Authors: Adam Creed
Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #General, #FF, #FGC
‘You were laid up when he brought it round. He came with his brother. I didn’t know he has a brother,’ says Marie.
‘Nobody tells you anything up here,’ says Staffe.
*
The setting sun catches Gador and brushes it pink and coral. Tomorrow, Manolo is going to take him towards it, but veering to the west, to where Almeria stands by the Med like a proud Moor, looking back at Africa.
Staffe rocks in his wooden chair up on the roof of his village house, puts down
Monsignor Quixote
and swirls the mint tea in its nickel pot. He pours himself another glass, thinking back to when he had only a notion of Spain.
The three of them were waiting for the last call for boarding the ferry. His father was sporting his panama hat and wore a silly Hawaiian shirt. His mother had a floral summer dress that floated from its empire line and her face was sun kissed from the hot June. Twenty-five years ago, yet sometimes it feels like never – or as if it happened to someone else. Other times, it seems like yesterday: the only thing of significance that ever touched him.
‘Will,’ his mother had said, ‘You’ll be . . .’
‘All right!’ he had snapped. There was a party back up in Surrey and in his pocket he was touching the joint he had rolled ready for the drive back up the A3.
‘Will,’ his father said, wearily. ‘We know you’ll be all right. But one day, you’ll understand.’
‘I understand now.’
‘And you’ll be good to Marie.’
His mother had pulled down her hat too far on her head and she tilted her face up, peered at him. He waited for her to admonish him, but she just reached out and put a finger to his lips, said, ‘I don’t know what I would do, if anything happened to you, Will.’
He should have said, then, that he loved her. He should have said that to his father, too. Instead, he looked up at the
Pride of Bilbao
and said, ‘They’re boarding.’ He accepted the handshake from his father and stood limply as his mother hugged him. There were gulls in the sky and a faraway look in her eye. He waited for her to kiss him, but she didn’t, she just put the palm of her hand flat to his chest and said, ‘My boy.’
The next time he saw her, her freckles were gone and her eyes were closed. They had pulled a gown right up to her neck and when he looked down, there wasn’t the contour you would expect. They had put her hair up, in a bun, a way she had never had it. She was all gone.
Manolo stoops at the counter of the Quinta Toro, bending low so his elbow can rest on the bar. He is talking with his
tio
, Angel, and raises his hand the instant Staffe steps down from the blistering sun of Almería’s market and into the dark, empty bar. His smile is frail and his eyes are soft, but he is undoubtedly pleased to see Staffe – almost as if he has been counting the moments towards a loved one’s safe return.
Approaching Manolo now, Staffe sees his friend in a different kind of light. He is wearing a jacket for his trip to town and his trousers are clean with a sharp crease, his shoes shine and his skin sings from a good scrubbing. Today, his friend is almost dashing, but he is stiff, as if broom handles are stuck down the arms and legs of his clothes.
‘
Papas a lo pobre
,’ says Manolo, thrusting a saucerful of glistening potatoes at him. ‘The best. And how are things with you?’ Manolo looks at Staffe’s chest, his face sad again. He holds Staffe by the shoulder as he awaits the response.
‘I’m fine. The hospital said I’m fit to travel.’
‘You are going home? To England?’
The consultant had told Staffe his blood had tested well but he wouldn’t be able to work for at least a month, though he could travel – best not by air.
‘I might go back in a couple of weeks or so.’
Manolo looks glum. ‘Good for you but bad for us.’ He turns away, issues a rally of fast, blurring words and Angel glugs a glassful of wine into a goblet. Angel is older than Staffe, his forehead crinkled with lines and, unusually for a Spaniard, his head totally hairless, gleaming.
They clash drinks and Manolo tells him how long the Quinta Toro has been in the family and how proud they all are that Angel has kept it going – the old way. But the bar is empty. Its history looks spent.
Angel brings small dishes of chicken livers in rich gravy. Manolo tells Angel, ‘This is my friend, the
guardia
from England.’
