by James Green
Jimmy put away his phone and looked at his watch. Time for lunch. A couple of cold beers first and then some fish. They did good fish here, he’d tried a couple of places and they had impressed him. He liked fish, if it was good-quality and fresh. Jimmy left his little house and went to yet another place to try the fish. He sat down and ordered a beer and looked at the menu. It wasn’t a tourist place so it was all in Spanish but that didn’t deter him, most places you could get by with English and a smile. The waiter brought his beer.
‘I’d like the fish. Can you tell me what fish you’ve got?’ The waiter looked at him, spread his hands, shrugged and said something in Spanish. Jimmy tried again. ‘Fish. I’d like a meal, lunch, fish.’ The waiter shrugged again and looked around as if appealing to the other diners none of whom took any notice. Jimmy realised he’d found somewhere or someone who, for whatever reason, chose not to do English. He stood up. ‘Sorry, mate, I don’t speak Spanish and you don’t seem to speak English. I’ll go somewhere else.’ Jimmy began to leave the table and the waiter caught his arm and began to speak rapidly. Jimmy stopped and looked down at the hand on his arm then spoke quietly. ‘Let go sunshine or I’ll break your fucking arm.’ The waiter’s hand dropped from Jimmy’s arm and he stood back. He turned and called out across the room. A man came from behind the bar to the table. They spoke in Spanish.
‘He says you ordered beer and now are leaving without paying. If you order a drink you must pay for it.’
‘I ordered beer in English and I got beer. I asked him for fish in English but he seems to have forgotten how to understand. I asked him to take his hand off my arm in English and he suddenly remembered he could understand again.’ Jimmy looked at the waiter. ‘It sort of comes and goes doesn’t it, pal?’ The waiter said nothing. ‘Still, if he decides he can’t understand my order I’ll leave and eat somewhere else. Is that a problem?’
The man from the bar thought about it. He wasn’t big but he looked useful, competent. The man spoke to the waiter who turned and left.
‘I will take your order. What do you want?’
Jimmy found he wasn’t in a good mood any more and he didn’t want the fish even if it did come in English. If he stayed, there would be trouble and he found trouble was exactly what he wanted.
‘I want to leave. I want to leave peacefully without any trouble but I want to leave. I’ve lost my appetite for food or beer.’
The man looked at him. Jimmy noticed that the other diners were now taking notice.
‘Then if you pay for your drink you are free to go.’
The man didn’t move and there was no easy way round him between the tables.
Jimmy looked at the bottle on the table then back at the man.
‘I’ll toss you for it.’ The man frowned. Jimmy took a coin from his pocket and held it up. ‘Heads I pay, tails I don’t?’ Jimmy didn’t wait, he spun the coin, caught it and slapped it onto the back of his hand. He didn’t look at it. ‘Tails. I don’t pay. Now I’m leaving, sunshine, either past you or through you and I don’t give a shit which it will be.’
The man stood for a second then moved to one side. Jimmy went past him, through the room and out into the street where he turned and walked. He didn’t care which way he was going.
Now what the fuck was that all about, he thought. But he knew what it was about. It was about a frustration and anger that sometimes, from nowhere, built up in him. He decided to give lunch a miss, he’d lost his appetite. He’d walk. It was hot and the heat would tire him and when he was tired enough he’d stop somewhere for that cold beer.
Would he have hurt the bloke?
Yes, he decided, he would, and he would have enjoyed it.
Jimmy began to walk in the heat, to try and get tired and let the anger die down and drain out of his system. Where did it come from, that pointless hate? But he knew where it came from, it came from who he was and who he’d been, and it was who he’d always be so long as he let it boil up and take over.
About twenty minutes later he was sitting in a bar, tired and feeling nothing except that he needed to sit down out of the heat for a while and drink a couple of cold beers.
He forced his mind back to the meeting with the old priest. He knew he should be satisfied. He’d got everything he expected and a bit that he hadn’t expected.
But he wasn’t satisfied.
Something wasn’t right. Did it matter? He’d done what he had been sent to do and it was what everyone said it would be, a dead end. He’d done all he could. His mind moved on to the murder. It was probably no more than thieves falling out. Should he just wrap it up and go back to Rome.
Why was he fucking about pretending to be a detective? Why wasn’t he wrapping it up and going home? What was the point of hanging on? Was it because he was looking at something and not seeing it? Was something staring him in the face and he just couldn’t see it?
The picture of Suarez sitting opposite him with that look which disturbed him, looking at him with her legs crossed came to him. Was it Suarez?
It couldn’t be Suarez. He hadn’t looked at another woman since he had started going with Bernie when he was sixteen, a lifetime ago. He still didn’t want to look at another woman.
So why did he look at Suarez and why did he think it might be her that was keeping him here?
Oh, well, beer and cool down, maybe even a snack to make up for the missed lunch. He’d give it two days and then fuck it, whatever it was. It could stay in Spain and he’d go back and report that there was nothing to report. He smiled to himself. At least I can squeeze two more days’ expenses out of McBride and, considering she gets nothing in return, that’s something. Maybe that’s what’s staring me in the face.
