Darkness & Light: A Frank Elder Mystery (Frank Elder Mysteries)

by John Harvey

  BY THE TIME PRIOR HAD HAD ENOUGH IT WAS ALMOST evening. According to the Barcelona police, a complaint had been lodged against Wayne Johns, but was later withdrawn. She was just leaving the building when she heard her cell phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Maureen?”

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s Ben. Ben Leonard.”

  It took her several seconds to realize who he was. “Dowland,” she said. “Something’s happened?”

  “No. That’s not why I’m calling.”

  She pictured him leaning back easily in his chair, phone in hand; the gold ring, the bleached blond hair.

  “Then why?”

  “I thought you might fancy meeting? A drink, maybe?”

  She broke the connection, dropped the phone down into her bag, and hurried on toward her car.

  Chapter 29

  ELDER SAW THEM AT THE AIRPORT, RAMSHACKLE GROUPS of young men and women, red-eyed from lack of sleep, shambling back into the working week after two days and nights of heavy drinking and relative abandon. “Mel’s Hen Party, May 7th–8th, 2005.” “Big Coz’s Stag Weekend—Away the Lads!” An amiable ginger-haired man of six foot two or three, unshaven, a tattered bridal veil on his head, launched into a chorus of “Jerusalem” as he came through customs, fell to his knees, and kissed the ground.

  Elder was glad he was travelling in the other direction.

  The plane was no more than two-thirds full, its passengers a mix of business types with laptops and lightweight suits, and holidaymakers in the early years of retirement, some of these, from conversations Elder overheard, with apartments they kept up year-round.

  Alternately, he dozed and read his book. Only when he saw, looking down past the wing onto the Pyrenees, the mountains pushing up jaggedly through clouds in a burst of light, did he feel the stirrings of going somewhere new and strange.

  The airport at Barcelona was airy and surprisingly uncluttered, more Stansted than Heathrow. He used his card to get euros from an ATM machine, treated himself to a large glass of freshly squeezed mango and orange juice, and followed the signs to the metro. The train was quite crowded but air-conditioned, and he stood, resting back against one of the seats, rehearsing his questions to Juan Carlos Ruiz and running over what he knew already about Wayne Johns.

  THE MAIN STREET, THE RAMBLAS, WAS WIDE AND LONG and lined with cafés and bars, shops and hotels. A broad pedestrianized area along the centre was studded with kiosks selling everything from newspapers and magazines to cockatiels and parakeets. At intervals, between clusters of café tables and chairs, a motley collection of jugglers, men on stilts, and human statues panhandled as best they could. Signs in several languages warned visitors about falling for variations of the old three-card trick.

  Look for the market, the instructions had said, on the same side as the opera house; just beyond the market entrance take a right. The Hotel Miro, ask for me at the desk.

  As it happened, there was no need. An ample man with a full beard, wearing a burnt orange shirt and a green and yellow tie, stepped forward as Elder entered.

  “Mr. Elder. It is Mr. Elder? Welcome to Barcelona. Welcome to my hotel.”

  He squeezed one of Elder’s hands in both of his.

  “Here, let me take your bag. There is a very nice room on the fourth floor. Why don’t you take a little time to freshen up? I will meet you down here in, shall we say, one hour? Then we may talk.”

  Maureen Prior had been right; his English, naturally accented, was close to perfect.

  THERE WAS A FRAMED REPRODUCTION OF A PAINTING ON the wall opposite the bed: a bright blue background on which, it seemed, a small child armed with a white pencil had drawn his impressions of the moon and stars. Elder took a shower and changed his clothes. Just time to stretch out on the bed. Not meaning to, he slept.

  Waking dazed from the indistinct clamour of a dream, he feared he had slept too long, but it had been no more than fifteen minutes, maybe less. Ruiz was waiting downstairs, chatting pleasantly to the white-shirted young woman at the desk.

  “Come. Let us go.”

