‘You obviously know him a lot better than I do,’ I respond. ‘You and Julian have a history. I don’t think he would reveal something as personal as that to an employee, no matter how close we are. It’s very private.’
I try to work out the implications. Has Arenaza spoken out of turn? I need to put the pieces together without appearing ignorant of the facts. Yet I cannot even work out whether Sofia knows the truth about her husband’s past. Is she an innocent party in this, or has she been playing me all this time?
‘Another whiskey?’ I ask, assuming that alcohol will help to lower Arenaza’s defences.
‘Sure.’
And the brief respite at the bar allows me time to conceive a strategy, a question designed to discover what Julian was doing in Colombia.
‘I forget,’ I ask, returning with two tumblers of Jameson’s. What was Julian’s job title out in South America?’
‘In Bogota? His job title?’ He looks perplexed. ‘I think he was just teaching English. That was the whole problem.’
‘The whole problem.’
‘Well, Nicole is the reason they are there, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘I mean, she works at the embassy all day and Julian has nothing to do but teach English to businessmen and students…’
I experience a thump of shock, a tightening through the upper part of my body. ‘The embassy,’ I manage to say.
‘That’s right.’
‘Yes. For some reason I thought Julian was connected to that.’
But which embassy? US or UK?
‘Are you all right, Alec? You look worried.’
‘I’m fine. Why?’
‘You sure?’
‘It must be the drink. We’ve had quite a bit.’
He shrugs. ‘Yes I think so.’
‘So where did they meet?’
‘Julian and Nicole?’
‘Yes.’
He is starting to look uninterested. ‘In the United States. Julian was working for a bank in Washington and they meet through work.’ Does that make Nicole a Yank? ‘But he gives it all up for love. Follows his new wife to Colombia where she falls for this other man. Why?’
‘Well, maybe that’s why Julian prefers marrying foreign girls,’ I suggest, adopting an ambiguity in the hope of discovering Nicole’s nationality. Arenaza duly obliges.
‘Sure. But I don’t think he will marry any more Americans, no? I think one is enough for a lifetime.’
Maybe it’s all coincidence, but at the very least Julian’s wife worked for the State Department. Yet in what capacity? The fact that neither Sofia nor Julian has ever mentioned her would surely suggest a connection with the Pentagon or the CIA – and that means a link to Katharine and Fortner. But why would Julian put me in touch with someone who had access to that information? Is it because he knows that I will not be able to prevent myself from investigating?
‘I’d forgotten all this,’ I tell him. ‘I’d always assumed that Julian had been with Sofia for longer. I guess that explains why they don’t have any children.’
‘I suppose.’ He is starting to look tired, glancing at his watch. I try to keep the conversation going, but his answers about Julian’s past are either evasive or ill-informed. Only when questioned directly about Nicole’s adultery does he become animated.
‘Look, the infidelity is not so rare, yes? We are all guilty of it. I was like Nicole. I get married very young and we make mistakes. Both of us.’
But this is surely self-serving, words designed to lessen his feelings of guilt over Rosalia. Within moments, Arenaza is looking at his watch again, finishing his whiskey and announcing that he has to leave. I invite him to stay for one more drink, but his mind is made up and he is determined to head for home.
‘It was my wife I was speaking to before,’ he explains. ‘She likes me to be home by midnight. The women, they keep their claws in us, no? But I give you my card, Alec. We call each other when I come to Madrid.’
And that’s it. Any further information will have to wait for a week, when I can ply Arenaza with drink over dinner and tour him around the bars of Madrid. At the edge of the Parte Vieja he waves me off, sinking into the back seat of a cab, and half an hour later I am back in the hotel running through three years of encounters with Sofia and Julian, trying to piece them all together. There’s a bad American movie on TV and I have five miniatures of Scotch for company, but nothing makes any sense. In the end, I get into bed, resign myself to a night without sleep and switch off the light.
11. California Dreaming
I check out of the hotel at seven the following morning and leave San Sebastian in darkness, heading south to Madrid on roads blurred by fog. Stopping for breakfast in a motorway cafe north of Vitoria, I send Arenaza a text message thanking him for the meeting and we arrange to have dinner on Saturday week in Madrid. That should give him a couple of days of unbridled passion with Rosalia, after which he might feel like opening up. Then Saul calls when I am an hour south of Burgos, sounding oddly nervous about my return. On the basis that he is probably hiding something, I tell him that it will be at least three o’clock by the time I make it back. This is a lie. Given decent traffic, I should be home by midday.
I park the Audi in its reserved space below Plaza de Espana, remove the bag of money from the boot and carry my luggage the short distance up Calle de La Princesa to the apartment. A woman’s voice, American with a Hispanic lilt, is audible as soon as I step out of the lift.
‘You’re serious?’ she says, rising on the question with Californian surprise. ‘People pay that much money for an apartment in London?’ It is not possible to hear any answer.
I press my ear to the door but there is now no sound. Three or four seconds pass and all talking has stopped. Have they realized I am outside? I turn the key in the lock and expect – what? A team of American operatives planting bugs in light fittings? Instead I am confronted by a sight both strange and wonderful: a stunning black girl walking out of the spare bedroom wearing nothing but a pair of bright yellow knickers. She stops dead in her tracks when she sees me.
‘Who are you?’
Saul comes rushing out of the bedroom, wrapped in a crumpled sheet.
‘Alec!’
‘Hello, mate.’
I ought to be angry, but it’s a bedroom farce.
‘You said you weren’t coming back until three. What happened?’
‘I wasn’t hungry. Didn’t stop for lunch. Been having fun?’
The girl has disappeared.
‘Almost, almost,’ he says, a considered response given the circumstances. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’
He’s worried that I’ll think she’s a spook. Nothing could be further from my mind, but I’ll play along just to give him a fright.
‘Who is she?’
‘Just a girl I met last night.’ He struggles to remember her name, frowning with frustration. ‘Sasha? Sammy? Siri? Something like that. She’s cool, man.’
‘Really? You sure?’
Saul shakes his head.
‘Don’t go paranoid on me.’
