And that’s when I see the green Seat Ibiza. Three cars back in the outer lane. Can it be the same vehicle? Using the wing mirror on the passenger side I try to ascertain who is driving, but it’s impossible to tell through the traffic and the drizzle. A moped buzzes past close to my door and the cabbie swears. Up ahead, near Nuevos Ministerios, Abel’s car is already through a set of traffic lights which are switching from green to amber.
‘Quickly,’ I tell the driver again, ‘quickly,’ and thankfully he obliges by shooting through on red.
‘Your business partner?’ he asks, finally taking an interest in my predicament. A horn sounds long and hard behind us.
‘My business partner,’ I reply, trying to look suitably distraught. The Seat didn’t come through the lights, but the traffic ahead is moving slowly. There’s every chance it will catch us.
‘Joder,’ he mutters.
We continue another half-mile south to Ruben Dario, where Abel turns off to the right in the direction of Alonso Martinez. But it’s a U-turn: taking up a position in the left-hand lane, his cab sweeps back across the Castellana as if heading into Barrio Salamanca. We are following at a three-car distance as he makes a second left-hand turn, heading north again, perhaps in an effort to lose us. Very quickly, however, he pulls over to the side of the road and turns into the forecourt of the Hotel Villa Carta. This can’t be where he is staying; Abel dresses like a two-star pimp and the Carta is one of the finest hotels in Madrid.
I instruct the driver to pull over to the side of the road, hand him a ten-euro note and walk the short distance up the ramp towards the entrance. A porter dressed in grey tails and a top hat opens the door and ushers Abel inside. They’ve clearly met before because words are exchanged and Abel puts his hand briefly on the porter’s shoulder.
‘Alfonso,’ I hear him say.
‘Buenas tardes, senor.’ Alfonso jokes that he is tired but will be finishing work in half an hour. Abel then shakes his hand, steps past him into the hotel and walks towards a bank of lifts on the left of the lobby. I wait a few seconds behind a group of American tourists before following him inside, approaching the reception desk just as the lift doors are closing. It’s almost certain that he has taken a room in the hotel; if he were meeting somebody, he would have waited in the foyer, or turned to the right in the direction of the bar. Abel’s familiarity with the porter would also suggest that he has built up a relationship with the staff over a number of days.
To give legitimacy to my own presence in the hotel, I leave the lobby and walk towards the bar, passing illuminated glass boxes advertising products by Chopard, Gucci and Mont Blanc. Most of the tables are occupied by businessmen and older couples enjoying an evening drink and I effect a brief scan of the room before turning and heading back towards the entrance. A security guard of roughly the same age and appearance as Bruce Forsyth has appeared near the main door wearing an ear-piece and looking self-important. To avoid his eye I take the back exit out past a Chinese restaurant attached to the hotel and head into a passageway running directly behind the building. There’s a branch of El Corte Ingles to one side and an Aeroflot shop to the other. I need a bank for the plan I have in mind.
Five minutes later I have withdrawn €400 from the Paris account and located the hotel’s staff entrance on the corner of Calle de Jose Ortega y Gasset. Positioning myself across the street, away from the gaze of a fixed security camera bolted to the wall, I wait for Alfonso to leave work. At first it’s hard to recognize him, but the snub nose and slightly bowed legs that were in evidence beneath top hat and tails gradually become apparent in the physical characteristics of a man who emerges shortly after 9.15. He is wearing dark chinos and a black coat and walks slowly south, probably towards one of the two metro stations near Plaza de Colon. It has stopped raining and after 400 metres I make my pitch.
