Corruption's Price: A Spanish Deceit

by Charles Brett

  By herself after he had departed and out-of-sorts, she almost wished Caterina was around, if only to tease. Yet the stupid sheila was away with her precious Davide, he introducing her to places in Spain he liked.

  Half-dressed and nervy, Emilia checked her smartphone, to find a message that she had not seen or heard go beep. From its arrival time she knew why – it had been in the middle of her romp with Alberto. No wonder.

  Emilia read the SMS with surprise. It was from Inma, asking if she and Caterina were free for a drink on Thursday. She replied with a certain nasty satisfaction, stating her delight about meeting up, though Caterina would be elsewhere.

  Now it was almost nine on Thursday evening. She had, unusually, been uncertain what to wear. It had to stand out, yet not overly.

  Some days earlier Emilia had indulged herself by buying something expensive and Spanish. In truth she had expected it to be another short dress. Instead she had found a skirt and jacket, almost a suit but better, along with a pale-green blouse that set off her colouring rather well. It was a touch severe, with the skirt's hem falling mid-calf rather than her usual mid-thigh. The sales assistant assured her, with her short hair, it made her look slender, taller and special. In the store mirror she could only agree.

  Just putting it on again encouraged a sense of anticipation, albeit with an edge. She had met Inma only once, and with Ana. That had been purely social. What was this about?

  To her surprise, Inma provided the address of a bar in a street not far from Ana's place.

  When she had pointed out the relative closeness, Inma had disarmed any concern with, "What does that matter?" This assertion she immediately undermined by adding, "Ana hates the place. I don't know why but when I once suggested it she flat out refused to go".

  By the time she reached the Trafalgar area Emilia was late, considerably later than she would have preferred. She was not going to rush and arrive looking uncool. That would destroy any impact the suit might have, especially if she had to remove the jacket to cool down. Damp sweat patches on pale green are rarely attractive.

  Outside El Minotaur were several tables ranging along a tree-lined street, almost a boulevard. Inma was at none of these. Emilia looked round before eventually spotting Inma inside chatting to what looked like a bearded waiter and a waitress of about Emilia's height. Both were dressed in grey, a sharp contrast to Inma's black jeans and a man's pink-striped shirt with a light jersey round her shoulders. No wonder the conversation was animated. They must be chatting her up, to the evident irritation of a couple of other bar staff who Emilia saw casting occasional envious glances at their colleagues' inactivity.

  Emilia approached. Reacting to the expressions of the waiter and waitress, Inma turned to greet Emilia. To the latter's chagrin, Inma said nothing about the dress. Instead she introduced Emilia to Toni and another Ana, the proprietors. They seemed young for this but welcomed her before withdrawing as good professionals should.

  They regarded each other. Emilia was off-put by the dark glasses that Inma was wearing even though it was night-time.

  After ordering their drinks, Inma said, "So how is everything with you? How are Caterina and Davide? Are they in Madrid?"

  "I think they're in León or maybe Burgos. I forget which. Davide's squiring Caterina and she looks bemused. She doesn't know how to play the role of girlfriend or lover or partner or sex buddy."

  As soon as Emilia made her last remark she regretted her vindictive-sounding words.

  Inma winced, "Isn't that a little harsh?"

  "You're right. I shouldn't have said it. I don't really think it. Sorry."

  "We all err. It's forgotten."

  "Thank you." Emilia was not convinced. Nor had she forgiven herself. "By the way, why are you wearing dark glasses? No offence, but to be honest, they're socially off-putting."

  "Now it's my turn to apologise." Inma took off the glasses for a moment, revealing one normal eye with the other being angrily red with an enormous pupil.

  Inma replaced the glasses, saying, "It's nothing serious, don't worry. I had eye surgery today to put in place a new varifocal lens. Next week, if all's well with this one, I'll have the other eye done. If that goes to plan, in about two-three weeks I'll have near normal eyesight and won't need glasses. But the key lies in the eye drops. I'll need to put something like 600 in over the next six weeks. But I can't stand the process. It always goes wrong for me. The drops miss my eye and wreck my make-up. But I must do it to avoid infection. Toni and Ana were helping me."

