'Sugar?'
'No.' I take the cup he proffers. 'I know Celestino has a source,' I say, lying. 'More than one I expect.'
'Only the one,' he says with unexpected honesty.
'Who?'
'I can't tell you, Paula.'
'But you know, don't you? And you know where Celestino is too.'
'If I did, don't you think I'd tell you?'
I sip my coffee. It's strong and too hot to gulp in one go. Should I tell him I think I'm being followed? Maybe he's seen the black sedan hanging around in Tabayesco. I open my mouth to speak when his phone rings. I can tell by his reaction it's Kathy. I sip more of my coffee. When he hangs up he says, 'I've got to go out. Kathy needs me to go to the shops.'
I put my cup on the table and get up to leave.
'I'm sure he's fine,' Pedro says, showing me out.
I wish I shared his confidence. Perhaps I should have mentioned the broken necklace, but what difference would it make, except to have me appear overly dramatic in Pedro's eyes? As the door closes behind me, I scan up and down the street. No black sedan.
I take the back way to Haría, up through the valley, hoping to avoid another encounter with whoever is following me. The drive proves uneventful and by the time I reach the edge of the village I begin to relax. I swing by the supermarket for bread and goat's cheese, and go home to eat my lunch.
I'm about halfway through the cheese roll, sinking in my teeth to take another large bite when there's a knock at the door. I'm still chewing when I answer it and confront a rather flustered looking Shirley standing on the doorstep in a crumpled-looking off-white smock dress.
'Oh, Paula,' she says and almost pushes her way inside. 'The ruddy car has conked out on me. Today of all days. I'm meant to be meeting my friend Lolita Pluma in a couple of hours.' She takes herself through to the kitchen and makes no effort to disguise her disgust at the state of it. I haven't done the dishes in days.
Before I can finish my mouthful, Shirley says, 'I see you are eating your lunch. You're still planning to go into Arrecife I take it?'
I nod and swallow, remembering vaguely I agreed to accompany Shirley.
'You see, my mechanic has gone on holiday. Mechanics shouldn't have holidays, should they? Whatever next! You wouldn't do me a favour and run me in.'
'Sure.' I reach under the sink for the water flagon and fill one of the glasses left out on the bench. 'I can put you onto a mechanic too.'
'And who might that be?' Shirley sounds doubtful.
'Miguel.' I slosh back the water. 'Honestly, he's terrific.'
'Where's he based?'
'Arrecife.'
'But how will I get the car there?'
'He'll come and fetch it. That's what he did for me,' I say, recalling the day my alternator died coming down the switchbacks. 'And when you need to collect it, just ask and I'll run you in.'
'That's remarkably generous of you, Paula.'
'Not at all. You've done a lot for me, lately. Gives me a chance to show my gratitude. Besides, isn't that what neighbours are for?'
I reach into my shoulder bag for my notepad and grab the turquoise pen Shirley handed me the other day. Then I sift through my phone for Miguel's work number. Shirley hovers, snatching the note the moment I proffer it.
'I'll go and phone him. Miguel, you said?'
'I did.'
'Back in fifteen. Give you a chance to finish that,' she says, eyeing my roll on her way by.
Another few bites and I abandon the roll and down the rest of the water. I only have time to quench the thirsty pot plants and run a comb through my hair before there's another rap on my front door. Moments later I'm heading back to Arrecife with Shirley beside me, small and prim in a red and white striped skirt suit, topped off with red button earrings and matching beaded necklace, a giant red handbag on her lap.
'How do you know Lolita?' I say once we're in open country.
'She works at the Cabildo.'
'As?'
'Director of the Department of Recreation, Art, and Tourism.'
'DRAT.' The acronym rings through me.
'She's hard to pin down,' Shirley says perfunctorily. 'Otherwise I would have cancelled.'
There seems no end to the notable folk Shirley knows. It strikes me just how far apart I am, an ocean's worth of separation in fact from the woman seated by my side.
I drive at a steady pace, slowing to allow oncoming traffic to round a cluster of cyclists. I keep an eye on the cars behind me but no black sedan comes into sight.
