The Spanish Game

12. Pillow Talk

Saul leaves at eleven o’clock on Sunday morning, travelling on the AVE to Córdoba where he plans to visit the Mezquita and pick up a hire car en route for Cádiz. I suggest he spend three nights in Seville and another two in Ronda, in the hope that it might be at least a fortnight before he returns.

‘You can even go to Morocco by ferry,’ I tell him, his cab pulling away on Princesa. ‘Spend a few days in Fez, man. I’ve heard it’s really nice.’

There is a lot to do. I spend the rest of Sunday and most of Monday morning writing up the Endiom report and sending it via email to Julian. Work feels irrelevant in the current situation, but Julian is a perfectionist and will doubtless want several alterations before committing the document to the printers. Finally, at four in the afternoon – 10 a.m. in Colombia – I call the US embassy in Bogotá. I am sitting in the kitchen of my flat, a cup of tea on the table beside a notepad and two ballpoint pens, in case one of them runs out.

‘This is the American embassy of Colombia.’ Another automated system. ‘Press one for English, dos para Español.’

I press ‘1’ and connect to a sleepy-sounding receptionist with a local accent who asks how she can direct my call.

‘I’m trying to track down a friend of mine from the United States. I think she works at the embassy.’

‘What was the name, sir?’

‘Well, it used to be Nicole Law, but I’m fairly sure she got married.’

There is a listless recognition. ‘Oh sure. I know Nicki.’ I feel a skip and thump of excitement. ‘But she no longer works here. I can connect you to somebody who might be able to assist. Would you hold the line please, sir?’

‘Of course.’

Obtaining confidential information by telephone is usually fairly straightforward. There is the great advantage that one cannot be seen by the person at the other end of the line; it is necessary only to lie with the voice. On Friday, speaking to Washington, I attempted to convey the sense of a slightly dotty Brit adrift in unanswered questions. It’s the same on this occasion; I am easygoing and polite, and persistently grateful to the staff for taking the time to help me out.

There’s a ten-second delay before a sound comes on the line, like a metal chain falling on concrete. Then a confident-sounding American male picks up the phone.

‘Hi, this is Dave Creighton. I understand you’re lookin’ for Nicki?’

I’ve already worked out my plan of attack. ‘That’s right.’

‘And it’s a personal call?’

‘Yes. We’re old friends.’

Dave makes a noise at the back of his throat. ‘Well, you’re kind of in the right area.’

‘I am? Oh that’s fantastic.’

‘Nicki actually hasn’t worked here in a while. She’s running a day-care centre out at the Granahorrar for expat families. You want me to dig you out the number?’

‘That would be wonderful. A day-care centre?’

‘Yeah. Lotta kids here. Lotta busy people.’

‘Well, Nicki always loved children.’

Dave agrees wholeheartedly with this sentiment and taps something into a keyboard, keeping the conversation lively as he does so out of sheer American politeness.

‘So you and Nicki are old college buddies?’

‘Not really. I always wanted to go to university in the States, but we actually met in London a few years ago and became friends that way. Now I’ve got the opportunity to come to South America with my wife and son and we wanted to look Nicki up for a spot of lunch. Is she still with her husband?’

‘Felipe? Sure.’ Dave sounds surprised. ‘You know him?’

‘Felipe? I thought she married an English banker?’

‘Oh no. No.’ Laughter now. He’s buying the strategy. ‘You really haven’t seen her in a while, huh? That was a long time ago. It’s Felipe now.’

‘She’s no longer Nicole Church?’

I want to find out if the new surname is Rodríguez, which would tally with the email address on the embassy website.

‘No. Never was. Kept her name as Law, far as I know. Now it’s definitely Palacios. Señor y Señora. Let me see if I can find her. Where you calling from, sir?’

‘Barcelona.’

‘Wow. OK. How’s the weather there?’

‘Really nice. Sunny.’

‘Great.’ He has found the number and I write it down, splashing black tea on the surface of the table when the mug rocks. ‘That about all I can do for you?’

‘That’s about it. Thank you, Dave, you’ve been very helpful.’ The conversation has gone so smoothly that I risk one more question. ‘So what happened to the English husband?’

‘Well, I’d better let you ask Nicki that. Complicated situation, right? You take care now. Have a nice evening.’

