‘You were reading this when I met you,’ she says. It is the same crumpled copy of Homage to Catalonia that I had in the bar. ‘Why have you not read it before?’
‘I have read it before. I just wanted to read it again.’
‘And is it interesting?’
‘Fascinating.’
We speak briefly about Orwell being shot through the neck while fighting for the POUM, but I want to get to the bottom of her feelings for Maldonado. In the back of my mind is the dream that they were once lovers. Should Carmen tell me that they were, I can move on her tonight, threatening to expose both of them if she refuses. This is cynical and cold, the worst part of our heartless trade, but in the circumstances it is my best chance of obtaining information quickly.
‘Would you like me to cook for you tonight?’ she asks.
‘Sure. That would be great.’ I touch her arm and move my hand slowly towards her neck. ‘So what’s he like to work for, as a boss?’
‘As a what?’
‘A boss. A manager.’ I am just about to say the Spanish word ‘jefe’ when I stop myself, remembering Alex’s legend. ‘Mr Maldonado. How does he treat you? How much do you see of him?’
Carmen has a glass of Rueda on the go and she drinks from it before replying.
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘Because I’ve never really spoken to you about your job. Because I don’t really know what you do all day.’
‘And you care?’ She rises on this last word, as if nobody has ever cared, as if nobody has ever paid her the slightest bit of attention. Then she rolls into me and I smell that same unwashed staleness on her neck.
‘Of course I care.’
‘Well, I do not like him particularly.’ This after a short pause. ‘I do not think he is a good man. But of course I support him.’
‘Because you have to?’
‘No. Because of Javier. Because I am loyal to Javier. Félix is my boss’s boss.’ She looks delighted to have mastered the word so quickly and I feel a warm hand escaping up my back. ‘And what about your boss, Alex? Tell me more about him.’
‘No, you first. Tell me what you do all day when we’re not together, when I miss you.’
There is that look on her face again, the slight sickness, but just as quickly it is gone, replaced by a grateful, loving smile. She is behaving very oddly, concealing something, a worry or an unhappiness. Sometimes I wonder if this is all just a game for her, and I suffer the quiet, paranoid nightmare that Carmen Arroyo is the one playing me.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘What do you mean?’ She drains her glass of wine and stands up from the sofa.
‘I don’t know. You’ve been acting strangely all night, not like I’ve seen you before. Ever since Félix appeared on television you’ve been uncomfortable.’
‘Sí?’
‘Yes.’
She shakes her head. ‘The wine is finished.’
This is going to be more difficult than I thought. It will take time to break her down. But the one quality that a spy must always possess is patience; my time will come. I simply need to wait for the opportunity, a matador timing the kill. It’s possible that Carmen is pre-programmed never to discuss state business with non-government personnel. After all, she knows nothing about Alex Miller. There’s no reason in the world that she should trust him at such an early stage in our relationship.
‘Do you want me to go out and buy some more?’ I ask, looking across at the empty bottle.
‘That would be very kind,’ she replies. ‘And I will cook.’
So I go outside. On the stairs I consider telephoning Kitson for advice on how to proceed, but I must be able to work this one out for myself. I’m convinced that either de Francisco or Maldonado has been romantically involved with Carmen at some point in the past. Both are married men, and the fingerprints of an adultery seem visible whenever Carmen speaks about them. How else to explain her sudden shift in mood tonight? How else to explain her evasiveness?
‘Alex!’
She has opened the sitting-room window above me and is looking down from the first-floor balcony.
‘Can you buy some spaghetti as well as wine? I have none in the cupboards. Laura must have eaten it.’
‘Sure.’
It takes about twenty minutes to find a decent bottle of wine in the supermarket, as well as the pasta and some Häagen-Dazs. I need a drink after queueing at the checkout and duck into Oliveros for a vermouth. The owner, who remembers me as a friend of Carmen’s, insists that I stay for a second glass, on the house, and attempts to involve me in a conversation about the war in Iraq. A middle-aged man smoking a cheap cigar says something complimentary about Donald Rumsfeld, but I can’t challenge him without revealing a fluency in Spanish. It’s close to 9.30 by the time I make it back to the apartment, but when I let myself in with Carmen’s keys she is nowhere to be seen.
I check the sitting room and the kitchen, where sauce for spaghetti is bubbling gently on the stove, before it becomes clear that she is on the telephone in the bedroom, using her portable landline. The door is half-closed and Carmen is talking rapidly, with a definite shiver of alarm in her voice. My first thought is that something has gone wrong with her mother in hospital and I wait in the hall to hear more.
‘And you’re sure about this? I just can’t believe it.’
I experience a moment of undiluted selfishness: if Mitxelena’s condition has deteriorated, I will have to accompany Carmen on a long and tedious visit to the hospital. Any chance of recruiting her will be lost to my obligations as a boyfriend. But then I hear the single word ‘Félix’.
‘I’m only repeating to you what I said in the restaurant,’ she says. All the time Javier has been asking me to send money to this account. He said it was something to do with his wife, a trust they were setting up for their children. Are you sure?’
I take a step backwards and a floorboard creaks in the hall. Carmen must have heard me come in, so I go directly into the bedroom, smile an apology for being late and dangle the bag of shopping at her. She barely looks up from the phone. Her face is blank with concentration. I gesture to see if she is all right, but she just waves me away.
‘I don’t believe this.’ She turns her back to face out towards the window. ‘No, it’s just Alex. He doesn’t understand Spanish. He doesn’t know what’s going on.’
How can I hear the rest of their conversation? There’s music on in the sitting room, but it’ll look ridiculous if I linger here when I should be boiling spaghetti. But then Carmen walks past me, out into the hall, and turns the volume down on the hi-fi.
‘If it’s the same Sergio Vázquez then I don’t know what to think,’ she says, sitting down on the sofa. Si se trata del mismo Sergio Vázquez, entonces no sé qué pensar. ‘But with everything that’s happening around Chakor, I’m really worried, João. It looks like a connection. I don’t know who to speak to about this.’
There is a long pause in the conversation while ‘João’ responds. It is as if I have walked into a perfect storm of information: this is raw product that appears to prove a financial irregularity within de Francisco’s department, linked to the incident involving Mohammed Chakor, the Moroccan who was shot by Tomás Orbé. But who is Sergio Vázquez? Now that the music has been lowered, Macduff will be getting all of it loud and clear on the bug and may be able to recover those sections of the conversation which I missed while drinking in Oliveros. If we can find out more about João and Vázquez, the pieces should quickly start to fall into place. Rather than enter the kitchen, where it will be necessary to start removing pans and crockery from the cupboards, I go into the bathroom, pretending to examine my face in the mirror. It is still possible to hear Carmen’s end of the conversation, even with the door slightly ajar.
‘I understand that,’ she says. Lo entiendo. ‘But this is a man I admire. For God’s sake, I was talking to Alex an hour ago about how much I like him, what he stands for…’