Death in the Sun

by Adam Creed

  ‘You and Harry need to take my house until the baby is born. We’ll know more soon, and everything will be all right. I promise.’

  Marie wants to believe Staffe, the way you always want to believe everything your father says to you. She hugs her brother tight, says, ‘I love you, Will. You know that. But it’s not your promise to make‚ is it? You can’t promise everything will be all right.’ She looks at Harry, who despite everything is suddenly happy behind his eyes.

  A loud knock resounds on the door.

  ‘I have to get going,’ calls Pepa. ‘And I’ve seen goats. Up by Manolo’s cortijo.’

  ‘I heard bells the day before yesterday,’ says Marie. ‘Manolo must be back. He’ll be taking them up the Silla Montar. You’re practically in Granada once you get over there.’

  Many years ago, Barrington convened long parties for his London set: artists and novelists; musicians and poets. In his memoirs, he claims to have walked from Granada to Almagen in a single day with his friend and playboy, Wesley John. The second day Staffe spent in Almagen, a young, fresh-faced aspiring writer had collapsed through the doors of Bar Fuente on the stroke of midnight. He said, over and again, ‘Fucking Barrington. Bastard liar.’ The young writer had set off from Granada at three o’clock that morning, in the steps of Barrington. His fact was Barrington’s fiction.

  Staffe looks at the Silla Montar, imagines some day climbing it, ambling down into the great city – the opposite way the last Moor had come. He remembers what the Moor’s wife had said when he wept salt tears at leaving his beloved Granada. ‘Don’t cry like a woman for what you couldn’t fight for like a man.’ He says to Pepa, ‘I have to go up there.’

  ‘To Manolo’s cortijo? You think that’s where they’re holding him? It’s probably a trap.’

  ‘There’s something up there I need to get.’

  ‘Gustav’s will? I bet it’s not all that’s waiting for you.’

  ‘I have no choice. Manolo is my friend, Pepa.’

  ‘You can’t be sure of that and I can’t come with you. I have to get down to Mojácar, try and get to see that new body.’

  ‘There’s no point trying to persuade him,’ says Marie, hugging her brother. ‘He won’t be told – until it’s too late.’

  *

  The goat bells knock out a soundtrack to the last hundred yards of Staffe’s climb up to Manolo’s place. Smoke rises from inside the cortijo and two red Bultaco scrambling bikes lean against the goat shed.

  Staffe needs to get his head straight before he goes in. All the way up, he has been trying to work out what enticed Raúl up here two weeks before the Dane even died in the plastic. Could it be something to do with himself and Santi Etxebatteria?

  He pictures Etxebatteria buying the components for the bomb and staking out the restaurant; setting the device’s timer for the precise moment his parents were murdered and then, with the smell of charred skin still thick on the Vizcaya seafront, penning his letter claiming responsibility.

  Months earlier, when Etxebatteria had lost his cherry, shooting a policeman in the head at point-blank range, he sent the widow a letter, asking if he could have his bullet back. Now, wanting to rebuild his life, Etxebatteria has said he is sorry, and the idea that he is granted some kind of amnesty makes Staffe more angry than ever: to think that such a man might access the motors of repentance.

  Staffe feels the bile. He wraps himself around it, keeps it safe, like a mother would her young. He looks up to the tree line. Beyond the cortijo, there are pines, and cones; and to the right, beneath the Silla Montar, he sees the opening to a cave. They are here.

  *

  Pepa is up on Staffe’s roof, looking down into the valley. A couple of houses away, a pretty woman pegs out washing, a daughter at her skirts. Pepa shouts across to ask if she has seen a Moor in the village.

  Consuela points into the valley, says, ‘Where the almonds stop. He’s by the third orange tree.’

  Pepa narrows her eyes, scans the landscape. Eventually, she sees Yousef, shouts to Consuela, ‘Where is he going?’

  ‘Along the Camino Barrington.’

  ‘Where does it lead?’

  Consuela says quietly, but in such a way that the sound carries, clear as turquoise shallows, ‘To the sea, of course.’ Then Harry appears, starts talking to the little girl. They sit on the low wall on the edge of the roof, forty perilous feet above the narrow street below, holding hands. In a different world.

