Corruption's Price: A Spanish Deceit

by Charles Brett

  "How so?"

  Inma described how, as time progressed, Miriam found herself blocked by the status quo. Her frustrations were amplified by ever greater demands issued by her sister. At the same time Inma was discovering, more by accident than design, that what the non-Opus Dei insurance world wanted was advice and input. Instead of establishing her own reinsurance business she was building, in effect, a boutique consultancy where others could seek advice to exploit her understanding of reinsurance for their benefit. It took her some time to work out how to make money from this but once she had conquered her reluctance to ask to be paid she found she was in demand, not only in Madrid, but further afield.

  "This became fun. I've always liked travelling, but it had the downside that I was away from Miriam ever more."

  Eventually, however, my absences, plus those increasing cries for help from Miriam's sister as well as the obstacles here to her founding her own online real estate firm, meant it was probably inevitable that Miriam would head back to the East Coast.

  "Of course, and to my infinite regret, I did not see this coming until she told me she'd booked a flight for three days later. As soon as she left I was desolate, and have been ever since. That's why I was at the night club on Saturday. My sisters were trying to distract me, to cheer me up. Meeting my cousin Ana was not what any of us had expected, nor was my finding Davide there."

  "I'm sorry, Inma. I should've behaved better. I was suspicious. I'd no right to be. I can taste your disappointment about Miriam. That must've been so hard."

  As she said this Caterina found, to her surprise, it was true. This was a sensation she had felt herself. "Thank you for inviting me here and for insisting I come."

  "When Davide mentioned you were alone, something told me you needed extrication from yourself. I did worry that your dislike of Miriam, which I don't understand but it doesn't matter, probably deflected onto me. But that wasn't a good enough reason to let you fester, especially not after the festering that I've been 'enjoying alone' – something which Davide was doing his best to lance before you arrived."

  "Me? I was just listening; nothing more."

  "That's what you do so well," coincided Caterina and Inma.

  Davide gazed at them. Something had changed. On her arrival Inma had been defensive and nervy. Similarly Caterina had looked likely to produce her worst Australian bolshie persona, something she could do only too readily. Now each was relaxing the other. Would that similar wonders might occur so easily.

  Wednesday: Malasaña

  Caterina and Davide let themselves in through the piso's front door. Both headed urgently for their respective bathrooms before returning to the salon.

  "What would you like to drink?" asked Davide.

  "You're not serious? More? I thought we Aussies could drink most people under the table. But Inma ... My God! We put away four bottles of whatever it was called."

  "Morlanda. It was good, wasn't it?"

  "It was great. I don't remember such a deep-tasting or satisfying wine. I loved it. I wonder where you can buy it."

  "According to Inma, only at that place. She told me she's been unable to obtain it anywhere else, not even direct from the producers. It keeps her and her family going back."

  "I don't blame them. I'd go back too, just for that, but not tomorrow. In truth, I feel a bit drunk. Don't you, even having walked home? Is there any mineral water that isn't that salty Vichy Catalán?"

  "Let me go look. Think I saw something more normal yet less fizzy. I'll join you. It's probably the sensible thing to do."

  He found some Fontana and poured two large glasses, downed one and refilled it before taking both to the salon. Caterina had made herself obviously relaxed on the principle sofa.

  "Here you are. May I join you?" He sat down at the other end but turned to face her. "What did you make of Inma?"

  "Ah, the fifty billion dollar question. I wondered how long it'd take you to ask." Caterina held up her hand: "No, I'm not trying to be nasty. Just trying to gather my somewhat inebriated thoughts. Actually, if anything, I'm ashamed."

  "Why?"

  "When you and Ana went over to talk with her on Saturday I snidely called her a dyke or possibly an Opus Dei dyke. I was being mean, possibly envious. She looked great the other night, outshining Ana, which wasn't easy. This evening she might have been more casual, yet she still made me feel a bit like an old maid. Did you see her legs? Of course you did. How does she do it? They are irresistible – firm, lightly muscled, yet absolutely feminine. I know beaches full of twenty- or thirty-year-olds back home who'd kill to look like that."

  "A little overly developed for my taste, but I know what you mean. And the rest?"

  "Is all amazingly engineered, with curves in the right proportion in the right places, plus that luscious hair. It's amazingly attractive."

  Caterina rushed on, as if compelled. "Do you know what really got me, beyond her style? It was her thoughtfulness, first towards me, and then regarding Miriam whom she's obviously missing horribly. Now add her sheer intelligence combined with her lack of self-importance. I really enjoyed talking with her. I learned a lot. All evening she stimulated – no, not in that sense – in the cerebral one. She has a surfeit of brains. Perhaps I was innately scared of her before today because of what I intuitively realised: she's extremely clever."

  "Says one clever person recognising it in another. You're not exactly a dimwit yourself, as you proved in Rome."

  Caterina attempted glowering and glowing simultaneously, trying to project the first while hiding the second. She failed.

  Davide wanted to laugh but managed to restrain himself. "You know she saw the same in you. That's why the evening turned from being a mutual mourning session into a celebration with genuine exchanges of ideas. I also learnt a lot about Spain from her tonight. Stuff that I sort of knew from my parents and tío Toño, but nothing that had any impact on me like the way she described things."

