by Lex Lander
* * * * *
Extracting money from General Irazola on Linda’s behalf was not the altruistic gesture Linda assumed it to be. Uppermost of my motives was Toby’s injunction to cultivate Irazola.
Keep an eye on him and report back, the sooner the better.
The issue of financial support for Linda gave me the excuse I needed to update my acquaintanceship with the General, and see where it led. If I could earn a few credits from Linda into the bargain, I wouldn’t turn down the opportunity.
Long before we reached the perimeter of Irazola territory our presence on the lonely dirt road through the foothills must have been reported. Once, a helicopter came flipping by, so low I could see the pilot’s mouth moving as he spoke into his radio mouthpiece. Yet we got as far as the guard house unmolested. And the two soldiers who came from behind the lowered barrier, one to each side of the car, their pistols holstered, were smiling, amiable.
‘Señor Warner?’ The taller of the two had sergeant’s stripes. He bent to my level, looking not at me but at Linda. ‘Señorita Pridham.’ Pronouncing it Preed-ham. This instant recognition of Linda surprised me, until I remembered she and the general had been in harness for two years and this wouldn’t be her first visit.
‘You sound as if you were expecting us,’ I said in my best Spanish.
‘Tu, si, por supuesto. Your car was reported.’ He stroked the edge of the roof like a used car dealer assessing its value. ‘We do not see many Aston Martins here.’
‘Is the general home?’
‘You are fortunate. He returned from Madrid only yesterday and he leaves again tomorrow. He has instructed me to allow you to proceed. However …’ A slightly embarrassed cough, ‘… this was before we knew the señorita was accompanying you. I am not sure …’
‘It’ll be fine,’ I said as if my assurance would save him from the general’s wrath.
Against my expectations he didn’t pursue it. ‘Very well. You may go through. I will telephone to let him know you are not alone.’ He stepped away from the window. ‘Arias – levantas la barrera!’
Arias duly went into the guard post and operated the motor that raised the barrier. We purred through onto the paved road.
‘You may not be welcome,’ I warned Linda.
‘Well, what do you know?’ Sarcasm and bitterness combined. If, as she claimed, she still loved the guy, rejection would be hard to take.
It was mid-afternoon and I was due to meet Toby in Gibraltar that evening. Whatever happened from here on, I was going to be late for that date. In the first place we were late setting off from Malaga, and then I had had to call in at the apartment in Fuengirola to collect my luggage. It was already close to mid-day before we hit the open road. Linda had sunk into melancholia and spent the journey smoking, chewing gum, and not speaking. I didn’t have a lot to say myself as I tried to figure out how I might gather some useful intelligence for Toby. Yet I also genuinely meant to lean on Irazola to do right by Linda too. Maybe I was Sir Galahad after all, if only the poor man’s version.
We finally rolled up before the massive front door, where we were given a wary welcome by the youthful Comandante Navarro. He showed us into a ground floor sitting room whose windows framed a vista of mountainside, the peaks tipped white. Heavy, indestructible furniture of some reddish wood, was complemented by acres of brocade, tapestries and wall-hung carpets. The bare wooden floor creaked a protest as I paced. Linda sat in a straight chair (‘When you’re this shape it’s more comfortable sitting upright’) and watched me back and forth. She was nervous, chewing gum.
‘Relax,’ I said, I who was drawn tight as a violin string.
Then in strutted the general. Hands clasped behind his back, the door opening before him and closing behind him, courtesy of some unseen aide.
‘Mr Warner,’ he said, and a formal smile tempered the stern, regular features. ‘I am very happy to see you again.’
‘It’s mutual, General.’ While still shaking his hand I inclined my head towards Linda. ‘You know Miss Pridham, of course.’
The smile faded. Irazola bowed stiffly from the waist. ‘Linda. They informed me you were accompanying Mr Warner.’
That formality over, he switched his focus back to me. ‘Will you take some refreshment? Coffee, something to eat perhaps …?’
‘Later, thank you.’
‘I’ll have some coffee,’ Linda said tartly. ‘If I’m included in the offer.’
