The Picasso Scam dcp-1
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"Say it. You mean older, don't you?"
She laughed. "It's nice here, you'll like it. Do you want me to book you in with us?"
"Will that save me money?" I asked.
Apparently it would. She attracted the receptionist's attention and the formalities were dealt with. I was glad to have met her; she might be a useful ally if any language difficulties came along. She was also looking more svelte with every moment. When we'd finished she turned to me and asked: "Is that your swish sports car I saw outside?"
"Yes, it is," I answered proudly. Maybe she was an enthusiast…
"Then I'd move it if I were you. You're in the chef's place and he's got a hell of a Latin temper."
Chapter Nine
I took two aspirin and slid my aching body between the cool, crisp sheets. I'd done well; I told myself, but tomorrow we would start work properly. I wondered, briefly, if I still had a job at Heckley, then drifted into a deep sleep, interrupted only by a dream where I was dancing with a big, suntanned lady whose arms embraced me, and Hoagy Carmichael was playing the piano, very slowly.
Bright and early next morning found me still fast asleep. Eventually I awoke and just made it for the last ten minutes of breakfast. I went out blinking into the sunlight and took stock of my physical condition.
I rotated one shoulder several times, then the other. Next I moved my head to the limits of its range, first side to side, then forwards and backwards. My fingers were still working and I was able to stand on my tiptoes. It looked as if I was alive, so I'd best get on with it.
I was at a place called Benalmadena. In one direction, within walking distance, lay Torremolinos, and to the other side, but further away, was Marbella. I didn't have to look far for boats to inspect: there was a marina right outside the hotel, and several others within sight.
It made sense to eliminate the ones between here and Torremolinos first, and then go down to Marbella and work my way back.
How would I know which was Cakebread's boat? Well, I might see him on it. Then maybe the letters PH on the note were shorthand for its name.
Another possibility was that he'd use the ABC theme or maybe his wife's name. Lastly was the western influence; he seemed to have a penchant for things cowboy. Bonanza, Maverick, or maybe even Rednecked Asshole were all contenders. There was plenty to go on, I was feeling confident, and it was a pleasant way of spending a couple of days.
It's difficult to be patient and vigilant at the same time. I read off the boat names but had to compare each with the checklist of possibilities, not just let them float through my mind. Hoping that a name will trigger something in the subconscious is not a reliable way of doing things. Fortunately relief was close at hand. All the way into Torremolinos, fronting on to the beach, is a succession of cafes, collectively known as the Carahuela. They all have imaginative names and prosaic menus, offering typical local dishes such as beefburgers and pizzas. After each small marina had been inspected I would relax with a coffee or a glass of Seven-Up. From now on I was a Seven-Up man.
Paella is one of my favourite meals. As I walked by the restaurants I studied the plates of the diners, and examined the menus, to see who did the biggest, saffroniest, prawniest paella. It was a disappointment: every place cooked it, but for two persons only.
Yorkshire thriftiness wouldn't allow me to order a double portion just for myself. Ah well, to everything there is a purpose: I'd have to invite someone to share it with me. Wonder what night Stephanie is free?
I drew a blank on the first leg, but I was just practising. I'd learned to walk past the "Privado' signs on many of the jetties and walk up and down the duckboards as if I owned them. It was hotter than I had expected, so I made my way back to the hotel and changed into shorts and a T-shirt. Driving to Marbella and then marina-hopping back to Benalmadena was the way I'd decided to manage the next leg, but I was delayed. The first thing I saw when I reached the car was that some Iberian imbecile had scraped a wing.
"It's only metal," I told myself, without conviction, as I charged into the hotel foyer. The desk clerk was very apologetic and came out to look at the damage. He shook his head sadly as he surveyed it.
"How sad. What a lovely car," he sighed. I began to feel sorry for spoiling his day; a more considered inspection showed it to be only a little scratch. Eventually he composed himself and said: "Come with me. I show you where you put car." He took me back through the foyer, down a short corridor and through a couple of doors that weren't meant for the public. We were out the back, in a yard where the service vans did their deliveries and where the rubbish bins were kept. One or two hotel vehicles were parked here. "Tonight you put car there," he said, pointing. "Will be safe from mad German drivers."