  Pepa’s phone chimes, indicating that she has a signal and she immediately leafs through her address book, highlighting ‘Jesús’. He picks up straight away, says, ‘Three guesses why you call me now.’

  ‘Have you heard about the body down in Mojácar?’ she says.

  ‘Why else would you call?’

  ‘You said you’d take me for dinner.’

  ‘Bad timing,’ says Jesús.

  Pepa imagines somebody coming into the room he is in. ‘Are you unable to talk?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Pepa constructs questions to which he can answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’. ‘Have you seen photographs of the body?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But is he a foreigner and a druggie – like Jens Hansen?’

  ‘From what I hear.’

  ‘I’ll be there about midnight.’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he says.

  ‘In the parador and then we’ll go to the morgue.’

  ‘I’m not so sure I can.’

  ‘You’ve got to get me into that morgue, Jesús. You’re involved! Manolo’s your cousin. He’s in danger and it’s something to do with . . .’

  The line falls dead. No signal.

  *

  Staffe knocks on the door to Manolo’s cortijo. He does it lightly and the weaker part of him wishes the place empty. He presses his ear to the wood, hears someone being berated. He thinks it is Jackson’s voice and he walks around the building, tries to peer in through the windows but the shutters are closed.

  He treads lightly back to the main door and gently levers the latch. It relents easily. He steps inside and nobody is in the main room. The sounds are coming from the side room. It is definitely Jackson’s voice. Staffe feels for the goat’s head knife, runs fingers over its handle in his pocket.

  Staffe recalls the last time he was here and visualises where Gustav’s will is. There is a trunk in the left-hand room and he should try to retrieve it now, but he hears a louder noise.

  ‘My God‚’ says Jackson.

  Staffe peers into the amber-lit gloom. Jackson is sitting on the bed, his clothes covered in blood. The bed is crimson and lying across his lap is Manolo, his head in Jackson’s arms and staring straight at Staffe. His tongue is hanging from his mouth‚ throat slit‚ and Staffe steps into the room, his heart racing, his legs weak, his voice cracking as he says, ‘What have you done, Jackson?’

  ‘I found him like this. He was already dead when I got here.’

  ‘I walked all the way here and nobody passed me. I didn’t see a soul the whole time.’ Staffe’s legs are weak and he sinks to the floor, feels sick.

  Jackson’s eyes are wild, but he talks quietly, ‘He had no kind of life, not really. He didn’t have a chance. Not after what happened.’ He gently slides his legs from underneath Manolo’s body and eases him down onto the blood-drenched sheets. He stands, walks towards the chest beneath the window and picks up a knife by the tip of its blade. ‘This is what did for him.’

  Staffe looks on, open-mouthed as Jackson comes towards him, holding the knife by its blade. The handle is awfully familiar: a goat’s head carved from wood.

  Jackson says, ‘You seen this before?’

  ‘One just like it was stuffed into my mouth. That was you, wasn’t it?’

  ‘You really have it in for me, don’t you?’

  ‘If you didn’t kill him, who did?’

  ‘You’re the fucking detective.’ Jackson walks past Staffe into the living room and lights up a cigarette.

 
Staffe says, ‘You know Manolo and Agustín stood to inherit a fortune. Their grandfather is dead.’

  ‘When did I turn from being a bad sonofabitch into a goddam oracle?’

  ‘But they would only gain if their mother is dead.’

  ‘Which she’s not.’

  ‘So where is she? And what did she do wrong, Jackson?’

  ‘Plenty. It was all fucked up. But I don’t know where she is.’

  ‘Didn’t they bury Astrid up in Paolo’s woods? Isn’t that why you got him to buy the land – to keep an eye on it. You have a hold over him.’

  ‘When you say “they”, who exactly is “they”?’

  ‘I can’t say who killed her, but I know you were having an affair with her, and Rubio knew it.’

  ‘I loved that woman, with all my heart but never quite enough. And yes, Rubio knew. But it was all right, it really was. We got along.’

  ‘Maybe Rubio killed her. I saw a film of the four of you. Or did Manolo find out? Or Agustín?’

  ‘Agustín?’ Jackson looks ruffled.

  ‘You were all onto a nice little number. Getting fat off the art.’

  ‘That was Barrington’s game.’

