Kate escaped from Faro airport at about eleven-thirty to find the overwhelming heat blessedly tempered by a strong breeze. She’d no idea what public transport would be like in the Algarve. Her only visit before had been on a low-budget family holiday to a cheap and cheerful resort where they’d baked themselves silly on the beach. So it seemed sensible to drive across from Faro to Lagos, which was where Leon Horowitz lived. It would be more flexible to hire a car, and cheap, too, but after the oddities of the previous evening, she thought that for once she’d rather simply be taken, and haggled what seemed a ridiculously low fare out to the west.
And the taxi was air-conditioned! OK, it was too late to rehabilitate her suit, but she felt better. She was too busy gaping at the scenery to begrudge the driver his part in the vehicle roulette of the main road: a game in which her father had briefly displayed a terrifying desire to participate. There were far more concrete excrescences jumbled along what she remembered as a lovely coastline: accommodation for all those pale Northerners keen to acquire melanoma of the skin as quickly as they could.
The intense light started to assuage the sourness she still felt after Jo’s activities. It wasn’t just the quick sex that had fired him up, she was sure of that. He’d almost certainly taken something – coke, she rather thought – while he was with the young man at the club. Grovelling with apologies for his ungentlemanly treatment of her, he was, he’d assured her, quite happy to fuck with her if she wanted – provided she promised not to tell Lizzie. It had taken her rather longer than she’d liked to convince him that such chivalrous activity was quite unnecessary. And that her silence on the whole episode was guaranteed, whether or not he liked it. She was angry not just with him – who would have liked any part of her treatment? – but with Lizzie for her part in it, even if she could hardly blame Lizzie for the way things turned out.
‘There is much to see here in Lagos,’ the policeman at the enquiry desk said. More perfect English to humiliate her. ‘Enjoy the tourist sights while we read this document of yours. You know that we are twinned the city in Nigeria. You will find the old slave market, also a statue to Henry the Navigator and the museum well worth a visit.’ In his way he was as impenetrable as Jo had been. Courteous, charming, and immovable. He would show Lizzie’s shady letter to his superior, who was currently at lunch and who was the only person who could deal with it. No, they had no record whatsoever of Detective Inspector King’s telephone call – did Kate know whether it had been in English or in Portuguese?
Kate only knew she was hungry. Was there somewhere close by where she could eat?
‘Any one of the restaurants in the town.’ And she could return at three.
Three! Did they take a siesta as well as a meal? And then she realised, as the heat engulfed her as she stepped into the street, a siesta was absolutely the most sensible option. No sun-hat, no sun block – she shouldn’t be out in the open at all. At least she could remedy those omissions, even if she couldn’t remedy those of that bloody commission rogatoire.
So she could enjoy an icy beer and wonderful chicken piri-piri in a street café, and wander down to the broad esplanade to bask in the shimmering views of the river and chic boats heading for the sea. If only Graham were there: Lagos was as full of couples as Kings Heath, and far more romantic to boot. The thought of him brought her to her feet. There must be some tiny gift she could take him, something to keep in his desk to show she’d thought of him. Nothing brazenly Portuguese lest anyone else see it. But something with quality, with style. Behind her was the town: she struck inland up steep steps to find a leather goods shop, full of delectable handbags and wallets. But she couldn’t give him a wallet, could she? And suddenly she wanted nothing for herself, either, to remind her of a time when she missed him so painfully.
Almost shouting at herself for her stupidity, she drifted back to the main shopping area, to buy the naffest mug she could find – for herself. There: at least she’d done something touristy.
‘And did you have an enjoyable lunch?’ the desk sergeant – if that was his title – asked her.
‘Very enjoyable, thank you. And did your superior—?’
‘I regret he has been detained. Now, have you visited the slave market?’
‘I have, and I’ve made the acquaintance of Henry the Navigator.’ What an act of faith; to set sail in a tiny ship heading simply for the horizon.
He nodded, then beamed. ‘The archaeological museum; have you visited that? There are extensive Roman remains, and some fascinating biological specimens: a dog with three eyes, a cat with two heads. Detective Sergeant, it is just a step across the street. May I suggest you cannot do better than to investigate that?’
Which was all she did investigate in Lagos: infinite numbers of fragments of Roman pottery, deposited rather than organised, wherever there seemed to be shelf-space, some fabulously embroidered church vestments, the church itself brilliant with gilded plasterwork, and some deformed animal foetuses, to which a smartly dressed young woman curator had specifically drawn her attention. As Luis da Ponte, the senior policeman fresh from his lunch explained, as he poured her coffee, ‘Napoleon never conquered Portugal. His armies stormed across the rest of Europe, Senhorina Kate, but thanks to your forebears and mine, he never took our tiny country. So the Code Napoleonique does not, alas, operate. All the commissions rogatoires in the world would be inadequate to persuade me to let you interview Senhor Horowitz while he lives here. To see him, you will have to seek permission from your Foreign Minister, who will speak to our Internal Affairs Minister, who will speak to the Chief of Police and a team of lawyers to determine whether such permission will be given.’ Luis smiled, his teeth white in one of the most handsome faces Kate had ever seen, dashes of white hair at his temples an additional artistic touch rather than a sign of ageing. Not that he was much more than thirty-five anyway. ‘I am desolated. But we do not extradite even murder suspects unless all the paperwork is absolutely in order.’
