Blood Red

Nine

The estate agency was housed in a ground-floor office that had once been a bank, facing on to a small square where a fruit and vegetable market is held during most weekday mornings. Angel had told me that his father had moved the business from its original home and had been given permission by the town council. . now there was a surprise. . to demolish that building and redevelop the site as apartments.

The sign over the door read ‘Immobiliària Ruiz’, Angel’s mother’s name, I guessed, from what he had told me. It had been attached over the previous signage, which was predominately blue, a clash with the yellow of the lettering, and the logo of the former occupant was still visible on the smoked-glass frontage.

It had taken two days for Senor Planas to find a space in his crowded diary to see us. Even then, I wasn’t certain that he’d be there. My fear was that he might have turned the appointment over to one of his sales staff.

‘Let’s go,’ said Matthew, quietly. We crossed the sun-bathed square, picking our way through the stalls, before stopping briefly to study some of the homes for sale that were displayed in the window. I’d seen many of them elsewhere; there are around fifty agencies in L’Escala, and very few of them have exclusive selling rights over properties. I’d wondered how they could all hope to survive, until I’d learned that there’s a loose cooperative agreement in place and that their standard commission rate is a whopping five per cent plus tax.

We stepped through the double doors and looked around. The place still looked like a bank; it was divided more or less in two by a massive counter, behind which I saw four desks. Three were occupied, one by a swarthy, tousle-haired, bespectacled man, in his early forties, I guessed, so way too young to be Planas, and the other two by women. The older of the pair looked up as we entered, and rose to greet us. She was in the same age group as her male colleague; her trouser suit, and the way her dark hair was swept back into a functional ponytail, gave her a briskly professional look.

‘Senor Reid?’ she began, in English; I might as well have been invisible.

Matthew nodded.

‘You are here to see Senor Planas?’

‘That’s right; about property.’

‘Very good. But there is a problem. .’

Here we go, I thought.

‘Senor Planas does not speak English. But we can get over that; I will translate between you.’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ Matthew replied, nodding in my direction. ‘I anticipated that and brought my own interpreter. No offence, I hope, but this is business.’

She was narked, and she couldn’t hide it completely behind her toothy smile, but she swallowed it. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Senor Planas is in his office.’ She pointed to a mahogany door to the left of the counter. ‘If you’ll wait a moment. .’

We did, as she vanished through another exit at the back of the office. She was gone for more than her moment, but eventually, the entrance was opened and she reappeared, beckoning us into the inner sanctum.

The man seated behind the small, cheap desk was almost the same colour as the door. His skin was like leather, and looked as if it was folding off his face. I thought back to my crack about ‘the old lizard’ and reckoned that I’d been pretty close to the mark. He rose to his feet slowly, extending a surprisingly big hand as he approached Matthew: I say, ‘approached Matthew’, because again, it was as if I wasn’t in the room. He was shorter than his son, but stockier, and there was a vibrancy to him. His eyes were red veined, but his gaze was sharp. It was hard to put an age to him, but I settled for somewhere between sixty-five and seventy.

‘Senor,’ he intoned, in a gravel voice, ‘you are looking for property, I understand.’ He spoke in Castellano.

‘Indeed,’ Matthew replied, ‘and they say that you are the top man in this town.’ He spoke Spanish too, slowly, as British people tend to, but passably, taking me by surprise.

The reptile face cracked into what might have been a smile. ‘That’s true. Most people who know L’Escala do say that. Tell me what type of property interests you, and I’ll see if I can help.’

‘Something old. Preferably not in L’Escala itself.’ He was busking it; we hadn’t researched at all, but at once, I sensed where he was going. ‘I saw a house in St Martí d’Empúries that appeared to be unoccupied. That might interest me.’

‘Tell me the street and I will find out if it is available.’

‘Plaça Petita. It’s next to the wine shop of my. .’ He stopped, stuck for the Spanish word.

‘His stepson,’ I said. ‘You must know where it is, for you certainly know him.’

The thin veneer of amiability vanished in an instant. ‘Pah!’ he spat then lapsed into Catalan. ‘This is a trick. I see you now; I see who you are. You are the woman who went to see our young lady mayor, to win her approval for this, this, this. .’ Veins stood out in his forehead and once more I could see red behind a tan, only this time it was the hue of rage rather than embarrassment. ‘This presumptuous wine fair. That any Englishman should think to do such a thing.’

‘But your opposition has nothing to do with Ben being English,’ I told him, rocking him ever so slightly back on his heels by my fluency in his language. ‘This is all about your ridiculous, feudal attitude to women.’

‘Not to women,’ he shouted, switching back to Castellano, ‘to whores! This man took my son’s girl and he made her a whore, and then he threw her back to him. I’d have killed him, but my son doesn’t have the balls.’

‘Just as you don’t have the balls to argue with me in your own language,’ I countered, quietly.

His eyes bulged. ‘I know who you are, woman, and I know that if you support that English pup, then you are a whore also.’

I had to move quickly to block off Matthew as he moved towards him. The Spanish police take a dim view of physical assault, and Planas might well have had a few of the town cops on his payroll. I stood between them and stared deep into his bloodshot eyes. ‘And you would know,’ I hissed, ‘since you are the son of one.’