  They crossed the Ramblas, passing into a network of narrow streets that eventually opened out onto an attractive misshapen square. Sunlight spilled down the front of the facing building, red and orange flowers hung behind wrought-iron balcony railings, and, just visible in shadow, small birds perched colourful and silent in their cages. Below were a dozen or so café tables beneath a canopy and, on the near side of the square, several painters were displaying their work beneath large white umbrellas, views of the city and its architecture vying with pastiche Picasso.

  “Here,” Ruiz said. “This way.”

  He steered Elder toward the entrance of a narrow bar, on past several young men drinking espresso in the doorway, and into the dark and cool interior. Black-and-white tiles on the floor.

  Behind the counter, a short man in a blue polo shirt broke off his conversation to greet Ruiz enthusiastically and shake his hand. Ruiz laughed and said something in Spanish Elder failed to understand. Spanish, or was it Catalan?

  Different kinds of olives sat plump under glass on white china trays, on either side of them more trays filled with sausage and tomatoes, squares of cheese, fried chicken wings, anchovies—or were they simply small sardines?—chopped onion, fingers of green chilli. At the centre of the counter there was a tall pump with ornate gold taps for drawing beer and, farther along, bananas and oranges were piled higgledy-piggledy beneath a shelf of pastries and croissants.

  When had he last eaten?

  Ruiz led the way up a short flight of stairs and offered Elder a seat at the first table, looking out.

  A young couple, oblivious of all else, sat by the back wall, morosely holding hands. To the right, an elderly man with a leathered face read the newspaper and smoked a cigarette.

  There were heavy, green-leaved plants in corners, small paintings and photographs covering almost every inch of wall; despite the brightness outside, the globed lights descending from the ceiling were switched on, shining a dull yellow; an old-fashioned fan turned slowly overhead.

  One of the waiters brought them a plate of mixed tapas and a basket of bread, slender glasses of cold beer.

  “So,” Ruiz said, lighting a small cigar, “Senor Johns.”

  Elder broke off a piece of bread.

  “You know,” Ruiz said, “when I first met him it was in here, this bar. I have been coming here for, oh, more than twenty years. I know everyone, apart from the tourists, and there are few of those who venture this far inside; they prefer to sit out in the sun. So this day I was sitting here, my usual place, and I notice this man standing downstairs, drinking brandy, Spanish brandy, and talking to anyone who would listen in a mixture of English and Portuguese with a few words of Catalan for good measure.

  “Finally, just as I am about to leave, he comes up to me here and says they have been talking about me downstairs and from what he has heard he thinks there is business we can do together. ‘What kind of business is this?’ I ask. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I believe you are in the hotel business and in need of a partner.’

  “‘What I’m in need of,’ I tell him, ‘is someone who’s prepared to work twenty-three hours a day for a roof over his head and enough food so that he won’t starve.’

  “‘Exactly!’ he says, and holds out his hand. ‘Wayne Johns. Good to meet you. Unless I’m mistaken, this is a great day for both of us.’”

  Ruiz laughed. “I took him to the hotel, the one where you are staying. Then—this is what? Sixteen, seventeen years ago—then it was a burned-out shell, little more. When he saw it, Johns rubbed his hands. ‘Twenty-three hours a day is right,’ he said, ‘if we’re going to be open for next summer.’”

  Ruiz ate an olive, drank some beer.

  “Two years later, he was my partner. Why not? He worked hard, he knew wood, he knew marble, he knew stone, what he didn’t know he was prepared to learn. And most of the time he was good company; he told go
od stories, at least some of which—a few—were true.”

  “He was a friend,” Elder said.

  Ruiz spat an olive pit into his hand. “We would share a drink at the end of the day, sometimes a meal, but always, almost always at work, at the hotel, sometimes here, but that was all. He did not come often to my home.”

  “Why was that?”

  “My wife, she did not feel comfortable with him there.”

  Elder waited.

  “She said the way he looked at her, at all women, it was the way men look at beasts when they are at market, for sale, weighing them with his eyes. Before the abattoir.”

  “You think she was right?”

