‘Don’t worry,’ I promised. ‘I won’t let any harm come to either of you.’
Forty-three
Mark Kravitz had asked me to sit tight for a couple of days, but I wasn’t sure I could manage that; I was too pumped up, and I was missing Tom too much. I knew one thing, though, knew it for certain. For me even to contemplate disappearing had been a sign of weakness, and I had rediscovered my courage. No way was I running; I was innocent and I was going home, to proclaim it if necessary.
I thought all this through that evening as night fell and as Santi and I were eating, again, in yet another restaurant that he knew, along the Camino del Sacromonte, a fairly short walk from Goats’ Hill. I did something else too; I sent Tom a text from my illicit mobile. I suppose it was possible that the police might have been able to trace me, if they were monitoring his phone, but since that was a pay and go type too. . not even I would be crazy enough to give an eight year old a contract phone. . I doubted that they could. All it said was, ‘Hello son, miss you, love Mum,’ but as soon as I had sent it I felt tons better.
He’d have been in bed by that time, so he must have had it beside him, switched on just in case. The reply came through inside a minute, in what passes these days for English: ‘Miss u 2. Where r u?’
I smiled as I flashed back, ‘Secret mission. C u soon.’
Our main courses arrived as I finished. Santi had insisted that we eat Andalusian, so we had begun with pescadíto frito, a mix of deep-fried fish that’s as far away from a haddock supper as you’re ever going to get, and we were moving on to la tortilla sacromonte. He insisted that we had that because that’s where we were, but he refused to tell me the ingredients. Afterwards, when I bothered to look them up, I was glad that he hadn’t, for it was fantastic, and, modern woman though I am, I would not have gone knowingly for anything that involved lamb’s brains and bull’s testicles. (A guy did call me a ball-breaker once, but I doubt if he meant it literally.)
For once, I wasn’t drinking alcohol; I’d stuck to fizzy water and he was on Cruz Campo beer. We’d had a little white wine for lunch and the afternoon sangria had pushed me up to my self-imposed daily limit. (I’ve never believed all that arbitrary crap about weekly intake that the ‘experts’ feed us. I know what my body can and can’t take, and I make sure that I don’t push it to the edge too often, and hardly ever beyond it.) Apart from that, I had an additional reason to lay off. What had begun as an idea at the back of my mind had turned into a firm intention.
‘What did you think?’ Santi asked, as I finished.
I complimented him on his choice. ‘There have to be Andalusian restaurants in L’Escala,’ I added. ‘We have everything else. I must find one and give it a try.’
‘Gerard will know,’ he said. ‘He’ll also know if it’s any good, just by looking at the menu.’ He gazed at me. ‘You reckon you’ll be back soon, do you?’
‘I can’t hang around here forever,’ I told him. ‘Neither can you, for that matter. When do you have to be back?’
‘I have a flight out of Madrid Barajas to LAX on Friday,’ he admitted. ‘That means I have to leave Thursday at the latest.’
‘Do you have a flight home booked?’
He smiled. ‘Don’t have to do that. I can turn up at Lorca Airport and get on any flight. If it’s full, I’ll use a crew seat.’
There was nothing in what he said or how he looked, but I had a feeling that he’d rather be back home sooner than later. I said nothing to him, but right then, my mind was made up.
I didn’t have coffee; I was tired from my hectic day and didn’t want anything to get in the way of a good night’s sleep. I went to bed as soon as I got in, after I’d explored the menu of my temporary phone and found out how to set its alarm. It trembled on the bedside table at seven sharp, but I was up by then. I don’t know about you, but every time I set an alarm I’m always awake before it rings. I’d refreshed my dye job before we went out to Sacromonte, so all I needed was a quick shower, brush of teeth, and I was ready. I packed my bags, more carefully than I had a few days before, and climbed the stairs. If Santi had been there, I’d have said a proper ‘So long and thanks for everything’, but there was neither sight nor sound of him, so I took the notepad on the kitchen work surface and scribbled him a note that said much the same thing.
I suppose I should have asked him if it would be all right for me to take the Suzuki. . bearing in mind that it was his, and not Gerard’s. . but that didn’t occur to me until I was well on the road, until long after I’d reversed back down Goats’ Hill until I had room to turn, then driven carefully out of the Albacin and out of the city of Granada.
I hadn’t told Santi, but I was going home. I wasn’t pissing about on N roads and C roads either. I didn’t have a map, since the one that Gerard had given me had only covered his route, but I knew that Autopista Seven runs all the way up the coast and that it was probably going to be the shortest route and certainly the quickest, so that’s where I headed with my chestnut hair and my wrap-around sunglasses, looking for Murcia as a first step.
The little Suzuki wasn’t made for motorway driving. In addition, it was very hot and its ancient air-conditioning system had its limitations, so I had to make quite a few stops to let both the car and me cool down. I’d never intended to make it back in one day; I’d hoped I might have got as far as Barcelona, but reality kicked in and in the end I was happy to settle for reaching as far north as Valencia. (I had considered Benidorm as a possible stopping-off point, but not for any more than a couple of seconds.)
I came off the motorway and made my way into the city centre looking for somewhere to spend the night. Eventually I settled on the Hotel Villareal, three star with a handy car park. If they’d insisted on ID I’d have turned and walked out, but I told the receptionist that I’d left my passport in the car, and when I paid cash in advance, any worries she might have had faded away.
The hotel didn’t have a formal restaurant, but I wanted to go out anyway. These days there are two things in the world that you can find simply by turning a corner in any city. One is a Starbucks and the other is a sign advertising internet access. I had to walk a little further than usual, but still I came up lucky in Valencia; I found both in the same place, and it was quiet. I bought myself a tall filter, Colombian, with a little milk, and chose one of the four unused computers, pleased to see that it too had a camera and a headset, undoubtedly so that little Annabelle from Anywhere, Indiana, could let her mom back home see that she was safe in Valencia, Spain.
I booted up and Skyped Mark Kravitz. He wasn’t in the wheelchair, but in a leather swivel, so I guessed that he must be having a good day with the MS, or as good as they’ve become for him. ‘Where are you now?’ he asked.
I told him.
‘I said to give it a couple of days,’ he reminded me.
‘I know, but I thought I might as well spend them travelling. Have you heard any more from our well-placed friend?’
He nodded. ‘Two things. The first is that the Scotland Yard people have found several more DNA traces on the sites they’re examining, and preliminary tests show that one in particular is common to all three. Good news? It’s not yours. Bad news? Well, not all that bad, but it doesn’t rule you out completely. They could suggest that you had an accomplice. However, if they do, they’ll run into a problem. The second message I’ve had from our friend is that he’s pulled a string or two in the Foreign Office. They’ve been getting grief from the Scottish Nationalist government in Edinburgh because there’s nobody in our embassy set-up with responsibility for looking after Scottish interests in Spain, and in Catalunya in particular. So a special counsellor has just been appointed.’
In my own wee box on screen, I saw my mouth open. ‘Are you going to tell me who it is?’ I asked.