at school. There was none of the background clamour you normally associate with a newspaper office, and I worked out that theCosta del Sol News must be a satellite operation of one of the bigger newspapers in southern Spain, with just a couple of staff to cover an enormous beat teeming with boozed-up Brits at the height of summer. That didn’t bode well for someone hoping to get an answer to a daft speculative question that might take an hour of research, but I was lucky.
‘We put the paper to bed last night and we’re just starting on next week’s edition,’ she said when I told her what I was looking for. ‘Teba is a bit off the beaten track. The local Guardia would carry out the initial investigation into anything like that, but the Judicial Police in Malaga would be called in pretty much right away because of the seriousness of the crime.’
Christina said she’d be happy to help me as long as I promised to tip her off if I uncovered anything that would make a story for the paper, but since they ran a tight budget that didn’t extend to international calls I’d have to phone her back for the information. She gave me her mobile number just in case she was out of the office and I said I’d call her back later.
As I headed north to Edinburgh I was overwhelmed by a feeling of driving away from the solution and of precious minutes ticking away. Even so, the guilt that I’d let Aelish down wouldn’t leave me. I took a deep breath when I saw her lying in her hospital bed, pale as death with an oxygen mask covering her nose and mouth. From a vein on the inside of her left wrist a line led up to a plastic bag full of clear liquid and some kind of electrical contact linked her body to a machine on the far side of the room that monitored her heartbeat. Her chest rose and fell in shallow breaths, but they were so brief that every one seemed as if it might be her last. I had a vision of an angel coming down from above and taking her by the hand. They could have been twins.
I sank wearily into the plastic seat to the right of the bed and placed my hand over hers. The room was like every other hospital room I’ve been in, only a little more modern. White melamine, brushed aluminium and compressed board masquerading as hardwood. Over-warm air filled with a fusion of those peculiar medical odours that you don’t like to think about, with an addedsoupçon of mild disinfectant. The room was on the first floor and looked out onto a small courtyard planted with a couple of ornamental trees whose leaves shone like individual emeralds. In the real world you would have opened the window to let in a little fresh air, but this was a hospital.
‘I’m sorry, Aelish,’ I said quietly, but she didn’t respond; not even a flicker of her eyelids.
I sat for a few minutes, the gentle hiss of her breath in the mask the only sound apart from the regular click that was the rhythm of her life. Could I have done anything differently? The answer was ‘yes’, but the outcome would only have been a different kind of loss. Gurya or Aelish? Aelish or Gurya? I looked at my watch. Eleven. With luck, today would end as it had begun. Tomorrow was another day.
I must have dozed, because it was mid-afternoon when the door opened without warning and Ann walked in with a tall man who somehow managed to look elegant in a white coat. His thick bronze hair was swept back from a wide brow and he languidly surveyed the world from behind a pair of onyx-rimmed spectacles. He reminded me of an Army officer I’d once known and it was all I could do to stand up without coming to attention.
‘Mr Savage?’ I nodded and he introduced himself as Dr Seaton, Aelish’s consultant. Ann squeezed into the corner near the door trying to make herself invisible, and he walked forward to stand beside the bed like an actor taking centre stage, which, I suppose, in a way, he was. I had plenty of questions I wanted to ask, but over the years I’ve discovered that it saves time to let doctors make the running.
He delivered the bad news in a public-school drawl that made it seem as if it was none of his business and which I would have found irritating, but for his obvious professionalism. We were paying for the best and that’s what we were getting. ‘First, I must ask you not to worry too much. Your wife has developed a rather serious chest infection which is affecting her breathing. Normally, it would be entirely treatable, but with Mrs Savage’s long-term medical condition I’m inclined to take things slowly, as I’m sure you’d be the first to understand?’ He turned to look directly at me and I nodded. ‘Slowly’ was the last word I wanted to hear, but what the hell else could I do? He got back into his stride. ‘We are conducting tests to ascertain the reason for the infection and we should have the results in the morning. However, I think there are a number of things we can disregard. Your wife has a very strong heart, remarkably so given her medical troubles, and I believe we can rule out an underlying cardiac problem. Likewise, her temperature is as near normal as we would expect, which makes me rather more sanguine about the possibility of bird flu than I would have been if the opposite was the case. However, there are a number of other possibilities and we are certainly not complacent.’ He frowned. ‘As you can see, we have stabilised Mrs Savage’s breathing and she is receiving antibiotics intravenously. It’s possible that this alone will effect a change for the better, but under the circumstances it would be my intention to keep your wife here until we are one hundred per cent certain she is well again and there is no threat of a relapse.’
I found that I’d been holding my breath while he’d been speaking and it came out in one long rush. ‘Does that mean she could make a full recovery?’
He hesitated. I knew I’d been too direct. Asking a doctor for a straight answer is like asking a lawyer if something is right or wrong. Eventually he found a satisfactory solution and smiled. ‘Given your wife’s multiple sclerosis nothing can be guaranteed, but if all goes well you should be able to get her home within a few weeks, perhaps a month.’
I managed not to choke. ‘Is there anything I can do to help speed up the process, doc?’
