by Adam Creed
*
Manolo is in a cave. He is cross-legged on a dirt floor, blinking up into bright lights.
‘Now!’ says the voice behind a video camera, mounted on a rickety tripod.
Manolo appears as if he might have been tortured. His voice cracks as he says, ‘You have to find me, Guilli. For the truth, you must come home.’ The metre of what he says is rigid, like an infant scholar reading from a book that is too difficult. ‘Seek your past and you will find me.’ The man behind the camera leans forward and hands a newspaper to Manolo who holds it up.
The paper is from two decades ago, and more. It is the front page of La Lente. Alongside each other, are portraits of the parents of DI Will Wagstaffe, Leadengate CID.
The lights die and from the dark, a voice says, ‘He’ll come.’
PART FOUR
Twenty-five
DC Josie Chancellor climbs the stairs up to the top-floor flat. Large black bin liners are piled up outside, smelling of rotted peach. She knocks on the door, tries not to breathe too deep. There’s no answer but in her line, you get a knack for knowing when people are in. She knocks again, calls, ‘Dave! It’s Josie.’
She hears feet, padding, and the door opens away from her. Pulford looks down, rubbing his eyes.
Josie squeezes past him and opens the window that juts from the roof, overlooking the Westway. She sniffs the stale air. ‘Take your bins out, why don’t you?’
‘Mind your own, why don’t you?’
Josie looks Pulford up and down. He seems unfamiliar, kind of cut adrift. ‘What have you been up to, David? You look washed out.’
He disappears into the bathroom and a tap runs. The living room is spartan. There’s a Jim Thomson book on the coffee table, one espresso cup, a brimming ashtray and a stove-top coffee pot. On the dining table, two box files. When he returns‚ Josie says‚ ‘I didn’t know you smoked.’
‘I didn’t know you cared.’ Pulford’s hair is wet and his eyes have a little more life in them.
‘Jadus Golding is dead.’
Pulford purses his lips‚ exhales loudly. Eventually, he says, ‘Good.’
‘Wouldn’t you rather we had caught him?’
‘Maybe it’s best we didn’t.’
Josie thinks she knows what he means, but lets it lie. ‘Pennington wants us to go down the morgue.’
‘Why? I can take your word he’s dead.’
‘Jasmine Cash is going down to identify the body.’
Pulford rubs his face, says, ‘So?’
‘He wants a woman there, to comfort her. And he wants someone to police her, too. I thought you’d want to do this.’
*
When they get to the City Morgue, Pulford lingers in the doorway on Raven Lane, pulling on a cigarette. He says to Josie, ‘I might say something I’d regret. I’d best stay here.’
‘Pennington wants you in there. He said you might be able to glean something. This is a murder case.’
‘Not one we’ll be breaking our backs to solve.’
‘Eyes will be on us.’
‘What?’
‘It’s what Pennington said. “When a cop-killer’s killed, the eyes are on us”.’
‘He didn’t kill a cop.’
‘You know what I mean.’ Josie slips her arm through Pulford’s. ‘You can control yourself, can’t you, sarge?’
They go down into the basement and as they enter the pathologists’ domain, the high, slender windows onto Raven Lane proffer a pale, grey light, saturated with the smell of formaldehyde.
Jasmine Cash sits in the corner of the room, hunched beside a trolley shrouded in white linen. Her jaw is set, her mascara jagging, all dried now. Josie crouches beside her, cajoling. Pulford stays in the doorway, watching as Josie persuades Jasmine to her feet, all the time whispering that it will be over soon and there is nothing to fear. He didn’t suffer.
‘You don’t care. You want him dead‚’ says Jasmine.
Pulford takes a step back.
‘We don’t,’ says Josie. They are by the trolley now, and with one hand, Josie reaches down, takes a hold of the shroud, peels it back, holding onto Jasmine with her other arm. She feels Jasmine go weak and she clutches her in both arms. ‘Is it him? Is it Jadus?’
‘You killed him all right. You killed him proper, didn’t you?’
Josie hugs Jasmine tight, feels the words, cold on her neck, and when they unclasp, Jasmine is staring at the empty doorway. A last time, she says, ‘You killed him.’
