Corruption's Price: A Spanish Deceit

by Charles Brett

  To make matters worse Davide, as he so often seemed effortlessly to do, was clearly getting on with Ana, almost flaunting their fluent intermingling of Spanish and English. Caterina was beginning to feel left out.

  Ana's phone rang. She excused herself to answer it and to go outside for a cigarette.

  "I didn't know she smoked," commented Caterina

  "Nor I," said David. "What do you think of her dress? Quite impressive, no?" Before Caterina could respond he added, to her infinite pleasure, "I think you'd do it more justice."

  Sunday: Madrid

  Felipe checked his watch. He was enjoying himself. After a good dinner he had felt expansive enough to suggest going to a nightclub. It was proving to be a much more engaging evening than any of them had really expected for a work occasion.

  Though it was nearly midnight, all but Alberto agreed. Not only was Ana not making any moves on him, nor seeming to expect him to do (which was even better), but he was enjoying being the centre of Emilia's focus, at least when all were not talking about ORS or office matters. He felt they were becoming a good team. He was thankful he had bothered to book a round table, as this had avoided isolating anyone. His parents had taught him the importance of such social foresight, hence why he had included Alberto, a fellow ORS employee, to even the numbers.

  When he had made his original suggestion he had considered two night clubs, both recommended by members of his Retiro fitness group – and with the possibility he might meet some of their number at either of them. There was a sort of informal arrangement.

  The first nightclub they tried was closed. He gazed at the locked doors in bemusement.

  "Even in Texas no self-respecting nightclub would shut before midnight."

  This set Ana off into a loud peal of laughter that bounced and re-bounced off the buildings around. For a moment Felipe was offended until he realised that her amusement wasn't ill-meant. Davide grinned. Caterina and Emilia appeared utterly baffled.

  "This is Spain. What I think Ana is trying to communicate, Felipe, is not that it's closed for the night but rather that it's yet to open. Am I right, Ana?"

  She nodded, now just about giggling, and said, "Yes, Davide. Look! It says from 0100-0700."

  "I'm the idiot," confessed Felipe, but with a good-natured expression.

  Emilia jumped in to provide support, placing a sympathetic (and gratefully received) hand on his arm, saying, "Don't be embarrassed, Felipe. I thought the same thing."

  He relaxed. He was thankful he had a second nightclub up his sleeve and not far away. To wait an hour would not have worked. They would all have separated. Instead they moved on to find that this second one had just opened and was largely empty. This good news meant they did not have to queue to order drinks or have problems finding a table.

  Once inside Felipe set up an ORS tab at the main bar, taking Caterina and Emilia with him. With the dance music yet to start the DJ was playing soft modern jazz, Kenny G if Felipe recognised it correctly. The advantage was that all could still talk without needing to shout.

  Before joining the others, Davide murmured to Ana: "I do like this place's inventive re-use of church fittings."

  "What d'you mean?"

  "Look where Felipe's ordering at the bar. Doesn't that look like an ex-altar piece to you? It's elaborate and in marble. The idea of using where a Madonna and Child or a saint might have stood to display the most expensive malt whiskies appeals to my sense of the ridiculous."

  "Ah, I see now. I hadn't noticed. You do see strange things, Davide. My godfather's wife would not approve of your attitude. She's super-religious, as in horrifyingly so: a mass here, a mass there and so on. Equally I suspect a cousin would deeply disapprove, she being married to Opus Dei."

  "What do you know about Opus? I've only met one person connected to Opus. More accurately, she's recently ex-Opus."

  "There aren't many of those around. Opus is like an anaconda. Once it has hold of you it does not let go until it's squeezed you into the form it desires, at which point it absorbs you. Or so my father and grandfather always said. It's certainly not for me."

  Felipe set up the tab, ordered the first drinks and with Alberto, Caterina and Emilia found a table, again to stand at. They beckoned to Ana and Davide to join them.

  As they walked across the dance floor, a voice came from behind Ana and Davide.

