The verge practice

18

In her hotel room, Kathy read the fax for the third time. She felt cheated, and not only by Sandy Clarke. The McNeils, Dr Lizancos, Carlos with the black spiky writing, had all in their various, innocent ways embellished Clarke’s false trail, even though Alvarez and Jeez had warned her against it. She’d cheated herself, that was the really annoying thing, because her idea had seemed more interesting.

And, just to compound her frustration, she discovered one further twist in the false trail before she turned in for the night. Sorting through her bag she found the slim file on Luz Diaz she had borrowed from the CGP. Reminding herself to return it before she left, she flicked through the pages. Though mostly in Spanish, it included the summary in English which had been sent to London following the interview that the Barcelona police had conducted with Luz on the twentieth of July. Two officers had visited her at the small studio apartment she rented. She had been cooperative and, they felt, credible. Afterwards they had spoken to her landlord, an elderly man living on the ground floor of the same block. He confirmed that she had lived there for six years, had paid her rent regularly and been a model tenant, quiet and extremely private. If she had any male visitors, he wasn’t aware of it.

The only supporting documents that Kathy could understand were some copies of Luz’s recent telephone bills. They were remarkable for their brevity. The artist had

hardly used the phone at all. Some of the listed calls had been annotated with pencilled notes identifying the number-a taxi company, an art gallery, the airport. One was marked ‘Sitges’. It began with the digits 93 894, just like Dr Lizancos’s second number, and when Kathy checked her notebook she found it was the same. A year ago, Luz Diaz had made a call to the Apollo-Sitges Fitness Club. What did that mean?

Needing someone to talk it over with before she spoke to Brock, she phoned home, but got only the answering machine. When she tried Leon’s mobile there was no response. She had a shower and went to bed.

The following morning she had her last big breakfast in the hotel cellar, then checked out and caught a cab across town to the car-hire office, where she picked up a little red Seat Cordo. Despite Clarke’s revelations, she had decided to go ahead with her trip along the coast. There was nothing she could do to help Tony and Linda, and she was intrigued by the two references to the Apollo-Sitges Fitness Club.

She drove carefully through the city traffic, adjusting to driving on the other side of the road and trying to follow the route, drawn for her with a ballpoint line on a city map, towards the airport autovia. When she reached the A-16 she switched on the radio and picked up speed, opening the little car up to one hundred kilometres per hour, the sun shimmering off the roofs of industrial buildings and low-flying aircraft, and occasionally, in the distance, the glittering sheet of the sea.

Before long she reached the exit for Sitges Centro and turned off the highway towards the town, crossing under the railway line and continuing on through residential streets until she came to the seafront. After the density and bustle of Barcelona, the town had a pleasantly relaxed scale. Cream and pink hotels lined the front, overlooking colonnades of palm trees and the beaches beyond. Girls walked arm in arm along the boulevard, boys played beach volleyball or danced on windsurfers in the light breeze.

Kathy parked her car and strolled along the front. She thought she sensed an end-of-season mood, as if the bars and restaurants that lined the footpath had an air of fatigue after a long, hot summer. After a while she turned off into one of the narrow streets that ran up into the old town, passing shops selling sandals, straw hats and souvenirs, and climbing finally to the cluster of little museums and monuments on the point overlooking the Mediterranean. As she tried to take an interest in the odd collections of artworks and artefacts, she felt like a fraud, a tourist by default, extemporising until it was time to return to reality. She bought the most brightly coloured postcard she could find, ordered a short black at the next cafe she came to, and wrote a little message to Leon: ‘One day we’ll come here together.’

There was a payphone in the corner of the cafe, Kathy noticed, and on a shelf beneath it a well-thumbed directory. She went over and turned the pages to the As, jotting down the address for the Apollo-Sitges Fitness Club. The name was in English, she saw, presumably aiming at the tourist market. Perhaps Dr Lizancos was the owner, coming each week to check on his investment. The cafe owner gave her a stamp for the postcard, and unfolded a street map to show her where the Apollo-Sitges was located, in the newer area of the town to the west, and a couple of blocks back from the waterfront.

What with the big breakfasts, Kathy felt like some exercise. Why not? she thought. The worst that could happen was that she’d bump into Lizancos and he’d complain to Alvarez that she was harassing him. She walked back to her car, dug a T-shirt, track pants and trainers from her suitcase, and put them into a carrier bag.

