"The Spanish Game" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cumming Charles)

17. The Lost Weekend

The next morning, at five, I pick up the car from the garage and drive back to Jiloca to be certain of following Rosalía if she leaves before dawn. Like some washed-up private eye in Hammett or Chandler I buy a cup of polystyrene garage coffee and drink it in a freezing front seat, cursing the pain in my back. That’s why all the experts recommend surveillance from a van; you can walk around; you can stretch your legs; you can piss without having to do it in a bottle.

Gael finally comes out at 7.25 a.m., wearing a badly cut suit and shouldering a small red backpack. He is only the second person to have left the building all morning. He walks directly across the street, opens up the Xsara, throws his jacket on the back seat and drives off to work. This is now the crucial time. If Arenaza is still in Madrid, the chances are that Rosalía will leave to meet him within the next thirty minutes. He may even show up at the apartment. That’s what I have to hope for. Otherwise this is going to be a very long day.

In the end, it’s three hours before she shows. Three hours of hunger, three hours of back pain, three hours of inconsolable boredom. What the hell am I doing? Why not just go straight to the police, tell them what I know about Mikel and Rosalía and let the cops sort everything out? Yet there is something thrilling about being privy to Arenaza’s dark secret; and if there is more to his disappearance than a mere adultery, perhaps that will lead me back into some of the excitement of ’96 and ’97. I am still buoyant from the initial lie to Plettix, from the stakeout at Sierra y Mar and the interview with Zulaika. Somehow all the kick and buzz of the old days has come flooding back; it’s a relief to have something with which to lift the everyday tedium of exile.

Rosalía is wearing a denim jacket over a thick woollen polo neck and carrying a handbag about the size of a large hardback book. She has make-up on, although not as much as last night, and still looks somewhat withdrawn and tired. She may be on her way to meet Arenaza, although her appearance would suggest otherwise. It strikes me that this does not look like the mistress of a married man who. has dolled herself up for a day of romance and passion; on the contrary, this looks like an ordinary woman with the day off work, on her way to go shopping or to meet a friend for coffee.

I looked at a map of the area last night and memorized every street within a three-block radius and it’s immediately clear that she isn’t going to hail a taxi. Instead, she turns away from Concha Espina – where they drive past all the time – and walks north along Calle de Rodríguez Marín towards the metro station on Príncipe de Vergara. Risking a ticket on the Audi I decide to follow her on foot, and it’s bliss to be moving again, my spine stretching out, pursuing at a distance of between thirty and forty metres, sometimes walking along the opposite side of the street, sometimes not. In the cluster of shops at the north end of Marín she buys a copy of El Mundo and then heads into a café for breakfast. I have a clear view of her table from the plastic bench at a bus stop just across the street, but she speaks to no one – not even on a mobile phone – in all the time that she is inside. Afterwards she heads home and doesn’t come out again until 3.15, when she lunches alone in a restaurant four blocks from her apartment. The highlight of my day comes at 5.05 when Rosalía does a series of aerobic stretches in the sitting room and I get to feel like Jimmy Stewart watching the ballerina in Rear Window. Otherwise it’s a pointless day. Gael comes home at 7.40, by which time I am dizzy with boredom and hunger. In thirteen hours I have eaten just two magdalena sponges and a cheese bocadillo, bought quickly from a corner shop when I was sure that Rosalía was safely settled in for lunch. The two of them stay at home all night and by 11.30 I cut my losses and leave. There must be an easier way of doing this. There must be a reason Arenaza hasn’t shown.

The next day – Saturday – it’s the same routine: up at five, in place by a quarter to six, nothing going on until eleven. I organize myself a little better this time, bringing sandwiches, a bottle of water, a Walkman and several CDs. Still, the time creeps by, as slow as the last hour of a train journey, and I am increasingly nervous about being spotted, either by Rosalía or – more likely – by an alert, curtain-twitching neighbour. If only I had access to a disused apartment, to a neighbourhood shop or café with clear sight of her flat. It might be a good idea to take the Audi out of circulation on Monday and to switch it for a different vehicle, a rental from Hertz, say, maybe even a van. It might be an even better idea to hire a professional investigator. What, after all, do I manage to deduce by the time the weekend is over? That Rosalía likes going to the gym on Saturday mornings. That she seems happy and physically intimate with Gael. That she visited an elderly relative in the suburb of Tres Cantos on Saturday afternoon and went for a brief walk in the park. They met friends for drinks in La Latina that evening but were home by one o’clock. This allowed me to grab three hours of much-needed sleep, but left me with the overwhelming sensation that I was wasting my time. On Sunday they woke up late and took the metro to Callao and I followed Rosalía into FNAC, a French-owned department store selling music, books and DVDs. Gael left her at the entrance and I was briefly concerned that he might have spotted me and was going to double back in order to watch her tail, but he walked south towards Sol and didn’t return for twenty minutes. By that time Rosalía had bought two CDs (Dido, Alejandro Sanz) and – as ever – was seemingly oblivious to any threat of observation. Later they went for coffee near the Reina Sofía museum, but were home by 8.15. They seem to spend a worrying amount of time sitting on the sofa.

All of which raises the inevitable question: where the hell is Arenaza? ABC, El Mundo and El País are still reporting on the disappearance, but every journalist working on the story – including Zulaika – appears to have run out of leads. According to reports published on Friday, closed-circuit cameras at Barajas airport picked up Mikel getting into a taxi at Terminal One on the day of his disappearance. The driver, who has now been questioned by police, recalled dropping him off at the Hotel Casón del Tormes in Calle del Río, but he wasn’t able to provide any information on his mood. That would appear to tally with earlier reports in which a receptionist said that she could not recall anything unusual about Arenaza’s behaviour. He wasn’t anxious or nervous or making a song and dance; he was just a businessman with a wedding ring on his finger who left the hotel at seven o’clock in the evening, never to be seen again. So it is with an odd mixture of dread and exhilaration that I begin to accept the reality of his murder. What else could have happened? Unless I have the wrong Rosalía Dieste, why hasn’t he come forward to declare himself?

I follow Rosalía for a fourth consecutive day, on Monday 24 March, using a rented Renault Clio. She goes back to the gym, to Plettix to pick up a box of odds and ends, and attends a doctor’s appointment at half past four. Otherwise, nothing. Based on the lack of progress I decide to hire somebody to look into her background in the hope of establishing a connection with Mikel. If nothing has turned up within a week, I will go to Goena.