Quintin Jardine - Blood Red

‘I’ll choose to say nothing, if that’s all right with you.’

‘Fine, for it doesn’t matter to us. It should matter to you, though, for it was all part of the set-up.’ He stood up. ‘Before we go any further,’ he said, ‘I’d like you to come with me. There’s someone I’d like you to talk to.’

For a moment I thought he was going to take me to see Gerard, down in the cells or wherever they were keeping him, but all he did was lead me into the room next door. It was bigger than his, with several desks; most of them empty, but one, near a window, was occupied by a man in civilian clothes. Even seated he looked big, and when he turned towards me, he looked ugly as well, a touch of Frankenstein’s monster in his thick gnarled eyebrows.

‘Let me introduce you,’ said Valdes. ‘Senora Blackstone, meet Captain Jorge Lavorante, of the Granada city police. He’s a contemporary of Gerard Hernanz; they were at school together, in fact. He has a story that I believe you have to hear.’

I had a terrible feeling that I knew what it was, but I held on to my poker face as I took the seat that the commissioner offered.

Lavorante’s voice turned out to be as soft as he was hard, with an attractive Andalusian lisp. ‘A long time ago, back in the city,’ he began, ‘I was a new kid on the force, when we got a call. It was from a house up on Cuesta de los Cabras, where the Hernanz family lived, from one of their neighbours, scared. She said that someone was being killed up there. I got sent to the scene by my sergeant, on my own. On my own, lady, d’ you hear that? Why? Because Gerard Hernanz and his old man were involved, and none of my brave colleagues wanted any part of them. Plus they knew I knew Gerard, and that if anyone could calm things down, I could.’

‘You make him sound like a monster.’

Lavorante shook his head. ‘I make him sound like the toughest man in Granada, for that’s what he was. You know he was a pub bouncer when he was a kid, after he got out of the marines?’

I nodded, defiantly.

The big cop ignored me. ‘Nobody fucked with him, apart from one time. I got the story afterwards, from the other doorman. There was one guy wouldn’t take a telling. He was rude and abusive. Gerard’s girl was there at the time, and the idiot called her a whore. He was still semi-conscious when they got him to hospital, yet Gerard only hit him once. He was a gypsy, and later three of his family came to the bar looking for revenge, the knife-carrying kind. Like I say, Gerard had been in the marines by then, and he had learned all sorts of close-combat skills. He took the blade off the biggest of them so fast he didn’t even see it, put him in an armlock, and held it to this throat. Then he told them very quietly that their brother had been way out of order, and that it would be a pity if someone had to die because of a stupid little shit like him. “Put like that,” one of the gypsies said, “we can’t argue.” They all shook hands with him and went off into the night.’

I didn’t realise it, but I was trembling as he told his story. ‘Senora,’ said Valdes, ‘would you like a glass of water?’

I realised that I would. Once I’d drunk it, the Andalusian carried on. ‘So there I am, up at the Hernanz house. The neighbour had said that the trouble was in the garden so I went in the back way, through a little gate. It was all quiet, not a sound. Then I saw Gerard’s old man. He was lying there, covered in blood, and when I say he was out of it, I thought he was dead, till I took a closer look at him, and found a pulse. I could hear voices inside, Gerard’s and his brother. Santi was all right, the more sociable of the two, but he was as formidable as Gerard. No way was I handling one of them, let alone two, and besides, they were my friends, so I picked their father up, carried him out of there over my shoulder, and took him to hospital. We were there when the boys brought Gerard’s girlfriend in. They didn’t see him, or me, and I made sure it stayed that way, but I found out from the staff that the girl had been raped. I also heard that she’d refused, point blank, to call the police. The old man was starting to come round by that time. He’d a fractured skull, they reckoned, and maybe his upper jaw too, but they said he wasn’t going to die. “Oh no?” I told them. So I got him out of there, again, put him back in my car and drove him all the way to Cordoba, and left him at the hospital there. I also told him that if he ever came back to Granada, I’d fucking kill him myself. Trust me, he believed that.’

I listened to the rest of the story, although I knew it all. Irena’s leaving, and Gerard’s decision to save his life, as Lavorante put it, by entering the priesthood. ‘I never did find out what happened to the old man after that,’ he concluded. Ah well, I was one up on him there .

‘Now you’ve heard that,’ said Valdes quietly, ‘there’s something else I want you to listen to.’

He led me back to his office, produced a minidisc recorder, and put it on the desk. He peered at a dial as if he was setting it up, then pressed Play.

‘Do you love Senora Blackstone, Father,’ I heard him ask, ‘in the way a man loves a woman, that is?’

I heard a sigh. ‘Just once,’ a disembodied Gerard said, ‘I’ll answer your question, although I wouldn’t if she was here. Yes, I do.’

‘I thought so. In that case, I’m going to put a proposition to you, the same one I’m going to put to the court. Two weeks ago, exactly, the lady had an argument with José-Luis Planas in his office, during which he called her a whore, loudly enough for it to be heard by people outside. I’ve spoken to the lady who managed the business for him; she told me this. Eighteen years ago, in Granada, you knocked a man unconscious and were prepared to kill his brothers when such an insult was aimed at the last woman you loved. When she was attacked by your father, you beat him almost to death. That isn’t part of my proposition, by the way; that is witnessed fact. In this case, what I believe is that you went to Senor Planas’s home on the night of his insult to Senora Blackstone; you left the residence after Father Olivares had retired to bed. He let you in, you hit the man with a chair and you killed him. The London forensic team are very good, much better than our people, I have to admit; eventually they found a hair on the murder weapon. The DNA they took from it matches a sample you gave Intendant Gomez for elimination purposes, in Figueras when you went to the morgue to perform the final offices on the man you’d killed. But that night, at the house, you didn’t know you’d find Dolores Fumado there. Her relationship with Planas was very much their secret. You dealt with it; you made the scene look as if an accident had occurred, you abducted the lady, and you imprisoned her. You drove her car into the countryside, and you burned it. But not well enough, for you also left a DNA trace on a corner of the driver’s door, more hair and some skin, as if you’d bumped your head. So what to do with Dolores? You didn’t know, until. . A few days later, you learned that Gomez’s team had found Primavera’s palm print on the chair, and you conceived a very bold plan. You killed Dolores, with a shawl belonging to Senora Blackstone. We believe that either she left it in your car on that Friday night, or that you stole it from her, possibly on the Sunday afternoon in St Martí.’

Of course , I thought, I wore it to church .

‘You put the body in her storeroom. Careless, Father, you left your DNA there again.’

Of course he did, I sent him in there to look.

‘When she found it, and called you, as you knew she would, you told her she must leave. You actually framed the woman you love for two murders that you had committed, and then you persuaded her to confirm her own guilt by escaping.’