‘It’s not a big flat, is it? Must be a bit tight for two.’
‘Yes. We’re thinking about finding somewhere bigger,’ Kathy said, puzzling over Brock’s tone, as if he were looking at the question from a completely different point of view, one which Kathy wasn’t aware of. She decided to change the subject. ‘On my way back from seeing Charlotte this afternoon, I stopped at a supermarket and had my car broken into. They took my briefcase, among other things, with the transcript of Clarke’s interview.’
‘Would anyone be able to identify him?’
‘I don’t think so. I didn’t have the cover sheet, with the names.’
‘Better send a report to the local boys, make sure they take it seriously. Was there much damage?’
‘The side window was smashed. I’ll get it fixed while I’m away.’
Brock nodded. ‘Keep your eyes open over there. You never know, someone may have missed something. That’s really why I want you to go. You speak some Spanish, don’t you?’
‘Very little. I started learning it last year.’
‘I wish I was going too.’ Brock looked regretfully around his office, at the files piled on his desk and the table by the window and spilling over the floor. ‘Maybe if you find something you’ll have to call me over.’
‘I’ll do my best.’ Kathy grinned and headed for the door.
13
Kathy accepted the small plastic container of orange juice and stretched her legs as far as she could under the seat in front. The other two seats in the row beside her were occupied by the McNeils, who were discussing something offered in the in-flight magazine. DI Tony Heron and DS Linda Moffat were several rows ahead, having checked in together before Kathy and the McNeils had arrived at the airport. In fact it now seemed to Kathy, although she hadn’t noticed anything previously, that Tony and Linda might have something going between them, or else were taking advantage of the trip to get something started. She had seemed positively flirtatious towards her Fraud Squad colleague when they had all eventually met up, while he had miraculously shed his funereal aspect and was transformed in a lightweight bomber jacket and navy T-shirt, and even, Kathy suspected, a touch of gel in his hair. Linda, too, was dressed for leisure rather than work, with white cotton slacks, a bright orange top, espadrilles and a pair of dark glasses propped optimistically on top of her head. The McNeils had also come in their Mediterranean holiday gear and Kathy, who had packed on the basis that this was a serious business trip, felt, in her black suit, as if she’d turned up at the wrong party.
But that didn’t matter. She tilted the seat back, tuned the headphones to a jazz channel and closed her eyes. This was an unlooked-for break, a welcome change from the
routine and familiar. Leon could take over the whole flat while he finished his assignment, and she wouldn’t have to feel guilty about making a noise or spilling things on his precious papers, as she had with Madelaine Verge’s romesco sauce on the Friday night when she’d told him about the trip. The coincidence of the Spanish food and the visit to Barcelona had made Kathy feel awkward, as if he might think she had been secretly planning to go away without him, but he had been pleased for her, and, as expected, turned down her suggestion that he come along.
‘Next time,’ he had said, and set about wiping the sauce from his textbook with paper towels. He had a sad air about him, which Kathy put down to a touch of the martyrs.
A steward offered drinks. Audrey McNeil and Kathy both asked for glasses of wine, Peter McNeil a scotch. Down the aisle Kathy saw Tony and Linda being handed glasses of champagne, and she smiled.
Peter had his Barcelona guidebook open and he and his wife began to give Kathy a briefing on the city. The hotel where they would be staying, on Linda’s recommendation, was very conveniently located, they explained. Just off the Placa de Catalunya, it was not far from the Passeig de Gracia, where they thought they had seen Charles Verge, and only a short taxi, bus or metro ride to the Palau de Justicia, if that was where Kathy was heading. And from the point of view of sightseeing, it was also very handy to La Rambla and the Gothic Quarter. Peter explained all this with the complacent superiority of the seasoned traveller, interrupted from time to time by his wife’s chirpy elaborations, delivered very fast before Peter could cut her off.
The original plan had been for the McNeils to stay just one night, flying home again on the Monday evening after spending the morning with Kathy on the Passeig de Gracia, but they had arranged to extend their stay by another day- principally, it transpired, to allow Audrey to meet her internet bridge partner on the Tuesday morning. ‘We’ve arranged to meet at a cafe opposite the cathedral. I have to brandish my copy of Fifty Favourite Bridge Problems.’ She reached into her handbag to show Kathy the book. ‘I’m really looking forward to it. It’s so strange to meet her in the flesh after getting to know her so well as my partner in cyberspace.’ She said the last word with relish, perhaps to make some point with her husband, who snorted indulgently and took a pull at his whisky. ‘Fine building, the cathedral,’ he said.
‘Yes, Audrey showed me your photos,’ Kathy replied.
‘Oh no, that was Gaudi’s church, the Sagrada Familia,’ Audrey corrected her with a smile and an unspoken undertone, do get it right, dear, so that Kathy felt obliged to repeat it.
‘The Sagrada Familia, right.’
‘The cathedral is in the Gothic Quarter,’ Peter said, ‘not far from our hotel.’ He pointed it out on the street map. ‘It was started in 1298, but wasn’t finished until 1913, to the plans of the original French architect. That’s a construction period of six hundred and fifteen years. And our clients tell us we’re too slow!’ He had a good chuckle at this.
‘Peter wanted to be an architect originally, didn’t you, dear?’
Her husband’s nose screwed up, in disapproval, Kathy thought, as if Audrey had betrayed some shameful weakness on his part. ‘I suggested the idea to my father, who told me not to be daft. “Architects are all poofters in yellow ties,” he said. Well, maybe they did wear yellow ties in those days, I don’t know, but anyway, I took his advice and became an engineer, like him.’
‘I always wondered about your father’s sexuality,’ Audrey said thoughtfully.
For a moment Kathy thought there might be a small domestic, but the prospect of the trip seemed to have mellowed Peter, who let the comment pass.
The plane descended over a brown landscape, and Kathy had the first inkling that they were coming to a place that had had a very different summer from their own, long and hot and dry.
Linda had said that ‘Jeez’, as she called Lieutenant Jesus Mozas, would most probably meet them in the arrivals hall, but when they reached it there was no sign of him, and after hanging around for ten minutes they decided to take two taxis into the city. When they stepped out of the building they were momentarily stunned by dazzling sunlight and heat, and as they drove down the motorway towards the city, Kathy had a sense of disconnection from the autumnal reality they had left behind.
She was impressed with Linda’s choice of hotel when they arrived. An elaborately uniformed man hurried across the footpath to collect their bags, and the reception area was cool and impressively furnished with what looked like antique pieces. When the second taxi arrived, Linda was handed a note-from Jeez, she announced-apologising for not meeting them and saying that he and Captain Alvarez would come to the hotel for them at nine the next morning.
‘That’s too bad,’ Linda smirked in Tony’s direction. ‘And you were hoping we could get down to work right away.’ From the way Tony grinned back, this was clearly a private joke.