Luis insisted on running her back to Faro himself, pointing out with pride and delight the new bridge at Portamao and various delights on the road. Since his car was air-conditioned and he found a radio station called Nostalgia, which played her father’s favourites from the sixties, she didn’t argue. He even phoned a tour courier friend to pull strings to get her on a flight the following day. Finally, having booked her into not the Ibis she’d planned but a smaller place he assured he would be altogether more pleasant he bought her a drink.
As he leaned forward to pass her olives, two thoughts occurred to her simultaneously. That it would be a delight to flirt your way into bed with such a gorgeous man, and that he was bound to be married.
And what, in any case, was she doing, imagining making love with anyone but Graham?
If Luis’ courier friend hadn’t told her to present herself at the airport an hour before the regular check-in time, if sea mist hadn’t engulfed the airport creating delays, if there’d been somewhere to sit, somewhere to get a drink during what seemed an interminable wait – well, she probably still wouldn’t have worked out the best way to frame her report on the previous two days’ events. If she told the truth, no one would come out of it smelling of roses. If she told the whole truth, Lizzie in particular would stink of horse manure. Rod would be angry with Lizzie, maybe passing information to her line manager. But Rod would also be furious that Kate hadn’t checked and double-checked what Lizzie was up to. Even Dave Allen had warned her about Lizzie’s reputation for cutting corners, her underlings not herself carrying the inevitable can.
Meanwhile, she also had to plan her return to Birmingham. The courier had got her a flight, sure, but it was to Glasgow, not exactly the heart of England. Glasgow to Birmingham – what were the options?
‘I expected you yesterday afternoon,’ Lizzie observed coldly as Kate presented herself at eight on Thursday morning.
‘Yesterday afternoon?’
‘A day in Germany, a day in Portugal; that should have wrapped it up. Home yesterday morning.’
‘There was fog on Faro,’ Kate said flatly. ‘And a signals failure on the railway line from Glasgow.’
‘Fog? Oh, for God’s sake, they’ve got radar and computers these days,’ Lizzie objected.
Kate might have framed exactly the same opinions to fellow-queuers, but to hear the chief architect of all her woes express them pulled her to her feet. ‘With respect, ma’am, you can’t hold me personally responsible for the inability of technology to defeat ordinary weather. Or for Railtrack’s problems. On the other hand, it seems to me that you are responsible for the major cock-up that prevented me from even talking to Leon Horowitz and thus wasted police time and a lot of taxpayers’ money. Here is my report on the events. Feel free to doctor it as you wish to minimise your part in the disaster. So long as you don’t falsely implicate me. Good morning, ma’am.’
She made the impressive exit such a line demanded. And then had to return. The noise she heard as she shut the door behind her was indisputably sobbing. Lizzie was in tears. So there was nothing for it, was there, but to turn round and go back in.
‘A lump? What does your doctor say?’ Kate passed Lizzie more tissues, squatting beside her and holding her spare hand. In her head, pennies were cascading down.
‘He … Oh, he said it wasn’t … But he wanted to be sure. …’
‘Quite right. So he’s referred you to a consultant?’
‘A clinic. I couldn’t go. There was a policy meeting. So I couldn’t go, could I? So they made another appointment, but there was a meeting with the DPP, so that had to go too.’
‘Hang on, Lizzie: you’re telling me you have a breast lump – and we all know what we think we’ve got if we find a lump – and you’ve not been to have it checked?’ The woman was off her head.
‘You know what it’s like here. You can’t just drop everything—’
‘There are some things you have to drop everything for.’
‘But these were important. And now the hospital people have written asking if I really want an appointment.’
So the stupid woman hadn’t phoned to cancel; she’d simply not turned up. Kate swallowed the thought and said, ‘And you’ve phoned up to say yes. Oh, come on, Lizzie. You have to go. The lump’s still there, is it?’
Lizzie shook convulsively. ‘I don’t know. I’m too … too scared. What if it’s bigger?’
What indeed? What if it were bigger and had spread? ‘Do you want me to phone? Thing is, Lizzie, whatever date they offer, you’re going, right? Even if the Chief Constable invited himself to tea, you’d still go. And I’ll tell you why you’d still go – because I’ll be going with you.’