Corruption's Price: A Spanish Deceit (52 page)

Caterina did not appear enthusiastic about any dinner party, including Ana or even Davide, but she couldn't refuse.

After lunch, when
tío
Toño took himself off for his
siesta
, Emilia seized the opportunity to apologise. To her surprise, Caterina apologised as well.

Their cloud of mutual ill-will evaporated. They discussed what to do next. Caterina wanted to move on though both had been warned by Pedro that they might be needed for some time soon. Control was not yet back in their hands.

Both disappeared for their own siestas, which in Emilia's case was much needed through being too busy enjoying herself the previous night on that big bed and other places besides. She slept the sleep of one well and truly sated.

Waking early this Monday morning, for her Sunday evening had been lost to sleep, Emilia acknowledged to herself that she had behaved inconsiderately, even if Caterina had been forgiving and eventually friendly. This did not help.

Guilt was an uncomfortable and rare sensation for her. Nor could she see any way to help Caterina with Davide – or whatever Caterina really wanted for herself.

Monday: Ana

Ana was lonely. Davide had returned late the previous evening to Malasaña, though in trepidation. The meeting with
tío
Toño had not gone as expected. In fact it had been disastrous, for her and for Davide. They had tried to recover but failed. It was with a heavy heart that she had let him leave for Malasaña. Neither could see an immediate alternative and the dinner on Tuesday now felt like a double burden.

She had talked with
tío
Toño as Davide made the invitation calls for the dinner to Inma and Pedro, for
tío
Toño promised to speak with Emilia and Caterina as well as with Ángela about the menu. Suddenly
tío
Toño turned serious with them both. He announced that, though they clearly did not know it, she and Davide were closely related.

They'd pressed him for more. Eventually he had said both the law and any idea of children were the issues. Of these two he thought the former would probably not matter today, though it definitely would have less than fifty years before. But too many shared genes were quite a different issue if children might appear. He accepted he was jumping the gun yet he had to say something before matters went too far.

Eventually
tío
Toño acknowledged that there was nothing more he could add and left. Ana remained sitting with Davide in shocked silence. They were both already confused enough and here was
tío
Toño upending everything.

Now it was Monday. Ana was back where she started: alone, on the shelf (she quietly laughed to herself when remembering how Davide explained that 'on the bench' in football meant waiting to be a substitute) and still with no future. Well, it was no different to three months earlier, before Felipe permitted Davide to bring in Caterina and Emilia.

Her phone rang. She answered it without looking.

"
Dime,
" she answered despondently.

"Ana? Are you all right?"

"Oh, it's you Inma. Sorry, I'm not at my best today. I had bad news yesterday."

"What was it? No, don't tell me now. Meet me for lunch at 2 at my office. No, no arguments. Make whatever excuses you need. A ladylike headache will do fine."

Ana winced and said, "Emotionally I have that already. It wouldn't need invention."

Unwillingly, she dressed and dragged herself to Inma's. Fortunately, it was only a bus ride away. Inma opened the door and took one look at Ana before wrapping her in a cousinly hug.

"You look like hell. If you feel as bad as you appear, you must be suffering."

At that Ana burst into tears. It did not take long for her to relate what had occurred.

"The worst of it is that I'm sure
tío
Toño was as upset as we were. Intuitively, he was on my side yet felt obliged to tell us."

"Ana, stop blaming yourself. There's research for you and Davide to do. You know who you should talk to?"

"
La abuela
?"

"Exactly. Besides being a wonderful grandmother she's a wise old bird and knows the history of everyone. Remember,
tío
Toño may be wrong. That's where you should start. Meanwhile, you have some other actions."

"Do I? What? I don't feel like doing anything."

"First, resign from ORS. How much are you paid there?"

"1,000 euros a month."

"A
mileurista
? That is pathetic for someone of your talents. Tell them you've found a job that immediately pays triple their miserable wage, with prospects of tripling that again – if they even ask for an explanation. Second, tell Pedro that if he wants your further assistance you'll be charging for it. Third, you start next Monday working here with me. Your title is Prospective Partner. I want you up to speed and working as a full partner within six months. To assist with that here's some light reading for you."

Inma indicated a pile of papers and books that must have been a metre thick.

"Please finish these couple of thousand pages by the following Monday. On Tuesday we're going to a reinsurance conference in London where I'm speaking and you'll need to understand the fundamentals. Don't worry, I have every faith that you'll absorb everything and you can ask me questions on the flight."

Ana gasped. First Caterina, then Emilia and now Inma was taking over.

"But what about hiring Davide?"

"That won't happen. I don't think he'd join me even if I asked. He has his own business. In any case, having you both under the same roof might be awkward. I'd already decided to accept his recommendation about you but not yours about him."

Inma did not say that she planned to talk privately with Davide about an informal ongoing business arrangement. Ana did not need this complication now.

"I don't know what you're doing this weekend, but you're invited to Yuste. There's plenty of room. Don't feel obliged to come but I think getting away from Madrid would be good for you, plus it ought to make going to the airport easier on Tuesday. Finally, you've one immediate objective today."

"I do?"

"You do. To look even more glamourous than you did in that black and white dress, which was pretty good by the way. I remember. I have the same challenge. We're now going shopping to help each other."

"I don't understand."

"Have your forgotten the dinner tomorrow night? You had? Do you know what Davide called you, Caterina, Emilia and, by implication, me? Amazons! The cheek of the man!"

Ana laughed, her first proper one of the day. She could even remember Davide saying it, though she had been too busy talking with
tío
Toño to take it in. Inma was right; it was in character.

"Remember Caterina and Emilia will be there. You can bet your bottom Aussie dollar that they'll be doing themselves up, in Emilia's case probably tarting herself up. You and I are going to show what the best of Spain can produce.

"No Amazon will win, of course. But we're not going to lose. In fact the losers will be Pedro and Davide. They'll see what they are missing. Best of all,
tío
Toño's eyes will drop from his elderly interfering head just as his socks involuntarily fall off his miserable feet. Agreed?"

Ana could do no more than weakly laugh. It seemed her life, and now looks, were being hijacked yet again.

About the Author

Charles Brett is a business and technology consultant. Born in Belfast and educated in England he has a degree in Modern History from the University of Oxford. Married to a Spaniard he has lived or worked in Italy, Abu Dhabi, South Africa, California and New York, Spain, Israel and Estonia. He has one previous novel, The HolyPhone Confessional Crisis, as well as several technology-related books. He contributes to a variety of newspapers, journals and magazines.

Also by Charles Brett

The HolyPhone Confessional Crisis

The HolyPhone Confessional Crisis is a technology crime and church thriller. The Vatican introduces HolyPhones (based on smartphones) into confessionals in Europe and the Americas. These connect those who wish to confess to the Vatican Confessional Call Centre, in part to improve the workload of priests but as much to generate new income for the Church.

An alliance - of an American lady whose father runs a southern fundamentalist church, an Israeli pro-Settler technology genius, an ex-banker (and past lover of the American lady) now turned priest and a lady member of Opus Dei - conspire, for their own very different reasons, to cream off part of the HolyPhone's confessional revenues.

The cardinal responsible for the HolyPhone charge has suspicions and brings in first the half Spanish/half English conceiver of the Holy- Phone and then an Irish policeman and an Australian lady computer crime expert to find out if there is a problem and, if there is, to try to solve it before the church suffers. More than the church's credibility is at stake.

The novel is set in Rome, Israel and Spain.

This is the first Davide Shape/Inma Ávila novel.