Quintin Jardine: Blood Red

‘When did you know you had a problem with old man Planas?’

‘Not fully until today. Elena’s mother told me that he wasn’t happy with what Elena had done, but that was all anyone ever said.’

‘Why did you and she break up?’

He frowned. ‘The kindest way I can put it is that she found she was wrong, and that she really had wanted to marry Angel all along. She never said as much, but I knew. When they did get back together, very soon after we split, I was the least surprised man in town.’

‘And you bear no grudges?’

‘Absolutely none. But Planas does, it seems, and he carries them a long way. What are we going to do about him, Primavera?’

‘I’ll talk to him. Maybe I’ll buy some furniture from his shop, then get round to talking about the wine fair.’

‘And if that doesn’t work?’

‘Then I’ll make sure that everyone in St Martí, and L’Escala, gets to know what he’s doing, and why. See if he gets elected then.’

‘I don’t think I’d like that; it would harm Angel and Elena.’

‘Then I’ll find another solution; fuck it, if we have to we’ll hold the wine fair in my house. It’s just about big enough. Way to go before that, though.’ I smiled, as a thought struck me. ‘You know what your real problem is, don’t you?’

‘What’s that?’

‘You picked the wrong sister.’

He pulled a sad clown face. ‘I’d have had to join the queue.’

‘What’s she like? What’s she got going for her? I mean, this is a very male town, yet she’s a young woman and she’s its mayor. Looks don’t get you elected in a place like this.’

He scratched his stubbled chin. ‘Justine gets results,’ he replied, ‘because she has the gift of making people do things for her, sometimes without even asking them, simply because they want to please her. Looks don’t get you elected, no, but charisma does.’

‘Does she have a partner?’

‘Most of the single guys in this town, and a load of the married ones, I’ll bet, fancy Justine Michels. And they’re all wasting their time. There is a man somewhere, hidden away. I haven’t a clue who he is, though; nobody has, not even Elena.’

‘Pity we don’t know. If we could tell him that Planas is giving his lady the mayor a hard time, he might sort him out.’

‘ José-Luis Planas?’ Gerard exclaimed, as he swallowed a mouthful of melted mozzarella on my front terrace. ‘He of the furniture shop? Of course I know him. . but not as a parishioner of St Martí. Senor Planas will be seen in the front row of the big church in L’Escala at the funerals of those he considers important, and at the marriages of those whose parents consider him important enough to invite. He will be there on saints’ days, and on other occasions which he believes warrant his attention. But only in the big church; he hasn’t set foot in mine, not since I’ve been here, at any rate. Senor Planas only acknowledges priests of his own generation. He’s the sort who approaches God on his own terms, as an equal, and who frowns his disapproval at Jesus, as he would any young radical.’ He reached for another slice, but Tom beat him to it: Primavera’s pizza feasts always turn into a race when my son’s at the table. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘I know the man in the furniture shop,’ Tom said, as he slipped Charlie a piece of crust. I encourage him to join in adult conversation. I don’t subscribe to the ‘seen but not heard’ school of motherhood; Dawn and I weren’t raised that way, although my sister was more reticent than I was. ‘Mum and I went there once, to buy my bed when we moved here. He’s nice; he gave me a lollipop. And he’s the same age as you.’

Gerard shook his head. ‘You’re thinking of his son, Angel. Now he is a parishioner. . I assisted at his nuptial Mass in L’Escala. He married the mayor’s sister; our church would never have been big enough for all the people who were invited. We had trouble seating them all even there. There wasn’t a restaurant big enough for the wedding feast; they had to have it in a marquee.’

‘It must have been hot in the church,’ Tom mused, ‘with all those people. It is even in our church in the summer.’ I should explain here that I’m not conventionally religious. I have certain beliefs, but they don’t include a God entity. (Gerard was okay about this from the off; he would never want me to pretend for his sake.) But I’m not about to impose anything on Tom. Our house adjoins the church. . their origins go back to the same period, many centuries ago. . and we hadn’t been here long before he was in and out of the place, ‘helping’ as he put it. Now he’s an altar boy. . Gerard tried to tell me that ‘altar server’ is the new PC term; I told him that Tom is definitely a boy, so live with it. . although he hasn’t been baptised into the Catholic faith, and won’t be, or into any other for that matter, until he feels old enough to make a choice for himself.

‘It was,’ the priest agreed, ‘so hot that the bride’s sister fainted, just as we reached the end of the Mass.’

‘The bride’s sister? Justine Michels? The mayor?’

‘All three of the above; she passed right out.’

‘Not very good for her public image,’ I suggested.

‘The congregation was standing at the time, only those at the front could see who it was. I picked her up and carried her into the registry; most people didn’t even know it had happened. She recovered very quickly; fresh air, a glass of water and she was fine.’ He paused. ‘Senor Planas saw, of course. Angel was going to help, until he saw that I had the situation in hand, but the old man, he just stood there and stared at her, as if he was annoyed at the inconvenience. Afterwards, once we were outside the church, Dolores Fumado, Justine’s mother, actually apologised to him.’

‘What about the father? Was he there?’

‘No, he had died a few months before that. In fact, the wedding had been postponed, out of respect. Both Planases, father and son, were pall-bearers at his funeral.’ He paused, as if he was looking at the scene. ‘And so was Justine. I remember, José-Luis wasn’t pleased; I heard him mutter to the parish priest, my senior, that women these days seemed to have forgotten their place.’ He beamed at me; Tom frowned as if he disapproved of something, but couldn’t quite work out what. (Happily, some concepts are still beyond him.) ‘Which brings me back to my question,’ Gerard continued, taking advantage of the competition’s preoccupation to nick a choice wedge of pizza. ‘Why are you so interested in the old reactionary?’

Stage by stage, I told him of my meeting with Justine, and of the reasons for her inability to give the go-ahead for the venue for the wine fair. By the time I finished my story, his expression had gone from sunny to dark.

‘The man can be that petty?’ he growled. ‘I know that as a priest I can’t bless those who live together out of marriage, or who don’t remain celibate before it, but I deplore vindictiveness. If Planas had been in the crowd that Jesus challenged to cast the first stone, then that would have been the end of the woman taken in adultery.’ He was as annoyed as I’d ever seen him. ‘Know what, Primavera,’ he declared, ‘I’m going to have a few words to say about him in church.’

‘No, Gerard! Don’t do that. It won’t help Justine and it won’t help Ben. Plus, it would probably piss off your senior priest and get you banished to Tavertet, or somewhere else in the back of beyond. I’ll deal with this myself, the straightforward way: I’ll tackle the old bastard face to face. I’ll shame him into backing off. I promise you, I’ve squared up to tougher people than him.’