‘I mean we weren’t the only ones who wanted de Gavillane punished.’
‘You mean these other people paid you?’
‘Why would I need paying, Vau? I have more than enough money as it is. No. They simply made it easier for me to do what I had to do. Told me de Gavillane’s habits. What clubs he belonged to. Where he hung out. I finally narrowed it down to his health club, or the Turf. But the Turf is too public. His health club was better. I watched de Gavillane without his noticing it. People have habits, you see. And de Gavillane had one particular habit that amused me no end. He hated people leaving their plastic cups of water in the sauna. Whenever he went in he would throw the water onto the stone furnace, and then dispose of the plastic cups in the bin outside. Made no end of a song and a dance about it to the staff.’
‘I don’t understand, Abi. Why is that interesting? Why were you amused by that?’
‘Because it was a tic. And tics make people vulnerable.’
‘Vulnerable? Vulnerable to what?’
‘I left three full cups in there one day. Just before he came in.’
‘Yes. And so?’
‘I filled them with vodka, Vau. Pure vodka. Bulgarian Balkan 176 degrees proof – 88 per cent alcohol. Clear as a mountain stream. When de Gavillane threw them onto the furnace he started a fireball in the narrow space of the sauna cubicle you wouldn’t believe. Fourth-degree burns. The man came out looking like a peeled tomato. Blind. No ears, lips, or eyelids. His penis stripped like a papaya. He’s still in hospital more than fifty operations later. The man is so seized up with scar tissue that he can’t even scratch his own arse any more. That’s what I mean by coming at a thing from the side, Vau.’
‘It’s perfect, Abi. And no one can hold you responsible.’
‘The man did it all by himself. Any evidence got burned in the great flame-up. The club talked about nothing else for weeks. A lot of people had been pissed off by de Gavillane’s high-handed behaviour. Funny how someone else’s bad luck cheers people up.’
‘Why are you telling me this, Abi? You usually have a reason.’
Abi inclined his head. ‘Well you’re certainly on the button today, little brother. What I wanted to get over to you is that Madame, our mother, sometimes needs protecting from herself. She’s an old lady now. She’s not as with it as she used to be. If I sometimes seem to go against what she tells us, Vau, you mustn’t be surprised.’
‘Like in the case of de Gavillane?’
‘Exactly. She knew nothing about that. But when she heard what had happened to him, she was extremely pleased. She never asked me if I did it, but we both know she knew.’
‘She must have been really proud of you, Abi.’ Vau took a deep breath. ‘I wonder what that feels like?’
Abi punched his brother on the shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, Vau. You’ll know soon enough.’
47
‘Looks like we lost them again.’ Sabir glanced down at the map. ‘We’ve got to decide fast. Do we want to take the coast road to Villahermosa, or do we risk the cuota? Put some more distance between us?’
‘What we do is stop this car right now and check for a tracker.’
‘Oh, come on, Calque. They haven’t been following us with any tracker. They just worked out which direction we were headed in, and spread out like a seine net to trap us. Lamia says that if Dakini’s here, all eleven of them are probably here by now. So they’ve more than enough manpower to do the job. Dakini just happened to luck into seeing us at Catemaco. They probably had her patrolling the coast road while the rest of them watched the cuota.’
‘I still think we should look for a tracker. Achor Bale used one on you and your friends during that trip you took down through France. So did we amateurs at the Police Nationale. The Corpus have doubtless all been trained in their use.’ He glanced at Lamia, but she contrived to ignore his leading question.
Instead, she pulled the car over into a Pemex station, edging it around behind the shop so it wouldn’t be visible from the highway. ‘I need to wash and tidy up. I’ve just been driving for three straight hours over a cattle trail, through a mountain range, with my own family chasing after me, and I’m tired, and I’m irritable, and I probably smell. You both certainly do. If you men want to look for trackers, be my guest. But I’d appreciate it if you washed and changed into fresh clothes afterwards.’ She got out of the car, grabbed her overnight bag, and disappeared into the restroom.
Sabir flapped his hand. ‘Women. It’s probably her time of the month.’
Calque gave him a look.
Sabir caught the look but chose to ignore it. It irritated the hell out of him when Calque grabbed the moral high ground for himself. ‘Come on then, Chief Inspector. Stop all your horse-arsing around. Let’s get this over and done with.’
Calque groaned, and slid out of the passenger seat. ‘I’ll take the rear. It’ll most probably be in there. You take the front.’
‘You seriously think they broke into the car and planted a tracking device? And we didn’t notice or hear anything?’
Calque straightened up from a stretch. ‘Didn’t it ever occur to you that they allowed us to get away just a little too easily, back there in Carlisle? And that they picked us up again, two and a half thousand miles later, just a little too easily too?’
‘With eleven of them potentially following us, according to Lamia’s calculations? No. That wasn’t the first thing that occurred to me.’
Calque threw open the back hatch and began to feel his way around. Sabir did the same in front.
After fifteen minutes, Lamia came back, holding a takeaway cup of coffee. She perched on the walkway watching them. ‘Any joy?’
Sabir straightened up. ‘There’s no tracker in here. If they hid it, they hid it beneath the actual fabric of the car, and we’ll never get to it like this.’
Calque shook his head. ‘No. They had neither the time nor the facility to do that.’
‘Then how about underneath?’
Calque made a face. ‘People hide bombs underneath cars, Sabir, they don’t hide trackers. It’s not professional. The first major bump, the tracker would probably fly off. It’s just too great a risk. No. They’d have put it inside. And I’m convinced now that they didn’t do that. I think we’re in the clear again. For the time being, at least.’ Seeing Lamia eyeing up his shirt, Calque sniffed at his armpits, then flared his eyes, as if the smell had overwhelmed him. ‘They’ll be spreading out, though. Trying to edge ahead of us. All any of them has to do is look at a map, draw a few straight lines, and you can see which direction we’re headed in. It might as well be lit up by a strobe.’ He started to wipe his hands on his trousers and then thought better of it. ‘We probably should have zigzagged on our way down, but you can’t have everything. It’s taken us far too much time as it is. My view is that we should drive straight through the night and try to get to Kabah in the morning. Lamia is exhausted. I’ll take the first four-hour stint, you take the second. The ones who aren’t driving, try and get some sleep.’
Sabir nodded. ‘We’ll go and get washed up then.’ He cocked a finger in Calque’s direction, then picked at his own shirt with a mock sour expression on his face. ‘Lamia, will you buy us some junk to eat on the way? You know the sort of thing Calque likes. The stuff that normal, everyday people snack on. Chocolates, and crisps, and soft drinks with e numbers. Shit like that.’ Calque shuddered as if someone had just wiped their clammy hand down the small of his back. He stood watching Lamia as she made her way back to the tiendita. Then he cocked his head at Sabir. ‘Did you notice that, Sabir? She’s wearing make-up. And she’s put on a skirt and a fresh blouse and the closest approximation to a set of high heels I’ve ever seen her in. They’re called kittens, if I remember rightly. I’ve never seen her looking so feminine.’
Sabir shrugged noncommittally. He was becoming adept at sliding out from under Calque’s elaborate traps. ‘Look. You were dead right to make us look for the tracker, Calque, and I was wrong. We’d have been made to look like complete fools if there was one in there. In fact you’ve been pretty much on the ball all the way along. I’m sorry, too, about what I said to you yesterday. All that shit about Lear complexes and daughter fixations. I don’t know what got into me. I was way out of line.’
