HOLLY Guy had wanted to come and talk Sunday morning but Ana was relieved when she phoned to say she couldn´t meet until the following morning and would that be OK?

 

Today was a day Ana needed as an escape, mentally and physically, from the problems of Daniel’s friends.  She wanted to be her Spanish self again. Her longing to confide in Mayte, away from a professional environment, was almost overwhelming, but she must keep the revelations that Daniel discovered on Sarah’s computer a secret in her heart. She did not need to be an aficionado of police novels to realise what any detective would deduce when it transpired a man whose wife dies in mysterious circumstances has a secret son by the woman he admitted was the love of his life. What detective would, could ignore that fact when investigating a suspicious death? No one could be certain whether Mark actually discovered he had a son.  Perhaps he had read Sarah’s files and planned to go to India but Sarah was blocking the way. Ana did not believe this to be true; she had seen enough of Mark to believe he was an honourable man, but then she was no judge of human nature, she who trusted Diego until he told her of his infidelities.

 

Daniel was locked away in his study and, as always for comfort, she made for the garden, walking beneath the shade of the palm trees right to the end, to the small wrought iron table and chairs next to a low fence. Here she could see and hear next door’s chickens in the garden down below, perpetually scratching for food among the fruit trees. Did chickens call "qui-ri-qui", as she learned as a child or "cock a doodle do", as Daniel insisted? Her world had seemed so simple when her father taught the young Ana about chickens and about fishing and how to play hide and seek.

 

Perhaps she could ring Papi and suggest a walk so she might share some of her worries with him.  But she was aware she must burden him with asking for his silence. Her mother, Ana was certain, would talk to her sisters and soon the most incredible stories would circulate in the village, finding their way, inevitably through the close family networks, to the police station.

 

Her mobile phone rang and Ana answered it without looking to identify the caller.

​

The voice she most wanted to hear said “Well, amiga mia, I hope you are doing wonderful things this sunny Sunday morning. If not, I thought we might take a walk together by the sea, blow away the cares of our working lives.”

 

And so Mayte granted the wish she had denied herself and she left the house with a lighter heart, glad she had an excuse to do something she wasn’t sure was correct. Mayte picked her up in the car at the bus stop at the bottom of the road.

 

“So, do you want to tell me what is causing you so much soul-searching, little one? I’m worried about you ” Ana smiled at the reminder she was six months younger than Mayte as she replied, “I wanted to call you, cariño, but I am afraid there are too many things we cannot tell each other. Each day that passes makes it more difficult.”
 

They left Mayte’s car in a cliff top parking place and set off along a path towards the headland and the small, secluded beach where they used to swim as teenagers.

​

Mayte walked in silence for a while then she said  “Why don’t I tell you what I think is happening and then you can decide what you can share with me?” Not for the first time, Ana appreciated her friend’s ability to find a way through seemingly intractable problems. So Mayte repeated what the police had said the day before, that there was no evidence at all of how Sarah had met her death, only that she appeared to have fallen from a cliff top and had suffered a catastrophic head injury She had been alive on entering the sea, the salt water in her lungs proved this, but had died soon afterwards. There was no evidence of why she fell, or where she had fallen from, and her mobile telephone and keys were missing.  It was an active investigation.

 

“But as the days go by it seems less likely that we will discover how she died, and to be quite honest with you, I think Manuel Camps would be relieved to allow the body to be released, for burial. Your English friends have an economic importance to our town and he doesn’t want to upset them. And a murder would be really bad for tourism.”
 

Ana realised that she had become so involved in Sarah’s death and its effect on her and on Daniel and his friends, that she had lost sight of the world outside this small, tightly knit group. “I am so glad you told me that. I have got in deeply too. After all, I hardly know these people, didn’t know them at all a few months ago, apart from Jonathan. ”

 

“I know that cielo, that’s why I called you. I watched you do wonderful work interpreting for them, far more than any professional would have done, and believe me I know.  And although  I teased you, when I said you didn’t know what you were getting involved with, living near Daniel’s ex, truthfully, I never dreamed of anything like this. Yesterday I saw what a strain this whole thing is putting on you.”

 

Her words put Ana’s world back into perspective. The sun was shining, the water below was a glorious morning blue and the seabirds wheeled and cried above them. How could anything bad happen here? But then unwanted, apocryphal, stories of people thrown over the very headland they were approaching crept in, Moors back in the fourteenth century and Republicans in the twentieth. Bad things could happen anywhere; it does not do to over romanticise life. 

 

“You think we suspect your friend Mark Harris of killing his wife because of something which happened in their lives before they came here. That is right, no?” Ana was too taken aback by this accuracy to reply and Mayte continued “And you know of some incident from their past that could provide a motive so you don’t want to talk to me in case you give the game away?” 

 

With difficulty, Ana told her how difficult it had been to get Daniel to talk to her about his friends, and how she must respect the confidentiality of things he said. Her relationship would be in trouble, if she didn’t. Mayte empathised with his dislike of gossip, coming from a small town where gossip was endemic and sometimes dangerous. “ I’m telling you this” Mayte said after a pause “ because it was you who mentioned Ivan Hepworth to me in the first place, before Sarah Harris disappeared, but it’s best kept between us, for now anyway.” And she said that the name Ivan Hepworth was clearly known to people in high places, namely in government circles in Madrid, and that Manuel Camps had been interested in Ivan, even before the death of Sarah Harris.

 

“Madre mia, Ana , what you forgot to say was how attractive Ivan is. I was quite taken back when I met him, his looks, his charisma and his perfect Spanish, although he does use Argentinian words sometimes. And what a contrast with his wife.” Ana was surprised that Mayte would see Ivan in this way, as she found him arrogant. “But Mayte, Carole is such a good person, anyone can see that”.

