I stopped in a parking area near a place called Vilastar and put my head down for a couple of hours. Once I judged that the tiny town would be properly awake, I found a
gasolinera
, filled up the tank, and then went exploring until I came across a small hostel, where I took a room. I almost dropped myself in it by speaking Catalan as I checked in, but remembered where I was at the last minute and switched to my most polished Castellano, explaining the odd time of my arrival by saying that my car had broken down further on up the road and it had taken me the best part of the night to get moving again. The owner bought that story without question, and showed me to a room with a comfortable bed and a nice en-suite shower room, for which I paid cash, in advance. I spent most of the day asleep, until early evening, when I judged it safe to chance a meal in the small restaurant. I had decided that I was going to travel during the hours of darkness, and so just after nine, I left my key on the counter and got back on the road.
I’d been worried that I might find the night humidity a problem the further south I went, but I hadn’t reckoned for the fact that much of the route was high above sea level. As it happened, the Suzuki’s heating system was well knackered, so keeping warm was my main difficulty. Eventually I decided to grin and bear it, letting the cold help me by keeping me focused. All the same, I was happy when the sun rose on that Sunday morning, and happier still when the road grew wider, almost to autopista standard, and the signs told me that I was almost in Granada.
I stopped for coffee and a croissant in a roadhouse, having first checked that there were no television cameras in evidence. The last thing I wanted was to have driven all that way only to be fingered by CCTV. As I ate, I dug out the address that Gerard had written down for me and found it on his street map. As he’d said, it was in the heart of an area called the Albacin, on the other side of a river from the Alhambra.
The city was bigger than I had expected, and the traffic much heavier. I was also surprised by its modernity; I’d been expecting it to be ancient, and heavily Moorish, but what I found as I entered were shopping centres, a science park and a conference centre, all very twenty-first century. Eventually, though, I found myself on something called the Grand Via de Colon . . . for an Italian, Columbus gets a lot of exposure in Spain . . . and as I reached its end, and turned into the Street of the Catholic Kings, I had my first real view of the Alhambra and of the way in which it dominates the city, perched on its great rock.
I followed Gerard’s instructions to the letter, even though they took me along a crazy wee road running alongside the river, about a car and a half wide, where I had to take turns with tourist pedestrians for much of the way. Eventually it opened out on to something called the Paseo de los Tristes, ‘the passageway of the sad’. It looked pretty cheerful to me, with bars and restaurants on my left as I drove along, serving tables on the other side of the street, all of them with an unobstructed view of the Alhambra.
I turned left at the end, then took another left at the top of a steep hill, then a right, then a left until I began to feel dizzy, and for the first time, lost. The road narrowed all the time, but I kept an eye out for the sign that marked the end of the journey, and finally, there it was, rising up ahead of me . . . Cuesta de los Cabras, Hill of the Goats, and rarely was a road better named.
It was a dead end, and Gerard’s house was almost at the end; stone built and painted white, with a tiled roof. There was nothing to say that I couldn’t park there, and so I did. I gave the red-hot bonnet of the Suzuki a pat of thanks as I climbed out and dug the key out of the bag.
The place was dark as I stepped inside. There was no entrance hall; I found myself in a big room; it was mercifully cool, for the shutters were closed. I gave myself time to let my eyes adjust, until I could see where everything was; heavy wooden table with four chairs to my left, with two doors beyond, two central heating radiators (Gerard had told me that it gets cold in Granada in the winter), two chairs to my right on either side of a fireplace, big plasma television in the corner . . . not that rustic then . . . and patio doors facing me, locked from the inside. I sniffed; for an unoccupied house the place smelled fresh. I supposed that he must employ a housekeeper, or perhaps his aunt was still alive and looked in on the place.
I went across to the twin doors, turned the key in the lock and opened them. The shutters were secured by small bolts top and bottom. I unfastened them, pushed them open, and stepped outside on to a tiled terrace . . . to find myself staring directly across at the full width of the Alhambra Palace, a huge structure that seemed to go on and on. It was the first time I’d been able to take a proper look at it. I gasped; I’d never seen anything quite like it.
