A Search for Donald Cottee

by Philip Spires

  PM Are you saying that they argued?

  CS Yes. Sometimes. It didn’t happen often, maybe once or twice a week. It happened whenever she had been drinking. Donald once told me that in the last half hour of the evening, when The Castle was beginning to empty, then Suzie would sometimes have a couple of drinks, never earlier. Also, when they had a really good evening, the staff bought her drinks and she felt obliged to accept. The staff were very happy with Susan Cottee. She was doing a very good job and they were benefiting from her efforts, so they often showed their gratitude.

  PM That fact had reached the owner of the camp site?

  CS The whole of Benidorm knew it. The Castle is an iconic venue in this town. It’s a place that grew up on the back of the town’s tourist industry and specifically on the Britishness of that tourism. The fact that Susan had recreated its greatness after it had fallen into what I can only describe as neglect and disrepair has become a symbol for the town’s business owners, especially the British. With The Castle decaying, the centre of tourist life, specifically British tourist life, was shrinking. It was certainly in decline. Talk was going round that it was dying, that the place was beginning a radical change that would see a complete redefinition of its character, a process that would aim to attract a different market. Now one venue, of course, does not make a town, but The Castle was truly iconic, an emblem of the kind of tourism that we thought might be over. It seems that older British people, the ones who have been coming here on holiday for thirty years or more, no longer have any money. The days are gone when Spain was a cheap destination that allowed the British working classes to spend their year’s savings showing off to one another.

  PM And Susan Cottee has restored The Castle to its former glory?

  CS Indeed she has, or had. But she was recreating something that only appealed to a particular generation from a specific place. Her success could be neither emulated nor sustained.

  PM Is that what she thought?

  CS Who can say? I doubt it. Everything she did with the place suggests that she wanted The Castle to be the place it used to be. She might have been just trying to put the clock back. On the other hand, she might also have realised that she could create a niche to exploit that particular market. Either way, it was a success that was real, but a success that could only have lasted a couple of years at most. There is a diminishing clientele for that kind of experience. She could never have competed.

  PM Competed with what?

  CS Competed with the profit that would have been generated by the redevelopment of the whole site. The Castle is a large piece of real estate. There’s another couple of bars adjoining and, around the corner, a clothes shop that runs into the next street. Together, these properties occupy a large plot with access from two roads. It’s perfect for a residential block with parking underneath. There have been rumours for a couple of years that a development company had bought the land, and had done so one piece at a time under different operating names to hide its real interest. Their problem was that even though they owned the site, there were leaseholders, such as the British woman who owned the clothes shop. She had twenty or twenty-five years left on her lease and said consistently that she did not want to sell up. She had even talked about handing it on to her daughter. On top of that, the town council was worried about changing the nature of the area. For years this town has made its money from creating and then fulfilling the dreams of working-class Britons. And once a pattern has been learned and later assumed, those people who have an interest in perpetuating it simply refuse to admit even the possibility of change. An application was submitted to demolish that British strip and build a forty storey apartment block. It was to be aimed at wealthy Russian purchasers. But there was a faction within the council, perhaps a majority, who did not want even to consider the possibility. The rumours were that people from outside the town were involved, and that the developers were trying to buy off certain interests right across the political boundaries. They were offering incentives for a vote this way or that, but it was never clear who in particular was behind what was going on. There were rumours about other councils and prominent politicians being involved...

  MdM We cannot discuss the involvement of any person who is not specifically mentioned in the brief for this hearing, Herr Smit. Can I ask you to restrict your comments to the subjects of our inquiry?

  María del Mar’s interjection stunned the court. There had not been the slightest suggestion that anyone other than Pérez Molino would conduct these early proceedings. She was clearly referring to the murder of Pedro Onsoda. She made it crystal clear that no-one had the right to mention anything whatsoever relating to that case. How this would work out, given that one aspect of the hearing was to establish whether anyone who had disappeared might have substantive evidence about the two deaths, was not made clear. Pérez Molino simply stared to his left, directly at her. His eyes asked questions that his voice dare not speak. The silence that followed became a measure of the struggle for power that would ensue. Caspar Smit sensed this and gave his own push to the dynamic.

