Sebastian

He was working at the kitchen table while Eva was peeling veggies at the sink. She’d been very quiet the last few days since telling him about the man who wanted her dead, and he knew he should encourage her to talk about it.

‘Are you okay?’ he said.

‘Why do you ask?’

‘Any more of those phone calls?’

‘If I said yes, what would you do?’ she asked.

He thought carefully about his answer. ‘Next time, let me talk to him.’

There was a movement at the window and he dashed over to shoo the black cat from the tree. There had been enough offerings of parts of birds, rats and mice in the kitchen, his work space. He couldn’t abide it: it was worse than the image of Mrs. Cohen hanging from a beam. He leaned out of the window and clapped his hands loudly, while the cat moved leisurely through the branches, turning occasionally to give him an insolent stare.

The sound of girlish laughter wafted up the patio. Perhaps it was the Moroccan family that had moved into the next house on the ramp, but no, their apartment couldn’t have windows to the patio.

Again he heard the laughter. 

‘Where is Mimi?’ he asked.

Eva looked up. ‘She said she was going for a walk up the Rock. She’s on a mission to get fit and quit smoking.’

There it was again.

‘Come here,’ he said to Eva whilst leaning further out of the window. ‘Isn’t that Mimi laughing?’

Eva leaned out too, but the laugh had stopped. ‘I can’t hear a thing,’ she said.

He sat stock still on the window ledge. Eva went back to the sink, turned the tap on and began rinsing the vegetables.

‘Shhhh,’ he said, putting up a hand. ‘That’s Mimi, alright.’

He jumped down from the window. ‘She is down in Montegriffo’s apartment. Bloody hell! I’m not happy about this.’

He marched towards the bedroom to put a T-shirt on.

‘Sebastian, where are you going? Don’t make a scene. Talk to her when she comes back.’

He knocked on the door. It seemed to take ages before Montegriffo came to open it. He looked dishevelled and was wearing a black bathrobe.

‘You caught me in the shower,’ he said with a faint rebuking smile, though there was nothing wet about him. Sebastian glanced at his feet. They were bare but had left no marks of damp on the tiles of his hallway. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘Is my sister here?’

Their eyes met. ‘Your sister?’

‘Yes, that’s what I said. My sister. Imogen…is she here?’

‘No,’ said Carlo, but he spread his feet and crossed his arms in a defiant pose, as though intent on blocking the way. Sebastian craned his neck and tried to look past the man into the apartment. All he could see was the hallway, a replica of his own.

‘Mimi!’ he shouted on impulse. ‘Are you in there?’

Carlo kept looking at him but did not budge. Sebastian felt a cold rush across his neck and shoulders, now almost certain that his little sister was ensconced in this predator’s lair, probably in his very bed. Mimi was no virgin, he knew that only too well, she’d probably had more sexual partners than he’d had himself, but the thought of her in the hands of this arrogant bastard alarmed and enraged him in equal measures.

‘Move aside,’ he growled, taking a step forward. ‘I want to see for myself.’

‘Out of the question.’

Sebastian knew he ought to stay calm. He took a deep breath, reminding himself that aggression was the least effective way of achieving what you wanted. He took a step back and held up his hands in surrender. ‘Tell you what. Just let me talk to her, okay. Then I’ll go.’ He waited a few seconds and saw the other man vacillating. ‘Go on, call her. I just want to see she’s all right…’

‘You can’t just come barging in, being rude and accusatory,’ Carlo said calmly. ‘Please leave!’

Sebastian shook his head. ‘Come on, man. Be reasonable. Put yourself in my shoes.’

Carlo put his hand on the door to close it. For some reason the gesture struck panic in Sebastian, the thought of being shut out, not being able to rescue Mimi, being powerless to intervene. He barged forward, hands held out in front. The door flew open and the solid bulk of him, the sheer strength of his will, sent Carlo stumbling backwards into his hallway. Carlo managed to keep his balance and effectively blocked his sides with his arms.

‘Out of my way, damn it,’ Sebastian snarled.

‘Get out!’

‘Not without my sister.’

‘She’s not here, but if she wanted to be, that would be her prerogative. Now get out of here. You’re trespassing.’

He did not believe it. Mimi was in the guy’s bed or he would not have answered the door in a bathrobe so late in the morning. He’d already noticed that Montegriffo was a very early riser. An unwholesome picture flashed through his head. It almost made him reel with nausea, and he felt an overwhelming urge to murder the arsehole. ‘You dirty bastard. Bring her out here this minute.’

Carlo was still blocking the way with his arms spread wide. ‘Get out or I’m calling the police.’

Would he? Did he actually believe he had a right to her? Sebastian looked at him, then arched his brows and sneered. ‘You think the police would take your side in this? You think they’d approve of some creepy middle-aged bachelor having his way with a vulnerable teenager?’

‘You’ve got some imagination.’

