Mac smiled contentedly as he settled into his chair, and looked around at the maze of tables. Little more than half of them were occupied, but that’s not bad for a Tuesday at that time of year. All the parasols were deployed. As well as providing shade during the day, they hold the heat in the evening. ‘God, you’re lucky,’ he exclaimed, his thick arms folded across a blue short-sleeved shirt that might as well have had M&S embroidered on the pocket. ‘When I think of what I left in Scotland. It chucked it down all the way to the airport.’
‘It rains here too, Grandpa,’ Tom told him. It was almost a protest; he’s very defensive of Catalunya and doesn’t believe there’s a single place on the planet that can improve on any aspect of its beaches, its food or its climate, good and bad. ‘Last month we measured three centimetres on Mum’s terrace in one night. There was thunder and lightning and everything.’
‘Didn’t it flood your mum’s bedroom?’
‘No, the terrace slopes and there’s a hole in the wall for the water to get out.’
‘So how did you know there was three centimetres? Did you measure them a millimetre at a time as the rain fell, with a tape?’
My son sighed at his grandfather’s apparent stupidity. ‘I’ve got a measuring box,’ he said. ‘Mum lets me keep it on her terrace because it’s the best place. I’ve got a wind gauge too, fastened to the chimney.’
‘Do you have to climb up there to read it?’
Tom laughed. ‘No. I’ve got a weather station in my room, it tells me everything. It tells me about wind speed, how much rain we’ve had, what the temperature is, what the humidity is, what the weather’s going to be like next. It’s great, Grandpa. Uncle Miles gave me it for my birthday. When he was young he worked on a weather station in Australia. I might be a weather man when I grow up, if I’m not a golfer, or a manager . . . or an actor, or have a wine shop like Ben.’
‘Yes . . .’ Mac began, just as the tall Antonio approached, bearing menus. He asked if we wanted drinks. Grandpa Blackstone said he could murder a beer, I said I could put one out of its misery too, and Tom pushed his luck by asking for a glass of sangria. There’s a non-alcoholic version that I make at home sometimes, but it’s not found in bars, so he settled for a squeezed orange juice.
‘As I was saying,’ Mac resumed, ‘who’s Ben?’ There was a raised eyebrow along with the question. Although they never say it straight out, I know that he and my dad would both like to see me with, shall we say, a man about the house. They don’t realise that’s something I’ll never do just for the sake of it.
‘Ben’s your friend Matthew’s stepson,’ I told him. ‘He’s settled in St Martí, and he runs a wee wine shop just down the hill there. He’s come up with an idea for a village wine fair; I’m involved with it, on the operational side.’
‘What does “operational side” mean?’
‘Helping to put all the bits together, sorting out town hall permissions, sales and marketing and stuff.’
‘Hah,’ he chuckled, ‘the ubiquitous “stuff” meaning all the things that everyone’s forgotten to do until the last minute. When’s this event going to happen?’
‘September. All the producers are signed up for it; all that we need at any rate.’
‘And you’ve got your permission sorted out?’
‘Yes, after some serious roadblocks, but don’t let’s dwell on them.’ I steered him away from the subject; Tom didn’t know anything about it, and I didn’t want him to, least of all about the death of Planas. I wasn’t worried that he might learn at school; homicide isn’t a playground topic in the third year of primary . . . well, not in L’Escala at any rate.
Antonio came back with the drinks and took our orders, one big tomato and mozzarella salad to be shared three ways, followed by steak for Mac, pinxo (kebab) for Tom, and spaghetti carbonara for me . . . I’d had a busy day, and found that my body was screaming ‘Carbohydrates!’
‘Where can I get hold of Matthew?’ Mac asked me as he set his glass, minus half its original contents, down on the table.
‘He and Ben’s mum live on the other side of town,’ I told him. ‘They’re in the phone book; I’ll look him up and you can give him a call tomorrow.’ I paused. ‘He told me you two got to know each other through golf.’
