Питер Мэй - A Silent Death

She extricates her hands from his and raises them to his face again, running her fingers and palms over all its planes and surfaces, fingertips pushing up into his hair. She stops and says, ‘You’re losing your hair, Sergio.’

He takes back her hands. ‘ And I’m developing a bit of a belly. I’m happy you can’t see how badly I have aged. ’

‘While you can see my every fault. Every grey hair, every line, every wobble of my flesh.’

Which made him laugh. ‘ Ana, you are as beautiful today as the day I met you. Beauty is who we are, not what we look like, and to me you will be beautiful till the day you die. ’ Then more hesitation. ‘ You never answered. Do you... do you think you could ever take me back? ’

Ana shakes her head solemnly. ‘No Sergio. I don’t think I could.’ She waits to let the impact of her words sink in. ‘I know I could. But above all, I want you back, more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life.’

In an instant, his lips are on hers. His hands on her face. She slips her arms around him and pulls him closer, realizing for the first time that he has dropped to his knees in front of her. She places a hand behind his head and draws it to her breast, holding him there, feeling his sobs transmit themselves from his body to hers. And all the years since they last touched are washed away like dust in rain.

They remain like this for a long time, bodies generating heat, flushing faces, until finally he draws away and takes her hands again.

‘ Ana, I have to go. Having finally found you, I could not wait until this evening to see you. I made an excuse to get away from work, but I’ll have to go back. ’ He rests his head for a moment on their conjoined hands. ‘ The irony is that I work just a few streets away at the Banco de Sabadell. When I finish work this evening I will come straight back. I promise. ’

But she doesn’t want to let him go. Not just yet. After all the years of hopelessness, on her own in the dark, Sergio has finally brought hope and light back into her life. ‘Don’t be too long,’ she whispers, and when he is gone she weeps unashamedly.

At the end of the hall in the Marviña police station, a door opened into a large meeting room that was also accessible from the street. Mahogany desks and leather seats stood arranged in a semicircle beneath a drop-down banner at the far end of the room. They faced rows of hard plastic seats set out for an audience. The local council held public meetings here, and one wall was lined with paintings of the men and women who had at one time or another filled the honoured post of mayor. Light flooded into the room from two large windows on the outside wall, and it was already packed by the time Cristina and Mackenzie arrived. They took seats at the back.

The Jefe was leaning, half-sitting, on one of the desks, his arms folded across his chest. Another man was addressing the assembly. He was tall, thin and bald. Sweat patches darkened the armpits of his white shirt. His suit jacket lay draped over a chair behind him.

Mackenzie leaned towards Cristina and lowered his voice. ‘Who is everyone?’

‘The man speaking is the Juez de Instrucción from Estepona. The examining magistrate. I guess, nominally, he’s in charge of the case. But really it’s homicide in Malaga who’re handling it.’ She nodded towards a group of plain-clothes officers lounging on seats near the front and breathed her derision. ‘These guys think they’re starring in a Hollywood movie. All designer suits and sunglasses.’ She turned her gaze towards the other side of the room. ‘That’s UDYCO over there, also from Malaga. They specialize in drugs and organized crime.’ Then she leaned forward to look along the back row towards a group of young men in jeans and T-shirts. ‘ Instituto Forense de Malaga . Forensics. But these ones are from Marbella.’ She cocked an eyebrow at Mackenzie. ‘Notice how many women there are among them.’ She sat back. There were none. ‘The rest are Policía Local from here in Marviña. But we’re just the foot soldiers.’

The examining magistrate was perspiring freely. ‘We have established that the boat in the marina at Puerto de la Condesa did indeed belong to the criminal Cleland, under his alias of Ian Templeton. But he doesn’t appear to have been sleeping there. We’re assuming he risked a visit to the boat perhaps to get money, or weapons, or drugs. It’s anyone’s guess. But at any rate, he was interrupted by the British investigator Mackenzie who failed to apprehend him.’

Mackenzie felt the hackles rise on the back of his neck, and without looking at her was aware of Cristina’s eyes turning in his direction. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and a sharp pain in his ribs reminded him of his encounter with Cleland.

‘UDYCO report that sources are telling them the rumoured handover of drugs is scheduled within the next two days, and that the merchandise is already in the country. Somewhere in this area. But we have no intelligence as yet on where and when the exchange is going to take place.’ He held out an open palm towards a well-groomed middle-aged man in a dark suit who sat in the front row. ‘Captain Rodríguez?’

As Rodríguez stood up Mackenzie whispered to Cristina, ‘Who’s he?’

‘Head of GRECO — Grupo de Respuesta Especial para el Crimen Organizado . That’s the organized crime special-response group based in Marbella.’

Unlike the Juez de Instrucción Captain Rodríguez was the embodiment of cool. He slipped his shades into the breast pocket of his suit jacket and ran a tanned hand back through jet-black hair. ‘We are confident,’ he said, ‘that we will find out exactly where and when this is all going down. We have had a number of suspected traffickers on our radar for some time. Not little fish by any means. And almost certainly involved. One or other of them is almost certain to lead us to the rendezvous. But I can’t stress enough the importance of total discretion in every department. A leak of any kind could compromise the whole operation. We’re only going to get one chance at this.’

When the meeting broke up, the Jefe waved Mackenzie forward to be introduced to the examining magistrate. Cristina trotted after him. Although the Jefe had hosted the meeting, he had played no active part in it, and Mackenzie realized that instructions coming down from the Jefe were simply being passed on from a higher jurisdiction. This was all happening on his patch, but he had no real authority except in the direction of his own people.

‘Señor Mackenzie, meet Judge Aguado. It was he who requested your services from the NCA in London.’

‘Oh?’ Mackenzie said, ‘Now I know who to blame.’ And shook the proffered hand. It was cold and clammy, and when Mackenzie retrieved his own he wiped it absently on the leg of his trousers.

The Juez de Instrucción did not miss it. He said stiffly, ‘Presumably you are aware how our system works here in Spain?’

‘I am,’ Mackenzie said. ‘Very similar to the French. A Guardia Civil which is part of the army, like the French Gendarmerie. A fragmented civilian police force which doesn’t talk to the military, and a system of judges who know nothing about police work but somehow contrive to direct investigations.’

Judge Aguado’s pallor darkened, and a clenching of his jaw was betrayed by the depressions that appeared in each of his cadaverous cheeks. He said, ‘While the British police divide and subdivide themselves into so many different forces that they lack any coherence.’

‘I couldn’t agree more,’ Mackenzie said, oblivious of the judge’s intention to offend him in return. ‘They are uncoordinated and completely disjointed. Criminals are slipping through the cracks all the time.’