Rupert had arranged for me to stay with an old friend of his uncle’s, who had a house outside the village. It was too complicated to explain where the house was, so he told me to stop at La Isla, the bar over the bridge as you entered the town, and ask for her. By the time I got there, I needed an ice-cold beer to wash away the dust and the sweat, so I pulled up in the shade of a giant carob tree and climbed the steps to the door.
When I stepped into the shadows of the old bar, there was a handful of guys in straw hats hunched over a table, muttering to one another. They shut up and eyed me as I came in. Maybe they were scared I’d steal their goat management techniques and make a killing on the international goat market. There was a plump pigeon behind the counter who smiled at me and I pointed to the iced San Miguel tap in front of her. In my best Spanish I told her, “Una cerveza muy fría.”
She pulled it and put it in front of me. I drained it and asked for another. She laughed a cute laugh and started to pull the second one. I smiled and said, “Habla ingles?” She made a gesture with her fingers signifying something real small and said, “Muy poco. Very lee-tell.”
I said, “Do you know Maria? A señora del pueblo? Maria?”
“Siiii!” She said it with real relish. “Siiii! Maria! Artista! Pintora! In thee beeeeg house! Siii!” She nodded a lot as she said it and put the beer in front of me.
I said, “I need to see her. Hablar con ella.”
She leaned back and looked down the bar into the bowels of the building where I guessed the kitchen was. Then she started screaming like a hysterical machine gun. Her burst of fire was answered by a small boy of about eight who leaned out of the kitchen door and strafed her with tiny, furious words. I guess she had the big guns, because he eventually stormed out in his blue shorts and went bounding up the hill, into the village. She saw him off with a few salvos then turned her sweet smile on me again. “Pablito going now for she. Her come. Now.” And she grinned and nodded a while, watching me drink with real interest. The guys at the table kept glancing at one another, as though they were having a secret, telepathic conversation. Maybe that was the thing in this village. Goat telepathy. After a moment, I said to her, “I am a reporter. Journalist. I work for a newspaper—periódico.”
She nodded vigorously again. “Ooooh! Yeeees. Reportero. Usted reportero,” and she made gestures with her hands that somehow meant writing for a newspaper. I gave her the thumbs up.
I could feel four pairs of eyes burning into my face from the table nearby. I went on, “Can you tell me about La Hermandad de la Cabra? The Goat People?”
The effect was instantaneous. She looked like someone had put a tap in her foot and drained all the blood out of her—not just the blood, but the fun, the joy and the spirit too. She shook her head no and went to wash glasses. At the same moment one of the guys at the table stood, muttered something and pushed out of the door. As his Toyota truck pulled out of the lot, an ancient, beat-up ex-US Army Jeep bounced in, driven by a pretty, dark-haired woman in a sweatshirt.
I watched from the bar as she skidded to a halt, vaulted over the door and ran the few yards to the steps I’d climbed a few minutes before. She was younger than I’d expected, maybe in her early thirties. She had dark hair pulled back in a simple pony tail, a dark T-shirt that seemed to have oil-pan stains on it, and a pair of boot-cut jeans that were worn through at the knees—and not by Giorgio Armani, but from being kneeled on too often. On her feet she had what looked like expensive Spanish riding boots. And her face… Her face wouldn’t have a bishop kicking holes in any stained-glass windows. It was pretty—not beautiful, not a babe, never a femme fatal, but real pretty. She breezed in through the door with a bright smile on her face that turned to a big grin as she looked me over from head to foot. I saw she had a faint dusting of freckles on her cheeks and nose, and I thought she might be half Latina.
She said, “You’re taller than most men around here,” and her eyes told me she was glad about that. Her voice was nice. It was husky—English class but with a mid-Atlantic flavor that gave it warmth. I couldn’t think of a clever answer, so I smiled and said, “Have a drink.”
She winked at me and said, “Rude not to.” Then she climbed onto the stool next to me and I realized she was maybe five-foot-four.