His mouth opened, but he seemed to have run out of insults. For a moment I thought he was about to have a stroke. . no kidding; I was a nurse once, remember. . but it passed, and he seemed to sink into himself. ‘Get out, get out,’ he said. ‘Your wine fair will never happen.’

‘Ah, but it will,’ I told him. ‘That’s taken care of. One way or another it will, even if you go on blocking Plaça Petita. But if you do, I’ll promise you this. I will use my resources, and I have them, make no mistake, to make sure that everyone in St Martí, and in L’Escala, knows what you’ve done, and why. I’ll put posters in the streets, I’ll post an announcement on the regional website. I’ll give the story to the Girona press. Your name will be shit, everywhere.’

He looked at me, and knew serious when he saw it. Then he shrugged. ‘I’m an old man. I should care,’ he sneered.

‘You should,’ I said. I turned to leave, ushering my companion in front of me, in case he decided to take a swing at him after all. ‘Come on, Matthew.’ I had gripped the handle when his voice came from behind me.

‘Wait a moment.’ His tone suggested that I got through to him, but not necessarily that he was beaten.

We stopped. ‘Well?’ I challenged. I could see him regrouping, regaining some bravado. I could see a crafty glint in his eyes.

‘You want your little fair in your little village,’ he murmured. ‘You want me to give my approval, or you will try to ruin the reputation that I have built up through my long lifetime.’ His back straightened, as he drew himself to his full height, only around five feet eight, but tall for a Catalan man of his age. ‘Very well,’ he announced. ‘I will tell the mayor that should she wish to allow it, then for my part I consent. However. .’ he paused, ‘. . this is public land, and just as the restaurants in Plaça Major pay ground rent to put their tables in the square, then you must pay a proper amount for using Plaça Petita.’

I knew that he was ready to fire his last bullet, so I invited it. ‘And what would a proper amount be, for one day of preparation and three days of the fair?’

His right hand caressed his heavy jowls, as he made a show of considering my question. ‘I would say. . two million pesetas.’

Although the euro has been the official currency for nearly ten years, many Spanish people still think in pesetas and quote prices in the old units. I did a rough conversion in my head. The old swine was asking for just over twelve thousand euro, or if you prefer it in sterling, around nine and a half grand at the exchange rate then.

‘Wouldn’t it be for the mayor to determine a fair cost?’ Matthew growled, having done the same mental arithmetic.

Old Planas laughed, and patted his right bum cheek, a crude gesture which I took to mean that he had the mayor in his back pocket, as well as the police.

It was my turn to shrug. ‘OK,’ I said, ‘we’ll pay that. I’ll arrange to see Justine on Monday morning, to collect her signed permission. But I warn you now, if I find that the figure has gone up by even one peseta, then everything I promised will happen.’

His mouth fell open again, in surprise this time, not fury. He had no more to say as we left the stuffy little office.

We walked through the public area, and stepped back into the fruit market. I headed for my usual stall, to buy some peppers, onions, figs and nectarines, all on the shopping list that I had in the same place that Planas had claimed he kept the mayor.

Matthew followed. ‘Primavera,’ he muttered, leaning over me. ‘We can’t do that. Ben can’t hope to cover that sort of overhead.’

‘Ben doesn’t have to,’ I told him. ‘I will.’

‘But it’s a hell of a lot of money.’

‘Come on, man. You were in the PR business, weren’t you? Have you never seen a pissing contest before?’

‘Not one with a woman involved. . and no, not even figuratively. Seriously, the fair isn’t budgeted for something like that. Ben’s talking about charging fifteen euro a ticket, to include six tastings. With that sort of ground rent, I reckon he’d need to sell three thousand to break even. He’ll do well to shift a tenth of that. Ingrid and I, we can’t let you do that.’

‘Yes you can, Matthew.’

‘Come on, you’ve got a kid to bring up. You can’t be chucking away that sort of money.’

I smiled up at him. ‘Actually I can. I don’t like talking about my finances, but between you and me, the biggest mistake that old man made was in thinking that he could bully me financially. I can chuck twelve thousand euro into the pot without a second thought. When I was with Oz, we both made money. When we divorced, I did very well out of it, for he didn’t want it to get messy. When he died, he left a trust fund for Tom that’ll see him well through university, and beyond.’

‘That’s fine,’ said Matthew, ‘and it’s very generous of you, but I still feel bad about it, and so will Ingrid, not to mention Ben.’

‘Then don’t mention it, to either of them.’

He looked at me, seriously. ‘Primavera, if I’ve learned one thing in life, it’s this: never keep secrets from your wife.’

I had to agree with him on that. Tom was three years old before his father ever knew he existed. That wasn’t fair to either of them, and I’m ashamed of it now. ‘No,’ I agreed, ‘but try to wait until all the tickets are sold. You might be surprised how many we shift. Truth is, I am careful, and I’m not given to chucking money down the drain. Maybe I have a secret weapon.’

‘And do you?’

‘Could be, but I’m keeping it to myself for now.’ I sighed as I started to make my fruit and veg choices. ‘Life does get complicated, though. One thing about Oz; he had a way of slicing through problems.’

‘Oh yes? And what would he have done in this situation? What would he have done about Planas?’

‘If the old clown got him mad enough, he’d probably have had him taken out.’

Matthew laughed. . but he couldn’t see my face.