‘I’m going to start with the police,’ he replied at once.
‘Then let’s do that.’
I called a waiter across and paid for Xavi’s refreshments, then led the way out of the Plaza Mayor, back to Calle de la Cruz. The lone guard was still at the door, but the atmosphere around the crime scene had changed. The street had been blocked off to vehicle traffic and other uniformed officers were stationed at the junctions, interviewing passers-by.
‘You do the talking here,’ I murmured as we approached number two hundred and forty-two. ‘Tell the guy at the door we’re witnesses and we want to see the man in charge.’
The cop had ignored me earlier, but he looked up second time around. My large friend has that effect on people. He spoke rapidly as we reached the man, in Spanish. Even I could tell that it was heavily accented; the door warden looked puzzled, and had to hear his request for a second time before he understood. He nodded towards the restaurant as he replied.
‘He says that the guy in charge is in there,’ Xavi said. ‘His name is Inspector Jefe Sala.’
We followed his direction, into Fatigas del Querer. The place was a customer-free zone and the chief inspector was in plain clothes and had his back to us, but I’d have known what he was even if it had been jam-packed. He was standing with Paco, listening to him. I’ve interviewed thousands of people over the years, and in most of them there was a kind of eagerness to please that is visible; the eyes a little wider, the smile that says, ‘Please believe me, I’m speaking the truth.’ The waiter was sending those messages, silent and clear.
He looked at us in the doorway, and his eyebrows almost pushed his forehead out of the way, so high did they rise as he shopped us to the detective.
The man turned slowly; he was around forty, a couple of inches shorter than me, with the shoulders of a weightlifter, and the attitude of one who’s used to being obeyed. He looked us up and down, slowly and deliberately, as if to demonstrate that he was unimpressed. He glared at me, then barked out a question. Its speed, its aggression and its accent were too much for my Spanish.
Whatever he was saying, I didn’t react well to the way he said it; it’s not in my nature, I’m afraid. I returned his glare with one of my own, raising the animosity stakes. ‘Repeat that in English,’ I retorted, ‘and a lot more politely, or we’re off to a bad start.’
Xavi stepped forward, as if to keep the peace, and spoke to Sala. The chief inspector’s expression, and his attitude, seemed to soften, but only a little. The big man produced a Spanish national identity card and offered it for study. The cop looked at it, shrugged, and handed it back.
Xavi carried on; I heard my name mentioned, and the phrase, ‘Jefe de policia en Escocia’. That was a mistake. The chief inspector might have been able to relate to me on the basis of one tough guy to another, but he’d never have yielded to the slightest suggestion of a foreign policeman pulling rank on him on his own patch . . . any more than I would.
It didn’t go downhill after that, not exactly, but the Book was produced and adhered to, line by line. That was how I played it too, when Sala decided that he and his deputy, Inspector Raimat, would interview me formally. The other guy spoke decent English, but I decided to forget any Spanish I ever knew and insisted on Xavi translating for me.
It was clear from the start that the inspector jefe knew, courtesy of Julien Valencia, the answer to his first question, why we’d come to Madrid, but I replied anyway. I told him that a colleague of my friend, the media proprietor Señor Aislado, was missing and that he and I were trying to find him.
He asked why we had gone to Jacob Ireland’s apartment. I said that we’d been told he and Hector were at university together, no more than that.
He asked why we’d left the scene after finding the body. I told him that I’d known as a detective not to risk any further contamination.
He asked why we’d reported the murder through the Mossos d’Esquadra, and not directly to the Policia Nacional. I replied that I knew its director general, and reckoned that he could get word to the right people in Madrid faster than I could.
He asked and I answered, but I volunteered nothing. I didn’t share my belief that the killings in Madrid and Barcelona might be linked by the firearm involved. I said not a word about Valentina, because neither he nor Raimat asked me. Their omission led me to assume that Paco hadn’t told them about my visit earlier that morning, or about the photograph I’d shown him.