  CS Basically if The Castle were to fail, it would have made the whole process a lot easier for the interested parties. The clothes shop was a joke. The other British bars between The Castle and the next junction were making no money. I am sure the leaseholders could have been persuaded to give up their interest.

  PM Then why would those involved have given The Castle to Susan Cottee? If they would have preferred it to fail, then why make it a success?

  CS Well the answer is obvious. Under the previous management, The Castle was ticking over. It was doing the kind of business it had been doing for some years. It wasn’t a disaster. But neither was it the sort of place where an investor would put new money.

  PM And the continued existence of The Castle, given its iconic status, might block an application for redevelopment...

  CS Probably. So then someone had the bright idea that if they could make the place fail catastrophically, spectacularly, then it could be left to become derelict - a process that might take less than a year - and so an application for change of use would then go through quickly.

  PM And so they asked Susan Cottee to take over?

  MdM Who is this ‘they’ you refer to?

  PM I am sure, Señora del Mar, that you would not want me to place specific names on the record of this hearing, names that your last interjection specifically asked not to be mentioned?

  MdM If there are allegations, I want to know...

  It was here that Caspar Smit’s ‘Dutchness’ came to the fore. He had something to say and he wanted to say it. He just let it come out, delivering his entire contribution before anyone could interrupt.

  CS The talk was that the people who owned the land wanted The Castle to fail. They wanted to redevelop the site and that meant demolishing the pub. The best way of doing that was to appoint a manager with no track record, no local knowledge, no contacts and no connections to help run the place. They also therefore needed someone naïve enough not to notice what was being done to them! The guy they had already was just a local hack, a fellow who has been around this town for decades without ever having made a success of anything, but also crucially he has always been a survivor. He has run bar after bar in the British sector and has become part of the town’s folklore. If he had stayed, the place would have continued as it had done for years. But he was sick. They offered him some money if he would stand aside and he accepted. Remember that he was still making a reasonable living from the place. He had to be persuaded to step down.

  MdM They?

  CS They offered him money to compensate him for his lost earnings. It was effectively a retirement package. He was part of their business, not just an employee. That allowed Susan Cottee to take over, making it look like the place was being re-launched. Their assumption was that after a few months the place would collapse financially a
nd it would be seen merely as a business failure and not part of a plan to influence a political decision. Then they would let the place fall derelict. It would soon be an eyesore and then a priority for re-development.

  MdM And why would someone like Susan Cottee take on such a brief?

  CS Because she knew not one thing about what they were planning. She was on holiday, determined to live a dream retirement that recreated her youth. And she was completely naïve. She knew nothing about local politics. For her, The Castle was part of a heritage that was mostly her own past. Being British, she probably never even realised that politics exist anywhere apart from in the British context. She spoke no Spanish, so couldn’t talk about such things with anyone in the know, and frankly, she didn’t speak English very well either. Come on, madam, she was a perfect stool pigeon for these people.

  A stool pigeon is... I anticipated a need for explanation. I was cut short.

  PM Thank you. I am quite aware of this Americanism. Mr Smit, who were these people you call the owners, the interests?

  MdM In my opinion...

  GL Please...

  He had not spoken until now. His stentorian voice suddenly demanded all attention, however. He did not need to ask twice, despite the fact that he seemed to have zero authority and considerably less respect. His cheeks flushed red as he spoke. He was obviously unused to this role and was far from comfortable playing it. If he was close to power, then he had never brokered it.

  GL I remind the hearing that nothing related to the case of Mayor Pedro Onsoda may be discussed. This hearing relates only to the disappearance of six people...

  CS Look, Sir, they wanted the site. They had submitted an application for a fifty storey block with two hundred apartments, each selling at two-fifty-ks and above. It’s a fifty million gross project. They would make at least twenty million clear. The Castle, even in a good year, would clear a thousand a night after costs, maybe a quarter of a million a year. Now that’s good money for a working-class pub aimed at low spenders from the north of England. But the world has moved on since such people mattered. What they wanted...

  GL Please!

  MdM You may not...

  PM Go on.

  CS ...what they wanted was for the place to fail so they could close it down.

  MdM The argument does not make sense.

