Hand in Glove (52 page)

R O B E R T G O D D A R D

They set off again early the following morning and crossed the Spanish border well before midday. It was raining now and continued to do so as they drove west along the Cantabrian coast, the sky descending to meet them in black and churning cloudfuls. The sea, when they glimpsed it, was grey and wind-whipped, the countryside a misty switchback of dank green hills. This was not the Spain Derek had sub-consciously expected, not the arid sun-charred land of his Costa Blanca memories. The contrast depressed him still further. He felt cold and tired and faintly ill, hopelessly unfit for whatever lay ahead. Yet one glance at Frank told him it could not be avoided.

There was a gleam in the old man’s eyes, a flush of colour in his cheeks. He showed no sign of fatigue or irresolution. And Derek knew he would not—until he had done what he meant to do.

Where Galicia began in their westward progress Derek could not have defined. But, as the rain intensified and they turned inland, the landscape and the settlements huddled within its creases acquired for him a sullen and ever less welcoming character. The patchwork fields and mud-choked farmyards, the ancient black-clad women labouring behind lethargic oxen, the stark concrete skeletons of buildings begun but never finished: all these offended his English sense of order and efficiency; and reminded him how far he had strayed from the world he understood. He did not want to be here and would secretly have given a great deal not to be. But here he nonetheless was, tasting the tomb-damp air and peering vainly through the curtain of rain.

They reached Santiago de Compostela in the gloom of late afternoon and approached the centre through narrow crowded streets. The stone buildings rearing on every side looked centuries old to Derek, but the students bustling between them seemed oblivious to the drip-ping gargoyles and lichen-rimmed archways. To them it was just a picturesque old university city, whereas to him it was a place of men-ace and uncertainty.

Weary and dispirited as he was, he was glad he had telephoned ahead from Bordeaux to book rooms at the best hotel, physical comfort offering the only kind of security he could hope to find. Frank had viewed this as a needless extravagance, but, since Derek was paying, he had grudgingly consented. The hotel in question, the Reyes Catolicos, was housed in an old pilgrim inn forming one side of the plaza at the heart of the city. Glancing along its gorgeously carved façade, then back to where the cathedral’s still more intricately

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worked and vastly higher west front loomed through the mist, Derek felt awed and intimidated by such
largesse
of antiquity. He was not here to worship at the shrine of St James, nor even to admire the baroque architecture, but, without such a motive, his true purpose seemed foolish and inadequate, a fleeting delusion flying in the face of piety and wisdom.

If such thoughts crossed Frank’s mind, he did not show it. No sooner had they stowed the Land Rover and booked in than he was quizzing the concierge in rusty Spanish about the exact location of Pazo de Lerezuela. A map was produced and directions given. The village of Lerezuela lay twenty kilometres south of the city and the pazo

“
muy cerca
”—very close by. All too close, Derek could not help reflecting as they trailed behind the porter through moss-damp courtyards and echoing corridors to their adjacent rooms. He needed more time to adjust to his environment, more time to plan and prepare. But even if delay had been possible, Frank would have opposed it.

“Shall we meet for dinner?” Derek lamely enquired as they parted.

“No. I’ll have them send me something. I don’t want much—ex-cept a good night’s sleep. We’ll leave at nine in the morning.”

“So early?”

“Why wait?”

“No . . . no reason.”

“Then we’ll leave at nine.”

With which Frank closed his door, leaving Derek to unpack the little he had brought and wash away some of the grime of the journey before calling Charlotte.

Once again neither of them had much to report. Charlotte had telephoned Fithyan & Co. as planned, claiming to be Derek’s cousin in Leicester, with whom he had been spending the weekend when struck down by influenza, a fiction which seemed certain to win him a few days’ grace. For his part, he could only say they had arrived and would tomorrow seek the meeting with Delgado on which their hopes were pinned. Charlotte wished him luck and urged him as ever to be careful. He rang off in a manner he feared she might think abrupt, but it could not be helped. To say any more would have been to risk revealing just how deeply his misgivings ran.

With the Spanish hour for dining still some way off, he went to the bar and downed several bottles of the local beer without achieving the 372

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faintest degree of intoxication. Trepidation and sobriety went hand in hand, he concluded, wandering out into the plaza and surveying the floodlit majesty of the cathedral from the shelter of a colonnade.

