The implications of the author route terrified. Her fears came in halves. Might she lose her investigative instincts and, most significantly, her connections? What if she could write nothing people wanted to buy?
She'd researched other journalists who'd sought authorial success. From her own analysis of the evidence, she was clear: most never investigated again, whether they failed or succeeded as authors. The author route was a one-way street. She would have to prosper because there was no going back. Which raised the hoary chestnut: how many writers earned a living from their writing? The answer: not many.
To provide balance against these arguments, there was the irrefutable evidence of her increasing apprehension about the risks she ran with her investigative reporting. She'd never told Ana, but she'd been shit-scared when forced to meet Andrei in Benidorm. She knew, from her friends Helga and Freja, he was capable of viciousness. This had scared them so much, the one time it burst through when Andrei had visited them in Oslo, they'd sworn never to see him again. Dangers existed for those delving into and reporting on corruption. Worse, fear could paralyse an investigator's progress.
Yet she couldn't discount the buzz-factor. How could sitting in a tiny Oslo apartment and hatching fiction compare with the thrill of digging up facts, tracking down dirt on the corrupt and publishing the truth?
This was her dilemma.
One part wished to end the stresses of the investigative chase and indulge, to explore if she could create original writing. Another part craved the kicks, the ever-present uncertainty about what might happen next, which accompanied corruption investigations.
She couldn't deny it. She was a tension junky.
She kicked the wall in frustration, then remembered it wasn't hers to dent. Her own apartment retained many shallow craters where she'd vented her irritation. She'd hurt her toes more than once, obliging her to stop running. It was her good fortune this place was too dilapidated for Iphi to notice a new dimple in the skirting.
Irresolute, Kjersti continued to fail in solving her predicament.
Ydra (Greece)
Two days later, his final report emailed, Davide awaited its formal acceptance. That would signal he could leave. While he would miss the panoramic views and the people on Ydra, he was stir-crazy.
Instead of Tbilisi or Yerevan, he'd called his Uncle Toño and invited himself to Marbella. Tio Toño had sounded both upset and pleased; upset that Davide called so little and pleased he'd have Davide's company. In Marbella, Davide would weigh up whether to seek out Ana.
One factor discouraged. He had a specific fish to catch: in melodramatic terms, the rest of his life. He felt oppressed by technology, or at least by the type of work he'd been doing. In his observation, there came a time when fascination with technology melted away. He'd seen the same in finance – successful investment bankers who, burnt out by their early forties, sought less stressful ways to earn a living.
His issue was what could he do to remain occupied and paid? Yes, he had an eighteen-month financial cushion thanks to this Greek sequestration. He retained a sizable portion of his HolyPhone rewards, though he'd wasted far too much on his abortive Australian bid to make a life with Caterina.
Within five years, he needed a new challenge which would please him. What such a challenge might be, he hadn't a clue. But recognising there was an issue represented step one.
Step two was to decide. Tio Toño might have suggestions. His elderly brain remained bright and he was a wise old bird. He would delight if Davide committed to Spain.
His laptop pinged. An email delivered acceptance of his report and acknowledged receipt of the final invoice for his work and expenses, multiple donkeys included. He could leave.
In minutes, he'd booked flights and a car rental for Malaga airport. Today, he'd finalise his packing and box up the systems which weren't his own. Tomorrow, he'd order several donkeys, catch the early hydrofoil to Piraeus and fly to Malaga via Madrid. By early evening, he should be enjoying his first drink with tio Toño in far too long a time.
He sat back in his chair on the terrace to inspect the dark clouds assembling over the Peloponnese. A storm brewed. He hoped it wasn't a Greek omen. A crash of thunder followed a bolt of lightning.
The tempest was clearly heading towards Ydra. It put paid to any thought of staying online. Better to go inside.
He closed his laptop and disconnected all his electronics. He didn't wish to offend the gods at this late stage, especially when Zeus was having a bad day.