Once I’d stopped gawping I looked around. A flight of steps led down to a garden area. I frowned as I saw it, and imagined Gerard, enraged, and beating the crap out of his brute of a father. I stepped back inside, to banish the vision as much as anything else, and explored the rest of the house. There was a kitchen off the living room, but it wasn’t what I’d expected. The units and the lighting were modern, there was a gas combi boiler on the wall, the range cooker was as impressive as mine and a large American fridge freezer stood in a corner. I took a look inside. There were two unopened cartons of UHT milk in the fridge, and half a dozen tins of San Miguel, but nothing else. The freezer was well stocked though, with peas, broccoli, pizzas, fish, chicken, vacuum-sealed pork fillets, butter, and three round sliced loaves. I’d gone shopping in Carrefour with Gerard once and this was exactly the sort of stuff that he’d bought, the sort of food he wolfed down when we were out or when he ate at my place. He went away on leave once a year. ‘On retreat,’ he said, and I’d never asked him where, but it seemed that now I knew.
As I thought of him, I remembered my promise to call him when I arrived. I went back out on to the patio, switched on the mobile he’d given me, unlocked it, then called the lone number that was programmed into its memory. An overly friendly Spanish lady told me that the phone I was dialling was switched off, but invited me to leave a message. As she spoke I checked my watch. Five minutes past twelve, Sunday, idiot; he’d be in church.
‘Hi,’ I said, after the beep, ‘it’s me and I’m in your lovely house. When I think of the other place I could be right now, it makes me realise how lucky I am to have you looking after me. I’m tired, but I’m not going to sleep until you’ve called me back.’
I checked the charge on the phone; it was full. I put it in my pocket and went back inside, to resume my exploration. The second door of the living area led to a stairway and down to a lower floor, with two bedrooms, one of them en suite, with a door that led into the garden, and a second bathroom, with a full-sized bath and shower above. Like the kitchen, the bedroom furniture was contemporary. I got nosy and looked in the wardrobes. The one in the second bedroom was empty, but there were clothes hung in the other, jeans, a pretty respectable suit, a couple of shirts and two jackets, one winter weight; again, Gerard-style gear.
I didn’t look anywhere else; I had a sudden feeling that I was invading his privacy. Instead I went into the bathroom . . . not his, the other one . . . relieved myself, and ran a bath. As it filled, I searched for towels and soap, and was first time lucky when I found them in the unit that housed the basin, white fluffy cotton and Dove cream, plus, unexpectedly, foam crystals. I was about to shut the door when my eye caught something else, a box, tucked away behind a couple of aerosols and a bottle of Nivea sun cream. I took it out; it had been opened, it bore a dealer’s stamp on the end flap, ‘Farmacia Xaloc’, and all but two of its original contents were gone. I blinked, hard, as if it would look different on second inspection. But it didn’t. ‘Oh no,’ I moaned, out loud. What the hell would a priest be doing with Tampax? Personally, nothing, but . . .
Thirty-four
A
s I lay soaking, I made myself think logically. I knew that there was, or had been an aunt. Aunts beget cousins. Gerard had a cousin, a female cousin around his own age or younger who has a key for the family home and who uses it occasionally, but who’s been told to keep clear for now. That was it. And if it wasn’t? If his annual retreat involved him getting his leg over a nice Andalusian girl, what business is it of yours, Primavera Blackstone, you who have made it very clear to him that your interest is in his companionship, and not in his body? None at all. If he can square it with God, he can shag who he likes, for you are definitely not interested in such transactions any more.
When the mobile rang I had managed to put my find in perspective. I’d fixed on the cousin theory as the likeliest. But still, it’s unsettling to suspect that your idol’s feet might be even a wee bit crumbly. ‘You made it,’ he said. ‘Are you comfortable?’
‘Couldn’t be more so, although you might be upset if you could see me.’
‘Why?’ He sounded puzzled.
