Bonilla and he celebrates by putting his sunglasses back on. ‘I have a telephone record of all calls made from Senorita Dieste’s landline at Calle Jiloca.’ He passes a Telefonica bill across the table. The paramedics are making a lot of noise, laughing and joking and raising glasses over the table. ‘If you were concerned about an infidelity, Senor Thompson, my experience tells me people are using a secret mobile telephone that their partner knows nothing about. We have only been able to trace one mobile belonging to Rosalia, and the results were completely normal.’
‘Just calls to friends, calls to Plettix?’
‘Exactly.’
‘And email?’
‘Nothing.’
‘No strange internet activity? No private accounts with Yahoo, Hotmail, Wanadoo?’
He shakes his head. An insect lands on my arm and I flick it away.
‘No.’
‘And what about her past? Her education, previous relationships?’
The coffee comes, with a tubed Romeo y Julieta cigar proffered on a small white plate. It may be simply my characteristic paranoia, but I have a developing sense of anxiety that Bonilla is about to mention Mikel by name. Either that, or his whole approach is a charade designed to lure me into confession. If he reads the papers or watches the television news, he will know about Arenaza’s disappearance. Any evidential link with Rosalia and there’s a significant chance that he will have already alerted the police.
‘Again you asked us to look into this for you and we discovered nothing of consequence. Miss Dieste had a boyfriend for three years at the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid…’
‘…Called?’
Bonilla checks his notes.
‘Javier Arjona. But he moved to the US in 1999.’
‘And no pseudonyms?’
‘No pseudonyms.’
‘Dieste took one year in the United States at the University of Illinois. After that, she returned to Madrid, completed her degree and went directly to France to complete postgraduate study in energia nuclear.’
‘Nuclear energy? Where?’
‘The tesis was at the INSTN. That lasted for two years. Then more post-doctorate work at the Argonne Laboratoire Nationale. I have to say that my impression of her is as a very focused, very hard-working and ambitious person, what we sometimes call in Spanish una empollona.’
It’s a word I have not heard before which Bonilla loosely translates as a ‘geek’. Three South American musicians hove into view and start to set up operations about ten feet away from our table. The tallest of them, a battered-looking accordion slung over his embroidered white shirt, steps forward to greet the assembled diners with an accent that sounds Peruvian. Across the restaurant, a lone balding businessman looks down into his plate and groans. He knows what’s coming. Now the drum machine starts up, attached to a powerful, battery-powered amplifier, and before long we are treated to the first bars of ‘My Way’ played at astonishing volume.
‘Oh Christ.’
‘You don’t like this music?’ Bonilla is grinning.
‘I was just enjoying the peace and quiet.’ I drop the head of the cigar onto the ground and light the end very slowly. ‘What else have you found out? Nothing from the weekend? Just this Bunny Girl party? Just brunch at Delic?’
‘I am afraid so, Senor Thompson. I am afraid so. Why you want to know about her? What is your interest?’
I have to give him something. It’s becoming a problem.
‘She may have been having an affair behind Gael’s back. With the husband of a friend of mine. It’s a delicate situation.’
‘Really? Who? What was his name?’
Bonilla seems excited.
‘I would rather not say. He’s from a well-known family in Spain and he doesn’t want any scandal.’
‘So it is the husband who hired you?’
‘That’s right.’
Bonilla is bound to see through this, but it’s the best I’ve got. ‘He wants to know how serious she is. Whether she intends to leave Gael or if she’s just after his money.’
‘He is rich, your friend?’
‘Very.’
‘I see. And where does he live?’
‘In the Basque country.’
Bonilla almost splits his jacket. ‘In the Basque country? Joder.’
‘You look shocked.’
‘No. It’s just not something we were able to discover. Mar I think checked all the numbers for source and not one of them originated in San Sebastian.’
I feel an awful lurch of shock, oddly close to betrayal. Bonilla has slipped up. He knows something.
‘Why did you say San Sebastian? How do you know where my friend lives?’
He looks baffled.
‘I didn’t. Is that his home?’ A consummate impression of innocence registers across his face; no blushing, no tell-tale covering of the nose or mouth. A man suspected of lying who has done no wrong. ‘I just mention it by coincidence. It’s the city I associate with the Basque country. I have been there and I do not like Bilbao. Too much industry. San Sebastian is beautiful, no?’
For a moment I do not know whether to carry on. I should have gone to the police weeks ago and saved myself all this trouble and money. If Arenaza is dead and Bonilla knows about his relationship with Rosalia, I could be accused of conspiring to pervert the course of justice. But if the slip really was just coincidence, I have €1,600 riding on the rest of this conversation.
‘There was just one other thing,’ Bonilla says, so calm and relaxed it seems impossible to believe that he might be setting me up.
‘And what’s that?’
‘We are assuming that you know about Rosalia’s family? About her step-father?’
‘No.’
He is looking at my cigar, following the smoke as it drifts in thick puffs towards the roof of the marquee.
‘It cannot probably be important because it was very long ago, but it was the only thing of significance in the investigation. I found out this morning.’
‘Yes?’
‘When Rosalia was six, her father died from liver failure. He was apparently a borracho, a drunk.’ This seems to amuse Bonilla, who finishes the last of the red wine before leaning back in his chair. ‘Her mother, the woman she visited in Tres Cantos at the weekend, went on to marry a member of the Guardia Civil in Madrid. His name was Pasqual Vicente. He became – how would you say it? – a substitute father to Rosalia, and to her brother, Adolfo. But he was particularly close to the girl.’
‘How do you know this?’
‘I find the interviews. The police reports.’
‘Police reports? I’m not following.’
‘Vicente was blown up by an ETA car bomb in 1983. Close to the Chamartin station. Killed alongside a colleague in the Guardia Civil. You look surprised, Mr Thompson. You start to look pale. Is everything all right?’
24. El Cochinillo
It was a honey trap. I allowed the simplicity of Rosalia’s deceit to obscure the truth about Arenaza’s
