"You look like hell. If you feel as bad as you appear, you must be suffering."
At that Ana burst into tears. It did not take long for her to relate what had occurred.
"The worst of it is that I'm sure tío Toño was as upset as we were. Intuitively, he was on my side yet felt obliged to tell us."
"Ana, stop blaming yourself. There's research for you and Davide to do. You know who you should talk to?"
"La abuela?"
"Exactly. Besides being a wonderful grandmother she's a wise old bird and knows the history of everyone. Remember, tío Toño may be wrong. That's where you should start. Meanwhile, you have some other actions."
"Do I? What? I don't feel like doing anything."
"First, resign from ORS. How much are you paid there?"
"1,000 euros a month."
"A mileurista? That is pathetic for someone of your talents. Tell them you've found a job that immediately pays triple their miserable wage, with prospects of tripling that again – if they even ask for an explanation. Second, tell Pedro that if he wants your further assistance you'll be charging for it. Third, you start next Monday working here with me. Your title is Prospective Partner. I want you up to speed and working as a full partner within six months. To assist with that here's some light reading for you."
Inma indicated a pile of papers and books that must have been a metre thick.
"Please finish these couple of thousand pages by the following Monday. On Tuesday we're going to a reinsurance conference in London where I'm speaking and you'll need to understand the fundamentals. Don't worry, I have every faith that you'll absorb everything and you can ask me questions on the flight."
Ana gasped. First Caterina, then Emilia and now Inma was taking over.
"But what about hiring Davide?"
"That won't happen. I don't think he'd join me even if I asked. He has his own business. In any case, having you both under the same roof might be awkward. I'd already decided to accept his recommendation about you but not yours about him."
Inma did not say that she planned to talk privately with Davide about an informal ongoing business arrangement. Ana did not need this complication now.
"I don't know what you're doing this weekend, but you're invited to Yuste. There's plenty of room. Don't feel obliged to come but I think getting away from Madrid would be good for you, plus it ought to make going to the airport easier on Tuesday. Finally, you've one immediate objective today."
"I do?"
"You do. To look even more glamourous than you did in that black and white dress, which was pretty good by the way. I remember. I have the same challenge. We're now going shopping to help each other."
"I don't understand."
"Have your forgotten the dinner tomorrow night? You had? Do you know what Davide called you, Caterina, Emilia and, by implication, me? Amazons! The cheek of the man!"
Ana laughed, her first proper one of the day. She could even remember Davide saying it, though she had been too busy talking with tío Toño to take it in. Inma was right; it was in character.
"Remember Caterina and Emilia will be there. You can bet your bottom Aussie dollar that they'll be doing themselves up, in Emilia's case probably tarting herself up. You and I are going to show what the best of Spain can produce.
"No Amazon will win, of course. But we're not going to lose. In fact the losers will be Pedro and Davide. They'll see what they are missing. Best of all, tío Toño's eyes will drop from his elderly interfering head just as his socks involuntarily fall off his miserable feet. Agreed?"
Ana could do no more than weakly laugh. It seemed her life, and now looks, were being hijacked yet again.
About the Author
Charles Brett is a business and technology consultant. Born in Belfast and educated in England he has a degree in Modern History from the University of Oxford. Married to a Spaniard he has lived or worked in Italy, Abu Dhabi, South Africa, California and New York, Spain, Israel and Estonia. He has one previous novel, The HolyPhone Confessional Crisis, as well as several technology-related books. He contributes to a variety of newspapers, journals and magazines.
Also by Charles Brett
The HolyPhone Confessional Crisis
The HolyPhone Confessional Crisis is a technology crime and church thriller. The Vatican introduces HolyPhones (based on smartphones) into confessionals in Europe and the Americas. These connect those who wish to confess to the Vatican Confessional Call Centre, in part to improve the workload of priests but as much to generate new income for the Church.
An alliance - of an American lady whose father runs a southern fundamentalist church, an Israeli pro-Settler technology genius, an ex-banker (and past lover of the American lady) now turned priest and a lady member of Opus Dei - conspire, for their own very different reasons, to cream off part of the HolyPhone's confessional revenues.
The cardinal responsible for the HolyPhone charge has suspicions and brings in first the half Spanish/half English conceiver of the Holy- Phone and then an Irish policeman and an Australian lady computer crime expert to find out if there is a problem and, if there is, to try to solve it before the church suffers. More than the church's credibility is at stake.
The novel is set in Rome, Israel and Spain.
This is the first Davide Shape/Inma Ávila novel.
Corruption's Price: A Spanish Deceit Page 37