‘That’s right; last summer. There was an inter-club competition for retired golfers, lower age limit fifty-five instead of sixty, to let in the suddenly redundant bankers that are filling the courses these days. Elie was drawn at home to Gullane and he and I wound up playing each other.’ He smiled. ‘I won, naturally, partly because Jonny caddied for me and made sure my club selections were spot on and partly because Matthew played crap. He’s good company, though; we got on and he invited me across to Gullane for a return match, with Jonny.’
‘Did he talk much about himself, about his career and such?’ I asked, innocently.
‘He said he’d been in public relations, but we didn’t dwell on our professional lives. If there’s one profession that no normal person ever wants to talk about, it’s mine. Be very suspicious of anyone who asks you questions about the detail of root canal work; they’ve got sadistic tendencies, for sure. Speaking of dentistry, how are my grandson’s teeth?’
‘Coming on fine; we had the gap-toothed smile over the winter.’
‘The new ones certainly look straight. I’ll take a look at them sometime . . . if he’ll let me, that is.’
‘For his Grandpa Mac, anything,’ I assured him. ‘How did your Gullane match finish up?’ I asked.
‘Matthew and I halved our game. Jonathan shot a sixty-six, off scratch, of course; never dropped a shot. When he drove the first green and just missed a putt for an eagle, the two of us realised that we might as well just talk among ourselves.’
‘How is Jonny? I haven’t seen him since he was a lad.’
‘He’s no lad now. Six foot two, golfer’s shoulders, hands like mine,’ he held up a great paw, ‘and a look of his uncle about him.’ Suddenly Mac’s face darkened. ‘After . . . after what happened,’ he said quietly, ‘given that it seems to be hereditary, Ellie and I both insisted that he and Colin had complete cardiac examinations. Jonny’s all clear, but they want another look at Colin when he’s finished growing.’ He gave a very small sideways nod in Tom’s direction, accompanied by a look that was an unspoken question. Tom was oblivious to the conversation; he had just received a text and was replying to it.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I was still . . . away, at the time, but you know Susie.’ For a troubled period in my life, Tom was raised by his father and his eventual widow, the former Susie Gantry. ‘She didn’t waste a second having him checked, along with her two. They’re all absolutely normal, but they’ll be monitored as they grow, to be sure.’ A thought struck me, about Oz’s sister. ‘How about Ellie?’
Mac nodded. ‘Clear,’ he murmured, then sighed. ‘You know, Primavera, I try not to think about it, but I can’t help it. If Oz had had an examination like that after I had my valve malfunction . . .’
I laid a hand on his. ‘You think I don’t have the same thought? Do you think Susie doesn’t? We’ve all got to live with it, and that’s the bottom line.’
Happily, a young waiter appeared with our starter, and three plates, just at that moment, to break the mood. I shared the salad out, pretty much equally . . . try giving Tom a smaller portion than anyone else and see what happens. We must all have been even hungrier than we thought, for we demolished it in no time at all. The main courses weren’t long in coming, though. I was just about to start on mine, when I saw Alex Guinart, out of uniform, ambling slowly into the square, pushing Marte, my goddaughter, in her chair, with Gloria, who’s a real classic Andalusian beauty, by his side. Husband and wife both saw us, and waved to me, but didn’t come to join us, opting instead for a table at Meson del Conde.
Mac didn’t want a dessert, but Tom and I both voted for fresh pineapple; his kebab had been enormous, and I wasn’t sure that he really was still hungry, but he slogged his way through it. Finally, though, he couldn’t put off the evil hour any longer. ‘Bed, kid,’ I told him. ‘School day tomorrow, and all that.’
‘Aw, Mum!’ He doesn’t usually argue, but his grandpa doesn’t arrive every day either.
‘Come on,’ said Mac, with a grin. ‘She’s saying my time’s up too, you know. Us old guys and you young guys have to play by the same rules.’
That mollified him. I paid the bill and the three of us made to leave, but as we did, I spotted Alex waving to me, as if he wanted to talk. I tossed Mac the key and said I’d join him in a minute, if he fancied a drink on the sitting-room terrace. (That was a rhetorical invitation, folks.)