  "What are you going to do tonight? Tomorrow morning? Haven't you somebody with you?"

  "My sister accompanied me to and from the eye place this morning but she had to return to her own family. I thought I'd be able to cope. Truth is, I can't. I'm not sure what to do."

  "That's easy. Do you have a spare room? Right, I'll stay with you. No, no argument. We'll finish our drinks here, go back to Malasaña so I can pick up some necessaries. and go to your place afterwards.

  "Even better for you, I'd the same problem at uni but for an infected eye that needed antibiotic drops every hour. I was taught what to do. I thought I'd know. It seems so obvious. Yet I was told some people have real problems with eye drops. It took me a couple of days to learn a technique. I'll try teaching you what they taught me. I'll stay until you've got the hang of it."

  Inma clutched Emilia arms gratefully, saying, "Would you? You've no idea how much relief you'll provide."

  Turning she explained all to Toni, who refilled their glasses while adding his own thanks.

  "On the house. We're pleased Inma's will be in the hands of someone who's been through something similar."

  Friday: Valencia

  Beata knocked and entered Marta's office and said, "Señora, there is a delivery for you. I offered to sign for it but apparently it must be done by you and only you."

  "Curious. Let me see what needs to be done."

  She followed Beata to reception where a smart suited young man was waiting. He looked more like a professional than a delivery man.

  "Are you Señora Márquez? Do you have your identity card?"

  "Yes, if you'll wait a moment I'll fetch my purse."

  Marta fetched her DNI card from her office and presented it.

  Having noted the number on the delivery sheet, the man said, "Will you please sign here for this delivery?"

  She did so and accepted the attached envelope.

  Turning to Beata she said, "I wonder what all this is about."

  Back at her desk Marta opened the envelope to find a formal letter from the office of Juez Garibey de Williams of the Sala de lo Penal de la Audiencia Nacional citing her to appear before him in Madrid as a witness in connection with the affairs of Constructores Equilibris, ServiArquitectos and MMH. She was shocked beyond speech, not that there was anyone else in the room to speak to.

  After what seemed like an hour, but was probably far less, her concentration was interrupted by Beata opening the office door to ask permission to leave for lunch. When Beata saw Marta she could not help asking her employer if she was all right.

  "Yes, Beata. The delivery was a bit of a surprise. You go have your lunch."

  Marta muttered to herself, "What do I do now? Alfredo, I guess. At least this was probably ORS related, and nothing to do with that damned copy of my smartphone."

  But she couldn't be sure. All the more reason to talk with Alfredo. She placed the call.

  "Marta! How good to hear from you twice in one week and before we see you at the weekend. Or has something come up to change our weekend plans? Puri should be on her way by now."

  "Alfredo, that isn't why I'm calling. I've just signed for an instruction to appear before a Juez Garibey de Williams of the Sala de lo Penal de la Audiencia Nacional as a witness related to the affairs of CE, ServiArquitectos and MMH. Do you know of this Juez? What's this about? It must be ORS."

  "You're joking? No, you aren't. I can tell by the shock in your voice. Stop. Take a deep breath
. Now listen. Can you send me a copy of the documents?"

  "Better than that, I can image it and transfer it to you. Hang on." Taking out her smartphone, she took photos, which she despatched to Alfredo. "Can you see it?"

  "Yes. Hmmm. Well, from a first glance this must be about your dealings with ORS."

  "That was my first reaction. But what if it's not?"

  "How could it be otherwise?" What Alfredo did not volunteer was that Garibey had a crusading reputation, if a greatly diminished one. "Garibey's about to retire. I cannot believe it's anything serious. On the other hand, given the ORS connection, would you like me to represent you? No, that might not be a good idea as ORS is also seeking monies back from my firm. I need to do some checking. Don't fuss. I'll ensure that you have legal representation for when you appear before Garibey, just in case, you understand."

  "Thank you, Alfredo. You're calming me."

  "Meanwhile, I think we ought to do some more planning. It's fortunate that we're meeting in Valencia this weekend, especially as you're cited to appear next week. It also means that we can bring Puri into the loop."

