Authors: Adam Creed
Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #General, #FF, #FGC
‘Golf war?’ says Staffe.
‘There’s only so much water,’ says Manolo. ‘Some people think it’s better to use it for food than for golf. Damn fools.’ Manolo is agitated and chomps away on a mouthful of sunflower seeds, spitting the soft shells out of the window. After a while, he says, ‘So, did you see anything?’
‘I got a glimpse of the victim. He was in a terrible state.’
Manolo looks ahead, squinting at the signs for the
autopista.
‘What did he look like?’
‘Fair hair. That’s all you could say. The rest of him was a bloody mess.’
Staffe leans against the ancient, wrought balcony of his room in Almería’s Hotel Catedral, watches two young gypsy boys kick a football against the massive sand-coloured stones of the cathedral’s façade. Old couples promenade through the
plaza
in their Sunday best. The sun is low but the evening is sultry and the merest breath of the Med comes up from Almería’s port.
A couple of hours ago, he waved off troubled Manolo and asked the receptionist in the hotel if she could help him catch up with an old friend of his who writes for
La Lente
. ‘He uses a pseudonym these days, though,’ Staffe had told the receptionist. ‘I don’t know what name he goes by, but I know he’s covering a murder down on the coast.’
The receptionist embraced the challenge‚ phoning
La Lente
and coming up with the name Gutiérrez. Raúl Gutiérrez.
‘That story isn’t even out, yet,’ Gutiérrez had said when Staffe called.
‘What I know won’t affect the story you are running tomorrow, but it could lead to something bigger,’ Staffe had said.
‘This story’s big enough, don’t you worry.’
‘Murder always is.’
‘Who are you?’
‘I am police.’
‘You talk shit.’
‘Did you interview the African?’ asks Staffe.
‘Which African?’
‘He is mute, but he saw it all.’
‘Nobody saw it, and anyway, this is my story.’
‘Stories of murder aren’t yours or mine. They belong to the dead and their families and whoever might be next. Can you meet me? Café Tanger, at eight o’clock.’
‘You sound quite intent, Señor Wagstaffe.’
Staffe had tried to recall when he might have let slip his name to Raúl Gutiérrez. He was quite sure he hadn’t. He hung up, knowing that he really had no business with this killing. But if Gutiérrez showed up, maybe that was a sign. If he didn’t, he would let it lie: have a good dinner and slide between crisp linen sheets and get a bus tomorrow, back to the hills. Mind his own.
Now, making his way down through the hotel then walking down Calle Real, he feels bubbles of air trap in his belly; a slow rush in his loins. As the cranes of the port come into view and the sun catches the tops of the buildings, he feels kind of weightless. Every so often, he sees the battered face of the fair
guirri
, his shoulders like a dead tree stump in the ground.
What will he do if Gutiérrez doesn’t show?
Since his wound was retreated, Staffe has grown a little stronger every day. But for all those weeks, he has dreaded going back to London and the Force – a little more each day.
Jadus Golding had looked him in the eye and pulled the trigger, rather than go back to jail.
Staffe had done everything he knew to help Jadus get clean. He invested his faith in a young man who had been a criminal since before he went to school. Now, he doesn’t know what he will be if he can’t go back to the Force, but he knows that a policeman needs one thing above all else. Forget courage and method and intelligence. If you lack judgement, your days are numbered. That night, his judgement had failed him.
*
In Café Tanger, a Muslim affair, he orders a mint tea, looks out towards the port. On the other side of the glass, Moroccan men sit in rows, facing Africa and stirring their tea, passing the hookah pipe.
‘Señor Wagstaffe.’
Staffe turns, jolted by the sound of his own name. ‘Señor Gutiérrez?’
Raúl Gutiérrez nods and lights a black cigarette.
‘Do you want tea?’
Gutiérrez shakes his head, sucks on his smoke. ‘You are a long way from home, Inspector. A long way indeed from your Leadengate home.’ Raúl sits down. He is fiftyish and clean as a whistling dandy, dressed for the ladies, Staffe thinks, and oozing expensive cologne.
‘You’ve done some homework,’ says Staffe, wondering what Gutiérrez has gleaned in the hours since they spoke. He thinks about asking Raúl how he knew his name, but decides to keep that card close.
‘And you, too. Now, tell me about your new African friend.’
‘How do you know he is a new friend?’
‘Information is my life. It is like the sun and water. Without it, I can’t live.’ Gutiérrez motions to the waiter, asks for water. ‘You nearly died. You should be more careful.’ When the water comes, Gutiérrez waits for the waiter to turn away and takes out a quarter bottle of J&B.
