Authors: Les Lunt
Carrie meanwhile had packed her brochures away and was standing under the pool shower, cooling off. I turned my head to see Ximo opening the gates again. This time it was for Kevin. I watched Carrie touch Kevin. It was the tender type of touch, caring, with rather too much passion: they were clearly in love.
Just what she did to me I shall never know. I should have been more careful. Maria approached. She smiled.
‘Time for your injection,’ she said.
I could hear Kevin and Carrie cavorting in the pool. Later, they stretched out on the sunbeds and I heard Kevin say something about making a new will.
Yes, I thought. I suppose you ought to make a Spanish will. After all, if anything were to happen to me…
The End
Assumptions…
al-Qaeda ?
Nothing is as it first seems….
The economic climate in Britain was certainly having an effect on our business, ‘Holiday Villas for You’. Normally by the end of April we would be fully booked but looking at this year’s bookings on the web-site I was quite despondent. In fact, looking at the picture of the villa on the Internet I began to wonder if we would ‘go under’ this year.
We needed the money. Having sold up in England, with the sole intent of running a ‘holiday let’ business, we had invested every penny in our villa. For three years it was successful and we made a lot of money in the summer. A local cleaning company did the changeovers and Tommy, a local Welsh guy, looked after the pool while we went off to Italy, to my wife’s parents’ place near Lake Garda. This year we would be doing the cleaning and changeovers ourselves to save money.
Francesca drew my attention to the latest booking. It was a good one, the last two weeks in June, prime weeks, an income potential of nearly £2,000.
‘But look at the names!’
‘What’s the problem?’
‘They’re foreign.’
‘So what? I’m foreign, you’re foreign: we live in Spain!’
‘Yes, I know, but these are Asian. Look.’
The names of Mohammed Bin Shakara, Abdul al-Latif and Mohammed Yacine stared out at me, names that represented nearly two thousand quid. What was the problem? I checked the telephone number, it was a mobile. Suspicious? Okay it was a bit suspicious, most of our British clients provided a home number as standard but hey, not everyone has a land line these days. I checked how many others were included in the party. Just three. Three males. Then a little warning voice did pop into my head.
Francesca stood behind me.
‘I don’t like it,’ she said. ‘They could be Islamic terrorists.’
The memory of the Madrid bombings came into mind. Francesca and I often travel to Madrid.
‘al-Qaeda?’
‘Could be, I suppose.’
‘Do we report it to the police?’
‘What for? For booking two weeks holiday? There’s no law against anyone with an Asian name booking a holiday.’
‘But.’
‘Listen,’ I said, ‘we need the money and we don’t judge people by their name. Do we?’
‘We go ahead then?’
‘S’pect so.’
‘You do agree don’t you? We do need the money, don’t we?’
Francesca looked at me.
‘We are overdrawn at the bank. Federico the manager is very kind and he is taking an enormous risk with us. Bookings are really down on previous years, then again, most holiday lets in the valley are feeling the pinch. Then there’s a bill due from Iberdrola, our electricity could be cut off, very embarrassing if we have guests here.’
‘And the pool wouldn’t pump.’
‘You mean the pump wouldn’t work?’
‘No pool. Go for it, book ‘em in. Oh and by the way, ask for a large deposit.’
*
One week later I was checking the web-site. Orders were beginning to come in: perhaps we might have a good year after all. That afternoon, the full amount due from our Asian guests popped into our NatWest account in England.
We don’t often have rain in Spain, in fact in our particular valley the number of annual recorded days of sunshine is around three hundred. But as it happened it was raining on the night I decided to check out our Asian guests.
First of all, MI6 have a web-site. I tapped out a simple note to MI6 with the basic info. and a query, ‘What should I do?’ I heard nothing from them. It began to worry me. The following morning I was sweeping around the pool when I noticed a car parked at the end of the lane. We live in a narrow cul-de-sac and it is rare for cars to venture down this far. I kept an eye it. I finished the sweeping and gathered the leaves and placed them into the wheelbarrow, one eye now continuously on the car.