*
Yousef sits in his foraged-asbestos home. You can hear the sea and smell the diesel fumes from the autopista. They overpower the ozone. He watches his two neighbours make their way to the work truck. They don’t acknowledge him any more. The one in the Bulls vest says he brings bad spirits and he should keep away.
A red motorcycle pootles down the dirt track, rests up by the NitroFos drum. The rider turns off the engine and walks directly towards Yousef, beckoning him to stand. The visor is down and Yousef remembers something his mother told him about listening to people’s eyes. He stays put.
‘Stand!’ says the rider, lifting his visor. Beneath, he is wearing sunglasses with silver, reflective lenses.
Yousef shakes his head. There comes a time when they can’t harm you any more. The rider unzips his jacket, reaches inside, and Yousef readies himself. He has nothing to give so they must do what they must do.
‘They say you’re mute,’ says the rider, smiling. He pulls out his hand from inside the jacket and the metal glints silver in the sun. The rider crouches, pushing the metal towards him and Yousef can’t help but flinch. ‘Take this.’
Yousef shakes his head.
The rider reaches for his back pocket, pulls something out and quickly thrusts it at Yousef’s face. ‘And this.’ The second weapon is paper. It is four five-hundred Euro notes. It is as much cash as would pass through Yousef’s pockets in a year.
The rider drops the metal into Yousef’s lap. It is circular with a hole in its middle. His neighbours have them. They make music.
‘You must give this to your friend the Guirri. That is all. I will take you to where he’ll come.’
Yousef shakes his head, but grips the notes tightly in his weak fist. The money would buy him drugs to take his pains away. He could send enough to last his sister a year and he could still buy flour and beans and water to take him through the winter.
‘You know you are going to come.’
He shakes his head again.
‘When you give it him; when we know he has it, there is more. Another thousand.’
Yousef looks at the disc in his lap. He imagines his sister’s reaction if he could give her a thousand and his heart is glad for the first time since the shores of El Andalus rose to meet him, three long years ago.
He could go home, without shame.
The rider holds out a hand, to help him up, but Yousef shakes his head. Every bone in his body weeps as he stands of his own accord, but his soul sings.
*
Staffe and Pepa drive back to Almagen, climbing steeply on a narrow road etched lazily into the mountain. Every time a wagon thunders towards them, it takes the breath away, makes the heart stop as they veer towards the precipitous, deathly edges. Neither says a word for half an hour as they spiral higher and higher, up the spurs of the Sierra Nevada towards the top of the Ragua pass – the highest in all Spain.
Near the top, slowly approaching a clearing in the cedar woods, Pepa says, ‘Let’s stop,’ and pulls over to the side‚ the car lurching to a halt, not six inches from a fall to certain death. Pepa has to get out on the driver’s side. She lights up straight away, looks where they have come from – the parched Meseta. ‘What a road!’
Staffe says, ‘This is all about Agustín.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘There are only two roads into Almagen. This might be wild and remote, but it’s no place to hide. You can’t go missing out here. The gene pool is too small to bury a
secret. Someone must know where Agustín is.’
‘Morocco is my guess.’
‘Closer than that.’
Pepa says, ‘The boys won’t get their fortune if Astrid is still alive.’
‘They’d have to prove she is dead.’
‘Or otherwise.’
Staffe nods, wondering if he knows his friend Manolo at all.
*
Yousef sits in the shade of an olive tree. Up the road, he watches each vehicle that wends its way down from the top of the pass. He takes off his shoe and unfolds the four notes. He has never seen such money in his life. He replaces the notes and touches the disc beneath his burnous. He is sad the Guirri is in trouble, thinks he has a good heart.
A lorry comes down the steep road and a little red Cinquecento sticks out its nose, trying to get past. Yousef stands. The car fits the bill and he readies himself. The lorry’s brakes squeal and it indicates left, to carry on down the main valley, towards the sea. The little red car indicates right and accelerates quickly away from the junction towards Almagen, and him. Yousef steps out, holding his arms high in the air, standing dead still in the middle of the road.
