by Adam Creed
Gracia looks at him with her big, surprised eyes. She has got her hair down and it is sun-kissed by the long summer. Harry feels funny in his stomach when he sees Gracia, especially when she has changed out of her school uniform, wearing her floaty, primrose dress that her mother fashioned from offcuts. The other children poke fun at her for having home-made clothes. This dress comes to her knees and has thin straps that show her shoulders, brown as almond shells.
‘Don’t listen to them, Arri,’ she calls. ‘I was going for a walk, along the Ruta Barrington.’
‘A walk! Maybe today he will kiss her,’ calls Rubén, and the boys run down the hill to the water troughs, laughing.
Beyond the sound of the boys running away, Harry hears a siren from the top of the village – the Guardia or a fire engine, perhaps. There have been fires up in the sierra this summer and he knows from his teachers not to leave bottles when they go into the campo. They magnify the sun and tinder the scorched grass.
He follows the boys down to the troughs, but Gracia runs up to him and tugs at the hem of his shirt. ‘Show me your treasures, Arri.’
‘I showed them last week.’
She giggles, says, ‘I love the way you talk. Say it in English.’
He sits under the walnut tree. If he were to climb it, and were he light enough not to break its bough, he could make his way onto the balcony of his uncle’s bedroom. He says, in English, ‘Let’s go along the ruta.’
Gracia smiles and sits next to him‚ puts her hand into his pocket and pulls out his leather pouch. It used to be a pencil case, but now it is a museum of the life he left behind.
She unzips the pouch and places it in the primrose canopy of her lap. One by one she removes: a fifty-pence piece; a picture of Harry and his best friend, Conor, taken as they plunged into the water on the log flume at Thorpe Park; the ticket from when his uncle took him to see Orient play Arsenal in the FA Cup; his Disneyland pass with its image of Mickey in front of the enchanted castle – that was the treat when his mum and Paolo told him he was going to have a sister. And finally, the item that Gracia likes best and which makes her big eyes go bigger still and her cherub mouth hang open in awe: the folded Polaroid image of his baby sister in shades of black and white within his mother’s belly.
Gracia whispers, ‘Miracle.’
Harry is troubled because he doesn’t like the picture. He knows, for sure, that he should.
The boys shout up to Harry but he can’t understand what they say. Gracia looks up at him and says they should go. She seems sad and holds his hand, tugs him to come the opposite way to the boys, and says, ‘When your sister comes, I will call her my prima. I’ll take her for walks and when she is old enough, I will teach her Spanish and how to make papas a lo pobre.’
‘We won’t be here that long,’ says Harry, certain he can’t stand to be in Spain for much longer. But it would break his heart to not see Gracia ever again. He squeezes her hand.
‘I love you, Arri.’
‘Don’t be stupid.’
*
Staffe watches Harry walk off down the Ruta Barrington. The route descends into the valley bottom, passing through almonds and olives, down to where the oranges are happy to thrive. It was here long before Barrington.
He is on his roof, sitting on the very edge in an old deckchair, reading Monsignor Quixote with a stick of chorizo and a stump of the dry village bread. He washes it down with a swig of sin alcohol beer and looks across the rooftops to where Gracia’s mother, Consuela, is laying out peppers on wire racks, to dry in the sun. She had been watching the two children, too, and she catches Staffe’s eye.
Staffe waves, smiles and calls, ‘Hola!’
She raises a hand, but is tight-lipped.
Consuela brings up Gracia alone. Nobody talks about where Gracia came from or where the father went, but the other women of the village pay her only the most cursory pleasantries. When the fish man comes up in his van from Motril, she stands alone at the back until the queue has gone, and buys a euro’s worth of boquerones. He puts in a couple of sardines, gratis, and she accepts them, ashamed at the charity. It doesn’t help that she works for Salva in Bar Fuente. That’s a man’s world and Consuela has fine features and a flat stomach. They say Salva is so supremely endowed, that his wife could take no more. It is why she disappeared in the night and he is alone and had to take on Consuela for his kitchen. None of which aids Consuela’s cause. Some say she is the one who should disappear.