But it wasn’t and he knew it.
That night Jimmy lay in bed, naked with a single sheet thrown over his thighs and legs and the bedroom window open. He couldn’t sleep. His mind wouldn’t switch off and it was too hot. Outside the cicadas chirruped endlessly. He lay in the dark, sweating. Then, from downstairs, there was a noise, muffled but like the breaking of glass. Jimmy threw off the sheet, got up and went to the door which he’d left open in the vain hope of creating a breeze through the room.
He stood and listened. Somebody was definitely down there, in the kitchen. He heard a click as the kitchen door opened, then he heard the bottom stair creak. Whoever was there was coming up. He padded quickly across the room, arranged two pillows to look like a body and threw the sheet over it. The room was dark but there was just enough light coming in through the window to make it do the job. He went back and stood ready behind the door which he’d eased half closed. After a minute the door began to be pushed back. Jimmy stood, made a hard left fist, raised it and drew back his elbow. Someone was in the bedroom. As he passed the window going to the bed Jimmy had enough of a target. He stepped out, the figure turned and Jimmy hit it hard.
The knuckles landed on the side of the face but it gave Jimmy a better sense of his target and he hit again hard. This time it landed square. The figure staggered towards the window, Jimmy moved in and felt a sharp pain under his left ribs. He ignored it. He moved slightly and hit again, this time with his right fist into the middle of the body. Something fell to the floor as the figure gasped and fell to its knees. Jimmy stepped behind, bent down, grabbed the head, slipped his hands round the neck then rammed his knee into the figure’s back as he pulled and twisted. Something cracked and the body went limp.
He let it slip out of his hands and it slumped onto the floor. Jimmy stood back and breathed deeply for a moment, then went and switched on the light. It was a swarthy, youngish man in a light suit. Jimmy bent down and felt his pulse. There wasn’t one.
‘Shit.’
He was out of practice, he hadn’t meant to break his bloody neck. Then he saw the knife beside the body with blood on the blade. He looked down at his side below his ribs. It was his blood and there was more coming out of the wound the knife had made. He pressed his hand onto the blood and
went and sat on the bed. He picked up his mobile with his free hand from the bedside table and keyed in a number with his thumb.
‘Hello, it’s me. I know what fucking time it is. Listen, I think you’d better get over here, I just killed someone. Yes, you heard right, I killed a bloke. I broke his neck. How would I know who he is? He broke in, came at me with a knife and I broke his neck. Look, can we hurry this up and leave explanations till later, only the knife got used and I’m bleeding.’ He looked down, his hand over the wound wasn’t doing much good. The blood was seeping from between his fingers and from under his palm and running down his side. There was already a stain on the bedclothes. ‘I’m making a mess of your cousin’s sheets. You better bring an ambulance with you.’ He put the mobile down and looked under his bloody hand. He was bleeding all right. Then he looked at the corpse on the floor. ‘And what the fuck were you playing at?’
He took another look at his wound and the blood that had run down his side. There seemed a lot of it and the pain was kicking in. He hoped the ambulance would get here soon. He pulled the sheet up and put it over the wound and pressed with his hand, then looked back at the body.
He was too old for rough-stuff, too old and too out of practice. He hadn’t meant to kill him, killing people got you noticed. He’d got his hands in the wrong place on his neck, that’s what it was, just got his hands in the wrong place. He lay back on the bed beside the pillows. That’s all it was, when his knee hit and he pulled it just snapped his neck. His mind began to drift. Why hadn’t the stupid bastard brought a knife with him and come in through the open bedroom window? Silly sod.
And with that considered judgement on the uninvited visitor, now dead on his bedroom floor, Jimmy slowly passed out.
Chapter Thirteen
When Jimmy came round he was in hospital with a bandage round his middle which showed a dark stain on the left side where the knife had gone in. Suarez was sitting on the edge of his bed. Standing behind her, leaning against the wall of the room, was a squat, sad-looking man of about Jimmy’s age. He had greasy black hair, was wearing a badly-fitting suit, and looked as if he had always been there and could go on standing there for ever. The sad man looked on impassively as Suarez told Jimmy the knife had gone deep but hadn’t done any serious damage. He’d been lucky, the doctor said. A bit more to the right and the world would have been short one James Cornelius Costello. It was a nasty wound and he had lost quite a bit of blood.
‘So when can I get out of here?’
‘No, you can’t. You’re all stitched up,’ she smiled, ‘but not in your London police sense. There’ll be quite a bit of pain if you try to move and –’
‘So when can I get out of here.’
‘Yes, I thought you might be like that. The doctor has agreed, after considerable persuasion, that you can leave as soon as you genuinely feel up to it. But he insisted you should rest up and even when you can get about you should keep walking to a minimum until you’ve had the stitches out. The doctor says you should stay home and rest. So I guess you need a home.’
Jimmy looked past Suarez to the sad man.
‘Is that what he’s here for? Is he going to give me a home? I can’t very well go back to your cousin’s place, it’s a crime scene.’
‘He’s my boss. He’s here because he wants to talk to you.’
‘So why doesn’t he say something?’
‘Because he doesn’t speak English.’
