by Lex Lander
‘Ah, yes, but Isis bombers don’t mind getting blown up with their bombs.’ I tapped my chest. ‘I do.’
* * * * *
It was well into the new day, and Linda was asleep fully-dressed on top of the bedclothes when I stole into our room on the fourth floor. Though she didn’t know it, this was to be her last as well as her first night at the Caleta Hotel. Toby had been adamant on this point.
‘I can’t stop you womanising, André,’ he had grumbled primly, ‘but I’m damned if I’ll stand for her sharing your room or even your hotel. It’s too much of a risk. There’ll be telephone calls, messages at the desk … you might even talk in your sleep.’
‘You’re stressing over nothing, Toby.’
But he was right. Security über alles. So, much as I resented being dictated to, I transferred Linda to the Rock Hotel that very morning. Her protest was perfunctory.
‘You sure have funny ideas about how to treat a mistress, Mister.’
‘You’re not my mistress.’
Her deep blue eyes sparkled. ‘You reckon?’
Chapter Thirteen
Linda was expecting to be my arm candy at the charity reception but I had to veto that idea. A bomber would hardly be likely to bring his pregnant partner with him. As a sop, I financed a clothes shopping spree, something of a necessity since all she had to wear was what she had on. As additional penance I spent the whole day with her, trailing from boutique to boutique. In the process I discovered that pregnant women are not well catered for where high fashion is concerned. Sometime during the expedition I rented a tux and accessories.
In the late afternoon we drove back to her hotel, the Aston’s trunk stuffed with colourful carry bags, an excess of early spring air entering where the windows used to be. This reminded me that I needed to order replacements. Unlikely any garage in Gib would have them in stock, which meant airfreighting them from the UK at prodigious cost. I could always try adding it to my expense account.
In the single bed in Linda’s room on the top floor we made love with a quiet but satisfying passion. I was still working several months of monastic regime out of my system and the visible evidence of Linda’s pregnancy didn’t interfere with my enjoyment. For her part, Linda showed no inhibitions at all.
Returning to the Caleta around six in the evening, I took a few minutes out to study my false UK passport, handed over by Toby the previous evening. My first and last names were the same but without the accent over the “e” and no middle name. I was now two years and a few months younger than the real me. The passport number was different. Physically I was as described in the original apart from losing two cms in height; the colour photo had not been tampered with but had been taken before I moved to Spain and I was therefore beardless. No matter, Toby opined, it added realism: people grew beards, people shaved them off. He cautioned me to carry only the fake from now on, as if I, who had owned more passports than the entire populations of some small countries, needed to be told.
For background, Toby had given me a Vancouver birthplace to account for my Transatlantic accent, and a successful businessman father but an Irish mother, which would justify a degree of hostility towards the English. I had also purportedly done a stint with the Provos, leaving when the Emerald Isle became too hot. Several actual Belfast bombings were ‘loosely’ attributed to me. As if I didn’t have enough real wrongdoing on my conscience.
The invitation card specified 7.30pm. for cocktails, dinner at 8.15. My taxi actually deposited me at the front door of the Holiday Inn at eight o’clock on the hour. The Cameo Room on the second floor was the cocktails venue. Toby and I were to pose as only the most casual of acquaintances. The seating arrangements had been manipulated to place Michael Vella beside me.
The uninspiring Cameo Room was packed. A hundred or more, skimmed from the cream of Gibraltar society: politicians, high-ranking army officers, bankers, possibly a senior police officer or two, though these were plain clothed. And women galore, a-gleam and a-glitter, and bursting with eminence or reflected eminence. Had Cassandra been my companion, it would have been I who basked in the glow of her status, like an orbiting satellite, unable to break free from her gravity pull.
Toby wasn’t hard to find. True to form he had gone straight to the top. In this instance Sir Gilbert Dover, Governor of Gibraltar, was the receptacle for his discourse. Very recently installed as Her Majesty’s representative and military supremo on the Rock, he would be keen to make an impression. Not to mention anxious for the latest intelligence from inside Whitehall. None was better placed than Toby to supply it.