  ‘But then he lost it. And you were left with a world-renowned artist who couldn’t do it any more. But you can paint, can’t you, Jackson?’

  ‘Nice of you to say so.’

  ‘That painting of Gador in your cortijo, it’s one of yours. I’ve seen one similar.’

  ‘There are no others like it.’

  ‘I bumped into your friend Yolanda. She knows an interesting item when she sees it.’

  Jackson walks around the table. ‘Knew it‚ you bastard. You didn’t think you could get away with just taking it‚ did you? I need that canvas. What you’ve done is theft.’

  Staffe keeps an eagle eye on Jackson Roberts, puts his hand in his pocket, feels the goat’s head. ‘Is that why you lured me here – to get your precious canvas?’

  Jackson goes into the bedroom. Staffe calls to him, ‘Passing your stuff off as Barrington’s is fraud.’

  From here, Manolo looks as if he might be sleeping off a heavy one. In the low light, the sheets look brown.

  Jackson comes back into the room, with the murder weapon. He places it heavily on the table. ‘I need that painting, Wagstaffe. You’re going to give it to me.’

  ‘The last Barrington? Why don’t you just knock up another?’

  ‘Don’t be a prick. He’s dead.’

  ‘What you mean is nowadays they can carbon-date when a piece was painted. Your game is up. Just one left, hey, from when he was alive. Before, there was plenty to go round. I bet you couldn’t paint them quick enough.’

  ‘You prick.’

  ‘Was Astrid onto you?’ Staffe turns, to look at dead Manolo. ‘Or Manolo?’

  ‘I didn’t kill him. I got here half an hour ago and it was already done.’

  ‘You were holding him all that time?’

  Jackson, drenched in Manolo’s blood, holds out his arms, like Christ. ‘I saw him grow into a man. His father is a friend, for God’s sake.’

  ‘And you loved his mother. But you used him to lure me up here.’ Staffe reaches into his pocket, takes a grip of his goat’s-head knife.

  ‘I didnt say that.’

  ‘You made that film.’

  Jackson sees him, shoots out a hand and grabs the handle of a bull-whip from the dresser. Staffe feels a terrible pain on his neck and in the same instant hears the clap from the whip.

  The leather tail is around Staffe’s throat and as he tries to pull it free with both hands, his own knife clatters to the stone floor. Jackson walks backwards, tightening the grip on Staffe’s throat and Staffe has to follow, banging into the table, squealing because his windpipe is more and more constricted. Jackson stops. ‘You pick up tricks in war, Inspector. Once, in Vietnam, it took a slope two shoulders and a knee before he coughed up where his best friend was. But he coughed up. So, we’ll get there.’ He drops the handle of the whip, takes a step forward, and gets Staffe’s arm up his back. Expertly, he twists the shoulder joint to the very cusp of dislocation. ‘Now, tell me your theory, my friend.’

  Staffe’s throat burns. ‘Barrington had lost it and you tried painting one for him. It was good. He worked on them with you. To be safe, you sold them abroad – to known collectors. Barrington gave the provenance and you split the money. Enough for everyone. Then Astrid got greedy.’

  ‘But she was a rich heiress. Remember?’

  ‘She got greedy for you. She wanted to be with you and threatened to expose you all. Any one of you could have killed her.’

  Jackson says, ‘Nice theory, but you don’t know she’s dead, and as for that body in your sister’s woods, it’s a man – a ghost from the war.’

  ‘We’ll see about that, but what about Raúl? Was he onto you?’

  ‘Where is my painting?’

  ‘Is it the last Barrington?’

  ‘Where is it?’ Jackson has a tight grip on Staffe’s bent arm. ‘I’ll fucking break you, man.’

  ‘Who killed that man in the plastic . . .’

  ‘I’ll do it. Believe me.’

  Staffe knows Jackson will do it. ‘You were near the bridge when they cut Raúl out of his car. I saw you up the mountain on your motorbike. Someone stopped Raúl on that bridge and my guess is they struck him; killed him and tried to stop the blood by using a rag. They put him back in his car and belted him in.’

  ‘I told you – I’ll do it. I’ll break your fucking arm.’

  ‘Raul never wore a seat belt.’ Staffe feels the squeeze. He holds his breath. He read somewhere once – or did someone tell him? – if you hold your breath, if you starve the blood and heart and brain of oxygen, and you suffer great shock, you can . . .