The road into Marbella was busy. There are long stretches of dual carriage way and on one of them I caught a brief movement over at the other side. It was another red E-type, but a convertible, travelling in the opposite direction. An arm was held up in a wave, but before I could take in any more the lorry in front braked hard and demanded my attention. It was loaded with fifty thousand live chickens, packed into minute wicker cages. I know where hell is it's somewhere in the middle of a lorry-load like that.
The boats were in a different league to those I'd looked at in the morning. My eyes ached with the glare off white hulls and gleaming mahogany decks, with stainless steel and brass and probably even gold-plated fittings. Flags hung indolently and here and there a rope dared to tap gently against a mast. I learned to say "No stiletto heels' in five languages. I didn't see any silly cowboy names, though.
It was amazing how many of the British boats were flying the Union flag. You'd think that anyone who owned a few hundred grand's worth of yacht would be interested enough to find out that he was supposed to show the Red Duster. Some were even carrying small Union Jacks on the mast, instead of the Spanish flag, which should be displayed as a courtesy gesture to the host port. I wondered, briefly, how such morons made their money; then I remembered Cakebread and knew the answer. Unfortunately I didn't find a boat that looked as if it might belong to him.
Harbour by harbour I made my way back towards Benalmadena. I'd walk up and down the jetties, reading the names on the hulls. Some were clever, others were ordinary and a few made you think about the character of the owner. What sort of person would retire to the Costa del Sol to live on a boat named Evasion, Palimoney or Lucky Flicker!
Then I'd retrace my steps back to the Jag and drive on to the next floating exhibition of wealth. If I'm ever rich I think I'll just Sellotape my bank statement in the rear window of the car. It'll save a lot of effort.
It was nearly dinner time when I arrived at the hotel. I put the Jag round the back, where it was out of the way. I was a lot happier with it there. The sun had sunk below the rim of the hills that lie inland, and they were etched, hard-edged, against the evening sky. I'd had a fruitless day, but I wasn't despondent. Maybe the task I'd set myself was hopeless, but I'd been on plenty of wild-goose chases before. Not this far from home though. At least nobody knew I was here, and there was no drain on the Force budget to be accounted for. And let's be honest, I was enjoying myself. I showered and changed into something more suitable and went to the dining room.
Those hills were inviting. If nothing turned up tomorrow I'd seriously think about abandoning the project and have a couple of days lost in the mountains. It was a long time since I'd walked a decent ridge. I sat down at an empty table, pushed all thoughts of crooks and boats out of my mind, and set about working my way through the menu, towards the inevitable creme caramel.
The food was better than I'd be having at home, when you took into consideration the service. In other words, no cooking or washing-up.
Afterwards I ordered a pot of tea in the lounge and slouched in an armchair, assessing my fellow guests.
"Hello, how are you enjoying your stay?"
I turned and pushed myself more upright. It was Stephanie. "Fine," I answered, unsuccesfully trying not to lo
ok too pleased to see her.
"Dinner was good and I've caught the sun. What more could I ask for?"
"Good. I hear your car was bumped. Is it bad?"
"No, just a scratch. They've let me put it round the back, so it should be okay now."
She apologised again, and was about to leave when I said: "Can you recommend anywhere that does a decent paella? I've developed a craving while I've been here. Hope there's nothing wrong with me."
She thought for a while. "Anywhere on the Carahuela, I would have thought. I'm not all that keen on seafood myself, but I'll ask around."
Ah well, make that paella for one, Manuel. "Thanks. Maybe you can help me with one more thing." She'd turned to go, but stopped and faced me again. I went on: "I'm looking for a friend with a boat. A wealthy friend. Any suggestions where I might start looking?"
"If I knew I'd be looking there myself. Is this friend stinking rich?"
It occurred to me that she probably thought that I was quite well heeled. "By Marbella standards, no; but by my standards, he stinks."
