26. Sacrifice

As it turns out, we meet for only five minutes. Kitson shakes my hand near a lifesize cutout of Ronald McDonald, takes the brown manila envelope in which I have placed my affidavit and leaves with the excuse that he has a ‘pressing engagement’ in Huertas. It’s obvious that Five and Six have warned him off me. I’m damaged goods, after all, persona non grata on a par with Rimington, Tomlinson and Shayler. You get one chance with these guys and, if you blow it, there’s no going back. It’s club rules, the only way they know how to operate.

I eat breakfast at Cáscaras and wait all week for Zulaika’s call. When he doesn’t contact me, I begin to fear the worst. Either he has become another victim of Buscon or Kitson panicked about his interest in the operation and arranged for half a dozen Bilbao heavies to put him off the scent. As the days go by, it begins to feel as though my encounter with the secret world has come to an abrupt end, like an old love affair briefly rekindled, then all too hurriedly snuffed out. But eventually Zulaika makes contact. At 8 a.m. sharp on the morning of Monday 7 April, ten days after I left my initial message, he rings the Nokia mobile. What is it about Zulaika and early mornings? I am fast asleep in bed and reach across to retrieve the phone from my jacket pocket, straining my back in the process.

His name appears on the screen and I buy time by letting him leave a message:

‘Yes, this is Patxo Zulaika for Alec Milius, returning his call. I have been away on holiday and did not take my work phone with my family. Please call me at this number as soon as possible, your information could be important.’

The voice is just as I remembered it – flat, smug, entitled – and acts as an immediate irritant. Interesting that he took a fortnight’s holiday in the middle of the Arenaza disappearance. There have been extensive anti-war protests throughout the Basque country, which he would also have wanted to cover. Perhaps he has given up on the story, or been moved on to something new. I prepare my response, settle down on the sofa with a cup of strong black coffee and call him just after ten o’clock.

‘Mr Zulaika?’

‘Yes?’

‘This is Alec Milius.’

‘I was hoping you would contact me sooner. You said that you had some information.’

That same infuriating manner, devoid of even basic decency, every sentence managing to be both critical and pushy at the same time. I feel immediately predisposed to thwart him and experience a wave of gratitude to Kitson for providing me with the opportunity to do so.

‘And good morning to you, too, Patxo.’

He doesn’t understand the sarcasm.

‘Qué?’

‘Nothing. I was just saying “Good morning”. You always seem so keen to get down to business. Always in a hurry.’

‘Well fine, I am busy, perhaps this explains it. So what was it that you remembered?’

‘Well, it may not be of any use, but let me see.’ I draw out the pause for effect, as if preparing to divulge information of overwhelming national importance. ‘At one point in the evening with Mr Arenaza he started talking about Basque cuisine. I’d been to the Arzak restaurant just outside San Sebastián for a business lunch, you see, and eaten perhaps the finest food I’d tasted…’

‘Yes, yes…’

‘Anyway, I’m fairly sure that Arenaza said he was fond of a particular Basque restaurant in Madrid where one of his friends was the head chef. Trouble is, I can’t for the life of me remember the name of the place. It may have been in Malasaña, something beginning with “D” or “B”, but that’s just a hunch. I’ve walked around and looked in the Páginas Amarillas in an effort to save you time, but I just can’t seem to find it. Is that any use to you? Does that tie in with any of your enquiries?’

There is a prolonged silence, one that I assume has been brought about by some frantic note-taking at the other end of the line. It’s going to be a pleasure to set Zulaika on a false trail. I hope he takes three weeks over it and gets fired for wasting Ahotsa’s time.

‘Why didn’t you mention this when we first met?’ he asks eventually. ‘It doesn’t sound like something you would forget.’

‘It doesn’t?’ He has always doubted my integrity, sensed that I have something to hide. ‘Well, I don’t really know how to answer that, Patxo. You see, I did forget. But I thought I might be doing you a favour by letting you know.’

‘Perhaps you are,’ he says quietly, ‘perhaps you are.’ He might almost be talking to himself. ‘Was there anything else?’

‘No, there wasn’t anything else. Have you had any luck tracking Arenaza down?’ While we’re talking I might as well try to gauge the status of his investigation. ‘The story seems to have stopped in the papers.’

‘The assumption is that Mikel Arenaza is dead,’ Zulaika replies bluntly. ‘I have one other area that I’m working on, but it may not come to anything.’

‘Oh? And what’s that?’

He appears to weigh up the good sense of telling me before concluding that no harm can come from doing so.

‘There’s a SIM card that we believe belonged to Arenaza. It was discovered by police inside a pair of shoes at his home in Donostia. A number of calls had been made to an engineering company in Madrid, and to an unidentified mobile phone, but so far we have not been able to find who it was he was talking to.’

‘It wasn’t just for business?’ My heart has started to race. The SIM card will link Arenaza to Rosalía within a matter of days. I remember Bonilla’s words: In my experience people use a secret mobile telephone that their partner knows nothing about. ‘You think there’s a more personal connection?’

‘Perhaps.’ In the silence that follows I worry that Zulaika may have picked up on this phrase and interpreted it correctly. It was careless of me to use the word ‘personal’, an inference that might easily suggest a relationship with another woman. ‘Did Mikel say anything about that?’ Zulaika asks. ‘Did he ask anything about a company called Plettix?’

I play dumb. I have no choice. ‘No.’

‘What about Txema Otamendi?’

Last Tuesday, Otamendi, a former ETA commander, was shot dead at his home in southern France by an unidentified assailant. It is not known whether he was murdered as the result of an internal feud within ETA, or was simply the victim of a burglary that went wrong. I do not want to appear to have become overly interested in Basque affairs, and ask Zulaika to repeat the name.

‘I’m sorry, who?’

‘Txema Otamendi was once a member of Euskadi ta Askatasuna,’ he replies. This is a pompous way of giving ETA its formal title. ‘He was killed last week. You did not know about this? Everybody knows about it.’

‘I don’t really watch the news.’

‘Well, I am trying to establish a connection with Arenaza which goes beyond their formal political links. So if you have another of your delayed memories, Alec, perhaps you would think to call me again.’

I cannot fathom why Zulaika would treat me with such condescension. Does he think I’m stupid? The lie about the Basque restaurant has clearly failed to ignite his interest and he must imagine that I am wasting his time. Let it be so. I say, ‘Of course, of course,’ and wish him ‘all the luck in the world’, adding that it has been a pleasure to talk to him again.

‘You too,’ he says, hanging up.

But now there’s a problem. Do I tell Kitson about our conversation? This is certainly an opportunity to revive the SIS relationship, but the context is wrong. Never tell people bad news that they don’t need to hear. Zulaika’s interest in Arenaza won’t affect Kitson’s search for the weapons and will only harden his resolve not to involve me in any future dealings. There is no point, at this stage, in further weakening my standing with Six; I need to wait until I have something positive to give them, something that makes my involvement irreversible. Besides, they have displayed no interest in re-establishing contact since the handover of the affidavit. Why should I be loyal to an organization that has shown no loyalty to me?