care to choose the right word.
‘Friends, Alex,’ I told him, ‘we’re friends. Just as you and I are friends.’
He shook his head. ‘No, Primavera; not as we are. Don’t be so naive. You are a trusted friend of my family, and you stood for my daughter in church, beside Gloria and me. Gerard’s a priest, a modern priest, I’ll grant you, but he can’t have a public friendship with an attractive single woman, who’s around his own age, without tongues starting to wag.’
‘Thanks for the compliment, but it’s a private friendship,’ I protested. ‘There is nothing in the vows or even in the practice of his church that says that a priest can’t have a private life. Our view is that we’d be wrong to keep our friendship a secret. Even old Olivares agrees with that, for he and Gerard had it out. Bottom line, we are friends, we are not intimate. We don’t kiss, we don’t cuddle, we don’t fuck, all right?’
‘Hey,’ he laughed, ‘don’t get on my case. I know that, but people tend to apply their own values to others. When it comes to the likes of a guy like Garcia, it’s fuel to him. He and Gerard have butted heads before too, and neither of them’s the type to back down.’
‘Are you saying I should just see him in church and leave it at that?’
Alex looked down, and shook his head. ‘No. Like I said, you’re a trusted friend. You know what’s right and what’s not. It’s for Gerard to square the extent of your friendship with his duty as a priest, and to deal with the critics. But don’t be too surprised if he also winds up in Tortosa one day, or in some other place far away. Father Olivares will be retiring soon. Even though he likes Gerard, when the bishop and the monsignor consider his replacement, your name might come up in the discussion.’
I hadn’t thought that far ahead; if Gerard had, then it seemed that he’d made some sort of a decision. ‘Fucking politicians,’ I growled. ‘They’re more trouble than they’re worth, wherever they are.’
‘So it seems, in Planas’s case, although it took a long time for someone to do something about it.’
‘When does your expert get to work?’
‘Tomorrow morning. Our first pathologist was right, I’m sure, but we have to report to the public prosecutor’s office, so we need her confirmation of that. Meanwhile, the CSI people are doing the painstaking stuff along at the house.’
‘Any suspects?’ I asked, casually.
He grinned. ‘Apart from you, you mean?’
‘Stop it.’
‘There’s no chain of evidence so far. We have nothing to follow. All we can do is wait, to see what tomorrow may bring.’
Nineteen
L ife is like a round of golf. If you drop a shot at one hole, you do your damnedest to get it back at the next, and it gives you real momentum when you do. So it is with days.
The sun woke me next morning, rising beautifully out of the sea and into a cloudless sky. You can’t beat perfection. My moody Monday was a distant memory, and I could see a terrific Tuesday ahead.
Tom was in an upbeat mood too; I’d told him the night before that I’d be picking him up at five o’clock (a long day for the kids, but with long summer holidays as a compensation) and taking him on an errand. He’d quizzed me, but ‘mystery tour’ was all I would say. He was up by seven thirty and wanted to go for a swim before school, so we all did, he and I, and Charlie. You’re not really supposed to take dogs on the beaches in the summer, unless they’re designated, but at that time of the morning you can get away with it. Anyway, Charlie’s good; he knows not to dump on the sand.
Once we’d finished breakfast I drove Tom to L’Escala, leaving Charlie in his garden kingdom, and parked outside the town’s leisure complex. I watched Tom walk the last hundred metres or so, then took my gym bag inside. I was restless, and I knew why. I’ve always coped with my recent state well enough, but I’m a woman in my prime, and from
‘Friends, Alex,’ I told him, ‘we’re friends. Just as you and I are friends.’
He shook his head. ‘No, Primavera; not as we are. Don’t be so naive. You are a trusted friend of my family, and you stood for my daughter in church, beside Gloria and me. Gerard’s a priest, a modern priest, I’ll grant you, but he can’t have a public friendship with an attractive single woman, who’s around his own age, without tongues starting to wag.’
‘Thanks for the compliment, but it’s a private friendship,’ I protested. ‘There is nothing in the vows or even in the practice of his church that says that a priest can’t have a private life. Our view is that we’d be wrong to keep our friendship a secret. Even old Olivares agrees with that, for he and Gerard had it out. Bottom line, we are friends, we are not intimate. We don’t kiss, we don’t cuddle, we don’t fuck, all right?’
‘Hey,’ he laughed, ‘don’t get on my case. I know that, but people tend to apply their own values to others. When it comes to the likes of a guy like Garcia, it’s fuel to him. He and Gerard have butted heads before too, and neither of them’s the type to back down.’
‘Are you saying I should just see him in church and leave it at that?’
Alex looked down, and shook his head. ‘No. Like I said, you’re a trusted friend. You know what’s right and what’s not. It’s for Gerard to square the extent of your friendship with his duty as a priest, and to deal with the critics. But don’t be too surprised if he also winds up in Tortosa one day, or in some other place far away. Father Olivares will be retiring soon. Even though he likes Gerard, when the bishop and the monsignor consider his replacement, your name might come up in the discussion.’
I hadn’t thought that far ahead; if Gerard had, then it seemed that he’d made some sort of a decision. ‘Fucking politicians,’ I growled. ‘They’re more trouble than they’re worth, wherever they are.’
‘So it seems, in Planas’s case, although it took a long time for someone to do something about it.’
‘When does your expert get to work?’
‘Tomorrow morning. Our first pathologist was right, I’m sure, but we have to report to the public prosecutor’s office, so we need her confirmation of that. Meanwhile, the CSI people are doing the painstaking stuff along at the house.’
‘Any suspects?’ I asked, casually.
He grinned. ‘Apart from you, you mean?’
‘Stop it.’
‘There’s no chain of evidence so far. We have nothing to follow. All we can do is wait, to see what tomorrow may bring.’
Nineteen
L ife is like a round of golf. If you drop a shot at one hole, you do your damnedest to get it back at the next, and it gives you real momentum when you do. So it is with days.
The sun woke me next morning, rising beautifully out of the sea and into a cloudless sky. You can’t beat perfection. My moody Monday was a distant memory, and I could see a terrific Tuesday ahead.
Tom was in an upbeat mood too; I’d told him the night before that I’d be picking him up at five o’clock (a long day for the kids, but with long summer holidays as a compensation) and taking him on an errand. He’d quizzed me, but ‘mystery tour’ was all I would say. He was up by seven thirty and wanted to go for a swim before school, so we all did, he and I, and Charlie. You’re not really supposed to take dogs on the beaches in the summer, unless they’re designated, but at that time of the morning you can get away with it. Anyway, Charlie’s good; he knows not to dump on the sand.
Once we’d finished breakfast I drove Tom to L’Escala, leaving Charlie in his garden kingdom, and parked outside the town’s leisure complex. I watched Tom walk the last hundred metres or so, then took my gym bag inside. I was restless, and I knew why. I’ve always coped with my recent state well enough, but I’m a woman in my prime, and from
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