I ambled by, catching Toby’s eye. The better to blend-in I snatched a glass from a passing tray. It turned out to have a cherry on a cocktail stick, something I can’t abide. I popped it in the near-empty glass at the end of a long bare female arm that was blocking my way. The arm’s owner, breathlessly recounting how ‘that frightful Pearson woman’ was forever dropping in on this or that pretext, and how she was quite positive she had designs on Edward …
My meandering brought me to the far end of the Cameo Room without sight of Michael Vella. I picked up a blatant-come hither signal from one matriarch who ought to have renounced such behaviour a generation ago and, my drink still unsipped, I turned to retrace my route and all but collided with the very man.
‘I saw you come in,’ he said, straight off. His voice was as I remembered it, a hint of harshness yet mellow, benevolent. A minuscule Latin accent indefinably hinted at non-English genealogy. ‘It is you, isn’t it?’
He had taken hold of my arm; there was strength in his fingers.
‘It is me,’ I agreed.
‘No.’ He waggled his handsome silver head. ‘I mean … it was you, you helped Andrea, my daughter when she …’
The memory revived my emotions of the moment. The girl’s youth and the manner of her death still haunted me on occasion.
‘I tried,’ I corrected. I stuck out a hand. ‘Warner.’
‘Warner? André Warner?’
‘Call me André. You’re expecting me, I believe.’
‘You know who I am?’ Then, before I could answer: ‘Yes … yes, of course you do.’ He did a quick scan of guests within earshot. ‘We have to talk. You may be able to help us. Time is very short.’
‘The Madrid Conference, you mean?’
‘Yes. Whatever agreement they come to will weaken our campaign, possibly destroy GIBESTÁ altogether. We –’
I motioned him to silence. ‘Not here. The place is full of unfriendly ears.’
‘You’re right. I’m sorry, I’m not used to being a conspirator.’
I edged off centre stage, nearer the wall. ‘We’re booked to sit together. Did you know?’
Strata of amusement fanned out from the corners of his eyes.
‘I should, since I arranged it. But, as you say, we won’t be able to talk freely anywhere here. When can we meet?’
We agreed on ten o’clock tomorrow evening, at his apartment. He produced a wallet, fumbled a card from it while I studied him anew. He was a good bit taller than me, spare of frame yet broad. The thin grey moustache was slightly asymmetrical, trimmed short at one end by a wart or carbuncle the size of map pin head. There was an air of the swashbuckler about him. You could visualise him with a cutlass between his teeth and a bandanna tied to his head, leading a boarding party.
A bald man, his pink dome framed by bushy wings of black hair, eyes made small by rimless glasses, was watching us from the other side of an exclusively male circle. His face, though unremarkable, triggered a memory cell.
‘Is that Peter Caruana?’
Vella tracked the line of my gaze. The bespectacled man suddenly became engrossed in the causerie taking place within his group.
‘That’s right,’ Vella confirmed. ‘Our past Chief Minister never misses an opportunity to lend his support to a worthy cause. Especially if there’s a free night out attached. The man on his left –’ grey-haired, more rimless glasses, sober blue suit
, ‘– that’s Keith Azopardi, GSD Party Chairman. Who knows, may be our next Chief Minister. They’ll be curious about you.’ He fingered the lapel of his midnight blue dinner jacket.
‘Mmm.’ It had already occurred to me that the Whitehall mandarins might not have taken Gibraltar’s leadership into their confidence. If Fabian Picardo and Co. were unaware of my true rôle they could inadvertently foul up the works. I lodged a mental note to mention my fears to Toby.
Around us, a general drift towards the open doors was taking place. Caruana’s group had split up, though one of their number, tall, lean, with Slavic features, had lingered to drain his glass and was observing me over the rim. When I stared back at him he gave a secretive smile before turning to follow Caruana and the others.
‘Come on,’ I said to Michael Vella. ‘We don’t want to attract attention by being the only ones left standing.’
I deposited my untasted drink on a side table and we joined the traffic flow to the dining room next door.
