A Coffin For Two (Oz Blackstone Mystery)

by Quintin Jardine

  They towered over us as we crossed the plain around Perpignan, until at last the road began to rise, taking us ever more steeply into their foothills. Just like the mountains, the border would have taken us by surprise too, had we not reached an autoroute pay station a few miles earlier. What did take us by surprise, though, was the big Aztec monument overlooking the vehicle lanes.

  It seemed for a while that we had more chance of finding an Aztec than a border guard. If we had been expecting a fond farewell from France or a big hello from Spain, we would have been disappointed. There was no one in sight at the French control point. I drove through slowly towards the Spanish station, where a man in uniform sat, smoking a cigarette and reading a newspaper. He didn’t even look up as Prim waved our passports.

  ‘Hasta la vista, Jimmy,’ I called as we headed into Spain down another steep incline, away from a pass, the possession of which, I guessed, had been a strategic imperative for centuries, and which was guarded now by a man with a fag and the sports section.

  A few miles along the road we came to a service area. ‘Pull in there,’ said Prim. A command, not a request.

  I expected her to make for the ‘ladies’ sign, but instead she headed into the shop, emerging a couple of minutes later with a map, and two litres of bottled water. ‘Let’s do some exploring,’ she said.

  Her expression was so intense that it made me laugh. ‘There’s more to Spain than this, love,’ I said.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘But one piece at a time, okay? I don’t want to leave those mountains behind just yet.’ She spread out her map, located our position and traced a line with her finger. ‘The next big town’s called Figueras. Let’s go past that, and head for the coast. Here, move over and let me drive.’

  There was more than a hint of childish excitement about her enthusiasm. This was a new Prim, not the capable, well-organised woman I knew, whose every decision was weighed carefully and reached logically. I looked at her, and I loved her even more.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Gimme the map.’

  She handed it over, and we swapped seats without getting out of the car, clambering awkwardly across each other, managing to avoid the obstacle of the big gear lever. I strapped myself into the passenger seat and we headed off, abandoning the autopista - the more you learn about Spanish drivers, the more appropriate that name seems to be - as the autoroute becomes in Spain, and taking to the punters’ free-of-charge highways.

  I spread the map out on my lap and retraced our progress from the border with a finger. ‘This road bypasses Figueras. If you take the first exit south of that, and head east, then ...’ She cut me off with a nod and a smile.

  Past Figueras, we followed the signs for Roses, but found instead a place called Ampuriabrava. It was a huge marina rather than a town, a modern, concrete Venice, a network of wide canals with houses jammed together along their banks, each with a mooring rather than a garage. Prim pulled the Frontera to a halt and we climbed out, into the rising heat of late morning. We stared down one of the canals. There was a boat moored outside every house. I pointed to one of them, a long, three-masted schooner.

  ‘See that?’ She nodded, slightly awestruck once more. ‘Well, my lovely, we think we’re rolling in it, but I’ll bet you we couldn’t buy half of that bloody thing.’

  ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘But only you would think of buying half a boat.’ We headed out of Ampuriabrava in silence and followed the map south.

  We found St Marti with our stomachs rather than with any navigational skills. We had driven through a narrow, dull town called San Pedro Pescador, then past kilometres of half-filled campsites, without, in all that time, clapping eyes on the Mediterranean, when all of a sudden a village loomed up before us, standing walled and rugged on a hill, with an ancient church as its crest.

  Prim swung the car into an empty space at the roadside. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s take a look.’

  ‘Thought you wanted to be by the sea.’

  She shrugged. ‘Right now I want to be beside a toilet. After that ... I don’t know about you, but I’m bloody hungry. Anyway, if that map’s right the sea should be just beyond the village.’

  I looked around. There were scores, maybe hundreds of cars by the side of the road and in the official parks. More than a few had wind-surfers on their roofs.

  A tarmac path sloped up toward the village. Arm in arm we followed it, under a stone arch that looked a few hundred years old, and into a tiny square with a red monoblock walkway that still looked brand new.

  I read the street sign. ‘Plaça Petita. Wonder where the big one is?’