Irazola managed to stay on the right side of gentlemanly, but it wasn’t easy for him. He picked up a telephone from the nearest coffee table, gave an order in an unrecognisable tongue.
‘Let us sit down.’
I chose a very low armchair, so low in fact that you sat with most of your body horizontal and your legs extended straight out in front. If I wasn’t careful I would fall asleep. After all, it had been an energetic night.
Irazola sank gracefully into an identical chair, rested his elbows on the padded arms, clasped his left fist inside his cupped right hand.
‘So, my friend,’ he said agreeably enough, ‘we meet again. You are welcome here, as I told you when last you visited us.’
‘Visited’ was coming a bit strong, I thought. But I bared my teeth politely.
‘Miss Pridham, however,’ he went on, ‘should have known better, even if you do not, than to come uninvited, with or without you as her escort.’ A frown here, to register his displeasure. ‘Am I to assume you are here on her behalf?’
‘You assume right, General.’
He frowned more profoundly, at this confirmation.
‘Look, Warner,’ Linda cut in, ‘no use pussyfooting around with this guy – give it to him with both barrels, if you must give it to him at all. Otherwise let’s blow.’
Irazola and I both regarded her with a certain amount of shared exasperation. A proud, donnish man, he must have found her uppity attitude hard to live with. It was a miracle the affair had run for as long as it did.
‘Still the same girl, eh, Linda?’ he said, with a shake of his noble head.
‘Don’t patronise me, you bastard,’ she snapped back at him. ‘I’m not one of your uniformed ass-lickers.’
‘Anybody ever tell you, you have a lovely way with words?’ I said.
‘And fuck you too, Warner,’ was the predictable retort. She moved to rise. ‘I’m going. I should never have come.’
‘Sit down and shut up. I’m trying to negotiate for you and all you can do is explete.’ She remained standing, glaring at me. I turned from her. ‘General, I’m here to ask you to consider making some kind of … allowance to Linda, as a charitable gesture –’
Linda let rip an exclamation. ‘Charitable gesture – Jesus!’
I ignored the interruption. ‘As a charitable gesture to enable her to live in reasonable comfort until the baby’s born and perhaps for a few months afterwards. Were you aware she’s been earning a living as a stripper in Malaga?’
‘Yes, I was aware.’
He was cool, controlled. I had expected shock, hoped for some display of remorse.
‘You don’t mind? You don’t care?’
‘Linda can do as she wishes. She is not my responsibility.’
‘That’s baloney!’ Now my composure was beginning to fail me. ‘She’s trying to make ends meet, General. To earn some fast money to see her through the last few weeks before the baby arrives, when she won’t be able to work at all. And to take care of the kid when it arrives - your kid.’
‘Who is to say it is mine? There has been no DNA test.’
‘You motherfucking son-of-a-bitch!’ Linda yelled, starting towards him, bent on inflicting injury.
I leapt out of the chair as best I could from my near-prone position, and intercepted her. Irazola had not budged by so much as a fluttered eyelid. He sat looking stonily up at Linda, letting me do all the restraining.
Then somebody tapped on the door. Irazola called to enter and this seemed to calm Linda, even to the extent of resuming
her seat.
Coffee was delivered and served by a maid wearing severe black with a frilly white apron. A nice traditional touch. They had similarly dressed staff at Waverley House.
Irazola was smacking his fist into his palm again, slowly, his expression far away. Somehow I didn’t think he was reflecting on the good times he had had with Linda.
‘A gentleman would give a lady the benefit of the doubt,’ I said mildly.
Linda said nothing, just breathed fire and brimstone through her nostrils.
‘A gentleman would also not wish to see a former … companion in distress,’ I suggested.
A well-constructed turn of phrase, I thought.
‘Who’s this gentleman you keep talking about?’ Linda snarled.
Anger flickered briefly in Irazola’s eyes, like a strobe light. He wasn’t made of granite rock after all. He had emotions, like the rest of us. You just had to dig deeper than usual, break through the atavistic crust.
