‘They are all fascists,’ she tells me, and I suppress a smile. ‘The only way to deal with ETA is to arrest their leaders and to make sure that there is no place for them to hide. This is the view of the Spanish government and it also happens to be the view of my family.’
The vehemence of this last remark, given that her mother is Basque, surprises me a little, but I let it go. She is otherwise predictable company. She laughs at my jokes. She teaches me words and phrases in Spanish. We find out about each other’s families – Alex’s parents live in Edinburgh and have been happily married for over thirty years – and talk about music and films. I try to appear as smitten and sincere as possible and Carmen seems to be as enthusiastic about me as she ever was. Afterwards we return to her apartment and I suppose that I start to miss Sofía at this point, if only for her intemperate moods and greater skills as a lover. The friction of adultery with a beautiful woman is different from the necessity of sex with a plain, if willing, target.
‘What are you thinking about?’ she asks, coming back into the bedroom afterwards wearing just a pair of white cotton knickers. She picks the condom up off the floor, ties it quickly and skilfully into a knot and places it in the bin.
‘Nothing. Just how nice it is to be here. Just how relaxed I feel. I didn’t think I’d meet anyone in Spain so quickly. I can’t believe you’ve just dropped into my life.’
Her body is very thin and very pale. When she sits on the bed I can see the skeletal outline of her ribcage, her slightly fallen breasts, the nipples so tiny and almost shy. She lies beside me, on her front, and I stroke her back, thinking of Zulaika for some reason, wondering what Kitson did to shut him up.
‘Would you like to meet my friend María?’ she asks.
‘Of course, if you’d like to introduce us.’ It does not seem odd that we have grown so close so quickly. These are the first heady days of a new relationship and anything within the masquerade seems possible.
‘There’s a party on Friday night, in Chueca. A friend of hers is having it. She asked us to come along.’
‘María knows about me?’
‘Of course!’
Laughter now as Carmen turns over, meeting me with a wet kiss that soaks my neck. The back of her head smells oddly sour, like the skin under a watch-strap.
‘And what have you told her?’
I know exactly what she’s told her. So does Kitson, for that matter. So does Macduff. That Alex is ‘so sexy’ and ‘funny’ and ‘not like the men we always meet in Madrid’. Thankfully the pair of them have yet to discuss the intricacies of our sex life within earshot of the bug, but it can only be a matter of time. Eventually Carmen falls asleep beside me, but not before I have asked if I can surf the net on her computer. She readily agrees, booting up the laptop (Password: segovia) before coming back to bed. At about one o’clock I roll away from her and creep out of the room, running a search on the laptop for ‘Sellini’, ‘Buscon’, ‘Dieste’, ‘Church’, ‘Sofía’, ‘Kitson’, ‘Vicente’, even ‘Saul’ and ‘Ricken’. Nothing comes up, so I simply transfer files in bulk onto a 128MB removable memory stick. Let SIS sort wheat from chaff: there’s bound to be something in de Francisco’s correspondence that will give Kitson a solid lead. To cover my tracks – and to make it look as though I spent the hour using Internet Explorer – I visit a random selection of sites (Hotmail, BBC, itsyourturn.com), shutting down the machine at around 2 a.m. Carmen keeps a bottle of cheap cooking brandy in the kitchen and I take a decent slug of that before trying to get to sleep.
Yet Tuesday throws everything into confusion. After she has left for work at 8 a.m., I walk back through Sol and buy copies of ABC, El Mundo and El País from a newsstand at the eastern end of Arenal. All three carry front-page reports about a failed attempt on the life of an ETA commander outside his home in Bilbao. A 22-year-old Moroccan immigrant, Mohammed Chakor, has been charged by local police. Details are sketchy, but it seems that Tomás Orbé, a veteran of ETA campaigns in the 1980s and early 90s, was washing his car outside his house when he saw Chakor approach, brandishing a gun. In the ensuing struggle the Moroccan let off a single shot which missed Orbé by several feet, embedding itself in the car. Orbé, who was himself armed, returned fire, seriously injuring Chakor in the neck. At the same time, Eugenio Larzabal, the Gara journalist who reported seeing a Madrid number plate on the car that fled the shootings last week in southern France, asks in a page-one story whether it is ‘more than coincidence’ that the kidnap and murder of Mikel Arenaza, the disappearance of Juan Egileor, the killing of Txema Otamendi, the double shootings at the ETA bars and the attempt on the life of Tomás Orbé have all taken place within the last two months. I notice that he is careful, perhaps for legal reasons, not to mention any individuals or government departments by name, yet the thrust of the piece is unmistakable: the shadow of a third dirty war hovers over it like a jackal.
By 10 a.m. the Orbé incident is being discussed by ‘Basque experts’ on a Spanish radio programme. Television stations do not appear to be overly interested, although footage of the Bilbao house and interviews with local residents are shown on morning news programmes. I call Kitson and we arrange to meet at two at the branch of Starbucks on Plaza de los Cubos. He’s late, and looks tired, apologizing for the venue.
‘Naomi Klein would doubtless disapprove,’ he says, perching next to me on a stool, ‘but I have a soft spot for their double tall lattes.’
We are looking out over the concrete square, at Princesa on the far side, at McDonald’s and Burger King to our right. ‘Could be bloody Frankfurt,’ he mutters, before asking for my ‘take on Bilbao’.
‘Bad news. It’s obviously part of our wider problem. This guy was hired by Madrid and he messed up. The papers say he’s unconscious in hospital, but once he wakes up he’s going to start talking. Even if he doesn’t make it, the press now have a hard lead. They’ve never had evidence like this before and Gara is already hinting at what we know. Larzabal has written a piece this morning which effectively accuses the government of running a dirty war. It’s likely to be ignored in the short term, but ask yourself this. Why would a 22-year-old North African want to shoot an etarra unless he was paid to do it?’
‘Why indeed? You don’t think it’s linked to Letamendía and Rekalde?’
That’s impressive. Last weekend, two veteran members of ETA, Raul Letamendía and José Rekalde, caused the first serious split within the organization for twenty years by renouncing the armed struggle. Kitson and I haven’t talked about this, but it’s possible he read something in the British press.
‘Not unless it’s a case of mistaken identity. ETA don’t like their members renouncing the cause. If you’re in, you’re in for life. It’s not pony club camp. When Dolores Catarain deserted in 1986, they had her assassinated. And Orbé is hardline.’
‘I see.’ Kitson runs a hand across his head. I enjoyed trumping him.
‘The only thing that doesn’t make sense in all this is the logic of a dirty war. ETA is on its knees. They arrested seven of its members last week. The French are co-operating. They have nowhere left to hide.’
‘But it must exist,’ Kitson says, and I find myself nodding in agreement. There is simply too much evidence to suggest otherwise. ‘How’s it going with the girl?’
I reach into my jacket pocket and take out the memory stick. ‘Very well. I got some stuff out of her laptop last night. It’s all in here.’
I put it on the counter and he lets it sit there. He’ll pick it up when we leave.
‘And what about the relationship? How are you finding that?’