  "Ana? Is that you?"

  Ana turned to find someone simply but seductively dressed, a lady in her late forties whom she did not recognise.

  "Yes? I'm Ana."

  "Don't you recognise me? Your cousin Inma?"

  Davide intervened with, "Obviously not. But I do. Good evening, Inma. How are you?"

  "Davide! What a nice surprise. What are you doing here with my cousin?"

  "Inma? Condesa de Arenas de Ávila?" Ana was stricken, especially as she tried hard to recall exactly what she had just said to Davide about this very cousin. Had Inma overheard? Hopefully not. At least the music, though soft, was insistent. This Inma did not look like the Opus Dei frump she remembered from years before and whom she had not met for at least a decade. A different thought struck: how could Davide possibly know her?

  "The very same. Have I changed?"

  This time it was Davide's peal of laughter that was almost uncontrolled, to the point that not only did Ana stare at him, but so did many of the others now filling the nightclub. While Inma knowingly smirked at Davide and, to a lesser degree, at the astonished Ana, Caterina's attention was also caught by Davide's laugh. She went rigid.

  "I don't believe it. I don't want to believe it. God, I hope that awful Miriam is not in tow," Caterina muttered to herself.

  "What are you on about?" asked Felipe and Emilia. "Who's that with Davide and Ana?"

  "That is the uncharmingly named Inmaculada Concepción, Condesa de Arenas de Ávila to give her full title," spat Caterina, not at all charmed to find her here.

  Felipe's spontaneous comment, "She's very sexy and beautifully dressed," drew icy looks from both Australians, especially from Caterina.

  Caterina said, "She's an Opus dyke through and through, though she was once more religious than you could imagine. I never liked her or her girlfriend."

  "But how do you know her?" puzzled Alberto.

  "Don't tell me. Rome?" guessed Emilia.

  Caterina nodded weakly in assent, before wailing, "Oh no, they're coming over here! No, they aren't! Thank goodness! I don't know how Davide puts up with her."

  As Caterina was talking, Inma addressed Ana: "My sisters and their husbands are over there. Would you like to say hello?"

  "Yes, why not? It's so long since I've seen you all."

  "Will you join us Davide? They're valiantly trying to cheer me up."

  Her face, never her best asset, became almost weepy. She pulled herself together in time to introduce Davide and re-acquaint Ana with her extended family. After the usual exclamations of astonishment and mutual delight Ana and Inma's sisters fell to exchanging the inevitable combination of family news, rumour, gossip and disinformation. This gave Inma an opportunity.

  Speaking fast to Davide, she said, "Miriam went back to New Jersey some weeks ago. Her sister and children have been living in her house. There are problems. I fear she won't feel able to return." She hesitated, as if coming to a decision. "Might I impose? Might you have some time to have dinner or lunch sometime soon, Davide? Just the two of us? I feel I can talk to you in a way that I can't with even my own family."

  "You flatter me. I'd be delighted. Sooner or later?"

  "Sooner, if possible."

  "This coming week?"

  "Yes, please; and thank you."

  They exchanged mobile numbers.

  Sunday: Soria

  Marta heard voices when entering the handsome, modern kitchen. Alfredo and Puri were chatting amiably, which was a relief after the tensions of the previous evening. The last thing that Marta wished was unintentionally to ruin an established relationship of the depth that
they both clearly depended on and enjoyed.

  Their topic, from what she could hear, was trivial – what to do about lunch. They looked up as she entered.

  "Some coffee or would you prefer something stronger?" offered Puri.

  "Water, please. This morning I've already abused the coffee machine in the cottage. It'll be issuing complaints or even a denuncia to the local police about overuse if I'm not careful. Also, if you have any fruit, that'd be refreshing."

  Within moments she had a chilled litre bottle of agua con gas in front of her, plus some plums and an apple from Puri's garden. Pouring herself a large glass she drank it all before guzzling the chilled fruits. Delicious.