  CS Miss del Mar, how many hotels do your clients own? I will not wait for your answer, because I already know that their business is poor. They are no longer making good money from those sites. The future for this town is residential development, not mass tourism. The interests that owned The Castle were fully aware...

  MdM Herr Smit...

  PM We have come a long way in our understanding...

  Pérez Molino was suddenly in charge again. Strangely, though there was nothing in the hearing’s brief to suggest he might actually be leading the session, he seemed to assume that responsibility. He seemed almost relieved that his two colleagues had intervened and were now under attack. He revelled in his neutrality.

  PM ... since my original question relating to the Cottees’ domestic arrangements. Can you please complete the point you began about what happened when they came home at night?

  CS They argued.

  Since discussion had moved back inside the mobile home parked on the La Manca site, both García López and María del Mar visibly settled back into their seats.

  CS They argued when she had been drinking. She was on medication. She was ill. She couldn’t drink any more. It clearly reacted with the drugs she was taking. But when she came home after having a shot or two, she took it out on poor Don. She let him have it broadside. The poor man got no rest. She seemed to blame her illness on him and perhaps on everyone else as well. She seemed to want to punish those still alive for the fact that she was going to die. I had to visit their plot several times because people had complained about the shouting and screaming. She would call him every name you could imagine. I knew he would break one day...

  GL I think...

  MdM I object!

  PM Thank you, Mr Smit. We will take note of everything you have said. So unless my colleagues have anything to add...?

  It was a masterstroke. He gave them rope to hang themselves. He gave them an invitation to delve into the detail of what we had heard, and he knew they would duck it. What a tactician! One wonders who he is working for! The others indicated that there was no more they wanted to be said. Caspar Smit left the room.

  Next onto the stand was Maureen Voros. At first sight she might just conform to your stereotypical reader, Joe. She’s from Manchester, overweight, sixty-ish but looks at least eighty. She has died black hair, ear-length, centre-parted. It looks greasy, and hangs in strands at the back, where it appears not to have seen a comb for some weeks. She has more than a hint of a bald patch. She waddles rather than walks, and looks like she rarely spends more than a minute or two on her feet in an average day. She has a thick Mancunian accent and holds her mouth like an open letterbox, but her voice is either a mutter, so quiet it can hardly be heard or a shout, bellowing out so loud it drowns everything else. Pérez Molino’s attitude towards her was tinged with contempt.

  PM Name, please?

  MV Maureen Voros.

  PM Voros. Is that English?

  MV It is if you say it in English.

  Impatience was quick to surface and even quicker to find its expression.

  PM I was asking if your name is an English name.

  MV My father was Hungarian. He was a refugee in fifty-six. He was a professional footballer. He played for Accrington Stanley and then broke his leg. He settled in Stockport where I was brought up. And Stockport is in Cheshire. I heard you talk about Manchester. I’m not from Manchester. I’m from Stockport, a place where I have not lived for thirty years. I used to work in a baked bean factory. I stood by the side of the belt and picked out any beans that were broken or discoloured before they went into the cooker. And none of this has anything whatsoever to do with why I have been asked to come and sit here. I am losing money, you know. I am paid by the hour and if I don’t work, I don’t get paid...

  PM You don’t have a Hungarian accent.

  MV That’s because I’ve never been to friggin’ Hungary. I was brought up in Stockport.

  PM But you were born in Hungary...?

  MV I am fifty-two. That means I was born in nineteen fifty-seven. Nineteen fifty-six came along almost a full year earlier, if I am not mistaken. My father left Hungary in fifty-six and subsequently I believed he played a part in my conception. I have never been to Hungary. I never formally learned any Hungarian, except for a few words at home, such as köszönöm, igen, nem and szívesen, and I never used any of them. My father always wanted us to be one hundred percent British. He never even spoke any Hungarian at home, only English. I was born in Cheshire and lived in Stockport, which is not Manchester. It’s also not Lancashire, but Cheshire. I moved to Spain when I was twenty-one, by the way, and I have lived here on and off ever since.

  PM So you speak Spanish?

  MV No.

  The pause that followed seemed to last an age. Pérez Molino shuffled papers back and forth. It seemed like he had nothing prepared for this witness.