'What's wrong with your car?'
'Won't start. That's all I know.'
Shirley grips her oversized handbag with both hands. She's impatient. Twice I catch her tapping a finger on the shiny red leather.
We reach the turn off for Guatiza as an oncoming car screams towards us, swerving into our lane to overtake a white hatchback. I swerve in reaction, averting an accident. I'm about to blame it on a hoon when I see a woman in a large hat behind the wheel. She looks vaguely familiar.
'Stupid mare,' Shirley says. 'She had plenty of room. Shouldn't have overtaken so wide.'
I drive even slower after that, ignoring the fingers tapping in my side vision. All I can think about are the paintings. With Shirley in such a strange mood, I wonder how I'll broach the subject of whether and in what capacity Benicod knows Redoto, and I decide to let it go. I take the ring road, arriving outside the Cabildo with a good ten minutes to spare, and turn into the car park opposite.
'Why are you pulling up here?' Shirley says. 'Plenty of room out the front.'
'You're not meant to park there.'
'And I have to traipse across the roundabout?'
For the first time in our friendship, I give voice to my own irritation. 'I'm driving, so I decide where to park.'
'Have it your way,' Shirley says.
She alights, and holding the passenger side door as if about to fling it shut she bends and peers at me still strapped in my seat.
'Meet me back here in two hours. Lolita's office is easy to find. Just ask at the desk.'
The car shudders on the slam.
I watch her march off past a children's playground, a diminutive woman clutching an oversized handbag, looking a lot like a canvas deck chair.
On the other side of the roundabout the Cabildo sits grandly in its own formal grounds. It's a modern building several stories high, of Spanish colonial style with tall windows set in mustard coloured walls replete with white pilasters. A symbol of the island's newfound wealth. I wait until Shirley has crossed the road and is making her way across the concourse before I set off.
Avoiding the warren of roads in Arrecife, I head back to the ring road, pulling up outside the museum of contemporary art just after two. Before I enter I get straight in my mind what I need to find out. I have to discover Fernando's whereabouts on Saturday night and Sunday morning, the rather large window of opportunity in which the solar panel painting was placed in Redoto's restaurant. And then there's Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, when Bentor Benicod's portrait was switched with a money-spewing volcano. Thinking about it, the matter of opportunity is too broad. Perhaps I should focus on means. How would Fernando have gained access to both Redoto's restaurant and the Yaiza town hall?
I go to the kiosk but it's empty so I head across the basalt cobbles to the old fort. The same idiot attendant is there, bent over and fiddling with his keys. I plan to stride right past him but he must have seen me coming because he straightens and blocks my path. Behind him, I spot Fernando on the far side of the main gallery.
I remove my sunglasses and call out.
Fernando looks over. 'Paula.' His expression changes from one of reflective preoccupation to puzzlement, although I imagine he knows why I'm here after my phone call last Sunday. He walks towards me. 'This is a surprise. Luis said someone had called in.'
The attendant scowls but lets me pass, and I enter a long chamber of heavy stone, more a bunker stretching left and right with a sma
ll window recessed in the walls at either end. The bunker has a low rounded arched ceiling and there are stairs heading to chambers above and below. It's an austere setting and the few paintings on display—large pieces of abstract art that appear to me little more than a few strategic smears of paint—look curiously out of place.
I wait until he's close before speaking.
'They told me at the Timple museum that you'd found work at a gallery in Arrecife. I'm glad I found you.' I didn't want to sound too dramatic but there didn't seem much choice. 'Celestino is still missing.'
Fernando looks at me with genuine surprise.
'Is there somewhere we can talk?'
'There's a restaurant downstairs,' he says quickly. 'Follow me.'
The attendant retreats into a small antechamber, more a nook. I slip on my sunglasses, the better to ignore him as I go by.