Staffe nods. ‘Police. More like the Cuerpo Nacional, though.’
‘He is a detective?’ says Angel, looking suspiciously at Staffe, then Manolo.
‘Maybe I should take him by Adra on our way home.’
‘Why?’ says Staffe.
Angel talks impossibly fast, the words blurring into one another, and as he talks, he reaches down, produces more wine and pours it lustily, the wine spilling onto the counter.
Manolo puts a finger to his temple and taps it, nodding at Angel. He says to Staffe, ‘We have our own mysteries here. A murder.’
Angel leans forward, lowers his voice. ‘This one is a
guirri
. It’s nothing.’
‘His son, Jesús, is in the Cuerpo,’ says Manolo. ‘He’s down at the scene.’
‘He’s only a young puppy dog but he has seen many‚ many deaths already,’ says Angel. ‘This is no different.’
‘But he told me it is the worst,’ says Manolo.
‘How?’ says Staffe.
Angel shakes his head, which glints from the lantern lights above. He is suddenly earnest. ‘I cannot betray his confidence.’ He raises a finger to his lips.
‘I can take you, though,’ says Manolo, ‘A shame not to whet your appetite.’
‘You should leave Jesús to his business,’ says Angel.
Staffe slides a spoonful of livers into his mouth, presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth and the livers dissolve, leave a taste of something unmistakably foreign. ‘What is this spice?’ he asks Angel.
‘A secret,’ says Angel.
And Staffe gets it. Something you seldom taste in Spain, this is star anise, a cousin of fennel and the anis liqueur they swill for breakfast.
On their way out, Manolo says, ‘So, that’s my
tio
.’ He looks back at the bar, two large barrels out front and an ancient sign beneath a weathered, bronze bull’s head. ‘What did you make of him?’
‘He’s a proud man.’
Manolo puts his arm on Staffe’s back, pats his shoulder, firmly. ‘I’m pleased. I value your opinion. You know that, don’t you?’
*
As they drive to Adra, Manolo’s dog‚ Suki‚ constantly yaps and jumps from the foot well on to his lap and back again, but Manolo is expressionless, seems elsewhere. Staffe says, ‘Is something wrong?’
‘Wrong?’ Manolo shrugs.
They pass a restaurant, El Marisco, on its own opposite the field of vast plastic greenhouses that spill down to the sea. The restaurant is like an oasis, with beautiful
cordobés
tiles. A line of Mercs and 4x4s are parked out front.
Waiters in starched white tunics and slicked black hair tend the great and the good with straight backs and silver service. A man at the top of the steps meets and greets. He clocks Manolo’s van and waves, but Manolo ignores him.
Staffe says, ‘Angel said it was a
guirri
; a
guirri
like me?’
‘You shouldn’t think of yourself as a
guirri
. You live here. You have family who have moved here.’
‘They say if you’ve been a
guirri
, you’re always a
guirri
.’ Staffe knows that Manolo’s father, the one they say is mad and lives in Granada, went to Germany. They say he found himself a beautiful wife who deserted him, destroyed him; gave him a
guirri
son. Or two. ‘How do you feel?’
‘I’m from Almagen. I wish I wasn’t, but I am. God willing, that will be the end of it for us
Canos
.’ Manolo pulls Suki onto his lap, fusses with the dog’s fluffy white head. For a moment, disregarding the scale of him, Manolo looks free as a boy.
Staffe wants to ask Manolo if his mother went off and took his younger brother with her – the brother he has never mentioned. He waits for Manolo to say something.
‘You have your sister and your Arri. It’s a good family to have.’
‘I’ll tell you about my family one day.’
Manolo puts a hand under Suki’s body, lifts her up and kisses the top of her head. He places her down, gently, between himself and Staffe. ‘It’s all right, Guilli. I know about your parents. I’m very sorry.’ He stops the van.