We had been allocated seats midway along a table with our backs to the wall. Vella was on my left, nearer the VIP table, which was at right angles to the rest. Toby, seated opposite, was between a woman who might have been attractive had she got rid of her Dame Edna spectacles and done something about her teeth, and a sallow-skinned, shifty-looking Latin, with the persona of a slave trader. More likely he was the most respectable man there. The immediate circle was completed by an elderly spinster type, who was silent until we began eating and then spoke non-stop with her mouth full, keeping up a constant spray of food particles.
The courses, which were numerous, ebbed and flowed and conversation with it. Vella drank steadily, mixed his wines indiscriminately, and became progressively withdrawn. Understandable. With his daughter so recently laid to rest he could be excused a certain bitterness. It said a lot for his grit that had not been deflected from his cause.
The evening would clearly have wound down to an uneventful close but for the speeches. Peter Caruana, as former and much-respected Chief Minister was due on first. We were all sitting back, some with loosened ties, to relish our brandies and liqueurs when a table-top mike was set up before Caruana, and he duly rose to a mixture of mechanical applause and a few good-natured groans.
He was not, he assured the room, second chin quivering, about to make a party political broadcast, nor did he intend to drone on for hours. No, it was merely to cast a few pearls of praise over the orphaned children’s charity in whose aid this gathering had been organised. He was confident that our donations would be put to effective use.
He prattled for about fifteen minutes. By now, Sir Gilbert was shooting furtive glances at his watch so I guessed Caruana was past his allotted time. Somebody must have sent him a coded signal, because he brought his monologue to a conclusion in a couple of terse sentences and resumed his seat to lukewarm applause.
It was now the turn of Sir Gilbert Dover. His role was non-political so he was not expected to talk along controversial lines.
Just shows how wrong you can be.
It all started harmlessly enough, with reference to the honour of being appointed to represent Her Majesty in this important strategic outpost, blah-blah-blah. I was almost dozing off when the diminutive Governor inserted into his peroration a swipe at GIBESTÁ which had all the subtlety of a punch in the nose, and had me snapping out of my snooze as if an alarm clock had gone off beside my ear.
‘Before closing,’ this masterpiece of provocation ran, ‘I wish to speak briefly about the recent violence that has been visited upon this peace-loving country. I am confident that I speak for ninety-nine per cent of the population of Gibraltar, in condemning it and, equally, the source from which it springs.’ A low growl came from the back of Vella’s throat. His hand twitched, accidentally upsetting his liqueur glass; a yellow stain fanned out over the white tablecloth. I seemed to be the only one who noticed. All eyes were turned towards the top table. Caruana, seated on the Governor’s left flank, was frowning down at his plate.
‘Over the past few weeks the Government of Gibraltar has been subjected to a great deal of loud invective. We have been told that … independence –’ The way he enunciated the word you might have thought he was talking about child molestation, ‘– is the only course that will bring security and prosperity. Yet those who mouth this propaganda know full well that without the deterrent of British military support the Spanish would simply stroll across the border and put an end to all notions of independence. Nor would our neighbours be content with a mere Anschluss, leaving us to get on with the business of living. Make no mistake, ladies and gentlemen, citizens of Gibraltar, your country would be occupied by the Spanish army and likely to remain that way!’ He cleared his throat, running spread fingers through his receding pepper-and-salt hair. ‘As for prosperity, under Britain you already have the security and prosperity that the pro-independence factions trumpet about. It is uncertainty and poverty they would visit on you.’
Vella had heard his fill. Sir Gilbert had paused in his speechmaking to give his rimless glasses a vigorous polish when the hurled salt cellar smacked fair and square into his midriff. The glasses shot from his hands. He blinked short-sightedly out across the room.
‘Lackey!’ Vella, the launcher of the missile, was up on his feet, swaying ever so slightly but otherwise in full command of his faculties. ‘You bootlicking jackal!’ Gasps all around. All faces were turned towards Vella now. I tugged at his cuff but he yanked his arm free so savagely a button tore away in my fingers. ‘All you want is to keep us under your thumb. Bloody colonials, that’s all we are to Britain!’ His voice was a bellow, needing no artificial amplification.
