Питер Мэй - A Silent Death

But a commentary on it came from the disembodied voice in the kitchen. ‘English and Spanish good. Maths and science well below average. Take a look at the teacher’s comments.’

Cristina read aloud, ‘Lucas is a clever boy, but he just doesn’t try. His concentration is poor. He’s a daydreamer.’

Mackenzie recalled similar comments on the report cards he took home from his teachers. Only, he could silence them all with his exam results.

Cristina looked at her son accusingly. ‘A daydreamer, Lucas? What are you daydreaming about?’

The boy’s simmering resentment bubbled to the surface. ‘About getting away from school,’ he shouted, his lower lip trembling. ‘Other kids have parents who help them. My dad wouldn’t know a prime number from a right-angled triangle. And my mum’s never here!’

Mackenzie cleared his throat and said, ‘A prime number is a whole number greater than one, whose only factors are one and itself.’ And was startled by disbelieving eyes that turned in his direction. Antonio had reappeared at the kitchen door. But the silence occasioned by his outburst lasted only a moment. Lucas was on a roll.

‘And now you’re sending strange foreigners to pick me up from school.’

Cristina frowned. ‘What are you talking about? What strange foreigners?’ She glanced at Mackenzie. ‘You?’

Mackenzie shook his head, perplexed.

‘No,’ Lucas said, surly now. ‘At lunchtime. When I was walking back from Burger King.’

‘Burger King?’ Antonio was astonished. ‘What the hell were you doing at Burger King?’

‘Everyone else gets burgers for lunch. I get some crappy sandwiches that Mum makes.’

But Cristina was not going to be deflected. ‘What happened when you were walking back from Burger King?’ Her voice was tight with tension.

Lucas shrugged, as if it was nothing. ‘This guy in a big black car pulls up beside me and says he’s a friend of yours. He says he’s going to be picking me up from school someday soon and that I shouldn’t be afraid of him.’

‘Oh, my God!’ Cristina’s open palm was pressed to her chest. Then she grabbed the boy, almost pulling him from his chair. ‘Lucas, don’t you ever talk to that man again. Or anyone! I will never send anyone you don’t know to pick you up from school, do you understand me? Never!’ She held him by the shoulders, shaking him as she spoke.

Antonio crossed the room and pulled her away. ‘Stop it, you’re frightening him, Cris.’

Cristina’s voice rose in pitch. ‘He needs to be frightened, Toni.’

Mackenzie kept his focus on Lucas. ‘How did you know he was a foreigner?’

‘He spoke to me in English.’

‘And did he give you his name?’

Lucas nodded.

‘What was it?’ Cristina demanded. ‘What did he say his name was?’

Lucas shook his head, tears welling in his eyes as he tried to remember. ‘It was Señor Clee... Clo, or Clan... something.’

‘Cleland?’ Mackenzie said.

‘Yes, that was it.’ Lucas seemed relieved to have remembered it finally.

A cry of fear tore itself involuntarily from Cristina’s throat, and she drew Lucas into her arms, wrapping them around him and holding him so tightly he could barely breathe.

The house phone rang shrilly, piercing its way through the charged atmosphere of the tiny apartment. Antonio crossed the room in two strides and picked it up. ‘Yes?’ he barked, then after a moment put his hand over the receiver and thrust it towards Cristina. ‘It’s Miguel.’

Very reluctantly she released her son and took the phone. ‘Yes, Jefe ?’ She listened intently, then closed her eyes in something like despair. ‘Yes, Jefe .’ A pause. ‘We’ll call for back-up if I think it’s necessary.’ She hung up and looked at Mackenzie. ‘Residents in an urbanization in the hills above Casares Beach have reported a blond-haired foreigner coming and going at night from an unfinished complex across the street. The Jefe wants us to take a look. He doubts if it’s Cleland, but...’ She shrugged.

‘If it is?’

‘We’ll call in the cavalry.’

Antonio said, ‘And we’ll eat when?’

‘When we get back. You can keep the ribs warm, can’t you?’

He shook his head. ‘Lucas and I will eat now. You can reheat whatever’s left.’

Cristina said, ‘Just don’t let that boy out of your sight, Toni. Not for one minute. I’ll be back just as soon as I can.’

Antonio’s anger finally burst through the veneer of constraint he had fashioned to save Mackenzie’s embarrassment. Clearly he didn’t care any more. ‘The boy’s right, Cris, you are never here, are you? And if it wasn’t for you and your fucking job there wouldn’t be any need to watch him like a hawk. The kid wouldn’t be in any danger.’

An element of guilt spurred the anger in her retort. ‘And we’re supposed to live on what you earn, is that what you’re saying?’ But she wasn’t waiting for an answer. ‘If it wasn’t for my fucking job we couldn’t afford to send him to a half-decent school. We couldn’t afford to run a car.’ She saved the best for last. ‘And we couldn’t afford your membership of that fucking golf club. Think about that the next time you’re teeing off.’

Husband and wife stood glaring at each other. Lucas gathered his books and ran in tears to his bedroom. Mackenzie stood awkwardly, wondering how to break the tension.

‘What’s your handicap?’ he said. And both heads turned towards him.

It was almost entirely dark by the time they reached the abandoned development on the hill. Mackenzie had followed Cristina in silence across the square to retrieve her SIG Pro from its lock-safe drawer in the downstairs gun room at the police station. They picked up the Nissan, and she had driven like a woman demented. Down to the coast and then east on the A7 to where a road branched off at a brightly lit family restaurant, before cutting its way up into the foothills of the Sierra Bermeja.

Away to the west, beyond the shadows of jagged peaks that cut themselves darkly against the stars, the sky glowed faintly red in strips between layers of cloud.

High up beyond the remains of what had once been some developer’s dream sat a walled and gated complex of villas and apartments assembled around tropical gardens and two swimming pools. In the darkness it shimmered in patches of hard light cast by lamps lining streets and walkways. Warmer light glowed in the windows of holiday apartments and permanent residences. It stood in sharp contrast to the abandoned and semi-derelict construction built into the hillside below.

Cristina parked in the street opposite, and they climbed out of their SUV into the thickly fragrant night air. A warm wind blew gently across the hill, carrying the invasive chirrup of cicadas and the throaty croak of tree frogs. A plastic sign fixed to a wire fence advertised high-speed internet. Don’t pay the months you don’t use. 20MB download speed, wifi router + setup from 50€ . Beyond it rows of apartments, some completed, others abandoned, followed the undulating contours of the Andalusian countryside. Red, yellow and white Lego-like cankers on a once agricultural landscape.

Mackenzie sniffed the night air and realized that something more incongruous was also borne on the breeze. Woodsmoke. Who, he wondered, lights fires on a warm night like this?

Behind a concrete retaining wall on the far side of the road, the part of the development exposed to view appeared almost complete. Tiled roofs, white-painted columns and arches. But like a smile without teeth there were no windows, and nature had reclaimed what must once have been intended as gardens. Tall grasses, bamboo, small trees and overgrown shrubs threatened to engulf the building. Its retaining wall was stained by the weather and smothered in graffiti, sidewalks crumbling where weeds had broken through the paving tiles.