Питер Мэй - A Silent Death

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ the Jefe said. ‘You should be resting up with that leg.’

Paco’s face was putty-coloured with pain. He said, ‘Cristina needs support. Where is she?’

The Jefe tipped his head in the direction of the police station on the far side of the square. ‘Giving a statement.’

‘Jesus Christ, Jefe ! It’s a bit fucking soon for that. The woman’s just lost her husband.’

‘And you were having a bit of a row with him just a few hours ago from what I hear.’ The Jefe cocked an eyebrow to ask the unspoken question. But Paco just glowered at him, before turning his glare on Mackenzie. When he didn’t respond the Jefe was forced to frame the question in words. ‘What were you fighting about, Paco?’

‘It wasn’t a fight!’ Paco was defensive. ‘It was a disagreement.’

‘About what?’ Mackenzie said.

Paco released a long sigh of resignation. But he addressed his response to the chief. ‘Toni and Cris have been going through a bad patch, Jefe . Apparently they had a big row last night. She threatened to leave him, and take Lucas with her. Toni told me there was no way he would allow that to happen. If they split up he was going to contest custody. He said any court would see that he could offer a more stable home environment. The hours she works, her shifts, the dangers of the job. No way she could be a single mother and a cop.’

The Jefe scratched his chin. ‘So what was the disagreement?’

Paco shrugged. ‘What do you think? I told him not to expect any support from me. I’m married to Cris’s sister, for God’s sake. Toni and me might be golfing buddies, but Chris is family.’ He paused then, as if suddenly remembering only now that Antonio was dead. He pulled a face and shook his head. ‘Jesus... I can’t believe someone did this to him.’ He looked at the chief. ‘That bastard Cleland?’

The Jefe just shrugged.

‘ Jefe !’ A young forensics officer, running with sweat beneath protective plastic, appeared in the doorway to the apartments. Unusually for a Spaniard, he had ginger hair, and his face was puce. ‘Something you need to hear, chief.’

He vanished back inside, and Mackenzie and the Jefe climbed the steps to follow him. A couple of Guardia Civil stood sentry on the landing at the entrance to the apartment on the first floor. The three men squeezed past and into the apartment. Mackenzie heard Paco grunting and panting in their wake as he fought his way up the stairs.

A faint reminder of last night’s barbecued ribs still clung to curtains and soft furniture. The apartment itself seemed marginally tidier since the forensics officers had been through it. The officer who had called them in picked his way across the living room to lift the phone from its base. He held it between the thumb and forefinger of his latexed left hand and carefully depressed several numbers on the keypad with a pen held in his other. ‘Messages,’ he said. ‘This one timed at 14.47 today.’ He pressed another key to put it on speaker.

They waited through a series of beeps before a voice that was unmistakably Cristina’s said cryptically, Toni, meet me in the car park at Eroski. I’m there now. We’ve got to talk. The quality of the recording was bad, as if she had called from a mobile with a poor signal.

Mackenzie frowned and glanced at his watch. ‘Cristina was with me in Marbella when that call was made. It’s not her.’

The Jefe looked doubtful. ‘It’s her voice.’

‘I agree it sounds like her.’

Paco said, ‘But if she was with you...’

‘She was.’

The Jefe sighed. ‘Then what the hell was Toni doing in the underground car park at the Eroski Centre?’ He hesitated. ‘And Jesus Christ, it sure as hell sounds like Cristina.’

Paco said, ‘ Jefe I don’t care if she’s finished making her statement or not, I’m going across the road to get her out of there and take her back to our place. Nuri’s already gone to pick up Lucas from school. Cristina’s going to have to tell the boy before he hears it elsewhere. And she’s going to need our support.’

The Jefe nodded gloomily.

‘And something else.’

A sigh of exasperation escaped his lips. ‘What now?’

‘Someone’s going to have to go into Estepona and tell Ana. I’d do it, but I can’t drive.’

The Jefe raised both palms to rub his eyes. Fatigue and frustration wearing him down. Mackenzie said, ‘I’ll do it. I don’t know what else I’m going to do. I met her yesterday. And maybe it would be better coming from someone who isn’t family.’

The Jefe looked at him gratefully. ‘Would you?’ Mackenzie nodded and the chief put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Good man,’ he said.

Estepona resounded to the sounds of the feria . Although shadows were starting to lengthen, the heat of the day still lingered, and the air was filled with music and voices and the clip-clop of hooves on cobbled streets. The smell of barbecued pork, and grilled fish and hot burning sugar floated on the evening breeze.

Mackenzie found space in the underground parking beneath the promenade. He skipped through the traffic on the Avenida España and shoved his way through the crowds thronging the narrow streets of the old town. Across Calle Real and Calle Caridad into the Calle San Miguel, where red and white and purple geraniums poured from pots that hung from balconies on whitewashed houses.

People clogged the street. Locals and tourists. All slow-flowing towards the Calle Zaragoza where the main procession of floats and carriages was scheduled to pass. Mackenzie found himself carried along on the current. Up ahead he saw the Plaza de Juan Bazán, a calm eddy in the circulation of people, fountains glittering in the last of the sunshine that slanted across the roof of Ana’s house. Was it really only yesterday that he and Cristina had visited her? So much had changed in that short time. So many lives ruined.

A familiar face in the crowd caught his eye, and it took him a moment to realize that it was Ana herself, tiny and swamped by the people around her. Like a piece of flotsam carried on turbulent water she vanished, appeared, then vanished again in all too fleeting glimpses. Swept away from him towards the Calle Portada. He called her name at the top of his voice, before remembering with embarrassment that she could not hear him.

And then his heart stopped. Another face caught in the fading sunlight. Then gone. At first he couldn’t be sure, then there it was again. Cleland! And he was with Ana. He bellowed her name again, this time for Cleland’s benefit. It turned the man’s head sharply around, and for the most transient of moments their eyes met. Fifty metres apart. But the electricity between them passed at the speed of light. And then he was gone again. Ana, too.

Mackenzie started ploughing his way through the bodies ahead of him to a chorus of protests and cursing.

Ana is hopelessly confused. She has lost control of everything. Her whole physical being, it seems, swept along on a sea of turbulent noisome humanity. All she can feel with any certainty is the iron grip of Cleland’s fingers around her arm. Pulling, dragging her through the tempest. She feels elbows in her ribs, a shoulder in her back. Someone’s foul breath in her face. She blenches, then panics, realizing suddenly that she has lost hold of Sandro’s harness. Gone is his warmth against her legs, his gentle navigation through troubled waters. She calls out his name, but feels only a tightening of Cleland’s grip.

They are almost running now. She is breathless and fighting to keep her feet. The ground is sloping beneath them. Fewer people here, she thinks, but Cleland is relentless in forcing them on. Down, down. Another wave of bodies parting to let them past. Something is terribly wrong. She has no idea what, but she can feel Cleland’s anxiety.