‘Mr Warner,’ he said, still socking fist into palm, but faster now, as if he were building up a crescendo. ‘I resent this attempt to extort money from me. I understand your motives, you are simply trying to help.’ He smiled grimly. ‘Like the Good Samaritan, is it not? But you are mis … misguided. This girl is nothing to me. The past is the past and I do not care for it. She lived well for two years at my cost. I made no promises. Now it is finished and I do not intend to be blackmailed into –’
‘Blackmailed!’ Linda was on her feet again. This time I was ready for her.
‘Leave it, Linda,’ I soothed, imprisoning her windmilling arms. ‘Don’t put yourself in the wrong. I haven’t finished with him yet.’
I had come to plead. I was equally prepared to do battle. Dismissing, in my desire to get results, the perils of fighting behind enemy lines.
Irazola was also standing now. ‘You may not have finished with me, Mr Warner, but I have most definitely finished with you.’
‘No, you haven’t.’ I hesitated. The knightly stuff had fallen flat. It was time to move on to providing feedback for Toby.
If coming here at all had been a misjudgement, I was about to compound it big time.
I opened my mouth and the following words flowed forth. ‘You wouldn’t like it to get out about your plans for Gibraltar, you and your buddy Ricardo.’
It was the wildest of shots, based on an overheard telephone conversation five months ago and Toby’s vague hypotheses about what Irazola was plotting. Wild, but, in the event, on target. Irazola went rigid. The man was too poised, too self-disciplined to give himself away entirely. Nonetheless, whether he realised it or not, it was there, in the dilation of the nostrils and the narrowing of the eyes.
From here on in the battle was likely to be bloody. Irazola had once before demonstrated his preparedness to use violent methods to achieve his ends. Whether or not Linda and I were allowed to walk out of here would depend on my powers of negotiation. Too late, I saw that I had extended my neck too far.
‘Would you care to explain that remark?’ Irazola said, not conceding a millimetre, tactically speaking. His was a perfectly natural response to an inference such as I had just made.
Linda had stopped fighting me so I released her and said to Irazola, ‘Do I need to?’
He moved away from me, to the coffee table. Took a boat-shaped cigar from a carved wooden box, lit up with a table lighter. Smoke obscured his face.
‘In any case what you imply is nonsense. I have nothing to do with Gibraltar, and I know of no one called Ricardo.’
That, at any rate, was a definite lie. I had him on the defensive.
‘It doesn’t matter whether you deny it or not. I have enough proof to cause you and your Government plenty of grief. If I were to release the recordings I have of your telephone conversations, you and Spain could kiss your ambitions goodbye.’
The faintest shadow of alarm crossed his features. He must have longed to ask how I had come by my alleged recordings, but dared not without admitting culpability.
‘This is all nonsense,’ he said, but conviction was lacking. This buttoned-down man was as close to bluster as he would ever get.
‘See here, General, your secret doings are not my concern, although I have connections with people who would be concerned.’ I let that sink in, then added, ‘If they knew.’
He cottoned on quick that a deal was in the offing. He was still too much of an old pro to admit anything.
A sigh, then, ‘Tell me what you want.’
‘I already told you – money for Linda. How about a hundred thousand euros? Enough to ensure that neither she nor the baby lack for anything for a year at least. In return …’
‘Ah,’ Irazola said softly, nodding. ‘In return you will guarantee to keep silent about my private conversations.’
‘That’s about the size of it.’
He sucked hard on his cigar, stroked his jaw with forefinger and thumb. ‘One hundred thousand, you say.’ He seemed to come to a decision. ‘Wait here.’
He strode towards the door, head erect, outwardly unruffled by the threat to his plans and schemes. He left the door open; his footfall receded.
‘What now?’ Linda whispered.
‘Hopefully he’s gone to fetch his cheque book.’
‘You are deluding yourself, Mr Warner,’ said a voice that was a higher- octave version of Irazola’s.
A slim figure stepped through the doorway.
‘Luis!’ I said.
Irazola’s son closed the door firmly behind him.
‘I know why you are here,’ he said urgently. Turning to Linda: ‘We know all about you, my sister and I, though he does not think we do. Also, I was listening at the door.’