Fernando leads the way round the side of the fort and down a flight of carved basalt steps that follow the curve of the promontory. The low cliff has been landscaped, with an array of carefully chosen boulders set in a garden of agaves planted in deep picón. Tones of red and orange meet the gaze. Beyond, the lava is rough and gnarly. The ocean, a few metres below, a clear turquoise. The setting speaks of Manrique and when I reach the last step and face an elegant sculpture centred on a patio mosaic of carefully chosen pebbles set in concrete, I can't help marvelling at the lengths taken on the island to preserve the architect's memory.
The main feature of the restaurant is a curved wall of glass. We go inside and Fernando chooses a table in the sun, neatly laid with a black linen tablecloth and matching napkins. We both sit down in wide and deep chairs facing the ocean. The view is so bright I leave on my sunglasses. To the south the marina is pleasing to the eye. The dock to the north with its long row of shipping containers and the occasional crane lending the ocean setting an industrial feel.
Fernando tries to hail a waiter. After a few moments he leaves his seat, muttering something about the service.
I wait, tuning into the murmured conversations emanating from the other side of the room, the occasional cutlery chink. There's a notable absence of cooking smells.
The room behind me is so dimly lit I have to take off my sunglasses when I turn to see where he's gone. I spot him over by a pillar, chatting to a uniformed waiter. Beyond them, groups of two or three sit at square tables that extend to the bar. The place looks expensive. As do the people. No one in the restaurant looks like a regular tourist. A woman glances over and catches my eye. I avert my gaze and sit back around in my seat, replacing my sunglasses.
Perhaps I'm over-sensitive, imbuing the atmosphere with a conspiratorial gloss, but I feel as though I've entered another world, one of private meetings conducted in subdued voices. A hideaway on the edge of the city, somewhere for the rich and powerful to conduct secret deals, where local politicians wine and dine with members of the board and palms are greased with fat wads of cash. Probably some of the very people seated behind me.
Odd that Celestino has never mentioned this restaurant. Perhaps he has no idea the sorts of people who come here. As I sit waiting for Fernando to join me, I hear Celestino's voice in my head, telling me of politico-corporate entanglements, of the lengths the greedy will go to unless they are stopped. Sensing the whispers in the dim behind me, I feel uncomfortable and entirely out of place. Dining with the enemy? It's with a measure of despondence that I think I'll never be an anti-corruption activist. I don't have my husband's courage or his zeal.
It's a view reinforced when I turn around again. Fernando is still in conversation. Behind him, a man appears at the entrance to the men's toilets, making his way to a table near the pillar. Even without removing my sunglasses I recognise him immediately. It's the proud posture, the regal tilt to the head. Bentor Benicod sits down with his back to me as I return my gaze to the panorama outside, my heartbeat quickening.
I'm beginning to think Fernando rude for taking so long. I entertain a paranoid thought or two about him as well, half-anticipating a tap on my shoulder, a curt 'come with me please', and I'll disappear into the bowels of the fort never to be seen again.
At last Fernando comes to the table. 'Sorry about that,' he says without explanation. 'So, you're trying to find Celestino.'
'I'm not having much luck,' I say, swiftly restoring my composure.
'If there's anything I can do.'
'There might be something.'
He seems to freeze.
'Only, I'm not sure what use I'll be,' he says as if he hasn't heard me.
'I'm following a couple of leads.'
'I lost my driver's licence you see. Speeding. My advice to you, Paula, is to keep within the limits. They'll catch you eventually, mark my words.'
I hide my disappointment. 'When did this happen?'
I observe him sitting there all sombre with his goatee beard.
'Last week. I've been catching the bus ever since. Can you imagine!'
His words deflate me. There's no point in pursuing this line of questions any further. Either he's lying or he can't have planted those paintings. Yet there's something supercilious in his manner that makes me wary. His is still the strongest motive. Professional jealousy, I only have to think of a former work colleague to know how deep that goes, how it gnaws away at all that is good in a person.
The waiter arrives and sets down two wire baskets of croquettes along with bowls of dipping sauce arranged on a thin rectangle of basalt. He disappears and returns moments later with plates, a bottle of water and two glasses. I have to marvel at Fernando's audacity. To have placed an order for us both without consulting me; I suspect he acquired it for free.
