Death in the Sun Read Online Free Page A

is made. He reaches into his burnous and pulls out a bottle of water. He puts his open fist into the hole and pours the water into his hand. The hole grows dark but the water soon disappears and the soil is light again.
    ‘My friend?’
    The man shakes his head and draws a flattened palm slowly across his own throat.
    ‘What!’ Staffe stands, thinking about the fair-haired, beaten man with his head and shoulders planted in the Almería dust. The doctors prescribed against this.
    ‘Guilli! Guilli! We have to go.’
    Turning, Staffe sees Manolo trudge from between a couple of greenhouses. ‘Where were you?’
    Manolo holds up an old sack of seed, barely a quarter full. ‘The finest pepper seeds in all Andalucia,’ he laughs, weakly. ‘Now, we must go – quick.’
    They drive fast, a different way that doesn’t take them back past El Marisco. Bordering an enormous, verdant gap amongst the plastic, between the motorway and the Med, signs for ‘GOLF TROPICAL’ have been defaced into the aerosol words of ‘GUERRA GOLFO’.
    ‘Golf war?’ says Staffe.
    ‘There’s only so much water,’ says Manolo. ‘Some people think it’s better to use it for food than for golf. Damn fools.’ Manolo is agitated and chomps away on a mouthful of sunflower seeds, spitting the soft shells out of the window. After a while, he says, ‘So, did you see anything?’
    ‘I got a glimpse of the victim. He was in a terrible state.’
    Manolo looks ahead, squinting at the signs for the autopista. ‘What did he look like?’
    ‘Fair hair. That’s all you could say. The rest of him was a bloody mess.’

Four

    Staffe leans against the ancient, wrought balcony of his room in Almería’s Hotel Catedral, watches two young gypsy boys kick a football against the massive sand-coloured stones of the cathedral’s façade. Old couples promenade through the plaza in their Sunday best. The sun is low but the evening is sultry and the merest breath of the Med comes up from Almería’s port.
    A couple of hours ago, he waved off troubled Manolo and asked the receptionist in the hotel if she could help him catch up with an old friend of his who writes for La Lente . ‘He uses a pseudonym these days, though,’ Staffe had told the receptionist. ‘I don’t know what name he goes by, but I know he’s covering a murder down on the coast.’
    The receptionist embraced the challenge‚ phoning La Lente and coming up with the name Gutiérrez. Raúl Gutiérrez.
    ‘That story isn’t even out, yet,’ Gutiérrez had said when Staffe called.
    ‘What I know won’t affect the story you are running tomorrow, but it could lead to something bigger,’ Staffe had said.
    ‘This story’s big enough, don’t you worry.’
    ‘Murder always is.’
    ‘Who are you?’
    ‘I am police.’
    ‘You talk shit.’
    ‘Did you interview the African?’ asks Staffe.
    ‘Which African?’
    ‘He is mute, but he saw it all.’
    ‘Nobody saw it, and anyway, this is my story.’
    ‘Stories of murder aren’t yours or mine. They belong to the dead and their families and whoever might be next. Can you meet me? Café Tanger, at eight o’clock.’
    ‘You sound quite intent, Señor Wagstaffe.’
    Staffe had tried to recall when he might have let slip his name to Raúl Gutiérrez. He was quite sure he hadn’t. He hung up, knowing that he really had no business with this killing. But if Gutiérrez showed up, maybe that was a sign. If he didn’t, he would let it lie: have a good dinner and slide between crisp linen sheets and get a bus tomorrow, back to the hills. Mind his own.
    Now, making his way down through the hotel then walking down Calle Real, he feels bubbles of air trap in his belly; a slow rush in his loins. As the cranes of the port come into view and the sun catches the tops of the buildings, he feels kind of weightless. Every so often, he sees the battered face of the fair guirri , his shoulders like a dead tree stump in the ground.
    What will he do if