“Don’t worry,” he told himself. “Tomorrow we’ll learn Delgado’s dead. Or senile. Either way, not guilty. Of the kidnapping, that is. But then . . .” He rubbed his eyes and swore under his breath at the folly of what he had done. All this way and all this risk—of embarrassment or dismissal or far far worse. And for what? Charlotte had not said she loved him. She had not even implied it. Yet it was for her sake that he stood alone in this city of rain and darkness. And for her sake he must remain.

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FIFTEEN

It was still raining when they set off the following morning, though somewhat more fitfully than the day before. The clouds rolled in ugly clumps around the hilltops and spilled along the valleys like drifting gunsmoke. South of Santiago, the countryside was a succession of mournful woodland and sponge-wet farmland from which the water drained in bubbling torrents beside and across the road. Far sooner than Derek had expected, they reached a dismal sprawl of dwellings not unlike several others they had passed through but which, a mud-spattered sign proclaimed, was Lerezuela.

Frank pulled up in the centre—a row of shops whose modern concrete structures seemed to have worn less well than the ancient stone cottages of the outskirts—and entered a bar to seek directions.

A glimpse of the cavernous interior, where the flickering of a television revealed nothing save one pot-bellied customer propping up the counter, made Derek glad to wait outside, which he did not have to do for long.

“Close by, as the concierge said,” Frank announced on his return.

“First right, second left. No more than a few kilometres.”

“Did you mention Delgado’s name?”

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“No. But the barman did. With some slant of meaning I couldn’t catch. He asked if Delgado was expecting us. When I shook my head, he laughed. Not humorously.”

“What do you make of it?”

“Nothing—yet. Let’s go and find out.”

Their route took them out of the village along a narrow but well-maintained road between a conifer plantation on one side and a high stone wall on the other. At intervals, a coat of arms appeared, carved in the face of the wall, depicting a boar and a sea-horse supporting a quartered shield beneath a helm and crest. The Vasconcelez family, whose land Delgado had acquired by marriage, had evidently been of proud lineage.

This became even more apparent when, at a point where the road ahead deteriorated dramatically, a wide courtyard opened to their left, with a manicured lawn and a fountain at its centre. The boundary wall comprised one side of the yard, facing an ornate tree-bowered chapel. The third side was the colonnaded frontage of a large house, stone-built and terracotta-tiled, with tall balconied windows on two floors above the yard and ornately carved figures decorating the arches and balustrades. The central arch was higher than the rest, disclosing a porch and a firmly closed pair of wooden doors.

Wealth and seclusion had suddenly revealed themselves where Derek had somehow thought only poverty and privation were to be found.

He was, for the moment, taken aback.

Not so Frank, who drove boldly into the yard, pulled up by the chapel and climbed out. He was already marching towards the entrance when Derek caught him up. “Remember,” he cautioned breathlessly, “we must take this slowly.”

“We must take it any way we can.”

“But
diplomatically
. It’s our best chance.”

Frank cast him a sidelong glance by way of answer and walked on.

A sign fixed to the door ahead proclaimed PRIVADO—PROHIBIDO EN-TRAR, of which Derek required no translation. But there was a bell-pull beside it and Frank yanked at this without hesitation. No sound penetrated from the other side and Frank had raised his hand to ring again when a judas flap slid back for a second and was followed by the slipping of a bolt. Then a wicket-gate set in the right-hand door opened just wide enough to reveal a bulky figure dressed in jeans and a black polo-necked sweater. He was of medium height but broad-shouldered 374

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and muscular, with a blank intimidating face on which a Viva Zapata moustache did its best to conceal a substantial scar. He did not speak, but eyed them with interrogative coldness. There was absolutely no suggestion in his bearing of courtesy or welcome.

“Buenos dias,”
ventured Frank.
“Señor Delgado, por favor.”

The man did not reply. Behind him, across a cobbled yard, Derek could see another fountain and beyond that the clipped hedges and shrubs of a formal garden. Then, clanking its chain as it loped into view, there appeared a huge alsatian dog. Derek looked away before he caught its eye.

“Señor Delgado,”
Frank repeated.
“El general.”

The man’s gaze narrowed. Then he said, in scarcely more than a mumble:
“No está.”

