Death in the Sun by Adam Creed Page A

to see my father, if you don’t mind.’
    ‘Why did you take me to see your tio , and then to the plastic?’
    ‘I wanted you to try the papas a lo pobre . They are the finest. I was trying to be kind.’
    ‘If I hadn’t gone with you that day, I wouldn’t have tracked down Raúl. I won’t rest . . .’
    ‘All right. All right!’ Manolo says to the nun, ‘It’s fine, he is a family friend. I just didn’t know he was coming today. He can come in – if it is acceptable to you.’
    *
    Rubio is writing into a leather-bound notebook at a desk by the tall window of his room, which looks over the flat-roofed, white houses of the Albaicín to the Alhambra palace. As confinements go, it’s not a bad one.
    The nun leaves and Rubio closes his notebook, stands – a slim, broad-shouldered, still handsome man with blond hair and the bluest eyes. He doesn’t look the slightest bit mad.
    He puts his notebook on a small pile of identical leather-bound notebooks, ensures the pile is perfectly straight. Looking at Staffe, he says to his son, ‘Who is this foreigner you bring to my home?’
    ‘Father!’
    ‘I don’t see anyone for years and now you bring men with you. Won’t you ever get married; ever bear me a grandchild, you ladyboy?’
    Staffe sits on the edge of the bed and says, ‘How do you get on with the nuns?’
    Rubio’s eyes lighten a little and his mouth creases into a smile. ‘God would never forgive me.’
    ‘When did you ever care about God, papa?’
    ‘You care more when you can hear the harps, believe me. But I tell you, there’s a couple of nurses come round to check on me. Force to your dick.’ Rubio laughs, but quickly corrects himself. ‘What is it you came for?’
    ‘Your friend, Raúl Gutiérrez.’
    ‘I don’t know any Gutiérrez.’
    ‘He died, Rubio,’ says Staffe, watching closely as Rubio’s eyes blink rapidly.
    With a crack in his voice, he says, ‘It’s sad, of course, when someone dies. Even if you don’t know them.’
    Staffe says, ‘And Astrid? Where is your wife, Rubio?’
    ‘Leave him!’ shouts Manolo.
    ‘Do you know a man called Jackson Roberts?’ says Staffe. ‘He’s American.’
    ‘Get out!’ shouts Rubio. ‘What are these questions?’ He glares at Manolo. ‘You don’t visit since . . . since . . . and now you bring him! Who is he?’
    A nun comes to the door, says, ‘We cannot have this shouting. You must leave.’
    ‘Rubio, tell me what Raúl was looking for in Almagen,’ pleads Staffe.
    Rubio shakes his head. He jigs his knee up and down and wrings his hands, turns away from Staffe and his own son, to look up to the Alhambra. A small perfection beneath God’s mountains: the mountains that were Rubio’s domain, until something stopped that and it passed to his son.
    ‘Come!’ insists the nun and she shows Staffe and Manolo back to the indigo door, colder than a fish this time around.
    *
    ‘What were you thinking, upsetting my papa like that? You must stop this questioning.’
    ‘Must I, Manolo?’
    They are in a gitano bar in the Albaicín. Staffe switches his wallet to his front pocket as they settle at the bar.
    He continues, ‘What is it, exactly, that you don’t like about the questions?’
    Manolo can’t look Staffe in the eye, says nothing.
    ‘In Jackson’s cortijo , you told me that you knew plenty. Those were your exact words.’
    ‘I was drunk.’
    ‘You were afraid of something. And you still are.’
    Manolo slams down his cana of beer. ‘There is plenty you don’t know about me. You don’t have to know everything about everything, Guilli.’
    ‘Raúl was going to tell me something the day he died.’
    ‘What would life be like without secrets? You know all about secrets.’
    ‘Yes. And I told you about my parents. Raúl knew about my parents, and Jackson Roberts.’
    ‘Raúl’s a journalist, for the love of Christ. You spend time with a journalist, what do you expect?’
    ‘And that journalist has a Barrington on his