Plastic greenhouses are everywhere, some the size of football pitches. This is intensive farming on an epic scale. Some of the greenhouses are new, but most are decrepit: dirty plastic sheets full of holes and tied to rusting metal frames. The sand blows up from the track and as he gets out of the van, Staffe can smell that they are near the sea. He looks into one of the greenhouses where the soil is like dust and sprinklers lie like snakes amongst the canes. He can’t recall ever having told Manolo about his parents, but doesn’t ask, instead says, ‘What grows here?’
‘Whatever you want. Whenever you want it. But the land is shit. Not like my
huerta
with my goats’ shit and the sierra water.’
‘Where is Jesús?’
Manolo points down a narrow track between the plastic structures. ‘You had best be quick.’
‘You’re not coming?’
‘I need to collect something.’
Once he is out of Manolo’s battered grey van, the heat intensifies – shimmering off the plastic sheets; even with his sunglasses on, Staffe has to squint against the glare. A chemical smell of unnatural nutrients mixes with the ozone. Staffe walks past a chest-high drum that says ‘NitroFos’. He goes deep between the giant enclosures and here and there, Moroccans mooch in ones and twos: some in hooded
burnous
, others in garish nylon track suits. Some exude menace, watching him carefully.
When Staffe looks back for Manolo’s van, a Moroccan, crouched on his haunches and wearing a hemp
burnous,
dyed yellow and blue, is staring at him. The hood is down and his eyes are heavy as pebbles. His shaven head is smooth as wet rocks and black as a bible. As he turns a corner, he senses that the man stands. Turning, he sees Manolo standing beside the Moroccan, holding an empty, hessian sack. Manolo ushers Staffe on with a flutter of the fingers and crouches beside the Moroccan.
Once Staffe is right in amongst the plastic, there are no points of reference. The sun is immediately above, and even mighty Gador is nowhere to be seen. He keeps checking for the sea, sees a thin, blue strip of it every now and again as he works his way left and forward, right and forward, all the time committing his moves to memory.
Staffe discerns human noise: a crackle of radio. He follows the sounds, coming from within a plastic-sheeted greenhouse right down near the sea. By its entrance, a Cuerpo Nacional officer leans against a quad bike. He is strapped up with a revolver and a lethal truncheon. His uniform is blue and he is handsome with slicked hair and bright eyes, his skin the colour of walnut. He gives Staffe a lingering look, not blinking. When Staffe gets to within six feet, the policeman says, ‘Stop!’
‘Where is the beach?’ Staffe asks.
The policeman laughs. ‘Beach? This is no beach.’
Staffe walks by, stands on the low shelf of scrub overlooking thirty metres of sand and wooden pallets and tin cans. Shopping bags flutter in the breeze. If life was this beach, you’d top yourself. He turns, ‘You’re right,’ trying to see into the ramshackle greenhouse. Inside, makeshift pinboards have been erected and an enormously fat man with a rush of curly brown hair walks slowly around a penned area, peering at the ground. His shirt is stained dark with sweat all down its back and in patches beneath each arm, the size of dinner plates. ‘What happened?’
The young
cuerpo
says, ‘You shouldn’t be here.’
‘What are they growing?’
‘Strawberries, but not any more. Are you German?’
‘Are you Jesús? You have a look of your father – Angel. He’s a friend of mine.’
‘My father doesn’t care for Germans.’
‘I’m English.’
Jesús’s lip curls, as if Staffe had said, ‘I’m a war criminal.’
Staffe takes a step closer, trying to see the subject of attention inside the greenhouse.
Jesús puts a hand to his hip, rubs his thumb against the butt of his revolver, poking from its holster. ‘Stop!’
The fat man looks up, makes his way wearily to the entrance. ‘Who is he, Jesús?’
Staffe says, ‘I have a house in the Alpujarras.’
‘You’re no
Alpujarreño
. Your Spanish is too clean.’ The two men laugh.
