Worth The Wait

Turbulence hit just as I sipped my gin and tonic.

So wearisome, but like loose ends, spills can soon be dealt with.

These post pandemic days made me surprisingly chatty. I ordered another drink and asked if my aisle-seat neighbour wanted one. He refused saying he’d be driving. Yes, I said, I was lucky someone was picking me up.

The drink came with a complimentary packet of crispy, dog shaped snacks. I’d have enjoyed them if my new best friend hadn’t told me of the time he visited South Korea,

“It’s a tough meat, I just drank the broth.”

Conversation became hard after that. Eventually, I heard the wheels drop and knew we were coming into Malaga.

It was 10 pm when we landed on the sunshine coast of Spain. And, of course, it was raining. I didn’t mind. Not after waiting so long for this. There was something about the setting that was just divine. Yes, everything was going to plan.

I hurried inside to baggage reclaim.

Another WhatsApp message winged itself skywards. No response. One more call to add to the texts and e-mails. My voice screeched up a notch or two leaving another voice-mail message. Just loud enough for strangers to hear. They all knew he was called Steve.

A mixed reaction, some sympathetic, others appalled at being swept into my hysterical little world.

I grabbed my luggage off the carousel and staggered backwards at the sudden movement. It was the third G&T that did it.

At the Arrivals Lounge, I looked around and waited.

He wasn’t there and time was moving on.

I swilled out the smell of too many gins and squeezed more toothpaste on my tongue. I took care to put on a fresh mask and walked to the car-hire in terminal three. A calculated risk, but what were the options? A taxi? Stay the night in a hotel? No point if next morning I still had to make my own way there. Besides, the mask helped.

Two hours later I parked at the Finca. It was darker than death, with stars hidden by clouds and no streetlights or welcome glow from the house. I left the car headlights on and shuffled around, feeling for the spare key under the rubber mat. Snail-slime oozed like a stranger’s snot upon my skin. Is that what Steve had become?

Walking around the house I could see a half glimmer of light, but the dogs were prowling and rattling at the kennels’ fence. They should have been inside, or on the porch in this weather. I freed the three of them and they jumped at me in glee.

The key slipped into the lock like a burglar through an open window. I was sure he wasn’t there, but beyond reasonable doubt?

I opened a bottle of Spanish red, ‘Bull’s Blood,’ and checked the rooms, all empty, even his art studio.

“Steve? No fooling, mind.”

I put food out for the dogs: a Cocker Spaniel the colour of an Orangutan and two Golden Labradors, coats as bleached as bones. They stopped eating to follow me, licking my hands. It was strange that they should do this. Normally nothing would keep them from their food.

The master bedroom had towels strewn upon the floor, some with what looked like mud splashed upon them. The smell was of iron.

I opened the bathroom door. The dogs bundled me through.

More towels and a bath mat. Stains laced into an Ikat weave upon the floor. There in the corner, what looked like pebbles on the tiles. The dogs charged towards them. They grabbed and swallowed what they could as they battled for more. Not stones then.

The smell was bad breath and candy.

I bumped Steve’s shaving mirror with my hand and it bounced, reflecting my own face back at me. I screamed. The dogs jumped up for hugs, wagging their tails, enjoying this game. I tried to pull the Cocker back, but his collar had gone.

Again, I rang Steve’s mobile, but it diverted to voicemail, I waited for the beep,

“To Hell with you. D’you know how late it is? Off shagging some new girlfriend? Forget I was coming . . . ? Bastard.”

I couldn’t remember getting to bed, no idea what time it was, but I woke in the morning with a sore throat. I’d probably been snoring or crying in my sleep. Why did I care? I divorced him when he let our little girl die. It was over. Years ago. But, like a proverbial dog that returns to her own vomit, I came back year on year looking for my spoils.

He’d always pick me up.

I wandered outside, cradling a steaming mug of strong coffee. Steve’s car was there. I rang the police, “All four tyres slashed.”

The Guardia Civil arrived fast, impressively so for the time of day. The lieutenant, Juan Carlos, kept brushing his beard with his nicotine stained thumb. I followed him into the sitting room. He stank of cigarettes and strong cheese, “Knew you were coming, you say…”

“It’ll be a jealous lover, wouldn’t be the first . . .”

He picked up a framed photo of my daughter and blew dust from it, “But you still hated him, Ruth. So why keep coming back?”

Why indeed? Steve’s marrow was not needed now.

“Somehow, she lives here still, among the Andalusian foothills of her birth.”

An interrogation began. Finally, I could take no more.

“For the last time, JuanCa, how would I know anything? I was in Brighton. Check the manifest.”

Our eyes locked. I could read his thoughts: “What aren’t you telling me?”

His shoulders lowered in the habit of the friendship we once had.