‘Because I’m naked, lolling in your guest bath, blowing bubbles all around the room.’
‘In that case the bubbles will preserve your modesty.’
‘That’s why I’m blowing them away. Does this phone shoot video? If it does I might send you some footage.’
‘Primavera, please. Have you been drinking?’
‘No. I’m just feeling crazy, that’s all.’
‘Understandable.’
‘Was Tom at church?’ I asked him, to break my mood.
‘Yes, he was. He was very good, as usual. Mac came to see him at work; he said he was very impressed.’
‘Him in a Catholic church? He’ll have to report that to his minister when he gets home. The roof didn’t fall in, did it?’
He laughed; at once I felt better, and sorry for winding him up. No, those tampons couldn’t have had anything to do with him. ‘It’s stood solid for a few hundred years,’ he said. ‘I think it will take more than one heretic to bring it down.’
‘How’s my boy?’ I whispered.
‘He’s okay. Mac told him that something had happened, and that you had to go away for a few days. But there are whispers around town, and I’d rather he didn’t hear them. Mac and I have spoken about this and since there’s so little time left in the term, we wonder whether it might be better keeping him off school.’
‘That’s vetoed,’ I told him firmly. ‘If you do that you’ll have to confiscate his mobile too, for his pals are always sending him texts. I’m innocent; if he goes into seclusion it’ll make me look guilty. I know his teachers; they’ll look out for him. And I know his friends too; they’re good kids.’
‘Very well, if you say so.’
‘You say there’s talk in town. Does that mean they’ve released my mug shot?’
‘No, and this is interesting. They haven’t released your name either. All they’re saying is that they have a suspect and that a hunt is under way.’
‘Uh? Why would they want to keep my identity confidential?’
‘You can thank your connections to famous people, or so Alex tells me. Public prosecutor’s orders, he says. He’s terrified that if word gets out that Dawn Phillips’s sister, Miles Grayson’s sister-in-law, Oz Blackstone’s former wife is a murder suspect, and that the police have let her get away, the story will become global, and his job will be on the line.’
My sister
, I thought. We usually speak online at weekends. ‘Does Dawn know?’
‘Maybe,’ he replied. ‘That will depend on your father. Mac felt that he was honour bound to advise him of what had happened. It’s for him to decide whether to tell her.’
That would be a tricky one for Dad, I reckoned. Our Kid can be a bit of a flake. The last thing I wanted was her air-dropping into St Martí in a flood of celebrity.
‘We’ve got to get this sorted, Gerard,’ I exclaimed. ‘I’d rather be here than banged up, don’t get me wrong, but I’m feeling isolated, exposed, and it’s got nothing to do with having no clothes on.’
‘Don’t feel that way. I told you, you’re being watched over.’
‘That’s nice of God,’ I retorted, ‘but I’d rather He was looking over Hector Gomez’s shoulder and pointing him in the direction of who really did those murders.’ He laughed and started to say something else, but I talked right over him. ‘Have there been any other developments that you know of, any results from the Dolores autopsy?’
‘Alex told me that they’ve established that she was killed early on Friday morning. They found fibres from the shawl that strangled her . . .’
‘My shawl,’ I interposed.
‘. . . in her mouth, and believe that it was used to gag her while she was held captive. They say she’d have been pretty weak by the time she died; she’d been starved for a week.’ He hesitated, in the manner of someone who has nothing good to tell. ‘They found something else too, in the storeroom: a bag containing her make-up pouch, a wine glass, with her fingerprints on it, and traces of red wine.’
‘Eh?’ There are times when my brain works pretty fast; instantly I knew where this was going, and a bizarre picture formed in my mind. ‘That’s clever,’ I exclaimed, ‘really fucking clever. The next thing you’re going to tell me is that they’ve identified the wine and it’s Faustino One.’
‘How did you guess that?’
‘Because that’s their case, that’s the link that would tie me to both victims, and give me a motive for killing Dolores. Sex, Gerard, sex; you’re never too old. This is what the police and the prosecutor will say. Are you ready for it?’