A Silent Death

Chapter Fourteen

The Colegio Cánovas del Castillo comprised a collection of square white buildings set someway back from the road to Estepona, behind Burger King and the Mercadona supermarket.

Cristina turned off the A7 at Aldi and followed the cracked tarmac surface of a tree-lined dual carriageway back into the dusty sun-bleached hills that rose in random undulations towards the mountains. Unfinished roads branched off to the left and right, petering out in the dust.

Cranes loomed over abandoned concrete apartment blocks on the rise, and in the valley beyond the school empty terracotta villas sat in rows among the gorse, facing on to the parched fairways of a tawdry-looking golf course. She spun the wheel and turned the battered family Seat down towards the school gates, past the shuttered sales office of a developer peddling homes that had never been built.

The road was lined with the cars of parents dropping off their children, a slow procession in both directions, the pavement crowded with chattering children in shirtsleeves and regulation skirts and shorts, satchels slung over shoulders or hanging from little hands. It was already hot, and Cristina had all the windows down.

She was embarrassed by her car, easing its way between all the shiny new SUVs: Mercs, Audis, BMWs. Many of which Antonio had probably sold. Even with two incomes it was all they could afford. Although Antonio was fortunate in being able to bring home a car from the second-hand lot every evening. Neither Cristina nor her husband earned very much, and the bulk of their disposable income went on providing the best education for Lucas that money could buy. Still, he was not doing as well as they had hoped.

She glanced in the rearview mirror and saw him sitting anxiously in the back seat. After Mackenzie had gone the previous evening, she had done her level best to help him with his homework, but knew she wasn’t really up to it. And so did Lucas. Only, it was he who had to face his teachers, not her.

Almost as if she had read her sister’s mind, Nuri put a hand over Cristina’s and offered her a pale smile from the passenger seat. Cristina could have wept. How was it possible that her little sister, stricken with breast cancer and on her way to Marbella for yet more chemo, could find sympathy for her? It was all so unfair.

She turned in a circle at the bottom of the hill and drove back up to the gate to let Lucas off. He gave his aunt a sunny wave, but offered his mother only a quick sullen glance, before running off to find his classmates. They drove up the road, past a white tower with long crosses on each face, and Nuri said, ‘Thanks for this. I know you have a lot of things on your mind.’

Cristina shook her head and smiled, doing her best to hide the tears gathering in her eyes. ‘Family first,’ she said. ‘You know I’d do anything for you, sis.’

‘I know.’

Neither of them paid the least attention to the black SUV parked next to the chunks of concrete that blocked the road beyond the deserted sales office. Obscured by smoked glass, Cleland sat behind the wheel and breathed his satisfaction. Now he knew where the boy went to school. Knew where the bitch lived. And her sister. It was just a matter of time, and patience.