If he hadn’t he wasn’t about to, because as soon as the interview was over, the detective told him that he could open for business once more.
He ordered us, again through Xavi, to leave him contact numbers and then to get the fuck out of Madrid and back to where we had come from. That suited me fine, for it was what I’d intended to do.
Why hadn’t I been more forthcoming with the Madrid detectives? Professionally, I had no reason to doubt them; they held senior ranks in a major force and, as such, I accepted their competence. Personally, it wasn’t that I didn’t trust them, rather that I couldn’t afford to.
It may be denied by both parties, it may be deplored by governments and courts, but it is a fact that in most countries there is a relationship of mutual back-scratching between the police and the media. Cash or gifts should never change hands but information does, in both directions, on a barter basis. It had been an issue in Barcelona, and so it was in Madrid.
If I had mentioned the name of the mystery woman Valentina, there was an excellent chance, life being what it is, that it would find its way into the public domain within twenty-four hours, either officially, though a press statement, or through the back door, whispered into the ear of a media contact of Inspector Jefe Sala or Inspector Raimat.
I was certain that she and Hector were in hiding . . . unless they were dead already . . . with a killer on their trail. It would not help for the whole of Spain to be on the lookout for both of them.
‘What do we do now?’ Xavi asked, as the detectives left, leaving us alone at a table.
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know about you, chum, but the menu del dia chalked on that board over there is calling out to me, loud and clear. I’m going to have some of that, and then we’re going to grab the first AVE back to Girona.’
And that’s what we did. (For the record, I had paella starter, followed by hake in the Basque style.) Once we’d eaten, we went back to the hotel and checked out.
We validated our return tickets at Estacion Atocha, but we had a couple of hours to kill, and so at Xavi’s suggestion we spent them in the Reina Sofia art gallery, where the national collection of modern art is displayed. That includes Picasso’s huge monochrome masterpiece, Guernica, his condemnation of the Spanish Civil War. It was on my bucket list, and I’d missed it on my previous visit to Madrid.
It did for me what El Bosco’s work in the Prado had done for my chum; it grabbed me and held me to it. I stared at it for twenty minutes, until it was time to head for the station. If ever I visit the Spanish capital again, and I plan to do so, I’ll be back to do it homage.
I waited until we were on the train before calling Julien Valencia, to keep my promise to get back to him with any new information I had. Xavi’s phone had been on its last legs too, but there were power terminals by our seats and he was able to plug in his charger.
When I got through to the head of the Mossos, he was not a happy man. The presiding judge’s wings might have been clipped, but the Italians were giving him grief, demanding progress on the murder investigation. Piled on top of that, he had a new gripe. He had asked Madrid to liaise with Intendant Reyes and the team investigating the Battaglia shooting, but no contact had been made. As a result, when I said that I’d been less forthcoming with Sala than I might have been, that cheered him up a little.
‘It’s the woman,’ I told him, ‘the one who was seen with Hector and Jacob on Monday night. She’s at the heart of it.’
‘How?’
I explained my thinking, that Battaglia
had been killed by mistake, and that it was the discovery of the error that had triggered the torture murder in Madrid. Valencia’s an administrator, not an investigator, so it took me a little while to convince him, but eventually I did.
‘Who is she, this lady?’ he asked.
‘That’s what you need to find out,’ I replied. ‘She’s Russian and her given name is Valentina, but that’s all I know for sure. Her old email address suggests that her family name begins with the letters B, A, R. That’s all I have to go on.’
‘I’ll pass it on to Reyes.’
That didn’t fill me with confidence; a middle-ranking officer might not command sufficient top-level attention.
‘You might want to make that search yourself, Julien,’ I suggested, ‘you or your deputy; someone with command authority.’
‘I do not like to undermine my subordinates.’
‘I appreciate that, and your own database might give you the answer, but you may well need a wider search than that. This woman is not a Spanish national.’
‘Where do you suggest?’