Staffe looks anxiously around.
Gutiérrez says, ‘I don’t mind Africans, but we are in Spain and if I want to drink whisky in my own country, I will. They know what is what. I don’t know why you said to meet here.’
‘The victim was in a hell of a state,’ says Staffe.
Gutiérrez drinks half his whisky in one, theatrically opening his eyes wide and blowing out his cheeks, smiling. ‘You saw nothing.’
‘In England, a crime scene like that would be crawling with journalists, but you’ve got an exclusive – right?’
‘You should concentrate on your convalescence.’
The waiter comes across to the table and speaks rapidly to Gutiérrez, clearly angry. He scoops up the whisky bottle and curses.
Gutiérrez calls the waiter a ‘fucking infidel’, and a group of four young Moroccans appear from what must be the kitchen at the far end of the café. Two of them hold chef’s knives and all of them smile, as if Gutiérrez might be a big enough shit to make their day. The four youths slowly advance and Staffe holds up his hands. ‘I apologise for my friend. We shall leave.’ He puts down a five-euro note and ushers Raúl Gutiérrez up by the lapel.
Raúl Gutiérrez says, ‘There’s a proper place round the corner. Come on. I’m buying.’
Casa Joaquín is one block back from the waterfront and populated by men between forty and fifty-five, all with their hair slicked back, picking at seafood and drinking
copas
of
manzanilla
. They stand in clusters and talk passionately about the red shrimp of Almería, the anchovies and the clams. Most seem to know Gutiérrez, who has two glasses plonked down for him on the counter where a space is made.
‘I suggest you get me drunk, Inspector. My tongue loosens. And I might even get to talking about Santi Etxebatteria.’
‘What!’
‘It seems I can be all kinds of uses to you, but what can you do for me?’
Staffe spears an anchovy, lets the salt make a delicious film in his mouth. He calls for two more
copas
, still reeling at the sound of the name of the man who murdered his parents.
‘There were only three English killed. It might have been a long time ago, but it’s a big thing in Spain, still. Paul and Enid Wagstaffe. They lie heavy on our conscience, like the memories of our two boys on yours.’
‘Omagh,’ says Staffe.
Gutiérrez clinks his glass against Staffe’s, says, ‘I think you have nothing. In which case, let’s get drunk and tomorrow you can be on your way back to Almagen.’
Staffe sips his
manzanilla
, considers the fact that he hadn’t told Gutiérrez he is living in Almagen. He leans close to Raúl, whispers, ‘He was killed with water, right?’
Raúl’s eyes flicker and he smiles. ‘What exactly did your African friend say?’
‘He drew me a pretty picture. Maybe I should see what you say in your newspaper and then I’ll know how deep you are in the Cuerpo’s pocket.’
‘And why should you care, Inspector Wagstaffe?’
He guesses that Raúl has built a career on people underestimating him, thinking he is some played-out libertine. He finishes the sherry and looks at the fish and crustaceans on ice behind the bar. ‘There must be a dozen tapas to be had here.’
‘To loosen my tongue?’
Staffe thinks to himself, that’s not on the menu. Not tonight.
Raúl must see this because he puts an arm around Staffe’s shoulder. His breath is malty as he says, ‘We’re going to get on fine, the two of us. I just know it.’ He slaps Staffe hard on the back and laughs. Behind the eyes, though, Staffe sees something familiar, glinting in the dark. Raúl is afraid.
*
Pulford watches Brandon Latymer leave Pearl’s. B-Lat, which is what Brandon goes by, swaggers out of the caff with his hips low and his jeans halfway down his thighs and as he walks past the window, he winks at Pulford and taps his chest, twice, to signify that he is carrying and there is nothing that an officer of the law can do about it – not when you take into account the shenanigans that Pulford is requesting Brandon to perform; even though he is supposedly in hiding from the likes of Pulford‚ on account of a hit and run up on the Seven Sisters Road.
DS David Pulford puts his head in his hands and sighs, heavy and long. His conscience will wrestle with B-Lat’s guilt later, when he has brought Jadus Golding to justice. He pushes his mug away and leaves enough money to cover his tea and Brandon’s can of Nurishment. He feels as though this goose chase is getting away from him and he takes another look at the warrant for arrest he had just shown Brandon.
