The Cassandra Sanction (2 page)

Nor, again, was any of the potential trouble coming from the man seated at a table
by the door. With straw-coloured hair, cropped short and receding, he looked too pale and Nordic to be a local. Maybe a Swedish tourist, Ben thought. Or a Dane. An abstemious one, drinking mineral water while apparently engrossed in a paperback.

No, the source of the problem was right in the middle of the barroom, where two tables had been dragged untidily together to accommodate the noisy
crowd of foreigners. It didn’t take much to tell they were Brits. Eight of them, all in their twenties, all red-faced from exuberance and the large quantity of local brew they were throwing down their throats. Their T-shirts were loud, their voices louder. Ben had heard their raucous laughter from outside. Their table was a mess of spilled beer and empty bottles, loose change and cigarette packs.
To the delight of his mates, one of them clambered up on top of it and tried to do a little dance before he almost toppled the whole thing over and fell back in his chair, roaring like a musketeer. They weren’t as rowdy as some gangs of beery squaddies Ben had seen, but they weren’t far off it. The barman was casting a nervous eye at them as he weighed up the risks of asking them to leave against
what they were spending in the place. Next, they broke into a chanting rendition of
Y Viva España
that was too much for the ancient couple in the right corner. The barman’s frown deepened as they made their shuffling exit, but he still didn’t say anything.

The Dane never looked up from his paperback, as if the noisy bunch didn’t even exist. Maybe he was hard of hearing, Ben thought, or maybe
it was just a hell of an interesting book. The yobs gave him a cursory once-over, seemed to decide he wasn’t worth bothering with, and then turned their attention on the solitary Spaniard sitting drinking on the left side of the room. The response they’d managed to provoke out of the old folks had whetted their appetite for more. A chorus of faux-Spanish words and calls of ‘Hey, Pedro. Cheer up,
might never happen’ quickly graduated into ‘You speaka da English?’; and from there into ‘Hey, I’m talking to you. You fucking deaf?’

They didn’t seem to notice Ben sitting watching from the shadows. All the better for them.

The lone Spaniard poured more rum and quietly went on drinking as the loutish calls from across the barroom grew louder. He was doing almost as good a job as the Dane
of acting as if the yobs were just a mirage that only Ben, the barman and the elderly couple had been able to see. Or else, maybe he was just too drunk to register that the taunting was directed at him. Either way, if he went on ignoring them, there was a chance that the situation might dissipate away to nothing. The eight lads would probably just down a few more beers and then go staggering off
down the street in search of a more entertaining venue, or local girls to proposition, or town monuments to urinate on. Just boys enjoying themselves on holiday.

But it didn’t happen that way, thanks to the big porker who’d been the first to call out to the Spaniard. He had gingery hair cropped in a bad buzzcut and a T-shirt a size too small for him with the legend
EFF YOU SEE KAY OWE EFF EFF
in block letters across his flabby chest. He nudged the guy sitting next to him and muttered something Ben didn’t catch, then turned his grin on the Spaniard and yelled out, ‘The fucking bitch ain’t worth it, mate.’

The atmosphere in the room seemed to change, like a sudden drop in pressure. Ben sensed it immediately. He wasn’t sure if the English boys had.
Here it comes
, he thought. He
watched as the fingers clutching the Spaniard’s glass turned white. The Spaniard’s lips pursed and his brow creased. One muscle at a time, his face crumpled into a deep frown.

Then the Spaniard stood up. The backs of his legs shoved his chair back with a scraping sound that was as laden with portent as the look on his face. Still clutching his drink, he walked around the edge of his table
and crossed the barroom floor towards the English boys. There was a lurch to his step, but he was able to keep a fairly straight line. There was something more than just anger in his eyes. Ben wasn’t sure if the English boys could see that, either.

The Dane was still sitting there glued to his book, apparently oblivious. Not like Ben.

They all stared at the Spaniard as he approached. One
of them elbowed his friend and said, ‘Oooo. Touch a nerve, did we?’

‘I’m shitting my pants,’ said the big porker in a tremulous voice.

The Spaniard stopped three feet away from their table. The Arehucas Carta Oro was making him sway on his feet, not dramatically, but noticeably. He eyed the eight of them as if they were fresh dogshit, and then his gaze rested on the big porker.