  MV If I’d called myself Maureen Jackson, you wouldn’t have asked those questions.

  PM Jackson. Is that an English name?

  MV Only when you say it in English.

  PM Is that the name of your husband?

  MV No. I was living with Anthony Jackson for a while. I used his name as well, because I assumed we’d get married anyway. Then he walked out and left me and I became Voros again.

  PM Mrs Voros

  MV Ms Voros

  PM Ms Voros, can we get to the point? You are invited here today to give evidence to this preliminary hearing. We are inte
rested in anything you can tell us that might offer clues as to the whereabouts of the missing persons. You have told us that you have lived in Spain for thirty years? Is that correct?

  MV Yes and no.

  A sign from the bench indicated that patience might be running short. Pérez Molino again reminded Maureen Voros that she had been invited to the hearing to offer information on the possible whereabouts of missing persons and that it would help if she provided clear answers to the questions asked. But she interrupted to continue her story. It was clear that she was going to tell it in precisely the way she wanted.

  MV I did answer your question. The answer was yes and no. I have lived in Spain on and off since 1979. Originally I stayed for five years. Then I went back to Stockport, Then I came back here. Then I went back. Then I came here. Then I went back and finally I came here, which is where I am now, if you hadn’t noticed.

  The sigh from the bench was comically drawn out.

  PM What brought you to Spain?

  MV The sun.

  PM Did you come here for work, for pleasure, or for what reason?

  MV I might look stupid, Señor, but inside this ugly head of mine there is a working brain. I do not understand why you are asking me these things. I don’t see that they have anything at all to do with the people who have gone missing. I know a lot about all of those people. I am willing to tell you anything you need to know. Not one fact I can give has anything to do with me or my background. But I will answer your question, out of politeness. I had separated from my Tony. We’d only been together for a couple of years, but he was treating me worse than the doormat. I came on holiday. I had worked on a baked bean production line for about five years, ever since leaving school, so I had an income and I had my own flat. I was lucky in that respect. My dad died in 1978. He had a heart attack. In fact he had several, but it really was the first one, the big one that mattered. It was an eighty-third minute winner by Daniel Bertoni that did for him. You see it was the first time since 1956 that he felt willing, able and - most importantly of all - motivated to support his home country. He’d left Budapest in 1956. He’d been shot off the streets in the demonstrations and daren’t ever go home. He never told me the details of how he managed to get to Vienna, but of course once he’d arrived he was granted refugee status. And that’s how he finished in Britain. He said he could already speak English. He was a footballer. He’d played for one of the big clubs in Hungary. He wasn’t famous, but he was well-known in the game and he had already played for his club right across Europe. He never said if he was capped as an international for Hungary, but I am fairly sure he was. I’ve never bothered to find out. I wouldn’t really know where to look. What he did keep telling us was that he could have been Puskas. He could have been Puskas, he said, if he’d been a striker rather than a clod-hopping centre-half, if he’d had ball skills rather than a boot and if, if only, he hadn’t been shot in the right knee during the uprising. He never had any mobility. His right leg was just about stiff. He could hardly bend it. He used to say that he could stand on it to use his left foot, the one that was supposed to be for standing on, or he could swing it like a pendulum when he took goal kicks. But it made him look clumsy. His name was known amongst people who knew their football, though, so it meant that when he had a trial with Accrington Stanley, they gave him the benefit of the doubt, hoping that he would recover some of his mobility. But it wasn’t going to happen. He only did two seasons and then he went onto the coaching staff. He stayed there just a couple of years more and then moved on. He was always involved with football, though he never got another job with a professional club - and, of course, the reason why he left Accrington was that they went bust and had to drop out of the league. My dad took it personally, said he’d been a kiss of death of the club. They’d employed him on the strength of his name, without realising he was a cripple. They had played him at centre-half and they’d lost every time he played because he couldn’t run any more. All he could do was foul the opposing centre forward or try to kick him over the stand if, that is, he could ever catch him. So he never had any money and he turned to drink. My mother left home. I can’t say I ever knew her. She’d gone by the time I was six. My dad said it was because of his depression...