‘I think you’ll find that she has them. Anything bigger than a cat going through there sets off her alarm. You don’t need to tell her about this, do you? At the moment she doesn’t realise that Patterson’s in danger.’
‘I must. If there’s any sort of a threat to her, however slight, I have a duty to make her aware of it.’
‘In that case I could-’
He smiled. ‘No, Primavera. Credit me with a little diplomacy. She does know about the work he did, I take it?’
‘Yes.’
‘That makes it easier.’
‘And raises another question. Do you report this to your own. .’ I paused, knowing nothing about Spanish security services. ‘Who exactly could you report it to?’
He frowned. ‘I might be an acting intendant, Primavera, but I’m still only a regional cop. I’ll tell the directorate in Barcelona about this new development and what I’m doing about it. They can take it from there. I imagine they’ll talk to the British. Indeed, it may be that Mr Cowling has done that himself, by now, and that they’ve pulled him out. It’s the best part of a day since he dropped out of sight; he could be in London by now.’
‘If he caught a flight, you’ll trace it, yes?’
‘Yes, but if he caught a train, from Perpignan for example, across the border in France, then we couldn’t.’
‘Unless he bought his ticket with a credit card.’
‘True, but. .’ He broke off, laughing. ‘Woman, would you stop doing my thinking for me! However hard you try to make yourself invaluable, you are not involved in this. Go on, be a mother, be a champion golfer’s secretary, sell wine. Be whatever you want, but please don’t try to be an investigator.’
My croissant. . they are in essence lumps of baked carbohydrate waiting to be turned into body fat, so I eat only one at a time. . still lay untouched on the plate. I snatched it up, withdrawing from further argument.
‘That’s a good girl,’ Alex chuckled, really chancing his arm. If I’d had access to his soft bits, they’d have been at risk.
But I did no more than grunt, and gaze ahead, from the terrace across the square, where the cafes, other than Meson del Conde, which was closed, were readying themselves for what would be inevitably a quiet Monday, since May still had a couple of days to run. As I did, a newcomer to the village appeared, with a bag slung over his shoulder, and distinctive, by his bewilderment and by the colour of his skin.
I stood, and waved. ‘Uche!’ I called out, unnecessarily, for he had seen me. ‘Jonny’s caddie,’ I explained. ‘He’s moving into one of the apartments above Can Roura. Come on up,’ I instructed him.
The two men passed in the doorway, with brief introductions and a quick handshake. Most people are slightly disconcerted when they meet a uniformed cop, but Uche simply gave a brief courtly bow, managing to suggest that the honour was all Alex’s. I led him into the kitchen, stuck another couple of croissants under the grill, and offered him coffee. He opted for water, but scoffed the rolls as if he hadn’t eaten in days.
‘Is your father still here?’ I asked him.
‘Yes, until tomorrow. He’s given his crew a forty-eight-hour stopover in Barcelona.’
‘Ah, so his offer of a flight was bullshit.’
‘Possibly not; he’s a qualified pilot himself, and I’m sure he could have found someone locally who was qualified to sit in the other seat.’ He frowned. ‘However, you were right to turn him down; when he invites a lady to fly with him, he usually has more than travel in mind.’
I shrugged. ‘That’s not a crime. He’s a single man, isn’t he?’
‘Oh yes.’ I saw the same glint of anger as I’d noticed the day before. ‘Single, and singular.’
‘How was dinner?’
The smile returned. ‘Educational, as always.’
‘On whose part?’
‘Mutually, I would say. He told me that he had humoured me for long enough and that it was time for me to prepare myself for my future in the family businesses, and for the responsibilities that I’ll inherit one day in Nigeria, when I succeed him as emir. I told him that he looked pretty healthy to me. I added that I couldn’t possibly leave Jonny in the lurch, especially now that his career is secure for the next two and a half years, at least, and that he could go and. . the rest I leave to your imagination.’
It didn’t take me long to work it out. ‘That sounds like a full and frank discussion. How did he react?’
‘My father and I have been having such conversations for the last year and more, since I turned twenty-five.’
‘You’re twenty-five?’ I exclaimed. ‘I thought you were Jonny’s age.’
‘No, I entered college as a mature student. I did work with my father for a couple of years after I left Charterhouse. I persuaded him to let me study in the US, but now my course is over, he wants me back. Each time we argue about it he gives me a little more rope, as he puts it, but it’s getting short. We’ve agreed, more or less, that I’ll stay with Jonny for the rest of the Tour season, then we’ll re-examine the situation.’
‘Are you going to tell Jonny that?’
His eyes widened; they were green, like his dad’s, I noticed for the first time, but less vivid. ‘Of course; it wouldn’t be honourable to do otherwise. Where is he, by the way? Still sleeping it off?’
‘Swimming it off, more like; not that we drank a lot last night. He’s on the beach. You’ll find him easily enough; there won’t be many people there today.’
‘Good. However, first I should move into my new home, yes? Can you show me where it is?’
‘Of course.’
I led him back across the square and introduced him to his landlord, then went down to the car park, to help him with the rest of his luggage. It included Jonny’s golf clubs, and a holdall that Uche said was his also. I offered to take it all to my place.
‘The grip, yes,’ he agreed. ‘It’s mostly clothing from the sponsor. But the clubs, they’re the caddie’s responsibility, always. I’ll fit them into the penthouse, don’t worry.’
I took the bag from him and went home, to get on with my day. I tried to clear my mind of all the craziness that had filled it over the previous twenty-four hours and to switch it back to working woman mode. I made the call to the manager of Miles’s winery. He’d been advised of my appointment as a director of the company, and of my future involvement, so it didn’t come as a surprise to him. I hadn’t been sure how he’d react, but he was fine. We had a brief chat, during which he told me that he was looking forward to having someone on the ground that he could run things past, rather than having to make all his reports and proposals in conference calls to California. We agreed that I’d visit the bodega the following morning, and then I turned my attention to more mundane things, like the mountain of laundry that had built up during the week of the tournament. Jonny, God bless him, had said he’d do his own, but there was no point in separating everything out, so I ran it all together.
Besides, I recalled one of my father’s few profundities, that he’d shared with me on my eighteenth birthday. ‘They say, Primavera,’ he’d pronounced, ‘that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. That is, of course, nonsense. A man’s heart is reached most assuredly through his underpants. . by that I mean by washing, and above all ironing them for him, together with all his other garments. Ironing is the domestic task that man abhors the most, and if you relieve him of it he will be your servant in everything else.’
My old man is right about most things, but that one hadn’t worked with Oz. Tom was too young to be trusted with an iron, so I resolved to see how my nephew would react. I was putting the second load into the condenser dryer, down in the cavernous garage, when I heard the phone ring up in the kitchen, a couple of floors above. I ran upstairs and snatched it from the cradle, out of breath as I answered.
It was Shirley, or as she called herself, graphically, ‘The Prisoner of fucking Zenda’.
‘Alex Guinart’s just left,’ she said. ‘I guess you know what he came to tell me.’
‘Yes. Hence the jailbird crack, I imagine.’