Robert Wilson: The Hidden Assassins

'How did it go last night?' asked Manuela. 'I can tell you wound up on the brandy.'

'Gah!' said Angel, wincing at some gripe in his intestines.

'No smoking for you until after coffee this morning.'

'Maybe my breath could become a cheap form of renewable energy,' said Angel, fingering some sleep out of his eye. 'In fact everyone's breath could, because all we do is spout hot, alcoholic air.'

'Is the master of positive energy getting a little bit bored with his cronies?'

'Not bored. They're my friends,' said Angel, shrugging. 'It's one of the advantages of age that we can tell each other the same stories over and over and still laugh.'

'Age is a state of mind, and you're still young,' said Manuela. 'Maybe you should go back to the commercial side of your public relations business. Forget politics and all those self-important fools.'

'And finally she reveals what she thinks of my closest friends.'

'I like your friends, it's just…the politics,' said Manuela. 'Endless talk but nothing ever happens.'

'Maybe you're right,' said Angel, nodding. 'The last time there was an event in this country was the horror of 11th March 2004, and look what happened: the whole country pulled together and by due process of democracy kicked out a perfectly good government. Then we bowed down to the terrorists and pulled out of Iraq. And after that? We sank back into the comfort of our lives.'

'And drank too much brandy.'

'Exactly,' said Angel, looking at her with his hair exploded in all directions. 'You know what someone was saying last night?'

'Was this the interesting bit?' she said, teasing him on.

'We need a return to benevolent dictatorship,' said Angel, throwing up his hands in mock exasperation.

'You might find yourselves out on a limb there,' said Manuela. 'People don't like turmoil with troops and tanks on the streets. They want a cold beer, a tapa and something stupid to watch on TV.'

'My point entirely,' said Angel, slapping his stomach. 'Nobody listened. We've got a population dying of decadence, so morally moribund that they no longer know what they want, apart from knee-jerk consumption, and my "cronies" think that they'll be loved if they do these people the favour of mounting a coup.'

'I don't want to see you on television, standing on a desk in Parliament with a gun in your hand.'

'I'll have to lose some weight first,' said Angel. Calderon came to with a jolt and a sense of real panic left over from a dream he could not recollect. He was surprised to see Marisa's long brown back in the bed beside him, instead of Ines's white nightdress. He'd overslept. It was now 6 a.m. and he would have to go back to his apartment and deal with some very awkward questions from Ines.

His frantic leap from the bed woke Marisa. He dressed, shaking his head at the slug trails of dried semen on his thigh.

'Take a shower,' said Marisa.

'No time.'

'Anyway, she's not an idiot-so you tell me.'

'No, she's not,' said Calderon, looking for his other shoe, 'but as long as certain rules are obeyed then the whole thing can be glossed over.'

'This must be the bourgeois protocol for affairs outside marriage.'

'That's right,' said Calderon, irritated by her. 'You can't stay out all night because that is making a complete joke out of the institution.'

'What's the cut-off point between a "serious" marriage and a "joke" one?' asked Marisa. 'Three o'clock…three thirty? No. That's OK. I think by four o'clock it's ridiculous. By four thirty it is a complete joke. By six, six thirty…it's a farce.'

'By six it's a tragedy,' said Calderon, searching the floor madly. 'Where is my fucking shoe?'

'Under the chair,' said Marisa. 'And don't forget your camera on the coffee table. I've left a present or two on it for you.'

He threw on his jacket, pocketed the camera, dug his foot into his shoe.

'How did you find my camera?' he asked, kneeling down by the bed.

'I went through your jacket while you were asleep,' she said. 'I come from a bourgeois family; I kick against it, but I know all the tricks. Don't worry, I didn't erase all those stupid shots of your lawyers' dinner to prove to your very intelligent wife that you weren't out all night fucking your girlfriend.'

'Well, thanks very much for that.'

'And I haven't been naughty.'

'No?'

'I told you I left some presents on the camera for you. Just don't let her see.'

He nodded, suddenly in a hurry again. They kissed. Going down in the lift he tidied himself up, got everything tucked away and rubbed his face into life to prepare for the lie which he practised. Even he saw the two micro movements of his eyebrows, which Javier Falcon had told him was the first and surest sign of a liar. If he knew that, then Ines would know it, too.

No taxis out at this early hour of the morning. He should have called for one. He set off at a fast walk. Memories ricocheted around his mind, which seemed to dip in and out of his consciousness. The lie. The truth. The reality. The dream. And it came back to him with the same sense of panic he'd had on waking in Marisa's apartment: his hands closing around Ines's slim throat. He was throttling her, but she wasn't turning puce or purple and her tongue wasn't thickening with blood and protruding. She was looking up at him with her eyes full of love. And, yes, she was stroking his forearms, encouraging him to do it. The bourgeois solution to awkward divorces-murder. Absurd. He knew from his work with the homicide squad that the first person to be grilled in a murder case was the spouse.

The streets were still wet from last night's rain, the cobbles greasy. He was sweating and the smell of Marisa came up off his shirt. It occurred to him that he'd never felt guilty. He didn't know what it was other than a legal state. Since he'd been married to Ines he'd had affairs with four women of whom Marisa had lasted the longest. He'd also had one-night stands or afternoons with two other women. And there was the prostitute in Barcelona, but he didn't like to think of that. He'd even had sex with one of these women whilst having an affair with another as a married man, which must make him a serial philanderer. Except it didn't feel like philandering. There was supposed to be something enjoyable about philandering. It was romantic, wasn't it…in the eighteenth-century sense of the word? But what he'd been doing was not enjoyable. He was trying to fill a hole, which, with every affair, grew bigger. So what was this expanding void? Now that would be a thing to answer, if he could ever find the time to think about it.

He slipped on a cobble, half fell, scuffed his hand on the pavement. It pulled him out of his head and on to more practical business. He'd have to have a shower as soon as he got in. Marisa was in his sinuses. Maybe he should have had a shower before he left, but then there would have been the smell of Marisa's soap. Then another revelation. What did he care? Why the grand pretence? Ines knew. They'd had fights-never about his affairs, but about ridiculous stuff, which was a cover for the unmentionable. She could have got out. She could have left him years ago, but she'd stayed. That was significant.

The graze on his hand was stinging. His thoughts made him feel stronger. He wasn't afraid of Ines. She could strike fear into others. He'd seen her in court. But not him. He had the upper hand. He fucked around and she stayed.

His apartment block on Calle San Vicente appeared before him. He opened the door with a flourish. He didn't know whether it was the conclusion he'd arrived at, his stinging hand or the fact that he tripped up on the stairs because the decorators, those idle sods, had pushed their dustsheets to one side rather than clearing them away-but he began to feel just a little bit cruel.