‘Yeah? Prove it. Let me come in and see her.’

Carlo regarded him thoughtfully for a moment. ‘I get the feeling you have a problem with your own feelings towards your sister, Mr. Luna. It doesn’t seem entirely natural to me that you…’

Sebastian went for him, this time with a fist. The first blow glanced Carlo’s shoulder as he’d moved swiftly to avoid it. The next one hit him square on the left cheekbone, just below the eye. He staggered backwards and crumpled to the floor.

A few seconds passed. Carlo lay there, knocked out cold. Sebastian stared at him in surprise but didn’t for a moment believe he’d done the man any real damage. He’d been a good boxer in his school years but surely the punch had not been one that would injure a grown man. Injured or not, Montegriffo would hardly let him get away with it. This over-dramatised fainting act was good for a charge of grievous bodily harm.

He jumped over the prone body and ran into the apartment. The layout was identical to their own, though the decor made it feel entirely different. His footsteps fairly echoed as he hurried from room to room. He was not at all looking forward to the scenario he would encounter, how he would deal with Mimi, what he would say, and how she would react in turn – especially when she discovered what he’d done to her lover.

But the dreaded confrontation did not materialise. There was no-one in the living room…nor in the bedrooms. Two of them were entirely empty except for some cardboard boxes, and the third and largest had a wardrobe, a desk and a single bed. The bed was unmade; the sheets and pillows in disarray. He recoiled at the sight, but still bent to look underneath it. He checked the wardrobe then went quickly to inspect the kitchen and bathroom, but Mimi was absent.

He stopped in the inner hallway to reflect on the situation. There wasn’t a sound from Montegriffo, and he heard no movement whatsoever from anywhere else in the apartment. He raised his head to take his bearings and noted that the walls were an oppressive dark green, an odd choice of colour no matter how cheerless the occupant. What little there was of furnishings was sparse and dated, though not antique. Bare lightbulbs hung from dated wiring and some of the windows were covered with some stick-on textured plastic, the type poor people used in bathrooms instead of net curtains. Within the line of his vision a gecko darted across the wall, confirming his impression that no warm-blooded creature would voluntarily set foot in this eerie environment. Perhaps the black tomcat was a special type of cat, cold blooded. What the hell was his sister doing? Where the hell was she? The whole situation was grotesque. He couldn’t believe he’d been reduced to this.

Looking around again, he retraced his steps, now searching for other hiding places. She could easily have slipped into a cupboard or hidden behind the living-room sofa. She had every reason to do so, because by now he was livid.

Minutes later he was forced to give up. He saw no sign of her: not her shoes, clothes nor bag. Unless there was a trapdoor, some hidden space, or like the cat she’d climbed out of the window and shimmied down the Eucalyptus, he’d been wrong. He’d have to eat humble pie and apologise to Montegriffo. Perhaps he’d be forced to call him a taxi and take him to see his doctor. As he walked towards the outer hallway he began to see how stupidly he’d acted, how serious a charge Montegriffo could lay against him. What a fool he’d been, and how cunning the bastard he was dealing with. Now he could hardly come and repeat the performance, Montegriffo had seen to that. His access to Mimi would be guaranteed.

Montegriffo was still on the floor, just as Sebastian had left him. He resisted the urge to poke the man in the side with the tip of his shoe, but instead gave his arm a little shake. There was not a flicker of response. He bent down to study his face. It was pale and the eyes were partially open. There was a bluish swelling where his fist had caught the cheekbone, in fact, the marks of three of his knuckles were clearly visible. There was no movement in his chest. Oh, God, he looked like a corpse.

Sebastian knelt down to put his cheek near the half open mouth and waited to feel that faint exhalation of air, but none came. Impossible! Carefully he turned the head to check for an injury to the skull, but there was no sign of a wound, no gash or indentation, no blood. Perhaps he was epileptic or had some neurological condition that would cause him to pass out. Or worse, perhaps the blow had triggered a stroke, or the stress of the assault, a heart attack.

He tried to feel for a pulse, first in the wrist then in the neck, quietly gagging while he pressed his finger deep into the cool flesh. There was nothing.

Jesus!

He knew what he had to do. Grabbing the head in both hands, he tilted it backwards to open the airway. He pinched the thin nose between his fingers, then placed his mouth over the dead man’s and blew forcefully into his lungs. Next, he placed his hands on the sternum and used his entire weight to pump the chest in an attempt to re-start the heart. Minutes went by as he alternated between pumping and blowing, yet all the while he knew it was pointless. He could see the man was dead, stone dead.

Sebastian let go of the lifeless body and jumped back, the gravity of the situation slamming into him like a door in a strong wind. He was breathless and trembling, a sense of unreality threatening to overwhelm him. Could this really have happened? Was he really the cause of it?

