‘Vaya al sur! Deprisa, por favor!’ Ahead, at twelve o’clock, I can still see the roof light of Abel’s cab as it disappears down the Castellana. The grey-haired woman raps on the window with her knuckle but I just ignore her. ‘My wife is in a taxi with another man,’ I tell the driver. ‘He’s my business partner. You have to follow that cab.’
‘Claro,’ says the driver. ‘Claro,’ as if this sort of thing happens to him all the time. Engaging first gear, he sets his clipboard to one side and just catches the lights as they turn red.
‘Get closer,’ I tell him. ‘Más cerea,’ and he obliges with a nod and a shrug. Surely Abel is now aware that he is being followed? Will he try to lose me, either by making a series of unnecessary turns, or exit his cab early and continue by bus or on foot?
‘You’re going to have to get nearer,’ I keep telling the driver. ‘It’s very important we don’t lose them.’
‘Muy importante, sí,’ he replies, hawking phlegm in the back of his throat.
And that’s when I see the green Seat Ibiza. Three cars back in the outer lane. Can it be the same vehicle? Using the wing mirror on the passenger side I try to ascertain who is driving, but it’s impossible to tell through the traffic and the drizzle. A moped buzzes past close to my door and the cabbie swears. Up ahead, near Nuevos Ministerios, Abel’s car is already through a set of traffic lights which are switching from green to amber.
‘Quickly,’ I tell the driver again, ‘quickly,’ and thankfully he obliges by shooting through on red.
‘Your business partner?’ he asks, finally taking an interest in my predicament. A horn sounds long and hard behind us.
‘My business partner,’ I reply, trying to look suitably distraught. The Seat didn’t come through the lights, but the traffic ahead is moving slowly. There’s every chance it will catch us.
‘Joder,’ he mutters.
We continue another half-mile south to Rubén Darío, where Abel turns off to the right in the direction of Alonso Martínez. But it’s a U-turn: taking up a position in the left-hand lane, his cab sweeps back across the Castellana as if heading into Barrio Salamanca. We are following at a three-car distance as he makes a second left-hand turn, heading north again, perhaps in an effort to lose us. Very quickly, however, he pulls over to the side of the road and turns into the forecourt of the Hotel Villa Carta. This can’t be where he is staying; Abel dresses like a two-star pimp and the Carta is one of the finest hotels in Madrid.
I instruct the driver to pull over to the side of the road, hand him a ten-euro note and walk the short distance up the ramp towards the entrance. A porter dressed in grey tails and a top hat opens the door and ushers Abel inside. They’ve clearly met before because words are exchanged and Abel puts his hand briefly on the porter’s shoulder.
‘Alfonso,’ I hear him say.
‘Buenas tardes, señor.’ Alfonso jokes that he is tired but will be finishing work in half an hour. Abel then shakes his hand, steps past him into the hotel and walks towards a bank of lifts on the left of the lobby. I wait a few seconds behind a group of American tourists before following him inside, approaching the reception desk just as the lift doors are closing. It’s almost certain that he has taken a room in the hotel; if he were meeting somebody, he would have waited in the foyer, or turned to the right in the direction of the bar. Abel’s familiarity with the porter would also suggest that he has built up a relationship with the staff over a number of days.
To give legitimacy to my own presence in the hotel, I leave the lobby and walk towards the bar, passing illuminated glass boxes advertising products by Chopard, Gucci and Mont Blanc. Most of the tables are occupied by businessmen and older couples enjoying an evening drink and I effect a brief scan of the room before turning and heading back towards the entrance. A security guard of roughly the same age and appearance as Bruce Forsyth has appeared near the main door wearing an ear-piece and looking self-important. To avoid his eye I take the back exit out past a Chinese restaurant attached to the hotel and head into a passageway running directly behind the building. There’s a branch of El Corte Inglés to one side and an Aeroflot shop to the other. I need a bank for the plan I have in mind.
Five minutes later I have withdrawn €400 from the Paris account and located the hotel’s staff entrance on the corner of Calle de José Ortega y Gasset. Positioning myself across the street, away from the gaze of a fixed security camera bolted to the wall, I wait for Alfonso to leave work. At first it’s hard to recognize him, but the snub nose and slightly bowed legs that were in evidence beneath top hat and tails gradually become apparent in the physical characteristics of a man who emerges shortly after 9.15. He is wearing dark chinos and a black coat and walks slowly south, probably towards one of the two metro stations near Plaza de Colón. It has stopped raining and after 400 metres I make my pitch.
The discussion goes predictably well. Most of the concierges at Europe’s leading hotels are susceptible to bribes from intelligence officials, and there was no reason to suspect that this one would be any different. Henry Paul, after all, was almost certainly an informer for SIS, and Alfonso is small beer by comparison. Having initiated a conversation on the pavement by asking for a light, I quickly persuade him into a nearby bar – in case we are under surveillance – discovering that he is biddable to the point of blatant corruption. Giving a false name, I explain that I work for a private technology company, based in Geneva, that will amply remunerate him for any information he might be able to provide about the identity and purpose of the individual who engaged him briefly in conversation at the entrance of the hotel at 20.35 this evening. To speed things along, I hand Alfonso four fifty-euro notes folded inside a small piece of paper on which I have written my name – Chris Thompson – and a Telefónica mobile telephone number. Should he feel like talking, he should call me within the next twenty-four hours with details of the individual’s surname (‘He invariably uses a pseudonym’), home address, passport origin and number, credit card details, car make and licence, if applicable, as well as any other information that he might consider useful to my enquiries.
‘What’s Mr Sellini done?’ Alfonso asks, already giving up Abel’s surname.
‘I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to divulge that information,’ I explain, hinting at something shady involving children on the internet. Alfonso looks suitably appalled, but I’m in a position to treble his weekly salary so he won’t be losing any sleep over it. We shake hands and I insist only that he keep our conversation private. Alfonso agrees and looks pleased as he leaves the bar. At Plaza de Colón, he crosses to the Barclays Bank building and disappears into the metro. I then call Bonilla from a phone booth around the corner, pass on Sellini’s name, and ask for an update on Rosalía.
‘It has been very difficult,’ he insists, adopting the evasive style that has become increasingly common in our conversations, ‘not easy to obtain answers, not simple at all.’ Having listened to his excuses for the best part of five minutes, I insist on a full progress report by Monday evening and arrange for a small team of four surveillance operatives to watch Rosalía over the weekend. Bonilla cuts me a deal – €1,600 for three days, with nobody in place, barring exceptional circumstances, between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. After that I hail a cab, go for dinner in Malasaña, and get to bed before midnight for the first time in ten days.