Consuela turns away‚ towards a row of cars. Staffe registers the noise, too, and looks towards the cemetery, where he sees flashing blue lights: one, two and a third. Then a fourth. The Guardia’s 4x4s race up the track. There can’t be more than four police Land Rovers in the whole valley, and they are all whooshing up towards the lower barrio.
All across the rooftops, people hang off their balconies beholding the commotion. Consuela has a hand to her mouth, leaning right off her roof as Harry and Gracia come running up the track after the police cars.
*
The villagers pack along one side of the bridge, a rickety affair made from blue metal railings sunk into concrete ballasts. The lights from the Guardia 4X4s are still flashing and there is also a squad car from the Cuerpo. On the other side of the barranco, which the bridge spans, Manolo sits on his haunches, looking sad beside his red Bultaco.
Staffe clambers up the hillside and edges towards the ravine, looking down into the barranco. In the bottom, its nose plunged head first and its stylish rear end facing the sky, is a red Alfa Spyder. Staffe catches his breath, murmurs, ‘Raúl.’ He feels weak in the knees, sick in the pit of his stomach.
Round and round, stuck in a groove, the sound of ‘I am the Resurrection’ wheels away in the mountain air, but the Cuerpo officer reaches into the car and cuts the music dead. Then he cuts Raúl’s seat-belt webbing, begins to pull him free.
On the Mecina side of the bridge, an ambulance parks up. Its back doors swing open. On the bridge, the fire brigade have set up a winch and they are lowering a metal-framed, canvas stretcher into the dry river bed. Staffe watches their every move as they lift out Raúl, the tattered lemon shreds of his shirt drenched with blood all down his back.
He knows that if he hadn’t visited the murder scene in Almería, Raúl wouldn’t be in the bottom of this barranco being manhandled by two guardia.
The guardia heave him onto the stretcher and attach the hook of the hoist to the cradle. The firemen on the bridge wind the winch and Gutiérrez rises slowly. Higher and higher, he sways in the air and the villagers gasp, mutter. As he reaches the bridge, an untarnished silence descends. There is no wind; no birdsong. The canvas stretcher is soaked in blood and from its middle, a drip of blood falls, and then another, like sap.
A policeman in a blue suit – as opposed to the green of the Guardia Civil, who oversee the law in the countryside – points from the bridge to where Staffe is sitting, beckons him. As Staffe makes his way slowly down the hillside, he sees that the officer must be Cuerpo Nacional – unusual in these parts. The officer is short and wiry with a long, bandido moustache.
‘You are the guirri,’ says the Cuerpo officer.
‘I am English,’ says Staffe.
‘He was a friend of yours?’
‘Not really.’
‘I hear that you are police, in England.’
‘This is a holiday.’
‘Not convalescence?’ The Cuerpo has a laurel insignia on his tunic and Staffe thinks that might make him a comisario. His holster is impossibly shiny and his moustache jet black, though the groomed slicks of hair beneath his peaked cap are grey. He smokes a Cohiba cigar with its familiar black and gold band. Its deep, sweet tar smells of success, hard won. He looks up at Staffe and over his shoulder as he says, ‘We know this man. He came up from Almería and he was drunk. You were with him and as a policeman you should do better.’
‘Do better? This is not my fault.’
The officer lowers his voice. ‘He was dru
nk as a monkey and they’re telling me this was a stupid accident.’ The officer extends his hand to Staffe, shakes it with a limp action. ‘I am Sanchez. Come on, we should get out of their way. Come onto the bridge with me.’
Staffe looks again at the insignia on Sanchez’s uniform. ‘Comisario.’ He follows Sanchez.
‘Some crazy circle of life, up here in the mountains. I should know.’
‘You’re from up here?’
‘You could say that. It seems the place never lets you go. There’s always some kind of mess needs clearing up.’ The officer smooths down his sleeves and nods to his driver, who starts the car.
Together, they look over the bridge. Way down below, Staffe sees a red rag. When he looks more closely, he sees it is a duster, patches of yellow making it look like the Spanish flag. A blood-soaked duster, he thinks. He looks away from the rag, but thinks the Comisario may have seen him.
Sanchez says, ‘Good luck with becoming an uncle. Up here in the Alpujarras, it’s one big family – but you’re best off out of it.’
‘How do you know about me?’