“Not in,” murmured Frank. “To us, anyway. I’ll ask when he’s due back. That should reveal something.
Cuando vuelve?
”

The man shrugged.

“Hoy? Mañana?”

Another shrug.

“Habla usted inglés?”

The man smiled. “
Sí
. I speak English. You are . . .
Americanos?
”

“No. But that doesn’t matter. We must see Señor Delgado. It’s very urgent.
Muy importante
.”

“No, señor.” The smile broadened. “It is
muy impossible
. Señor Delgado sees nobody.”

“But—”

“Nobody!” He stepped back and was about to close the door when Frank reached out and held it open. At that the smile gave way to a scowl.

“If we can’t see him, can we at least leave a message?”

“No messages!”

“He’ll want to receive this one. He’ll thank you for passing it on.

He’ll blame you if you don’t.”

The man relaxed fractionally. The pressure on the door faded.

“Well? Will you deliver our message?”

The answer was reluctant but emphatic, accompanied by a contemptuous curl of the lip.
“Sí.”

Derek wondered what Frank would say next, given that they had made no provisions for such a contingency. To his surprise, the old man pulled a sealed envelope from the inside pocket of his jacket.

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“For Señor Delgado,” he said, handing it over. “For him and nobody else. You will make sure he receives it?”

“Sí.”

“Today?”

“
Sí, señor
. Today.”

Frank nodded.
“Gracias.”
This time, he did not intervene as the door closed, merely turned and walked away towards the Land Rover.

“What was in the envelope, Frank?” whispered Derek.

“A letter. Brief and to the point. I wrote it last night. It invites Delgado to contact the sender at the Hotel de los Reyes Catolicos in order to discuss some papers he has, originally the property of Vicente Ortiz.”

“You knew we wouldn’t be admitted, didn’t you? That we’d have to leave a message?”

“I thought it likely.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you’d have said it was too risky, too direct, too
undiplomatic
.”

“So it is.”

“Maybe. But we don’t have time for your methods, whatever they are. So we’ll have to try mine, won’t we?”

“But what kind of response will there be?”

“I don’t know.”

They reached the Land Rover and climbed in alongside each other. The windows of the pazo stared down at them unblinkingly. If they were being watched, there was no twitch of curtain or glimpse of face to confirm it. And the absence of this—the disdainful lack of any response—somehow worried Derek more than the bolted gate or its sullen keeper. “Is there any chance,” he asked, “that Delgado will recognize your name as an old comrade of Ortiz’s?”

“None.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Easily. You see, I didn’t sign the letter in my name. I signed it in yours.”

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SIXTEEN

Sunday and Monday had fused into a test of Charlotte’s endurance. Time was running out for Samantha, but all Charlotte could do was wait and hope and say nothing to anybody about what might be happening in Galicia. Her two telephone conversations with Derek had provided scant reassurance. There had been a note of anxiety in his voice that she found it easy to believe might presage some form of panic. As for Frank, she was as uncertain about what he intended to do as Derek was. And, unlike Derek, she was in no position to restrain him.

As her mind filled with dread-laden speculation, so her fear of discovery mounted. She knew this to be groundless, since the precautions they had taken were more than adequate, but she could not help expecting Chief Inspector Golding to arrive at any moment demanding to know what she thought she was playing at. Perhaps the receptionist at Fithyan & Co. had recognized her voice. Perhaps one of Derek’s neighbours had seen her coming and going at Farriers. Perhaps, worst of all, their attempt to negotiate with Delgado would prove to be a disastrous mistake.

Shortly before midday on Tuesday, there came a ring at the door which brought all these doubts crowding to the surface. By the time she answered it, she had almost convinced herself it would be Golding, grim-faced and accusing. But it was not. And the relief that it was not delayed by several seconds the onset of astonishment at her visitor’s identity.

“Mrs McKitrick!”

“Hi, Charlie. This is a surprise, right?” Holly McKitrick seemed altered by the switch in locale from expansive Massachusetts to introspective Kent. She was wearing a sheepskin coat with the collar turned up and her smile was faint and cautious where before it had been broad and instinctive. For a moment, Charlotte could have believed she was not the same person. A sister, perhaps, or a total stranger bearing a capricious resemblance. Then she realized her own incredulity lay at the root of the sensation. What was this woman