As Easy as Murder (9 page)

‘What are you going to do?’ Shirley asked.

‘I’m going to call my pal Alex Guinart, and report the son of a bitch to the police.’ He is one, a detective, based in Girona.

‘And what are you going to tell him? To look out for a running man, and that’s it? ’Cos I never saw him.’

‘No, more than that; for a start he was . . . white,’ I added, lamely, realising that I could offer little more than her by way of a description.

‘He was wearing Lacoste pirate pants, and a Def Leppard T-shirt,’ Jonny volunteered. ‘Dark hair, skinny. Tom was able to get a good grip of his wrist, so it couldn’t have been that thick. I think he’d a Mont Blanc wristwatch on the other . . . they’re one of my sponsors, so I recognised it. And New Balance trainers . . . they aren’t, but I had a pair in Arizona, so I know the logo.’

‘He has blue eyes,’ said Tom, firmly, ‘a gold tooth, a scar on his chin,’ he touched his own to demonstrate. ‘He needs a shave and his hair’s grey as well as dark. And he’s not British,’ he added, as a postscript, ‘or Spanish, or French, or German … and he’s too short to be Dutch.’

Patterson frowned at him, curiosity engaged. ‘How do you know that?’

‘It’s a game we play, Tom and me,’ I explained. ‘We reckon that seven times out of ten we can tell a punter’s nationality just by looking at them, and at their body language, before we ever hear them speak. Apart from their clothing, and that’s a big give-away, especially among the youngsters, we can tell the Dutch by their height, the Germans by their build, the French by their frowns . . . very serious people; always worried about something. We know the Spanish because they seem most at home here . . . and they’re most likely to be smokers. Our lot, they’re easiest of all. They might as well have “British” tattooed on their foreheads.’

‘You’re British yourself,’ he pointed out, ‘you and Tom. That must give you an advantage.’

‘No,’ I contradicted. ‘Tom’s lived hardly any of his life in Britain, yet he’s better at the game than I am. I didn’t get any sort of look at the guy, but if he says he isn’t a Brit, then trust him; he isn’t. Not that I’d expect it,’ I added. ‘That job that I had for a couple of years: I was based in the consulate general in Barcelona. I was in and out of there, but I still heard things. For example, I know that up to twenty people a week need passport replacements because theirs have been stolen. For example, I know that it’s quite common for British youngsters to get themselves lifted by the Mossos d’Esquadra for drunkenness, brawling, and other loutish behaviour, but hardly ever for petty theft. And I have absolutely never heard of a British pickpocket, in his thirties, wearing designer gear and a thousand quid watch; not anywhere, and most certainly not here.’

I had a question in mind, begging for an answer. The restaurant was busy, and there were more than a dozen people seated against
the fence. Most of them were as casual with their property as Shirl’s new other half had been, yet none of them was panicking or screaming about a loss. Patterson was modestly dressed, in what looked like a Marks & Spencer shirt, and showed no obvious sign of wealth, yet the thief had gone straight to him, past a woman in a dress that was definitely not chain store, with dangly ruby and diamond earings, and a handbag slung so carelessly over the back of her seat that it was begging to be emptied. Why? Why him?
Because the guy was stupid
, I decided,
a man suddenly down on his luck, choosing a victim at random
.

I set the thought aside, and opened my phone. I was calling up the contact list, when someone tapped me on the shoulder. ‘Excuse me, Primavera,’ a man murmured, in Spanish. I turned; Cisco, the owner of the restaurant, and a good friend, was crouching beside me. He was agitated, even more so than usual. ‘I saw what happened,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I don’t want that sort of thing in my place. I’ve never known it before, not in St Martí.’

‘It’s not your fault,’ I replied, in English, for the benefit of Patterson and Jonny . . . although during the day I had begun to realise that he understood quite a bit of Spanish. ‘Anyway, there’s no harm done. The guy didn’t get anything and he’s been scared off. He must feel a real idiot being caught by a ten-year-old. I’ll report him to the Mossos; he’ll probably be nicked the very next time he tries it.’