  "I agree. Davide?"

  Caterina stopped and leaned forward. Davide found himself going on alert.

  "Davide, might you, or we, ask her to dinner here? She seems lonely and I'd like to see her again. She thought of me. We should reciprocate. What do you think?"

  This wasn't what Davide expected. Yet the idea was a good one, as he told Caterina.

  "I wonder if tío Toño would come up to Madrid. Inma, you, Emilia, tío Toño, myself and one other. That would make for what the Americans might refer to as a challenging group." A supporting thought occurred to him. "Might Emilia go after her? Perhaps, if Alberto were to come too?" he mused aloud.

  "Davide, you're evil. Talk about stirring up an explosive mix."

  They looked at each with more fondness than either had managed since before that last day in Certaldo many months before.

  A noise came from the front door. Emilia entered, cursing like an Australian fishmonger or sheep farmer or their equivalent.

  She saw Caterina and Davide on the sofa and cursed more. Davide was impressed by the flow as well as the variety of her vernacular even if there was a distinct leavening of presumably Australian scatological terms wholly unfamiliar to him. After a couple of minutes she began to wind down, by which time Caterina had found a bottle of Jerez brandy with a glass and placed these by Emilia's elbow before re-seating herself on the sofa, a shade closer to Davide.

  "Is something wrong?" enquired Davide.

  A further blast of invective followed.

  "Okay, Emilia. Enough of that. I've heard it all. What happened? Alberto didn't fancy you. You didn't fancy him. It's happened to you before."

  Emilia poured a slug of the Jerez, took a monumental gulp – one which Davide thought sufficient to anaesthetise a kangaroo – before saying, "You're dead right, Caterina! Well, sort of."

  "What's that mean?"

  "We had a good time. No, it was better than that. I liked Alberto a lot. He was engaging and, to my surprise, amusing with lots of entertaining stories about the oddities of the
Spanish. I tried to match these with ones about Aussies and especially New Zealanders. By the end of dinner I fancied the pants off him and was ready to help remove them."

  She stuck her tongue out at Caterina whilst Davide listened, fascinated.

  "So? What happened? Nothing whatsoever. He escorted me back here. But, rather than come upstairs, he gave me a chaste kiss at the front door. When I invited him up he said he couldn't do that, as it'd be inappropriate. I suggested his place, thinking he was embarrassed by the idea of running into you two. I couldn't blame him for that.

  "Not a bit of it. He's over thirty, for God's sake, and still lives with his parents. They apparently would disapprove of him taking me home, even if there was enough room. I suggested a hotel. He pulled a long face, kissed me again and asked if he could take me out at the weekend. He saw me through the front door before walking off. I'm as randy as hell, unstuffed with unfulfilled lust, and what happens? I find the only too-good-to-be-true, smart, chivalrous, restrained Spanish male in the whole of this damned city. Worse, I fancy him like crazy."

  Caterina and Davide had sat riveted. Now they could no longer contain their amusement.

  "Oh fuck off the pair of you! I don't see the funny side."

  "But we do," offered Caterina. "And you're right. You set out with your usual single-mindedness to seduce but failed. Oh, poor Emilia! I feel so sorry for you."

  She rocked with giggles, much to Emilia's continuing irritation.

  "I'll leave you both to solve the ills of Emilia's sex life. I'm going to bed." Davide kissed them goodnight and retreated, laughing gently to himself.

  "Miserable English git!" said Emilia to his back.

  "Don't be like that. He's not so bad."

  "I know, I know. Perhaps I should go seek comfort with him."

  "No, don't you dare. Don't even think of it."

  Emilia looked up at her friend, suddenly aware.

  "Has something happened? Did he say something? Did –"

  "No, nothing of the sort, but I'm not sleeping in my bed tonight, nor in yours either."

  "What?"

  "Listen, we had a great evening with Inma." Seeking to distract Emilia, Caterina proceeded to describe in detail all that had happened and how she had taken to Inma even if this was against everything she had said on Saturday. Finally, to Emilia's amazement, Caterina walked rather unsteadily towards Davide's bedroom door, knocked and entered.

  "Well, knock me down with an emu feather!"

  Emilia finished the brandy before staggering off to her own bed, wondering what she could do at the weekend to convince Alberto that he should misbehave with her.

  Thursday: Malasaña

  Emilia, Davide and Caterina travelled back to the piso after not enjoying a long, unproductive day in the Alcobendas office. All were tired for different reasons. On the Metro their main topic had been the impending visit of this Marta Márquez the next day to Felipe, as well as the latter's intention to visit its owner, Luis Zavala.

  About the last matter the three were divided on the potential benefits of such a tactic. But that was up to Felipe as head of the business. The possibility of negotiating with FyP in person was much more interesting. They had been brought into the picture, along with Ana, by Felipe who had asked if they could find out anything to prepare him for tomorrow.

  As it happened it was the combination of Ana and Caterina who worked on this, with Emilia's nose being put slightly out of joint, at least until Alberto appeared. He proved to be sufficiently solicitous that Emilia found it convenient to go learn more about how the ORS auditing function worked and to meet some of his colleagues with whom Caterina and Emilia had never really interacted.

