Death in the Sun (8 page)

Marie is cooking peppers on a barbecue outside El Nido beneath a bamboo canopy. She has put on a few kilos, over and above the baby, and her eyes are bright. Staffe thinks she suits the colour of her skin and her hair is shiny, brushed all the way through and longer now. She looks reborn.

Harry sits at the head of the table, in Paolo’s absence, poking away at his hand-held virtuality. His brow is thick and his mouth set rigid.

‘Put that thing down, Harry,’ says Marie. She fills Staffe’s glass with half wine, half water. ‘Those blasted games. That machine makes him so uptight.’

Staffe whispers, ‘He’s doing all right, in the real world.’

‘Shut up, you two!’ Harry slams down his device and stares at his uncle.

‘Come here and apologise.’ Marie pats her lap and beckons her petulant son but Harry stamps from the table. As he goes, he shouts, ‘Why can’t we live in a proper house!’

‘Oh my,’ says Marie. ‘I think he’s worried about the new one.’ She taps her swollen tummy and smiles at her brother. ‘I don’t know why – we’ve involved him all along. He knows what’s going on.’

Staffe thinks, Jesús, no wonder he’s playing up – telling him what’s going on in
there
.

‘What did you mean about him doing all right in the real world?’

Staffe ponders whether to tell her about Gracia, and how the boys tease Harry and shut him out. ‘Nothing, just he’s got friends in the village.’ He breaks off a chunk of bread, dips it in the thick
salmorejo
that Marie has made from tomatoes and garlic, olive oil and stale bread.

‘Go on.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I know you, Will. There’s something else you want to say.’

‘Did you ever think about getting a house in the village – for winter? It would be closer to Harry’s friends. And when the baby comes, it might suit to have proper facilities.’

‘And everything we left behind in England. We could get Sky TV, too!’

‘That’s not what I said.’

‘We came to be in the mountains; close to nature.’

‘And while you’re in the mountains, Paolo is in Orgiva – right?’

‘He’s gone to get seeds. They’re cheap down there. And Jackson gave him a lift. It saves on petrol.’

Staffe bites his tongue. ‘I’m sorry. I think you’re doing great.’ He leans across, holds her hand.

‘I’m glad you’re here. It’s good for Harry. He adores you. I don’t know what was wrong with him earlier.’ Staffe returns to his
salmorejo
and Marie goes back to the fire, turns her peppers. ‘So, you’re off to Granada,’ she calls. ‘Can you bring me some saffron from the market. And hey! You drive carefully. Did you hear about that nonsense the other day? A man killed himself on the Mecina road. That damned bridge.’

‘Killed himself?’

‘He was blind drunk, apparently.’

‘It was that fellow who came up with Manolo the other day.’

‘My God, no!’

‘You said you’d seen him up here. What exactly happened when he came before?’

‘He was with Manolo, messing about in the woods, I think. We were in the meadow, bringing in the tobacco.’ She winks at her brother, miming the dragging upon a joint.

He looks past her, to the woods.

*

Orgiva is half way to Granada on the Guadalfeo river. It is a beautiful town with a grand church and a seven-eye bridge, nestling in a delta. Less than a century ago, it was a barbed front line between Franco and the Communists. Peace came, and with it, hippies from northern Europe. They sought what they couldn’t get at home and turned it into a shitty corner of Amsterdam.

The Dragon Bar is down a side street off the
rambla
where the market is held. You can find it with your eyes shut by following the sound of Bob Marley and the smell of weed. But Staffe has his eyes open, clocks Jackson and Paolo at a table in the corner where they are drinking
cubatas
with a forty-something woman with overdone kohl, a singlet top and denim mini-skirt. He reckons her tits have been done.

‘Will!’ says Paolo, a smile tattooed on his face but the fear of a caught man in his eyes.

The woman says, ‘Hello.’ Staffe thinks she sounds German.

Jackson is busy rolling a fat cigarette. This is his world: a scrawny place from when Vietnam went pear-shaped and Cream split up.

Staffe says to Jackson, ‘Shouldn’t you be back in the village, answering questions?’

‘What do you mean?’ says Paolo, slurring his words.

Jackson carries on preparing his joint. He says something in German that makes the woman look at Staffe, then laugh.

‘Raúl spent the night at yours and the next morning he is dead.’

Jackson drawls, ‘Maybe I could have a minute to chew the fat with our dude, here.’