I could see someone sitting there and I could hear the engine running. Whoever it was had the aircon on. It was a warm day, sure enough. The next job on the list was to vacuum the pool. This took me about an hour, still with one eye on the car. I cleaned the filters. He or she was still there when a second car arrived. I watched with interest. The car which had been stationary moved forward while the second car manoeuvred around so that they were parked parallel to each other. Then one of the drivers stepped out of the second car and leaned in through the other’s window, obviously familiar with the driver. It was clear we were the subject of their conversation.
After about ten minutes the first car set off, leaving the second in position to do whatever he came to do.
At eleven p.m. it was dark and I watched another car, its headlights on full as it swept past the villa. Next morning at 10 o’clock yet another car arrived. It took up position just like the day before: again, this car was relieved by a second one at around 3: 00 p.m. What the hell was going on?
I watched all of this with interest. Had my MI6 missive stirred up a hornets nest? I was tempted to ask the driver to account for himself but British reserve prevailed. I mentioned what I had done to Francesca and she was horrified. Just then a Guardia Civil car arrived: it was the large 4x4-type truck, probably a Land Cruiser, which the Guardia use around the hills and mountains of our region. I dashed inside the villa and grabbed my field glasses which I usually kept handy for bird watching.
One of the Guardia stepped out of the truck; I could see him tapping his revolver holster, probably ensuring his weapon was at the ready. His colleague stood watching. He was in radio contact with someone, presumably his control. The first officer approached the car. It was then that I noticed another car coming up the lane, this time a police car. It stopped beside the Guardia Civil truck. Words were spoken, two more officers got out and more words were spoken. From my position at the villa, they all seemed very friendly towards each other.
Nobody in the first car moved. I watched the officer indicate to the driver to lower the car window. Words were spoken and, very soon, the Guardia officer returned to his truck. He spoke to his driver and had a word with the officers in the police car. It took all of five minutes for the two police vehicles to turn their car and truck in the narrow lane. Through the glasses I could see a woman in the car she was talking on her mobile. I suppose if the police were satisfied with her presence, there was little I should worry about. But who was she and what was her business?
Two days later I mowed the front lawn and finished painting the front of the villa. I was up the ladder when I noticed a guy outside the gates looking in. I decided to investigate as few people venture this far down the lane and, to be honest, he looked a bit suspicious. I stepped away from the ladder and turned to find that he was already walking away. Now, we do get foreign workers looking for jobs; cutting hedges, trimming the palm trees, even offering to maintain the pool. Most of them are Bulgarians or even Russians, but this guy was obviously from north Africa, probably Algeria or Morocco. Given the goings on of the past few days I was more than suspicious. He couldn’t be one of the workers who pick the oranges as there were none to pick, yet: the oranges wouldn’t appear in this valley until October. We’d enjoyed the orange blossom in March and then the soil surrounding the trees was channelled ready for irrigation in the summer with ‘agricultural water’. Who then was he? I wondered.
This really put the frighteners on Francesca: first the watchers, then the Guardia, then the police and now this stranger. I told her she was getting paranoid, but then so was I. The police didn’t appear to have any concerns about the people watching the villa, or were they watching our villa?
While having a beer in the local bar I mentioned the situation to Julio, my neighbour. He’s the bar owner in the local village. I wasn’t reassured when he shared my concern. He had lost a friend in the Madrid bombings. He slowly shook his head.
‘Ten cuidado, mi amigo. Ten mucho cuidado,’ he said. (‘Be careful my friend, be very careful.)
‘Los moros,’ he kept repeating. ‘Los moros.’
The Moors. I suppose for many good reasons the Spanish have a lot of respect for the ‘moros’, the Moors. After all, the Spanish inherited Spain from them; an Islamic nation that brought culture, art and the sciences to the Iberian peninsula. They built beautiful buildings, tamed and cultivated the landscape and produced the finest of wines. We owe a lot to the Moors. Secretly, Julio agreed. Nevertheless he warned, ‘Ten cuidado.’
Julio checked the names of our Asian guests which I had scribbled on a scrap of paper.
‘India, no. Africa, si.’
