A Silent Death

Chapter Twenty-Four

The smell of barbecued meat filled the tiny apartment. Sliding glass doors to the balcony at the rear of the block were open, and the chatter of swallows dipping and diving in the warm night air outside was nearly deafening. The room itself resounded to the blare of a television whose volume was set far too high.

Antonio was in the kitchen. Lucas sat at the table amidst a pile of books and jotters, his head tilted into an open palm, a pen twirling absently in his other hand, his eyes drawn towards a cartoon flickering on the TV screen.

Mackenzie followed Cristina into the apartment as she strode across the living room to switch off the television. With only the birds now for competition, she shouted, ‘For God’s sake, what’s wrong with you people? Are you deaf? If the neighbours report us again we’ll be asked to leave.’

Antonio appeared in his bare feet at the kitchen door wearing a T-shirt and jeans. His smile was less than welcoming. ‘And how was your day, darling?’ He nodded at Mackenzie.

Cristina released her belt with its empty holster and let it fall on to the settee. ‘What are you cooking?’

It sounded more like an accusation than a question.

Antonio stuck his jaw out defensively. ‘I thought you might be pleased, not having to make dinner for once.’ His head tilted in Mackenzie’s direction. ‘Only I didn’t know we were going to have company.’

Cristina sniffed the air. ‘What is it?’

‘Barbecued ribs.’

She looked at him in astonishment. ‘You prepared them yourself?’

His look turned sheepish, but still defensive. ‘I bought them at Mercadona. Oven-ready. They take just twenty minutes.’

‘Jesus, Antonio! We can’t afford to go buying pre-packaged food. It’s crazy expensive.’

‘It’s a treat,’ he said. ‘Just this once. I got commission on a sale today.’ Then, deflecting further argument, he nodded towards Lucas. ‘You’d be better off paying more attention to your son. He came home with his report card today.’

‘Is it bad?’

But Antonio had already turned back into the kitchen. He called over his shoulder, ‘Take a look for yourself.’

Cristina brushed past the embarrassed Mackenzie and found the report card half-buried under her son’s books. The boy assiduously avoided her eye as she scrutinized it.

But a commentary on it came from the disembodied voice in the kitchen. ‘English and Spanish good. Maths and science well below average. Take a look at the teacher’s comments.’

Cristina read aloud, ‘Lucas is a clever boy, but he just doesn’t try. His concentration is poor. He’s a daydreamer.’

Mackenzie recalled similar comments on the report cards he took home from his teachers. Only, he could silence them all with his exam results.

Cristina looked at her son accusingly. ‘A daydreamer, Lucas? What are you daydreaming about?’

The boy’s simmering resentment bubbled to the surface. ‘About getting away from school,’ he shouted, his lower lip trembling. ‘Other kids have parents who help them. My dad wouldn’t know a prime number from a right-angled triangle. And my mum’s never here!’

Mackenzie cleared his throat and said, ‘A prime number is a whole number greater than one, whose only factors are one and itself.’ And was startled by disbelieving eyes that turned in his direction. Antonio had reappeared at the kitchen door. But the silence occasioned by his outburst lasted only a moment. Lucas was on a roll.

‘And now you’re sending strange foreigners to pick me up from school.’

Cristina frowned. ‘What are you talking about? What strange foreigners?’ She glanced at Mackenzie. ‘You?’

Mackenzie shook his head, perplexed.

‘No,’ Lucas said, surly now. ‘At lunchtime. When I was walking back from Burger King.’

‘Burger King?’ Antonio was astonished. ‘What the hell were you doing at Burger King?’

‘Everyone else gets burgers for lunch. I get some crappy sandwiches that Mum makes.’

But Cristina was not going to be deflected. ‘What happened when you were walking back from Burger King?’ Her voice was tight with tension.

Lucas shrugged, as if it was nothing. ‘This guy in a big black car pulls up beside me and says he’s a friend of yours. He says he’s going to be picking me up from school someday soon and that I shouldn’t be afraid of him.’

‘Oh, my God!’ Cristina’s open palm was pressed to her chest. Then she grabbed the boy, almost pulling him from his chair. ‘Lucas, don’t you ever talk to that man again. Or anyone! I will never send anyone you don’t know to pick you up from school, do you understand me? Never!’ She held him by the shoulders, shaking him as she spoke.

Antonio crossed the room and pulled her away. ‘Stop it, you’re frightening him, Cris.’

Cristina’s voice rose in pitch. ‘He needs to be frightened, Toni.’

Mackenzie kept his focus on Lucas. ‘How did you know he was a foreigner?’

‘He spoke to me in English.’

‘And did he give you his name?’

Lucas nodded.

‘What was it?’ Cristina demanded. ‘What did he say his name was?’

Lucas shook his head, tears welling in his eyes as he tried to remember. ‘It was Señor Clee... Clo, or Clan... something.’

‘Cleland?’ Mackenzie said.

‘Yes, that was it.’ Lucas seemed relieved to have remembered it finally.

A cry of fear tore itself involuntarily from Cristina’s throat, and she drew Lucas into her arms, wrapping them around him and holding him so tightly he could barely breathe.

The house phone rang shrilly, piercing its way through the charged atmosphere of the tiny apartment. Antonio crossed the room in two strides and picked it up. ‘Yes?’ he barked, then after a moment put his hand over the receiver and thrust it towards Cristina. ‘It’s Miguel.’

Very reluctantly she released her son and took the phone. ‘Yes, Jefe?’ She listened intently, then closed her eyes in something like despair. ‘Yes, Jefe.’ A pause. ‘We’ll call for back-up if I think it’s necessary.’ She hung up and looked at Mackenzie. ‘Residents in an urbanization in the hills above Casares Beach have reported a blond-haired foreigner coming and going at night from an unfinished complex across the street. The Jefe wants us to take a look. He doubts if it’s Cleland, but...’ She shrugged.

‘If it is?’

‘We’ll call in the cavalry.’

Antonio said, ‘And we’ll eat when?’

‘When we get back. You can keep the ribs warm, can’t you?’

He shook his head. ‘Lucas and I will eat now. You can reheat whatever’s left.’

Cristina said, ‘Just don’t let that boy out of your sight, Toni. Not for one minute. I’ll be back just as soon as I can.’

Antonio’s anger finally burst through the veneer of constraint he had fashioned to save Mackenzie’s embarrassment. Clearly he didn’t care any more. ‘The boy’s right, Cris, you are never here, are you? And if it wasn’t for you and your fucking job there wouldn’t be any need to watch him like a hawk. The kid wouldn’t be in any danger.’

An element of guilt spurred the anger in her retort. ‘And we’re supposed to live on what you earn, is that what you’re saying?’ But she wasn’t waiting for an answer. ‘If it wasn’t for my fucking job we couldn’t afford to send him to a half-decent school. We couldn’t afford to run a car.’ She saved the best for last. ‘And we couldn’t afford your membership of that fucking golf club. Think about that the next time you’re teeing off.’

Husband and wife stood glaring at each other. Lucas gathered his books and ran in tears to his bedroom. Mackenzie stood awkwardly, wondering how to break the tension.

‘What’s your handicap?’ he said. And both heads turned towards him.