by Jack Treby
‘Oh.’ My face fell.
‘It’s already with the lab boys, I’m afraid. They only want to check it’s nothing dodgy. The sergeant says pop in on Monday or Tuesday next week.’
It was better than nothing, I supposed. ‘Thanks, Dick.’
‘No worries. How’s Miranda, by the way?’
I shrugged. ‘Same as ever.’
He laughed. ‘Glad to get shot of you, I shouldn’t wonder. Hey, those birds at Madam Fulana’s are a bit of all right, aren’t they?’ Dick had gone to the brothel to pick up my passport. ‘I tell you, I nearly died laughing when you gave me the address.’
I blushed. ‘It was only for the one night.’
‘Hey, I don’t blame you. Those girls are gorgeous.’ He grinned again. ‘Mate, I wouldn’t say no myself.’
‘Dick, they’re prostitutes.’
‘Get away!’ He chuckled. ‘Oh well, cuts down on the wining and dining, doesn’t it?’ I never know when Dick is being serious. He is a happily married man. ‘No harm in a bit of window shopping. Let’s vamos. There’s a demo in town this afternoon and there’s someone I’ve got to meet.’ Dick rose to his feet and waved at the guard outside the cell. It was rare for the man to be anything less than animated. ‘Might be worth a look, if you fancy tagging along.’
I shook my head. ‘Sorry. I’ve got another appointment.’
Dick stared at me. ‘An appointment?’
‘The Herald set up a meeting for this afternoon. Another one of the presidential candidates. Juan Federico Pelele.’
‘What, the PRD guy? That’s a waste of time.’
‘The paper wants interviews with everyone. I was meant to be there half an hour ago.’
Dick frowned. ‘He’s probably long gone. I’ll tell you what, I can give you a lift. It’s on the way.’
Chapter Four
The statue was dressed in traditional robes, a clenched fist held high above the head. A crowd had assembled in the main square, surrounding the statue on all sides, but the marble figure dominated the Plaza Mayor, a proud monument to San Doloroso’s independence from Spain.
Dick Carter had positioned himself on a balcony overlooking the square. To the east lay the two hundred year old Ayuntamiento, the City Hall. On the north side, obliterating the remaining skyline in predictably Gothic fashion, stood the Roman Catholic Catedral. Dick was sitting at a small table, shaded from the sun, with a cigarette in one hand, a notepad in his lap and a large pitcher of Sonrisa to the side. If anything unfortunate were to happen in the plaza below, he would be there to report it. He had the beer on tap, a lighted cigarette and a grandstand view. Dick is a true professional.
Vehicular access to the square had already been blocked by the taxis and minibuses, but thousands of determined protestors were turning out on foot to give their support to the disgruntled transport workers. The municipal authorities might have declared the strike illegal, but nobody on the ground was taking a blind bit of notice.
Dick had been tipped off about the demo by Nacho Pícaro, the young luggage thief I had met at the Casa de Doña Fulana. The little urchin, as cocky as ever, was making his way along the edge of the plaza towards the balcony where Dick was seated.
The protest leaders had set themselves up on the steps of the Ayuntamiento, on the opposite side of the square. Loudspeakers were projecting their voices to the receptive ears of several thousand San Dolorosons. The police and armed forces were standing uneasily on the edge of the crowd, but they were making no move to interfere.
‘Hey, señor!’ Nacho yelled, calling up to the balcony. He lifted up a wooden footrest and gestured to it theatrically. ‘You want?’
Dick made a play of examining his shoes, a pair of traditional black lace–ups. Normally, he would not have been seen dead wearing that kind of footwear; he much prefers sandals. He felt a bit awkward about the shoe shine routine. He would rather have bought the boy a drink and had him sit down. But Nacho knew his business.
The lad had been a thief almost since the day he had learnt to walk. As one of seven children, his parents had barely been able to feed him. He had had to learn fast. Now he stole luxury items and sold them for profit. It was a lucrative job and Nacho was very good at it. He would get caught occasionally but the police would just thump him and let him go. There were thousands of street kids and it wasn’t worth the effort putting them all in jail.