  Alfredo intervened: "Okay, now that we're seated comfortably and Puri and I have resolved what we should do about lunch – at least in principle – have you had any more thoughts on what we were discussing yesterday?"

  "The simple answer is no, not really," responded Marta. "I can only see three real choices: repay what ORS is looking for, or hope its demands evaporate, or encourage ORS to give up and go away. From my perspective I don't think that the middle option is worth risking. While it might work if it does not we'll all be in trouble, albeit in different ways.

  "The first option is the one that makes most practical sense to me. But the sums are substantial for each of my clients, and for me personally. As you've both probably surmised, my rewards came as a percentage of what I disbursed on behalf of others. I think I can handle my repayments but will need to work this out. It would undoubtedly leave me much worse off than I planned. Thank goodness ORS is not looking back more than five years."

  Marta was putting a brave face on what would almost certainly be personal ruin if all her clients forced her to cough up her part of the takings. Her financial situation had never been that good, but she was not going to admit this to Alfredo – if she could at all avoid it.

  Alfredo nodded, saying, "Personally I like the third option the most. It seems to have the least cost. I think this is the one we should start with. We should also keep postponing any repayments for as long as possible. The question remains, however, how do we move this forward? Have either of you any suggestions?"

  Puri shook her head, saying, "Handling this sort of situation is not one of my recognised strengths. Hopefully I made my position pretty clear last night. I'm not happy about what you've been doing but I'm also pragmatic. Let's look forward. All I can try doing to assist is to think as ORS might and share that with you. Alfredo?"

  "I've some ideas. The first is to use my law firm to put pressure on ORS in Madrid and its parent company to depart Spain. We can look to see if anything it does is irregular and afterwards follow through by making it clear that ORS should shut up shop. For success this depends on finding leverage to apply.

  "A different approach would be to offer some business inducement, almost certainly meaning money, for the US parent to want to close its Spanish outpost. How much this would need to be I have no idea. If we head down this route the question will inevitably become, will your clients, including my law firm, be prepared to stump up sufficient collectively in order to effect a 'buy out'? I think I can encourage my partners to behave, for the sake of their long-term wallets. What about your other clients, Marta?"

  "Good question. I can only ask."

  "I suppose we could also consider some form of heavy pressure, perhaps coming from the financial police or tax authorities, or even company regulators withdrawing their licence to do business. This carries its own risks because it involves third parties and favours. To be honest, my personal preference remains to avoid involving others, though such authorities might supplement our efforts if we were able to identify any problem like I outlined."

  "A different question, Marta. Does this ORS know of you?"

  "I don't think so. Why do you ask, Puri?"

  "There's a loose thought running round my head. Could you perhaps visit ORS and meet whoever runs it and feel out what it would take to give up? Would you, for example, pretend to represent a potentially large new client and use this to elicit details? That way you and Alfredo might find some ammunition or dirty laundry."

  "That's ingenious, Puri. But wouldn't Alfredo be better at this, being both lawyer and politician? He could stand behind legal privilege and be in the clear when he declines to name any possible client or clients. In addition, he'd be more likely to recognise any legal mistakes ORS might be making, which he might exploit more easily than I would."

  Alfredo partly agreed, "You're probably right from one perspective, Marta. I would be better able to do as Puri suggests. The downside is that once ORS is exposed to me it would be far harder for me to operate in the background to weave together other pressure points that might convince ORS to pack up and go. The more I reflect on it, the more I think Puri's right. It would be best if you went in first to explore the lay of the land before we work out which route is best. Does that make sense?"

  Marta wasn't convinced. But, over this weekend, she had concluded she was not in a strong position to object. She really did not want to sacrifice all her hard earned comforts unless there was no other choice.

  "I guess it does. So what's next?"