The woman looks disappointed, but scoops up her drink.

‘Maybe you should go, too,’ says Staffe, to Paolo. ‘If you don’t know Raúl, this doesn’t concern you.’ He would willingly drag Paolo into this situation were it not for Marie and Harry and the new baby. ‘And steer clear of that stray.’

The German woman turns and glares but Paolo, passing her, says something to make her move on.

Staffe says to Jackson, ‘Don’t the police want to talk to you?’

‘You don’t know anything at all about me. I’m damn sure you have a
balsa
full of preconceptions, but this isn’t your country so you can take your police ways and shove them where your shit stinks.’ Jackson’s eyes harden, his lips retract to a thin line. His voice is lower, deeper. He leans forward, suddenly looks as if he could damage anybody. ‘You’ve got nothing to frighten me with, you son of a bitch. And if you ever embarrass me in front of my friends, or anyone I choose to hang out with, or even someone I just want to screw – you’ll rue the fucking day.’

‘And you will rue the fucking day, Jackson . . .’ Staffe leans forward, too, his heart beating fast, thinking that maybe Jackson has a trick from Indo-Asia that could pluck his Adam’s apple from his throat.

‘Yes?’

‘What made you invite Raúl Gutiérrez into your world?’

‘Don’t be so fucking dramatic, man.’ Jackson leans back, takes his drink with him. He holds the glass like a weapon. ‘I invited him for dinner. In fact, he invited himself for dinner. He got wasted on my whisky and then drove down the mountain, into a ditch, and killed himself. An inglorious end, but it’s not my fault. It’s nobody’s fault.’

‘He was in the village a few weeks ago. Something must have drawn him,’ says Staffe.

‘He’s a fucking journalist. They sniff like dogs but there isn’t always heat.’

‘And what about Manolo? He’s missing.’

‘He’s a fucking shepherd. It’s his job to go missing. Have you checked out the goats?’

‘He’s not with them. His dog is in the village.’

‘Me and Bobby McGee’ comes on and Jackson smiles. His eyes are warm and he sips his
cubata
of whisky and coke, puts his feet up on the seat of the stool next to Staffe.

‘A bit of a cliché, Jackson.’

‘Maybe, but not for me. I hate the fucking song.’ He blows a kiss to the girl behind the bar. She is young and slim and fresh and has a smile too dirty for her years. ‘But she thinks I like it. That’s why I love this place, man. It’s out of time.’

‘That night, up at your
cortijo
, Raúl said he was going to tell me something. Something he didn’t want anyone else to know.’

‘Maybe it was Barrington. I think he had a thing about Barrington. It was the fucking Academy, I bet.’

‘What do you think about the Academy? It will bring tourists in; money and jobs.’

‘It won’t suit everybody. Me? I came here for the quiet life.’

‘I think Raúl had something to tell me about that body down in the plastic.’

‘Or maybe Santi Etxebatteria.’

‘What!’ says Staffe. ‘What do you know about him?’

‘Raúl and Manolo were talking about you.’

‘Whatever it was he was going to tell me, I’ll find out.’

Jackson laughs, as if he hasn’t a care in all the world. ‘Talking to the dead, now? Maybe you could ask Janis where she left all the drugs.’

Looking at him leaning back and dragging on his joint, Staffe thinks that maybe Jackson really does have nothing to worry about.

Jackson says, ‘Look, man, I’ve nothing against you. I invited you into my home and we partied. I like your sister and Paolo’s not so bad but I’ve been here forty years and I haven’t a clue how this country operates, so take my advice and get yourself better. Get over what’s happened.’

‘I’m not like that. Someone died in that plastic.’

‘You’ve seen what’s going on down there.’

‘The Golf wars?’

‘Too right! You ask me, it’s something to do with money. And if I’m right, it’ll never get sorted out. Not in this country.’

‘Money,’ says Staffe. ‘It’s never far away.’

*

Staffe has walked past the indigo-coloured door twice. It has an iron grille, the size of his paperback. He stoops and looks through into a sloping garden of cypress trees, bougainvillea and roses which border a pedicured, well-watered lawn of deep green. It all leads up to a grand
carmen
with filigree iron balconies and finely worked wooden shutters.

He walked past the door twice because he was looking for the kind of place they would put a sectioned shepherd from the mountains: some functional, modern building built in the concrete and nasty fashion of the Generalissimo. This place, the Hospedería of Our Lady of Mercy, is the opposite.