"Try Puerto Banus. That's where they all hang out," she said.
"All who?" I asked. Her reply had puzzled me.
She blushed and shrugged her shoulders. "All… the rich people," she answered, as she turned and left.
I was intrigued. People often ask me if I'm a policeman. If I went to a nudist colony, before long someone would say: "Oh, hello, you must be the policeman." Well, maybe that's an exaggeration. But Stephanie was different: she thought I was a crook. When she said "All the rich people', what she was thinking was "All the criminals'. It's an easy mistake to make. Tomorrow I'd have a long, hard look at Puerto Banus.
Puerto Banus is to money what the Vatican is to incense. It lies just outside Marbella, on the far side, beyond where yesterday's search had started. This was the big league. It was mid-morning when I arrived and parked the car between a Ferrari and a Cadillac, but there were elegant women walking about in cocktail dresses, accompanied by men in three-piece suits. Swarthy men, who kept their coats buttoned in the heat of the day. There was a definite pecking order for the boats. The biggest, with gold-plated names emblazoned across the front that would have looked reasonable above a cinema, were parked in the middle, immediately adjacent to the centre of the town. As you moved outwards they diminished in size, until, at the outermost berths, you had the half-a-million-quid wanna bees Egalitarian to a fault, I decided to start at one end and work my way through to the other, In the afternoon I started at the other end and worked my way back to the beginning. All my instincts told me I was close, but my eyes couldn't find the evidence. I had a glass of wine and some tap as and resumed the search. This time I just followed my hunches, picking out the boats that I guessed might be the right size. Hunches are unscientific and usually unreliable; today was no exception.
"That's it, Mr. Breadcake," I said out loud. "If you want me tomorrow you'll just have to come climbing mountains." I found the car and drove much too fast back towards the hotel.
There is a supermercado in Benalmadena, so I decided to stock up with a few things that I might need the next day. As I swung into the car park I saw another red E-type, a convertible, obviously the one whose driver had waved to me the day before. I parked alongside it, but the owner was nowhere to be seen. I formed a picture of her in my mind and rehearsed a couple of opening gambits. In the supermarket I studied the weird concoctions available to tempt the different nationalities, and chose a jar with a German label that contained what looked like pickled testicles. They'd go down well in the office. I stayed with the basics for myself. I was low on T-shirts, so I grabbed a couple of those, too.
When I arrived back at the car a tall, elderly man was leaning on the boot of the other Jag. He beamed when he saw me. "How do you do," he said. "I've been wondering who the old car belonged to."
He had 'ex-pat' written all over him. He was wearing a checked shirt, with cravat, that would have looked more at home at Goodwood in winter, and had a respectable handlebar moustache. The freckles on his face had expanded with over exposure to the sun, and had started to join up with each other, so that he looked like a jigsaw puzzle of the Gobi Desert, before you'd put the pieces together.
"It's one of the fast ones," I told him, adding, as I indicated towards his: "Not one of those whippersnappers." It was a fact that as the E-type evolved the engine was made bigger and bigger, but the car became slower and slower. They also ruined its looks his later version lacked the wicked symmetry of the original.
He held out his arm for a handshake and said: "George Palfreeman, with two e's in the middle." He gestured towards the pavement tables and added: "Fancy a snifter?"
"Charlie Priest," I told him, 'as in Roman Catholic. Why not?"
I put the groceries in the boot and followed him to the cafe next door.
We ordered a large whisky and soda for him and a pot of tea for me. An hour later he knew that I came from Yorkshire, but I had learned his entire life story. It's a trick of the trade. The moustache looked R.A.Fish but in fact he was a Navy man, with two years commanding a motor torpedo boat to his credit, during World War Two. Settling down hadn't come easily afterwards, and he'd moved round the Empire before establishing himself in Spain. His wife had died a couple of years ago, and now he was another lonely old man, eager to cling to a new audience. He'd had an interesting life, though, so I didn't mind listening to his tales.
"You'll have to come to the club one night," he suggested expansively.