I hang up, trying to work out how I feel. If Nicole is just a glorified nanny, then there’s nothing to worry about. Her job at the embassy can only have involved clerical or commercial work: a former colleague would never speak so candidly about someone who had been in the Agency. But why was he reluctant to discuss Julian? Purely to protect a colleague’s privacy, or because the relationship ended in scandal? Now my mind really starts to turn over. Who was I talking to? Did the receptionist follow protocol and connect me to a CIA officer who used the day-care centre as routine cover? And why did he ask where I was calling from? They could be running checks on the SIM card right now, warning Nicole and Julian, doing anything to protect the plan. Yet he gave up the number without hesitation and never even asked my name. The conversation was surely just as it appeared. Either way, there’s no sense in dialling the centre. If Nicole is there, I will have to talk to her and pretend to be a parent enquiring about fees and facilities. If she isn’t, the possibilities are endless: that she never works there; that she took the day off; that she has been instructed to avoid my call. I need some air.

Out on Princesa I consider throwing the Amena card in a bin, but decide against it and go for a coffee in Plaza de Comendadoras. I walk up Calle del Conde Duque and turn right into Guardias de Corps, following more or less the same route that Saul and I took on the way to Café Comercial. There are young children playing on swings in the small, fenced-off area at the western end of the square, watched by listless parents and a tramp lying flat out on a bench. Beyond them, on the far side of the square, three older boys wearing torn T-shirts are kicking a burst football against the wall of the old convent. The slap of the punctured leather is oddly relaxing. I come to a decision: in order to obtain conclusive answers about Julian’s true identity, it will be necessary to question Sofía. This will be a considerably more difficult task than phoning bored officials in Bogotá and Washington, but they always say that the best information is pillow talk. To that end, at around five o’clock I call her at work and encourage her to come round. Sofía sounds excited and says that she can be at my apartment by 6.30. This gives me time to sink a café solo in a bar at the far end of the square, to head home for a shower and to buy her an expensive box of chocolates at VIPS. Then it’s just a question of waiting.

She is three-quarters of an hour late and arrives wearing a fur-trimmed coat, high-heeled leather boots, a knee-length tweed skirt and the white Donna Karan shirt I bought her in Marbella after my last trip in November. Adultery clothes. In the hall I slip the coat to the floor and we guide one another wordlessly into the bedroom, underwear leaving a cinematic trail all the way to the headboard. We say virtually nothing to one another for the next hour, rediscovering the passion of our very first weeks together. It is almost as if the threat of Sofía’s betrayal has brought us closer together. Only towards eight o’clock, showered and padding around the flat, does she unwind and begin to talk.

‘You looked exhausted when I came in,’ she says. ‘The trip north tired you?’

‘A little,’ I reply. ‘But it was more having Saul to stay. We went out drinking until six on Saturday’

‘Six!’ There is nothing unusual about this in Madrid, but Sofía sounds surprised. ‘He stayed a long time, your friend.’

‘Too long,’ I reply, and now we speak in Spanish. ‘I don’t particularly like myself when he’s around. I can’t explain it. And his wife has just left him, so he was tetchy. He needs a break. He went to Córdoba on Sunday, might come back next week.’

I am lying wrapped in a cotton sheet in the bedroom, unable to keep an eye on Sofía as she wanders around the apartment, audibly picking up odd bits of paper and magazines, making no secret of her nosey fascination for my closed, obscure existence. In the sitting room she switches a CD from Mozart to Radiohead and then returns to give me a kiss. It surprises me that she has not picked up on what I said about Saul.

‘What time do you have to go home?’ I ask.

‘You want me to leave?’

‘Of course not. I want you to stay. I want you to stay for ever.’

‘Ten o’clock,’ she says, ignoring the flattery. ‘Julian thinks I have yoga with María.’

She has left the room again. From the kitchen she asks if I would like some water and I hear her pour two glasses from a bottle in the rack. I put on a T-shirt, pull the duvet across me for warmth and catch Sofía’s perfume on the pillow.

‘You friend said that you used to work in oil,’ she calls out. ‘How come you never told me about this?’

‘Does that upset you?’

‘That you didn’t tell me?’

‘Yes.’

She comes back into the bedroom, hands me the glass of water and appears to give the question some serious thought.

‘It doesn’t upset me that you didn’t tell me,’ she says eventually. ‘It upsets me that you have things to hide.’

‘Well, that’s my problem, my past,’ I reply, with more candour than intended. ‘We all have secrets, Sofía. We all have things we conceal.’

‘I don’t.’

This might be a way into the Julian situation, a chance to begin asking awkward questions. She is wearing one of my business shirts and a pair of thick winter socks, leaning up beautifully against the wall at the foot of the bed next to a Habitat Matisse.

‘You don’t have secrets? You don’t have things you hide from me?’