  It wasn’t far. The red-brick road led us on up a narrow alley, shaded even from the midday sun. All of a sudden we were aware of a buzz of sound. As we reached the mouth of the alley it grew until it was almost a roar.

  The pathway stopped as suddenly and unexpectedly as it had begun. We stood at the mouth of the alley and looked out into the square which was the heart of the tiny village.

  It was filled with dozens of round wooden tables, and four times as many cane chairs. They sat out on gravelled earth, under huge parasols. Some were all white, others had a blue stripe. Spread out together they made the place look as if it was covered by a patchwork marquee.

  The tables were jammed together tight and almost all of them were in use, by a congregation of the most casually dressed people I had ever seen in my life. All ages, all shapes, all sizes, none of them wearing many clothes. At least a dozen waiters danced nimbly among them, bearing trays of drinks and food. One of them swept past us, swinging three plates of fat, grilled sardines, slaked with garlic and olive oil, under our noses.

  The square was bounded on three sides by old stone buildings. Every one of them housed a restaurant and bar, and each one seemed to own its own area of ground on which tables were set out, packed together tightly with just enough room to allow access. Above the parasols rose three young trees, with birds singing in their branches.

  The old church stood at the head of the square. Its single great round window seemed to look down on the village like a benevolent eye. I couldn’t help myself; I smiled up at it, and nodded. I stood there for a while, beaming, trying but failing to pick out a dominant language among the noise.

  At last Prim squeezed my arm. She grinned too. ‘A bit different from that concrete boatyard, eh? Come on.’ She pulled me up the path, which was gravel now, into the heart of the square, looking around for an empty table. ‘Over there,’ she said, pointing to her left, towards a space near the entrance to one of the restaurants, dragging me behind her as she made for it.

  The waiter stepped up just as we got there. He was a tallish bloke, about my height, forty-something but with jet-black hair, and a long face which broke into a pleasant smile as he drew back one of the cane chairs for Prim. It didn’t strike me until later that he was less bronzed than I had expected a Spanish waiter to be. In fact it stood to reason, since he spent most of his summer under the parasols.

  I was reaching into the back of my brain for my High School Spanish when he beat me to it. ‘Français? Deutsch? Anglais?’ he asked. At once I realised why I hadn’t picked out a language among the hubbub. It was because there were so many of them being spoken at once. I shook my head as I sat down. He looked puzzled until Prim said, ‘Écossais.’

  ‘Ah,’ he said, his smile widening. ‘Scottish!’

  I know quite a few English people, but I only give this tip to the ones I like. So pay attention. When you’re travelling in France or Spain, always say that you’re a Jock.

  ‘This your firs’ time in L’Escala?’ the waiter went on, loosened up more than a bit.

  We both looked puzzled. So did he, for a moment. ‘You not staying in L’Escala, no? It is the next town,’ he explained, waving loosely towards the south, ’beyond the ruins of Empuries.’

  Prim shook her head and gave him her best schoolgirl smile. ‘We’re not staying anywhere yet. We’re still considering where to stop. But right
now we’re only thinking about lunch.’

  He smiled. ‘Of course. I am sorry. The menu.’ He bowed slightly and presented us with two thick brown folders, with leaves encased in plastic, each page with a wee flag sticking out to denote the language. We headed straight for the Union Jack.

  So, on our first day in Spain we sat under the parasols in St Marti, eating salad and pizza, washed down with cold, gold beer. It was mid-afternoon when we paid the waiter and stepped between the tables, now mostly unoccupied, and out into the sun.

  Most of the people leaving the restaurant had headed up another gravel path which led round the side of the church, past a two-storey villa with mosaic patterns on its walls, and with an almost flat roof. We followed them slowly in the heat, Prim with her arm wrapped around my waist. As we passed the house, the path took a sudden downward slope and there it was, the Mediterranean, spread before us at last. We stood beside a low wall bounding a crescent-shaped viewpoint, and gazed out dumbstruck.

  I love views. All my life my favourite has always been the outlook from my bedroom in my dad’s house in Anstruther, across the Firth of Forth towards the May Island and beyond to the Bass Rock. But the first time that I stood beneath the crest of St Marti d’Empuries and gazed around the great crescent of the Golf de Roses, it took my breath away.