‘If it was me, I’d be talking to Europol and possibly Interpol too, although I know they pool their intelligence.’
‘Okay,’ he agreed. ‘I will try them. I will keep you informed, out of courtesy. Thank you for all your help, Bob, and for what you discovered in Madrid. We will handle it from here.’
Will you indeed? I thought as I put the phone down on the tray table. And what exactly will you do with it?
Twenty-Four
We hadn’t even reached Barcelona when Valencia called me back, on Xavi’s recharged phone. Within a couple of seconds I realised that he was rattled.
‘I have a message for you,’ he said. ‘It comes from my boss, the Justice Minister in the government of Catalunya; it came to her from the Interior Minister in Madrid. The woman you told me of . . . I’m not going to mention her name over the phone . . . you are to forget you ever heard of her.’
I couldn’t help it; for all his intensity, all I could do was smile. ‘As messages go,’ I chuckled, ‘that’s right up there with the stupidest I’ve ever had. But since it comes from two politicians,’ I added, ‘that’s not as surprising as it might be. How can I forget that which I know already?’
‘You know what they mean,’ he retorted sharply.
‘Did your boss say why her bragas are in a twist?’
‘She didn’t want to be questioned about it, but you are right about the underwear. From the way she acted it must have been damp to say the least,’ he chuckled.
‘As soon as you and I had finished speaking,’ he continued, ‘I called my opposite number, the Director General of Europol, in Brussels. I told him what you have told me and asked if he could identify the woman from the information you had given me. He said he would call me back, but he didn’t. Instead, only fifteen minutes ago, I had this tirade from Marte Negredo. She didn’t call me, she actually came to my office from the Justice Ministry.’
‘What did she say, exactly?’ I asked.
‘I told you; she said that we should forget the woman Valentina, we should stop looking for her and we should not mention her name again.’
‘Wow,’ I exclaimed, ‘now there’s a coincidence. Hector Sureda said exactly the same thing to his parents last February.’
‘Coincidence or not,’ he sighed, ‘we have to obey. I have been told directly that this woman is not part of this investigation. I have to concentrate on finding the person who killed our very important Italian visitor, and nothing else. In that respect, the minister has come down on the side of the judge; she has declared that Hector Sureda is the only suspect in the murder.’
‘You may have to obey, Julien,’ I countered, ‘but I don’t. I’m a private citizen trying to find a man who’s gone missing, as a favour to a friend. I was ready to leave that search to your people, but not any longer. I’m not going to let Hector be arrested for something he didn’t do, or shot while resisting.’
‘That’s not going to happen!’
‘Too fucking right it’s not, because I’m going to find him before your people do.’
‘The Mossos is not a death squad, Bob,’ he protested.
‘I know that, but Madrid’s involved, and all national governments have previous in that respect. I hear your minister’s message, and I choose to ignore it. I won’t compromise you, though. I won’t call you again until I have something positive to tell you.’
‘I’m sorry, Bob,’ he said, sincerely, ‘but as one cop to another, you know how it is.’
‘That’s where we part company, Julien,’ I replied, as gently as I could. ‘I’m a cop; you’re a civil servant.’
‘What?’ Xavi asked as I gave him his phone back.
I gave him a rundown of the conversation and of Valencia’s orders.
‘What’s the fucking mystery?’ he exclaimed. ‘Why’s she off limits?’
‘If I knew that it wouldn’t be a fucking mystery, now, would it?’
He sighed. ‘Bob, I know I started this thing off with my daft theory about Hector being kidnapped, but I had no idea it would turn out like this. You’ve done more than enough for me as it is. Just walk away now and let everything run its course.’
‘That course, if it’s left unaltered, is going to leave your friend with a bullet in his head. I can’t let that happen. I’ve met his parents; I like and respect them. I’m not doing this for you any longer, big man. I’m in it for them.’
‘We have nowhere else to go,’ he pointed out. ‘We’re at a dead end.’
‘Bad choice of words, but no, we’re not. They’re in hiding, we have to find them.’