  Ruiz shrugged heavy shoulders and leaned back in his chair. Not speaking, the young couple walked past them and down the stairs. “To some extent, all men, we look at women in this way. I think it is true. Perhaps it is from our history, I don’t know. And Johns, he liked women. Not girls, young girls, twenty, twenty-two, twenty-three, but women, real women. He loved them. Sought out their company. And then he would be charming. Charming, in his way. And his way was always, how shall I say, a little rough. A little—I don’t know—not as if to say he came from the gutter, not that, but as if, although he had money and good, expensive clothes, underneath he was just an ordinary working man. A peasant, even, but not quite that, either. It is difficult to explain.”

  Ruiz leaned closer and lowered his voice. “My wife and I, we have been married for more than twenty years. In that time I have had a few, shall we say, adventures. Not many. Not as many as most men I know. A few. And I think I have learned enough to know there are times with a woman you must show a little tenderness and times when you must show a little strength, even a little force. But never the one without the other. At least that is what I think.”

  Leaning back again, he drank more beer.

  “For Johns, I think, the balance was not there.”

  “He liked to inflict pain.”

  “Yes. And some women—I don’t know—I don’t know why—they find this attractive. It was as if, once they knew, knew what he could be like, they sought him out. There had been a woman, I think, in Portugal, one in particular. I never learned the whole story, but perhaps she pushed him further, to do more and more things. In the end, I think she was one of the reasons he left. I think, even, he was becoming a little bit afraid.”

  “Of what he might do?”

  Ruiz nodded slowly. “Of what he might do.”

  “And here?” Elder said. “Here in Spain?”

  Ruiz turned in his chair and called down for more beer. The man sitting opposite them folded his newspaper closed and lit another cigarette. The conversation from the bar below was quite animated and loud.

  “A year,” Ruiz said, “after the hotel opened—and it was a success, a big, big success—I began to talk with some people about something new, a new venture, a conference centre, close to the Placa Espanya. One of these people, he was a minister, you know, in government. There are always certain permissions, paths that have to be smoothed—it is good to have someone in authority, you know, as a friend, someone who can say yes when others might say no.”

  The beer arrived and Ruiz paused.

  Elder ate more sausage and cheese.

  “The minister,” Ruiz said, “he had a wife. She and Johns, they began an affair. In secret, of course, at first, but after a while it was as if she no longer cared. She would take Johns and flaunt him in front of her husband. Once, at the hotel, he was there with me having dinner. There had been discussions, concerning the conference centre, important discussions, four or five people, and she came up to the table—she had been drinking, perhaps taking something, I don’t know, drugs maybe, maybe not—anyway she comes right up to him, her husband, we are all sitting there, and she pulls down the straps of her dress and she shows him the marks—bruises on her neck and arms and breasts—and says, ‘This is what he did to me, my lover, you see? That’s what a man can do.’ And he slapped her and she spat back at him and laughed in his face.

  “After that, I don’t know, he did everything he could to get his wife to stop seeing Johns. Begged her to think of his position, of their children; she told him she was leaving him, she wanted a divorce. He refused. There was a public scene in which he challenged Johns to a duel. The police heard of this and intervened. Meanwhile, because people knew of his associations with me, they were having second thoughts about my scheme. Finally, what I believe happened, the minister offered Johns money, a lot of money, if he would leave his wife alone, break off the affair.”

  “And that’s what he did? He agreed?”

  “So I believe.”

  “And the wife, she accepted this?”

  Ruiz ran his finger down through the condensation on his glass. “She took her own life. An overdose. And, to be sure, she cut her wrists. The minister, he found her in the bath.”

  “And the scheme? For the conference centre?”

  “It went ahead.” Ruiz shrugged. “It was business, after all.”

  Chapter 30

  FROM MAUREEN PRIOR’S POINT OF VIEW, THE ONE CLEAR benefit of Wayne Johns’s early life being as it was—a litany of minor offenses, council homes, and foster care—was that, though messy, it was traceable. Sad—if she allowed herself for a moment to dwell on it, almost unbelievably sad—but somewhere on file.

