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

18. Atocha

Towards the back of every daily edition of El País, just after the six-page section dedicated entirely to classified adverts for prostitution, six numbers are listed for private investigators operating in Madrid. First thing on Tuesday I ring each of them in turn and settle for the one who sounds most professional and efficient – a Chilean from ‘Detectives Cetro’ calling himself Eduardo Bonilla.

‘I’ll send one of my assistants to meet you as soon as possible,’ Bonilla says, picking out my accent and opting to speak in convoluted, if fluent, English. ‘Do you know the main cafetería at Atocha station?’

‘The one in the conservatory? Next to all the plants?’

‘That is exactly right. We say twelve o’clock?’

The cafetería is squared off at the southern end of a vast, barn-like structure more akin to a garden centre than the terminus of a mainline railway station. A jungle of tropical plants, sprayed at heights of ten or fifteen metres by the frequent mists of an automatic watering system, completely dominates the centre of the conservatory. It is one of the strangest sights in all Madrid. I take a corner seat beside a wooden railing and order a freshly squeezed orange juice from a young waiter who seems nervous and out of control. Maybe it’s his first day.

Bonilla’s assistant is a respectable-looking woman in early middle age wearing a neat navy blue suit and plenty of mascara. She might be a single mother with a sideline in encyclopaedia sales; it’s hard to imagine her tracing a missing person, or snooping around in an extra-marital affair.

‘Señor Thompson?’

I gave Bonilla a false name, of course. ‘I’ll be wearing a brown leather jacket,’ I told him. ‘Look for a man with short, dark hair, reading a copy of yesterday’s Financial Times.’ That was just my little private joke.

‘Yes. Chris Thompson. And you must be…?’

‘Mar,’ she replies. ‘I work for Mr Bonilla. What is it you think we can be doing for you?’

The conversation takes place in Spanish and I lie right from the start. I’m not going to mention Arenaza. I’m not going to tell them about Zulaika or the cops. This is just a matter of finding out a little about Rosalía’s life: why she left Plettix; how she met Gael.

‘I need you to conduct some research into a woman named Rosalía Dieste.’

‘For what purpose?’

‘I’m not really at liberty to discuss that.’

Mar shakes out a vaguely suspicious look and writes something in shorthand on a pad. ‘So where does Señora Dieste live?’

A small boy runs past the table, colliding blindly with a passenger trolley piled high with luggage and plastic bags. There are tears and screams. Then his mother appears and whisks him off.

I give the address, fill in Mar about Gael, but don’t admit to watching the apartment over the last few days. All I need are phone records, I tell her, some family background, previous relationship history, any pseudonyms she might employ – and twenty-four-hour surveillance for at least the next ten days.

‘Twenty-four-hour surveillance?’ The question is asked in a suitably impassive fashion, but there might as well be dollar signs spinning behind her eyes. ‘That will require a team of between six and eight operatives working around the clock. What’s your budget on the investigation, Mr Thompson?’

‘What do you charge?’

‘Per day, per employee, 115 euros, with expenses. Over ten days, with eight staff, you’d be looking to pay around…’

I do it for her.

‘Nine thousand two hundred euros.’

‘Your arithmetic is good.’

‘Well, in that case we may need to think again. How much would it cost just for doing the research into her background?’

‘Depending on the amount of time involved, probably not more than 1,000 euros.’

‘Fine. Then I’d like to start right away.’

And the remainder of the meeting is purely logistical. How would I like to pay? – Cash, with half in advance. Do I have a fixed address in Madrid? – Yes, but use my PO box in Moncloa. How often would I like to receive a report? – Every two days. We arrange for the enquiry to begin as soon as Mar has returned to Bonilla’s office and I agree to meet her again in forty-eight hours.