probably knows, too, that I want to believe him. Alec Milius was once a patriot who thought that his government didn’t kill people for political convenience. Alec Milius wants to be brought back in.
‘So why are you interested in Sellini?’ We are south of Las Ventas by now, the sky beginning to darken and headlights coming on all around us. I don’t want the conversation to founder on Kate’s death. Not yet. ‘What’s this about him selling drugs and weapons?’
‘Abel Sellini doesn’t exist.’ Kitson takes a cigarette from a packet of Lucky Strike on the dashboard and invites me to help myself, lighting his own as I decline. ‘It’s a nom de guerre. Sellini’s real name is Luis Felipe Buscon. He was a former fighter for the Portuguese Secret Service, served in Angola, now an international hired hand with more pies than fingers. Mr Big of no fixed address, operates as a middleman for any criminal or terrorist organization that can afford to put him up in nice hotels like the Villa Carta. We’ve been tracking him ever since we were tipped off about a consignment of illegal arms he’d purchased from an organized crime group operating out of Croatia.’
For Six to be involved, that consignment must be on its way to the British Isles. But how does Rosalia fit in?
‘Tipped off by whom?’
Kitson glances across at me and says, ‘That information was brought to us by a protected source. Now, what’s your interest in him?’
‘Not yet. I need to know more. I need to know why I was being followed and why you’ve pulled me in.’
It is hard to tell if Kitson is impressed by this show of stubbornness, but he answers the question with a candour which would suggest that he trusts me and knows that I’m instinctively on the side of the angels.
‘I’m here as part of an undeclared SIS op tracking Buscon. Local liaison knows nothing about it, so if they find out, I’ll know who to blame.’ I get a scolding, smoke-exhaling stare with this remark, a switch in Kitson’s demeanour which is actually frightening. ‘The Mick and the Croat get along like a house on fire. Always have. Call it a shared antipathy towards their neighbours. For the Irish, the bloody Brits, for the Croats, the murdering Serbs. So they have lots in common, lots to talk about over a pint of Guinness. We had a tip-off that Buscon had become involved in what was euphemistically described as a humanitarian project in Split. Only Luis wasn’t interested in feeding the poor. What he was interested in was the consignment of weapons sitting in a hayshed in the ultra- nationalist hinterland that wasn’t being put to suitably romantic use. So, on behalf of the Real IRA, he ordered a takeaway.’
‘And now the weapons are here in Spain? In Madrid? They’ve gone missing?’
‘Again, I’m not at liberty to discuss that. All I can say is that Buscon has contacts in organized crime groups with structures all over Europe. These weapons could be on their way to the Albanian mafia, the Turks in London, the Russians, the Chinese. Worst case scenario, we’re talking about an Islamist cell with enough high explosive to blow the door of 10 Downing Street into Berkshire.’
‘Fuck.’
‘Quite. Which is why we need to know what you were doing listening in on Mr Buscon’s conversation with Rosalia Dieste at the Irish Rover last Friday.’
‘You were there?’
‘We were there. Had command of Buscon and couldn’t tell if you were liaison or just a lonely tourist who liked Bon Jovi.’
‘Where were you sitting?’
‘Not too far away. We had ears at the table, hours of prep, but the mike failed at the last minute. I was actually rather jealous of your proximity. Not to mention anxious to find out who the hell you were.’
‘And the two guys outside in the green Seat Ibiza? They were A4?’
Kitson accidentally swerves the car here and has to check his steering. ‘Very good, Alec,’ he says. ‘Very good. You’ve done this before.’
‘And the older man who took the second cab at the hotel? Grey hair, pin-striped suit. He was tailing me at the Prado last weekend.’
‘Quite possibly. Quite possibly.’
Kitson likes me. I can sense it. He hadn’t expected such a level of expertise. My file is most probably wretched, Shayleresque, but this is pedigree.
‘So what were you doing there? What’s your relationship with the girl?’
‘I think she might be involved in the murder of a politician from the Basque country. Mikel Arenaza. A member of Herri Batasuna.’
‘The political wing of ETA?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Never heard of him.’ Kitson’s reply is blunt, but you can tell the brain is already running through the implications. ETA. Real IRA. Weapons that have gone missing.
‘Arenaza disappeared on 6 March, a little over three weeks ago.’ Without asking, I help myself to one of the dashboard cigarettes and push the lighter. ‘You didn’t read about it in the papers?’
‘Well, we’ve all been rather busy…’
‘Rosalia was Arenaza’s mistress. As far as I can tell, nobody else knows that piece of information. He was married and didn’t want his wife finding out.’
‘Understandable in the circumstances. So why did he tell you?’
‘Why does anybody tell anyone anything? Booze. Camaraderie. Mine’s bigger than yours.’ The lighter pops and I take the first delicious draw on the cigarette. ‘Mikel and I were supposed to meet for a drink when he was in Madrid visiting Rosalia. Only he never showed up. I found out where she worked, followed her to the Irish Rover and witnessed the conversation with Buscon. It looked important, so I followed him back to the hotel.’
‘Where you bribed Alfonso Gonzalez.’
‘How do you know about that?’
‘You’re not the only one on his books, Alec.’ Kitson clears his throat to suffocate a smile. ‘Senor Gonzalez has made enough money out of the pair of us in the past couple of weeks to buy himself a small villa in the Algarve.’
‘So you instructed him to make that call today? You set the whole thing up?’
‘What can I say? Her Majesty had more leverage. Now tell me what you know about the girl.’
I pause briefly, absorbing the fact that Alfonso betrayed me, but it makes no sense to get annoyed. Suddenly my doubts about Arenaza’s disappearance, the long days and nights tailing Rosalia, the money spent on surveillance, all of it appears to have paid off. I am right back at the centre of things. And the feeling is electrifying.
‘Rosalia Dieste is thirty-four. She lives with her boyfriend in an apartment about half a mile east of the Bernabeu…’
‘We know that.’
‘She trained as an industrial engineer, specializing in nuclear energy.’
‘Nuclear energy?’
‘You weren’t aware of that?’
‘No.’
‘You think it might be important?’
‘Possibly. I’m going to need all of this on paper.’ Kitson checks his blindspot and coughs. What I’m telling him is clearly new and useful. ‘We’re going to need you to come in and write everything down. Is that all right?’
So the conversation isn’t being recorded. ‘That’s fine.’ The M30 passes under a ruined stone bridge and we are briefly slowed in traffic. Up to the right I can see the outline of the Vicente Calderon. The night air above the stadium is floodlit; Atletico must be playing at home. ‘Rosalia left her job just a few days after Arenaza arrived in Madrid. There’s no physical evidence linking the two of them, not even a record of any phone calls, but I’m convinced she’s the girl Mikel was talking about.’
‘How do you know about phone records?’
‘Because I paid somebody to look into her background.’ As if this was an entirely natural course of action, Kitson merely nods and accelerates into a faster lane. He seems to be adjusting to the pace of Spanish roads, growing in confidence even as our own journey progresses. ‘The investigators discovered that Rosalia’s step-father was murdered by ETA in a car-bomb attack in 1983. He was a policeman, she was very fond of him. It’s obvious to me that she lured Arenaza to Madrid…’