Of all Jadus Golding’s e.Gang, B-Lat has most to lose by not fingering Jadus for the shooting of Staffe. Brandon wants his warrant for arrest for the hit and run withdrawn, on account of a new alibi he has discovered. Pulford told him he couldn’t do that, but he would help him remain at large. Brandon had said, ‘You must be a pussy, letting people like us take pops at police. He was your boss, right?’ He laughed. ‘Proper pussy.’
‘I’ll have you and your brother for manslaughter.’
‘And these conversations? You want that in the open?’
‘You couldn’t prove anything.’
‘Not according to my barrister.’
‘You’re talking to your barrister!’
That was when Brandon had got up, looking down on Pulford. ‘You know‚ they say police was on the Seven Sisters that night I was supposed to have mowed that poor boy down.’
Pulford knows where Brandon parked his Cherokee Jeep and he will know exactly where it will go, from now until whenever he finds the tracker. The device is unauthorised. In the eyes of the law it doesn’t exist, but if things work out, it won’t be necessary in any court of law.
On his way to the Limekiln, Pulford remembers the first time Staffe took him to Pearl’s. They had ribs, rice and peas, and corn bread. It wasn’t Pulford’s bag, but Staffe loved it.
Staffe’s Peugeot is parked up in the Limekiln car park and Pulford sits on its bonnet, looks up at Jasmine Cash’s flat. He waits ten minutes until she finally comes out on the deck, young Millie on her hip. She shouts down for him to ‘Fuck off’, which makes him ashamed because he knows Staffe really liked Jasmine. But Pulford figures that if Jadus knows he is harassing his girlfriend, he might come out of the shadows. Also, the more Jadus thinks it’s not safe to call on them in their own home the more he will want to.
Pulford gets in the car, starts it up and swings out onto the East Road. He makes his way up Columbia Road, seeing on the small monitor down by his gearstick that Brandon is making his way out on the Roman Road towards Stratford. He reaffirms the ethics of his approach, his faith in the many ways the goodness of the law can manifest itself.
Staffe reads Raúl Gutiérrez’s article, which made the front page of
La Lente
. He can ascribe sense to most of the words. He has been topping up his Spanish, layering new lumps of nouns and verbs onto his faded memories of the foreign language. Recently, propped up in bed with only cicadas and the slow arc of the sun for distraction, the language has become increasingly clear.
He drains the last bottle of soft drink from the minibar and douses his head in cold water again. Last night, he and Raúl went to a
peña
way out at the top of the Avenida Garcia Lorca, and after the flamenco, they drank with a guitarist friend of Raúl’s and went back to Gutiérrez’s place – an apartment somewhere near Casa Joaquín – but the
cubatas
had taken their toll and Staffe had fallen asleep. He was awakened rudely early by the sound of Raúl’s snoring – kicking at his temples like a stableful of mules. At dawn, he made his way back to the Hotel Catedral, picked up a morning edition of
La Lente.
He reads Gutiérrez’s story one more time.
GANG EXECUTION IN THE PLASTIC
But Who Will Pay the Real Price?
Yesterday Almería saw another example of what happens when money and drugs come together.
A foreigner was discovered dead in the intensive farming greenhouses on the coast between Adra and Roquetas del Mar. Tourists on all-inclusive holidays played in the sea and relaxed by swimming pools drinking cuba libres as a man was viciously murdered. Police are certain the death is related to the importation of drugs from Morocco.
The dead man is a white northern European and police say that several witnesses saw a group of black men behaving suspiciously in the plastic shortly before the estimated time of the killing.
The price we ordinary people will pay for this terrible industry that is staining the city and province of Almería is that people will choose to go elsewhere for their holidays. It is imperative that we drive these greedy criminals back where they came from – to save our jobs and conserve the tradition of our unique Andalusian way of life.
Drug use amongst the young in Spain is already a problem and we must make it as difficult as we can for our youth to acquire these narcotics. As for the death of another trafficker or dealer – do we really care?
RAÚL GUTIÉRREZ
Staffe tosses the paper into his case and makes his way down to reception where he orders a two-litre bottle of water and asks them to find out what time the buses leave for the Alpujarras.
As he waits, he considers what Raúl might be up to. His story couldn’t have been written any better by the Comisario of police himself – if he wanted a free-for-all on drug trafficking. And he wouldn’t want to be a Moroccan, trapped down there in the plastic on twenty euros a day and taking the blame for all bad things that pass.
‘There is a bus at twelve-thirty but you have to change at Ugijar. Would you like a taxi to the station, Señor Wagstaffe?’
‘Yes.’ The way he feels now, dehydrated and sweating, he thinks he wouldn’t care if he never clapped eyes on Gutiérrez ever again. Then he recalls that the journalist knew about Santi Etxebatteria. The bile rises.
