As I did, it suddenly occurred to me that the old Primavera wouldn’t be hiding out waiting for her luck to take a turn for the better; the old Primavera would be doing all she could to make that happen. Fond as I was of Gerard. . oh hell, much as I loved him. . I’d allowed him to take me so far under his wing that I hadn’t bothered to look out. First chance I had, I promised myself, that was going to change.
Thirty-eight
That was for later, though; I didn’t want to ask Santi if I could use his tricky wee phone, and I didn’t want to try to access the internet on mine, because it was my point of contact with home, and I didn’t want to risk running out of credit. So I kicked off my shoes, wiggled my toes in the sunshine, and sat for a couple of hours, trying to be patient.
When Santi reappeared, he had changed into a white shirt and what appeared to be the trousers of the suit I had seen in the wardrobe. ‘I’ve booked us a table for dinner,’ he said.
Immediately, I thought of my wardrobe, the ill-considered selection of garments that I had rammed into my haversack. ‘Where?’ I asked, cautiously. ‘Nowhere too posh, I hope.’
‘I believe it calls itself avant garde. That embraces all things.’
I had a skirt, hanging in the bedroom, a shirt that I still hadn’t worn, and a belt, but. . ‘Please tell me you have an iron,’ I ventured.
‘Of course,’ he laughed. ‘I’m what they call a new man.’
I found it, and an ironing board, in a cupboard off the kitchen. An hour and a half later, after a shower, and a little pampering with the scraps of make-up I had brought with me, I was ready. I had found some shampoo in the bathroom cabinet, and a hair dryer. Maybe they belonged to the co-pilot too: I didn’t care; the shampoo was L’Oreal Professional (I’m worth it) and the dryer worked. While I was putting the finishing touches to my still unfamiliar chestnut hair, I took a good look at my roots. They weren’t too bad, but another treatment was going to be needed in the next couple of days.
Our bono passes entitled us to a few rides on public buses, as well as to the tourist trip. Santi said that we’d be quicker taking one of those into town than waiting for a taxi in the Albacin, and so we did just that. It took quite a while, but eventually we got off at a big junction, outside a very posh ice-cream shop. We walked down a busy shopping thoroughfare called Calle Recogidas, the street of the harvests, but not very far before Santi announced, ‘We’re here.’
Our destination turned out to be a five-star hotel called Palacio de los Patos, that’s Ducks’ Palace to you, although the first things I saw as we approached the entrance were two white marble swans, in something that looked like a long basin. I guessed that whoever had done the décor had decided that patos were too downmarket for five stars and had gone for cisnes instead. We passed them by, Santi leading the way, turned a corner and trotted down a few steps to arrive at a restaurant called Senzone. We were fairly early by Spanish standards, but there were a few diners already at their tables; I glanced at the women and felt decidedly underdressed.
The maître d’ was actually a maîtress, a very efficient lady who greeted Santi as ‘Captain Hernanz’ and showed us to a table beside a small green pool with twin fountains. She gave us each menus and handed Santi the wine list, but he asked her for a bottle of Segura Viudas Lamit Brut Rosado. All I knew about that was that it was going to be cava, and pink, but when it arrived and I tasted it, I was seriously impressed. I made a mental note to check whether Ben Simmers stocked it, and if not, to ask him to find me a case.
‘So you’re a captain,’ I said, as we studied the menu.
‘That’s my title.’
‘How long have you been flying commercially?’
‘For ten years now. I qualified as a military pilot when I was twenty-one. I flew Hornet fighters, although only ever in training exercises, I’m happy to say. When I was twenty-six, they made me what you would call a squadron leader, but I was transferred to transport planes, mostly great turbo-prop brutes like the Hercules and C 295, but also the Boeing 707; we had three of those in my time. They were used for transport and aerial refuelling.’
‘That must have been exciting.’
‘Nah, it was boring; fighters are where you want to be. I tried to get back there, but there were no openings at my rank, so after three years, I resigned my commission, and found a job as a commercial pilot. Fact is, I was lucky; some airlines have a certain resistance to military pilots. . they see them as risk-takers. . but it was my experience of flying those Boeing 707s that got me in. I was a co-pilot for a couple of years, then I made the jump into the top seat.’
‘What do you fly?’
‘The Airbus 340, on long-haul routes; my last trip was to Los Angeles.’
‘My sister lives there.’
‘I know; I’ll be flying her, and her family in September, LAX to Barajas; first class, naturally. When they do our schedule, sometimes they give us a heads up on VIPs booked on our flights.’
I shuddered. ‘They’re coming to visit Tom and me. I hope I’ll be around to entertain them.’
‘Is there a chance that you won’t?’ He paused. ‘I’m not prying; I don’t want to know any more than you’ve told me already. Indeed, let’s forget that you even told me that much. I can’t know any details for my own security. You’re a friend of my brother the priest, that’s all. He’s insistent that I should always be able to deny knowledge of your situation.’
‘Understood. But to answer your question, there’s no chance. I’m going to sort this thing out, and get back home as soon as I can.’
A waiter arrived at that moment, putting an end to the discussion. We made our choices from the nouvelle menu, and Santi chose a bottle of Pesquera Reserva from the list, to go with the steak that we had chosen as our main course.
As we ate, he told me of his work, and of the places he’d seen. Some of them I’ve visited myself, and others are still on my ‘One day’ list, including India, but it’ll be a while before I can get round to that. He asked me about my parents; he seemed fascinated by the sort of people who could have produced Dawn and me. I told him that Mum was no longer with us, and hadn’t been for five years, but that Dad was soldiering on, filling his days by carving ever more elaborate chess sets, selling the originals for a small fortune and, more recently, giving reproduction rights to specific models to one of Britain’s biggest retail chains. ‘If anyone else called him eccentric,’ I said, ‘I’d be on them like a rockfall. . but the truth is, he is. How about your father?’ I asked him, just a little hesitantly. ‘You told me Gerard inherited the house when your mother died. Does that mean that he’s dead too?’
‘No, it doesn’t, for the house was always my mother’s, so he had no claim on it.’ He frowned. ‘He is, though, at least I believe he is. About twelve years ago, when I was still in the military, I decided that it would be best if I knew where he was, if only to make sure that he could never come back to give my mother a hard time. So I asked Jorge Lavorante to try to trace him. It wasn’t difficult; he’d got into trouble in Cadiz, got into a brawl and wound up in court. Jorge checked and found that he was still there.’
‘So you know he died there?’
‘No, not for sure. As I said, I believe,’ he leaned on the word, ‘he died there, that’s all.’
‘Why?’
‘Irena wouldn’t make a complaint against him, yet in the end he was responsible for her death, and for ruining my brother’s life. That sat badly with me, so. .’ He frowned into his wine glass, then turned to look me in the eye. ‘There was nothing the police could do about him, so I took other measures. Irena’s uncle, the one she lived with when she came from Cartagena to be with Gerard. . let’s just say he was a lot less legal than he should have been. I went to see him and I gave him the old man’s address. “Thank you very much,” he said. “I appreciate that.” Although I never made any further inquiries, I’m not in any doubt about the outcome.’