  He closes his eyes and the weight of Jackson on him feels more distant. He hears the crunch – a gristly, softened crack, dampened by ligament. His arm falls loose. The pain is white hot and something in Staffe shuts down. He hears his name, far away, and a harsh dark descends, with Jackson saying, ‘You’ll never know, you’ll never know . . .’

  *

  On the strike of ten, Pepa fires up the Cinquecento. The rolled-up canvas is on the back seat, still wrapped up in the rug. She looks around the plazeta a last time, wonders where Staffe has got to. But there is no time to wait for him, she has to meet Jesús.

  Twenty-nine

  Standing over the Englishman, Quesada mops his brow. He can see immediately, from the splay of his arm, that Inspector Wagstaffe has suffered a dislocation to his shoulder, that the pain had caused him to pass out.

  The brigada turns Staffe onto his back, holding the arm as he does. He sits on the floor and places one boot under the Englishman’s jaw and the other against his ribcage, then he takes a firm hold of the arm and pulls, slowly finding the socket with the orphaned ball of the joint. It clicks back, rehoused. Staffe grunts and his eyes flicker and his good arm shoots across, holds his bad one. And he howls.

  Quesada says, ‘I told you to be careful, my friend.’ He hands him three 600 mg ibuprofen tablets and a glass of water and watches as Staffe warily accepts, scrutinises, then swallows them.

  ‘Roberts did this to you?’ says Quesada.

  ‘Did you see him?’

  ‘Were there two Bultacos here when you arrived?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There’s only one now. I think I saw him going over the top.’

  ‘The Silla Montar? He’ll kill himself!’

  ‘We should be that lucky,’ says Quesada.

  ‘Would it suit you to have him out of the way?’

  ‘What makes you say such a thing?’

  ‘You had Roberts over a barrel. He was bringing drugs up from Africa but you came to an arrangement, arresting people up and down the chain. It’s how you climbed the ladder.’

  ‘We bring as much justice as we can, not thinking we can win, but aiming to lose by as little as possible.’

  �
�Which just so happened to free Jackson to pass off his paintings as Barringtons. They made small fortunes.’

  Quesada runs his thumb and forefinger down along his moustache. He smooths it in this manner a dozen times. Then he shakes his head. ‘Fuck me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘For years, I’ve tried to work out what was going on. I knew they were up to something.’

  Staffe thinks, ‘They?’ He says‚ ‘Astrid worked it out and tried to blackmail them. That’s why they killed her.’

  ‘You can’t be sure she is dead. We’ve had it confirmed it’s not Astrid Cano in that wood.’ Quesada puts on a rubber glove and holds up the goat’s-head knife. Its blade is smeared with blood. ‘Thirteen people saw you with this at Edu’s matanza. And so did I.’

  ‘There is another one. I swear. They’re identical and whoever had it killed Manolo. I saw Jackson with it.’

  ‘I am a simple man, Inspector, so I have to look everywhere. I work slowly and I do not jump from A to C. Come with me.’

  Staffe nurses his bad arm by supporting the elbow. The pain-killers are beginning to kick in, but he still feels woozy from the pain. He straightens up, feels better now that he is standing. Following Quesada into the bedroom, he is surprised that the brigada has turned his back, has left the knife on the table.

  Once in the bedroom, Quesada goes to the far side of the bed, careful not to disturb the sheets or any of the articles on the floor. He takes a torch from his pocket, illuminates the stone floor and beckons Staffe. He explains where Manolo must have been killed‚ his throat slit and left to bleed to death‚ face down. To the right‚ a strage pattern of blood‚ away from the main pooling of blood. They crouch, as one. Together, they softly say the word that has been spelt out, by a single finger, in Manolo’s own blood: ‘Edu’.

  Staffe stares at the body, then at the name in blood. He says to Quesada. ‘Was Edu involved? My God. He hated Barrington.’

  ‘All he ever really had was his family’s reputation. First, Barrington defiling poor Edu’s sister. Then Manolo must have wanted the truth out.’

  ‘The truth about the paintings?’

  ‘The truth about his mother,’ says Staffe. ‘So he pulled my strings. Can we go through his pockets?’