Dick gestured for Nacho to come up and start shining his shoes. The boy entered the bar and clumped up the narrow staircase to the first floor, his wooden footrest clacking against his side. A waiter eyed him suspiciously as he made his way across to the balcony.
‘All right, kiddo. What you got for me?’
Nacho bent down and made a start on Dick’s black lace–ups. Now that he had reached the end of his first decade, he had branched out into a second line of business: information. That was the reason he was here. In a very short space of time, Nacho had acquired a formidable range of contacts. ‘There have been lots of meetings,’ he said.
‘The Azulitos?’
The boy nodded. ‘My cousin, he say there is something big.’
‘When?’
Nacho shrugged. ‘Two, three days. You give me money?’
Dick nodded and slipped him fifty Cambures. ‘What about the strike? Why aren’t they cracking heads down there?’
‘No strike. All finished tonight. You’ll see.’
~ ~ ~
The headquarters of the Partido Revolucionario Democrático were located along a drab side street half a mile from the Plaza Mayor.
Dick had dropped me off at the top of the street and we had arranged to meet up again later that evening.
A European woman was emerging from a faceless metal doorway. She produced a set of keys from a small handbag and started to lock up the premises. I approached her tentatively. She caught sight of me as she turned around and for a brief second there was a spark of alarm in her face; but understanding quickly dawned. ‘Oh, you must be the journalist.’ The girl spoke with a cut glass English accent.
‘Yes. Sorry I’m late. Got a bit held up,’ I mumbled apologetically.
‘Charlotte McBride.’ She extended a hand. ‘Nice to meet you. I’m afraid Freddie couldn’t stop. He had an important meeting.’ “Freddie”, I assumed, was Juan Federico Pelele, the man I was meant to be interviewing. He was the leader of the PRD, one of the opposition parties competing in the upcoming election. Who this woman was I had no idea.
‘You’re his...assistant, are you?’ It was a stab in the dark. She looked more like a teen pin–up than a secretary. The girl was dressed in a strappy white top and a purple miniskirt. Her belly button was pierced and her light brown hair was tied up in schoolgirl bunches.
‘No. I’m just helping out,’ Charlotte explained. ‘Actually, he’s my boyfriend.’ She scratched her stomach. ‘Do you want to come in for a coffee? I wouldn’t like to think of you coming all this way for nothing.’
I nodded hesitantly. The woman had a distracted air that was a little disconcerting. But it would be churlish to refuse the invitation. If nothing else, she might provide me with some useful background information on the PRD.
Charlotte turned back to the door and unlocked the building. The office was on the first floor. She bounded up the stairs and onto the landing. I followed behind, averting my eyes politely. Despite her alarmingly youthful attire – and very short skirt – Charlotte McBride was a thirty two year old graduate from the University of Exeter. She had spent the last few years working as a PA for a small legal company in New York, before deciding to migrate to Central America.
‘What attracted you to San Doloroso?’ I asked, as we sat ourselves down in the main office on the first floor. The room was surprisingly bare. There were the usual posters on the wall and a hefty filing cabinet, but the place looked unused.
Charlotte shrugged, in answer to my question. ‘The lifestyle, mostly. The servants, the money. Not having to stand in front of a photocopier a
ll day long. Just the prospect of putting my feet up and not having to do any work.’
‘Right.’ I nodded. ‘So not exactly a typical San Doloroson lifestyle.’
‘Well, typical if your boyfriend happens to be the leader of a major political party.’ Charlotte adjusted her shoulder straps and slowly uncrossed her legs.
We were sitting next to each other on a small leather sofa. There was a desk to one side but no chairs that I could see. I shifted to the edge of the sofa. This was not the interview I had been expecting to conduct and, I must confess, I was finding it a little difficult to concentrate.
‘So...erm...how much involvement do you have in the political side of things?’ I asked.
Charlotte rolled her eyes. ‘Very little, if I can possibly help it. Freddie’s more of a businessman than a politician. He drags me along to meet some of his clients from time to time. It’s a tremendous status symbol, having a European girlfriend. He likes to show me off. But most of the time he lets me do my own thing.’ She placed a hand on her lap and began toying with a loose thread protruding from the hem of her skirt. ‘To be honest, I prefer it that way.’
