‘Mmm,’ he murmured, when I had finished. ‘You don’t get into small trouble, do you? I bet you’ve never tripped over a step and skinned your knee, or picked up half a dozen parking tickets in a fortnight. No, with you it’s always grand scale stuff, like that business last year with your cousin.’
I had to admit that there was something in what he said. I’ve survived an air crash where others did not, been duped by one of the cleverest con men ever to have worked a scam, but I’ve never picked up even one parking ticket, let alone half a dozen in a fortnight. And no, I don’t remember ever falling and skinning my knee, not even as a child.
‘You say the police are happy with the evidence?’ he continued.
‘Yes, and it points to me.’
‘But you didn’t do it, so they must have missed something.’
‘Not necessarily. It could be that whoever killed these people didn’t leave a trace.’
‘Everybody leaves a trace, Primavera; miscarriages of justice come about because investigators stop looking when they’ve found enough to satisfy them, and to fit a particular theory.’
‘Why would anyone want to frame me, Mark?’
‘From what you say I don’t think they did; not at the outset. I think they killed this Planas man, and kidnapped the woman. The police thinking has to be right in that respect; they didn’t expect her to be there. You seem to have been a convenient fall. . person.’
‘You keep saying “they”. The police are prepared to believe that I did it all on my own.’
‘That’s another weakness in their case against you. It’s possible, but bloody difficult. The dead woman; was she weak?’
‘Anything but, from what I saw of her.’
‘Well, there you are. You can handle yourself, Primavera, but you’re not a giant. Probability says to me that you couldn’t have done all that by yourself. Put it this way; if I was contracted to do a job like that. . not that I handle such work, of course,’ he added, hastily, ‘. . I’d send three people, two to do the wet work, and one to get them there, keep a lookout and get them away again. I wouldn’t be sending a lone woman.’ I saw him frown. ‘No, there’s something about this that stinks.’
‘Tell me about it; I’m at the really smelly end.’
‘And who put you there?’ He frowned. ‘When did you become a suspect? I mean when did they even begin to consider you a possibility?’
‘I suppose it would be when they identified the murder weapon and found my DNA on it.’
‘Exactly. And when was the woman killed and planted in your cellar, or whatever it is?’
‘Friday morning.’
‘Exactly. After the link to you had been established.’
‘And after Dolores’s car had been found. .’
‘. . confirming that she hadn’t run off, but had been abducted, forcing the hand of her kidnappers, making them realise they had to get rid of her there and then.’
‘Right.’ I knew where he was going and I didn’t like it.
‘They killed her with your scarf and they chose your place to dump the body. Why would they do that?’
‘Because they knew by that time that I had handled the chair, and that the police were about to ask me why.’
Over a thousand miles away, by flying crow, he nodded. ‘That’s it. The police set you up, or helped.’
‘No,’ I protested. ‘One of the investigating officers. . he’s just about my best friend. I can’t believe that.’
‘One of. .’ Mark repeated. ‘But not the only.’
‘I know Hector Gomez too.’
‘How well?’
‘Not that well, but. .’
‘Look, it needn’t have been either of them; leaks rarely come from the most obvious point.’
‘It doesn’t help me, though.’
‘It gives me somewhere to start.’ He gazed into his webcam, and through it, into my eyes. ‘Primavera, I want you to give me an hour. Go away, do something, then come back to where you are and get back online. With luck, I’ll have come up with something.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘What many people do these days when they’re up against it. I’m going to phone a friend.’
Forty-one
I still had plenty of cash left, but I had bought all my essentials and anyway, shopping for frills wasn’t really on my agenda, even if I did find myself looking longingly at an iPod Touch that looked just like Santi’s clever phone.
Rather than wander for the rest of the hour I went into a place that I’d noticed earlier, a busy café called the Alhambra. . there’s imagination for you. There’s a delicacy, a confection, in the south of Spain in particular, called churros. Imagine something that looks like a doughnut, only lighter, in strips rather than circles, and deep-fried. I’d never tried them before, and since I doubted whether they’d be on the menu at Barcelona women’s prison, I thought I’d better. I looked around and saw that most of the people were eating them dipped in hot chocolate, and so I went along with that. My waiter brought me a great pile of the things, so many that I suspected that he’d assumed I was waiting for someone to join me. It was heavy stuff, and may have accounted for the fact that many of the other customers were on the chubby side. I managed two, then had the hot chocolate replaced with a straight café con leche, more to my taste.
It took me the rest of the hour to munch my way through what I decided would be a once in a lifetime experience. I paid the bill, and went back to my internet shop. The booth I’d used earlier was occupied, but I found another that was almost as far away from the door, and with nobody on either side.
Mark Kravitz came on line instantly when I called him up. ‘Hiya,’ he said, then seemed to peer at me. ‘Is that chocolate on your top lip?’ he asked. There’s a small box on the screen in Skype in which you can see your own image. I checked and it was; I wiped it off, hurriedly.
‘How did your phone call go?’
He smiled. ‘Every bit as well as I expected and more.’
‘Are you going to tell me who you rang?’
The smile stretched; I’d never seen him look so amused. ‘The Home Office. Top floor.’
I saw my image stare at him. ‘Justin Mayfield? The Home Secretary?’
‘That’s the man.’
A year and a half ago, when I’d got into the situation with my cousin, Frank McGowan, to which Mark had alluded earlier, it had led the three of us to cross the path of one of the British government’s rising stars, a friend of Frank. It had also left Mr Kravitz and me in possession of some information that could have turned Mayfield into a black hole overnight and had him banished to the furthest known point of the political universe. We hadn’t used it; Mayfield had been stupid rather than criminal and we didn’t see any point in terminating his career when there was a chance that he might actually be good at the job to which he’d just been appointed. I’d been keeping a distant eye on British politics, and that’s how it seemed to have turned out. Word was that all doors were open to him. ‘You’re not thinking of. .’
‘Hey,’ he exclaimed. ‘I didn’t threaten him, not at all. I told him that I’d been contacted by a British subject who was being stitched up in a murder investigation on the basis of leaked information and a crime scene investigation that would be a pure fucking joke, if its failings weren’t so serious. He was appalled; then I told him who was on the wrong end of the business. I didn’t have to mention last year; he’d have done something anyway. For you he’ll push it all the way.’
‘What’s he going to do?’
‘He’s done it. He phoned his opposite number in Spain, and got him to agree to a specialist forensic team from Scotland Yard being flown over, “to assist the local investigation” as he put it, by examining the crime scene, and all the other evidence. He called me back fifteen minutes ago, to tell me they’re on the way.’