‘Then he’s fucked isn’t he, because I don’t speak Spanish.’
‘No, Jimmy, he’s not fucked, because I’ll translate. Don’t try and be a hard case, you’re not up to it today and won’t be for quite a few days more. Be good, co-operate.’
Jimmy tried to pull himself up in the bed so he could get into a sitting position but quickly gave it up. The doctor was right, it was very painful. Suarez saw what he wanted. She slipped off the bed, stood over him, put her arms under his and pulled him up gently so he was sitting. It was still painful but he didn’t mind, he got the smell of her hair, it was nice, and while she was holding him he felt her breast press against him. She was strong, he thought, not that it mattered, but it stopped him thinking about other things she was.
Once he was sitting up Suarez arranged the pillows behind him then began to act as interpreter for her boss, who had suddenly come to life. He left the wall to hold itself up and started to ask his questions. They went through the events of the night before. All Jimmy knew was that he heard a noise, got up, did what he did and the guy’s neck got broken by accident. He had only meant to hurt him enough to keep him quiet, to disable him. It was an accident. But Jimmy got the distinct impression that the detective found that hard to believe. He felt that way because telling it out loud made it sound hard to believe, even to himself, and he had been there. When the detective had finally finished, he told Suarez to tell Jimmy not to leave Santander and surrender his passport at the nearest police station, then he left.
Suarez began to follow him but at the door she stopped.
‘Call me when you want to leave and I’ll come and get you. But remember, don’t be a hard case, co-operate and make sure you’re sufficiently mended before you leave otherwise you’ll be straight back in.’
Then she left and a nurse looked in so Jimmy asked for coffee.
He spent the rest of the morning sitting still and trying to let his mind be blank. He wanted to be out of hospital as soon as possible and knew that meant resting up the wound so that was what he did. While he was at it he tried to rest up his mind as well. He rested, dozed, woke up, drank some orange juice which had appeared by his bed, then rested some more. The doctor came and took off his bandage and examined his stitches, seemed satisfied and left the nurse to put on a new bandage, a nice white one with no dark stain. He ate some soup and drank coffee and the day slowly passed.
That night he dreamed, a confused dream in which he could never get to where he was going, partly because no one would tell him where it was that he was going and partly because of locked doors to which only McBride had the keys. She looked at him through windows that wouldn’t open and he glimpsed her down corridors or across crowded rooms. But she was always gone when he got there and the door through which he could follow her was always locked. He woke twice and twice went back to sleep but the dream, changed but not really any different, persisted until he woke once more and it was morning.
The nurse eventually came in, opened the curtains and spoke to him in Spanish. He smiled, he was co-operating. He had orange juice and coffee for breakfast then he was left alone. He decided his mind had rested enough so he started going over things; Jarvis, Mercer, Henderson, his night-time attacker, but somehow the smell of Suarez’s hair and the feel of her breasts against him kept on pushing themselves in and he had to keep pushing them out again. He forced himself to think of McBride’s command delivered by her tame Monsignor and his talk to Perez. It all had to fit together somehow, but how? He thought about Jarvis being shot, Jarvis in prison and Harry in prison, he thought about it all until they brought him a light lunch. He tried to eat it but it was a tough struggle. It was fish, but it wasn’t good fish. After lunch he slept again and this time there were no dreams, at least none that he could remember. Late in the afternoon he woke, thought some more, then slept again. After a while he woke again, ate another light meal, which wasn’t fish this time, thought some more, then slept and dreamed another frustrating and confused dream in which he was looking for Suarez and McBride was always getting in the way.
Then, suddenly, a new day began.
He stuck it out until lunch. It was the lunch that had made him call Suarez. It was fish again. He could look at it, just, but there was no way he could eat it, and he was getting hungry. She came and helped him dress and then took him in a wheelchair down to her car where the nurse who was with them helped her get Jimmy in. The nurse and Suarez spoke then Suarez got in and they drove off.
‘She was asking me if I had a wheelchair for you at the
other end. I told her I did.’
‘Do you?’
‘No. You’ll have to use the lift. Think you can manage it? If you die on me all hell will break loose.’
‘Then I’ll try not to die on you.’
Suarez stopped her car outside a block of apartments which stood among other blocks of apartments. She helped him out of the car and got him, slowly, to the lift. Then they went up to her apartment where she sat him down in the living room and put a small stool under his feet. Jimmy lay back in his chair and closed his eyes. It had been a short car ride, a few steps to a lift and then a few more into the apartment, but it had made him feel like shit and told him how weak he really was. Suarez peeled open his shirt and examined the bandage. It seemed all right, no blood stain had appeared.
‘It seems …’
But when she looked at him he was asleep. She pulled his shirt closed and left, closing the door quietly behind her. When she came back half an hour later Jimmy was still in the chair and still asleep, so she left him to recover from his premature exit from the hospital. He was asleep, not dead, so all hell hadn’t broken loose. Not yet.
When Jimmy opened his eyes, on the table beside him was his jacket. On top of it was a bulging carrier bag from which hung a sock. Suarez came into the room from the kitchen and saw him looking at it.