Quietly,
and in perfect English, he said, ‘My name isn’t Pedro. And you’re going to apologise for what you just called her.’

An outraged silence fell over the group. Ben was watching the big porker, whose grin had dropped and whose cheeks turned mottled red. The pack leader; and if he wanted to remain so, peer pressure now demanded that he make a good show of responding to this upstart who’d had the
monstrous balls to stand up to him in front of his friends.

‘My mistake,’ the big porker said, meeting the Spaniard’s eye. ‘I shouldn’t have called her a bitch. I should’ve called her a cheap fucking dago whore slut cocksucker bitch. Because that’s what she is. Isn’t that right, Pedro?’

For a guy with the better part of a bottle of rum inside him, the Spaniard moved pretty fast. First,
he dashed the contents of his tumbler at the big porker. Second, he hurled the empty tumbler against the table, where it burst like a grenade and showered the whole gang with glass. Third, he reached out and scooped up a cigarette lighter from the yobs’ table. Without hesitation, he thumbed the flint and tossed it at the big porker, whose T-shirt instantly caught light.

The big porker screamed
and started clawing at his burning shirt. The Spaniard snatched a beer from the table and doused him with it. The big porker staggered to his feet and threw a wild punch that came at the Spaniard’s head in a wide arc. The Spaniard ducked out of the swing, then stepped back in with surprising speed and jabbed a straight right that caught the big porker full in the centre of his face and sent him
crashing violently on his back against the table. Drinks and empty bottles capsized all over the floor.

The Dane still didn’t move, react or look up. This kind of thing must happen all the time where he lived.

Then it was just seven against one. The rest of the gang were out of their seats and converging on the Spaniard in a chorus of angry yelling. The barman was banging on the bar and
yelling that he was going to call the police, but nobody was listening and the situation was already well out of control. The Spaniard ducked another punch and returned it with another neat jab to the ribs that doubled up his opponent. But the alcohol was telling on him, and he didn’t see the next punch coming until it had caught him high on the left cheek and knocked him off his feet.

The
six who could still fight closed in on him, kicking him in the stomach and legs as he fought back furiously and tried to get up. One of them grabbed a chair, to slam it down on the Spaniard’s head. Raising the chair high in the air, he was about to deliver the blow when it was snatched out of his hands from behind. He turned, just long enough to register the presence of the blond stranger who’d got
up from the corner table. Then the chair splintered into pieces over the crown of his skull and he crumpled at the knees and hit the floor like a sandbag.

The English boys stopped kicking the Spaniard and stared at Ben as he tossed away the broken remnant of the chair and stepped over their fallen friend towards them.

‘All of you against one guy,’ Ben said. ‘Doesn’t seem fair to me.’

One of them pointed down at the Spaniard, who was struggling to his feet now that the kicking had stopped. ‘What you taking his side for?’

Ben shrugged. ‘Because I’ve got nothing better to do.’

‘You saw what he did to Stu,’ said another.

‘Looked to me like Stu had it coming,’ Ben said. ‘As do the rest of you, unless you do the sensible thing and leave now, while you still have legs
under you.’

The Spaniard swayed up to his feet, looking uncertainly at Ben.

‘You’re going to be sorry, pal.’ All remaining five moved towards him. Except for one, whom the Spaniard caught by the collar and dragged to the floor, stamping on his face. The first to reach Ben lashed out with a right hook that was instantly caught and twisted into a lock that put the guy down on his knees.
Ben kicked him in the solar plexus, not hard enough to rupture anything internally, but plenty hard enough to put him out of action for a while.

Ben let him flop to the floor, rolling and writhing, as the next one stepped up. Wiry, shaven-headed, this one looked as if he fancied himself as some kind of Krav Maga fighter, judging from the jerky, spastic little moves he was pulling. Ben blamed
action films for that one. He let the guy throw a couple of strikes, which he effortlessly blocked. Then hooked the guy’s leg with his own and threw him over on his back. A tap to the side of his head with the solid toecap of Ben’s boot was enough to make sure he wouldn’t be getting up again any time soon.

