Питер Мэй - A Silent Death

Now, as they left the police station, she pointed their SUV up the hill to where the main street wound slowly through the heart of this ancient hill town. White buildings with doors and windows picked out in ochre, black-painted wrought-iron Juliet balconies overlooking the newly paved street, a network of fine cabling stretched between yellow-tiled roofs to support a mosaic of coloured sails to shade pedestrians during the heat of the day.

In gaps between buildings, where streets fell away left and right, Mackenzie could see a patchwork of fields dipping into the valley, then rising again to where the Sierra Bermeja pushed its rugged peaks up into a darkening sky.

The Hostal Totana stood near the end of the street, on the corner of an alley that dropped down to the church below, next door to a farmacia and opposite a bar whose patrons sat out at tables on the pavement, drinking beer and wine, smoking and indulging in rowdy conversation that echoed along the street.

Cristina dropped him at the door and told him that someone would contact him in the morning.

‘Not you?’ Mackenzie was almost disappointed. Getting used to one person was bad enough. Having to break new ground with someone else was a prospect he did not relish. Better the devil you know.

‘I have to take my sister to hospital in the morning. Usually Paco would do it, but right now he is in hospital himself with a bullet in his leg.’

Mackenzie watched her drive off before lugging his new purchases and overnight bag into reception. His room was on the top floor. There was no lift, and he was breathing heavily by the time he got there. It was tiny. A small double bed with head-and foot-boards. And he knew that it would not be long enough to accommodate his height. Meaning a night curled up on one side, or the other. A constant process of leg-bent rotation and very little sleep.

He sat disconsolately on the edge of the bed and supposed that at least it would have clean sheets. They had told him downstairs they served food in the bar, though a glance at the menu had revealed an unappetizing choice of fast foods and tapas, and he wondered if he could summon the energy to go back down. But the rumblings in his stomach told him that fasting was not an option. Wearily he stood up again and carefully hung his new shirts and trousers in the wardrobe, wire coat hangers rattling on the rail. He put his socks and pants in a drawer and propped a couple of pairs of trainers on the shoe rack.

French windows led to a small balcony that looked down on to the street. He could see and hear the drinkers across the way, but those at the tables immediately below were obscured by a canopy above them.

Darkness had fallen suddenly. Street lights illuminating white buildings in burned-out patches snaked off in two long strings down the hill. He slipped his phone from his breast pocket and checked the time. It was likely that Sophia would be home by now.

His attempt to reopen his previous conversation with her on the Messenger app failed. Neither was he able to open a fresh window. After restarting the phone he tried rebooting the app, but each time it would only take him back to her final message — a sad face.

In frustration he opened his Facebook app and quickly discovered that she had unfriended him. A terrible sense of melancholy welled up inside to exclude all other emotion. Unfriended by his own daughter! When he had told Beard that no one liked him very much, he had never imagined that might also apply to Sophia.

A burst of raucous laughter rose from the street below on the warm night air, and he wondered if he had ever felt quite so lonely.

He turned back into his room to shut out the sound of other people’s happiness, and made his way downstairs to try and find something on the menu to feed his appetite. But he had little relish for anything other than alcohol to drown his sorrows. As he stood at the bar waiting to be served, a small boy entered from the street and stood looking around. With little hesitation he headed directly for Mackenzie the moment he saw him.

‘Señor Mackenzie?’ he asked.

Mackenzie looked at him in surprise. He was a slight-built boy of around nine or ten. An unruly tangle of jet-black hair fell across a high forehead above a wide smile. He made Mackenzie think of Alex. ‘Yes.’

The boy stuck out his hand. ‘I’m very pleased to meet you. I’m Lucas.’

Mackenzie shook the boy’s hand, and was surprised by the strength of his grip, as well as by the quality of English for one so young.

‘Cristina is my mother. My father says you are to come and eat with us.’

Mackenzie was taken aback. ‘You live nearby?’

‘Just across town. It’s only five minutes. My father sent me. My mother didn’t want me to come, but my father said it would not be hosp...’ he struggled with the word, ‘hospitable, to let you eat alone on your first night in Spain.’ This time he held out his hand for Mackenzie to hold, and gave him a wide smile. ‘I will take you.’

Lucas led Mackenzie down the length of the main street and into the Plaza del Vino above the fire station. A colourful town plan was mounted on one wall opposite a massive mosaic of winemakers trampling grapes. Everything about Marviña seemed related in some way to wine. On the far side of the square, whitewashed apartment blocks stepped down the hill like terraces in a vineyard. Cristina lived at the top of the hill in a street called Calle Utopía. In Marviña, utopia was a tiny two-bedroom apartment on the first floor with a view of other apartments out back, and a row of shops out front. The planners had contrived somehow to build homes without views in a town surrounded by them.

When Lucas opened the door to the apartment and called out to announce their arrival, a young man with startling blue eyes in a deeply tanned face hurried out from the living room to greet them.

‘ Holà, holà ,’ he said, and he grasped Mackenzie’s hand in both of his to pump it enthusiastically. ‘I’m Antonio, welcome. Excuse me for not speaking English, but Cristina says your Spanish is impeccable.’

Mackenzie raised an eyebrow in surprise. ‘Did she?’

Antonio ruffled Lucas’s hair, and Mackenzie wondered if the boy had inherited the gene which was already leading to early hair loss in his father. ‘Come in, come in.’

They squeezed past a coat stand laden with jackets and hats and scarves and into a cramped, square living space with a dresser and dining table, and an oversized L-shaped settee gathered around a coffee table. A small TV on a stand burbled in the corner beside French windows leading on to a small balcony. What little floor space remained was booby-trapped with discarded toys and shoes.

Antonio was suddenly self-conscious, as if seeing for the first time his own living space through someone else’s eyes. ‘Excuse the mess,’ he said, and started scooping away jackets and laundry to create sitting space on the settee. ‘Lucas, put those toys away in your room.’

Obediently the boy did as he was told, gathering plastic trucks and models of Star Wars characters and a couple of footballs into his arms to carry away to his bedroom.

Through a door opening off the living room, Mackenzie saw into a tiny kitchen. Cristina, pot in hand, swung into view. She wiped a forearm across her forehead and glared at him. She was out of uniform now, and if anything seemed even smaller in jeans and a T-shirt. Her hair tumbled freely around her shoulders, and she looked harassed. Mackenzie thought that if he’d met her like this in the street he might not have recognized her. ‘Sit at the table, I’m about ready to serve up,’ she said, and vanished from view again.

Antonio grinned at him. ‘Always chaos in here,’ he said, and waved Mackenzie into a seat. Lucas returned from his bedroom to claim the seat opposite Mackenzie and sit watching him with unabashed curiosity. Antonio drew in a chair beside his son and said, ‘Didn’t seem right that you should be eating on your own up at the hotel. Where did you learn your Spanish? At university?’