He stared at the list.
‘Estos nombres, African. Moroc y Argelia.’
I looked blank and he tried in English.
‘Argelino.’ I then understood. Algerian and Moroccan.
Jeeze, what had we done? Visions of 9/11 flashed through my mind; aircraft crashing into buildings, the smoke, the fire, the falling man. My God! I was too scared to tell Francesca. To reinforce my fear, that day the local ‘Bay Radio’ station news from Benidorm had a segment on atrocities in Africa. An Islamic group called Boko Haram had murdered twenty Christians attending church in Nigeria. I groaned. Just what had we done?
Later, coming out of Mas y Mas Supermarket, I noticed the car again. Earlier, driving through the orange groves, we had passed a blue car at the junction of Cami les Bases and Cami Ador. Not unusual I know, but it had trailed behind us for four miles: then, arriving at Mas y Mas, I realised I had lost it. When we left the supermarket I drove to the pool shop for chloro tablets for the filters. As I left the shop, the car was there across the road by the car wash, waiting. I felt I ought to challenge them, but Francesca was quite scared by then and urged me just to get her home as quickly as possible. When we reached the village turn off, the car sped past. We convinced ourselves it was a coincidence.
The following week we moved out of our villa into a friend’s house. They had decided to spend twelve months touring Australia and we were going to house-sit for them. This suited us very well as we could then do the maintenance and changeovers on our own villa thus saving ourselves a lot of money this year on staff costs. Doing holiday lets can seem lucrative but it’s hard work. People are fussy, but they have paid a lot of money for a quality holiday and we have always tried to ensure that they got quality. Our villa was blessed with a large pool, lots of fruit trees, grapes on the vine which would be ready to pick by July and, right beside the pool, a very large BBQ. There was a large, shady terrace with six ‘nayas’ (arches) which ensured a cool afternoon despite the outside heat, and in summer we placed a large refrigerator on the terrace for keeping the beer cold. What more could you need? In fact, many of our guests (mostly Brits and Germans), rarely ventured out: bread was delivered daily, hung in a plastic bag on the gate, and the village had a little shop which pretty much sold everything else.
The date on the calendar which was outlined in red finally arrived: the day our Asian guests were due to arrive. I say ‘Asian’ but in fact they were from London. The address was given as King Charles Street, London, quite a salubrious address I would imagine. But then, I thought, they could be from anywhere in the U.K. and using an accommodation address. Why was I so anxious?
I had been nervously checking the pool filters when the vehicles arrived; first, a Guardia Civil truck, followed by a car. I say ‘car’, it was a large Mercedes limousine. I opened the gates and the large silver Limo swept in, I approached, wondering who could possibly own such a lovely car and want to rent a modest villa in Ermita? I stepped forward to introduce myself. Cap in hand, I felt like one of those movie Mexicans who wear pyjamas and clutch their sombreros to their chests mumbling, ‘Si si, Senor.’
The driver stepped smartly out. He was obviously Spanish. He smiled and wished me ‘Buenos Dias’ while opening the door for our guest; he then leaned into the car to help. Our very elderly guest needed assistance. This was a shock. I was expecting three guests, and for some reason, much younger men. Our guest emerged and said a few words which I guess were in Arabic. He smiled. But where were the others? The two other guests were missing.
The driver assisted the elderly man up the six steps to the terrace. Once he was settled in a cane chair Francesca emerged from the shade of the villa. Earlier she had placed some fresh orange juice in the fridge. She turned to the elderly man and proffered the large jug of ice-cold juice.
He nodded. ‘Thank you,’ he said in English. Cultured English.
It was then that I noticed another car at the gates. Francesca dashed down the steps to open them. Another Limo swept in. This time there were two people in the back.
I noticed that the Guardia Civil officer was standing outside his truck watching us through binoculars.
Then the people in the second car got out. A very smartly dressed young woman stepped forward and addressed Francesca (who was still wearing her ‘cleaning’ clothes).
‘Mrs Galloway?’ she asked. ‘My name is Zakala, Mrs Zakala, from the British Consulate in Madrid.’