She had a beer and drank it from the bottle, holding it by the neck, ignoring the glass like it offended her sensibilities. She watched me over the bottle as she raised it to her mouth, and as she put it back on the bar, she smacked her lips and said, “Rupert didn’t say much. He’s mislaid his fiancée or something. I’m surprised he found one in the first place.” She raised an eyebrow at me, like she thought I’d tell her off for being rude.
I said, “Did you know Mary-Jane?”
She shook her head. “Nobody knew her except poor Rupert.”
“So she was never here? He said her parents lived here.”
“Lord, no!” she spluttered. “First I’ve heard about it!”
I considered the foam stuck to the inside of my glass. It was a confused mess. It was dry and had nothing to offer. I needed a new glass. I said, “Actually, Maria, I’m not that interested in Mary-Jane Carter. I’m more interested in Hugo, and the friends he made recently. Can you tell me anything about that?”
Sometimes you read that somebody’s eyes danced. Until I looked at Maria’s eyes in that moment, I had never realized what it meant. The eyelids half closed, the corners creased and the light from the scorching day outside sparkled on dark brown irises. She wanted to talk, but instead, she just twitched her mouth into a smile.
“The thing with ears,” she said kind of unexpectedly, “is that there are always twice as many of them as there are people.” She drained her bottle and slipped to the floor. “Follow me!’
She vaulted in over the door of her Jeep and almost immediately it roared into life. As I pulled out behind her in the Mustang, I was telling myself I was going to have trouble keeping up with this handful. She was like Laura Ingalls on speed disguised as a Mexican jumping bean. I trailed her up a steep hill then down a rough track, trying to see and breathe through the clouds of dust she was kicking up. Eventually we pulled into a broad dirt driveway. Her house was down a track concealed behind islands of yucca, banana and palms. The track was dotted with carvings, statues and wind chimes. In back of the house, half-hidden by almond trees, I could see an adobe wall shaded by tall poplars. She saw me looking and said, “The neighbors are pretty quiet, except on full moons.” Then I saw it was a cemetery.
I pulled my bag from the trunk and followed her down the track. On the outside, the house was traditional Spanish. On the inside it was like something out of Carlos Castaneda. There were no rooms, only broad, cool areas separated by arches, and every arch was decorated with wild abstract paintings and mosaics. Through a pair of open French doors, there was a terrace shaded by Russian vine. I saw an easel with a large canvas on it. She watched me take it in and said, “It’s like me. There are no sharp angles, no rigid lines. It’s all organic.” She threw me a key, which I had to catch left-handed. Then she pointed to a door through an arch and said, “You’re upstairs. That’s where all the sharp angles and straight lines are.” I raised an eyebrow. She winked and said, “See you down here in twenty. Then we’ll talk.”
I took my bag upstairs, which was minimalist IKEA with parquet floors and a big terrace overlooking the valley. The valley was remote and densely overgrown, populated by straggling herds of goats. The only sound was the cicadas and the dull clang of the goats’ bells. I dumped my bag on my bed and fell into the shower. After fifteen minutes drenching myself in cold water, I toweled myself half dry, dressed and went back downstairs again. Maria was out sitting in the deep shade of the vine, smoking and sipping a very cold Martini. That surprised me. I’d expected her to drink beer. I figured she was probably full of surprises. She smiled, showed me her drink then said, “Have one.”
I sat in one of her wicker chairs with my back to the glare of the sun and
pulled out my cigarettes. As I lit up, I said, “I’d hate to have to steal yours.”
She smiled on one side of her face and suddenly bellowed, “Rosalia! Otro Martini, cielo!”.
We sat in silence, looking at each other, smiling just enough to show it meant something. The sound of the cicadas was deafening and made the glare seem hotter. After a couple of minutes, a perfectly spherical woman in an apron appeared at the French windows with a tray of bottles and ice, and I stood to make the drinks.
When the woman had left, Maria said, “That’s Rosalia. She’s my housekeeper, but she’s been like a mom to me for the last few years. “
I dropped ice in the glasses and said, “You look too young and hip to have a housekeeper. It doesn’t suit your image.”