The Governor’s glasses were back on his nose. They somehow increased his gravitas if not his height.
‘You may posture all you like, Mr Vella,’ he retorted, his voice reverberating through the speakers, causing feedback. ‘The people of this country don’t want and certainly don’t need your blustering rhetoric –’
‘How do you know what they need!’ Vella raged back. ‘Don’t pretend you aren’t going to sell us down the river in Madrid five weeks from now!’
This accusation was heresy of the highest order, and was greeted by indrawn breaths. Toby was lounging back in his seat, appraising Vella, a vague smile playing across his lips. He would be enjoying the show, enjoy being in the wings. The reactions of those with more at stake were less phlegmatic: Caruana was signalling frantically to some aide, while Sir Gilbert’s wife seemed to be pleading with her husband. An unidentifiable VIP a few places along from Caruana, was also now standing, shaking a fist at Vella. Camera flashes were going off all round. Two uniformed police officers, one of each sex, came through the doorway in a rush. They were intercepted by a guest who pointed Vella out to them. They moved in. More cameras flashed.
Vella was still ranting but the general hubbub was blurring his oratory, robbing it of impact. The police officers were closing in. I got up and physically pushed Vella down into his seat. So complete was his surprise he didn’t resist. His mouth locked open.
‘The police are here!’ I had to shout to make myself heard over the furore. ‘You’ll be out on your ass if you don’t shut up.’
‘I don’t care.’ He threw off my restraining hold, rose again, to resume his verbal onslaught on the hapless Governor. The male police officer, a flat-capped sergeant, reached Vella, seized him roughly.
‘Look, sergeant …’ I said, rashly intervening. ‘Mr Vella’s loaded, he doesn’t know what he’s doing.’
‘Stay out of this, sir,’ the sergeant said, keeping just to the right side of courtesy. A glass whizzed past my ear, caught Vella on the cheekbone, shattering and drawing blood. He flung the sergeant aside, sending him spinning into me. The woman police officer grabbed at me, I thrust her away, instinctive self-defence.
‘André … stay out of it!’ came the wail from Toby across the table. He might as well have been on the other side of the world for all the use he
was to me. A full-scale brawl was now in the making. Vella and me against the rest.
Down I went, like a thrown caber. I remember getting in one good kick that raised a satisfying howl. Payment for that minor triumph was in kind and in multiples. Then the lights went dim and finally out altogether. On me, that is.
Chapter Fourteen
‘Feels good to be a free man again,’ I said to Toby, as he met me in front of the Irish Town police headquarters. It was morning and I hadn’t slept at all in my cosy little cell.
‘You’ve only yourself to blame,’ he chided. A car was waiting at the curb, rear door open ready to receive us. It was a nondescript conveyance, a military green Vauxhall with a dent in the offside wing and a driver in army uniform with corporal’s stripes. ‘A breach of the peace charge is not going to look good back in London.’
‘Stuff London,’ I retorted, across the car’s roof. ‘It wasn’t my bloody fault.’
‘Not your fault it started, but did you have to get stuck in? How’s your head, by the way?’
I explored the swelling on my forehead that was the outcome of its meeting with the floor of the Cameo Room.
‘Pulsating gently.’
The Vauxhall pulled away and rounded the corner into John Mac Square, where Michael Vella’s daughter had met her end. It was sunny, if on the breezy side. It lifted my spirits to be a free man again.
‘Did they let Vella out too?’ I asked.
‘Yes. The authorities wanted the police to hang on to him but they couldn’t justify it on a drunk and disorderly charge. He’ll appear in court in the fullness of time and be duly fined.’
‘What about charging him for assault? That salt pot he chucked at Caruana. It would solve a lot of problems if they found an excuse to jail him until the talks are over.’
‘More likely it would mean martyrdom,’ Toby said moodily. He leaned forward. ‘Corporal – take us out to the Point, will you?’