He shook his head in time to the tapping of his feet. The melancholic duende filled the air. There was a time when this very policeman would have massaged my shoulders, expecting more.

Now I was the outsider, met with smiles and whispers behind fans and sun-tanned hands.

I needed air and propped myself up against an orange tree. The blossom rushed up my nose. The concentrated smell of sweetness I used to share with my darling girl.

I wiped a tear.

When I re-entered the house, police tape was everywhere. The house wrapped like a pass the parcel.

And Juan Carlos stood there, arms folded, barring the door.

“But I stayed here last night. What difference will it make?”

“Could be a crime scene. Steve received threats, contacted us . . .”

“‑Death threats?” I felt my voice go squeaky high.

“Here, take the keys to my mum’s old place. Don’t worry. We’ll find him.”

It was getting harder to hold his stare.

I opened Steve’s laptop, keen to show I cared, “His emails . . .”

“‑I’ll take that . . .” He gently removed it from my hands, “. . . No need to get involved, unless you want to?”

This was such a small village.

“Of course I want to help.”

No-one understood why I kept coming back. Especially when I blamed Steve for not giving his ‘perfect match’ marrow.

What could they not understand?

She was visceral. Her face became real again when I came back. And, of course, there was the other thing.

The room was blurry as I backed further into my mind. Steve’s words not a memory but a cleaver, slicing through the echoes of frozen memory.

I had to be careful, to hold back the anger. I took a step back, “You know what Steve said, don’t you?”

Juan Ca nodded, fingers tapping at lips like a beak at roadkill, “To let her go. That it was time.”

Funny how you wrap yourself in small things when the big things lay you bare.

“A cup of tea would be nice.”

I walked to the spring to fetch drinking water.

Something sparkled in the hazy sunshine, a red collar with diamante studs. I picked it up. A thick piece of leather dangled from it. A sharp knife had cut this free.

I wiped something sticky from my fingers on the grass. That was when I realised, they were gloopy with blood.

A few locals were gathered at the fountain; they already knew Steve was missing. The villagers gossiped as they filled their containers.

“I hear his studio’s full of strange stuff. Twisted with the pain, damaged, he is . . .”

“Did you hear a man was found propped against a big boulder, eyes pecked by the birds?”

Another man, David, said, “But that was long ago. It wasn’t him.” He snatched at the dog collar and it fell into the water, “That’s the Cocker’s. I freed him.”

“Freed who? Freed Steve?”

David dried his hands on his green faded cotton shirt, leaving two finger marks, “No, the dog, of course.”

I shuddered as the sun’s rays warmed my back.

The next day at mid-morning I was there again and David came by, his black curly hair silken in the sun.

Such a handsome smile, even when his lips wrinkled almost in apology. Like on the last visit, when he said he’d met someone new, how it was serious this time and our days were through.

Grief threw me into the arms of many men. But David. That one really stung.

I looked at the old flint and stone ruin, roofless, strewn with condoms and sunflower seed shells.

“I’m going to be a father.”

“Congratulations.”

I needed his naked body next to mine. Now that too was gone.

The trickle of water and hum of wasps played rhythmically; birds added their melodic voice. The wind stroked and tickled the leaves. Butterflies and winged insects the size of caterpillars soared above the water as it gurgled to the weathered stones below.

I found something else to say, “The Guardia have started their enquiries . . .”

David pointed to the foothills, at the spiky gorse, yellow mimosa and socially distanced olive trees.

“I have something to show you.”

He set off and I followed. All three dogs, with noses to the ground, wagged their tails as they zigzagged their way to the clues, sniffing each blade of grass. David at times held out his hand, helping me traverse mud atop a deeply gouged track pitted with stones and roots.

“There’ll be more rain.”

Even as he spoke the sun went behind a cloud and I shivered.

He wiped his lips, showing his thumb nail, broken and encrusted with dirt. His other nails were short and manicured. Not a man who tilled the earth. He played flamenco guitar at the ferias, though not enough to live on.

“Where is she, your wife?”

A bright blade gleamed from the tan leather sheath around his waist. He pointed to a vapour trail in the sky,

“With her parents in Bilbao.”

The rain began.

It was thirty minutes uphill and the clay-like soil took no friends. I was wheezing by the time we came to a big olive tree surrounded by thorny gorse.

Cast around the magnificent tree trunk was hunting gear and white plastic bottles, abandoned by the rain and wind like unwanted toys left by my child. Something dangled from one of the ancient olive branches: a leather lead, swinging almost apologetic in the now still air.

David pulled his blade from his sheath and touched the leather, “See? I cut the Cocker loose, but all three were here.”

“You did it?”