They both collapsed laughing and were sitting on a fallen log, sharing drinks from Ana’s water bottle and still giggling when two dogs, a pair of twin cocker spaniels, rushed up and stopped in front of them, sniffing at their legs.

 

Before they could recover they heard a woman’s voice calling sharply “Punch, Judy, come back here at once”. And around the bend in the path, as if they had magicked her, came Carole Hepworth, red-faced and out of breath. “Lo siento mucho, mis malos perros , so sorry, so sorry, oh dear!” Then she recognised them and, as Ana told her not to worry, Mayte fondled the ears of the dogs in turn, which they seemed to love and they calmed down. Ana was surprised that Mayte and Juan had a white Spanish water dog called Luah, whom they idolised. Had Mayte liked dogs when they were young? Not that she remembered. Maybe Juan was the dog lover.

 

“I thought I had cured of them of rushing ahead of me” Carole said, telling them a confused story, about having taken the dogs to obedience classes. She thought they were well trained, she said, but now they were unsettled because she had been in the habit of walking them on the path in the opposite direction until Sarah died. Ana saw Mayte was having difficulty understanding. “Now, I don’t like going there and the dogs don’t like it either. So you see I have to bring them this way but they don’t know this path so well, and they meet more dogs here and they get upset and we all miss Ivan and I wish he could come back soon but...”

 

Seeing that Carole was becoming tearful Ana put an arm around her, suggested that she and Mayte walk back along the path with Carole and the dogs and that maybe they should put them on their leads if Carole would feel more comfortable. 

 

It was the first time Ana had met Carole without Ivan’s forceful presence and she saw a different woman, more herself but less confident. She tried to remember what Jonathan had told before the beach party, a lifetime before when he had painted his pen pictures of his friends. As they walked along the cliff path Carole told Ana how she loved walking the dogs, it was, along with sewing, her relaxation. And the dogs, she continued, “well, they are my babies, I suppose. I adopted them after Tom left and they have been my saviours. I was in such a dark place, Ana, but I learned from my counsellor to put the bad things that happen in a box and bury them. That’s what I did. And it worked because first I found Punch and Judy, and then Ivan came along.” She smiled as she spoke but Ana thought she saw the gleam of a tear behind her glasses. 

 

When they reached Mayte’s car they discovered that Carole’s car was the one next to theirs.
 

“Do you know when Ivan will be back”, Ana asked, remembering Carole’s distress on Friday, when he told Carole of his need to go to Russia and that it must be soon. “Very late Tuesday evening,” Carole said “But I never mind going to the airport to pick him up. The boys and I play music really loud as we drive along the autopista.”

 

Assuring Ana and Mayte that she was absolutely fine now, that the heat must have upset her,  Carole said she must go back as she was showing clients around a house that afternoon,  a large house which had been on the market a while, so she was keen to make a sale. They wished her good luck and waved her off, staring after the car for several seconds, before Mayte said “Well, querida Ana, you really have got involved with some strange people. What do you think was the matter with her?”

 

This brought Ana face to face with her dilemma. Just how much could she safely share with Mayte? She decided she could tell how the pair had turned up unexpectedly on Friday evening, saying they needed cheering up after the police interviews. She felt she could talk about  Ivan’s departure for Russia without betraying any confidences.   
 

“The thing was, though, that I thought Ivan wanted to tell Carole that he was leaving for Russia in front of other people, so she couldn’t tell him she didn’t want him to go. And you can see today just how upset she is, alone.”

 

“She is more nervous now than she seemed in the interview, that’s true.” Mayte too was weighing up what she could safely say.

​

“I know you weren't there for the interviews with the Hepworths but you heard all the others. Manuel and I waited to see if either of them would volunteer information about Sarah Harris’ verbal attack on Ivan Hepworth”. Neither of them had, but when Manuel brought the subject up with Ivan, he had immediately gone onto the offensive and told them how well connected he was. Mayte said it had impressed Manuel Camps. “and I must tell you, Ana, that I was impressed. There is something about the mix of English upper-class superiority with Russian steel I find attractive.”

 

Ana couldn’t help laughing at the thought of Mayte, always so feisty, being attracted to, of all people, a  man like Ivan Hepworth. who she thought so dominating.” Did Manuel Camps think that the allegations about Ivan were true? Did he say anything more?”
 

Mayte admitted that Manuel Camps had been guarded when they spoke. He intimated that Ivan had connections at a high level in the Foreign Ministry in Madrid and he thought it unlikely that Ivan was working for either the Russian government or the Russian mafia. Ana remembered Daniel saying that he had seen no stories about Ivan on any of the files he had read on Sarah’s computer so she wondered where Sarah had got the story. And the bigamous marriage? That was also curious.

 

“Can you tell me what Carole said when you asked her about Sarah’s attack on Ivan?”
 

“Well, to be honest, it surprised me. She became defensive of Sarah, saying she was sure Sarah meant nothing at all, that there was nothing bad anyone could say about Ivan.  She claimed Sarah apologised to her before they went home. Sarah had described herself as a “spiteful cow” and blamed the wine. Do you think that could be true, Ana? Did you see them talking on the beach?”

Looking back, Ana remembered seeing Carole and Sarah exchanging hugs by the cars as they were all leaving the beach that night.

 

“If I live to be hundred, Ana, I doubt I shall ever understand these people. Cultural diversity is a barrier to understanding here. ”

“Cariño, I feel the same. They are so complicated.  I just know we Spanish are so much easier to deal with. ”