Staffe presses the bell and when a nun, dressed in white and with an equally pale face comes to the gate, he says, though the grille, as if genuflecting and in his most proper Castellano Spanish, ‘I am Guillermo Wagstaffe and I am a friend of Manolo Cano. His father is a resident and they call him Rubio.’

She nods and slides a wooden shutter across the grille.

He waits.

Ten minutes later the wooden shutter slides back to reveal the troubled face of Manolo. The nun stands behind him. Manolo seems anxious and says, ‘I am visiting my father. Why do you intrude?’

‘I know you and Raúl met weeks ago, up the mountain.’

‘I am here to see my father, if you don’t mind.’

‘Why did you take me to see your
tio
, and then to the plastic?’

‘I wanted you to try the
papas a lo pobre
. They are the finest. I was trying to be kind.’

‘If I hadn’t gone with you that day, I wouldn’t have tracked down Raúl. I won’t rest . . .’

‘All right. All right!’ Manolo says to the nun, ‘It’s fine, he is a family friend. I just didn’t know he was coming today. He can come in – if it is acceptable to you.’

*

Rubio is writing into a leather-bound notebook at a desk by the tall window of his room, which looks over the flat-roofed, white houses of the Albaicín to the Alhambra palace. As confinements go, it’s not a bad one.

The nun leaves and Rubio closes his notebook, stands – a slim, broad-shouldered, still handsome man with blond hair and the bluest eyes. He doesn’t look the slightest bit mad.

He puts his notebook on a small pile of identical leather-bound notebooks, ensures the pile is perfectly straight. Looking at Staffe, he says to his son, ‘Who is this foreigner you bring to my home?’

‘Father!’

‘I don’t see anyone for years and now you bring men with you. Won’t you ever get married; ever bear me a grandchild, you ladyboy?’

Staffe sits on the edge of the bed and says, ‘How do you get on with the nuns?’

Rubio’s eyes lighten a little and his mouth creases into a smile. ‘God would never forgive me.’

‘When did you ever care about God, papa?’

‘You care more when you can hear the harps, believe me. But I tell you, there’s a couple of nurses come round to check on me. Force to your dick.’ Rubio laughs, but quickly corrects himself. ‘What is it you came for?’

‘Your friend, Raúl Gutiérrez.’

‘I don’t know any Gutiérrez.’

‘He died, Rubio,’ says Staffe, watching closely as Rubio’s eyes blink rapidly.

With a crack in his voice, he says, ‘It’s sad, of course, when someone dies. Even if you don’t know them.’

Staffe says, ‘And Astrid? Where is your wife, Rubio?’

‘Leave him!’ shouts Manolo.

‘Do you know a man called Jackson Roberts?’ says Staffe. ‘He’s American.’

‘Get out!’ shouts Rubio. ‘What are these questions?’ He glares at Manolo. ‘You don’t visit since . . . since . . . and now you bring him! Who is he?’

A nun comes to the door, says, ‘We cannot have this shouting. You must leave.’

‘Rubio, tell me what Raúl was looking for in Almagen,’ pleads Staffe.

Rubio shakes his head. He jigs his knee up and down and wrings his hands, turns away from Staffe and his own son, to look up to the Alhambra. A small perfection beneath God’s mountains: the mountains that were Rubio’s domain, until something stopped that and it passed to his son.

‘Come!’ insists the nun and she shows Staffe and Manolo back to the indigo door, colder than a fish this time around.

*

‘What were you thinking, upsetting my papa like that? You must stop this questioning.’

‘Must I, Manolo?’

They are in a
gitano
bar in the Albaicín. Staffe switches his wallet to his front pocket as they settle at the bar.

He continues, ‘What is it, exactly, that you don’t like about the questions?’

Manolo can’t look Staffe in the eye, says nothing.

‘In Jackson’s
cortijo
, you told me that you knew plenty. Those were your exact words.’

‘I was drunk.’

‘You were afraid of something. And you still are.’

Manolo slams down his
cana
of beer. ‘There is plenty you don’t know about me. You don’t have to know everything about everything, Guilli.’

‘Raúl was going to tell me something the day he died.’

‘What would life be like without secrets? You know all about secrets.’

‘Yes. And I told you about my parents. Raúl knew about my parents, and Jackson Roberts.’

‘Raúl’s a journalist, for the love of Christ. You spend time with a journalist, what do you expect?’