Quintin Jardine - Blood Red

‘And you won’t overrule him and give us permission.’

‘Primavera, I would do it in a second, but it’s very difficult for me. As you know, I have two years left in power, and to be honest next time I may struggle to stay in this chair. This town has a modern history of turnabout in its local politics, and I can sense the swing against my party. There are many things my colleagues and I want to do, or at least get under way, before the next election. If I cross Planas, he could make it very difficult for us to fulfil these ambitions. One small local event, set against an improved social housing programme, against new classrooms for the school, against traffic improvements. . Christ, we still have dirt roads in some parts of this town. .’

‘But is Planas so important? Wouldn’t some of the other councillors support your programme?’

‘Not all of it. Social housing, road improvements; they’d have to go. Planas, misogynistic old goat that he is, supports the whole platform. I haven’t said “no” to your fair, not yet, but the real decision is his, and he knows it.’

I threw up my hands in surrender. ‘OK, I understand.’

‘I’m sorry, truly.’

‘I believe you.’

‘Don’t you have an alternative to Plaça Petita?’

I smiled, wryly. ‘No, short of holding it in the church. . and if we did that, then nobody would ever believe that I wasn’t screwing the priest. You are right, we need a Plan B, against rain, if nothing else. But I’m not giving up on Plan A without tackling this man myself.’

‘But you’ll talk to Benedict first, yes?’

‘Yes, I will. I can’t imagine what he’s done to get this man so firmly against him.’

‘You can’t?’

Everybody blushes. It’s a physical thing, the effect of increased blood flow through the facial capillaries caused most commonly by embarrassment. It has nothing to do with race, but you’d think that when someone is as heavily tanned as Benedict Simmers, it would be impossible to see it.

Not so. But I’ll get there.

The wine shop was open when I got back to St Martí; it was a lovely day and midweek or not, the village was starting to get busy. I headed through the square towards Plaça Petita, but slowed my approach when I saw a shape half in, half out of the doorway and realised that Ben had customers. One doesn’t get in the way of a potential sale, after all. It was only when I got closer that I realised who the people were.

Ben’s mum, Ingrid Simmers as was, is a part-time resident of L’Escala. She is also one of his best customers. She and his dad are divorced; she’s Ingrid Reid now, and the bulk I had seen filling the door frame was that of her second husband, Matthew, a retired PR guru. They split their time pretty much equally between their two homes, the other one being in East Lothian, in Scotland’s golfing country. Oz and I once went to the beach there; got up to mischief in the secluded and sheltered dunes (‘What’s in it for me?’ ‘Sand.’) up on a high point from which he claimed that he could see his old man’s house through his binoculars. (Scotland’s a village, really; the first time I met Matthew he told me that he knew Oz’s dad, Mac, having played against him once in a golf match.)

I’ve never asked, but I reckon that Ingrid must be about the same age as the formidable Dolores Fumado. Around the same height too, but that’s as far as it goes. I wouldn’t mind her figure and her blond hair is so natural that I wonder if she’s ever been to a stylist in her life.

‘Hello, Primavera,’ she said warmly, as I slipped into the shop. ‘I hear you’ve been dragooned into the wine fair.’

‘She volunteered, Mum,’ Ben protested.

She ignored him. ‘Have you been to see that awful mayor?’ she asked.

‘Justine’s not awful,’ I told her. ‘In fact, she isn’t the problem either. It seems that the blocker is a local dinosaur called Planas, who seems to have an effective right of veto on the council.’ I looked at Ben. ‘What the hell have you done to upset him?’ I asked him, in Spanish.

And that’s when he blushed. I don’t think Ingrid noticed, suddenly she was too busy studying the shop’s range of specialist olive oils, but Matthew did. I could tell by his raised eyebrow; it was very expressive, and I knew I’d stumbled on something.

‘You interested in one of those, Mum?’ Ben asked, as blatant a change of subject as I’ve ever seen. ‘Take one and try it if you like.’ He broke off as two more customers came into the shop, and started speaking to them in passable French.

I went outside and said hello to Cher and Mustard, who were tethered to one of the bollards that keep cars out of the plaça. After ten minutes or so, the French customers made their choice and left, closely followed by Ingrid and Matthew, who winked as he waved me goodbye. I realised that his Spanish was better than I’d supposed.

‘So what’s the story?’ I asked, as Ben emerged to take the dogs inside, out of the sun. ‘How did you cross swords with this old bastard?’

‘I’ve never met him,’ he said, as I followed him.

‘The mayor said I should ask you about him.’

‘Justine did?’ And then he grinned, reflectively. ‘No, that doesn’t really surprise me.’

‘You didn’t tell me that you knew Justine.’

‘I don’t, not really.’

‘Come on, Ben, either you do or you don’t.’

What’s beyond sheepish? Goatish? I don’t know, but if it’s there, Mr Simmers was it, at that moment. ‘I’ve only met her a couple of times,’ he confessed, ‘at parties: she doesn’t have much time for a social life. It’s Elena Michels I know better.’

‘Elena?’

‘Justine’s sister.’

‘Not the one who’s married to Planas’s son?’

‘That’s the only sister she has, and I can see where that might be where the problem lies.’

Scales fell from my eyes. Young, free and single: I should have guessed there would be a woman involved somewhere. ‘Oh Jesus,’ I heard myself exclaim, with an alarming hint of matronly disapproval, ‘tell me you didn’t. .’

‘Well, yes, but hey, there was nothing wrong with it, in anyone’s eyes but old Planas’s. It was before she and Angel were married. Elena and I had a thing.’

‘A serious thing?’

‘We thought it was. . at least I did. We lived together for a while, but it didn’t work out. I saw the writing on the wall, so I left.’

‘I see. But you’re history. Why’s the old man so set against you?’

‘He’s like that. From what Angel told me he blames me for splitting him and Elena up.’

‘But I thought you said. .’

‘I did, and they weren’t. But they had been engaged. It’s. .’ He broke off as a British couple in beach clothes came into the shop, looking to buy a bottle of water. As he served them, I took the dogs through to the back room, returning as I heard them leave. ‘As I was saying,’ he resumed, ‘it’s a long story. Angel and Elena were at school together, and they were a pair then. She went to university, and he went into his dad’s furniture business, but they drifted on and got engaged.’

‘Very conventional by today’s standards,’ I commented. ‘Did they share a place? Or wouldn’t Elena’s mum have approved. . or her dad, since he must have been alive then.’

‘From what I’ve heard of him, Henri wouldn’t have been bothered. It was Angel’s dad who’d have put the mockers on it.’

‘Justine did say he’s old school.’

‘And the rest. Maybe he was the reason they split up. I never asked, but he could have been. All Elena told me was that she got cold feet. She told Angel that she didn’t think she wanted to marry him. He’s a gentleman. . I know him; I like him. . he said he understood, and they went their separate ways. They’d been apart for more than a year when she and I started seeing each other.’