The clubhouse sat on the brow of the hill, set among a profusion of palm trees and semi-tropical flowering shrubs. It was a low, two-storey building with a shallow pitched yellow-tiled roof. There was a great deal of smoked glass and chrome and polished woodwork, and men and women in polo shirts and colourful shorts and slacks stood about in the shade of the veranda, nursing pint glasses and watching entrants in the annual competition teeing off on the first hole. A huge leader board had been erected for the occasion, and adjudicators sat in the shade of an open-sided canvas tent updating it with the latest scores coming in from the course.
Empty apartment blocks overlooked manicured greens peppered with baseball-capped competitors, the undulating course itself punctuated by shimmering bunkers and dusty mature olive trees.
There was not a breath of wind as Mackenzie found a place in the crowded car park and stepped out into the blazing heat of the early afternoon. The Pro Shop in the basement of the clubhouse was crowded, and half a dozen covered golf buggies stood in parking slots out front.
As Mackenzie headed for the steps he spotted the Jefe’s black Audi Q5 glinting in the sunlight. So he hadn’t managed to get away as quickly as he’d hoped.
Air conditioning brought blessed relief from the heat as he stepped inside. Tables were set with crisp linen cloths for a lunch that would not be served for some hours yet, although Mackenzie could smell something good cooking in the kitchen and his stomach issued an audible complaint. Staff were setting out a long buffet with cold meats and salads. He was tempted to help himself surreptitiously as he passed, but controlled the urge. He spent the next half-hour talking to barmen and serving staff, and the club secretary who told him that Templeton had been a generous contributor to club fund-raisers.
He showed everyone photographs of Vasquéz and Cleland. Predictably, no one recognized Vasquéz. He would have stood out here like a tramp at a cocktail party. Everyone remembered Templeton. And no one had a bad word to say about him. The waitress who brought Mackenzie his coffee said, ‘He’s a lovely man, Señor Templeton.’ She had the look in her eyes of someone smitten. ‘Always buying drinks for his friends. And the staff. A good tipper, too.’ A group of golfers that he played with regularly was out on the course somewhere, she told him, participants in today’s match play. Mackenzie debated whether or not to hang about until they came back in, but it could have been a long wait, and this all felt like a waste of time anyway. He decided to leave.
By the time he got back to the car park the Jefe’s Audi was gone. A loud cheer drifted across the cars from the eighteenth green as someone sank a hole in one.
Mackenzie was about to get into his car when he saw Antonio and Paco emerging together from the side entrance to the locker rooms. Antonio, a set of clubs over one shoulder, was walking at pace and Paco was having trouble keeping up with him on his crutches. It was clear to Mackenzie, even from a distance, that the two men were arguing. He stood for a moment watching as Antonio turned suddenly, confrontational, and Mackenzie could hear his raised voice above the excited hubbub from the course. He was curious, and decided to add himself to the mix.
With as casual an air as he could muster, he strolled towards them, hands in pockets. ‘Well, hello,’ he said, affecting what he hoped was a genuine smile of surprise. ‘Didn’t expect to see either of you two here.’
Both men started almost guiltily and turned towards him. Paco recovered himself more quickly, although to Mackenzie’s eye his smile never got beyond his lips. ‘Señor,’ he said. ‘Good to see you again.’ He waved a crutch vaguely towards the course. ‘In this better circumstance.’
Mackenzie nodded towards the walking aids. ‘You’ll not be playing much golf with those.’
Paco inclined his head in wistful acknowledgement. ‘I’m afraid I won’t. But I still enjoy watching. Not much else to occupy me at the moment.’ He laughed. ‘I can just about afford the hire of a golf buggy.’
Mackenzie’s eyes drifted towards Antonio, and the golf bag slung over his shoulder. Antonio forced a smile that, like Paco’s, didn’t quite reach his eyes. ‘I usually play on my day off, Señor Mackenzie. But I forgot it was the San Isidro competition today.’ His smile turned rueful. ‘A waste of a journey.’
‘You won’t stay to watch?’
‘I prefer to play.’
Paco looked at Mackenzie. ‘You’re not here to play, though.’
Mackenzie’s laugh was genuine now. ‘No. That would not be a pretty sight.’ But he decided not to elucidate on the real reason for his being there. ‘Maybe see you later.’
And he turned to head off back towards his car.
When he slipped into the driver’s seat he unplugged his phone and switched it back on. He could see beyond the reflections on his windscreen that the two men had resumed their argument. But he was immediately distracted by an alert from the phone. It was a text from Cristina. Where have you been? Meet me ASAP in the car park of Zhivago’s. It’s a restaurant in Marbella. Find it on Google maps.
When he looked up again Paco had vanished, and Antonio was striding angrily towards his car, where he raised the boot and threw in his clubs before slamming it shut. Mackenzie watched as he drove off with a squealing of tyres, and wondered exactly what it was that had passed between the brothers-in-law.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Zhivago’s was located in a leafy north-west corner of Marbella known as Little Russia. Wealthy Russian expats hung out here in exclusive clubs and bars among a proliferation of palm trees. They built themselves beautiful bodies in luxury gymnasia, treated their wives to prohibitively expensive sessions in stylish beauty parlours, ate in any one of a number of restaurants offering international haute-cuisine. There was even a school of Russian ballet where daughters could be deposited while parents sipped French wines in upmarket Russian cocktail bars. All within a few hundred metres of some of the most expensive marina real estate in Europe. There they could park their luxury yachts for the purchase of a mere 400,000-euro lease, and dine easy in the knowledge that there would be no parking ticket waiting for them on their return. It was rumoured that Putin himself owned a hacienda in the hills less than five kilometres away.
Mackenzie squinted towards his iPhone resting in the passenger seat, trying to decipher Google maps and listening to computerized instructions from an anodyne female voice. He turned off the motorway and followed an access road down to a roundabout before turning on to a winding access road that took him into the heart of suburban Marbella.
You have reached your destination, his phone told him, and he saw the single-storey white-painted building angled around lush gardens behind a hedge designed for ultimate privacy. Advertising hoardings sat on the shallow pitch of the Roman-tiled roof advertising a galería of wines and a bodega for fine food. The restaurant’s name, Zhivago’s, was inscribed in discreet letters below an imperious image of Bacchus gazing skywards.
The food and wine complex sat directly across the road from a private Russian club called Azure Beach. The club stood at the entrance of what appeared to be a gated labyrinth of suburban streets filled with luxury apartments and elegant villas that shimmered mirage-like in the heat of the afternoon sun. Somewhere beyond the palms and willows and bougainvillea that draped themselves over fences and walls, the same streets sloped gently away towards the port below, where the Mediterranean lay coruscating across the bay.