The Spanish Game

3. Taxi Driver

Saul’s plane touches down at 5.55 p.m. the following Friday. He calls from the pre-customs area using a local mobile phone: there’s no international prefix on the read-out, just a nine-digit number beginning with 625.

‘Hi, mate. It’s me.’

‘How are you?’

‘The plane was late.’

‘It’s normal.’

The line is clear, no echo, although I can hear the thrum of baggage carousels revolving in the background.

‘Our suitcases are coming out now,’ he says. ‘Shouldn’t be long. Is it easy getting a cab?’

‘Sure. Just say “Calle Princesa”, like “Ki-yay”, then “Numero dee-ethy-sais”. That means sixteen.’

‘I know what it means. I did Spanish O level.’

‘You got a D.’

‘How much does it cost to get to your flat?’

‘Shouldn’t be more than thirty euros. If it is, I’ll come down to the street and tell the driver to go fuck himself. Just act like you live here and he won’t rip you off.’

‘Great.’

‘Hey, Saul?’

‘Yes?’

‘How come you’ve got a Spanish mobile? What happened to your normal one?’

It is the extent of my paranoia that I have spent three days wondering if he has been sent here by MI5; if John Lithiby and Michael Hawkes, the controllers of my former life, have equipped him with bugs and a destructive agenda. Can I sense him hesitating over his reply?

‘Trust you to notice that. Philip fucking Marlowe. Look, a mate of mine used to live in Barcelona. He had an old Spanish SIM that he no longer used. It has sixty euros of credit on it and I bought it off him for ten. So chill your boots. I’ll be there in about an hour.’

An inauspicious start. The line goes dead and I stand in the middle of my apartment, breathing too quickly, ripped out by nerves. Relax, Alec. Tranquilo. Saul hasn’t been sent here by Five. Your friend is on the brink of getting divorced. He needed to get out of London and he needed somebody to talk to. He has been betrayed by the woman he loves. He stands to lose his house and half of everything he owns. In times of crisis we turn to our oldest friends and, in spite of everything that has happened, Saul has turned to you. That tells you something. That tells you that this is your chance to pay him back for everything that he has ever done for you.

Ten minutes later Sofía calls and whispers sweet nothings down the phone and says how much she enjoyed our night at the hotel, but I can’t concentrate on the conversation and make an excuse to cut it short. I have never had a guest in this apartment and I check Saul’s room one last time: there’s soap in the spare bathroom, a clean towel on the rail, bottled water if he needs it, magazines beside the bed. Saul likes to read comics and crime fiction, thrillers by Elmore Leonard and graphic novels from Japan, but all I have are spook biographies – Philby, Tomlinson – and a Time Out guide to Madrid. Still, he might like those, and I arrange them in a tidy pile on the floor.

A drink now. Vodka with tonic to the brim of the glass. It’s gone inside three minutes so I pour another which is mostly ice by half past seven. How do I do this? How do I greet a friend whose life I placed in danger? MI5 used Saul to get to Katharine and Fortner. The four of us went to the movies together. Saul cooked dinner for them at his flat. At an oil-industry function in Piccadilly he unwittingly facilitated our initial introduction. And all without the slightest idea of what he was doing; just a decent, ordinary guy involved in something catastrophic, an eventually botched operation that cost people their careers, their lives. How do I arrange my face to greet him, given that he is aware of that?