'I take it you haven't been to the studio,' I say, biting into a croquette. The centre is creamy and delicately flavoured with fish.
'This is the most frustrating aspect of the speeding fiasco,' Fernando says, pouring water into my glass and his. 'Have you seen the timetable for the guaguas to the north?'
'There's quite a few.'
'If you call six a day quite a few.'
'I used to catch the bus all the time.'
I dip the remaining piece of my croquette into the sauce by my elbow. He slugs his water.
'All right I suppose, if you have plenty of time.'
'I found it scenic.'
Finding the exchange increasingly irritating I take another croquette, hoping to hurry things along.
'It wears off after a while.'
'What wears off?'
'The fixation with the views.'
'Hasn't for me.'
He dips a croquette into an oily sauce and leans forward to catch the drips.
'You're a tourist,' he says with his mouth full. 'Or you were.'
'What does that have to do with it?'
'Beauty is your thing.'
'But you paint landscapes,' I say, making little effort to mask my ire. 'Surely a bus ride would be stimulating.'
'I stylise what I already know.'
I recall the last series of paintings he made, a production line of works, all similar and perfect for the tourist trade.
'How are you getting to the Teguise market?'
'I don't have time for the markets these days,' he says, his face filled with hauteur.
The man is insufferable. I reach for the last croquette and move the bowl of sauce closer. It's then that I notice the square of paper centred on the board beneath. It's a photocopy of a newspaper cutting concerning an exhibition upstairs in the gallery: A photographic display of the construction of the Museo Atlántico. The director of DRAT, Lolita Pluma, is quoted announcing the extraordinary honour and privilege it is to have secured a world class sculptor with renowned ecological credentials to produce such an innovative work of art beneath Lanzarote's pristine waters. It's as though my world has folded in on itself. The situation on the island really is as Celestino would have it; held by its neck by a bow tie of pomp and privilege. Fernando, it seems, was now happily ensconced in it all.
&
nbsp; I reach for my glass and gulp a few mouthfuls of water. Fernando dabs at his beard with his napkin. I extract my wallet but he stops me with, 'It's taken care of.' I withdraw my keys instead. 'I better go. I'm running late.' With as much grace as I can muster I thank him and bid him a good day.
A fresh wind blows my hair in my face as I head up the basalt steps to my car. I'll be back at the Cabildo in ten minutes, leaving about half an hour to spare before I meet Shirley.
Without bothering to look around for black sedans, I drive straight back to the car park opposite the Cabildo, thinking a walk along the promenade would clear my mind.
Despite the wind the afternoon is sunny and warm. Past the children's playground, I enter a cactus garden fringed with low stone walls. I choose the path beside the ocean. There are few people about. I think I might benefit from the wind on my face but it does nothing for me.
About halfway I stop and lean against the wall, staring out at the surface of all that water, its surface a shimmering blue. I have no idea what to make of Fernando, his evasiveness, his arrogance. Or why Celestino puts up with him. But despite Fernando's jealousy, deep down I doubt he has anything to do with the paintings or Celestino's disappearance. Which leaves me with no suspects and no clues, and an all-consuming desire to scream with frustration into that ocean wind. All I know for sure is that someone has entered the house and the studio. The person in question wore aftershave, or maybe it was perfume, and is possibly the driver of the black sedan. And that whatever is going on is serious enough to warrant such behaviour. Even then, I have to wonder if perhaps I'm imagining things. In the absence of Celestino, the entire situation leaves me fit to burst.
I go on my way, hoping a brisk walk will ground me.
At the end of the garden the promenade curves round Playa Reducto, a small beach of golden sand where the waters are shallow and calm. The beach is empty save for a sand sculptor, dressed only in shorts, at work emulating the eruption of two volcanoes. He's lit a fire in each crater. Rivulets of black pour down the cones of sand. I stop to watch for a few moments. A small gathering forms. I drop a generous euro in the tin on the promenade wall and leave them to it.
A Matter of Latitude Page 20