Free The Gilded Seal by James Twining Page B

courtyard.
    Tom stepped in warily, the walls of the two-story building
    rising on all sides to frame a small slab of sky overhead, gray
    and sullen.
    The ground was littered with broken tiles and shattered
    terracotta bricks. The dog turd on the large pile of sand to his
    left had been stepped in, the crumbling imprint of a ridged
    sole still visible. A pile of wind- blown rubbish had drifted
    into the far corner where Tom thought he could make out the
    fluorescent glow of a discarded condom. He shook his head
    angrily. Rafael had deserved better than this. Much better.
    “This way.”
    Marco Gillez shouldered past him and strode into the mid-
    dle of the courtyard. Tom paused to secure the gate behind
    them before following, fluttering his T-shirt against his body
    to cool himself. It was warm for this time of year, even for
    Spain.
    Gillez was wearing an outfit that looked as if it had been
    lifted from a bad fifties musical—blue flannel trousers worn
    with a pastel green jacket and cream shoes that were in need
    6 2 j a m e s
    t w i n i n g
    of a polish. He had a long, pale face and small muddy brown
    eyes that were separated by a large nose that narrowed to an
    almost impossibly sharp edge along its ridge, casting a shadow
    across one half of his face like the arm of a sundial. His gin-
    ger hair and goatee had been dyed black, the resulting color a
    dark mahogany that changed hue depending on the light.
    “There—”
    He pointed with a dramatic flourish at an open doorway;
    his fingernails were gnawed right back, the cuticles sore and
    bleeding. Tom looked up and saw two holes on either side of
    the door frame, dark rivulets of dried blood running from
    beneath them to the ground. White chalk marks had been
    drawn around the outline of the bloodstains, forming a large,
    looping line like an untightened noose.
    “Cause of death: asfi xia ,” Gillez continued as he consulted
    a file produced from a small brown leather satchel, his voice
    colored by a heavy Spanish accent. “The weight of the body
    suspended on the two nails made it impossible to breathe. It
    only took a few minutes.” He ran his hand over his goatee as
    he spoke, smoothing it against his skin as if he was stroking
    a cat.
    “That’s why the Romans used to nail people’s feet too,”
    Tom added in a dispassionate tone. “So they could push them-
    selves up and catch their breath. It prolonged the ordeal.”
    “So it could have been worse?” A flicker of interest in
    Gillez’s voice. “He was lucky?”
    “He was crucified, Marco,” Tom snapped. “Nailed to a
    doorway in a yard full of dog shit and used rubbers. You
    call that lucky?”
    He turned away and stared angrily at the open doorway.
    The small part of him that had voiced a faint voice of hope
    that Rafael could not be dead, that this must all be some ter-
    rible mistake, was suddenly tellingly muted. This was where
    Rafael’s life had ebbed away, retreating a little further out of
    reach with every agonized breath. He almost wished he’d
    taken Dominique’s advice and stayed away.
    There was a long silence. Gillez, his jaw clicking as he
    exercised it slowly from side to side, appeared to be waiting
    for Tom to say something.
    t h e g i l d e d s e a l
    6 3
    “Would you like to see the photos?” he asked eventually,
    thrusting the file hopefully toward Tom.
    “No.” Tom turned away in distaste, a brief mental image
    forming of Gillez as a child, pulling the legs off a crab and
    watching it struggle at the bottom of his bucket. “Just tell me
    what it says.”
    Gillez gave a disappointed shrug and turned the page.
    “Rafael Quintavalle. White male. Age fifty-six. Found dead
    on the Domingo de Resurrección — Easter Sunday. Homicidio.
    The coroner estimated he’d been here two to three days. He
    was identified by his stepdaughter.”
    “Eva?” Tom asked in surprise. “She’s here?”
    “You know her?”
    “Used to.” Tom nodded with a sigh.
    “She’s a wild