It took no time at all to load up, and I saw why as soon as they arrived. I’ve heard it said that the Spanish are less hot on dignity than us Brits. In general terms I don’t believe it, but in the middle of that night in Sevilla it was certainly the case. There was no sheet on the body as they rolled it past under my window. They took him out as they had found him, dressed in a shirt that was as grey as his face, and crumpled cream trousers that might have been linen. From the way the body was lying I could tell he had been dead for a few hours, as rigor mortis had set in.
One of his eyes was half open, staring up at the night sky. His face was a couple of days short of a shave, and his greying hair hung lankly. He was middle-aged, northern-European in appearance, and he was the spitting image of one of the pictures that still lay in my bag, that of George Macela, or whoever the hell he really was.
Fourteen
At first I wasn’t going to call Mark: it was still the middle of the night and an hour earlier where he was. I had no idea of his domestic situation, but I knew that if he was married with kids, he wouldn’t appreciate having them roused.
I lay there, my resolution firm and my toe throbbing, until four o’clock. That was when I picked up my mobile and called his number; I supposed there was a fair chance he’d be switched off and that all I’d be able to do was leave a message. But he wasn’t. He picked up after five rings and he sounded just as sharp and business-like as ever.
‘Prim,’ he said, before I’d had a chance to announce myself. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I am,’ I told him, ‘but someone isn’t. Did you have anything to do with the Sevilla cops breaking down the door of Calle Alvarez Quintero forty-seven an hour or so back?’
I heard a light chuckle. ‘They bought it, did they?’ He paused. ‘Yes, that was me. I have an associate in Madrid. I had him make an anonymous call.’
‘Not only did they buy it, they woke me in the process of following it up. Did you get that pic of Macela?’
‘Yes, I surely did, and it got results. His real name’s Hermann Gresch, German, not Lithuanian, with a distinguished past in the fraud business.’
‘A past is all he’s got now, I’m afraid. I’ve just seen them carting him out of number forty-seven, stone ginger.’
‘Jesus!’ Mark shouted. ‘Prim, I really must urge you not to go any further with this.’
‘It may have been a heart-attack, nothing more sinister than that. They were kind enough to wheel him under my balcony, so I had a good look; there wasn’t a mark on him.’
‘That means nothing, and you know it. I need to find out how he died, but I don’t buy natural causes or misadventure, given the circumstances.’
I was touched by his urgency. ‘You’ve done enough already. Look, I’ll meet Bromberg tomorrow, and if she doesn’t give me what I need I’ll go to the police.’
‘Prim,’ he countered, ‘I’m not leaving you in the middle of this situation. If this is a multi-million-euro scam, as it might be, you could put yourself in danger. You told me you saw a man go into that house this afternoon, and now Gresch has been carried out of it dead. Think about it.’
‘But that guy’s a public official.’
‘So was Saddam Hussein.’
‘Mark, I’m going to meet Bromberg.’
I heard him sigh. ‘If you insist. If you’re that reckless. We still have a few hours till your meeting. I’ll use them as best I can.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Finding out as much as I can about Hermann Gresch; past known associates, see if a woman shows up among them. Also, I’ll do some digging into Señor Caballero. What did you say his job was?’
‘The lad at the city hall described him as the planning co-ordinator. ’
‘Okay. Let’s see what that means, and how important it makes him.’
‘He’s too important for Ignacio to interrupt when he was leaving; he sounded very deferential.’
‘In that case, I’m even more worried about him. Once more, I’m going to ask you, get on a plane and go home.’
‘As soon as I’ve seen Bromberg and got a lead to Frank.’
I heard him draw a breath. ‘I didn’t want to say this,’ he murmured, ‘but given what’s just happened to his associate, there’s every chance that by now Frank’s helping to fertilise a small part of Andalucía.’
‘You didn’t have to say it either. I’d worked that out for myself. But one way or another, I need to know.’
‘Then take care for the next few hours. Don’t hang around your hotel. If Gresch was murdered, the police will start asking questions in the area. Chances are the guy you told me about, in the shop, will tell them about you asking questions yesterday. As soon as you decently can, get out of there. Do one of two things: go somewhere very noisy, where you’ll be lost in the crowd, or somewhere very quiet, where nobody’s likely to find you.’
Fifteen
I considered Mark’s two options and chose the second. My time in Las Vegas had been my version of hiding out in a crowd and, to be honest, it never made me feel entirely comfortable. Although I tried not to, I always found myself looking over my shoulder, or trying to be aware of every face, just in case there was one who might remember me from the old days. Once or twice I convinced myself that I recognised someone, and found myself taking evasive action.
Having decided on the quiet approach, I sneaked out of the hotel just after nine. My toe hadn’t got any better, but I could walk, after a fashion. I headed down towards Plaza Nueva, then along the Avenue of the Constitution towards the Cathedral of Sevilla.
Maybe I had the romantic thought that I might find sanctuary there; I can’t remember now. What I do recall is seeing the queues at the admissions desk (yes, in Sevilla you have to pay to get into a church), and realising that I was back at option one. So I turned my back on what they say is the biggest cathedral in Spain and looked around for a better idea.
Across the square, I saw a sign pointing to the entrance to the Real Alcázar, the royal palace. Surprisingly there was nobody waiting. I strolled across, paid my money and, after one last glance over my shoulder, stepped inside. There was hardly anyone there, just me and a few security people. The downside to that was that I had all their attention focused upon me, and in what I now recognise as my increasing paranoia, it dawned on me that they’d be bound to remember me if the police, or anyone else, decided to trawl the tourist spots in search of the suspicious woman who had been trying to gain entrance to Calle Alvarez Quintero forty-seven the day before.
Eventually I limped into an empty gallery, empty, that is, but for a display of wall tiles. (People go to Sevilla to look at wall tiles?) On the far side, there was an open door. I stepped through it and into a vast, spectacular garden. Trees towered on both sides of long pathways that seemed to be set out in a grid. Walls that seemed to be boundaries in fact divided sections with different themes. As I stepped into it, a jet of water arced from a pipe on my left into a pond below; Mercury’s Pool, I learned, when I was close enough to read the sign.
As I made my steady way towards its heart, I passed several gardeners, none of whom, I was delighted to see, displayed the slightest interest in me, or even looked my way. I began to relax, strolling around, exploring and enjoying my surroundings, in spite of everything that had happened, and was, perhaps, still to happen.
After half an hour, during which I had seen only a handful of visitors, I came upon a small arch, set against a wall, with a single seat beneath, placed before a water feature upon which a few ducks swam. I sat; the stone was cold beneath my bum, as the morning sun had still to reach the spot, but the weight was off my feet so I didn’t mind that. I had found the solitude I had been after in the middle of one of the busiest tourist cities in Europe.