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

With as casual an air as he could muster, he strolled towards them, hands in pockets. ‘Well, hello,’ he said, affecting what he hoped was a genuine smile of surprise. ‘Didn’t expect to see either of you two here.’

Both men started almost guiltily and turned towards him. Paco recovered himself more quickly, although to Mackenzie’s eye his smile never got beyond his lips. ‘Señor,’ he said. ‘Good to see you again.’ He waved a crutch vaguely towards the course. ‘In this better circumstance.’

Mackenzie nodded towards the walking aids. ‘You’ll not be playing much golf with those.’

Paco inclined his head in wistful acknowledgement. ‘I’m afraid I won’t. But I still enjoy watching. Not much else to occupy me at the moment.’ He laughed. ‘I can just about afford the hire of a golf buggy.’

Mackenzie’s eyes drifted towards Antonio, and the golf bag slung over his shoulder. Antonio forced a smile that, like Paco’s, didn’t quite reach his eyes. ‘I usually play on my day off, Señor Mackenzie. But I forgot it was the San Isidro competition today.’ His smile turned rueful. ‘A waste of a journey.’

‘You won’t stay to watch?’

‘I prefer to play.’

Paco looked at Mackenzie. ‘You’re not here to play, though.’

Mackenzie’s laugh was genuine now. ‘No. That would not be a pretty sight.’ But he decided not to elucidate on the real reason for his being there. ‘Maybe see you later.’

And he turned to head off back towards his car.

When he slipped into the driver’s seat he unplugged his phone and switched it back on. He could see beyond the reflections on his windscreen that the two men had resumed their argument. But he was immediately distracted by an alert from the phone. It was a text from Cristina. Where have you been?Meet me ASAP in the car park of Zhivago’s. It’s a restaurant in Marbella. Find it on Google maps.

When he looked up again Paco had vanished, and Antonio was striding angrily towards his car, where he raised the boot and threw in his clubs before slamming it shut. Mackenzie watched as he drove off with a squealing of tyres, and wondered exactly what it was that had passed between the brothers-in-law.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Zhivago’s was located in a leafy north-west corner of Marbella known as Little Russia. Wealthy Russian expats hung out here in exclusive clubs and bars among a proliferation of palm trees. They built themselves beautiful bodies in luxury gymnasia, treated their wives to prohibitively expensive sessions in stylish beauty parlours, ate in any one of a number of restaurants offering international haute-cuisine. There was even a school of Russian ballet where daughters could be deposited while parents sipped French wines in upmarket Russian cocktail bars. All within a few hundred metres of some of the most expensive marina real estate in Europe. There they could park their luxury yachts for the purchase of a mere 400,000-euro lease, and dine easy in the knowledge that there would be no parking ticket waiting for them on their return. It was rumoured that Putin himself owned a hacienda in the hills less than five kilometres away.

Mackenzie squinted towards his iPhone resting in the passenger seat, trying to decipher Google maps and listening to computerized instructions from an anodyne female voice. He turned off the motorway and followed an access road down to a roundabout before turning on to a winding access road that took him into the heart of suburban Marbella.

You have reached your destination, his phone told him, and he saw the single-storey white-painted building angled around lush gardens behind a hedge designed for ultimate privacy. Advertising hoardings sat on the shallow pitch of the Roman-tiled roof advertising a galería of wines and a bodega for fine food. The restaurant’s name, Zhivago’s, was inscribed in discreet letters below an imperious image of Bacchus gazing skywards.

The food and wine complex sat directly across the road from a private Russian club called Azure Beach. The club stood at the entrance of what appeared to be a gated labyrinth of suburban streets filled with luxury apartments and elegant villas that shimmered mirage-like in the heat of the afternoon sun. Somewhere beyond the palms and willows and bougainvillea that draped themselves over fences and walls, the same streets sloped gently away towards the port below, where the Mediterranean lay coruscating across the bay.

As he turned his Seat into the car park, Mackenzie noticed Cristina’s SUV parked some way down a side street leading towards the marina. He stopped, and was about to reverse out again, when Cristina stepped from a dark grey Kia Sportage and waved him over.

He parked and walked across to the Kia. Without a word she opened the rear door for him and slipped back into the front passenger seat. A perspiring and overweight middle-aged man with precious little hair half-turned in the driver’s seat and nodded as Mackenzie climbed in.

‘Detective Gil,’ Cristina said by way of introduction. ‘He’s with GRECO here in Marbella.’

Mackenzie nodded. He remembered Gil from the meeting at Marviña the day before. He stretched forward a hand and received a damp one in return.

‘He’s got a video you need to see.’

Gil reached for his Samsung Galaxy and started a video playing, then held it up for Mackenzie to watch. Mackenzie recognized the entrance to Zhivago’s and realized that the footage must have been taken on a long lens from somewhere across the street, a hidden vantage point beyond the Azure Beach.

Gil said, ‘Surveillance footage. Taken a couple of months back. We were watching a guy called Rafa. Long suspected of laundering drug money. He has this business selling yachts.’ His laugh contained not a trace of humour. ‘You and I couldn’t even make a living on the handful of transactions he does each year. But somehow he manages to turn a handsome profit.’ He jabbed his finger at the screen. ‘That’s him going in. The one in the middle.’

Mackenzie leaned forward for a better look. Three men in designer suits were climbing