The fight was over after just ten seconds. The last man standing, obviously smarter
than his friends, fled from the bar followed by the one the Spaniard had punched in the ribs, still winded and clutching at his side as he hobbled towards the exit. Six inert shapes on the floor, among the wreckage of broken chairs and glass, were going to need an ambulance out of there. The barman was on the phone, jabbering furiously to the police.

The Dane had slipped out of the door in
the middle of the action, as if he’d finally noticed the commotion and decided to continue his reading somewhere less distracting. Ben hadn’t seen him leave.

The Spaniard turned to Ben. He was breathing hard and blood was smeared at the corner of his mouth. ‘I appreciate your help,’ he said in slurred English. He wobbled on his feet and Ben had to grab his arm to stop him from keeling over.

‘Just evening up the odds a little,’ Ben said. ‘You were doing okay until then.’

The Spaniard wiped at his lips with the back of his hand and gazed at the blood. ‘I don’t know what came over me,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I just went crazy.’

‘Believe me,’ Ben said. ‘I’ve been there.’

The Spaniard looked mournful. ‘He shouldn’t have said that about her.’

‘I think he knows that
now.’ Ben glanced at the unconscious mound on the floor. That single punch had knocked the big porker out cold. Two hundred pounds of prime gammon, taken down in a single blow by a man fifty pounds lighter. The Spaniard obviously had some hidden talents, when he wasn’t drinking himself stupid.

The barman had finished on the phone and was venturing beyond the hatch to inspect the state of his
premises and glower at the two men still standing in the ruins. ‘Someone’s going to pay for this!’ he was yelling in Spanish.

‘We should leave before the police arrive,’ the Spaniard said. ‘I live just a couple of minutes from here.’ He paled. ‘Jesus, I feel terrible.’

‘Nothing a couple of pints of strong black coffee can’t fix,’ Ben said. ‘Let’s get you home and sobered up.’

Chapter Two

Neither of them spoke much as the Spaniard led the way from the bar and through the narrow, uniformly whitewashed streets of Frigiliana’s old Moorish quarter. Ben followed a few steps behind, watching as the Spaniard tried to hold a straight line and had to keep steadying himself against walls and railings. Ben thought about all the times he’d walked out of bars and pubs with
a skinful of whisky and some other guy’s blood on his knuckles, and wondered if he’d been such a sorry sight as this. Never again, he vowed. But it was a vow he’d broken enough times to know he’d probably break it again, some place, some time.

Ben’s left arm felt a little tight and sore after his exertions. A few months earlier, he had been shot from behind at close range with a twelve-gauge
shotgun. The surgeon who had pieced his shoulder blade back together had done good work, but he still had pain sometimes. In time, he knew, the twinges would fade, even if they never faded away to nothing. It wasn’t the first time he’d been shot.

‘This is it,’ the Spaniard muttered, stopping at an arched doorway on a sloping backstreet. Every inch of the house’s exterior was painted pure brilliant
white, like every other building they’d passed, bouncing back the light and warmth of the afternoon sun. The Spaniard fumbled in his pocket and found a ring with a heavy old iron key. After a couple of stabs, he managed to get it in the lock and shoved the door open.

Ben followed him inside. He had no intention of staying any longer than it took to make the guy a remedial cup of coffee and
see him settled safely out of harm’s way. Ben himself had been rescued more than once from the perils of a drunken stupor. The last time it had happened had been in the French Alps; his saviour on that occasion had been a massive Nigerian guy named Omar, who’d brought him home rather than let him get picked up by the local gendarmes. Looking out for the Spaniard was a way for Ben to put something
back, make himself feel like he’d done something good.

The Spaniard’s home was simply, economically furnished. The walls were white inside as well as out, hung here and there with tasteful art prints. The living room had a single sofa with a low coffee table between it and a TV stand. A large bookcase stood against one wall, heavy with titles on history and philosophy and classical music CDs.
It wasn’t the typical home of a bar brawler. The Spaniard was evidently a cultivated guy, within a certain budget. Bookish, scholarly even. But from the mess in the place, it was just as evident that for whatever reason Ben had found him drowning his sorrows in the bar, his comfortable little life had lately fallen apart. Clothes lay strewn about the floor. The sofa was rumpled as though it had
been slept on a lot recently. Empty beer cans lined up on the coffee table gave off a sour smell of stale booze.