hurry.’
‘Well fine, I am busy, perhaps this explains it. So what was it that you remembered?’
‘Well, it may not be of any use, but let me see.’ I draw out the pause for effect, as if preparing to divulge information of overwhelming national importance. ‘At one point in the evening with Mr Arenaza he started talking about Basque cuisine. I’d been to the Arzak restaurant just outside San Sebastian for a business lunch, you see, and eaten perhaps the finest food I’d tasted…’
‘Yes, yes…’
‘Anyway, I’m fairly sure that Arenaza said he was fond of a particular Basque restaurant in Madrid where one of his friends was the head chef. Trouble is, I can’t for the life of me remember the name of the place. It may have been in Malasana, something beginning with “D” or “B”, but that’s just a hunch. I’ve walked around and looked in the Paginas Amarillas in an effort to save you time, but I just can’t seem to find it. Is that any use to you? Does that tie in with any of your enquiries?’
There is a prolonged silence, one that I assume has been brought about by some frantic note-taking at the other end of the line. It’s going to be a pleasure to set Zulaika on a false trail. I hope he takes three weeks over it and gets fired for wasting Ahotsa’s time.
‘Why didn’t you mention this when we first met?’ he asks eventually. ‘It doesn’t sound like something you would forget.’
‘It doesn’t?’ He has always doubted my integrity, sensed that I have something to hide. ‘Well, I don’t really know how to answer that, Patxo. You see, I did forget. But I thought I might be doing you a favour by letting you know.’
‘Perhaps you are,’ he says quietly, ‘perhaps you are.’ He might almost be talking to himself. ‘Was there anything else?’
‘No, there wasn’t anything else. Have you had any luck tracking Arenaza down?’ While we’re talking I might as well try to gauge the status of his investigation. ‘The story seems to have stopped in the papers.’
‘The assumption is that Mikel Arenaza is dead,’ Zulaika replies bluntly. ‘I have one other area that I’m working on, but it may not come to anything.’
‘Oh? And what’s that?’
He appears to weigh up the good sense of telling me before concluding that no harm can come from doing so.
‘There’s a SIM card that we believe belonged to Arenaza. It was discovered by police inside a pair of shoes at his home in Donostia. A number of calls had been made to an engineering company in Madrid, and to an unidentified mobile phone, but so far we have not been able to find who it was he was talking to.’
‘It wasn’t just for business?’ My heart has started to race. The SIM card will link Arenaza to Rosalia within a matter of days. I remember Bonilla’s words: In my experience people use a secret mobile telephone that their partner knows nothing about. ‘You think there’s a more personal connection?’
‘Perhaps.’ In the silence that follows I worry that Zulaika may have picked up on this phrase and interpreted it correctly. It was careless of me to use the word ‘personal’, an inference that might easily suggest a relationship with another woman. ‘Did Mikel say anything about that?’ Zulaika asks. ‘Did he ask anything about a company called Plettix?’
I play dumb. I have no choice. ‘No.’
‘What about Txema Otamendi?’
Last Tuesday, Otamendi, a former ETA commander, was shot dead at his home in southern France by an unidentified assailant. It is not known whether he was murdered as the result of an internal feud within ETA, or was simply the victim of a burglary that went wrong. I do not want to appear to have become overly interested in Basque affairs, and ask Zulaika to repeat the name.
‘I’m sorry, who?’
‘Txema Otamendi was once a member of Euskadi ta Askatasuna,’ he replies. This is a pompous way of giving ETA its formal title. ‘He was killed last week. You did not know about this? Everybody knows about it.’
‘I don’t really watch the news.’
‘Well, I am trying to establish a connection with Arenaza which goes beyond their formal political links. So if you have another of your delayed memories, Alec, perhaps you would think to call me again.’
I cannot fathom why Zulaika would treat me with such condescension. Does he think I’m stupid? The lie about the Basque restaurant has clearly failed to ignite his interest and he must imagine that I am wasting his time. Let it be so. I say, ‘Of course, of course,’ and wish him ‘all the luck in the world’, adding that it has been a pleasure to talk to him again.
‘You too,’ he says, hanging up.
But now there’s a problem. Do I tell Kitson about our conversation? This is certainly an opportunity to revive the SIS relationship, but the context is wrong. Never tell people bad news that they don’t need to hear. Zulaika’s interest in Arenaza won’t affect Kitson’s search for the weapons and will only harden his resolve not to involve me in any future dealings. There is no point, at this stage, in further weakening my standing with Six; I need to wait until I have something positive to give them, something that makes my involvement irreversible. Besides, they have displayed no interest in re-establishing contact since the handover of the affidavit. Why should I be loyal to an organization that has shown no loyalty to me?
27. Shallow Grave
The body of Mikel Arenaza is discovered six days later lying in a shallow grave about 130 kilometres north- east of Madrid. Julian calls me at home and asks if I am watching the news.
‘They’ve found him,’ he says. His voice sounds cracked and shocked. I think that I can hear Sofia crying in the background.
Spanish television holds nothing back. Shots broadcast live just after 11 a.m. show what would appear to be Arenaza’s arm, covered in clods of earth, protruding from waste ground at the foot of a low hill. His body is limp and very heavy, the skin so ghostly pale as it is pulled from the wet earth that I feel a dryness in my throat like a stain of guilt. Police are busy about the naked corpse with their black sacks and their stretches of tape, local villagers standing back to observe the scene, some sobbing, others merely curious. The broadcaster says that the body was found at dawn by a secretary on her morning jog. Though it was covered in quicklime, it was identified as that of missing Herri Batasuna councillor Mikel Arenaza, and the family informed in San Sebastian. Then the channel switches back to the everyday dross of daytime TV, to a chat show host and a bearded chef making couscous with roasted vegetables. Life goes on.
The name of the nearest village was given as Valdelcubo and I go immediately to the car and drive north on the N1, reaching the outskirts sometime around two o’clock. En route I dial Kitson’s mobile to tell him the bad news.
‘Alec. I was just thinking about you. Was going to call later this afternoon.’
This sounds like a lie and I ignore it. ‘Have you heard?’
‘Heard what?’
‘They’ve found Arenaza. They’ve found his body.’
‘Oh Christ. Where?’
I give him what details I learned from the TV and explain that I am on my way to the scene.
‘You’re going there yourself? Is that the right idea?’
I don’t really understand the nature of the question and ask what he means.
‘Well, it’s pretty obvious. You’re involved in this thing, Alec. You had information about Rosalia Dieste that you failed to give to the Spanish police. You turn up at the graveside, people might wonder who you are. There might be photographs in the press. The Guardia Civil will certainly want to ask questions.’
Why would Kitson care about that? ‘I’ll take my chances,’ I tell him.
‘Look, I’m going to be frank. Buscon has gone to ground in Oporto and we’re keeping an eye on him. Thanks to you, we’ve got people digging around in new areas of his background, trying to put the pieces together in relation to the girl. You could become essential in that task later on. London might need you. So I can’t afford to have you as
