THE SPANISH WAITER: SIX

Interference in ordinary lives by the secret service plays a part...

Geraldine Bonny arrived at the Hotel Pyramido in the company of a now-uniformed senior Spanish police woman, Valentino. They were obviously close friends: their body language made that much clear.

Ivan was waiting for her next to the reception desk at which Tomas was seated on a high stool wearing an expression that suggested that this was his hotel and the troublesome Brits could keep their trouble as far from him as possible.

He greeted his wife in affectionate-sounding Spanish, and raised his eyebrows at Geraldine.

“Tomas, it’s good to see you again,” she said with a bright smile, “and I hope that Ivan has been of some value to you.”

“He is good, but I see a problem arising,” began Tomas, and Ivan broke in by saying, “Twelve bloody years, Geraldine, Twelve whole years of my life, being locked away with a moron who thought he had a future in crime sussed out and then in walks the murdered man into the very place where I work! Bloody Bonehead is here! He’s not dead at all, but then it always seemed to me most unlikely that he’d been killed by anyone, and certainly not by me!”

“I see what you’re saying. But I don’t understand it,” murmured Geraldine. “You say he’s actually staying here, and he hasn’t recognised the man who he might have saved from a jail sentence if he’d wanted to?”

“I’ve grown a few whiskers since he disappeared,” grunted Ivan, “I didn’t like people looking at me thinking I might launch an attack on them and theirs at any moment, so I grew a disguise on my face! He might have glanced my way, and I’m sure he did, but he wouldn’t have known me from Adam. I hope.”

“So you’re safe for the time being,” she murmured. “I’ve been doing a little bit of research into your case and I found it very disturbing.”

“I should think you did!”

“I’ve asked quite a few questions of quite a few people in the years since I first met you,” she said, “and bit by bit I reckon I might have started seeing through what happened.”

“Go on,” invited Ivan.

“No,” said Tomas, “not here. Come to my office and you can tell each other all about it. You won’t risk being overheard in there.”

They followed him past the reception desk where he was sitting and to the far end of the reception area, through an insignificant door and in to an office. There were enough chairs in there for all of them at a squeeze, though Tomas left them to search out Andrea who he wanted to replace him at the reception desk.

“You said you had started to make sense of what’s happened to me,” suggested Ivan.

“Wait for Tomas to get back,” suggested Valentina, “I know he’s interested in your story, Ivan.”

“And as he’s part of your life at the moment it’s only right he should be kept up to date,” added Geraldine.

Tomas returned soon after she had said those words, and he sat at his desk with the other three in a row in front of him.

“So what news do you have for Ivan?” asked Tomas, “It would be good if he was completely exonerated. That is the right word, isn’t it? Exonerated?”

“It is,” smiled Geraldine. “And so I’ll explain what I’ve found out, and it’s not very pleasant. I saw Inspector Hewitt, who was in charge of the investigation into Mr Carter’s disappearance. He was an old man when I saw him four or five years ago when I first discovered that I believe Ivan here hadn’t so much as hurt a fly. He had retired and his mind was unfortunately closed. A court had found you guilty, Ivan, so guilty you were. To his mind there could be no doubt. He was the kind of man who unreasonably believed that he could do no wrong and got everything right.”

“I’ll let him know what I think of that if I bump into him,” growled Ivan.

“Too late, I’m afraid. He went to meet the angels over a year ago. But his account had me certain his thinking when he investigated the cast had been influenced by something. Or someone. It struck me that he was the sort of man who could be manipulated. So I tried to dig a little deeper, and I went painfully slowly and carefully because if my suspicions were right I’d best not be found out.”

“You make it sound … strange,” whispered Ivan, “I mean, a man disappears, a geriatric policemen wrongly works out that he was murdered and his body hidden, and a possible candidate is fitted up for it. That is, me.”

“I spoke to Inspector Hewitt on two occasions,” persisted Geraldine, “and the second time was at a funeral wake. Superintendent Islet had apparently wandered into the path of a tractor, and been mowed down. That struck me as odd and I began to suspect that there was something unnatural about his accident. It was odd, to say the least. I mean, wandering in front of a tractor, and you know how noisy they can be. And he was a Superintendent, still at work and with a sound reputation and famously sensitive ears.”

“I’ve never heard of him,” grunted Ivan.

“Well, it is well known that he spends a fair amount of time entertaining strange characters who are widely reckoned to be spooks. You know, secret service spooks. And when I was at his funeral Hewitt sort of confirmed it.”

“How?” asked Ivan.

“Well, he smiled knowingly at me and muttered that now the boss was dead and buried they’d be free of spies from the top.”

“What on Earth did the thick Bonehead, Gaddy Carter, have to do with the secret service?” asked Ivan frowning.

“I’ll ask you to just think back, Ivan. When Carter started rowing with you and mouthing off like you told me he did, was anyone else present?”

Ivan frowned and concentrated. Then, “Two thugs, his mates, as I recall,” he said after a few seconds.

“And did you know them?” asked Geraldine.

Ivan shook his head. “I hardly moved in their circles,” he said, “remember: I was a teacher at the comprehensive and not likely to rub shoulders with slobs like those two!”

Geraldine smiled at him. “Quite,” she said, “so you took very little notice of Sparky Somerville and his mate Muriel Saint John, a young woman who was blessed with boyish features and who you took to be another thug. But Sparky and Murial worked for Gaddy Carter, who was a more senior spook from the secret services, had been undercover for quite some time, and the time had come for him to make a quick getaway with a respectable teacher as a witness. But you didn’t want a slanging match and so walked out too soon for their scheme to work out as they intended and the little drama they had planned for you to witness didn’t happen.

“So instead of you seeing someone known locally as Bonehead being bundled into a car by two men and driven off at high speed you had to play a different part in the disappearance, and getting Superintendent Islet to nudge the easily influenced Inspector Hewitt into believing you’d killed him was that part in the affair.”

“Are you sure of this, Geraldine?” asked Tomas.

“As sure as I can be, Tomas,” she replied, shaking her head.

“So besides a killer, you’ve brought the whole of the British secret service into me hotel?”

“But why were they interested in a housing estate in a small town where nothing happens?” asked Ivan.

“I don’t know exactly,” answered Geraldine, “but I guess the spooks have their own reasons for what they do. They have their own rules and that’s it.”

“But what of me and my twelve years?” asked Ivan, “and if I took it into my head to kill the man for all the trouble he’s caused me, can I be sentenced for killing him a second time?”

“You won’t will you?” asked Tomas.

“Don’t worry, “ sighed Ivan, “I wouldn’t harm a fly let alone a double-crossing swine like Gaddy Carter! It was just an interesting question, that’s all.”

© Peter Rogerson, 28.10.22

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