“I would.”
“First, I haven’t got a reasonable explanation for any of this.”
“Join the club,” he said, tasting his steak and putting his utensils down again. He asked the passing waiter for a Scotch.
“Their abduction four years ago—it wasn’t for economic gain, that is clear,” she said. “Certainly, no one has advanced a theory of their age-defying years of captivity or their identical rare illnesses. And no one has advanced an explanation for their return to Italy. One wonders whether it was something that the conspirators planned, as they had to go to elaborate lengths to take these girls a second time. One thing is certain, however. The people behind this have significant resources. One only has to look at their employment of a small army of Slovakian special operators. But, Marcus, none of this has escaped you.”
“We’re on the same murky page.”
“Has it occurred to you that a state actor is responsible?”
“I’ve thought about it. It’s hard to come up with a state’s motivation.”
She shook her head and paused to look deeply at her old friend. “So, what’s the purpose of my meal and your fast?”
“I need your help.”
“With what?”
“Celeste Bobier. I need to know who she is and what she was doing in Spain.”
“Surely the Italian police can make inquiries via their Spanish counterparts.”
“They can and they are, but you’ll be better and faster.”
“By law, I can’t investigate a Spanish national without a judicial order.”
He handed her Celeste’s ID. “She was a Spanish resident, but she’s a French national,” he said.
“Ah, you’re a step ahead of me. Tell me, where are you staying?”
It was a two-star hotel in a seedy district.
“Why there? It’s a dump.”
“I’m paying my own way,” he said. “I lost my benefactor on top of that mountain.”
“I’ll see what I can find out on one condition,” she said. “You must agree to come to my flat tomorrow night for a home-cooked meal that you will consume.”
He readily agreed, then took a folded sheet from his pocket and pushed it across the table.
“What’s this?” she said.
“The Slovakians. I want to know if they’re known to CIFAS and other agencies.”
She took the paper and put it into her purse. “You’re incorrigible,” she said.
*
He spent the next day texting Lumaga while he strolled aimlessly in a drizzle through Retiro Park and then the Prado Museum when the rain got heavier. As he suspected, the Carabinieri and the Spanish police were bogged down in paperwork and information about Celeste wasn’t flowing.
He didn’t need directions to Segura’s flat. It had been the scene of their assignations. The nature of his work then had dictated irregular hours and occasional all-nighters, and until Alice remarked on his closeness with Abril, he believed his affair was flying under her radar. She lived in the ritzy Salamanca district on Calle Castelló in an apartment that an ordinary government employee couldn’t have hoped to possess. The first time he visited her there, he ogled its size and magnificence, and she told him that it helped to be the only child of a wealthy banker.
“You remembered your way,” she said, taking his coat. She was dressed in a short and simple black dress with no jewelry. She still had nice legs.
“It’s fifteen years, but it seems like fifteen days. I remembered the smell of the lobby and the funny way the elevator stutters when it’s about to stop at the fourth floor.”
“It’s done that since I was a little girl,” she said.
She took his bottle of wine with a kiss and he followed her into the kitchen where she had a bottle of a different sort waiting for him.
“You used to drink Glenlivet,” she said. “It’s okay for you?”
“More than okay. I’d drink it all the time if I could afford it.”
“Surely, a man like you who went to work for a corporation like Andreason can buy whatever Scotch you like.”
“Past tense. Worked. I’ve been unemployed for four years.”
“But you said Mikkel Andreason agreed to pay you handsomely to accompany him to Italy. Things will be brighter for you financially now.”
“He’s dead and I only got a down payment. I’ll be sticking to the bottom-shelf booze, I guess.”
She poured him a huge measure in a crystal glass. The last woman who plied him with drink was Celeste. Abril was the kind of woman who might have found that interesting, but he kept it to himself.
“I know you want to hear what I was able to find out,” she said, “but if I tell you now, you’ll get distracted and you won’t eat. Supper first, then business.”
She had made a lamb chilindron that she ladled into large bowls at her kitchen table. The dining room seemed too formal for old friends, she said.
The stew was rich and spicy and when he asked if she came home early from work to prepare it, she said, “Two words: slow cooker. While I was saving Spain from its enemies—foreign and domestic—and finding the time to do your bidding, the chilindron was preparing itself.”
While they ate, they talked about old adversaries and new.
“Do you miss it?” she asked at one point.
“Every dog has its day. I had mine.”
“I know about your busted case in Paris,” she said. “Everyone has one of these. I had something like this happen to me—well, maybe not so dramatic, but I didn’t feel an obligation to fall on my sword. Why did you?”
“It was more complicated than a bad deal,” he said. “I made a terrible decision. I should have been at home with Alice. I chose to be in the field chasing fool’s gold.” The Glenlivet was on the table beside a small flower arrangement. He reached for it. “It ended me,” he said.
“I see,” she said quietly. “Will you have some flan?”
“I’d rather have information.”
She made an effort to lighten the mood. “You were a good boy. You cleaned your plate. You shall have your information for dessert. Come to my study.”
She led him to
