At a quarter to seven, two men wearing suits and chunky watches walk in and it’s obvious they’re the first guests to arrive. The owner has sectioned off about eight tables in the corner of the restaurant, decking them out with bowls of olives and crisps and several bottles of cava. This is my first problem: the tables are behind me and it will therefore be difficult to keep an eye on Rosalía from my position at the bar. The men shake the owner’s hand, order two beers and carry them over to the nearest of the tables. It’s possible to watch them in the reflection provided by a mirror hanging above the coffee machine, although the field of vision is small. Three minutes later, a half-dozen pack of Plettix employees comes surging through the door, laughter encircling them like smoke. Two of them are women, though neither strikes me as Arenaza’s type: he described Rosalía as ‘young’ and ‘Very beautiful’, but the two giggling mujeres bringing up the rear are puffy and pre-menopausal. She’ll doubtless be along in a minute.
Sure enough, at five past seven Rosalía Dieste walks in with a group of five colleagues. A small roar goes up, followed by clapping and even a whoop. The two men who had settled in the corner stand up and walk back towards the bar, and both of them kiss Rosalía on the cheek. She is standing right beside me now, about five feet five, seven or eight stone, a light tan and blonde hair – both out of a bottle – with clear skin, large breasts and wide, tired eyes. I was half-expecting Arenaza to walk in with her, but one of the women says, Where’s Gael?’ and I assume that’s the name of her regular boyfriend. Her voice is quiet and intelligent and she seems genuinely affectionate towards colleagues who have clearly grown fond of her. Is she leaving to start a new life with Mikel? Has she any idea what mysteries she has left in her wake? On instinct, I would say that she looks troubled, but it is always best – particularly where attractive women are concerned – to take nothing on gut reaction. Glass in hand, she accompanies the group to the back of the room and calls out ‘Joder!’ when she sees the bottles of cava on the table. After that, it’s hard to hear what anybody is saying. The tables are at least fifteen feet away and obscured by a large pillar with a fire extinguisher bolted to it. Rosalía is rarely visible in the mirror and all conversation is lost in the general din of the party. To make matters worse, a diarrhoea of Spanish pop music is continually pouring out of the speakers, song after song about ‘amor’ and ‘mi corazón’, the soundtrack of Benidorm and Marbella. Now and again I will turn round and check my watch, as if frustrated and waiting to meet someone, but my surveillance becomes increasingly pointless. If I am going to follow Rosalía this weekend she cannot become aware of me, nor suspicious of the fact that I am sitting alone at the bar. So, having settled the bill, I walk back to the Audi and drive it to a parking space immediately in front of the building. Through the rear-view mirror I have clear sight of the entrance to the restaurant and, with any luck, will be able to follow Rosalía as soon as she leaves to go home.
It’s a long wait. Towards nine o’clock the first of the guests begin to leave, but they’re mostly senior management, grey-haired men with mink-comforted wives not young enough to stay on and party. Sitting becomes increasingly uncomfortable and my back starts to ache in the lower part of the spine. It’s another hour and a half before people begin to come out in droves, and I have to concentrate hard on the entrance to make sure that Rosalía, who is comparatively small, doesn’t slip away in the crowd. Then a car pulls up behind the Audi and the driver makes a phone call. Hazard lights come on, and it’s clear that he will block me if Rosalía leaves. I am on the point of opening the door and asking him to move when she comes out of the restaurant and walks directly towards him. This must be Gael, come to pick her up. Sure enough he leans across, unlocks the passenger door, and she slides in beside him. They kiss briefly on the lips, but she is too busy waving goodbye to a weeping colleague to engage him properly in conversation. Nevertheless, on instinct I would say that the two of them look comfortable together and I feel a lurch of dread for Mikel; Rosalía seems unaffected by his disappearance. I start the engine, reverse out behind them and follow the car down the hill. Gael is driving a dark blue Citroën Xsara, number plate M 6002 GK, and I scribble this down on the inside back page of the book as soon as we reach the first set of traffic lights. He heads directly for the M30 orbital, looping north-east onto the Autovía de Colmenar Viejo and from there directly onto the Castellana, the eight-lane spine of Madrid which runs as far south as Gran Vía. We pass beneath the leaning Kia towers at Plaza de Castilla, sticking to the Castellana until the roundabout at Santiago Bernabéu. The great stadium looms like an Ark in the darkness as Gael makes a left along its southern face, accelerating up the hill towards the Hospital de San Rafael. Just beyond the summit of Concha Espina he turns left into a quiet residential road and I slow down in order to make the pursuit less obvious.
I have only just made the turn myself when I see them ahead making a second left into a narrow, car-crowded street. Without knowing the neighbourhood, I would guess that this is where they live. If Gael is taking a short cut, the chances are that I will lose them. Pausing a car’s length from the turn, I switch off both engine and headlights and try to spot where they have gone. About fifty metres on the right, a car is reversing into a space beside a line of silver birches. Another tree is partially blocking my view, but it has been recently pruned and I can clearly see Rosalia’s head as she steps out of the car. Gael appears now – dark hair, around five feet ten, a good-looking man of about thirty-five – and bends to lock the door. Then he follows her across the street. They are going into the first building on the corner, the one immediately to my left.
Now I move quickly. Leaving the Audi double parked, I walk to a point where I have an unobstructed view of the front of their building, which is a comparatively small apartment block covered in creeping ivy, with six floors of flats on either side of a central staircase. There are lights on in seven of the two-dozen visible windows and, with any luck, I should be able to tell where Rosalía lives once they get inside. I pull out a mobile phone and press it to my ear, pretending to hold a conversation while staring at the building ahead.
Bingo. Sixth-floor window, right-hand side. A light has been switched on. Gael appears briefly, tugs at the curtains, and then draws them shut.
So now I have her address. Calle de Jiloca 16/6 Izq.
17. The Lost Weekend
The next morning, at five, I pick up the car from the garage and drive back to Jiloca to be certain of following Rosalía if she leaves before dawn. Like some washed-up private eye in Hammett or Chandler I buy a cup of polystyrene garage coffee and drink it in a freezing front seat, cursing the pain in my back. That’s why all the experts recommend surveillance from a van; you can walk around; you can stretch your legs; you can piss without having to do it in a bottle.