The receptionist, a very muscular young man with hair as blonde as Kathy’s and a name tag identifying him as ‘Sigfried’, eyed her navy suit trousers and white blouse, clearly wondering where she’d come from. ‘Here on business?’ he asked, in a strong German accent.

‘Just passing through. A friend recommended you. Luz Diaz, from Barcelona. She’s a member, I think. You know her?’

‘I don’t recognise the name. Are you interested in membership?’

‘No, I don’t think I’ll be back for some time.’

‘Okay. Just one session then, huh?’

‘Thanks. I haven’t brought a towel, though.’

‘No problem.’ He fetched one from a cupboard at his back, and led Kathy through to the gym. He pointed out the machines, the spa and the changing rooms in a bored voice, then left her to it. The place didn’t seem very large, or very busy, with just a couple of men there labouring with weights. There was no sign of Dr Creepy, Kathy was pleased to see. Probably in a back office doing the books.

They clearly didn’t have many female clients, for the women’s changing room was tiny, with barely half a dozen lockers. Kathy put her clothes in one and returned to the gym to get started with stretching exercises and a spell on a treadmill. She stayed there an hour, working her way round the machines, and in that time the two men left and no one else arrived. At one point, when she was struggling with the preacher curl and regretting the big breakfasts, the German came in and began lifting weights at a bench in front of a large wall mirror. The trapezius and deltoid muscles of his neck and shoulders were massively developed beneath golden skin, and she wondered if he was working them for her benefit. Then the phone sounded from the front office and he strolled out, leaving her to herself once more.

Kathy got up from her machine, wondering what Luz Diaz’s interest in this place had been. Was it the gym, or something else? Had Charles Verge ever been here? She picked up her towel and walked to the back of the room, where there was a door marked as a fire exit. It gave onto a short corridor with an escape door at the far end. There was one other door in the corridor, unmarked and on the opposite side to the gym, but when Kathy tried it she found it locked. She returned to the changing room, showered and left.

The gym was housed in a single-storey building whose stuccoed walls were washed terracotta. A laneway ran down one side of the building, and the wall onto the lane was windowless, punctuated only by a single door, part way along. This, Kathy realised as she was throwing her bag into the back of her car, must be the fire-exit door she had seen in the corridor at the back of the gym. What was odd about it was that there was at least as much building beyond the door as on this side of it. She relocked the car and made her way down the lane.

At the back of the building the lane turned into a yard, big enough for vehicles to manoeuvre. The back wall of the building, in the same terracotta render, contained a wide steel roller door, and beside it another door, also metal, with an intercom speaker mounted beside it.

Kathy was considering this when she heard the scrape of activity on the other side of the roller door. She stood motionless as a motor began to whine and the door began to rattle upwards. She saw the snout of a black Mercedes and beside it two pairs of legs. There was an absurd moment, which seemed to last much longer than its actual couple of seconds, when the people on both sides were aware of each other’s presence without being able to see their faces. Then the door rose above shoulder level and Kathy found herself facing Dr Lizancos.

The lizard eyelids popped open as he recognised her, the leathery lips gawped apart. He appeared to be gripped by a panic attack. Then he whirled around and ran, while his companion, a middle-aged woman in a crisp white dress, stared after him in surprise. The door rumbled into life again and began to slide downwards. Kathy had a final impression of the woman’s flat-heeled shoes turning away and her voice calling after Lizancos before the door hit the ground and the place reverted to silence.

Afterwards, driving back to Barcelona, Kathy wondered if she’d misjudged the old man. Perhaps he really was as respectable as he’d made out, not sinister at all. She imagined the effect on his elderly nerves of the door rising and her standing there motionless in the bright sunlight, like an avenging angel. Or maybe he had some other reason to be alarmed. What did he use the other half of the building for? Whatever it was required a location that was anonymous, windowless and secure. Maybe he had a laboratory in there, and was cooking up special pills for the clients of the gym.

When she arrived at the offices of the CGP she half expected to face a dressing down from Captain Alvarez, but it seemed there had been no complaint from Sitges, and everyone was relaxed and happy to see the case of the missing English celebrity resolved outside of Spanish jurisdiction. She returned the Diaz file, and Jeez helped them load their bags into the hire car, and shook their hands, lingering over Linda’s.