Yuste (Spain)
Inma had arrived on Saturday. Monday had produced her first insight. Tuesday and Wednesday brought no progress. She'd played and replayed her doubts, searching for the breakthrough.
Despair suffused her. She restarted, from Miriam's unanticipated departure.
There was no denying it: Miriam's leaving had shocked Inma to her core. With hindsight, Inma saw its inevitability. In her own urgency to restart her life and establish her own re-insurance business, she'd neglected Miriam. Indifference diminished their haze of sensuality. Intimacy had worn thin.
Though never fond of New Jersey, Miriam had a house and family there, her sister, Judith, and Judith's three children. They were refugees from Judith's Israeli husband. For Miriam, the pull of familiarity and family won when compared to a relationship built on declining sensuality.
Inma couldn't condemn Miriam. If she faulted anybody, it had to be herself. She'd not understood what a 'relationship' involved. Being 'married to Christ' within Opus was no rehearsal.
Inma's two sisters had warmed to Miriam and rejoiced in Inma's liberation from Opus. The months after Miriam's departure brought prolonged misery. They'd tried to provide succour. Most occasions, their good efforts had failed.
By coincidence, it was on one of these 'comfort' occasions that she'd run into her younger cousin. Her sisters had pressured Inma to join them for an evening out. During this, she'd re-encountered Ana at the obligatory nightclub, for her sisters loved the good life.
Ana had been with work colleagues on a typical American 'corporate evening for team building'. One colleague, by an improbable coincidence, had been the same Davide who'd helped disentangle Inma's HolyPhone deceits. In an instant, she'd trusted him again. He was unusual – he didn't judge.
Yet it was Ana who had been the revelation. From a basis of prior antipathy founded in Ana's dislike of Opus, Inma had warmed to her younger cousin as Ana became involved in the emerging political corruption volcano, now known as Corruption's Price. When the eruption had arrived, Ana and Davide were enmeshed, as were Davide's sometime girlfriend Caterina and her fellow Australian workmate, Emilia. The latter, as Inma had experienced, turned out to be the bi-sexual queen of the one-night stand. Once the volcano had lost its fire, and before she'd headed back to Australia, Emilia and Inma had enjoyed one hedonistic weekend at the finca. For Inma, this had laid the ghost of Miriam to rest.
The most unexpected outcome of the reconnection with Ana was Davide's recommendation that Inma persuade Ana to join her in her re-insurance business. For Inma, this made business sense. Ana was smart, clever, shrewd and restrained. They'd worked well together.
It was ironic, just as Ana's discipline took maximum effect, it was Inma herself who turned out to be too-clever-by-half. Despite Ana's well-founded doubts, Inma broke almost every rule in the book by re-insuring selected premium producers of Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
Disastrously, this had coincided with a plot to devastate a large part of the Spanish olive industry via an artificial mass attack of the olive fruit fly pest. Its purpose had been for the flies to procreate in millions of olive groves and ruin a harvest, thereby assuring two Russian crooks of millions. At first, the plan had succeeded. Then it had failed, and cost Inma.
She hastened the clock forward. One of her clients had foiled the ruination scheme, a small but prestigious olive oil producer where one of its principals was a wisp of a Canadian ex-investment banker named Lili. From their first meeting, I
nma was drawn to Lili. Both possessed intense wills to succeed in business. In Lili's case, her delight lay in consummating new deals. This contrasted with Ana, who was cautious deliberation incarnate.
Not long after the wretched Kjersti released the whole olive pest story upon an unsuspecting world, Ana had resigned from Inma's firm. With no warning, Ana had decided, or so Inma's sisters reported, to retreat to explore an unexpected inheritance. This, of all things after the excesses of the fly plague, included a pair of olive oil farms and a library.
Inma's loss of Ana as a business partner crashed in at the worst moment. The olive oil involvement errors Inma had made almost sank the business.