  Looking north, Prim and I recognised at once the high-rise apartment blocks of Ampuriabrava, which we had seen close up earlier that day. Beyond, like white pearls set into the side of the mountain which rose steeply from the sea at the distant mouth of the bay, were the villas of the town of Rosas. A strip of golden beach ran round the circumference of the bay, almost from its northern tip, until it was cut by the promontory on which we stood, and from which a long stone pier jutted out three hundred metres into the sea. The water was blue and calm.

  We followed it as it curved south, past the remnants of an ancient sea wall, past the Greco-Roman ruins of which, we learned later, St Marti had been the forerunner. The semi-circle of the great bay was completed as the beach ended in another rocky rise. The town of L’Escala stood on its southern tip, no more than two kilometres away from where we stood. Its houses and shops seemed to shine, gleaming white in the sun. We looked for high-rise blocks but saw none. As with St Marti, the bell-tower of its church was the highest point on its skyline.

  We must have stood there for five minutes, struck silent by the simple symmetrical beauty of the gulf, watching the motor cruisers as they cut white lines through the blue surface of the mill-pond sea.

  At last Prim gave me a squeeze. I looked down at her. She was as lovely and happy as I’d ever seen her. ‘This is it, Oz,’ she said. ‘This is where I’d like to be.’

  I laughed. ‘Christ, love, we haven’t been in Spain for half a day yet.’ I protested, but my heart wasn’t in it; because I knew that I felt just as she did.

  Logic has nothing to do with it. Places are like people. There are millions of them, and you encounter new ones on a daily basis, but every so often you see one and you fall in love with it. That’s how it was the first time I saw my loft in Edinburgh. That’s how it was the first time I saw Wallace, my iguana, in Pet City. (It didn’t even matter when I found out that he was a bloke.) I looked once again across the bay towards L’Escala, and I thought about all the places and people I loved. Anstruther, Edinburgh, my dad, my poor mum, Ellie, my nephews: the place felt comfortable among them all.

  So I wrapped my arms around Primavera, and I kissed her, ignoring the raised eyebrows and half-smile of a fat Germanic type a few yards away. ‘You sure?’ I asked.

  ‘Sure as I’ve ever been about anything.’

  ‘For how long?’

  She smiled. ‘Who knows? That’s the thing about this trip. Voyage of discovery, remember. Let’s find somewhere to stay tonight, and take a longer look tomorrow.’

  I looked back up the hill, towards the Casa Forestals, as the flat-roofed villa seemed to be called from the sign by its door, and St Marti. ‘That’s no more than a hamlet. There may be nothing there.’

  Even Prim’s shrugs seem optimistic. ‘We’ll never know until we ask,’ she said, taking charge. ‘Let’s go back up and see our multi-lingual pal. He’ll tell us what there is.’

  The square was quiet as we climbed back up to the village. I checked my watch. It was three forty-five; respite for the bars and restaurants before the evening rush, I guessed. Our waiter friend was seated at one of his own tables, at the door of his establishment. For the first time I read the name above the door. ‘Casa Miñana — Snack Bar.’

  He stood up as we approached, with a smile that struck me as more than simply professionally friendly. He offered us a table. ‘You like to drink? I am afraid that the kitchen is closed for two hours, but maybe a sandwich is possible.’

  My partner, now in total command, shook her head. ‘No more food. But two beers, yes please.’ She sat down and I followed. He disappeared into the dark interior of Casa Minana, re-emerging a minute later with two frosted globes of Spanish lager.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Prim. ‘We were wondering; we’d like to stay around here tonight. Do you know if there are any rooms available?’

  He frowned. ‘Normally there are zimmer ... sorry’ - he corrected his linguistic lapse - ‘rooms there, and there.’ He nodded towards two other buildings on the square. ‘But is summer, and all is occupied. You try L‘Escala, yes? There are places there. Hostal Garbi, is very good.’

  Prim nodded. ‘Thank you.’ He must have read disappointment in her eyes, for his face fell. All at once it brightened up again.