"How about tomorrow? Have you anything on?"
Drinky-poos with the Brits didn't appeal to me. "Sorry, George, I'm planning on going off for the day. We'll have to make it some other time."
He looked thoughtful. "What about the night after, then? It's a bridge night, but I've stopped playing. Everybody takes it too damn seriously. I could do with someone new to talk to."
It was my turn to do the thinking. I didn't like disappointing him, so I said: "That'll be fine, but on one condition. We're not going to your club, I'm treating you to a big paella on the Carahuela. They only make it for two people, so I need someone to share one with me."
"Splendid!" he beamed. "I'll really look forward to that." He went away a happy man. It hadn't taken a lot. I went back to my room at the Cala d'Or and prepared for another journey towards la creme caramel.
At breakfast I loaded myself with enough carbohydrates to sustain me through a day's walking in the hills. Passing through the foyer I caught sight of my reflection in the big mirrors. I was wearing grey shorts, a grey T-shirt and grey trainers. For an ex-art student the overall effect could only be described as, well, greyish. I could desperately use a splash of colour. I poked out my tongue. It was vermilion, fading to lilac at the back, and covered all over with minute lemon spots. That should do it. I might have a dull exterior, but boy, I was colourful on the inside.
In fifteen minutes I'd crossed the coast road and cleared the edge of town. After a couple of dead-ends I finally found a track that petered out at the base of the hills, from where it was possible to gain access to them. Coming through the outskirts of the town, where the locals lived, I'd been amazed how many of the villas had big dogs Dobermanns and Rottweilers — barking and slavering within their compounds. It appeared that this wasn't the peaceful, law-abiding community that I had believed it to be. The lower flanks of the hill were laid out with streets, complete with lay-bys and parking areas, waiting for the next speculator to come along and put up the money and the buildings. The biggest hill looked to be about two thousand feet high, with a smaller one to its right-hand side. The plan was to walk to the top of the small hill, then traverse the ridge to the summit of the big one. It was quite a modest walk by any standards, but I had the usual feelings of expectancy and well-being as the gradient steepened, and leg muscles that thought they had achieved redundancy began to protest at this unseemly disturbance.
I followed a path for a while, but it stayed too low, so eventually I struck off into
the scrub. The ground was hard-baked clay, with sparse, evil-thorned scrub. In territory like this each bush or plant needs a certain catchment area to survive, and it never encroaches on to its neighbour's patch. This makes it possible to walk between them without difficulty, although my legs were soon covered in small white scratches. I puffed like an old tank engine for a while, but quickly struck up a rhythm in tune with the gradient. I was gaining height rapidly, and felt I could go on for ever. I'd have to do more walking, I'd forgotten how rewarding it could be.
The ground became rocky outcrops of grey, porous boulders, probably volcanic in origin and the air was heavy with the perfume of rosemary.
It was hot. I took off my T-shirt and tied it round the strap of the knapsack I was carrying. It contained my camera and a small amount of food. And my Swiss army knife, of course; I never go anywhere without my Swiss army knife. I'm determined to use everything on it, one day.
There was no wildlife of any sort to be seen, the probable explanation lying in the liberal scattering of shotgun cartridges I came across.
Plenty of wild flowers were growing, though, including some spectacular lilies. I took photographs of them. One day, when I retired, I'd learn all their names.
The lower summit was reached quicker than I'd expected, but I wasn't complaining. I decided to have elevenses. I unpacked the bag in the middle of a big, flat rock, so that any marauding creepy-craw lies could be warded off. I was high above the coastal towns, with the Mediterranean stretching like a sheet of beaten gold into the distance. A crusty bread roll, with molten butter, was followed by rough pate and black grapes. I slit open the grapes with the small blade of the knife the one I don't use for skinning crocodiles flicked out the pips and stuffed them with pate. Heavenly!
They exploded like sweet-and-sour flavour-bombs against my tastebuds. I wished I'd brought a ton of them. The kindest thing I can say about the lukewarm Seven-Up I washed the lot down with is that it hadn't travelled well.