“I’m older and more sophisticated than I look. And the image is in your head, not mine, pal.”
I glanced at her. She was wearing her lopsided grin again. I handed her a drink and said, “Do you recall a man, name of Peter Strickland?”
She narrowed her eyes, pursed her lips and said, “A young American. Bit of a loner, I seem to remember. A little drab…”
“Sounds as though it might be him.”
“I did get to know him a bit. I was curious about him at first, but he turned out to be pretty dull. In the end, he used to seek me out. Told me all about his childhood in South Carolina.”
“What kind of childhood was that?”
She waved her hand in the air making a crazy spiral of smoke. “You know, the usual thing—alcoholic mother, gambling father, dysfunctional, violent.”
A thought came into my mind. I didn’t know why, but I followed it anyway. “Would you describe him as vulnerable?”
She looked surprised. “Well, it would never have occurred to me, but now that you’ve asked, yes. Yes, I probably would. Yes. That’s perceptive of you.”
I ignored her compliment and pressed the point. “Vulnerable to women?”
She laughed. “Not me, if that’s what you’re implying.”
I smiled and shook my head. “No, but I am asking if he might have been vulnerable to you—to an attractive woman—if she’d wanted to prey on him.”
Now she ignored my compliment. We were both good at ignoring each other’s compliments. She thought for a moment, then nodded. “I think that’s possible.”
I studied the ash on the end of my cigarette and thought about my next question. It made sense to ask it, but I had an unfamiliar gnawing in my gut, as though I cared about her answer—like it mattered to me. I didn’t like that feeling. I flicked ash and said, “How close did you get to him?”
She frowned. “That’s rather personal. Not that close. I think he came to see me as a bit of a confidante. He used to get quite drunk and tell me about his childhood and his family.”
“Did he tell you about his work?”
Her eyes drifted. “Well, you know…he wasn’t very specific.”
I nodded and felt like telling her I’d been on the receiving end of some of his unspecific work, but I saved it.
She went on, “He was a bit of a lost soul, actually. He came here escaping from a past that didn’t belong to him anymore.”
I frowned at her and blew smoke at her vine. “Our past never belongs to us, Maria. We belong to our past. That’s why we can’t escape from it. Unless I’m completely mistaken—which I’m not—it wasn’t his past he was escaping from. It was people. People with badges.”
A flash of irritation crossed her face. She’d liked Strickland, and if he had come to depend on her as a confidante and a friend, she’d also become protective of him. She said, “What is your interest in Strickland, Liam? I thought you were here to help Rupert.”
I nodded. “So did I, but everything is connected. I’m not after Strickland. I just need to know about him.” I watched her face a minute. She wouldn’t meet my eye. Finally, I gave her a little nudge. “Pete is dead, Maria. He was murdered. He was murdered by someone he trusted, and someone who shared his bed.”
She raised her eyes to mine now, and I felt unreasonably irritated that the sadness I saw in them was genuine. She tilted her head and sighed. “I’m so sorry to hear that. I really thought—”
“That he’d changed?”
She sort of smiled at me. “People do, you know.”
“Yeah, maybe, but less often than you’d think. I need to know, Maria. Apart from you, who else did he hook up with here? Did he have anything to do with the goat people?”
She burst out laughing. “The goat people? Is that what you call them? It’s quite appropriate, really.” Then she became serious and sighed. “There was one person…”
Behind her, a green lizard inched on to the terrace and froze, watching me with small black eyes.
I said, “A woman.” It wasn’t a question and she didn’t take it as one. “Yes, a woman, of course. I don’t know how they met, but he started hanging out with her. I’d seen her around a couple of times, always in her top-of-the-line Land Rover with tinted windows. I think she was one of Hugo’s friends.” There was more than a hint of resentment. I was going to ask but she moved on. “She was always alone. I imagine she had a house around here somewhere, out in the hills, but nobody seemed to know anything about her. She and Pete must have met somehow because next thing I knew, they were hanging out together all the time.”
