Free Death in the Sun by Adam Creed Page B

is. There is a bridge that spans the alley, from one building to the next. This is the bridge. He leans over the desk, presses his nose to the window and sees people on their paseo, linking arms, eating ice-cream cornets.
    There is nothing on the desk, save the last few copies of La Lente , an ashtray brimming with cigar stubs and a notebook. Staffe flicks through the notebook and sees nothing to catch the eye, save the words: ‘ Etxebatteria. Cabeza. Toro. ’ The name of his parents’ killer. Head. Bull.
    Staffe sits at the desk and opens and closes the drawers. Most are empty. On one wall is a large tapestry and a bull’s head, grandly mounted. On the other wall, the door is surrounded mainly by photographs of matadors, some signed ‘To Raúl’, with scrawled quips and fond messages. There is a photograph of a young Raúl with an old Manolito – Almería’s most famous killer of bulls. There is also a watercolour of an Alpujarran village, with a tinao in the foreground, and beneath a torn poster from the corrida of the 1989 feria is a familiar swirl of colours. It is a small painting, in the artist’s early style, depicting the high sierra with pine trees and a snow-capped mountain. In the mid-distance is the Silla Montar, above Almagen. It is an original: signed Barrington.
    Pepa appears by his side, smelling of soap; a hint of perfume.
    Staffe asks, ‘Did he ever talk to you about the mountains, or his village?’
    ‘You’re fond of your questions. I went out with a policeman once. It was a curse.’
    ‘Charming. Raúl claimed to dislike Barrington, but he has one of his paintings.’
    ‘It’s a painting of his part of the world, and not exactly a bad investment. Besides,’ Pepa turns to look at the painting, ‘it’s hardly one of his finest pieces.’
    ‘Could you could take me to his office?’
    ‘All that is left of him is his work – his finished work.’
    ‘What about his sources?’
    ‘He would have absolutely no records of his sources. Raúl was meticulous, but anything he needed, he kept in his head.’ She prods her temple with her forefinger. ‘If you want to know Raúl, you have to read his work.’ She laughs and finishes her coffee. ‘It’s exactly what he would want.’
    ‘And where can I find his work? Buried in a vault somewhere, rotting?’
    ‘We were once a third world country, but not any more. The owners of the paper commissioned an electronic archive two years ago. All editorial, news and feature articles are available online, provided you have the authority.’
    ‘How far back does it go?’ Staffe asks.
    But she is gone, holding a tissue to her nose.
    *
    The man grips the African firmly by the forearm. The African’s blue and yellow burnous now has smears of blood on one of the arms and at the hip. ‘Is this him?’
    From the window of Café Tanger, they watch the Englishman and the woman from La Lente walk away.
    ‘Well!’ says the man. ‘Is it him?’
    The African bows his head, nods.
    ‘And what did you tell him?’
    The African shakes his head.
    ‘You’re coming with me. We’re not done yet.’
    Behind the counter, two Moroccans stand, passive. They want to intervene, but know better. He is not to be messed with, they know. In this land, there are battles you cannot win.
    *
    The plastic greenhouses are golden; translucent in the dusk sun. Staffe asks the taxi driver to stop by the NitroFos drum.
    ‘Here?’ says Pepa. She is wearing her dark suit from the funeral, and Prada shades. Staffe strides ahead, wending left and then right and soon they are lost amongst the plastic. He pauses where the African in the burnous had been and Pepa catches up, her heels snagging in the dirt. ‘Was it here?’
    ‘There was a man. A Moroccan, as black as the peak of a cuerpo ’s cap. I spoke to him.’
    ‘And what did he say?’
    ‘Nothing. But he showed me water, being poured into a man‚ I think.’
    In a clearing, between two sorry-looking plastic sheds, two