‘I have something that might help them,’ said Cisco, switching languages. ‘A man at the table behind yours, he was taking pictures with his phone, and he has one of the guy, with Tom holding on to him.’ He beamed at my son. ‘Hey, amigo, well done. If I ever
need a bouncer I give you a job.’ Then he turned back to me. ‘He says you can have it.’

I looked round and caught the eye of the diner in question. I recognised him at once; he was an ex-pat from L’Escala, called Stan something, at a table with his pretty blonde wife. He looked pleased with himself. ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Can you message it to my phone?’

‘Sure, love,’ he replied. ‘It’ll cost you a beer, mind.’

‘Cheap at half the price.’ I gave him my number, he fiddled with his phone and a few seconds later, the image downloaded on to mine.

It was pretty sharp. I couldn’t make out the gold tooth or the scar that Tom had described, but it showed the thwarted robber full on, well enough for a Spanish court to nail him when the time came. ‘Brilliant,’ I told the donor. ‘Cisco, one beer on Señor Cowling’s tab, please, and whatever Wendy’s drinking.’

‘Can I see it?’ Patterson asked.

I passed my phone across to him, touching the dial to keep the image displayed. He peered at it, then took a closer look, focusing hard. As he did so, I could see his thumbs move. It was discreetly done, but I realised what he was up to: he was copying Stan’s picture to his own mobile.

He handed mine back. I pulled up my directory once more, and was about to push the button on a call to Alex, when his eyes met mine. He shook his head, slowly. ‘No,’ he murmured, so quietly that I almost had to lip-read.

‘Why not?’ I asked. Our first courses were arriving, so the exchange wasn’t picked up by the other three.

‘It’s not worth the trouble. This man’s disappeared into the crowd already. He’ll be out of town by now, well on the way to wherever he came from.’

‘But the police can circulate his photo,’ I protested.

‘They’re not going to do that, not for a robbery that never even took place. I’ll grant you it’s a good picture, but it is what it is, an image taken on a mobile from a few yards away. However good a friend this Alex is to you, he’s not going to thank you for wasting his time, for that is all you’d be doing, I promise you.’

‘I’ll print it out,’ I threatened. ‘Cisco will post it in his window, and so will the other restaurants.’

He smiled. ‘Wanted: five hundred euro, dead or alive? Would they really want to make this lovely place look like the Wild West?’

He had a point. ‘Maybe not,’ I conceded. ‘Okay, have it your way. Let’s call it a lucky escape and forget about it. It’s your shout anyway, you were the intended victim.’

I put my mobile back in my pocket and turned my attention to what lay on the table before me.
Yes
, I thought,
let Patterson have his way
. After very little thought I was quite happy to do that, for I had a feeling that he could track down the scarred, greying, gold-toothed, thirty-something non-Brit with the Mont Blanc watch a hell of a lot quicker than the Mossos d’Esquadra ever could. And, given his surreptitious copy of Stan’s picture, I had the even more distinct feeling that he might.

N
ormally I’d have forgotten about the incident by next morning and got on with my life, but three things made it linger. First I was angry at the sheer effrontery of the guy, trying to whizz someone’s wallet in broad daylight, and right at my front door into the bargain. Second, there was Tom’s involvement. I was proud of the way he had handled himself, but a little scared by it too, for the same reason that Patterson had offered in talking Jonny out of pursuing the plonker. Third, there was my friendship with Alex Guinart.

I knew him well, better even than Shirley, and it didn’t take me long to work out that he was more used to judging what was proper use of his time than we were. A bungled theft would not go to the top of his things to do list, no danger; nevertheless if there was a chancer on the loose and he had better luck second time around, Alex would be less than pleased if he ever learned that I’d known about him and hadn’t bothered to tell him.

And so, as soon as I’d fed my boys and sent them off to face their different days, I called him, mobile to mobile, and filled him in on what had happened. I’d got it right; he was grateful for the tip, and he promised to spread the word among his patrol colleagues, and
with it, as good a print as his people could manage from the picture that I forwarded to him, even as we were speaking.

‘Who is this new man of Shirley’s?’ he asked me, when I’d done that and finished my step-by-step account of what had happened. ‘What’s his background, that he should be so considerate about my workload? Is he a cop?’

