‘You’re wasting your time,’ I told him. ‘I knelt beside it but I was careful not to touch it.’
‘You don’t understand me.’
‘No, I don’t.’ The doctor had been right about my confusion too.
‘We need to check them for blood splashes,’ he repeated patiently.
‘For Christ’s sake!’ I shouted, as finally I grasped what he was saying, lapsing into English and drawing a frown. ‘Listen to me,’ I continued, in Spanish once more. ‘My cousin and my aunt have just been murdered, almost before my eyes, and their bodies taken God knows where. I’ve just been shot with the sort of weapon they use to subdue bears, and you’re implying that I might have had something to do with their deaths. Someone in this room is delusional, as the doctor said, and it’s you.’
‘Madam,’ he said stiffly, ‘I am implying nothing. But I must eliminate. That’s why I need to test your clothing; to answer questions that I will be asked myself. Now, are you calm? Would you like me to ask the doctor to give you a mild sedative?’
I was on the point of laughing in his face, but I stopped myself. Instead I paused for breath, a deep breath. ‘I am calm, Intendant,’ I told him, once I was sure that was so. ‘I appreciate that you have to interview me, and I would rather not be under the influence of drugs when that happens.’ I asked him to leave me with Gerard until his colleague returned, and he did.
‘There’s something I haven’t done,’ the priest murmured, once he had gone, ‘for which my bishop would reprove me.’ He took my hand and began to pray, for the souls of Frank and Adrienne, that their bodies would be found so that they could be properly committed, and for me, that I would be able to put behind me all the things that had happened to me over the previous three days.
‘I think that, maybe, I should join your team,’ I said, when he was finished.
He smiled. ‘You’re a member already, whether you know it or not.’
The replacement clothing that Garcia brought was adequate, even if the T-shirt was a little tight and the shorts were knee-length. I walked the short distance to the Mossos station with the two officers and Gerard, suspecting that I looked like a Girl Guide leader, but grateful that I felt cool for the first time since. . since the first hour of that day, in Shirley’s pool.
I thought of what I’d promised Frank. Tonight. No more tonights for him; no more days. The enormity of what had happened was beginning to sink in. I knew that I had to keep it at bay, to deal sensibly with the police.
As we turned the corner, I was distracted by the sight of my Jeep in the station’s secure park. I had forgotten about it, completely; the key left in the lock, too. I guessed that Alex had driven it back, and felt a surge of gratitude.
My interrogation lasted for three hours, and Father Gerard stayed with me for all that time. Gomez and Garcia were solemn but polite, never threatening as I related my story, from start to finish, although I could sense the inspector’s scepticism on more than one occasion. They took me through it for a second time, asking questions this time, and for a third. By that time I had been told that my clothes had come up negative, and so the heat was off, to an extent. Still, I felt that I was reaching the end of my physical and emotional resources when the intendant called in a clerk and dictated a statement on my behalf, summarising everything I’d told them. It was typed and put in front of me for checking; it was a formal denunciation accusing Sebastian Loman and Willie Venable of the murders of my aunt, Adrienne McGowan, and her son, Frances Ulverscroft McGowan. I noticed that it contained no mention of the Hotel Casino d’Amuseo fraud, confining itself to the events surrounding the killings, but I accepted that as reasonable, and signed it.
It was almost ten, and darkness had fallen when Gomez showed me to the waiting Jeep. ‘I’m sure you’re safe now,’ he said, smiling for the first time since we’d met, ‘but I’ll put a guard on your house, front and back, to be sure.’
‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ I replied. ‘My alarm will be security enough.’
‘As you wish. You’ll be kept informed of the progress of the investigation.’
Father Gerard drove me back to St Martí, and took the car right into the garage. The system was still active, and that was a good sign. Nevertheless my friend insisted on going through every room in the house to ensure that no intruders were lurking, anywhere. Then he made me change the entry code, his back to me as I did it, and extracted a promise that next day I would have the locks changed. After all that, the least I could do was feed him, once I’d changed out of my police-issue clothes and into something comfortingly familiar.
The humidity was pretty high so we chose the air conditioning of Esculapi rather than take a table outside in the square. Gerard is a typical Catalan carnivore, and had a steak, but I couldn’t manage more than a pizza, and even then, I cut off the crust. However, I could and did manage the best part of a bottle of Torres Coronas.
When we were finished he saw me home yet again. . I had a moment of panic when I thought I’d forgotten my new code. . then went off into the night. It was only later that I discovered he’d left his trail bike up on the track to Santa Caterina, and had to walk to the parochial residence in L’Escala.
That was it. Finally I was on my own, at the end of the day I had thought, for a time, wouldn’t have one. I sat on my bedroom terrace, safe within the cocoon of my alarm, half sloshed but cuddling a bottle of Coronita, and tried not to think of what had happened. Instead, I tried to think of the next morning and the things I had to do: check with Alex for overnight developments, call on Shirley to tell her what had happened, then fuel up the Jeep and drive to Monaco, to be with the only person in the world I wanted to see, no, needed to see, my lovely boy Tom who’d never get to know that he might have lost his reckless, stupid mother.
I really did try not to think of what had gone down, but it was impossible. My hand crept under my shirt, of its own volition, found the two puncture marks on my belly, and a second later, I had given in to my memories of Auntie Ade, of her crazy little half-Japanese son, and to more salty, unstoppable tears.
Thirty-three
Honestly, I’m not the hysterical type: I can recall every occasion when I’ve shed tears as an adult. I can recall all of my good times and all of my sad times. The best? Giving birth to Tom. The saddest? Being alone when Tom was born, without family in the delivery room, friends or the man who’d made him.
Not the killings of Frank and Ade? No, I’ve never thought of them in terms of sadness, but of shock, the kind for which nothing can prepare a person.
As I had begun to say, I don’t cry a lot, but when I let myself go, it usually does me good, and so it was when I was awakened next morning by the rising sun, as I sat slumped in my terrace chair, my hair and clothes damp with the dew, my mouth like the slops tray of a beer tap. I sat for a while longer as the awful memories returned, one by one, dimming the bright glory of the new day. I contemplated going inside, closing the shutters and chasing more sleep, but I knew that would be a pointless exercise. Instead, I put on trainers and a swimsuit, let myself out through the garage, clipped on my bum-bag, with my keys and a bottle of water stuffed inside, and started to run.
I headed along the walkway that leads to L’Escala, past the ruins, past the hotel and the beach bar outside, until I reached the road. I stopped at the Olympic statue. I had run harder than usual, and my breathing was heavy, so I waited until it had eased, then turned and jogged back the way I had come.
When I reached the beach bar once again, the guy who runs it was opening up for early breakfast customers. I know him, so I asked him to look after my bag and shoes, then plunged into the sea. I swam for about ten minutes, walked along the water’s edge for a bit, until I began to dry off, then went back to the bar, retrieved my bag, and had a chorizo and cheese mini, with a double-espresso chaser.