Alex and Gloria were at the coffee stage when I joined them. He asked me if I’d like one; I asked for a cortado, although I’d had one at Esculapi. I said ‘Hello’ to Gloria and made a fuss of Marte, who seemed pleased to see me even if she still can’t say my name properly. ‘Tia Prima’ is as far as she gets . . . I’m an honorary auntie . . . and I suspect it’s going to stay that way, by habit and repute, to use an old Scots legal phrase.
I asked Alex how things were going, in Catalan, as usual. ‘Progressing,’ he said. He surprised me by answering in English. Gloria doesn’t speak it, not at all, and so I guessed that he must want to shield her from the darker side of his new job. ‘Professor Perez gave us her findings this afternoon. She confirmed the original autopsy report, and more.’
‘More? In what way?’
‘She’s not so convinced about the time of death; she reckons it could have been any time up to six o’clock, before the sun rose.’ He must have seen my eyebrows rise, for he nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, with a faint smile, ‘that puts your friend Senor Reid back among the list of possibles, but from what I’ve heard of his state when he left the Anchovy Tavern, he would not have been able to find his . . . How you say? . . . his backside with both hands, far less go out again, find Planas’s house and kill him. Also . . . Perez may be eminent, but I don’t really think that the old man would have been in his garden in his day clothes at five or six in the morning. Especially as he must have been tired.’
‘I dunno,’ I countered. ‘They say the older you get the less sleep you need.’
‘I didn’t mean that the hour had made him tired. He’d had sex not long before he died.’
‘What?’ I gasped, open mouthed. ‘You’re kidding me.’
He laughed, then said to Gloria, in Catalan, ‘Finally, I have been able to surprise Primavera.’
She grinned back at him. ‘Make sure you never surprise me like that.’
‘Alex,’ I said, ‘exactly how eminent is this professor of yours? Could she be mistaken? You never mentioned this after the first autopsy.’
‘The local pathologist missed it. In fact he didn’t look for it. He’s embarrassed now; he says that he was given the body of a man thought to have been killed by a fall, so it never occurred to him to look at his . . .’ he paused, stuck for the English word, ‘. . . his
pene
.’
Gloria’s eyes widened, then she smiled. ‘Prick,’ she chuckled. ‘It’s one of the only English words I know,’ she told me, in Catalan. I didn’t ask her how she had come to learn it. Neither did Alex, but I judged from a faraway look that came into his eyes for a moment that the subject might be raised later.
‘Patricia Perez looks at everything,’ he continued.
‘Rather her than me, in this case. Does she know what sort of farmyard animal he’d been fucking?’
‘Oh, it was a woman, no question of that. She found traces of body fluids on his . . .’ He paused.
‘If you’d like the proper English word, it’s penis. There are several informal alternatives, apart from the one that Gloria knows.’
‘Thank you . . . there, on his underpants and on his trousers.’
I couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Jesus, he was a real class act. He just unzipped himself and got on the job? What a knight in shining armour. I take it these samples are viable for DNA.’
‘Yes. We’re testing, but where we’ll find a match . . . God alone knows that.’
I shuddered. ‘Not with my sample, I promise you that. Does anyone know whether Planas had a lady friend?’
‘That was one of the first questions we asked the people who knew him, including his son, his bank manager, the owner of Hostal Miryam, Justine Michels, and all the other people on the council. They all said the same thing, that he hasn’t been seen with a lady since Angel’s mother died six years ago. One or two of the older ones said that he wasn’t seen with her all that often either. They would go to church together, but it was unusual for them to go anywhere else as a couple. She was a very quiet woman, apparently.’
‘Did you ask Angel about her?’
‘No. There was no reason.’
‘I suppose not. So who do you reckon this woman was? A prostitute, a call girl?’
‘That was Gomez’s first thought. If she is, she won’t be from L’Escala. The old goat would have been more discreet than to pick up a local. Maybe one of the clubs along the road to Figueras has been sending women out on house calls. We’re going to check all of them tomorrow.’
‘Then you’ll be looking for someone who’s gone missing.’
‘You reckon?’
‘Don’t you? This woman, whoever she is, has to be your new prime suspect. Maybe he wouldn’t pay her or tried to short change her . . .’