A Search for Donald Cottee

by Philip Spires

  “He had an interest in The Castle...”

  “They said on the news that he owned the lot.”

  I was momentarily dumbfounded, but not surprised, of course. What worried me was who might own it now.

  “And he owned most of those new high-rise blocks along the Rincon. And then there was Paradise. That was another shady place with all sorts of things going on... ”

  “He was a bit insatiable.”

  “And he’s been buying up vast areas of campo up in the hills. There’s been talk that...”

  “He wanted to establish a private venture in power generation from wind farms, power that he would sell to the distributors. I know all about that, Ted.”

  “Don, you are a real fount.”

  I left Ted with his comforting scandal. He was now better informed and would no doubt share everything I’d said over the phone before the hour was out. It was around five to at the time. Everything was suddenly a lot clearer. The market had expanded. There was competition around. Pedro was calling the shots and they were being misdirected. Someone wanted them better aimed. I had suspected for some time where Mick Watson’s false wealth might originate. But I still had no real idea how the individual forces linked up. Now I knew. Surely, I retained my goal in life. Twelve inches.

  One

  Dear Joe

  This is the gist of the first day. It has proved to be a far more difficult task than I anticipated. I have to use a mixture of notes and recordings. I have bought a new mp3 recorder so I can load the audio files onto my laptop and then navigate through the material using the slider controls. Without that the task would be impossible. Obviously most of the proceedings are conducted in Spanish - otherwise you wouldn’t need me to translate! - but of course a number of the people called have been interviewed in English. Others will be handled the same way in the coming days. If at any point there is any confusion caused by language, I will try to indicate how and why this happened. I may be exceeding my brief, but I think this might eventually lead to some interesting material and avoid confusion.

  It’s a strange experience, quite unlike anything else I have covered. It’s not a trial, because no-one knows if a crime has been committed. Well, of course, a crime has been committed. We all know that. But at the moment there is nothing that actually links any of these people to those other events of a month ago. The hearing is not dealing with that case, in fact it specifically cannot deal with anything linked to it because its own hearing is pending. At the same time, it is assumed that something will turn up that links these people with those events. It really is the strangest case I have ever worked on, because hearings on the murder cannot even start until all avenues that might link it with these people have been explored. There is another session of the inquest into the shooting planned for next week, but all that can happen is another adjournment. That one will remain a dead story until we learn more from these sessions. The murder case will have to remain ‘pending’ until this one is examined. It’s not every day that a town mayor and his wife are killed with absolutely no evidence or suspect, so they seem to be making up procedures as they go along.

  So this is not a trial. The authorities have to establish whether there is anything to link any of these people with the shooting. If there is, they will be called as witnesses at the trial but, of course, they will have to find them first! They expect things to last several days, so what you might want to do is include a short piece in this week’s paper giving the basic background and then summarise what I provide over the next few days to create an in-depth report for next week. Just a thought.

  Proceedings got under way on time at ten o’clock this morning. Judge Guillermo Pérez Molino is presiding. He is also the one who is in charge of the other case. It was a clear indication from the start that the authorities are convinced that the two scenarios are linked. He is one of three presiding judges for this hearing, however. It is not clear why there are three. Neither is it clear what the brief of this hearing might be. Everyone seems to know something, but no-one knows the full story. It’s all very exploratory and no-one seems to know what to expect.

  The other two members of the bench are Don Alonso García López and Doña María del Mar. Señor García is not a local man. For some reason he has been brought in from the regional offices. The rumours are that he is a political appointee, drafted into the inquiry to keep an eye out, to fend off anything that might point in the direction of anyone with real power. There’s much potential embarrassment in some of the material to be discussed. María del Mar, on the other hand, is an unknown quantity. She is local, but until recently she has been associated only with corporate law and has worked on cases involving business disputes. She has only recently attained judicial status. There’s talk that she might be working for a company that was lobbying Mayor Pedro Onsoda, but lips are very tight on the subject.

  And so to today’s proceedings. The judge began by giving a summary of recent events and so there is no point my repeating the details here, since you already know the basic material. Sometimes I will attempt to summarise, but whenever the material is important I will transcribe verbatim or near-verbatim accounts. I apologise for this, because it will make my account quite long. But I am sure you will agree that the material I choose to include in this way will justify the extra time taken to read it. Only then will you get a flavour of the difference in the material provided by the individual testifiers. Even after just one day, the differences are already quite fascinating. My first example of this comes from the very first witness, because the first person called to the stand was Jennifer Mason, the Cottee’s camp site neighbour. She was asked to introduce herself.

  JM My name is Jennifer Mason. I live on the La Manca Camp site. Our mobile home has the plot next to the Cottees.

  Pérez Molino continued to address her in English.

  PM As you will know, Señora Mason, this is not a trial or even an official hearing. The circumstances of this case are very strange. At the moment, we do not know whether a crime has even been committed by any of the people who are the subject of this inquiry. You are invited to attend and to cooperate. You are not required to do so. It is an opportunity to examine the circumstances and material at our disposal. What we want to do is establish whether a crime has been committed and then, if so, who, if anyone, might be linked to other events currently under investigation and who, if anyone, has to be traced so they can be called before the court. Do you understand?