The discussion goes predictably well. Most of the concierges at Europe’s leading hotels are susceptible to bribes from intelligence officials, and there was no reason to suspect that this one would be any different. Henry Paul, after all, was almost certainly an informer for SIS, and Alfonso is small beer by comparison. Having initiated a conversation on the pavement by asking for a light, I quickly persuade him into a nearby bar – in case we are under surveillance – discovering that he is biddable to the point of blatant corruption. Giving a false name, I explain that I work for a private technology company, based in Geneva, that will amply remunerate him for any information he might be able to provide about the identity and purpose of the individual who engaged him briefly in conversation at the entrance of the hotel at 20.35 this evening. To speed things along, I hand Alfonso four fifty-euro notes folded inside a small piece of paper on which I have written my name – Chris Thompson – and a Telefonica mobile telephone number. Should he feel like talking, he should call me within the next twenty-four hours with details of the individual’s surname (‘He invariably uses a pseudonym’), home address, passport origin and number, credit card details, car make and licence, if applicable, as well as any other information that he might consider useful to my enquiries.
‘What’s Mr Sellini done?’ Alfonso asks, already giving up Abel’s surname.
‘I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to divulge that information,’ I explain, hinting at something shady involving children on the internet. Alfonso looks suitably appalled, but I’m in a position to treble his weekly salary so he won’t be losing any sleep over it. We shake hands and I insist only that he keep our conversation private. Alfonso agrees and looks pleased as he leaves the bar. At Plaza de Colon, he crosses to the Barclays Bank building and disappears into the metro. I then call Bonilla from a phone booth around the corner, pass on Sellini’s name, and ask for an update on Rosalia.
‘It has been very difficult,’ he insists, adopting the evasive style that has become increasingly common in our conversations, ‘not easy to obtain answers, not simple at all.’ Having listened to his excuses for the best part of five minutes, I insist on a full progress report by Monday evening and arrange for a small team of four surveillance operatives to watch Rosalia over the weekend. Bonilla cuts me a deal – €1,600 for three days, with nobody in place, barring exceptional circumstances, between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. After that I hail a cab, go for dinner in Malasana, and get to bed before midnight for the first time in ten days.
20. Dry Cleaning
The banging starts at half past five in the morning, very quietly at first, but gradually increasing in volume until I am almost shaken out of bed. The sound is initially like hammering, a spot of dawn DIY, but slowly I become convinced that somebody is deliberately dropping a large metal ball on the ceiling directly above my bed. At about ten to six the noise finally stops, only to be replaced within minutes by what sound like giant marbles being rolled en masse across a parquet floor. There is the sound of a young child laughing, then heavy footsteps and, finally, a crash.
My neighbours upstairs, a Danish couple from Copenhagen, gave birth to their first child around eight months ago. I see him in the lift every now and again, a sweet, blond-haired baby being taken for a walk in his pushchair by a pretty Venezuelan au pair. He has now reached an age where he can crawl, thumping around on his hands and knees, doubtless with a box full of Lego, while his parents clear up the mess behind him. Why don’t they take him into another room? Don’t they have soft toys in Copenhagen?
It’s pointless trying to go back to sleep. As though a mosquito were persistently dive-bombing my ear I wait, semi-conscious, for the next thump on the ceiling, the next floor-shattering bang of the ball. At half-six I get out of bed, make myself a cup of coffee and stand under the shower for ten minutes trying to work out the link between Rosalia and Sellini. Then I walk down to the newsagent on Plaza de Espana and buy all the British broadsheets, with The Economist thrown in for my conscience. Jaded clubbers are still drifting down Gran Via in the dawn light and it occurs to me that Saul is due back any day now. Having walked through Plaza de los Cubos, I take a window table at Cascaras, order coffee, tortilla and orange juice, and sit for two hours reading the papers from front page to back.
Sofia calls me at home at half past ten, just as I am beginning to make headway through a ten-day pile of foetid washing-up.
‘How was your visit to England?’ she asks.
In order to get away for the week of surveillance, I told Sofia that I had to go to London for a wedding. She has no idea that I haven’t been home for six years.
‘It was fine, thanks. Fine. Saw a lot of old friends. Ate some good food. Christ, London’s expensive.’
‘You sound like Julian,’ she says.
‘I sound like anybody who spends five minutes in England.’
Sofia laughs at this and asks what the bride was wearing and whether I danced with any pretty girls, but I grow tired of making things up and suggest we meet if Julian is out of town.
‘He’s in Cadiz,’ she says.