The dogs had found bones the colour of antique ivory that they carried like chunky trophies. I trod gently on the yellow blades of grass as if asking forgiveness and noticed how the red soil looked even more ochre in the rain.

David had a large plastic container in his hand, the kind the farmers used for crops. He sniffed and pulled back, coughing. His voice gruff, as if burnt,

“Strong acid . . .” He poured the last few drops to the ground, “. . . dissolves even the hardest calcium.”

The liquid fizzed like sherbet on the wet ground.

A carrier bag lay puckered as if stuck on burning embers.

Something sparkled like a diamond in the distance; someone following us, perhaps? David had seen it too. He seemed surprised, betrayed even.

“What’s going on?”

I called the dogs nearer, needing their protection.

David walked down the hill, turning back to exclaim, “So, even now you don’t trust me?”

I hadn’t planned for this. I needed him.

David was gone faster than I could think.

The hillside pierced the rain like dragon’s teeth and goat trails led to patches of gorse that blocked my path. Mimosa made everything look the same. I was thirsty, tired and lost. Then I saw a figure, waiting.

“Juan Carlos?”

The rain stopped and sunlight bounced off the binoculars he was holding.

I looked down into the valley and began to descend.

“We’ve checked Steve’s shed. Quite revealing.”

“In what way?”

“Every tool has gone . . .”

“‑That must be it. He’s found work elsewhere and seized his chance?”

I wondered if Juan Ca knew it was me who bought Steve all those tools, year on year; visit on visit, since my little angel’s death.

JuanCa asked, “Were they insured?”

I shrugged. Who knew with Steve.

We walked in silence until nature settled our rhythm, connecting our strides, calming us down.

He coughed, “Did you know he’s into bondage?”

“Steve?”

“We found gimp gear and satin lined rope all alone in an otherwise empty shed . . .”

“‑Someone must have placed them there.”

“We found adverts on hard-core dating sites, bondage and S and M. Interviewed some dates, too.”

“Someone’s framed him. Has to have done.”

His eyes hardened as if against burning sunlight, “‑Will you help?”

How could I refuse?

We were now at the bottom of the hill. I needed to be alone.

It was early afternoon and once more I was without water and went to the spring. David hovered like a resplendent dragonfly above his prey, “I knew you’d be OK.”

“It was no-one. A bird watcher.”

“I’ve picked up Steve’s jeep. Remoulded tyres.”

I sat on the oxblood leather seat, “Steve should have collected me from the airport in this.”

“We need to hurry. There’s something else you must see before it’s too late.”

He drove me along a bumpy, dirt track.

I knew this route; we were going to the storm drains. We used to come here as lovers, David and I. All the best places.

He stopped the jeep near a storm drain so wide you could walk in without stooping.

I hesitated, looking around.

He tapped at his watch, “The plan’s perfect. My flight leaves in ninety minutes.”

“From Málaga?”

“No, Gibraltar, as well you know.”

There was something about this moment that made my stomach flutter.

I reached into the dashboard and grabbed a torch, heavy as a truncheon. I shone it onto the floor of the gigantic grey plastic piping.

David snatched it from me and rested the beam on a rope curled around itself on the wet and mossy floor.

I asked, “Satin lined . . .?”

In the half-light his smile made me shudder.

“— Shine the torch.”

I saw a canvas tote with straps of yellow and red, the colours of the Spanish flag, Steve’s tool bag. My heart quickened.

The zip was wet and hard to undo. I tugged so hard the zipper almost came away in my hand. There, at the top was Steve’s electric saw. I ran my fingers down its teeth before smelling them. I wish I hadn’t.

I begged for more light and rubbed my thumb against my fingers. Flecks of white sawdust set in dried blood. I put my thumb to my lips, to give the final kiss goodbye.

I still needed one more thing, “And the pebbles in the bathroom…?”

“‑His intestines? Yes . . .”

He was still talking as I pulled free the police wire.

“. . . Killed with his own tools, as instructed.”

It was time to let go. Time to close forever.

I laughed, turning it into a scream. The able lieutenant sprinted across with his men.

They’d been after David for some time. Any motive would have stuck. It was enough to tell them Steve and David’s wife had been having an affair.

The small shred of me that was still decent admitted it was ungracious that one. Especially when I thought of those S&M dates David had to go on and pretend to be Steve, masked of course.

I couldn’t look him in the eyes.

Only an hour until the flight left. The ticket never was in David’s name.

Now for the loose ends. I handed across the wire and transmitter, “You’ve got him, lieutenant. Look after the dogs like you promised? A week will do.”

Was I worried? No. I had my alibi. David would probably get off, he always did, a true professional and all only circumstantial. Meanwhile, the police would feed and walk the dogs until the real evidence was gone.

Dog-shaped snacks. You’ve got to laugh. Whatever next?