‘And how do we do that?’
I smiled. ‘I’ll tell you a story. When I was a kid, till I was about nine or ten years old, I had a cat. His name was Figaro, and he was my only friend. He was a right wee rascal, always getting into bother; whenever he did, he always went to the same place, under the sideboard. That was where he felt safe and secure. Then one day, he started making funny noises. He headed for the sideboard but he didn’t make it. He died, half in, half out of his place of safety.’
I gazed at him but I wasn’t really seeing him, no, I was looking back in time.
‘People are the same. Your place of safety, after Grace died, used to be the Saltire; now it’s here, in Spain. Mine was my job, and I can see now that’s why I’m having such trouble walking away from it. But I will, though; I’ll make Sarah and my kids my refuge, as they should have been all along.’
Xavi nodded. ‘Good idea,’ he said quietly.
‘What we have to do now,’ I continued, ‘is to find Hector’s citadel, the place where he feels safe from all the bad stuff.’
‘A week ago,’ he remarked, ‘I’d have said that was inside his computer. But now I’m not so sure.’
‘I have an inkling,’ I told him. ‘To find out whether I’m right or not, we have to get off this train, not in Girona, but in Barcelona. That’s where Pilar is right now, at the hospital. We need to talk to his mother, because if there’s one person in the world right now who can tell us where he is, it’s her . . . even if she doesn’t realise it.’
‘I could phone,’ he suggested.
‘You could,’ I agreed, ‘but you should go there anyway, to support her.’
He frowned. ‘You’re right, of course. If all this shit hadn’t happened I’d have been there with her during the operation.’
We surprised the conductor by leaving the AVE at Estacio Sants. The taxi rank was busy when we got there, but there are a hell of a lot of cabs in Barcelona, so we didn’t have to wait for long.
Simon’s life-or-death operation was being performed in a university hospital in Vall D’Hebron on the outskirts of the city. It’s very large, and we’d have been struggling to find the surgical section, but our driver had been there often and knew exactly where to drop us.
Xavi led the way inside, and straight to reception; the woman in charge was cautious at fir
st, to the point of frostiness, but he dipped into the well of charm that he keeps for special occasions, until she thawed and directed us to level two. ‘Your friend will be there, somewhere,’ she promised.
She was, in a quiet place reserved for patients’ families. It was a large room, with a large window looking down on the city; it was comfortably furnished and there was a coffee machine and snacks in the far corner, not unlike an airport VIP lounge, minus alcohol.
She didn’t notice us at first, for she was talking to the only other person there, a woman . . . another anxious wife, I guessed from the tension that lined her face. Her own relaxed smile was in stark contrast, and it told us all we needed to know.
‘Pilar.’
She turned towards us at the sound of Xavi’s voice, excused herself to the other lady, and came across to join us. ‘Hey, sorpresa,’ she exclaimed: in Catalan, but I had no trouble with that translation.
She switched to English. ‘Thank you both for coming; everything is okay. They have replaced the aortic valve, and carried out a quadruple artery bypass. The chief surgeon came to see me half an hour ago. He says he expects Simon to make a very good recovery, considering the condition that his heart was in. We will not dance the tango for a while, but a gentle sardana should be possible before too long.’
‘That’s great,’ I said. ‘When will you see him?’
‘Tomorrow morning. They will keep him sedated overnight then let him waken gradually. Tonight I stay in a hotel; I would go home, but I am exhausted.’
She paused, her eyes on us, going from one to the other, studying our faces. ‘Is that all the good news I will have today?’ she asked, quietly.
‘You’ll have no bad news,’ I replied. ‘Hector is still missing, but we still have reason to suppose he’s with his girlfriend, with Valentina. What we don’t know is where they might be.’
‘Maybe at her place,’ she suggested. ‘It was near Sitges, as I remember.’
‘No, they won’t be there, that’s for sure. They’ll have gone somewhere else, a place where they would feel secure, that nobody else would know about.’
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