John Matthews - Ascension Day

‘Forty, forty-five minutes drive. Six kilometres from Punto Ladrillo heading to San Pedro. You can’t miss it. Big white villa with four or five holiday casitas in its grounds.’

What had changed Amparo’s mind? — the tears and his deflated slump as he’d walked away, or being able to give him the message away from prying eyes — Jac didn’t know, and at that moment he didn’t care. He leant over, giving her a big hug.

‘Amparo, you’re beautiful. Guapa… guapa !’

Amparo smiled awkwardly, a couple of people approaching the correos also smiling, probably thinking they were two long lost lovers with the embrace and both their eyes glassy. But as they parted, Amparo’s eyes had shifted from soft to thoughtful, faintly troubled. She touched his arm.

‘And, senor. Good luck. Suerte .’

When Nel-M approached the Sancti Spiritus correos counter almost four hours later, Amparo wasn’t as helpful.

Nel-M suspected that Ayliss might well have played the death-row card, so he kept to a similar story, saying that he was connected with the DA’s office seeking urgent information before the execution that night. But Amparo just kept repeating something about regulations , didn’t budge, despite him at one point showing her $500 in his cupped palm.

One consolation, Nel-M thought: it looked doubtful that Ayliss would have got anything either — but when he’d asked Amparo if anyone had called earlier asking for the same information, she’d shook her head, No , despite the flicker of recognition in her face he thought he’d seen when he’d first mentioned Durrant and death-row.

As Nel-M headed down the steps of the Sancti Spiritus correos , he had much the same feeling, nothing left to do , that Jac had had in that same spot four hours earlier — but then that nagging doubt pinched again, and he looked back thoughtfully. He wondered whether, however much he’d tried to shield it, Amparo had sensed how frantic he was. Certainly, that’s how he felt : the nightmare in Vancouver, the run-around with Truelle and the long flight to Cuba, now the breakneck drive to Sancti Spiritus; the three-day fly-kill holiday from hell. But, aware of that, he thought he’d covered with his best warm and gracious smile, the cool and collected DA official trying to get information, rather than the patience-long-gone, bubbling-acid-nerves hit-man.

Nel-M’s eyes shifted to a bar across the road. One way he might get to know.

A dead-and-alive town, Sancti Spiritus’s ramshackle buildings looked like they’d been slowly crumbling since the 50s, with a hotchpotch of blue and pink shutters that tried, but failed, to offer some relief. Apart from the post office, the bar’s blue shutters appeared to be the only ones in the street to have received a recent lick of paint.

Over a beer, Nel-M talked to the barman, and — after a lot of finger-pointing and juggling between the barman’s basic English and the few Spanish words that Nel-M was able to translate — he got some idea of who’d visited the post office earlier that day.

Americanos, Nuevo coches , Nel-M quickly picked up were the key words. He’d noticed that there were very few new cars on the road apart from his own. The barman explained that nearly all new cars were rental cars for tourists or taxis; the rest of Cuba either didn’t have a car or relied on old relics, most of them left over from the Batista days.

Nel-M nodded and sipped at his beer. That explained the Buddy Holly time-warp when it came to cars. But that also meant, as with his own BMW series-5 now parked in front, Ayliss’s car would have been one of the few new ones to have pulled up outside the post office earlier.

Nel-M stood up from his bar stool as he described Ayliss. ‘Big man… quite fat. Gordo . Black hair oiled back.’ Nel-M swept one hand over his own hair. He didn’t know the Spanish for cream suit, so tugged at his own light-grey jacket and said, ‘ Blanco … white suit. New car. Nuevo coche . Four hours ago… cuatro horas !’

And finally there was a gleam of recognition in the barman’s eyes. ‘ Si … si . Car like yours. Muy similar .’ He pointed to Nel-M’s car outside, then frowned as he tried to remember the make. He took a beer mat and drew a few interlocking circles.

Audi ! That would at least narrow it down, Nel-M thought. But as the barman continued, with something about the man in the white suit hugging a woman, Nel-M began to think that maybe it wasn’t Ayliss after all. As he looked towards where the barman was gesticulating, Nel-M suddenly jolted, his expression as if he’d seen a ghost. He held one hand up towards the barman. No need for further explanation.

Nel-M squinted sharper as a man across the road took the last step and entered the post office. Truelle !

Nel-M kept the same hand held in the air as he moved closer to the window, as if he was a conductor holding an orchestra in silence; a pregnant, expectant pause as they waited for it to come down again for the crescendo finale.

And a minute later, as he saw Truelle emerge holding a padded buff envelope, walk thirty yards down the road and get in a white classic Corvette, that hand did finally come down, as with an, ‘Old friend… amigo !’ he rushed out to his car to follow.

When Jac arrived at the door of Villa Delarcos at just before 2 p.m., Brent Calbrey, a tall gaunt man in his early sixties with a heavy tan and wavy grey hair, informed him that he’d just missed ‘Lenny’.

‘By about half an hour. He’s headed into town.’

‘Sancti Spiritus?’

‘Yeah. Few things he wanted to pick up. Things he likes that I didn’t already have in the fridge. Oh, and he said he was also going to the post office.’

‘Oh, right.’ Post office . Jac looked back down the road. ‘I… I probably passed him on my way up. What’s he driving?’

‘My car.’ Calbrey smiled tightly. ‘White Corvette, ’71 classic.’

Jac couldn’t remember if he’d passed one or not. There were a lot of old American cars on the roads. ‘Do you know when he’ll be back?’

‘A couple of hours, he said.’ Calbrey raised an eyebrow. ‘Can I give him a message?’

‘No, it’s okay. I’ll try and catch him later.’ Jac didn’t want to leave a name, possibly frighten Truelle off. He turned away.

‘Old friend?’

‘Yeah, old friend,’ Jac said over his shoulder, smiling wanly.

And, as he was a few paces away, Calbrey called after him, explaining that ‘Lenny’ might return direct to the ‘casita’ rather than the main house itself. ‘Its entrance is forty yards along.’

Jac looked towards where Calbrey pointed and the white Moorish-style bungalow, a smaller version of the main house, on a small promontory with panoramic views over the sea lapping fifteen yards its other side. Everything was white, Jac thought: the villa and ‘casitas’, Calbrey’s Bermudas and cheese-cloth top, the Corvette. Jac nodded his thanks and, as he got back into his car, looked anxiously at his watch.

He couldn’t just sit there for two hours, knowing that meanwhile Larry’s life was ticking away. He started up, heading back to Sancti Spiritus. But halfway there, his foot suddenly eased from the pedal. Two hours ? Hardly would he have arrived there before Truelle was heading back out to the villa. And if Truelle heard that meanwhile someone had called for him, he might rush off again, go to ground.

No , the only safe thing was to wait there and watch. At the next side road, he did a hasty three-point turn, headed back; and, eighty yards along from the bungalow, with a clear view of it and the main house, he parked and waited. Watching hawkishly every car that approached and passed, though there weren’t many: seven in the past hour.