‘No, he’s a retired civil servant,’ I replied, ‘that’s all. He worked in our Foreign Office at one point in his career, so he probably knows all about unsolved crime statistics and decided he didn’t want to add to yours.’

‘That’s kind of him,’ he growled. ‘Maybe I should have a word with him and remind him he’s in another country now. Maybe I’ll take a run up to Shirley’s. After all, by rights it should be him who’s making the complaint.’ He called it
denuncio
; although his English is okay and improving, Alex and I normally speak in either Castellano or Catalan.

‘No, please,’ I begged him. ‘Don’t do that. I’m sure he thought he was only doing what was best. If you want to be angry with someone, make it me, not him.’

He chuckled. ‘Much good that would do me. Ah, what the hell! Thanks, Primavera, I’ll circulate it but the truth is that Mr Cowling is almost certainly right. This clown will be long gone by now, well out of my area. Hopefully he’ll think better of it next time he sees a pocket he thinks is unguarded. You tell Tom “Well done” from me; tell him I have the application forms in my drawer for him to join the Mossos when he’s old enough.’

‘If you ever take them out of there,’ I warned him, more than half serious, ‘you will be in big trouble.’

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’m too cautious ever to recruit him. That one, he’d be in my job inside a year.’

I hung up and let him get on with his day, for I had things to do with mine. The first was to find a base for Uche, as I had promised Jonny I would. I hadn’t anticipated too much difficulty and I didn’t encounter any. In fact I was spoilt for choice. Several of the local resident families, the old-timers, in and around St Martí are multiple property owners, and if you know who to ask, you will usually find something available for medium-to long-term rent. I spent a couple of hours talking to a few people I knew and by the time I had finished I had three offers. Two of them were cottages on the outskirts of the village, while the third was right in its centre, facing our house across the square. There’s a guy who has a number of studios kitted out for holiday rent, including a couple of very nice penthouses. He was used to their being booked for a few nights at a time, so when I asked him to come up with a weekly figure on the basis of an initial three-month lease he was taken by surprise. After a while, and after some deadpan negotiation . . . the Catalan poker face is only equalled by that of the Scots . . . he came up with a number that didn’t seem to me to be beyond the means of the son of a Nigerian princeling.

That done, I headed for the golf course, to catch up with Jonny. When I got there, the car park was much busier than it had been twenty-four hours earlier. The place still wasn’t exactly thronged with spectators, but the public catering was up and running, and most of the golf equipment and clothing stands in the main exhibition tent were open for business. I wasn’t surprised to find Shirley there; she was studying the latest Barbour lines, while
Patterson was a few yards away, test-driving a Callaway driver with a head not much smaller than mine. I look at modern golf equipment and I find myself wondering what the likes of Bobby Jones would have done with it.

I put that very question to Jonny after I’d I caught up with him and Uche on the fifth fairway, and walked a couple of holes. He was in a four-ball with a couple of youngsters they knew from the college circuit, one Spanish, the other Korean, and with an Irish kid who, Uche explained to me quietly, was ranked in the world’s top twenty, even though he was a couple of weeks younger than my nephew.

‘Who knows?’ was Jonny’s reaction to my question. ‘He’d have been on the same playing field as the rest of us. Courses have changed since his day.’

‘He’d still have been pretty hot, though,’ the Irish lad chipped in.

‘No doubt, but maybe the real question should be, how would we get on with the equipment that Jones and Hagen and Sarazen used?’

‘I won’t be lookin’ to find out at this year’s Open, that’s for sure,’ the mophead declared.

I walked the course with the boys, doing what I could to be helpful. That wasn’t much, other than acting as a runner for Uche, when he found that he’d underestimated the number of waterbottles he’d need, since they weren’t stationed around the course as they would be when the tournament began. It took a long time, not unnaturally, since most of the competitors wanted to be out there, and particularly the newcomers, as Jonny
explained, as we stood on the fourteenth tee, with one group waiting in front of us. ‘There’s a pro-am event tomorrow. I’m not in it, so this is the last chance I’ll get to play here before we go out for real on Thursday afternoon.’