  CHAPTER SIX

  Disillusion with Disappointment

  Monday: Malasaña

  Davide entered the salon to find Emilia and Caterina looking downcast. He wondered what had happened. Saturday evening had unexpectedly (to him) been a success, with all reasonably enjoying themselves for a work-based evening at least, until Ana called a halt at what must have been nearly 4 a.m. Sunday had proved to be a recovery day, not so much from hangovers but rather through lack of sleep. Monday had passed without Davide seeing much of Caterina or Emilia. Now he felt concerned and obliged, about how to tell Caterina he had arranged to meet Inma.

  More than simple intuition told him that she wasn't going to be happy. Indeed, she had not mentioned Inma once either at or after the encounter in the night club and this in spite of questions from Emilia plus Ana going on about how much Inma had changed and for the better. In one sense it was amusing; in another it felt like a severe headache about to descend.

  Deciding to postpone entering that particular minefield, especially around Emilia who did not know any of the details and was bound to try to ask more unanswerable questions, he opened with: "Neither of you look especially ecstatic. Can I help? Is something wrong?"

  In unison they turned to him. Caterina waved her hands to indicate Emilia could do the talking.

  "We are feeling useless at ORS. We've sliced and diced the information that its clients provide. Caterina's performed some interesting cross-referencing from my suggestions and I've taken what she produced. We've tried looking at everything differently. We agree with your original gut feelings. Something's not right about these various accounts and companies but for the life of us we can't see exactly what's wrong."

  "Can you be more specific?"

  Emilia described the heart of the problem, the double counting, the multiple invoicing and the numbers of credit notes that had not been refunded to suppliers. She illustrated instances where agreed price reductions hadn't been applied. After seemingly endless analysis trying to track credits going through to the profit and loss accounts, the financial trail had gone dead, at least as far as the existing data went.

  "Remember we can only see purchasing and payments, not all of the accounting entries. For example, even trying to understand via the tax payable accounts I can't reconcile how, or if, any duplicate monies are actually taxed. This suggests that something's been flowing out of each client in some deliberately hidden way. The obvious mechanism is by some form of cash. But that, by its nature, is anonymous.

  "Quite frankly we're stuck. Unless Caterina or I have new brainwaves soon we're thinking we should tell Felipe we will call it a day at the end of this week or next. Maybe we should restart the travelling."

  While this didn't exactly surprise Davide, it was a shock and not what he want
ed to hear. Just said aloud it created an unexpectedly deep hole inside him, one for which he thought he was prepared for but now understood he wasn't. It sort of put Inma in perspective, though he was looking forward to talking with her to find out how matters had developed since she and Miriam returned to Spain from Rome. All this made the prospect of telling Caterina about the forthcoming dinner that much harder.

  Davide said, "Have you no suggestions at all?"

  Caterina said, "None whatsoever. We need a breakthrough but don't see how to find one. Too much is out of our control, plus there's a second problem."

  Caterina glanced towards Emilia, wondering if she should say anything in front of Davide. She decided on boldness. It might have an effect.

  "That is?" enquired Davide.

  "The long and short of it is that Emilia is ..." Yet again she was uncertain if she should mention it.

  "Don't laugh, please, Davide, but Emilia is sex-starved."

  "Caterina! How can you say such a thing!" exploded Emilia.

  "It's true. We both know it. But this matters, Davide. Emilia's creativity, if that's the word, thrives on a regular diet of sex, or at least it did back home. I see the signs right now."

  Although Emilia stared at Caterina, it was without enmity.

  "For Emilia, deprivation means that her energy levels reduce, her enthusiasm wanes and her originality quotient falls. There have been similar times in the past, when we've been working on something together and were stuck. She goes off to get herself laid or finds an unsuitable lady to seduce. The next day, or more likely a couple of days later when she's recovered from whatever specific excess she chose, out comes this startling insight from which we can finally progress."

  "This seems rather incredible that you should raise this now," interjected Emilia.

  "Shut up! Deny it all you like but it's happened three or four times. Remember –"

  "Stop! I don't need to go there, Caterina. You're making too much of this. It's all in your mind because if I'm sex-mad you're sex-starved. What you need is to be thoroughly –"