He gave me a long, steady look, as if he was sizing me up for surgery. ‘Just do what you’ve always done for her, Mr Savage. Pray for her and care for her.’
As he left the room, he mentioned some paperwork he’d like me to look at, and Ann took my place at Aelish’s bedside while I went downstairs to sign my life away. When I returned I asked her if the hospital should call for a taxi to take her home. She insisted she’d rather drive back to the Borders with me if I was going, but that I should stay as long as I liked. I had my own reasons for not staying too long and we agreed to leave in another hour, which would be around four, to avoid the rush hour. Then she tactfully left me alone with my wife in the room I couldn’t afford to pay for.
Aelish would have told me not to worry and not to panic, so I didn’t. Instead, I planned what I’d do over the next thirty hours to save Gurya Ali’s life.
When I was due to leave, I bent and kissed Aelish tenderly on the brow. The skin beneath my lips felt clammy and damp with her sweat but the touch of it seemed to send some sort of fusion through me, an invigorating elixir of warmth and energy. As I made to move away her eyes opened a fraction and she tried to say something. When she realised I couldn’t understand, her hand moved feebly to the mask and attempted to shift it to the side. I didn’t think that was a good idea, but when I tried to stop her she resisted, so I gave in and moved it myself.
Still, I could barely hear her. Her voice was less than a whisper; like the wind whistling gently through a castle’s walls.
‘Have . . . they . . . found ... her . . . ?’
I shook my head. ‘Not yet, Aelish.’
She closed her eyes again, and I thought the effort had been too much for her. I moved to replace the mask, but she twisted her head to the side.
‘Help . . . Glen.’
I wasn’t certain whether she meant help her, or help Gurya, but it didn’t really matter. I wasn’t sure I could help anyone. Not even myself.
CHAPTER 31
I got back to the hou
se at about half past five after returning Ann to her husband. First, I checked the computer. More right-wing nutters who wanted to recruit me to their cause and left-wing nutters who wanted to treat me to a variety of Old Testament punishments. Who says there’s no political debate in this country? What had begun as a joke was rapidly turning into something I was going to have to deal with. I thought about calling my pal Jessica from the BBC, but I knew there was only one sure way to restore my reputation.
By now it would be eight in the evening in Spain. I wasn’t certain what hours Spanish journalists worked, or more specifically British journalists working in Spain, but I remembered no one ate their dinner until around ten or eleven so it seemed a fair bet Christina would be available.
I called the number she’d given me, but it rang out. For the moment I’d have to do without that particular piece of the jigsaw, but it didn’t concern me because the big picture was becoming clearer all the time.
Somewhere in the mass of information we had uncovered was the clue that would lead to the identity of the killer. James, the Black Douglas. The heart of Robert the Bruce. The Crusades. A Holy War. Three young people dead, that I knew of, and another one missing. Two Asians, an Algerian and a Maori girl. What did the victims have in common? An ethnic background in three cases. But why no blacks? Because none was available when he needed them? Or because the murderer was only interested in a certain skin tone? Idiot, a Holy War meant religion, not race. So three of the victims were Moslem. Three Moslems and one poor kid who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. So, a Holy War that was still being fought by a deranged killer obsessed with a medieval knight. Three people found dead in locations associated with the Black Douglas. That meant, if I was right, that Gurya Ali would also be found somewhere associated with Douglas, but where? And the dates? I had no choice but to believe that the killer was going to strike again on the anniversary of Bannockburn. If I was right Gurya had two days to live.
The plan I’d made while I sat beside Aelish’s bed seemed simple enough. Tomorrow I’d confirm the killer’s identity, track him down, confront him and return with Gurya Ali in triumph. If Gurya’s kidnapping was linked to the other deaths everything appeared to point to one man. Unfortunately, everything that did the pointing was completely circumstantial and wouldn’t stand up in court. The only way it would work would be to find something that linked him directly with the murders and the only way to do that was to get inside his house.
Fortunately, the man I was looking for advertised his services in the telephone directory.
He’d already proved how dangerous he could be. But I can be dangerous, too. I switched off all the outside lights and walked across to the garage under cover of darkness. Why darkness? The garage is where I keep my secret shame, and darkness is very handy when you’re doing things that are illegal. I realise that anyone who keeps a gun and forty rounds of soft-nose ammunition under their garage has to be crazy, but my excuse is that the .45 Ballester-Molina pistol is a memento of my old friend Hector de Mayo and I took it from his hand on the day I killed him on Tumbledown. Actually, that’s not quite accurate. I also keep it for a more personal reason.
I shifted the paving slab that conceals the gun’s hiding place and lifted the oilskin bag from the hole I’d dug a dozen years before. The weight was familiar and reassuring, and when I emptied the bag on the kitchen table the pistol gleamed a slick, oily blue beneath the spotlights, dark and sharply outlined against the pale wood of the table. A little worn and scratched, probably more than fifty years old, but still serviceable: five-inch barrel and serrated hardwood stock, built to last at the HAFDASA plant in Buenos Aires.