‘We attend to strangers, Inspector Wagstaffe. And take my advice.’ Sanchez looks down from the bridge, towards where the bloody rag flutters in a strawberry bush in the dry river bed. ‘Forget what you think you might have seen. It’s better that you leave‚’ and Sanchez ushers Staffe away, watches him all the way up the road, back to the village.
When Staffe gets to the last bend, where the bridge is about to disappear from sight in the tight curves that must have done for Raúl, he sees a red motorbike weave up the hillside. He waves, thinking it is Manolo, but it isn’t him. Manolo is above the bridge, still, with Suki. The other red motorbike belongs to Jackson Roberts who rides it fast and sure, away from the ravine that took Raúl Gutiérrez.
*
For the first time in her life, Suki has a strap around her neck. Manolo ties it tight and puts a lead to it. He will make a gift of her to Gracia. That girl will surely know how to care properly. It’s in her blood.
He is on the high side of the ravine and the rest of the village are all on the other side, with the police cars, ambulance and the fire engine. They begin to disperse. Consuela looks up at him and he thinks she smiles, but she looks quickly away and he feels lost. He wants to touch her and he is sure he never will. The sadness feels like a memory he won’t ever be able to lose.
When she is all the way gone from his sight, not looking back even once, Manolo follows. He ties Suki to the drainpipe that runs down from the roof he sometimes sees her on, hanging her washing, drying her peppers, looking across the valley towards the sea. Sometimes, he hears her sing. It saddens him so, the beauty of everything she is.
He walks quickly away, out of the village along the acequia and all the way across the sierra to the Silla Montar. He is going over the top and down into Granada, into the past to make things right before any more harm is visited upon him, the remnants of his family, and the people he loves.
Above Edu’s cortijo, he pauses, watches Edu coming across the campo from the direction of Mecina. In all the years he has patrolled these mountains, tending his father’s flock, Manolo has never seen Edu on his land. Stretched out on his terrace, bottles littered at his feet – yes, but never striding his land the way he is now. He drinks water from his bota and waits for Edu to come close enough to speak, which he does, and Manolo turns his back, continues on his way. Once Edu stops calling him, Manolo’s thoughts turn to his English friend; what he might be made of. Manolo can’t help thinking he might come up short.
PART TWO
Nine
DS Pulford isn’t sure where he is. These last few months he has been doubling his shifts: official, and not. He rubs his eyes, thinks for a moment he is upside down, but he is on the sofa. He is still wearing his clothes and the sun is just up. It is twenty to five. Two nights running, he hasn’t made it to the bedroom. Sometimes, he doesn’t know if he’s taking work home, or the other way round.
Immigrant labour gangs have reared up again in Hackney and knife crime looks as if it will never go away. The other day, they stabbed a seventeen-year-old temp on Fenchurch Street. It was her second day at work.
He thinks he has a plan; can persuade Brandon to give up the gun that Jadus Golding used on Staffe‚ and possibly – if a deal with the CPS can be achieved – obtain a statement, but he has to be careful. A decent defence lawyer could leave them hung to dry, and Jadus could walk – for good.
Brandon says he knows where the gun is, says he was upstairs in Cutz when it happened. But he is still insisting that his warrant for the hit and run is withdrawn before he gives anything up. If Pulford was to bring him in now that would be game over, because B-Lat’s barrister says they have enough evidence that Pulford has breached procedure to ensure he never works again.
So last night, after he was done at Leadengate and after he had been to see the poor temp down at City morgue, Pulford went and stood in the Limekiln, looking up at Jasmine’s flat. She screamed at him, and some neighbours had come out and told him he was a bastard, and shouldn’t he be out catching rapists. But he stood there, for maybe half an hour, until he could be sure she had called Jadus.
His phone is ringing. Somewhere. That’s what must have awakened him. Dawn is pale and he rubs his eyes, knows he won’t get back to sleep, so he rifles the pockets of his jacket and pulls out his phone and answers. In all these months, it is the first time he has heard the voice. ‘Fucking back off,’ says Jadus.
‘Come out, like a man, and I won’t need to keep an eye on your woman.’
‘I won’t tell you again.’
‘Is that a threat?’ says Pulford.
The line is silent. It hisses, as if expressing what Jadus could say – that he has shot a copper before and if he’s in for a penny he may as well go down for tuppence. Jadus doesn’t say anything.
