‘How did you recognize me?’ he asks.
‘I didn’t. It just seemed likely that it was you. Your face fits your voice.’
In truth, Zulaika is even younger than he sounded on the phone. I would put his age at no more than twenty-five, although he is wearing a wedding ring and going bald around the widow’s peak. He has the still, humourless face of a zealot and makes a point of continually meeting my eye. Something close to a deranged sense of entitlement is apparent in these initial moments. He tries to take control of the meeting by asserting a need to sit nearer the window, questioning the bright yellow décor with his eyes and squinting at the reproduction Mirós and Kandinskys. Now that he’s got me where he wants me, he’s not even going to bother thanking me for giving up my time.
‘So, you’re in town investigating the disappearance?’
‘I am Ahotsa’s senior correspondent in Madrid,’ he replies, as if I should have known this already. ‘This is the story that I’m working on at present. How did you meet Mr Arenaza?’
No preliminaries, no pause before what will almost certainly be a long and detailed interview. Zulaika has a spiral-bound notebook in front of him, two ballpoint pens and a shopping list of questions, in Basque, written in a neat hand on three pieces of lined A4. He also came in carrying a battered laptop briefcase which is currently leaning against my leg beneath the table. At some point I might move my foot, just so that it falls to the floor.
‘Well, I was introduced to him by my manager, Julian Church, at Endiom. They’re old friends. I was up in San Sebastián on business a couple of weeks ago and he put me in touch.’
Zulaika doesn’t write down Julian’s name, which would suggest that he has already heard about him from Goena, or perhaps even conducted an interview. Diego, one of the waiters whom I see most days, approaches our table, greets me with a warm ‘Hola, Alec’ and asks what we’d like to order. Zulaika doesn’t look up. Sullenly he says, ‘Café con leche y un vaso de agua,’ and then scratches his ear. You can tell a lot about people by the way they treat waiters.
‘Dos cafés con leche,’ I add, putting an emphasis on the ‘dos’. Diego asks me how things are and, to create a good impression, I tell him that they’ve rarely been better.
‘And how many times did you speak to Arenaza before your meeting?’ Zulaika talks right over us. ‘Once? Twice?’
‘Just the once. I got his number from Julian’s secretary and called him from my hotel.’
‘And where were you staying?’
‘The Londres y de Inglaterra.’
A pulse of contempt. ‘The big hotel on the Concha?’
‘That’s correct.’
Any number of miserable prejudices flicker behind Zulaika’s eyes. The Londres y de Inglaterra is a bourgeois indulgence, a place of Castilian excess. Only a rich foreigner would stay there, a pijo, a guiri.
‘And did you communicate with him using email at any time?’
Why ask that?
‘No. Just on the phone.’
He writes this down and lights up a cigarette, blowing smoke across the table.
‘Tell me, Alec, how much did you know about Herri Batasuna before you met Mr Arenaza?’
‘Very little. We spoke of the ban on the party and the prospects of a ceasefire in the future. That was the purpose of my visit – to assess the viability of the Basque region for investment.’
‘Why would a person not want to invest in Euskal Herria?’ I had forgotten, of course, that Zulaika writes for a left-wing nationalist newspaper that often carries ETA declarations. To imply any criticism of the Basque region to such a person is tantamount to insult.
‘We actually concluded that people should invest there.’
That shuts him up. Diego comes back and places two coffees and a glass of water on the table. Zulaika nods at him this time, but returns immediately to the list of questions.
‘Could you describe what happened during your meeting?’
His cigarette has been resting in the ashtray, untouched, for about a minute, and is now blowing a curl of smoke into my eyes. Against my better judgment, I say, ‘Do you mind if we move that?’
What?’
‘It’s just that I don’t particularly like cigarettes, especially this early in the morning.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I said, would you mind moving your cigarette? It’s blowing smoke in my face.’
I might as well have asked Zulaika to spit-shine my shoes. He looks at the cigarette, back at me, and slowly grinds it out in the ashtray. The transformation from his earlier civility on the telephone is now complete.
‘Is that all right?’
‘There was no need to put it out.’
He sniffs and goes back to his notes. ‘Well?’
‘Well what?’
‘The meeting. Could you describe the meeting?’
‘Sure.’ I would love just to stand up and walk out on this jumped-up little shit. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s being pushed around or patronized by people younger than I am. Bland as possible, I reconstruct a half-baked account of the evening with Arenaza, deliberately avoiding any mention of the fact that he had seemingly lost faith with the armed struggle and was clearly at a juncture in his life. Zulaika can find that out for himself. As it is, he takes very few notes and perks up only when I mention the car park.
‘Why did you go with him?’
‘I had nothing better to do. He wanted to take me to a different bar.’
‘So you would say that by this stage in the evening you were getting on well?’
‘Not particularly. I think Mr Arenaza was just being a typically generous Basque host.’
‘But why the car park?’
‘He wanted to change out of his suit.’
‘He was wearing a suit?’
As I had thought at the time, it was strange for a councillor from Batasuna to be dressed so smartly. ‘We were going to an herrika taverna,’ I explain. ‘I think Mikel had been in meetings all day and wanted to feel more comfortable.’
Zulaika stares directly into my eyes, as if by referring to Arenaza as ‘Mikel’ I have implied a closer relationship.
‘You seem troubled by something.’
‘What?’ he says.
‘You’re looking at me as if there’s some sort of problem.’
‘I am?’
‘You are. Perhaps it’s just your manner.’
It is now requiring a great effort of will on my behalf not to snap and react, not to let the interview escalate into a full-scale row.
‘My manner?’ he says. ‘I don’t understand this word.’
‘Forget it. What was your next question?’
Zulaika takes his time, holding off the confrontation, shifting backwards in his seat and glancing briefly around the room. If anything, he looks pleased. I move my foot now and let the computer drop to the ground. Don’t be childish, Alec, don’t be dumb. Zulaika leans over, makes a noise through his teeth and places the briefcase on the seat beside him.
‘I want to know about the herrika taverna,’ he says. You can hear the lilt of Basque in the term’s correct pronunciation. ‘How long did you stay there?’
‘About three-quarters of an hour.’
‘And after that?’
He lifts his café con leche and finishes it in a single gulp.
‘After that I went home.’
‘Back to your hotel?’
‘Back to my hotel.’
‘And what did you talk about during this time?’
‘The same things as before. Politics. Investments.’
‘And he said nothing about coming to Madrid, nothing about going away?’
‘Nothing at all.’
Outside on the street, a driver trapped by a double-parked car sounds his horn and then leans on it incessantly, a noise that fills Cáscaras through the open door. The office workers gathered in clutches around the bar seem oblivious to this, continuing with their conversations and snacking on churros. An elderly woman perched on a stool makes a show of blocking her ears, attracting a shrug from Diego.