‘I hope you like what you heard,’ Linda flared.
‘I like nothing about my father.’ He came up to me and clutched at my arm. ‘Believe it or not, Mr Warner, I am your ally. He will not pay you, he is going to have you both thrown into prison.’ An exclamation from Linda. ‘Do you understand?’ Luis shook my arm, as if I were rejecting his warning. ‘Sooner or later he will kill you. You must believe me, you must go – now!’
Momentarily I wavered. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe the general to be capable of killing, more that it was disproportionate. To kill two people to avoid paying out a hundred thousand euros, sure to be a derisory sum to a man of Irazola’s financial standing, made no sense. Then it came to me. Linda was no longer even a part of the equation. This was now between Irazola and me. If the Spanish Government was mixed up in something really big connected with Gib – bigger even than Toby’s rumours – he wouldn’t take a chance on trusting me to honour our bargain.
‘Señor Warner!’ Luis pleaded, his good-looking, girlish features contorted with anxiety. No reason for him to lie, every reason for him to leave us to his father’s mercies.
Linda was looking at me owlishly, awaiting my decision. Her normal self-sufficiency was of no value here.
I took her arm. ‘Let’s go.’
‘If you say so.’
Luis was already heading for the door. Seconds later he pronounced the all clear and the three of us made a commotionless exit from the sitting room. Guarding the main door, and apparently a party to the conspiracy, was Elena, dressed in a white miniskirt and a tight black sweater that was designer-made for a figure like hers. Studiously disregarding Linda she rushed to me, clasped my hands in hers, making a statement that had no basis in reality.
‘André, you are in great danger. My father –’
‘Yes, yes, Luis told me.’ I stifled the impulse to prise her fingers free. ‘We’re leaving.’
‘Yes, you must leave. Immediately.’ Yet she still clung to me. Maybe she hoped I’d take her instead of Linda.
Linda, tossing me a knowing sidelong grin in passing, was already following Luis through the door. Elena, scorning decorum, pushed her thigh into my groin; her lips fastened crushingly on mine.
‘This isn’t the time, you over-sexed bitch,’ I said
roughly. ‘Any minute now your father will be back.’
‘Yes … you are right.’ She pulled back and dragged me towards the open door. ‘You must forgive me.’
A very un-Spanish drizzle was falling as we crossed the threshold. The Aston was only a few paces away, at the foot of the curved steps.
‘Warner!’ The summons came from behind.
Elena released me as if I had suddenly given her an electric shock. I swung round. General Irazola had just entered the foyer at the head of a gaggle of lesser ranks.
‘Do not move!’ he bawled. He was not armed but his aides were and, even as I watched, hands reached for holsters. With Elena back to clinging to my arm I was safe enough from flying bullets for now, and we stumbled in harness down the steps to the car. I had left it unlocked, and Linda was already in the passenger seat. Luis slammed her door shut then came rushing around the front of the car, still in a state of frantic anxiety. I didn’t envy him. The wrath of Irazola senior would be his to contend with afterwards.
‘Quick, Señor!’ he yelped. Wasted words on his part. Quicker I could not go.
‘Good luck!’ Elena clutched in desperation at my arm as if even then she would delay my departure a few seconds longer. I flapped a vague goodbye, spared a breathless ‘Thanks’ for Luis as I dived into the Aston’s driving seat.
II
HEAVY METAL
Chapter Twelve
The engine rumbled awake, responding instantly to throttle and I set about challenging the manufacturer’s acceleration figures. The car leapt forward, Linda frantically buckling her seatbelt. In the rear-view mirror, I glimpsed uniforms surging through the doorway, Elena’s white face, Luis’s arm raised in defiant valediction. No shots were fired. Then we entered the curve of the driveway and their images were wiped away. Ahead, the approach road tapered to nothing in the rain and the mist. I held the car manually in second gear, winding the rev counter around the dial. More uniforms detached themselves from an outbuilding to our left, charged across the grass in a vain attempt to intercept us. Some were toting sidearms but we were already out of range.