I watched Isabel and her friends with interest. She seemed much more relaxed than she ever did at Dekker. She smiled, laughed, gossiped and argued in a free and uninhibited way that I found enchanting. It was as though the real Isabel, the Isabel I had glimpsed privately before, had suddenly emerged from under the long shadow of Dekker Ward.
At four we left and headed back to the Copacabana Palace Hotel. We stopped at an intersection. On the corner, two policemen slouched by their blue and white car. They wore baseball caps and dark glasses, and their first names were taped on to their chests. Right in front of them two small girls were attempting to wash windscreens, with little success. Behind them a tall, scruffily dressed man leaned against a parked car, relieving himself on the passenger window. The policemen smoked cigarettes and posed.
The traffic moved us on, past Ipanema beach, and the spot where I had been stabbed. The favela on the cliff above the beach looked alive but peaceful. In there, somewhere, were our attackers.
Isabel saw me tense and squeezed my hand. ‘Try to forget it,’ she said.
‘It’s difficult.’ I swallowed, and we spent the rest of the journey in silence.
When we reached the hotel, Isabel joined me in my room. Eagerly, we made love again. It was long and slow, our bodies tingling from the sand and the sun. Afterwards, with Isabel’s black hair spread across my chest like a soft, lightweight blanket, I asked her a question that had suddenly become very important to me.
‘Isabel?’
‘Yes?’
‘Can I see you again? I mean, when we get back to London.’
She lifted her head, and smiled into my eyes. ‘Of course.’
I pulled her back down on to my chest. ‘Good.’
As I stroked her hair, I thought about what we might be getting into. My relationship with Joanna had been the only serious one of my life. It had lasted five years, five years which to me now seemed wasted. Of course we had had some good times, but I didn’t remember them well. What I did remember were the daily power struggles over small things, power struggles that I always let Joanna win. She hadn’t been worth it, and when she had run off to America with Wes, I had savoured my new-found independence.
Since then I had avoided another relationship. I had dated women, but had never let things progress. I was afraid of a serious attachment, and jealous of my independence.
Until now.
Isabel was completely different from Joanna, or at least Joanna as I remembered her. She was a strong, independent woman, but she was also natural, kind, warm. And she was very beautiful.
She was well worth the risk, I told myself, as though I was in control of my emotions towards her. Of course I wasn’t. I had lost myself to her long ago. I looked forward to the months ahead with her with optimism.
But, of course, there was the job. Although Dekker seemed a long way away, we’d have to get back to work the next day in São Paulo. And then we’d return to London, and I would resign. I wondered how Ricardo would take it. Not very well, I imagined. And Eduardo? I shuddered.
‘Is it true Eduardo killed someone once? A student?’ I asked.
Isabel didn’t answer immediately, her head lay motionless on my chest.
‘No, it’s not true,’ she said at last.
‘It wouldn’t have surprised me if he had. But I suppose it’s just another myth.’
‘Not entirely.’
I stayed silent, waiting for her to continue.
‘It was Ricardo who killed the student.’
‘Ricardo?’
She propped herself up on her elbow. ‘Oh, it was a complete accident. It was at a party in Caracas. The other guy was drunk and took a swing at Ricardo, who was chatting up his girlfriend. Ricardo hit him harder than he meant to, and the guy fell back over the balcony, four floors up. Apparently it was very messy.’
‘So Eduardo had nothing to do with it.’
‘Not quite. There were witnesses, and they were the student’s friends, not Ricardo’s. The police came and Ricardo was soon in jail. They were about to work on him for a “confession“, when Eduardo sorted it all out.’
‘How?’
‘I don’t know. Even then Eduardo had a flair for that sort of thing. And Ricardo walked free.’
‘Ricardo told you this, presumably?’
‘Yes. He still feels guilty about it. And grateful to Eduardo.’
‘I bet he does.’ I sympathized with the guilt. I clearly remembered one night in Oxford when Jamie had become involved in an argument with a six-foot-six-inch University of Cape Town rugby player. Height never bothered Jamie: it just made his head-butts more effective. The South African had staggered back into the road. A van was driving fast down the empty High Street, and braked hard. It hit the South African, but only gently, and no damage was done. But if the van driver’s reactions had been just that little bit slower...
‘Eduardo and Ricardo seem to have a very strange relationship,’ I said. ‘That must be why.’
‘It’s not just that. I think a lot of it has to do with their father. Apparently, he was quite a successful businessman. The brothers never saw much of him, or of their mother who made a career out of spending the money her husband earned. Ricardo worshipped his father. He said he was always trying to prove himself to him, but his father never took any notice so Ricardo just tried harder.’
‘Yes. He told me something similar himself. But what about Eduardo?’
‘I think that Ricardo is the Argentinian and Eduardo the Venezuelan. From what I understand, their mother wanted Eduardo to be educated in Venezuela. Ricardo never lived there as an adult, but Eduardo spent a lot of time there. The flashy clothes, the cars, the speedboats, the girls, the apartments in Miami. He’s a typical Venezuelan rich kid.’
‘That’s quite a car he owns,’ I said.
‘What, the “Testosterone”? The amount of times he’s tried to get me into that thing!’
I grinned. I couldn’t really blame him.
‘Anyway,’ Isabel continued, ‘Ricardo’s father drank. In the early eighties his businesses fell apart when the oil price crashed, and he tried to drink his way out of it. He died at the age of sixty-two. Ricardo was twenty-seven.
‘You know how seriously Ricardo takes things. I think he saw it as his responsibility to look after his mother and his brother. Especially his brother. Eduardo was getting himself into all sorts of trouble with drugs. Ricardo found the money for some fancy detox clinic in America and persuaded Eduardo to go.’
‘So Ricardo has always helped Eduardo out?’
‘It’s a two-way thing. They both owe each other a lot of favours. I’m not sure they even like each other. Eduardo thinks Ricardo’s too squeamish, and a control freak. But he’s jealous of Ricardo’s success and wants to be a part of it. Ricardo thinks Eduardo has no self-discipline and is a danger to himself as well as other people. They’re both right, of course. But as a result they both think they have to be around to help the other out.’
‘So they need each other?’
‘That’s what they think. I think they’d both be better off having nothing to do with each other.’
She swung out of bed, and walked, naked, to the window. I followed her with my eyes.
‘Oh, look,’ she said. ‘I think you’re going to see a classic Rio rainstorm.’
I joined her, and wrapped my arms round her. A thick line of black lurked on the horizon. As we watched, it grew, gathering itself into a dark blanket that moved swiftly over the sky towards us. The breeze, blowing in through the open window, became softer, heavier. The city, still in sunshine for a few moments more, cowered in front of the enveloping clouds. Then the blanket reached us, blacking out the sky and dropping itself upon us in a torrent of water. We let the giant drops splash into the room through the open window. Below us, the courtyard erupted into thousands of tiny fountains as the rain struck it, and the surface of the swimming pool was shattered into a myriad of angry whirlpools.