The driver’s eyes go wide and the brakes squeal as the car skids. The road is not wide enough to steer round him and Yousef closes his eyes, waits for the impact.
*
‘I know this man,’ says Staffe. ‘What the hell was he doing? He stepped out in front of my car. Why?’
Staffe places a cushion behind Yousef, so he can sit upright on the two-seater sofa beneath the window in his house.
Yousef’s eyes flicker and he puts his hand into his burnous. His breathing is tight and he gulps at the air to fill his lungs, pulling out the disc. The young woman takes two steps back as if she is expecting a weapon. He feels his brow soften and his breathing eases.
A strange item to treasure, Staffe thinks, watching the man lean forward, wincing as he places the CD delicately upon the arm of the sofa, then kicks off the right of his babouche shoes and reaches into its long toe, checks a small, many-folded wad of what appears to be five-hundred euro notes. Now, the African sighs, and even though he is clearly still in great pain, a broad smile opens all the way across his thin face. He reaches for the disc and thrusts it at Staffe.
‘What is he doing?’ Pepa says.
‘He can’t speak.’
‘How do you know he can’t?’
‘Look.’
Yousef opens his mouth wide. Pepa puts a hand to her mouth, can’t help stare at the pink stem, like a segment of strange, candied fruit, jutting quietly up at the top of his throat. She says, to Staffe, ‘How do you know him?’
Staffe busies himself with his laptop at the dining table. He inserts the disc, hunkers over the machine.
‘Tell me, Guilli!’
‘I met him down in the plastic. He saw the body.’
‘And you didn’t tell me?’
‘It was before we met. I didn’t even know Raúl then. Christ, Pepa, I told you what he told me – that they buried the Dane kneeling up and drowned him. It’s all I could glean from him, and . . .’
Pepa grabs his sleeve with one hand, points at the screen with the other. She says, in the quietest voice, ‘Look, Guilli, it’s a DVD. Isn’t that your friend Manolo?’
They each watch the screen.
Yousef squeezes between them, peeking at the man in the cave. He knows him – from that day the Englishman came into his world, changing everything, for ever.
Manolo looks warily to one side of the camera and a hand appears. Manolo reaches out‚ looks at the piece of paper he is given, then holds the paper to camera.
Staffe sees his past, held up to him, like a mirror, and gasps: his mother and father on the front page of a Spanish newspaper.
He plugs headphones in and moves the cursor over the ‘PLAY’ button. He taps a key on the laptop with the little finger of his other hand to pause the footage every few seconds, his face screwed up in concentration.
Pepa leaves Staffe to it, takes the African up on the roof where he stands, back perfectly straight, head high, looking across the broad valley through the gap in the Sierra Contraviesa to the V of the Mediterranean. Pepa says on a clear day you can see the Rif mountains in Africa and he nods‚ his eyes becoming glassy. His chin trembles and Pepa walks towards him and hugs him. He squeezes her tight – as tight as he can, she thinks – but he makes little impression.
She goes back downstairs, tells Staffe that Yousef must stay with them. When he is fit, they will go with him and make sure that he is safe and that his shelter is good for the winter.
Yousef sits cross-legged on the bottom step of the stairs. He shakes his head, gestures with clasped hands to his heart that he is grateful but must be left to his own devices. He doesn’t have the language to tell them that he is going all the way home with his unbelievable bounty.
Twenty-six
The early morning rattle from inside Bar Fuente is absent today. Staffe follows Pepa and Yousef inside; only Frog and Salva are in. Upon seeing Staffe, they both frown. Staffe orders tostadas, coffees and glasses of fresh orange.
Frog snorts, ‘Tostadas, for a Moor?’
Salva points to a table on the far side of the comedor, says he will bring their breakfast across when it is ready. As Yousef and Pepa move off, Salva clamps a tight grip on Staffe’s forearm, hisses, ‘You shouldn’t come here. Not for a while. Wait for the dust to settle.’
‘What?’
‘You’ll lose us all a bundle,’ says Frog.
‘Shut up!’ says Salva. Turning back to Staffe, he says, ‘Every week, I have to come up with my pesetas for this place. I can’t have it empty.’
‘What’s happened? Where is everyone?’