I got the idea. At least I thought I did. I asked her, “Where did Pete live?”
“Oh, he had a little shack outside Árchez, up a dirt track… You know, the locals put plumbing into an old goat corral and call it a villa. I don’t think he intended staying here very long, but he settled. He seemed comfortable enough. All he ever did was go to the bars and drink the local wine.”
“Until he met this woman.”
“Until he met that woman, yes. Then he started hanging around with her all the time. She started coming into the villages—which she had never done before—and they’d sit together, drink and sometimes have a meal. But they never sought anybody’s company. And they certainly never welcomed company.”
Again the twist in my gut. I said “You must have felt pretty hurt.” It was irrelevant but I wanted to know if she cared for him, and I cursed myself for wanting to know.
She shrugged. “That’s putting it rather strongly. As I said, I was never that fond of him.”
“What did she look like?”
She frowned. “Is that important, Liam?” I sucked on my cigarette and nodded as I let out the smoke. She shrugged. “Tall, maybe five-ten. Pale and freckly in a cute way, red curly hair cut in a bob.” She shrugged again. “She was attractive, I suppose. Men found her attractive. Slim. Not a great figure, but good.”
I scratched my head as I felt my theory turning to sand in my fingers. “Age?”
“Twenty-six? Less than thirty.” Then, smiling, “A little younger than me.”
“What was her name?”
“Her name was Sinead. Sinead Tiernan.”
I crushed out my cigarette. “Irish.”
“I should have thought so, with a name like that. I only ever spoke to her in passing and there was a hint of a brogue.”
I thought for a while, looking at the dappled light filtering through the vine. I had suspected for a moment that the mystery woman might be Mary-Jane. But the moment things began to take shape, they shifted again and nothing had any meaning anymore. I knocked my Zippo on the arm of my chair a few times, spinning it in circles. Finally, I said, “So what happened?”
She spread her hands and shrugged. “One fine day they upped and left—no warnings, no goodbyes, no explanations. One day they were here. The next they were gone.” She held up her glass and smiled. There was only melting ice in it. I looked at my own and saw it was almost full. I drained it and started putting together two more. While I was dropping ice cubes, she asked me, “What has all this to do with anything, Liam? If you’ll forgive me, you seem to be way off track.”
I handed her the drink. I said, “I have no i
dea. I’m just sniffing around, Maria. Tell me something. Do you know any of the goat people?”
She looked at me with absolutely no expression for a moment. Then she said, “I know one or two people connected with them. Why?”
“How about their guru? Some kind of enlightened goatherd?”
She shrugged. “I’m not even sure he exists. They talk about him but nobody has ever seen him.”
“Could you arrange for me to meet them? I’d really like to talk to some of them.”
She smiled, but it wasn’t her usual, bright smile. After a moment, she said, “Nobody ever meets them. You’re either in them or not. But I’ll try to introduce you to people who might have access.” She paused, then added, “They’re not nice people, Liam. Be careful.”
A voice in my head told me to take her seriously. I nodded. “I will.”
Then she brightened and grinned, “Now, where are you taking me for dinner? I want to wear my little black Chanel.”
I grinned back and was aware of a strange feeling inside. I tried to ignore it, but I knew what it was. It was one of the most dangerous feelings a man can have. I felt happy and comfortable.
Chapter Eight
Her little black dress transformed the woman I had seen as just a pretty, paint-stained artist in torn jeans into a very sexy woman who could make a jalapeno chili look like an orange ice-lolly. Hot just didn’t cut it. We dined at La Maroma, a restaurant in neighboring Canillas, the biggest town in the area, where goats outnumbered people only two to one. The restaurant was a great, whitewashed sprawl that seemed to be the only illuminated thing in a town that was otherwise in complete darkness. Maria took my arm. It felt good to have her close. She looked like a million bucks, and I felt twelve-feet tall with her next to me. This was different from the way I’d felt with Catherine. She didn’t make me feel crazy. I remembered how I’d felt that afternoon. Maria made me feel comfortable. Too damned comfortable.
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