A Silent Death by Peter May (top books to read .txt) 📗

corner of the frame. If Antonio’s car was parked at the kerbside it was out of shot. Mackenzie sat and watched the minutes tick by. No one came or went. A full five minutes passed. Surely after receiving the call, Antonio would have left straight away?

Mackenzie was puzzled. He let the recording run for another five minutes. Nothing. By now Antonio would have had difficulty in reaching the Eroski Centre before the first reports of the shooting. A full fifteen minutes and there was no sign of Antonio. Which is when it occurred to Mackenzie that if Antonio had actually taken the call, there would have been no need for Cristina to leave a message. So how did he know to go to the Eroski Centre?

He rewound, scrolling back a full ten minutes prior to the time of the call, then set the recording to play again. At 14.40 a scowling Antonio emerged from the apartment block, hands in pockets, fishing out his car keys as he went. He vanished out of shot. The last time anyone had seen him alive, apart from his killer, or killers. And a full seven minutes before the call from Cristina.

Mackenzie left the mini-market with the hard disk in his pocket and the proprietor’s complaints ringing in his ears. It took him less than two minutes to cross the square to the police station and climb the steps to reception.

The duty officer looked at him in surprise. Perhaps he thought that Mackenzie should have been at the funeral. Mackenzie laid the hard disk down on the counter. ‘I need to enter this in evidence,’ he said. ‘And I need you to do me a favour.’

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

It was late afternoon by the time Cristina got home.

The Jefe had broken the news to her about Ana after the funeral. She had been furious. Boss or no boss, she laid into him. He had no right to keep something like that from her! But distress had displaced grief in her emptiness, and for a short while fear for Ana had replaced the heartbreak of losing Antonio.

They had all returned to Nuri and Paco’s house, and despite her illness Nuri had done her best to feed them all. Neighbours had helped, arriving in constant procession with fish soup and goat stew and paella. But Cristina had been unable to eat. She had grilled the Jefe on every detail of Ana’s disappearance. Mackenzie’s sighting of her in the street with Cleland. The chase through the feria. The body found in her house. Neither she nor Nuri had the least idea who Sergio García Lorca might be, or what his connection to Ana was. If any.

Now she was quite simply exhausted. A night without sleep. Twenty-four hours without food. Grief and fear an almost impossible double burden. Lucas had to be her focus now. She knew that. He had none of the mental and emotional resources to fall back on that she had. And, God knows, she had little enough of either herself.

The officer stationed in the street outside the apartment was long gone, and she dragged herself wearily up the stairs, Lucas trotting at her side, his hand still clutching hers. He had been braver than she could possibly have believed. A day without tears. Few words, and a stoic smile for all the fussing neighbours.

She paused for a moment with her hand on the door handle, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. This was their nest. How empty would it be without the man who had helped her build it? The first of many trials that lay ahead.

As soon as she let herself in she knew there was someone in the apartment. Fear and shock stung the skin of her face and she quickly insinuated herself between Lucas and the living room as she stepped out of the hall to confront whoever might be there.

The glass door to the balcony had been slid aside, and Mackenzie stood with his back to the rail, leaning against it and tapping on the screen of his mobile phone. He looked up, startled, as he heard her come in, and was immediately embarrassed, a physical intruder on her grief.

‘Who the hell let you in?’ she barked.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘There’s an officer posted downstairs. Did he not tell you?’

‘There was no one there when I got here.’

‘Oh.’ He scratched his head. ‘I don’t know why they thought they needed one in the first place.’ He slipped his phone back in his pocket. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘How could you let that bastard get away with Ana?’

Mackenzie reddened. Embarrassment and now guilt. ‘I didn’t . . .’ But there were no excuses. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again.

‘Yes. So am I. Sorry I ever did a colleague a favour. Sorry I ever went to that breakin at La Paloma. Sorry I ever had to set eyes on you.’

Mackenzie lowered his head and wished that the ground would swallow him up. When eventually he raised his eyes again, she was standing in the living room with hers closed. Lucas stood at her side still clutching her hand, gazing at him with unglazed misery, his lower lip quivering. But still he held back his tears.

Finally Cristina opened her eyes and drew a deep trembling breath. ‘I’m sorry. None of this is your fault.’ She paused. ‘What are you doing here?’

He didn’t think that this was the moment to discuss the phone message, or the CCTV footage. And again heard Susan’s silent commendation for his uncommon discretion. He said, ‘I didn’t think it would be right for me to go to the funeral. I hardly knew . . .’ Now he felt Susan’s metaphorical pinch on the arm.

But Cristina had turned her attentions to Lucas. ‘Shall I put on the TV?’

The boy shrugged, which she took as assent, and crossed the room to turn it on. There was an animated film playing, and cartoon voices filled the room to displace the awful silence. But