Her saviour, to her surprise, was Lili. As clients became scarce, Lili had appeared in Inma's office. Sick of her participation in Olivos Ramos y Tremblay, Lili had agreed on a buy-out by her ex-partner and his new flame, María. For Inma, María was almost as awful as Kjersti.
Lili was looking for work to keep her away from her native Canada. Inma wanted to explore Lili's ambiguous sexuality, which attracted her. Yet Lili had thwarted Inma's advances with a graceful candour. She'd rather be in business than in bed with Inma.
To her surprise, Inma had seized the opportunity to replace Ana, a decision which had proven to be a spectacular success. It was more than Inma could ever have imagined. Lili was a true go-getter. The re-insurance world loved her. New deals rolled in.
But...
Inma took a long breath. She drew it deep into the pit of her lungs as she'd taught herself from her study of yoga techniques. She held it and then exhaled to relax.
A light shone. A sunbeam.
A shaft of light streamed into the chapel from the overhead window.
What did Inma miss?
Yes, there was the loss of excitement of exploring a new sexual partner, though not in Emilia's crazy one-night-stand way. Yes, there were the personal friendships, like those with Davide and more so with Ana, whose companionship Inma missed more and more. There was the vindication associated with escaping the cloying arms of Opus: it had claimed to liberate but had crushed her within its secret society theocracy, all the while suppressing her natural self.
That fleeting sunbeam brought forward the image of Fra Angelico's Annunziazione in the Prado, with its golden ray falling on the Virgin Mary. The painting had moved her on a recent visit.
She lost conscious control. Her mind's eye refocused, but shifted to the strange panel of Bosch's Four Visions of the Hereafter, a fifteenth-century painting in Venice she adored for its startling sci-fi-like tunnel leading to a gleaming Heaven.
She gasped.
She saw what had eluded her since she'd convinced Miriam that Opus and thus the Church no longer mattered.
In one sense Inma had been right: they didn't.
In another Miriam was.
Inma had missed the point.
She'd rejected Opus. She'd no qualms about this, despite its help when she'd needed it. The price, the payment that ensued, had been fearful.
She'd rejected the Church.
For that she'd no regrets. It had as many sins at its doors as graces. She only had to recall how the Church had condoned, suggested, to Franco's acolytes that they rip Ana's grandmother away from her natural mother to give her to an unknown Nationalist sympathiser. Or the priests' abuse of children that Mariano had so feared.
It was not surprising her faith in the Catholic Church had evaporated.
Herein lay her error.
Miriam had understood all along, when she'd queried whether Inma could disown so much so fast.
It was her faith she'd rejected.
What she lacked was her God. Not the Church
She stood, and paused.
She moved to kneel at the smaller of the two pews, the one she'd never used.
With bent head she apologised to her Almighty. As she did so, a second ray of sun shone through the window from above. It hovered on her back, as if to impart a blessing, a confirmation of forgiveness, an expression of re-acceptance.
That evening, she bubbled with re-found enthusiasm. She opened a favourite Ribera del Duero. It tasted better than she remembered. She toasted her re-found Friend, vowing not to forget Him in future.
The world seemed a better place. It was if an unrecognised and burdensome baboon had skipped off her shoulder.
She wanted to celebrate.
She wanted to let everybody know what she'd rediscovered.
She was dying to share her happiness.
But who could she tell?
Lili? No, religiosity was not her forte.
Her sisters? A possibility. But they wrapped themselves in their growing families.
Miriam? One day, to thank her for her insight. It had taken almost three years for Inma to come to terms with herself.
Ana? She would either dispense polite noises or fail to comprehend. Inma wasn't sure. They didn't communicate these days. That eliminated Ana, to Inma's regret.
Who else was there?
Not many.
She had few friends these days. Before, they'd all been in Opus.
Davide? He would listen with care. He mightn't understand in his heart but he would indulge her elation and congratulate. Should she Skype him now? No. Another day.
For now she would share the bounty of this delicious Pago de Carraovejas with its true Maker. She refilled her glass. She toasted Him and celebrated.
Everything else could wait.