Kathy asked Linda to direct her to Montjuic on the way back to the airport, so that she could return the visitors’ book to the Pavello Mies van der Rohe. The same young woman was behind the counter and Kathy thanked her, explaining that the whole thing had been a mistake. The girl was disappointed, and Kathy, feeling mildly guilty about the whole absurd episode, asked to buy the silver pen she’d noticed before, as a souvenir for Leon. While the woman was wrapping it, Kathy admired the covers of the architectural books on display on the shelves. The images were gorgeous, with lustrous planes of colour basking beneath perfect skies, and entirely devoid of people. One in particular caught her eye, featuring an ornate skyline in brick and decorative glazed tiles. She thought it looked familiar, and when she checked the inside flap she saw that it was of part of the Hospital de la Santa Creu i de Sant Pau. The book was titled, in Spanish and English, The Complete Works of Luis Domenech i Montaner. She turned the pages and came to the hospital superintendent’s house, now owned by Dr Lizancos. On impulse, and ignoring the formidable row of zeros on the price label on the back cover, Kathy handed the book to the girl. It would be fun to show Leon the pictures of the spooky house when she described her encounters with the strange pioneer of closed rhinoplasty.

There were long queues at the check-in counters at El Prat airport, and the flight to London was delayed for two hours. By the time they got to Heathrow it was late, dark, and raining. Kathy, Linda and Tony travelled into central London together on the tube as far as Leicester Square, where Kathy changed to the Northern line to Finchley. She felt tired and grubby as she finally struggled into the lift of her building. The palm-lined marine drive of Sitges already felt unreal and remote, and she longed to have a bath and curl up in bed with Leon. But when she opened the front door she found the flat in darkness, and when she switched on the lights she saw immediately that the table was bare, his computer gone.

Her first thought was that they had been robbed, but then she saw a note in Leon’s handwriting propped against a small pile of unopened mail. It read, ‘Kathy, had to leave. Sorry. Will talk when you get back. Love, L.’ Then a PS scribbled underneath with a different pen, ‘Sorry I didn’t have time to get the car window fixed’.

It sounded rushed. Maybe his dad’s had a relapse, she thought, and reached for the phone. As she waited for someone to answer, she realised how bleak the flat was without him there to welcome her home. Then she noticed his house key beside the pile of mail, and her heart stopped.

She heard his mother’s voice. ‘Hello?’

‘Ghita? Hello, it’s Kathy.’

‘Oh yes. We were in bed, actually. We thought you might have phoned earlier.’

Why? ‘My flight was delayed. Is something wrong? Is Morarji all right?’

‘He’s fine, thank you.’

‘Leon’s not here. I thought…’

‘Everyone’s all right. He wants to talk to you in person, face to face. But not tonight.’

Kathy’s heart sank. This was sounding worse by the second. Face to face. ‘But where is he?’

There was a delay before Ghita answered. ‘He’s here, actually.’

‘Well, can I speak to him, please?’

‘Not tonight, Kathy. He’ll contact you tomorrow.’ And the line went dead.

‘The bitch!’ Kathy breathed. She felt shocked and disturbingly vulnerable. What the hell was Leon playing at? Why wouldn’t he talk to her? Or was that just a fabrication of his mother’s? The thought offered a brief moment of comfort that quickly faded. They had been expecting her to ring, and Ghita had been appointed guardian of the phone. Nobody could get past Ghita. Kathy imagined a history of smitten teenage girls trying to phone the handsome Indian boy, and being blocked by Ghita. Was that all she was, the latest in a long line of Ghita’s rejects? She felt angry now, and for a moment considered driving over there and storming their snug little semi. Then the anger turned cold, and she went to run a bath.

While it was filling the phone rang. She raced to pick it up. ‘Hello?’ She just stopped herself from adding, ‘Leon?’

But it was Brock’s voice on the other end. ‘Ah, you’re home, Kathy. Good. You got back safely then.’ His voice sounded cautious and concerned, as if he had hardly expected her to get back in one piece.

‘Yes. The flight was delayed. I’ve just got in.’

‘You must be tired.’

‘I am rather.’

‘Well, I won’t keep you. I just wanted to make sure everything was okay. It is okay?’

This wasn’t like Brock, and Kathy had a sudden suspicion that he knew something, about Leon. For a moment she almost told him that he was gone, but then she bit it back and said only, ‘Yes.’

‘Good.’ He didn’t sound reassured. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, then.’ He hung up.

Kathy swore to herself and began to pull off her clothes.