‘What happened?’
‘You must go.’ The fat man reaches behind him, pulls out a radio. ‘Jesús, take him away.’
Staffe jumps away from Jesús and waves his hands in front of his face, shouts, ‘Wasp! Wasp! I’m allergic. I’m allergic!’
The fat man and Jesús each take a step back and Staffe carves great swipes in the air at the imaginary wasp, focusing on the scene behind the fat man. The head and shoulders of a fair-haired man stick up from a hole in the ground. His skin is swollen‚ bloodied and torn‚ and his nose is askew. Staffe thinks an eye socket is lower than it ought to be.
Jesús walks towards Staffe, grabs his arm, leads him away from the entrance, and as they go, Staffe says, ‘Is it a bad one?’
‘It’ll be in the papers tomorrow.’
‘Don’t worry. I know how it goes. I’m in the police in England.’
Jesús wipes his mouth. ‘Like I said, read it in the papers.’
‘I could hear it straight from the journalist. There’s no law against that, is there?’
‘Why would you bother?’ Jesús looks at him and for an instant, Staffe thinks the policeman might expect a convincing response.
‘You’ve been in those mountains. There’s nothing to do if you haven’t got a mule.’ He laughs. ‘It can’t do any harm.’
Jesús sighs. ‘How do you know my father?’
‘Manolo Cano‚ your
primo
‚ is my best friend here in Spain. Tell me about the journalist. Like you say, it’ll be in the papers tomorrow.’
Jesús lowers his voice. ‘He’s with
La Lente.’
He looks over his shoulder. ‘Now, you need to get yourself back to the hills.’
Staffe makes his way back through the plastic-sheeted greenhouses and all the time, he feels watched. He turns quickly, thinks he sees the blur of a darting body. A dog, perhaps. He stops dead, listens hard and thinks he can hear a scuttle. Maybe a snake.
He walks on as softly as he can, through the dust, and eventually spots the drum of NitroFos, close to where Manolo parked the van. He looks around. No Manolo, nor his van. ‘Manolo!’ he calls, peering all around. Twenty metres away, the African in the blue and yellow
burnous
is still on his haunches and staring right at Staffe.
Staffe beckons the African to stand, but he stays put, looking anxious, putting his hands together, as if in prayer, rocking back and forth, moving his lips but saying nothing.
‘Have you seen a man – my friend, the one with the grey van?’
He shakes his head vociferously, looking at his black feet on the white stones.
Staffe stands over him. ‘What happened here?’
The African man cowers and clamps a hand over his own mouth.
‘Tell me.’
The man removes the hand and says a word with his mouth, but no sound comes.
‘You are . . . ?’ Staffe has forgotten the Spanish word for ‘mute’ but the man nods.
Staffe sits alongside and motions over his shoulder with his thumb, towards the sea. ‘What did happen?’
The man pokes a finger into the dust. He works his finger round and round until a hole the size of a fist is made. He reaches into his
burnous
and pulls out a bottle of water. He puts his open fist into the hole and pours the water into his hand. The hole grows dark but the water soon disappears and the soil is light again.
‘My friend?’
The man shakes his head and draws a flattened palm slowly across his own throat.
‘What!’ Staffe stands, thinking about the fair-haired, beaten man with his head and shoulders planted in the Almería dust. The doctors prescribed against this.
‘Guilli! Guilli! We have to go.’
Turning, Staffe sees Manolo trudge from between a couple of greenhouses. ‘Where were you?’
Manolo holds up an old sack of seed, barely a quarter full. ‘The finest pepper seeds in all Andalucia,’ he laughs, weakly. ‘Now, we must go – quick.’
They drive fast, a different way that doesn’t take them back past El Marisco. Bordering an enormous, verdant gap amongst the plastic, between the motorway and the Med, signs for ‘GOLF TROPICAL’ have been defaced into the aerosol words of ‘GUERRA GOLFO’.