‘So...er...so the relationship is really a marriage of convenience?’
‘Well, no, not a marriage. It’s more of a sex thing, really.’
‘Ah. Right.’
‘Sorry. Does that surprise you?’
‘No. No, not at all.’
‘You’ve spilt your coffee.’
‘Yes. Never mind. Erm...’ I leaned across and placed the coffee cup down on the desk. Steam was rising from the brown stain on my tie, but I wiped it down as best I could and quickly changed the subject. ‘But you do come to the office occasionally?’
‘He likes me with him when he’s being interviewed by journalists. He thinks it’ll distract them so they won’t ask any difficult questions.’
Charlotte, I had noticed, was wearing a black underwired bra beneath her white top.
‘Yes, I can see the logic in that.’ I looked away as she re–crossed her legs. ‘Do you...erm...do you get lonely, being the only British person out here?’
‘Oh, there are a few ex–pats. Embassy staff. I see them from time to time. I don’t mix with the locals much. I don’t think they like me.’ Charlotte smiled. ‘Do you know what some of the Indians call me?’
I shook my head.
‘ “La putalita”.’
‘What does that mean?
‘ “The little tart”.’ She grinned. ‘Not exactly flattering.’
‘Well, no,’ I agreed. ‘Or accurate, really.’
Charlotte frowned. ‘Accurate?’
‘Well, just...I mean, you’re not exactly little.’
The woman regarded me dubiously. ‘I don’t think they were talking about the size of my tits.’
‘No!’ I exclaimed, in alarm. ‘I mean, probably not. Well, definitely not. Of course not. No.’ I swallowed hard. What on earth was I babbling about?
Charlotte leaned back into the padded sofa and gazed at me thoughtfully. ‘Have you been doing this long?’ she asked.
‘Doing what?’
‘Interviewing people.’
‘Erm...well, yes, actually. About ten years.’ I had started as a cub reporter on the Holland Park Evening News. Charlotte made no effort to mask her surprise. Ten years is certainly a long time.
The television was at full volume but the voice of the newsreader could barely be heard above the babble of noise in the Bar Ruidoso on Avenida 21 Oeste. I couldn’t even hear the voice of Dick Carter, who was standing next to me at the bar, waving a twenty Cambur note at the barmaid. Somehow, she seemed to understand the order, as two pints of Sonrisa were quickly placed down on the beer mats in front of us. I raised a glass to my old friend. This was a proper reunion, with no badly dressed police sergeant watching over our every move. Dick smiled, rolled a quick cigarette and nodded across at the television screen.
I peered through the miasma of smoke at the flickering black and white image, which was all but obliterated by logos and scrolling text. It seemed to be footage of the rally in the Plaza Mayor from earlier in the day. The image cut to the police, who were raiding an apartment block. I tried to make sense of the moving text underneath but it was too fast for me. Dick had no such difficulty. ‘They’ve arrested the union leaders,’ he bellowed into my ear. ‘The transport workers!’ The government had left it until after the demonstration to clamp down on the strike, just as Nacho had predicted. The union leaders had been picked off quietly at home with the minimum of fuss. A bloody and battered transport official was being led out into the street in handcuffs.
That was not the only activity in the capital this evening, judging by the news. Dick put down his pint when a strange art deco building appeared on the TV screen, a large transmission aerial thrusting up from its roof. I had seen that aerial this morning during my long walk to Antonio Fracaso’s office. Dick took a final puff of his cigarette, stubbed it out, grabbed hold of his satchel and pulled me out into the street.
‘What is it?’ I asked, surprised to be able to hear my own voice at last as we stumbled across the road.
‘That was Radio Libertad. Come on, they might still be there.’ Dick was never one to pass up on a story, no matter how late in the evening it was.
So much for a quiet drink.
I barely had time to gather my thoughts as we raced together through the backs streets of Toronja. I didn’t know much about Radio Libertad, though Madam Fulana had had it crackling away in the background at the Casa. I did know it was an independent station, which was something of a rarity in San Doloroso. The studios were about half a mile from the bar – three streets east and about six blocks south. As we turned into Avenida 33, I spotted two green and white police cars blocking the entrance.