  ‘Unless you like to stay here for a few days. My family, we have a few apartments we rent in the summer. They are all occupied, but there is another next to them. A Dutch man, he asked me to try to sell his apartment for him, and he say that if anyone want it I can rent it. If you want to stay for maybe a week, I could let you have that.’

  My Scottishness surfaced. ‘How much?’

  ‘The owner say forty thousand pesetas for the week.’ He paused, and my mental arithmetic worked that out as two hundred quid. ‘Is very cheap for St Marti in July.’ Suddenly he grinned. ‘Cheaper than we rent our apartments. Which is why...’

  Prim smiled back at him and finished his sentence.’... it’s still empty and you are only telling us about it because yours are full.’

  He blushed slightly and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Is business,’ he said, disarmingly. ‘Would you like to see it?’

  Prim and I nodded spontaneously, and simultaneously. The waiter lobbed the tray on which he had brought our beer, and which he still held, across to a much older man who had appeared in the doorway as we spoke. The veteran caught it deftly, without a word, and took a pace outside.

  ‘My name is Miguel,’ said our new friend, as we stood up. ‘Miguel Miñana. This is my father. His name is Jaume.’ We introduced ourselves and shook hands formally with the two Minanas.

  Miguel motioned us to follow and led us away from the snack bar, up towards the church then round to the left. We realised for the first time how small St Marti is, no more than three narrow, brick-paved alleys, linked at the foot by a fourth and opening out at the top into the square, and the area in front of the church. Our escort stopped at a plain yellow-painted wooden door at the top of the most distant alley, which even then was no more than thirty yards from the head of the square, defined by the low stone wall in front of the church. I looked up at the building, and took a wild guess that it was, maybe, two hundred years old.

  ‘This is it,’ he said, unlocking the door with a key from the vast bunch which hung on his belt. He stepped inside and switched on a light. A narrow stone stairway rose in front of us. ‘Is up here, at the top,’ he said, starting to climb. ‘Very nice apartment. All new furniture, new kitchen, almost everything new. The owner and his wife not speak any more. That is why he want to sell.’

  The stairway took three turns before we came to the apartment. No other doorways opened off it, but it was lit by t
hree slit windows one above the other on successive levels. There were two keyholes in the brown-stained front door, each concealing a heavy, three-bolted double lock. Finally after much sorting of keys, Miguel unlocked them both, stepped inside and threw a switch. There was a hum as the motorised shutters, which covered every window, rose as one, letting the sunlight spill into the flat.

  ‘Is very good, the way it faces,’ he said. ‘The sun only comes in the windows at the back, but unless you roll out the blind, you have it on the terrace all day. And this is the highest apartment on this side of the village, so it has no one can see in. You look round. See if you like.’

  Both Prim and I had been expecting something old-fashioned. But at some point in the last twenty years or so the place had been gutted and rebuilt. We stepped into a big living area, with cream tiles on the floor and pristine, white-painted walls.

  Doors on either side led into two bedrooms, the one on the left, en-suite. The other bathroom, and a spacious fully-fitted kitchen with washer-drier, fridge-freezer, halogen cooker, microwave and even dish-washer were set on either side of the entrance, and had good-sized windows which looked back down towards the square.

  The living area was quality furnished, with two wide wood-framed sofas, with big, soft, pale blue cushions, a single chair, a round dining table set, and a sideboard. A television and video sat on a corner table, beside a big open fireplace, with, I noticed, a Sky satellite decoder, minus card. The stuff in the bedroom was of the same style and standard. I guessed that at some point while they were still together, the Dutch couple had gone to the local furniture store and bought the lot en bloc.

  The living room and both bedrooms opened out onto a big balcony. In the larger bedroom Prim drew the muslin curtains aside, threw the double doors open and stepped out. ‘Oh!’ she cried out loud. ‘Bloody hell!’ So did I. The terrace was L-shaped, since the smaller bedroom, on the right, was set back from the line of the living room. A quick count of its floor tiles told me that it was around five metres deep and at least twelve wide. It stood above the tops of the trees which lay on the slope to the north of St Marti, giving a panoramic view which stretched from L’Escala on our right, right across the bay and on to the spectacular skyline of the Pyrenees with which Primavera had fallen in love that morning.