The Company of Fellows (31 page)

Where were
you, Carol? When did Shaw know what happened to you? Did he come
here because he needed the hot, clean air to wash out the hurt of
what he knew? Or had he already sold you into God knows
what?
Tommy thought of the magnificent
cathedral in Seville, and he wondered if Shaw had finally caught a
glimpse of the divine and gone there to atone, setting his sins
free to float away into the vast, hollow, vaulted emptiness where
we set aside the things we want to forget. The emptiness that we
call God.

He watched the
groups of youngsters laughing over their cigarettes and wished for
a moment that he smoked. Then he breathed in and felt the swelling
of his lungs in his chest and was glad that he didn’t. He headed
back to the hotel, less than a five minute walk away.

After a shower
and a change of shirt Tommy lay on his bed. He was as tired as he
ever got in this part of the world. Too tired to think but not
tired enough to sleep. That’s why he still lived in England, he
reminded himself, although he had thought about it many times,
teaming up with Angel and working as much or as little as he wanted
in the heart of Seville.
Seville. Angel’s
terrace garden, with its trellises of jasmine and
honeysuckle.
He wondered how easy it would
be to transfer from Thames Valley CID to the Policia in
Andalucia.

It was already
ten and he was no nearer sleep. Jasmine and Rosie alternated in his
head, pleasantly idling away the early night until the knock
came.

Tommy opened
the door, and felt the clap of a palm between his shoulder-blades.
He pulled away to see the bronzed face and slick, black hair of his
old friend.

“
Angel, que
tal?”

“
Muy bien,
Tommy. Muy muy bien.” Angel reached out his right hand to take
Tommy’s, and thumped him on the back in a bear hug with his left.
His accent was Seville, just like Tommy’s. Unlike Tommy’s it had a
whiff of the south coast ports, of Algeciras, Cadiz, and Tarifa.
Angel Gomez was one of Tommy’s oldest friends. He ran an import
business in Seville, bringing in tiles and textiles from north
Africa. They had met at a Domotex, the big textile trade show held
annually in Hanover shortly after Tommy started out as a designer,
and they had seen each other two or three times a year
since.

Angel took a
roll-up out of the top pocket of his pale blue cotton jacket and
offered one to Tommy.

“
Still smoking
that junk?” said Tommy.

“
Yeah, and I
see you’re still working out, and you know what, I look just as
good as you.”

“
Put these on,
you look like a fucking stockbroker.” Angel threw a pair of shoes
onto the floor and smiled, white teeth against his brown
skin.

“
Who says I’m
dancing?” said Tommy.

“
I don’t care
if you’re dancing or not. At least look like you could or I’ll take
you to a fucking tourist club.” Jerez was at the heart of flamenco
country that stretched across Andalucia. It was full of peñas del
flamencas, flamenco clubs. Many of them were laid on for the
tourists, with gaudy displays and walls stuffed with photographs,
offering classes during the day in English or Spanish. Some were
not.

Night life
rarely began before 10 and Tommy and Angel stepped into the middle
of the crowds feeding their way up to the plazas at the top of the
hill to take their pick of the night’s offerings.

“
How’s
Juanita?” Tommy asked.

“
Ah, you know?
Will commit, won’t commit. One day maybe. I’m too busy selling
tiles to notice most of the time.”

“
And you don’t
think they’re connected?” Angel and Juanita had been together since
Tommy first knew them. When he went to stay at Angel’s parents in
summer they were always engaged. Maria, the matriarch, would be
getting excited and making Tommy promise to come and cook for the
wedding. When he went to stay in winter they’d be taking a break.
Maria would storm through the house, heels banging on the
terracotta. “No backbone. You need a woman with a spine, a woman to
tell you when to stop. Tell you come home or there’ll be no food on
the table.”

“
How do I
know?”

“
My point
exactly.”

Before long
they were squeezing down a narrow alley and in through a tiny
wooden door. As if from nowhere they were engulfed in a tide of
shouting and clapping, guitar strings and beers being ordered, all
woven together by the relentless, breathless pounding of heels. The
room seemed tiny but that was only because the tables were crammed
into one end and around the sides, many of them empty as people
stood on the edge of the floor. Old men danced hopefully at half
the pace of whoever was on show. Young men encroached on the floor,
waving their beers at the señoritas. Young women clapped in time as
the señors pounded the floor with their feet and threw their arms
above their lithe, dark chests.

A woman who
looked to be in her 20s stopped dancing and came to grab Angel. Up
close Tommy could see she was nearer 60 but his eyes were sucked in
by the sinew and the poise in her limbs. “Angel,” she growled. “Is
your friend going to dance for us, tonight?”

“
Maybe later.
I think I need to get him a few beers first, eh?”

“
Then I’ll
take you,” she said, as though she intended to make love to him
against the wall. She pulled him onto the floor and the guitars
speeded up. Angel threw Tommy his cotton jacket. His shirt was open
to his stomach, already see through with sweat, clinging darkly
against the hairs on his chest, sculpted like one of Tommy’s
drawings. He eyeballed a lady at the front of the room and held her
absolutely fixed as he raised his hands, arched his back like a
bullfighter and began to dance.

Tommy turned
to sit and stopped. There were sunglasses he had seen that
afternoon, a pose he recognised; a flick of a cigarette pack that
came almost from the shoulder. He took the Zippo from the top
pocket of Angel’s jacket and squeezed his way to her table,
arriving with a flame a foot from her eyes. She didn’t looked up
from her Camel, just took a slim Ronson lighter from the pocket of
her shorts, lit up and drew. She blew the smoke out into Tommy’s
face and, he guessed, if he had been able to see through the
glasses, opened her eyes.