  "I'm not sure what I'd do without you."

  "It's probably nothing serious, maybe ORS digging too deep. Relax, Marta. We'll have this under control in no time."

  He hoped.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The Questions Commence

  Sunday: Madrid

  It was with a certain malicious pleasure that Emilia told Caterina that she was staying with Inma. She could have added the detail about helping Inma with her eye drops, but deliberately chose not to. Emilia was sure the news wouldn't make Caterina happy. She was obscurely pleased at her retaliation. After all, she had been left out time and again by Caterina and Davide who still refused to tell her anything about what had occurred in Rome. That continued to bug her – badly.

  As for Inma, she was having genuine problems with the all-important eye-drops. Inma possessed a strong reflex instinct to close her eyes at just the moment of putting anything in them. On Friday evening and Saturday morning Emilia had needed to engineer surprise to succeed and success was required to prevent any infection establishing itself. Fortunately, using some exercises that Emilia had learned back home, Inma was finally making progress on self-dosing. Today Emilia had only needed to help a couple of times. The rest, and there were a complex mix of different drops at different intervals to handle, Inma was managing herself.

  Emilia wondered what would happen tomorrow, after the weekend. Inma had taken Monday and Tuesday off to relax and repair. Assuming there were no issues with the already operated-on right eye, the left one was to be 'done' on Friday. She proposed to take another couple of days off the following week.

  Looking round Inma's apartment, Emilia was struck by its combination of austerity and touches of luxury, like wonderfully comfortable chairs and sofas and a state of the art sound and TV system. She sat back, indulging herself and being quite happy that Inma was preparing a typically late, by Australian standards, Spanish lunch.

  So far the weekend had turned out to be pretty good, better than sitting alone in Malasaña with an occasional fling with Alberto if he allowed himself out. On the other hand, she and Inma had mostly talked about the inconsequential, and eyes, of course. She was pleased to be able to help. She wondered if Inma was looking for more.

  Yet Inma must be at least a decade older than herself, though in even better physical shape. They had talked about exercises. But Inma had been instructed to take it easy, so she was not allowed to show Emilia what she did to keep her figure so wonderfully firm.

  The only difficult moment yesterday had occurred when Miriam called, apparently to apologise for not being there during and after the eye operations. Inma, while trying to hide it, was clearly disappointed by something else that was said, or not said. Emilia hadn't asked more.

  Inma emerged from the kitchen: "Will you lay the table? We're almost ready. The implements, if I may call them that, are in the second drawer from the right in the dresser at the end of the dining room table. I thought we might be a little formal. Oh, and wine glasses are in the cabinet above."

  She disappeared back into the kitchen.

  By the time that Emilia had done as requested Inma had reappeared with a tray of various delicacies to pick at. These would, Emilia was told, be followed by individual shoulders of best Spanish cordero, reared in La Mancha or possibly Extremadura.

  "It looks and sounds delicious."

  "I hope so. Wine?"

  "Yes. Thank you."

  Emilia sipped at her glass. She hesitated. "Inma, what happened in Rome? Can you tell me anything? Davide and Caterina refuse to say more than occasionally mention the names of people who mean nothing to me."

  "You ask a horribly difficult question. In fact I can't really tell you that much. Well, I will tell you a little but I warn you that I may irritate because I will almost certainly provoke yet more questions which I won't be able to answer. The long and short is that I was part of a conspiracy to redirect some of the Vatican's revenues."

  "Redirect?" Emilia's eyes widened at this. "That sounds like doublespeak. You mean as in abstract, steal, take?"

  She wasn't sure how else to put it.

  "Essentially, yes, steal. But not for myself. For Opus Dei. How much do you know about Opus?"

  "Nothing."

  For the next hour or so Inma held Emilia spellbound as she described belonging to Opus, how it enabled her to work for herself as well as the benefit of Opus. She told Emilia about how she had been caught at Tel Aviv airport's security wearing a metal cilice. When it was clear that Emilia hadn't a clue what a cilice was she had explained it was a hidden, spiked chain worn under your clothes meant to remind believers they should suffer. The security people had thought it might be a weapon and had looked very puzzled when she tried to explain its significance. Both Inma and she had laughed and laughed at the absurdity.

