He looked at me askance; he does askance well. ‘I am ready,’ he said. He was too; he’d changed into cargo pants and an Aussie T-shirt that Uncle Miles had given him, with Shane Warne’s face, larger than life, on the front. . or is Shane’s head really that big?
I thought about glamming up, but decided against it for two reasons: one, I suspected that Gloria wouldn’t, and two, I couldn’t be arsed. So I washed, blew my hair dry, making a mental memo to buy a tint to kill the chestnut, and put on the shirt and shorts that I’d picked earlier, with a blast of Chanel No. 5 as my one concession to femininity.
We got to the table five minutes early; Alex and Gloria arrived ten minutes late. No Marte, though; the wee soul was cutting back teeth, and had been fractious, so they’d left her with Gloria’s mum.
‘Did Valdes play you the tape?’ Alex asked, quietly, once we were settled in.
‘Enough of it. Have you heard it?’
‘I was in the room, Primavera. Valdes wanted me there, someone you would trust, so that there could be no doubt about everything being above board. I was there when he interviewed the big ugly Andalusian as well. The Gerard he described was one I’ve never met, but that guy Lavorante is not the sort to talk himself down, so when he said that he’d never have dreamed of crossing him, I believed him.’
‘Me too. Santi told me as much.’
‘Santi? Who the hell’s Santi?’
‘Gerard’s brother.’
‘Ah. The guy didn’t mention his name. You’ve met him?’
‘That’s where I was, Alex, it’s where I ran to; Gerard’s house in Granada. He’d arranged for Santi to be there to look after me.’
‘Should you tell me this, Primavera?’ he asked, frowning.
‘It doesn’t make any difference now. Valdes knows anyway; he may not be certain where I went, but he knows that Gerard helped me get away, and if he was interested in finding out where he sent me, it wouldn’t take him long. But it’s not relevant.’
‘I don’t suppose it. .’ He stopped in mid-sentence as a waiter arrived to take our food orders. Alex and I hadn’t even looked at the menu, so we let the other two go first. I realised that I was hungry; I’d done a big salad for Tom and Ben before I’d left for the funeral, but with everything that had happened afterwards, I’d forgotten to eat lunch myself. I chose a simple pasta starter, then a Four Seasons pizza, with still and fizzy water for the table, a bottle of the ever-reliable Vina Sol, and fresh orange juice for junior. He was beginning to look a bit brighter, but he still wasn’t his usual self.
None of us were, for that matter. Conversations at the tourist tables buzzed on oblivious, but the thing. . I couldn’t think of another word to describe it. . that had happened hung over ours like our own personal cloud.
‘You know,’ Alex continued, still speaking quietly, so that Tom, who was locked on to his hand-held PlayStation, couldn’t overhear, ‘most of the time I love my job. What I do, I right wrongs; I investigate crimes and I bring the people who commit them to account. That gives me satisfaction, big time; I feel that I’ve given something back to the community that raised me, and it pleases me. But every so often I get involved in something and I hate myself for it. Like this business. There are no winners, only losers. Two people we knew are dead. Okay, Planas wasn’t a nice man, and Dolores was known around town as “The mouth of L’Escala”, but they had a right to life. And who killed them? One of the most popular men in town, a friend of many of us, and now we’ve lost him too. Sitting in that office today, listening to him confess to everything that Valdes put to him, watching him put his signature on it. . Primavera, that was one of the saddest moments of my life.’
‘And mine.’
‘I feel lousy about it, because I don’t remember ever misjudging anyone so much. I should have been angry with him when they took him away to the cells, but I found that I could only be angry with myself, for being duped.’
‘Are you sure?’ I asked. ‘Could it be that you were angry with yourself because you’re part of the machine that caused his downfall?’
He shook his head. ‘No, because we didn’t; he brought it on himself. This isn’t Jesus Christ we’re dealing with here. This is a man from Andalusia with a record of extreme violence in his youth, who managed to run away from what he is by entering the church, but who couldn’t keep his other side at bay forever. He fooled us all.’
‘So he was a bad priest?’
‘No, and that’s the damnable thing. He was a great priest; he and Olivares, they’re the best team we’ve ever had in this town, in my lifetime. I can’t imagine how the old man’s taking it.’
‘How do you think? You saw, he got through the funeral Mass today, but he’s devastated.’
‘And you, Primavera, how are you taking it? I can see that Tom’s hurt, but can you deal with it?’
‘Chum, I can deal with anything. Tom’s hurt, but not the way you are, because you feel let down. He’s hurt because he sees a great injustice being done. But he hasn’t heard the tape, he didn’t hear Gerard confess. The thing I’ll find hardest to deal with is the thought that if he did it, it was because of me.’
‘You’re still saying “if”, I notice.’
‘Yes, because a part of me’s like Tom, refusing to believe. I love that man, Alex, and I have faith in him. It’s very hard for me to accept that I’ve misplaced that faith, and for all the apparent facts of the matter, I don’t think I ever will, not completely.’
‘And he loves you. We’ve both heard him say so. We’ve both heard him acknowledge the truth of Valdes’s brilliant deduction. He saw a way of having you, he took a chance. . and he lost. Now he’s willing to pay the price.’ He frowned. ‘Maybe I can see nobility in that. Many crimes are about greed, many are about hate; these seem to have been about love, anger yes, but anger fuelled by love.’
I shook my head. ‘I’m sorry; you can’t argue that about Dolores. She was in the way; that was why she died. That wasn’t rage, it was cruelty. Didn’t the autopsy show that from the time she was captured to the time she was killed, she was starved? That’s the part that’s out of kilter. Even if everything else is true, that’s what disturbs me the most. It’s what makes me think that maybe I didn’t really know the man at all.’
‘I’m afraid that none of us did,’ he murmured, as our starters arrived.
I was glad of the break; in truth, the discussion was tearing me apart. I don’t think I’ve ever been as happy to see a plate of linguine Napolitano. We changed the subject as we ate, not least because Tom was back with us. Gloria asked him what he was going to do during the school holidays.
‘I’m going to London,’ he told her. ‘With Mum. Next week. It’s about her new job.’
‘New job?’ she exclaimed, puzzled. Alex said nothing, which more or less confirmed my assumption that he’d heard of it already, although he’d never raised the subject.
‘I’ve been appointed to the staff of the British Embassy,’ I explained, ‘on a part-time basis. It has to do with representing Scotland in Spain. It was a big surprise; someone in London put me up for it.’
‘Congratulations. It doesn’t mean you’ll be leaving us, does it?’ she asked, anxiously. ‘We’d all miss you, especially Marte.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I assured her. ‘We’re not going anywhere. They’ve still got to tell me exactly what I’ll be doing, but I suspect that a lot of it will be in Barcelona. I’ll still be around to keep an eye on my goddaughter.’
‘What about me?’
I looked at Tom, surprised by his direct question; but he was in that sort of mood, slightly rebellious. It wasn’t the moment I’d have chosen, but the issue couldn’t be dodged. ‘I think we’re going to employ somebody, full-time, to look after the house,’ I announced.
‘Like Ethel?’ He fixed me with an unblinking stare. It was a loaded question. Ethel Reid looks after Janet and wee Jonathan, his half-siblings, Oz’s kids by Susie Gantry; she’s very efficient, very nice, but she’s Mary Poppins, no messing. That is not what Tom wanted to hear.