Isabella Valentía, a petite Hispanic woman, was standing on the steps of the building watching the police as they departed the station. The officers were dressed in green, like the desk sergeant, but unlike him they were carrying automatic rifles.
Dick raised a hand to wave at Isabella, as the police returned to their vehicles and sped away. She smiled back weakly. He crossed the road to talk to her, but the woman seemed to be in a daze. ‘Did they hurt you?’ he asked, with some concern.
She shook her head. ‘They were just after the tapes.’
Isabella Valentía was a senior producer at Radio Libertad. Earlier that day she had conducted an interview with the radical Catholic priest Father José Luis Sentido. ‘We tried to keep the whole thing under wraps,’ she explained breathlessly. ‘We knew how explosive it was going to be.’ The priest had left some hours before, though the interview itself wasn’t scheduled to be broadcast until the following evening. ‘Someone must have found out about it.’
Father José was a controversial figure who had been a thorn in the side of El Hombrito for nearly three decades. When the Junta had assumed power, the priest had greeted the new regime with cautious optimism; but that optimism had now begun to sour. A public condemnation from such a well–respected cleric would do a lot of damage to the hard–won credibility of the provisional government.
‘Hardly surprising they heard about it,’ Dick said. ‘The police are probably watching his every move.’
The master tape of the interview had been locked in a drawer in Isabella’s office. It hadn’t taken the authorities long to find it. ‘They removed the tape and everything else inside the drawer,’ Isabella told us. But it wasn’t just the interview they had confiscated. Material had also been plundered from the station archives, most of which had nothing whatever to do with Father José. The police had even burst into Estudio B, where an ageing disk jockey had been broadcasting a popular late–night country and western programme. Mercifully, the authorities had agreed not to confiscate his LPs. Most of the material they had seized would later be “accidentally” destroyed.
Isabella closed her eyes and took a deep breath. It can’t have been much fun, having half a dozen poli
ce thugs screaming at her like that in her own office. Dick put an arm around her shoulder. ‘We’d better get you a drink,’ he suggested.
She nodded tiredly and allowed us to escort her across to the Bar Ruidoso.
Isabella had made a copy of the interview, of course. Unbeknown to anyone else, a cassette recording of the conversation was resting unmolested in her back pocket, the one place the Metropolitan Police had neglected to search. Despite the best efforts of the provisional government, the interview with Father José would be broadcast as scheduled the following day.
And then all hell would break loose.
Chapter Five
Father José Luis Sentido was every inch the stereotype of a cuddly Church of England vicar. He had the same kindly manner, the same nervous, ageing skin and the same gentle, softly spoken voice. He was, of course, a Roman Catholic priest of proud Afro–Caribbean ancestry, but his mildness and humility had endeared him to tens of thousands across San Doloroso and many more elsewhere. ‘Never mind the politicians,’ Dick told me. ‘This guy is dynamite. You’ve got to meet him.’
Father José greeted me in person at the entrance to his small cottage in Ardiente. He was a slender man, a little under sixty-five years of age. For such an influential figure, he seemed surprisingly frail. He invited me into the front room, where his housekeeper served us with afternoon tea.
We discussed the raid on Radio Libertad the previous evening. Father José said it was symptomatic of a wider problem and justified his growing disillusionment with the Junta. ‘Sadly, it seems that the provisional government cares more for the opinion of the United States than it does for the welfare of our own citizens,’ he said. ‘Pineapples are produced on an industrial scale for the export market but we don’t grow enough food to feed our own people. Then there are the budget cuts, the land relocation scheme, the deplorable reductions in spending on our schools and other public services. The government enriches itself but gives nothing back to the ordinary citizens of this country.’
The economic programme was being imposed on San Doloroso by the World Bank. They had issued a directive “defocusing on socio–humanitarian investment in the short term, in favor of radical agricultural redevelopment.” Miguel Vicente Ladrón had forced through the relocation scheme to free up land for US Agribusiness but the unpopularity of this among the people was so fierce that the ageing regime had found itself unexpectedly destabilised.