‘Nothing,’ she says, with melodramatic conviction. Lifting her foot onto the bed she begins stroking my leg through the duvet. I adore the shape of her thighs. ‘I show everything to you, cariño. I trust you with my marriage. There is nothing I wouldn’t tell you.’

‘And Julian?’

Her face falls. ‘What about Julian?’

She doesn’t like it when we talk about him. It is a sour subject, guilt-gathering. She fucks me wearing his wedding ring but flinches if I ever touch it.

‘Does he keep things from me?’

‘What do you mean?’

Fearing that I have been cack-handed, I adjust the pronoun in Spanish to alter the meaning of the sentence.

‘You misunderstood me. I said, “Does he keep things from you?”’

‘I don’t think so.’ Sofía looks nonplussed.

‘You don’t think so?’

‘No.’ She pulls away, no longer touching my leg. I have played it badly. She walks up to the window, seems to pick a piece of dust off the wall and then flicks it out of her fingers like an insect. She turns to face me. ‘Why are you asking me these questions?’

‘I’m just interested.’ I’m also beginning to wish we had had this conversation on the telephone. ‘Don’t you like it when we talk? I don’t want us just to fuck and not speak. I want us to mean more to each other than that.’

This turns out to be an effective if unpremeditated tactic. Sofía returns to the bed, touches my arm and looks at me with a mixture of surprise and delight. ‘Of course, of course. I don’t want that either. We make love, Alec, we have some time together, I like to talk.’

‘I just wanted to know more about Julian.’

‘Of course.’

She kisses my forehead.

‘It’s just that Mikel Arenaza told me something. In San Sebastián. Something about him.’

That stops her. Dead in her tracks. She sits up. ‘What?’

‘That he was married before you. That he had another life.’

If Sofía and Arenaza are part of a conspiracy against me, they will have expected me to bring this up. Equally, if she has no inkling about Julian’s past, that may help to expose his true motivation. But she begins to smile.

‘You didn’t know about that? Julian never told you he was married?’

‘Never. And neither did you.’

She begins to caress my palm with her thumb. ‘Well, that is his secret.’

‘Of course.’

‘And he is ashamed by it, I think. A part of his life that went wrong. Julian is a very proud man.’

‘Very.’

‘And Mikel told you this?’

‘He was drunk.’

‘Mikel is a fascist.’

She curls her bare legs up onto the bed so that her knees are almost tucked under my chin. This is how I wanted the conversation to progress. I would like to run my mouth along the bliss of her soft thigh, but need to stick to the task at hand.

‘He told me that Julian’s wife left him for another man. His best friend.’

‘Felipe, yes. An engineer.’

‘Where was he from?’

‘Colombia.’

‘Julian’s wife was Colombian?’

It doesn’t feel good to be feigning surprise like this, but it is necessary in the circumstances.

‘No. American. An East Coast family, lots of money. But they moved there because she was working for the government.’

‘The American government?’

‘Yes. She was some kind of banking or finance specialist. So boring’ Sofía uses a great Spanish expression here. Que coñazo! What a drag. I feel a great sense of relief.

‘And that’s how she met Felipe?’

‘I suppose, sweetheart, I suppose.’

For the sake of seeming disinterested I break off now and spend a wordless ten minutes exploring her naked body. Eventually we make love again, have a shower, and then head back to bed.

‘So what was Julian doing all day?’ By now it is as if I am making light of the whole thing, a joke of it. Both of us have a glass of wine in our hands and my skin is damp from the shower. ‘Was he working at the American embassy as well? Was he working for Endiom?’

‘Oh no.’ She laughs. ‘This is why he keeps it a secret. He was teaching English, like all good British people when they live away from home. In the old days Julian wasn’t the successful private banker. He was just following Nicole around the world.’

‘Nicole was her name?’

‘Si.’

‘Did you ever meet her?’ This elicits a brief look of Hispanic disgust, sour as old milk, which effectively provides me with an answer. ‘OΚ, but how come Julian’s best friend was Colombian?’

Sofía spins on the bed and places her head next to mine. Perhaps she has finally grown tired of all the questions.

‘Felipe was not his best friend. Julian does not have friends. Only silly people from his school in England.’ She starts to imitate them, adopting a clipped Sloane, arching her neck so that she is kissing me as she speaks. ‘“Sofía, darling! How charming to meet you! I don’t know how you put up with old Jules.” They are such idiots, these English. But not you, cariño. Not you.’

I reach for her stomach and walk my fingers up to her nipples.

‘So?’ she says, sighing. ‘You have no more questions? The little interrogation session is over?’

‘It’s over,’ I tell her. ‘It’s over,’ and I take the glass of wine out of her hand and place it on the floor.