Flynn took the decision to avoid the Irish bar when he turned out late that afternoon, suspecting that an encounter with Janey might lead to complications he could well do to avoid. After showering and dressing in the tiny terraced villa he rented, he wandered back down to the harbour and trotted down the steps into one of the bars in the complex at the back of the beach itself, wearing his beloved Keith Richards T-shirt and three-quarter length pants. It was still early and quiet, but Flynn knew it was unlikely to get any busier. Many bars were struggling to survive in the economic downturn as tourists kept their own heads down and shied away from foreign holidays. This was one of Flynn’s regular haunts and had managed to keep going by providing bargain booze and inexpensive but good food. The manager smiled at Flynn’s arrival and immediately filled a half-litre glass with Estrella Damm, placing it in front of Flynn, together with a small plate of olives, as he nestled up to the bar. Flynn nodded and sipped the ice-cold beer.
‘You eating, Senor?’
Flynn had intended cooking the red snapper caught earlier by Hugo, but couldn’t be bothered. It was in the fridge, would keep until the day after.
‘I think so, Manny.’
A menu appeared in front of him as if by magic. Flynn chose paella for one, which he knew would take about twenty minutes to prepare. He slid off the bar stool and said, ‘I’ll eat outside.’ He took his beer and olives and walked to one of the tables on the decking erected over the sand.
It was still warm, twenty-eight degrees, and Flynn settled into one of the big, comfy chairs and soaked in the heat. He loved it. He had been out on the island for almost five years now and the pace of life, the people and the lifestyle had really taken a grip of him.
He took out his phone and tried, not for the first time, to return the call from Cathy James.
He waited patiently for the connection, but when it went through, the answering service cut in. His mouth warped with frustration. He placed the phone on the table, pulled his baseball cap down over his eyes and reached for the beer, wondering what the hell she could want.
She had sounded troubled and unhappy. Totally different to the last time Flynn had seen her.
That had been in October last year when she and her new husband, Tom James, had come out to the island for their honeymoon. Flynn had been unable to get to the UK for the wedding, so he had tried to make amends by finding a villa for them — for free — and picking them up from the airport. He had also arranged a fishing trip and a jeep safari, both at no cost, and they seemed to have had a great time.
Flynn and Cathy went way back. He had met her when he joined Lancashire Constabulary after leaving the Marines over twenty years ago. They had been new recruits at the same intake, he being a bit older than her at twenty-three, she nineteen, shiny, straight out of the box, a bit naive, but extremely beautiful.
At the time she had been single and he’d been married. This hadn’t stopped them from becoming lovers for a very brief time, though ultimately they became just very good friends. As their careers moved off in separate directions, they kept in contact but hardly saw anything of each other in the years that followed. Flynn knew she got married and then divorced, while he had remained spliced until both his job and relationship went south and he ended up quitting the cops and taking up residence in Gran Canaria.
It was during the period he was under investigation that he re-established contact with Cathy. By then she was seriously into a relationship with a detective from Lancaster, who she married a few years later — hence the provision of a honeymoon by Flynn.
Flynn raised his eyes and looked across the beach, watching holidaymakers trudge through the gentle surf at the water’s edge.
He wondered if something had gone wrong with the marriage, Cathy’s second. Was that why she was calling him, wanting to talk? He hoped it was something much less complicated, but couldn’t guess what. He wasn’t a good counsellor, but a man of action who wasn’t anywhere near in touch with his feminine, touchy-feely listening side.
Cathy and Tom had seemed a perfect couple, but wasn’t that what honeymoon couples usually appeared to be? Flynn remembered discreetly watching her on the day he took them out fishing. She had been all goo-goo eyes for Tom, the new hubby. Couldn’t stop watching him, hanging on his every word. Flynn had actually felt some mixed emotions at that point.
First and foremost he was happy for Cathy. She had been through a bad time, had had a terrible first marriage, really been through the mangle. Then she’d found Tom, who on the face of it came across as a caring, generous guy, and she was head over heels in love with him. On the flip side, Flynn had felt a pang of envy. Not many months before he thought he had been on the verge of finding the love of his life, but had lost her tragically. The third side of the coin, if there was such a thing, was that Flynn also thought about what could have been with him and Cathy, had the timing been right. They had probably been in love, he thought, way back when — whatever love meant, he thought cynically. Maybe things would have been very different if both had been free to pursue their relationship beyond a fling at a police training centre. Instead, they had accepted that their only future was as mates.
Cathy — maybe, it seemed — had also harboured the same wistful idea. She had caught Flynn looking at her and sidled up to him, out of sight and earshot of Tom. She was down to a skimpy bikini and her body was still slim, yet plump in all the right places — just as Flynn remembered it all those years before. She gave him a loving hug and whispered into his ear, ‘Oh, what could have been.’
‘I reckon you’ve got a good man,’ Flynn said, trying to hide the rush of blood her proximity had given him.
‘Yeah, I have. He’s a good man, you’re right.’ She glanced over at Tom who was harnessed in the fighting chair, being attended to by Jose. Then her face turned to Flynn. ‘Thanks for this,’ she said.
‘It’s what friends are for.’
‘I just wish you were as happy.’
Flynn chortled. ‘One day I will be.’
‘Good. I hope so, Flynnie.’ She touched his face gently with her fingertips. ‘Always be there for you, y’know, y’ big lug.’
‘And me for you,’ he promised.
But then that little moment of tenderness was shattered by Jose’s booming Spanish-accented voice. ‘Big one, boss!’
Flynn looked up. Two hundred metres off the stern of the boat was almost certainly the biggest, and the last, blue marlin of the season, rolling magnificently through the waves. Flynn jumped into action and with his skill as the best skipper in the Canaries — something he rarely let Jose forget — took the bait to the fish and brought in a seven hundred pounder that had the newly married Tom fighting a battle that lasted almost two hours.
Halfway though the contest, Flynn had said to Cathy, ‘I hope you weren’t planning any conjugals tonight. After this I don’t think he’ll be able to lift a pint, let alone… you know.’
‘In that case he’ll have to lie there and take it — just like you used to do.’ Cathy laughed lustily and screamed with glee as the magnificent fish leapt a dozen feet out of the blue sea in an effort to shake loose the steel hook. Its muscular body writhed and twisted before it fell back into the water and dived deep into the ocean.
Flynn blinked himself back to the present day as his seafood paella arrived, decorated with pink langoustines, still in the shell. Flynn took one, burning his fingers, cracked open the hinged body to access the lovely white flesh within. With the assistance of another beer, he wolfed down the dish, then sat back to let it settle.
It was slightly cooler now, a breeze getting up, but still plenty warm to sit out, something rare in the UK, he thought, even in summer.
His mobile rang.