  This broke the ice further and Inma was able to continue by describing the meeting with Miriam, how they had become lovers the day before Conor, Davide and Caterina caught up with them at Inma's finca outside Yuste (not that this place name meant anything to Emilia).

  "If you'd like to come with me one weekend to visit you'd be most welcome."

  "Sounds great. But what happened in Rome? What you describe was all in Spain, wasn't it?"

  "Pretty much. In Rome I'm on thin ice. Probably best is that we were caught, for Miriam was doing much the same as I but for her father's church. Because neither of us were taking any personal benefit and we cooperated, no more was said."

  "They let you off totally when you were ripping off the Catholic Church? How did you arrange that?"

  Inma winced at the clinical accuracy of the 'ripping off'.

  "I can't say much more. But now you know sufficiently little to whet your appetite. I see it in your face. Really, I can't tell you more. Only Davide can. Indeed, he was the key player throughout."

  Inma placed a sympathetic hand over Emilia's "You're frustrated. You shouldn't have asked and I shouldn't have mentioned what I did." Inma softened this with a sympathetic smile. "Changing the subject, I've a question for you, though you might think it intrusive."

  Inma stopped. She really wasn't sure of herself. Could she raise such a topic? Yet, especially after the call yesterday when Miriam had apologetically made it clear that there was minimal chance she would be back in Madrid any time soon and they both should get on with their own lives, her need to know more was becoming acute.

  "Yes?" prompted Emilia.

  "From what I understood from Caterina and Ana, you like men and women. You'll have understood from what I told you previously, Miriam has been my only lover, apart from one time as a teenager when I was pretty much raped by a Mexican boy on holiday camp. He was no lover. What's it like sleeping with a man? What's different between the two sexes?"

  Emilia sat rigid. No question could have surprised her more. All she could immediately think to say was, "Why
?"

  "Because my world is upside down. Am I looking in the wrong place? Would I be expecting the impossible? I've awful memories of that boy. I think you're the only person I've ever met who likes sex with both sexes."

  She was babbling, but at least this gave Emilia time to gather her thoughts.

  "I'm not sure you are asking the right person. I'm hopeless, a failure with relationships, though perhaps not quite as bad a Caterina."

  Inma looked disapproving.

  Emilia changed tack.

  "Only as long as you understand my own limitations, maybe then I can share some insights, though that sounds far too worthy."

  "I'd be grateful. I'm lost, you see. Miriam leaving really has upended me. Tell me."

  Emilia drew a deep breath, all the while wondering where this would go, or end.

  Monday: Sala de lo Penal, Madrid

  Juez Garibey was looking forward to this morning. As requested, the top financial executives of CE, MMH and ServiArquitectos were to appear in front of him today. Deliberately he had chosen the sequence. First he would see what CE and MMH had to say and whether they would cooperate with opening their full accounts.

  But it was with ServiArquitectos that his real hopes lay. Its equivalent executive had been around a long time and would know more than she would want to admit today. As so often, obtaining information during an investigation would be like drawing blood, for these large companies came equipped with armies of lawyers.

  After seeing all his staff were ready he entered his Sala to take his seat. Facing his own table was another longer table, with room for several people and with more chairs behind. The table was occupied by the Señor Enrique Ruelas of CE, with a lawyer on either side.

  After the opening courtesies and acknowledgements, Juez Garibey began. First he stated that this was a hearing to discover facts. He proceeded to confirm that CE was indeed a client of ORS. He next described how a number, he did not say how many or the value, of payments seemed to have been made by CE over several years in the past to a variety of companies. These payments seemed to be mostly duplicates of other payments or involved credit notes that CE did not reclaim. He continued that he was investigating the possibility that this was a mechanism to hide improper transactions. He added that he did not know if his investigations would lead to anything though it seemed there was a possibility that shareholders and possibly Hacienda, the state tax agency, were the ones to suffer.