Sarah spotted a familiar face wearing a look of unfamiliar grimness. 'What's Carlos doing here?'
The UBET asked him to represent them. You know, the local business organisation. Santi was a member. Kath said he'd be here when she arrived to baby-sit.'
They were about to join their friend when the cortege — the hearse and a single car — swung into the little walled cemetery on the road from L'Escala to Villadamat. Gloria's father was in the front seat of the black Mercedes. When the car came to a stop not far from the new grave, he jumped out first, opening the rear door and holding out his hand to assist his daughter as she emerged. Two other women, both middle-aged, rose with dignity from the other side. One bore a striking resemblance to Gloria. The other, Bob and Sarah each assumed correctly, was Santi's mother.
The graveside service was mercifully brief. Although Bob could not follow much of it, he was aware that the priest had little to say, and suspected that he had never met the man he was burying. He offered a few words of comfort to Gloria, pronounced the rites, and the coffin was interred in a silence broken only by the sobbing of three women.
The small congregation began to disperse at once. Carlos had not noticed the presence of Bob and Sarah, and when they turned to look for him again, they saw him hurrying off. They were about to follow when Gloria's father approached. `Senor, Senora, you will join us at the villa to toast Santi?' He spoke to Sarah in Spanish.
`Thank you, Senor Gomez, but we must go back home to our baby.'
Bob cut in. 'Why don't you go for a while? I'll drop you off and then I'll relieve Kath. I'm sure Senor Gomez will run you home.'
`Okay. Maybe Gloria could use seeing someone her own age today. To cope with the aftermath of this, she'll need all the friends she can get.'
Thirty-six
‘Do these really come from Scotland?'
`Razor shells? Yup. There's every chance that these came from our west coast. We ignore them, and the Spanish treat them as a delicacy. But that's my fellow countrymen for you. If you can't serve it with chips, salt and vinegar, or roll it in breadcrumbs and call it scampi, they're not interested.'
It was mid-evening, late enough for buenas tardes to have become buenas noches, but far too early for adios. Bob and Sarah were finishing a tapas supper in the marble-lined bar of El Golf Isabel, one of their favourite old-town restaurants. Jazz was asleep in his buggy behind them — two hours away, Sarah estimated, from his next feed. On the next day, she had determined, she would begin to supplement his diet with rusks.
Apart from Navajos, the distinctive Spanish name of Scotland's secret export, the plates spread before them included small portions of mountain ham, meatballs, small green peppers fried in olive oil, and a delicious spicy chicken dish. Finally they were finished, and Romeo, the olive-skinned Italian waiter, appeared to clear their table. As they had noticed earlier, he seemed to take his name to heart, and his excessive attentions to Sarah, and her cleavage, pushed Bob's annoyance level close to breaking point. She, seeing the gathering frown, laughed as her admirer retreated to the kitchen to fetch two Creme Catalan desserts. 'Don't worry about him, Bob. It's good for a girl's morale, especially when she's just had a baby.'
`I'm not worried about him. Not one bit, but he should be bloody worried about me!' He spoke just loudly enough for his words to carry across to the kitchen area.
She laughed again at his annoyance, until eventually Bob's resolve cracked, and his grin returned.
`That's better. I'm sure he's got the message. This was a really nice idea of yours, darling, after the gloom of this afternoon.'
`How was it at the villa?'
`Grim. Poor Gloria; that's a really bad scene, you know. Her father had to give her some bad news from Santi's insurance company. They're not paying out on his life policy.'
Bob shook his head sadly. 'To be expected with a suicide. Some do, depending on the circumstances; some just point shy;-blank refuse. Sounds like Santi was with one of the latter kind, for them to have reached that decision so quickly. There'll be no chance of them changing it either.'
'I know. It'll mean that Gloria will have to sell the villa as fast as she can, and in a buyer's market too. She may not even get what they paid for it. She's got very little money, and she already has a spare-time job keeping books for a man who owns a few shops. She thinks that, until the villa's sold at least, she'll have to take a third job, at weekends. Bar work, cleaning, anything she can find. She'd like to go back to Tarragona, but she can't do that until the villa is sold.'
`Yeah, it's a damn shame. Too bad the selfish bastard didn't think about that before he topped himself.'
`Maybe he did, and it was still too much for him to face. A million pounds is a lot to have stolen. He'd have done twenty years.'
`Then that's what he should have done.'
Sarah changed the subject. Did you call Alex to ask about her last exam?'
`Yeah. Answerphones were on at her place, and at ours, so I left a message on each. You know our kid — she'll be out on a shopping binge to celebrate.'
Sarah smiled. 'Yes. Something like that.'
As Romeo returned with their desserts, Bob looked up, raising an eyebrow as if to say 'Just try it, son.' But the Italian's ardour was stilled. They ate in silence for a minute or two. Eventually Sarah paused, putting down her spoon.
`What makes it even tougher in a way is that apparently Santi's policy had one of those double-indemnity clauses in it. Suicide, zilch — but if he died by accident or some other violence, it would pay out twice the value. Forty million pesetas: two hundred thousand pounds' She wrinkled her nose. 'Are you sure you couldn't prove he was murdered, Bob?'
He shook his head. 'Sarah, love, much as I'd like to help poor Gloria inherit some big bucks, if I could do that, then at the same time I could turn that agua minerale of yours into Gran Vina Sol. There is nothing, but nothing, for me to go on, and I am not here to waste our time.'
Thirty-seven
The weather held, as their holiday resumed its normal course.
The weaning of Jazz took place successfully, and quickly he developed an appetite for rusks to equal that for the natural element of his diet. And as his input became more varied, so inevitably did his output, introducing Sarah — and Bob once more — to those joys of parenthood which call for a little dedication.
With the Pitkeathly affair and Santi Alberni's suicide behind them, they began to do some of the things which had been on their original agenda. On the Thursday, as their first week at the villa drew to an end, Bob wrote productively in the morning. Later they visited Pals and its ceramic shops, and called for a late lunch at Mas Pou, a celebrated Catalan Tipique restaurant in the distinctive circular village of Palau Sator. Next morning, Bob did something which even a few months earlier would have seemed unthinkable. He telephoned Proud Jimmy and secured his chiefs agreement to the proposition that, since much of his first week had been spent effectively on police work, he would write it off as holiday, and so would delay his return to Fettes by a further seven days.
`Of course, man,' his grizzled boss had said. 'Get to know your new son. Mackie tells me you got a good result in that business.'
`Good for whom, Jimmy? Pitkeathly's got his few quid back, Ainscow's down a million, Alberni's done himself in, and his widow's penniless. Apart from that, everyone's laughing.'
`Aye, well, that's the job sometimes, Bob. You know that. Now enjoy yourself!'