I felt the old buzz as I stripped the gun down to its precisely engineered constituent parts and cleaned and oiled the polished metal, but when I began to slip the squat brass .45 bullets into the magazine I had an unsettling feeling that I was being watched. Maybe it was guilt, or conscience, two emotions I don’t usually allow myself to admit to, but it felt as if Aelish was in the room. I took a deep breath and reassembled the pistol and put it on the table in front of me. Tomorrow I was going to gamble everything on a single throw. Ruin, ridicule and the loss of any respect I had earned from the person I loved more than life itself were the price of failure. I didn’t even like to think about the price of success.
If I took the Ballester-Molina I’d be risking a possible life sentence if things went wrong, and if I went to jail Aelish would lose everything. Worse, she’d be alone. And for someone suffering from MS there can be no greater fear than that. To be alone. With a premonition that I might live to regret it, I packed the gun back into the bag and returned it to its hiding place.
Christina! I’d almost forgotten her. I called her mobile number again, letting it ring for a good minute. Just when I was about to give up, a male voice answered in Spanish. My Spanish is limited to ordering beer, Manos arriba o disparo, which means hands up or I’ll shoot, and the swear words we learned to insult the Argies on the Falklands. I just said ‘Christina?’ in a mildly questioning tone and hoped it wasn’t a wrong number. The male at the other end mumbled something incomprehensible and a few seconds later she came on the line.
‘Christina? Glen Savage,’ I said cheerfully. ‘I hope I haven’t interrupted anything important.’
‘Nothing that cannot be resumed later, Mr Savage.’ She laughed.
‘I just wondered if you’d discovered anything that might be of interest?’
‘Yes, but I don’t know if it’ll be of any help to your research.’ There were a few moments of silence and I imagined her frowning at her notes. ‘There has been one unexplained death reported in Teba de Ardales in the past five years. I searched only for violent deaths, is that correct?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’ I could hear the pages of a notebook flicking over.
‘José Caracol, age sixteen, sin domicilio permanente, you understand, eh . . . of no permanent address . . . he had no true home. He’d been hanging around Teba for a few days looking for work.’
‘Yes, I understand. Did you find out how he died?’
‘He wasgitano, a gypsy. The police believe a clash between two rival clans.’
I felt the disappointment wash over me. ‘So, a bar brawl?’
‘No, you misunderstand. José Caracol’s body was discovered in a ditch on the plain outside the town. He had been stabbed repeatedly and his body had suffered some kind of mutilation.’
The breath caught in my throat. ‘Mutilation?’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Savage, I have no details of the injury.’
‘That’s fine, Christina, thanks for your help. Oh, do you happen to have a date?’
The notebook flicked again. ‘According to the police report, José Caracol died on the twenty-fifth of August, 2005.’
Seven hundred and seventy-five years to the day after the Black Douglas was killed at the battle of Teba.
8 a.m., Saturday, 23 June
The next morning I ate the condemned man’s hearty breakfast before calling the hospital to check on Aelish. Doctor Seaton wasn’t available and a nurse kept me waiting until she’d confirmed my details before letting me know the patient’s condition hadn’t changed overnight. Aelish wasn’t getting any better, but she hadn’t deteriorated either, which I suppose was good news. I asked about the test results, but the nurse said they wouldn’t be available until the afternoon.
What I really wanted was to be with her, but I didn’t have a choice.
First, I reread everything Aelish had given me about Sir James Douglas. In February 1314 he’d carried out a celebrated raid which had taken and then destroyed Roxburgh Castle, not ten miles from where I sat. That raid was one of the pin pricks which had goaded Edward the Second to come north for his fateful meeting with Bruce at Stirling. After Bannockburn, Douglas had become one of the powers in the land, and when Bruce turned his eyes south, he fought at his king’s side. The Scots ravaged Northumberland and Cumberland and penetrated as f
ar as Richmond before withdrawing. Douglas raided Hartlepool and took hostages, but he was almost captured in a raid on Berwick a year later. Soon, King Robert handed Douglas responsibility for holding the border while he made an abortive attempt to conquer Ireland, which was a measure of his confidence in his friend’s ability. Defeat had made the English wary, and Edward was a weak king, but his barons were desperate to avenge the humiliation their warrior class had suffered. Douglas fortified his strongholds in the great forests of Selkirk and Jedburgh, ancient royal hunting grounds, and proved a bulwark that the English armies could not break. A bona fide, cast-iron Scottish hero. The question was: how did a bona fide Scottish hero inspire a demented serial killer nearly eight hundred years later?
I went through all the things I knew and added what I’d learned this morning.
Unless there were other victims of whom I wasn’t aware, the murder of José Caracol had happened almost two years before the Crusader had launched his killing spree in Scotland. That made him the first victim and doubly significant.
Everything Christina had told me indicated that the attack on José was opportunist and unplanned. Unlike all the other victims, the gypsy boy was killed at or very close to the place he currently called home. The Crusader had apparently chanced upon his victim and murdered him on impulse. Why?
The date and the place were obvious factors: this was where and when his hero had died at the hands of the enemies of Christendom. But there had to be another reason. Something that had happened earlier to ignite the killing rage that had consumed young José. George W Bush had called the War on Terror a Crusade, but the War on Terror had started in 2001, four years before José died. So it was something else.
War Games Page 21