  She nodded. She was clearly very nervous. She was visibly shaking.

  JM I’ve never been in trouble with the law, Sir. I’ve never had anything to do with the police... Please...

  PM Doña Mason, this is not a court. This is a hearing to gather information. There is no need to fear the outcome, because there will be no outcome. It is merely a search for information. We have asked you to testify here merely to help us understand what might have happened. Our role is merely exploratory, not judgmental. Do you understand?

  Jennifer Mason nodded.

  PM Now I understand that you were the person who provided the text file that we call the Cottee blog, a file that has been printed and circulated. Can you tell the hearing how this material came into your possession.

  Pérez held up the folder containing the printed blogs belonging to Donald and Susan Cottee, the material that I sent to you immediately prior to this first report.

  JM That would be Don and Suzie’s blogs? Well, it’s really quite simple. It happened by chance. It was about lunchtime on the Wednesday. My husband Ted and me had been out for a morning walk. We generally set off just after sunrise and have breakfast out. We walk a lot, Ted and me. We would have got home around eleven or so. We’d stopped for our café con leche as normal at one of the bars along the main road. Maybe half past... It was there that we met a couple who told the latest about the Mayor and his wife… but we didn´t take much no
tice to be honest. It was such a beautiful day. The sky was completely clear and blue, but it was quite cool for the time of year. I remember the sea along Levante beach was rough. That, coupled with the clear air and the light of the low early-morning sun meant that everything looked so special, so beautiful. We’d taken loads of photos. Ted and I are members of the University Of The Third Age photographic group. We meet every Thursday at the Norwegian old peoples’ home up the Sierra Helada. Well that morning our camera’s memory was completely full. We’d even missed a couple of shots on the way home. We wanted to download them so we could do some more in the evening, but our computer’s been on the blink. It’s still at the shop being mended. They say it needs a part and because it’s quite old they’re having difficulty finding one. So I told Ted I’d go and see if I could use Suzie’s computer to free up the camera’s memory. We have the same kind of camera so all I need to do is plug in and press the button. I’ve done it before. I thought I could leave the photos on her computer until we got ours back and then we could copy them across.

  PM So you saw the Cottees at home at around eleven thirty that morning?

  JM No. I only saw Suzie. . Don was out on the quad bike. He’d gone to fill it up with petrol ready for their trip in the afternoon. I only stayed half an hour at most.

  PM Did you and Susan Cottee talk about the murder?

  JM I can’t remember... but I don’t think we did. I was too interested in getting my photos. But I did tell her I’d had a chat with that couple over coffee... I can’t remember. I might have done. At the time I didn’t know...

  Jennifer Mason paused for a long time. She seemed close to tears. She fiddled for a few moments in her bag. It was a formal lady’s handbag in white imitation leather. It had a pair of carrying straps and a heavy, metal clasp closure. It appeared to contain a large percentage of her worldly possessions. A clerk sitting to her left anticipated her search for a paper tissue and leaned across to offer a new packet he took from his jacket pocket. Jennifer Mason then fiddled with the pack for some time, trying to find the tab that would tear the plastic cover. It was a moment when a person on display was open to concentrated public scrutiny. I could sense almost everyone present eyeing her and I could almost feel their judgments. She is in her mid-sixties, but looks older. She has a worn look, somewhat used by life, its painful experience etched into lines that are now deep wrinkles across her face. Her permed blond hair had clearly been done specially for the occasion. A sleeveless pink blouse exposed a large purple and red butterfly tattoo near the top of her right arm and half of what seemed to be a name across her left shoulder blade. From my viewpoint this only became visible momentarily when she leaned forward or to the side, but everyone seemed to notice it. Her accent was broadly West Midlands, not a Birmingham voice, I think, but it bore many of the hallmarks of that region. I perceived a feeling that her opinions might be merely noted, that she might not be taken seriously. It was a position that was actually suggested by her own manner, which was nervous, neurotic, self-deprecatory. She took two or three minutes, a pause that seemed to last an age, to blow her nose, wipe her eyes, inspect the contents of the paper hankie, repeat the process, smooth her hair, adjust her lashes and check her face in a mirror she actually managed to find after another rummage through her bag. Pérez Molino remained patient and sympathetic throughout.

  PM Sorry... I interrupted. You were about to visit Mrs Cottee. Please continue.

  JM Well I knocked on the door and Suzie answered. She knew it was me because we’d got into the habit of having a chat almost every day sometime around one, not for long. Usually we would walk up the road to one of the cafés for a coffee. If the weather was on the blink, we stayed in and had a cup of tea. It was normally just a half an hour or so before she went off to The Castle. But of course this was a Wednesday...

  PM A Wednesday?

  JM It’s the day when Suzie didn’t go in to the pub until about seven in the evening. Her afternoon off. Her and Don often went off for the afternoon on Wednesdays. Every other day of the week followed the same pattern. Around three o’clock the car would come to pick her up. She was always driven to The Castle... or nearly always. There was the occasional time when Don took her on the quad bike.

  PM She went there every day? Seven days a week?