Muro de Alcoi (Spain)
Ana watched Alf drive off in his magnificent Mercedes. He'd done so much for her and still displayed concern. She adored him. Not only had he proved she and Davide weren't bound by consanguinity, but he'd negotiated the inheritance, which included this farm, her library and much more.
What still amazed them both was how her maternal grandmother was not her maternal great grandmother's blood daughter. She'd heard of Franco's complicity with the Catholic Church to wrench babies from Republican mothers to donate to barren Nationalist would-be mothers. She had never imagined she would be a beneficiary, though that was an inappropriate description.
Her thoughts trailed back to the previous evening. What would she do if Davide materialised on her doorstep?
She remained dumbfounded by her refusal to see him. Had she made the blunder of her life? No, she was sure not. Her hightailing here from Madrid had pushed her into combining the two inherited olive farms into one business. The pleasure accompanying this confirmed her decision to resign from Inma's firm.
One day, she would call Inma. Inma wasn't to blame for Ana's actions and Ana wouldn't permit herself the luxury of forgetting Inma's unstinting generosity. She'd needed Inma to prop her up after Davide disappeared when their joint involvement in the Corruption's Price scandal had ended.
She owed Inma an apology.
She extracted her mobile phone. She forced herself to scroll to Inma's number – before she took fright.
"Hola Ana. This is an unexpected if pleasant surprise."
"I wanted to apologise for being precipitous. I wasn't reasonable. I gave you next-to-no warning."
"I'm sure you had your reasons."
"I'm not sure they were good enough, at least not at that moment. It was a driven impulse."
"Driven? By what? Or who? Don't tell me! Davide?"
Ana quivered, half in horror and half in bemusement. The one person who could read her like a book, besides Davide himself, was Inma – most of all when it concerned Davide.
"By your silence, I guess I'm right? What happened?"
"Nothing."
"You're joking!"
"Well, he sent me an email saying he was arriving in Madrid and asking me out to dinner. I declined and fled to the Sierra de Mariola, to these olive farms. It's why I felt I had to resign. Again, I'm sorry for the upset."
Inma giggled
At which point Ana knew there would be no recriminations. Inma's giggle was rare and definitive; a giveaway. It meant Inma was relaxed and sheathed the
steel Ana had once had pointed at her and not liked.
"Do you know Lili has joined me? Of course you do. Families. She hasn't replaced you – she couldn't – but she's a deal-doing dynamo. You will laugh. I find myself catching what she doesn't quite complete. But business is so good, we've hired a professional administrator. He's nowhere in your league, but he frees up my time."
Ana experienced her second stab of relief. She'd feared she'd caused havoc in Inma's office. While Inma burbled on in good humour, Ana considered whether she should ask or not. If Inma could needle her about Davide, she could respond.
"And Lili?"
Inma's silences were another indicator. Nothing must have occurred, though Ana could have sworn blind Inma's interest in Lili didn't involve business.
"Come to Yuste. I'll tell you more. How about next weekend or the one after?"
"Okay. Or you could come here for a change and inspect my olives?"
"That would be different. I can manage that. Say in a couple of weekends?"
"Plan to arrive Friday afternoon and leave on Monday? Like I did with you when visiting Yuste."
"Sounds good. By the way, I have something I must share with you. Something important, and good. I can't tell you now. It needs saying in person."
They disconnected. Relief slipped through Ana. Her bad deeds hadn't turned as sour as she'd feared. Better still, it looked as if their friendship, an unintended victim of becoming Inma's business partner, might resume. Though that comment, about something to share only be in person, generated concern.
If she was solving problems, she should contact Kjersti. Well, no time like the moment.
She dialled. There was a curious extra sound before Kjersti's phone rang. No answer. Another time.
She returned to her weeding beneath her precious olive trees, all the while making a mental list of what she should do next. Not long after she'd replaced her phone in its protective case, it rang. Kjersti. Inevitably.
Resurrection (The Corruption Series Book 4) Page 8