‘Guilli!’
Staffe looks around, seeking out Manolo, wondering what would have brought his friend back to collect him. He scans the Plaza Catedral for his grey van, but sees nothing.
‘Guilli!’ The call is from a table outside the hotel. Gutiérrez is clean shaven and wearing a crisp, lemon shirt and pressed, sun-bleached jeans. His hair is slicked back and he tips Coca-Cola into a tumbler of amber-coloured spirit. He clinks the ice and says, ‘Something for the ditch, before we drive to the mountains.’
‘The mountains?’ Staffe swigs from his bottle of water, plonks it on Raúl’s table. Fat beads of sweat pop on his scalp.
‘Like we said last night. It is years since I was in Almagen, when that English artist died. You know all about him, I suppose.’
‘Hugo Barrington?’ says Staffe.
‘It’ll be good to go back there.’
‘I read your article.’
Gutiérrez twirls the ice in his glass and drinks it down, taking his time. He regards the finished drink. ‘My car is just there.’ He points at a red Alfa Spyder, the hood down.
Staffe contemplates having to wait in Ugijar for two hours for his connection. He watches as Gutiérrez swigs his drink and walks jauntily to the Alfa. Staffe joins him, says, ‘So, you know Almagen.’
‘I’ve got
primos
in Mecina. Up in the hills, one old goat gets a flea and they all scratch. Yes, I know Almagen all right.’
‘Don’t you have to follow up on your story?’
‘The
comisario
will call me when they get their man.’
‘You’re in his pocket.’
‘I’m in no one’s pocket, Guilli.’ He gets in, revs the car and raises his voice. ‘A journalist works with what he’s got. If they change the music, you dance a different dance.’ The engine noise subsides and the sound of ‘This Is The One’ rushes forth. ‘I love the Stone Roses. Such a shame their spirit was slain by a million paper cuts. The damned law! Now, will you please get in.’
Staffe climbs in and reaches for his seat belt, but Raúl taps him on the arm, says, ‘No seat belts, not in my car – they’re killers. A man needs to be able to get out of a tight situation.’
They roar off and by the time they are driving down Calle Real towards the port and passing Casa Joaquín, Raúl is joining in with ‘I Am the Resurrection’.
*
Manolo sits on the steps outside Bar Fuente, drinking gin and Fanta orange. He is due to go up the mountain for another stint with his flock. The goats spend their summers high in the sierra, it being too hot in the village; Manolo works to a rota of two weeks up the mountain and one week back in the village. His father, Rubio, used to spend the whole summer up the mountain with the goats, until one year he didn’t come down. They say his brain fried. Now, he lives with the nuns and the mad in Granada. When villagers talk of Rubio, they lower their voices.
Raúl parks the Alfa, in the shade of plane trees in the
plazeta
, and slaps Manolo on the shoulder as he goes into the bar, calling him a goat fucker. Manolo looks into his
cubata
, sheepish. Staffe thinks that perhaps Manolo doesn’t care for such fancy Dans.
Staffe orders mint tea and Gutiérrez calls him a ladyboy. Frog calls across to Gutiérrez, ‘You’re the ladyboy, you old dandy!’
Gutiérrez squints and says, ‘Frog? Is that you? Frog!’
Frog laughs, like a frog, comes across to Raúl, hitting him on the arm with a rolled copy of
La Lente
and muttering indecipherable dialect. He says to Staffe, ‘Just another dead foreigner – is that all they can come up with?’ He throws down the paper and calls out, ‘That’s his story.’ He grabs Raúl by the ear. ‘What have we done to deserve a bastard journalist amongst us? Aren’t there enough lies in this village?’
Raúl says, ‘I have no pen.’ He pulls out his pockets and says, ‘See! I’m not armed. You’re safe.’
‘It doesn’t matter, the shepherd can’t read anyway. He talks goat,’ says Frog.
Everybody laughs and Manolo looks ashamed, says, ‘I’m going up the mountain, where there’s beasts I can trust.’
‘He loves his beasts!’ scoffs Frog.
‘There’s nothing wrong with a goat,’ says Raúl.
‘If your wife is out of action, but that’s no problem for him.’
Raúl orders up a round in the twirl of a finger. ‘The goats, they’re in my blood, too. My grandfather was the shepherd in Mecina. I’d go up the mountain with him in summer.’
Manolo grabs his hand, says, ‘They’re ladies’ hands.’
‘Ladyboys,’ says Frog. ‘You should have taken the flock.’
