Free Blood Red by Quintin Jardine

Coll, finishing up the biggest ice cream they have on offer - as I had allowed in my moment of weakness - accompanied by Ben, who had closed for his afternoon break, plus Charlie, Cher and Mustard. (By the way, before you get any ideas about Charlie and Cher, she’s been fixed; so, for that matter, has Mustard, when he wasn’t looking, although it hasn’t affected his sense of smell.)
    ‘Everything okay, Primavera?’ the shopkeeper asked.
    ‘Yes, but I’ll tell you later.’ He read the message in my eyes and let it drop.
    My son didn’t quiz me about what we had been doing. He simply handed me back the fifty unbidden . . . he knows that’s too much money for him to carry normally . . . and told me that he and Ben were going to walk the dogs. Since I was long overdue lunch, I let them get on with it, and took over the table. Justine reckoned this was a good idea, and joined me.
    Before we’d left, I’d made my mind up about what I was going to have, so I didn’t need to consult anything before ordering omelette and chips, but I did add a jug of sangria to the order, plus some water, for instant rehydration.
    As our waiter left to get things under way, I turned to the mayor. ‘So,’ I said, ‘you’ve lost your majority on the council. Where does that leave you?’
    She frowned. ‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ she admitted. ‘I’ll need to consult our lawyer, but I believe you’re wrong. Planas was an independent, a one-man slate. Normally, when someone leaves the council, the party involved nominates the next person on their list of thirteen at the election, and that person takes over. In this case, there’s nobody to nominate; logically, the vacancy will be unfilled. That means that we have only twelve councillors. My party and the combined opposition have six each. I’m the mayor, I have the casting vote, so, our majority is now absolute.’
    ‘Hey presto,’ I chuckled. ‘But you realise that gives you a damn good motive for bumping him off. Hope you can tell Gomez where you were on Friday night and Saturday morning.’
    She winced. ‘I hope I don’t have to.’
    I winked at her. ‘Oh yes?’
    ‘It’s that obvious?’
    ‘Afraid so.’
    ‘Shit.’ She looked at me. ‘Between us, yes?’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘I wasn’t in L’Escala. We spent the night in a hotel in Figueras. He’s as busy as I am, and we meet up when it suits his schedule, and mine.’
    ‘Not a local, then.’
    ‘I didn’t say that, but please don’t ask me who he is.’
    ‘Intriguing . . . but it’s none of my business. The truth is, Justine, you’re confiding in the right woman. I don’t care how many secrets you have, I’ve still got more than you.’

Fifteen
    I must admit I was curious, but I didn’t try to ferret out the identity of Justine’s mystery man. The only other detail she let slip was that they had been together for three years or thereabouts, meeting wherever they could but never in L’Escala. Her mother and her sister . . . as Ben had said . . . knew of his existence, but that was all.
    ‘Are you ever going to settle down?’
    ‘Maybe, when his career makes it simpler, and when I feel that I’ve given all I can to L’Escala. My profession, when I go back to it, will let me go anywhere.’
    ‘What is that?’
    ‘I’m an accountant.’
    The rest of the probing over lunch went in the other direction. Most people I meet want to know, sooner or later, about my time with Oz, and even the sophisticated mayor was one of those. She asked me what he was really like, away from the glamour of his movie career. ‘He used to fart in bed.’ She wanted to know what had brought us to St Martí, the first time. ‘We stopped for lunch . . . in this very café in fact . . . and bought an apartment.’ She wondered why we hadn’t stayed together. ‘The first time, he left me for somebody he had always been with, really, yet should never have been with at all.’ (That puzzled her, but it’s part of