  JM Not at first. When they first arrived they were just like us other retirees. They did as they pleased. They joined a few things... the walking group, and the library - I have no idea what else... And Donald did his own thing from day one. He seemed to treat retirement like a greyhound race. When the date came up he was out of the traps and running, and he never seemed to stop. He was into everything from the start. It seemed that he’d only been here for a week or two when he got his quad bike. He was always off and away up into the hills on that bike. But it wasn’t his you know...

  PM We are aware of that. There were other changes in the Cottees’ lives?

  JM Yes. I suppose they were just settling in like we all have to do when we go to live abroad. Once we got to know them they were just ordinary people, but Donald really was keen to do his own thing.

  PM And Mrs Cottee? She took a job?

  JM When she first arrived, she seemed very quiet. She kept herself to herself. Ted and I couldn’t make our minds up whether to speak or just let them be. We thought she might be depressed or ill, or both. Then we thought they might have something to hide. They seemed a bit aloof, self-contained and not sociable. But then we soon got to know that she was ill, of course.

  PM And then she took the job?

  JM As I was saying, she did very little for a couple of months, but then we found out that she had decided to take on The Castle. She seemed to be part-time at the start, but after just a couple of weeks she started going in every day. She was always picked up by the same bloke in the same car, every day at the same time, except Wednesdays, of course. It was like clockwork. We thought it wouldn’t last, but she seemed to thrive on it, and she kept up the pace, even when, in recent weeks, when she began to look very much worse. She would never talk about it, but personally I think she knew she didn’t have long. After all, she had been told...

  PM The man who drove the car - that would be ... Philip Matthews?

  JM That’s right. Well I say that’s right, but I never really met the man, apart from saying an occasional hello or goodbye. We never actually spoke, because he never stayed around for long and usually didn’t even get out of the car. I suppose Suzie must have mentioned his name, but I don’t think I ever knew it until last week, when I read it in the paper. He would pick her up around three. He had been at work in the club since the morning. Suzie told me that he was the one that opened it up and got things going. But he and his wife didn’t actually work for Suzie. Officially they still answered to Mr Watson. They had their own office upstairs above the club. Suzie always said she just let them get on with things and didn’t interfere.

  JM So Mrs Cottee went to work every day at three and always with Mr Matthews in the same car?

  JM Always, except Wednesdays, of course. As I said, you could almost set your watch by them. Three o’clock is when she left. And she nearly always came back around two or three in the morning. As my husband Ted always said, you had good nights and bad nights!

  Mrs Mason burst into laughter, and the members of the presiding council politely followed suit. There was a pause before Jennifer continued, without the need for prompt.

  JM On the good nights, the same car brought her back...

  PM This was the black Porsche Cayenne, the four-wheel drive vehicle?

  Jennifer Mason nodded to confirm and was about to continue, but Pérez Molino interrupted.

  PM I want to be absolutely clear for our records, Mrs Mason. The vehicle is a black Porsche Cayenne, four-wheel drive with tinted windows and having a German matricula - sorry, German registration?

  JM I don�
�t know about anything technical, I’m afraid, but it did have German plates.

  Jennifer paused for a moment, because it was clear that the three members of the council wanted to confer for a moment. They pored over a document that the clerk to their left retrieved from a box file stuffed with papers. I specifically heard Pérez Molino say the word “Later” to his colleagues. The issue of the car and its ownership is clearly important. He looked to the right and took a prompt from the stenographer. “You were telling us about good nights and bad nights, Mrs Mason?”

  JM Oh, yes. Those were my Ted’s words. You see, we were always in bed, asleep by the time Suzie came home. On good nights, Suzie came home in a taxi. Occasionally - very occasionally - she came in the Porsche, but apparently it was Karen Matthews that drove her home. On the nights when Don went to collect her, she came home with him on the back of the quad bike, which, of course, woke up the whole camp site twice, once when he left and then again when he came back half an hour later. Sometimes even the taxis would wake us. Ted always used to complain when doors were slammed or we could hear a Diesel engine or even worse one of those two-way radios going buzz and tinkle at full volume while the driver had left his door open. But the next morning, if we hadn’t been woken up, Ted would always say that we’d had a Porsche sleep that night.

  PM And the night of the fire? Was that a Porsche night?

  JM It was, but we still woke up. There were voices. It was unusual. They got home...

  PM You heard the voices of Donald and Susan Cottee?

  She paused for a long time before answering.

  JM I’ve thought about it, Your Honour. I’ve tried to remember, but I can’t say for sure whether I heard both of them, either one or the other, or neither. We heard some voices. There wasn’t any shouting. There was nothing to suggest that there was anything unusual, except that they parked the car, rather than just dropping her off. It sounded like people trying to be quiet, just like you would expect people to behave if they were trying not to disturb others. They weren’t whispering, but they spoke very quietly, too quietly to identify any of the voices - and they didn’t speak a lot. We heard the car pull in beside the van, which was unusual, because usually, it just dropped her off, turned round and went. But that Wednesday night, or should I say Thursday morning it pulled in and parked beside the van. The reversing lights reflected off the van at the back and shone through our curtains. We heard voices. The people were trying to speak quietly, and we could hear things being moved...