‘And go mad?’ says Raúl, looking at Manolo. He realises he has said the wrong thing. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘None of you have seen a day’s work,’ says Manolo. ‘Doing the devil’s work is all you can do – writing his lies for him.’
Gutiérrez takes out his wallet, slams it on the bar, shouts, ‘How much have you got? I’ll prove it. I know more about goats than you ever will. It’s in my blood, I tell you.’
‘Prove it, then,’ says Frog. ‘Go up the mountain with him.’
Staffe says, ‘I’m going home. I need to sleep.’ He puts a twenty euro down and Manolo picks it up, stuffs it down the neck of Staffe’s shirt. As he leaves, Manolo follows him and in the privacy of the square, he whispers, ‘Tell me, Guilli. When you went to the plastic, what exactly did you see?’
‘I told you, he was in a hell of a state.’
‘Is there something you’re not telling me?’ Manolo clicks his fingers and Suki runs to him, jumping, and Manolo scoops her up in one giant hand. He stands tall, his shoulders square, for once, and the blocks the sun from Staffe, who can’t see his friend’s face properly, being in the shade. In a deeper, stronger voice, Manolo says, ‘You should tell me, you know. There is nothing to fear from me.’
Staffe says, ‘I told you what I know. Ask your friend Raúl what went on. He knows more than he writes, wouldn’t you say?’
*
Staffe drifts off with the window open and in the fringe of his sleep, he dreams the dry rattle of Manolo’s
moto
is driving into his bedroom.
He jolts from sleep and walks unsteadily to his balcony, sees Manolo’s Bultaco Sherpa – a classic, competition trail bike but now clearly straining at every joint of its vintage red frame as it plies along the narrow road towards the cemetery. Behind, Raúl follows in the Alfa, with Suki in the front seat, jumping up and down.
*
Yousef removes the cardamom pod from the flame and places it on the large stone with the rest of the pods. He takes the smaller stone, rubs it on the larger, the roasted pods between. He makes slow circles, as he does four times each day, between prayers. The aroma overcomes everything else. It transports him to Moulay Idriss, to his family. He has no letterbox and they have no telephone. He scrapes the cardamom essence from the stones with the blade of his knife, places it in the small pot of warm milk, adds honey and takes a mouthful which ought to scorch him but doesn’t. He tips back his head and gargles. His throat makes a noise. The words in his mind bubble, float to air with hundreds of bursting pods of sound.
He was turned away from work this morning. Even though he got there at six-thirty, the sun still beneath the serrated horizon of the Cabo de Gata, the lorry was already loaded up. The foreman watched Yousef walk all the way down from the
carretera
, called him a lazy son of a whore; told him he shouldn’t sleep so much.
Sleep has always come too easily for Yousef. He turns from the world readily. But for three days now, he has struggled to find dreams. In his corrugated house, three metres by three metres, he lies out flat and straight on a bed of reeds, distilling the sound of the sea’s surf. The water washes over the beach. The water was lifted high by a hand.
Another hand had taken the man’s broken head, tugged it viciously, by the hair. Yousef knew he should have turned his back. Crouching, peering beneath the plastic of the greenhouse, he watched in spite of himself.
The buried man was up to his neck in the earth, and even though he couldn’t resist, they tied a strap to his head, tethering it to a stake so his mouth faced the sky. Then they shoved the bottle into his mouth and emptied it into him, refilling the bottle from the drum of NitroFos. They carried on filling him up with more water, even though the man seemed quite motionless. If they poured so much water like that, would it be like being trapped inside the sea? And then they stopped. Perhaps it was he who disturbed them, stopped them finishing whatever it was they had started.
But it was a day and a half before the police came in all their numbers, their wiry
comisario
in tow. And a day later, he saw that
guirri
. He made a recreation for him and thinks now that he was a fool for that. In the end, all he did was make his recreation with a hole in the earth and an open fist and a bottle of water.
He knows how to find the stranger. His sad friend in the grey van who bought seeds told him, and Yousef knows Almagen is two days’ hard walk. He hears the gypsies talk of how lush it is up there, because of how the Moors taught the Spanish to make orchards from dust. The gypsies would walk from Adra to Almagen and steal tomatoes and beans, beg for eggs. If they went near the goats, they would be shot.
When he was home in Moulay, he would look at the map, seeing El Andalus stashed like treasure at the bottom of Spain. He had believed everything he heard in Moulay about the wealth that was here; about it being a promised land, once theirs. It had been good to believe.
His mind tumbles, free, and he sleeps.