‘Up at your friend Edu’s matanza,’ says Frog. ‘Looks like you and me are the only ones not invited.’
‘Salva, tell me what’s happened.’
‘The mayordomos were called up by the Junta and that ghost you dug up in your sister’s wood has got everyone running scared. Our plans for the Academy are being put on hold. You should have let it stay put.’
‘Fucking bad timing,’ says Frog.
‘Get out!’ shouts Salva, grabbing Frog’s half-drunk sol y sombra‚ and when Frog has gone‚ cursing to himself‚ Salva says to Staffe‚ ‘And when you’re done‚ Guilli‚ maybe you’d go‚ too. I have my business to consider.’
Matanzas are all-day affairs, starting at dawn and involving many men slaying a pig then drinking all day. Frog hadn’t quite got it right, because Staffe is invited. The last time he had seen Edu, his friend had positively insisted that he attend.
Pepa is going to the Ayuntamiento in Mecina to use their office suite. On the way, she dropped Yousef back at the house and Staffe at the bottom of the trail up to Edu’s.
As Staffe climbs the steep track, his thoughts soon return to the DVD Yousef delivered. He can replay it in his mind now, frame by frame. The running time is barely a minute, but he had pored over it for an hour and in that time, he gleaned two clues as to Manolo’s whereabouts.
In the first two seconds of running time, the camera shifts, as if it was bracketed to a ball and socket tripod plate that was being adjusted. As the shot ducked, Staffe had hit ‘Pause’. He missed it the first time, only got a glimpse on the third viewing, but the frozen image was certain. On the ground, maybe two feet in front of Manolo, was a pine cone. They use pine cones up in the mountains instead of firelighters. They burn just fine and cost nothing.
And at the end of the short film, Manolo had put down the newspaper, which rustled. He had sighed and a moment of silence followed, punctuated by a single strike of a cowbell, so quiet you wouldn’t hear it unless you were listening for it. But Staffe was – holding his breath and with his hands clamped over the earphones. It would not have been a cow, but a goat – a bell around its neck, should it stray from the flock. It is all Staffe needs, to restart his search for Manolo.
On the final hundred yards up t
o Edu’s cortijo – pig squealing and drunks baying – he takes a hard look up the mountain to where they take goats for summer and prime fires with pine cones. He wonders if those clues had been too readily uncovered, whether it is a subtly laid trap, luring him to Manolo’s cortijo. But he has to go, to get hold of Manolo’s copy of Gustav Hesse’s will, and translate it.
From the shade of a fig tree just beneath the road that Raúl Gutiérrez drove along, en route to his death, Staffe watches a pig held down on a bench at the front of Edu’s cortijo. Each of its trotters is tied taut to iron rings. Edu is smoking a fat cigar and rolling a smouldering bushel of thyme across the pig’s back, shoulders and legs, singeing the hairs.
Staffe counts thirteen men gathered around the pig, each clutching a tumbler of spirit, each with a wagging cigarette of black tobacco. The air is thick with profanity and advice; the women gather by the doorway, ready to boil up the chitterlings and make morcilla and salchichas. The men will butcher the main cuts, set about the curing of the jamones and the creation of chorizo.
Edu sharpens his knife a last time and cuts the pig’s throat. Every last drop of blood is drained. One of the thirteen does the rounds, pouring hooched aguardiente. Edu chain-smokes his way through the butchery, employing a large-bladed knife, then a cleaver, and a saw. The women ferry the cuts inside and before long, every last bit of the pig, from its ears all the way to its trotters have been harvested. Edu stands over the remains, quite exhausted. Someone hands him a beer which he swigs down in one.
Staffe moves from out of the shade of the fig tree towards the carousing herd. One by one, as they clock him, they fall silent. He holds out his bottle of Laphroaig to Edu who stands steadfast with a cleaver in one hand, his beer bottle in the other.
Most of the men know Staffe. They would nod or say ‘hola’ down in the campo or on a paseo. Now, they blank him.
‘You came,’ says Edu, forcing a smile.
‘You told me to bring a fancy whisky.’ Staffe reaches out with the bottle. ‘This is the best I could do.’