He heard a noise from below and looked towards the door. It was still wide open and he ran to close it. His mind was reeling as he dashed to find a telephone so he could phone for an ambulance. He found the phone in the kitchen and sat down on a chair to think through what he would say when questioned by the ambulance men, the doctors and police.

Whichever way he turned it, this death would have far-reaching consequences, the enormity of which was beginning to descend on him. Even if Montegriffo had suffered a heart attack, which was the most likely explanation for his death, Sebastian’s action had been the immediate cause of it. He’d have to confess to their altercation, to having punched Carlo. With that very obvious mark on his face, there was no point in denying it. He had effectively killed the man. If it did not amount to murder, what did it amount to? Manslaughter? There had been provocation, of sorts, but hardly deserving a brutal blow to the face. The physical aggression had been all his. And for what? He’d thought his young sister was in the apartment, in the process of being seduced by this reclusive and seemingly ascetic and sober man, a devout Catholic, a former priest and a pillar of the community. Attacking a man like him, on an assumption that turned out to be false, would make him seem like a thug or a crazy man, or both.

No, no, no. He had to remain in a rational and coherent frame of mind and convince the authorities that it had been an unfortunate accident. He’d been rightfully worried about his troubled and fragile sister. Montegriffo had taunted him, provoked him, led him to believe that she was in his bed in order to create the very scene that transpired, in order to humiliate Sebastian into surrender and acceptance. It had been the most insidious manner of provocation, and he’d known exactly what he was doing. But the police would not believe any of that – why should they? They may have some understanding of how a brother would be protective of a younger sister, but as far as the law was concerned, Montegriffo had done nothing wrong, neither legally nor morally. He was – he had been – an innocent man, viciously attacked for no reason within the sanctity of his own home.

He let the phone drop onto the table and put his head in his hands. A groan of sheer terror escaped him. Where would it end? Whatever his punishment in law, he was certain to lose the project. Probably lose his loved ones. If he was lucky enough to escape incarceration, he’d have to leave Gibraltar, he’d be dismissed from SeaChange, his entire career would be in jeopardy. No, not in jeopardy – it would be over. It was over. They would quickly discover the falsification of his medical reports. Who would place their millions of pounds, euros or dollars in the hands of a person with such a record, such a reputation? No matter how brilliant a mind, a man who appears out of control and dangerous cannot be trusted.

Another groan rose from his insides and ripped through him. A man was dead, but his own existence hung in equal balance. Barred from fulfilling his life’s work, he could not live. By killing Montegriffo, he’d killed himself. It was as simple as that.

A few minutes passed as he considered his options. There weren’t many. In fact, there was only one, and it would make him doubly guilty. He stood up and went back into the hall. Bending down he hooked his arms under the dead man’s armpits and began to drag him along the floor into the bedroom. His strength seemed to have returned to him fully and with no effort he hauled the body onto the bed. In the process, the black robe fell open and ended on the floor. Sebastian kicked it aside and tried to arrange the body with its long limbs into a natural looking pose. The skin was deathly white and devoid of hair, except… The sight of the purplish genitals, bloated and grotesque, emerging from a tangle of excess pubic growth made him gag anew. He knew he should keep Mimi out of the equation, but he couldn’t help himself. Whatever did she see in this…?

Something above the headboard swam into his vision. He looked up at the wall with a start and saw it was a carving of Jesus on the Cross, almost identical to the one that hung downstairs in the entrance. He peered at it for a second and noted how eerily similar Montegriffo looked in death to the crucified Christ. His large doe eyes half closed and his black wavy hair spilling over the pillow, the crucifix on a chain around his neck, his feet long and white and crossed quite naturally one over the other.

Quickly he tidied up the bed and pulled the covers over the corpse, and lastly closed his eyes. Were it not for the mark under the eye, he looked almost serene. On a sudden inspiration he looked around for a book. The only one in evidence lay open on the desk. He picked it up and examined the cover. Unlocking the Poet Within. A thought made him stiffen with a mixture of surprise and dread. Was it possible that Mimi was the muse for this poetic ambition? He’d made the worst possible assumption about Montegriffo as a predator grooming a young girl for his own vile needs, but could he have fallen in love with Mimi and harboured genuine affection for her? Sebastian quickly dismissed the idea as sentimental. It made no difference, a man his age had no business with such a young woman. He placed the opened book face down on the corpse’s chest and lifted the right hand to rest on it. He stood back to examine the result. All he could see was the truth: foul play.

He hung the black robe on a hook behind the door, then proceeded to the kitchen where he grabbed a tea towel from the draining board. He covered the hot tap with it and turned the tap on. Having wet the towel, he proceeded to rub off every mark he might have made with his hands, on the telephone, the edge of the table, the chair, the door handles, door jambs, working his way towards the front door. Carefully he opened it and glanced outside. The stairwell was dark and quiet and he slipped out, gently closing the door and wiping the handle as he went.