  One of her team was tracking back to see if there was anything usable, anything that might throw a little more light on where they were now. More urgently, now that she knew of Johns’s involvement, she had officers contacting anyone and everyone who had been present at the DTI conference eight years before, those whom Elder had not already spoken to. What she needed was some way of putting Johns and Irene Fowler together during that time, something more than the mere fact they had been under the same roof.

  Sitting in her office, late into the afternoon, she thought of Johns and the time they had gone to question him in his penthouse apartment, the cockiness of him in his undershirt and shorts. The smugness she’d have liked to wipe from his face.

  Well, between whatever Elder was discovering abroad and what she hoped her team might uncover here, in a few days they might have enough to do exactly that.

  She pushed back her chair, stretched her arms out wide and arched her back; she’d been sitting in the same position for too long. As she got to her feet, one of the officers called to her from across the room. “This bloke, been waiting downstairs for you best part of an hour now.”

  “Which bloke?”

  “I don’t know. Some bloke. I thought you knew.”

  BEN LEONARD WAS SITTING LESS THAN COMFORTABLY on a hard plastic chair with metal legs, one of his arms angled sharply upward so that his hand clasped the back of his neck; in his other hand he held a skimpy paperback. He was wearing a maroon overshirt, black T-shirt, loose gray combat trousers, and a pair of New Balance running shoes. When he saw Prior, he smiled.

  “Nobody told me you were here,” she said.

  Leonard dipped his head. “Figured you were busy,” he said. “Catching up with my reading. No sweat.” For a moment, he held up the book. “You know this?”

  Squinting a little, Prior read the title—Love and Fame—and shook her head.

  “Poetry,” Leonard said. “John Berryman?”

  Prior shook her head again. Poetry was one of the other things she didn’t do.

  “He was a drunk. Berryman. A crazy drunk. American. A professor. Manic-depressive all his life.”

  “Sounds a lot of fun.”

  Leonard unwound his arm from behind his head. “It gets better. Or worse. His father was always threatening to kill him; take him into the sea and drown him. Drown the pair of them together.”

  “Nice man.”

  “Finally he killed himself, the father. Shot himself.”

  “And what’s-his-name? Berryman? The son?”

  “John.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “Jumped to his d
eath off a bridge over the Mississippi River. Misjudged it by all accounts, missed the water and landed on the bank.”

  “And that’s what you’re reading about?” An image of someone falling flickered behind Prior’s eyes.

  “Sort of. I mean, that’s not what it’s all about. Not directly. And it’s funny, a lot of it. Very funny. It needs to be. But, yes, he wrote a lot about dying. Not surprisingly. Death by water. Suicide.”

  “It’s research, then? For you, I mean.”

  Leonard smiled wryly. “Isn’t everything?”

  He slid the book into one of the pockets of his combats as he got to his feet. “Where are we going?”

  “Who says we’re going anywhere?”

  Leonard glanced around. “This place has just about outlived its welcome, don’t you think? You must have been here—what?—six hours already. Maybe seven.”

  “Make it eight.”

  “All the more reason.”

  “For what, exactly?”

  “Coming for a drink.”

  IT WAS WHAT? NOT A CLUB, NOT JUST A BAR. THE furniture, comfortable enough, was generally old and scarred. Cigarette burns in the vinyl of the settee on which she perched uncomfortably. The place busy for early evening, Prior thought, the beginning of the week. Black, Asian, white. Quite a few men who looked as if they might be gay. Is that what Ben Leonard was? Gay? The earring. The bleached blond hair. She didn’t think so. A lot of men wore earrings nowadays. And besides, the way she’d seen him looking at her once or twice. Not hiding it. Her breasts. Her neck. Prior wishing she were somewhere else, anywhere, but if not, if she had to be there, that she were wearing something other than that old faded top and the shapeless cords she’d been threatening to replace for six months now at least.

  Leonard had left her there to go to the bar and got stalled on his way back with the drinks, laughing and talking with a couple he knew, the woman beautiful, Prior could see that, dark hair pulled back off her face, light honeyed skin, her hand touching the back of Leonard’s wrist as she spoke.