“
You’ve got a
light,” Tommy said.

“
So it would
appear.”

Tommy sat down
at her table. She moved her ashtray an inch away from
him.

“
Your friend
dances well,” she said.

“
My friend
dances flamenco well. That’s not the same thing.”

“
And what do
you do well?”

“
I dance
Argentine Tango. Very well.”

“
Constant body
contact.”

“
Makes it very
easy to lead.”

She put her
elbows on the table and leant on the back of a casual wrist. “Tell
me about the girl you’re in love with.”

Tommy stopped
trying to look through the glass and looked at the way her skin was
folding and creasing in her forehead and her cheeks. He had no idea
how old she was, not even from the backs of her hands brown and
marked from years of sun and cigarettes. Twenty-five, thirty-five,
forty-five, there was no way to tell. “She’s a
policewoman.”

“
So you’re
life’s cleaner than clean?”

“
She’s an
English policewoman; so in England my life’s cleaner than
clean.”

“
And in
Spain?”

“
In Spain I
hang out with Angel.” They laughed. “Tommy,” he said, reaching to
take her hand; but in one movement she had leant back in her chair
and was lighting another Camel.

“
Well, Tommy,
you’re not local, are you?”

“
No,” he said.
“Nor are you.”

“
Yes I am,
Tommy, but I spent several years studying in Germany.” She reached
out the cigarettes to him.

“
No. Thank
you.”

“
I’ve seen you
a few times today,” she said. “You’ve been asking about
Charles.”

Now he was
even more awake than he was before. The room disappeared and his
eyes fixed on her.

“
I lived
opposite him from the day he moved here to the day he moved back to
Oxford. I’ll bet you’re from Oxford, aren’t you?”

“
Yes. Did you
know him well?”

“
I knew him
better than anyone else here. Tell me why you’re asking all these
questions, Tommy? Are you a detective?”

“
No, I’m not a
detective, I’m an interior designer.”

She gave a
throaty nicotine laugh, “I wasn’t expecting you to say
that.”

“
I’m afraid
Charles is dead.” The only flicker he caught across he brow was a
twist of surprise.

“
How?”

“
He killed
himself.” Without a flicker on either side. “What was he like when
he was here?”

“
For the first
month he was quiet, friendly but withdrawn. Agitated. Worried about
his little girl.”

“
Becky was
fine,” he said, trying to stay calm, wondering if he was about to
hear the detail he’d come for. “Her mother thought he didn’t give
her a second thought.”

“
Not Becky,
Carol.”

“
Carol?”

“
He didn’t
talk about her after she was taken away.” Her shoulders seemed to
slump and she sighed in a way that was less of a sound and more a
gesture that she made with her whole body. “What was he going to
do, eh? He threw himself into work, into the community, but he was
hollow inside.”

“
Who took
her?” This was it, he thought. Sansom was right. Carol hadn’t died
when she was born. She had lived, and what had happened to her was
a hundred times worse than if she had died that first
night.

“
I don’t know,
but they took her back to her mother. His creepy English friend
came round a few times afterwards, but after a month or so that
stopped and he lost all contact with England until he went back,
and after that it was me who never saw him again.” She drew deeply
and took a slug of San Miguel.

“
His English
friend?” Tommy made sure he didn’t let anything show. Just leaning
back in his chair with a beer.

“
Ellison,
Professor Ellison.”

“
Well he’s
certainly a creep.”

“
He was a
politician. A puppeteer who likes to play people against each
other. Like Charles and his wife. He enjoyed the process of people
destroying each other. Charles used to say he was like someone from
a John Le Carré novel.”

“
How did he
play Charles and Haydn against each other?”

“
I think he
came here and said one thing, went back home and said another.
Carol was the pawn in the middle of it.”

Tommy wanted
to press her. This was what he had come for, but before he could
ask anything else, Angel was back.

“
Hey, Tommy.
You missed my dance. It’s your turn now.” Angel put an arm on
Tommy’s shoulder and took his beer with the other. “I’ll keep your
friend company.”

“
Maybe another
day.” She got up and finished her beer. “I have a bike to ride.
Thanks for the light, Tommy. Well, thanks for the thought. Have an
Argentine Tango with your policewoman for me.”

Tommy watched
her snaking her hips through the crowd, her long, tanned legs
disappearing through the door. He couldn’t help but follow,
catching a glimpse as she turned back into the main street and
ducking into the next alley.

Before he
could follow, Tommy froze. By now everyone was inside whatever club
they were going to. Tommy was alone in a narrow street with lamps
playing shadows on the walls, wondering how long he had been
followed. She was like a character in a spy story, a John Le Carré
novel. A character like George Smiley, he thought, and the moment
he thought it he realised the significance of the name.

____

48

“
Tommy.”

“
Eh?”

“
Hey, you’ve
been out here for ten minutes. Come back inside. Who’s the girl?”
Angel turned him round and started to walk him back to the
peña.

“
A friend of a
friend.”

“
You look like
you’ve seen a ghost, man.”

“
As good as,
Angel. As good as. Look, I’m going back to the hotel. I have to get
the first plane tomorrow. I need to ask a favour.”

“
Sure.”

“
An old tutor
of mine used to live in the Calle Caballeros about fifteen or so
years ago. Professor Charles Shaw. He was here for two years and I
think he came into some money during that time. If you’ve got any
contacts here or at any of the ports could you make some enquiries,
see if you can find out where he might have got it and what he did
with it if he didn’t put it under his mattress?”

“
I’ll put some
feelers out for you, Tommy. Take care of yourself.”

“
Thank you,
Angel. I’ll leave her at the airport for you.”