‘I saw a man going in there, Jadus. I suppose she’s got to find the rent, now you’re not working.’
‘I’ll fucking . . .’
‘Yes?’
The line hisses again.
‘We should meet, Jadus.’
‘Maybe we will. But you won’t see me coming.’
And the line is dead.
*
‘How did you know Raúl?’ asks Pepa. She is late twenties but has a hoarse voice, drags on a cigarette between mouthfuls of coffee. Like many of the people at Raúl’s funeral, she works for La Lente.
‘A chance encounter. He showed me Almería, took me to a peña on the Avenida Lorca.’ Staffe shades his eyes from the setting sun. They are in El Marisco, barely half a mile from where they buried the victim in Raúl’s last ever story.
‘He liked his flamenco, that’s for sure,’ says Pepa.
‘And his Stone Roses.’
‘Aah. I got him into them, but he preferred drink and women. Did he show you those, too?’
Staffe cannot see her eyes behind the over-sized Prada shades. He says, ‘I heard they didn’t have a post-mortem.’
Pepa raises her glasses, gives Staffe a quizzical stare. ‘The coroner’s verdict was clear.’
Staffe wonders what else Raúl was going to tell him about the killing amongst the plastic. He looks across at a defaced sign for Golfo Tropical, says, ‘It seems like some people aren’t too keen on recreation round here.’
‘They’re attached to their water. It’s kind of important. They don’t need it wasted on golf courses.’ Pepa finishes her Cacique rum. ‘There are a couple of things of mine up at his place. I need to go.’
‘I could give you a hand,’ says Staffe.
She lowers her sunglasses. ‘I bet you could. But first, tell me what you want.’
‘I don’t . . .’
‘Then I will go alone.’
The maître d’ hovers. Staffe thinks he knows him, or maybe vice versa. ‘There was a murder Raúl was covering.’ Both Staffe and Pepa instinctively look towards the plastic, the sea beyond. ‘He knew a friend of
mine.’
‘Is that how you met Raúl?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Do you believe in the small world?’
Staffe shakes his head. ‘And what is worse‚ he knew a man I would like to see dead.’
‘Ahaa. In our worlds‚ we have to be suspicious of such coincidences’ Pepa takes off her glasses and lays them on the table. She says, ‘Can you promise me, on whatever is holy in your life, that if there is a story in what you are snooping for, you come to me?’
‘I’m not snooping.’
‘Promise?’
He nods, watches Pepa pull a bunch of keys from her pocket. As she spins them on her finger, he thinks she is probably trouble. Nonetheless, he goes with her.
*
Pepa lies on Raúl’s bed, stares at his ceiling. ‘I’d like a few minutes,’ she says.
Staffe says, ‘I’ll check out the view.’ He climbs the steep, stone steps onto the roof and from the terrace he can just make out the canopy above the etched window of Casa Joaquín – where he and Raúl shared manzanilla and the red shrimp of Almería just the other evening. He can see the port; the other way, across the rooftops and beyond the Cathedral, stands the Alcazar.
After a while, Staffe thinks he can hear crying from below, but when Pepa eventually emerges onto the roof, she is dry-eyed and carrying a holdall, emblazoned with ‘Feria de Almería 2011’. ‘I’ve got what I came for.’
They go down into the apartment and Staffe notices a large, carved door they haven’t been through. He tries the handle but it is locked. ‘What’s this?’ he says.
‘He wasn’t born here. It was a start from nothing. Did you know that?’
‘His father went to Germany.’
‘He loved it so much here: his bulls and his peñas. And he could sail. God! He could sail, but all that’s ash now. Just ash.’ She reaches up to the lintel above the door and pulls down a key. ‘You can go in.’
The door is made from chestnut, intricately carved. It is heavier than any of the other doors, as if to an entire house. Staffe pushes it open and listens to it creak. There are large, leaded windows on either side of the room. One window has a desk beneath it, the other a sofa and as Staffe approaches the desk, he can see that he is above the alleyway that leads down to Joaquín’s. Now, he can work out where he is. There is a bridge that spans the alley, from one building to the next. This is the bridge. He leans over the desk, presses his nose to the window and sees people on their paseo, linking arms, eating ice-cream cornets.