  At a computer Caterina and Ana had started searching for business details about Marta Márquez using Google. This had not gotten them far, other than discovering that she ran a small advisory firm in a modern office block in the centre of Valencia. It was no surprise to find her clients were not listed, for after all, what professional services firm names its clients, unless they are a matter of public record?

  After drawing blanks when looking for the professional dimension, Ana took the lead in searching. Unlike Caterina who had chosen to look for the formal, Ana preferred the informal, namely the social channels. She began with ¡Hola! magazine and rapidly moved onto similar national and local sources, ones which Caterina rather disparagingly thought of as printed gossip.

  These proved to be a much richer fund of knowledge than she imagined, though such publications included few actual facts other than names of people and places. Nevertheless, they soon gathered and saved a collection of pictures in which Marta Márquez figured in various social settings, mostly in or around Valencia.

  Ana divided these into two broad groups. The first included those with her husband, who seemed well connected within Valenciano society. In these Marta was an equal, appearing stylishly and expensively dressed. In the second group she was almost never in the foreground. Instead, she was on the fringes or mentioned in descriptions of events. These were much more political according to Ana though she also said any apparent differences between political and social were often trivial in practice.

  "For one particular party?" asked Caterina, now feeling decidedly out of her depth but nevertheless enjoying Ana's gently sardonic descriptions of Spanish society as represented on the pages they were examining.

  "No. Actually that's what's peculiar."

  "What d'you mean?"

  "Normally I'd expect an allegiance to one particular political party or another. See how in this photo she's on the edge of a group of senior la Piz politicians, those from the left. In these," Ana brought up two different photos, "she's with some of the kingpins of the national PC and then the local PC – the conservatives. Relatively few people manage to bridge the two. This intrigues me."

  They had delved deeper and deeper. While more pictures and mentions materialised, Marta remained an enigma, other than in one set of pictures taken for a Valenciano fashion magazine where she was showing off the new designer house she had built with her husband.

  "Either he or she must have money," Caterina commented. "In Australia anything like that would cost a fortune. Some of those furnishings look like silk. Those can't come cheap."

  "You're right, Caterina. There's money somewhere here but where exactly? Her business is not large, not given its address and size. Her husband doesn't seem to earn much and we've found nothing suggesting a major inheritance.

  "But, I should warn you, this is not abnormal in Spain. Wealth is often extremely discreet after being accumulated over generations, being kept hidden, especially from the tax man. You may even have heard of instances of politicians keeping secret accounts in Andorra or Lichtenstein. It isn't only politicians who do this. Business people do it as well. They take suitcases of cash across borders. Of course the Italians in the 1960s and '70s and, more recently, the Germans did the same, until new measures caught them at the Swiss border. Spain's authorities have yet to fully catch up."

  This was a different side of Spain for Caterina. She listened raptly as Ana catalogued a raft of instances where people from all walks casually broke the law thinking they had impunity or ought to have it. What was so interesting to her was the way that Ana offered up an eclectic sample selection with commentary. It was as if Ana thought it was all normal behaviour. There was no sense of judgement. It made Caterina think her Australian Crime Commission work was dull by comparison.

  Once back at the piso Davide had headed to his study. He had some connections to catch up with and emails to send.

  Secretly, Emilia was delighted. She had been dying to quiz Caterina all day, but had found no opportunity. They sat down after pouring themselves a glass of wine.

  "So?" said Emilia, unable to restrain her curiosity.

  "'So, what?"

  "So what happened last night?"

  It was not often that Caterina provided such an opportunity as this for Emilia to probe.

&nb
sp; "Well, Davide went out to dinner with Inma."

  "I know that."

  Caterina again summarised what had happened and how her attitude to Inma had changed.

  "Does Davide also think, as you obviously now do, that she's some form of paragon in physical and mental form?"

  "I'm not really sure. We were discussing her appeal just before you arrived home last night, helped by far too much drinking of a truly excellent wine that Inma chose."

  "And Davide? What about you two last night?"

  "That's none of your business."

  "Of course it is. Give!"

  "No. You're not going to make me, and not least because I can hear Davide coming."

  Caterina stuck her tongue out at Emilia. The latter indeed could do nothing as Davide walked in, asking what they wanted to do about dinner.

  Internally, however, Caterina wrestled with her dilemmas. She did want to talk with Emilia. In fact she wanted advice. She wondered where to sleep tonight. Would Davide say or do anything? He had not earlier in the day. That initiative had been Caterina's. It was disconcerting that it was now the focus of Emilia's curiosity.

  She felt her phone vibrate. She would check it later when she had some privacy. It was probably her Aunt Annie's weekly message enquiring how she was.

  Friday: Madrid and Alcobendas

  Marta aspired to be calm and relaxed on the AVE. When boarding in Valencia she was in a model state of mind. That peace of mind had lasted for a good hour but was smashed by the expected call from Estefanía. As her carriage was full, it being the morning commute AVE to Madrid, their conversation had needed to be full of indirection on her part.