A Silent Death Peter May (i read book TXT) 📖

then faxed it along with the photograph to the drugs unit in the provincial capital. She headed along the corridor to the meeting room where the Jefe was chairing a briefing.

As she came through the door the Jefe was saying, ‘Information is gold dust here. I want you to lean on every source and every resource we have. Someone knows something, that’s for sure. It’s the where and the when we’re interested in, and we’re running out of time. The drugs are on the move, so we can assume that everyone involved is too.’

A dozen or more officers sat upright in hard, uncomfortable seats listening to the chief with mixed feelings. Mackenzie sat among them watching faces that betrayed ambivalence. This was a small community. Police officers lived locally with their families, and were known to everyone. Getting on the wrong side of the drugs lords could bring unwanted attention. And retribution. On the other hand, here was the chance to be a hero. The one to supply the missing piece of the jigsaw. It could lead to commendation, promotion.

Cristina marched to the front of the room and handed the mug shot of Vasquéz to the Jefe. ‘The ringleader,’ she said. ‘Señora Castillejos recognized him straight away. I’ve shared with UDYCO and asked for more info.’

The Jefe took the clear plastic folder containing the photograph and stuck it with Blu-tack to a whiteboard on a tripod behind him. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Some of you will know this guy. Let’s get every bit of info on him that we can. Last known address, known associates, where he drinks, where he takes a piss. Everything. And let’s bring him in.’

He reached for a pile of printed sheets on the desk beside him and started handing them out.

‘And these are the places Cleland in his persona as Templeton is known to have frequented. Bars, restaurants, golf course, marina. Again we’re looking for anyone with connections to Templeton. Fellow diners, drinking buddies, golf companions. Divide them up among yourselves.’ He turned towards Mackenzie. ‘It would be useful if you checked out the expat haunts.’ He smiled. ‘Your English is a little better than most of ours.’

As the meeting broke up, Mackenzie scanned the list and approached the Jefe. ‘What about the golf course, chief?’

He nodded. ‘Yes, take that, too. Lot of foreigners with golf club membership. That’s what most of them come here for, after all. I’ll be up there myself later.’ He sighed. ‘The police sponsor an annual competition at Balle Olivar to coincide with the festival of San Isidro in Estepona. My turn to make a little speech and fire the starter gun on the first tee. A damned inconvenience, and I’d get out of it if I could, but it won’t take long.’

He clapped his hands together briskly to cut through the lethargy of the officers trooping out of the room.

‘Okay guys, come on, let’s move it!’

CHAPTER THIRTY

Cristina hurried across the Plaza del Vino, past the tobacconist and the newsagent, and the little music shop which was just a stone’s throw from the music school on the far side of the plaza. The mini-market would be open till three, and she thought about running in quickly to get some provisions, but there really wasn’t time.

She glanced up at the front window of her apartment. It was Antonio’s day off and he would have returned long ago from taking Lucas to school. She recalled with embarrassment their row in front of Mackenzie the previous evening. Relations between them had been deteriorating in the last few months. Financial pressures, the problems with Lucas and his schoolwork, the demands of her job. And now all this with Cleland. It was something they had to address before it began to get out of hand.

She saw with some dismay that his car was not parked out front. She was returning home for half an hour on the pretext of showering and changing, after spending half the night out on the job. But really, she just wanted the chance to spend a quiet ten minutes with Antonio. To say sorry. And hold him. And tell him they had something special that she didn’t want to lose.

The apartment was empty when she went in. A shambles, as it always was. She simply couldn’t stay on top of her job and keep house at the same time. And Antonio never lifted a finger.

The air seemed heavy still with the bad feelings of the previous evening. Few words had passed between them on her return from the abandoned development on the hill where she and Mackenzie had found the illegal immigrants. And then just a few hours later, as she dragged herself out of bed to take the Jefe’s call, only a handful of terse and bad-tempered exchanges had been required to establish that Antonio would have to take Lucas to school. Something he resented on his day off.

She went into their bedroom to take a freshly laundered uniform from the wardrobe and search for clean underwear in the chest of drawers. In the shower she turned her face up to the stream of hot water and let it cascade over her body, washing away the dust and the tension. Though nothing, she knew, could ever erase the bloody scene in the finca at La Peña. Like Mariana’s recollection of the smirking Roberto Vasquez, it was an image that would stay with her for the rest of her life.

She dried her hair roughly with a towel – no time to blow it dry – and slipped into her clean clothes. It was only as she went through to the living room, pulling her hair back into its habitual ponytail, that she noticed Antonio’s golf clubs missing from the corner of the hall where they usually languished. For all her good intentions to kiss and make up, an involuntary anger surged through her. With everything that was going on between them, and the threat from Cleland to