Page 46 of We Chase Shadows

‘Thank you, sir, for counting three on your fingers,’ says Clara. ‘It helps me to learn.’

Ernesto likes Clara.

‘Of those three, I have infinite patience,’ says Ernesto. ‘I never get bored – even when you were talking to me on the way here, I found a way through it.’

‘And intelligence?’ Clara asks.

‘Not for me to say if I am intelligent,’ says Ernesto. ‘The mark of the very stupid man is thinking that he is clever. If you play football, you cannot lie about how good you are. If you are very good, you play for Barcelona, if you are very bad then you are picked last at school. Everybody can judge themselves on the evidence. But that doesn’t work for intelligence. A man can be dumb as a horse, but can simply mix with those even stupider than he is and count himself a genius. Or he might mix with people who choose to tell him he is clever in order to take his money. So I don’t know for sure, but I have to believe, given where I was raised and given what I have achieved, that I have a measure of intelligence. That’s the only evidence I have to go on. Does that sound arrogant to you?’

‘No, it’s interesting,’ says Clara. ‘What’s this terrible music?’

‘This is Led Zeppelin II,’ says Ernesto. ‘The greatest album of all time.’

‘Okay,’ says Clara. ‘And what’s an album?’

‘I am going to find a toilet,’ says Ernesto. ‘You can keep listening to Led Zeppelin II while I’m gone.’

‘We probably shouldn’t waste the battery,’ says Clara, turning the music off.

Ernesto nods and leaves the car. Zeppelin are not for everyone. In the same way that BTS are not for everyone. But God has chosen to create them both, and he must have had his reasons, no?

Ernesto wonders what Steve’s favourite Led Zeppelin album is? Maybe IV? He will ask when he sees him next.

Ernesto crosses himself and opens Rosie’s text.

A photograph of a body in a freezer, a knife sticking through its ribs.

Her message reads:

Another one for you, my dear, and guess who? The man from your photographs. The man who has been working with Jakob Eriksson. We need to tell the police and, well, you’re sort of the police, aren’t you? Fancy an adventure?

Another corpse, and another connection to Jakob Eriksson. Rock-solid connection this time too. The man himself is on manoeuvres, running in open country. Ernesto does indeed fancy an adventure.

Ernesto is patient, and Ernesto is intelligent.

Is it possible he has just got very lucky too?

26

They are all staying in Axley for a couple of days. What a relief. Steve knows where all the channels are on his TV.

They will move Vern to Rosie’s ridiculous castle once Amy has given it a proper security sweep, and that could take some while because, well, because it’s a castle. The house is not so much ‘in’ Dorset as a significant portion ‘of’ Dorset. Doing a full security evaluation of Steve’s two-bedroom cottage hadn’t taken Amy quite so long.

Steve has made cups of tea for Rosie and Vern. Amy is drinking a power shake made from ingredients she was able to find in Steve’s local shop. It contains bananas, some malt loaf, a lettuce, a tin of condensed milk and a scoop of Ready Brek. She seems to be enjoying it.

It is Amy and Adam’s anniversary in a few days, but she hasn’t mentioned it. Steve always writes it in every time he has a new diary. Has he ever had a happier day? He and Debbie both agreed it beat even their own wedding. To see his boy so happy. To put an arm around Amy. The toughest, most fragile girl he has ever met.

It is lovely to see Trouble again too, but, as cats like to punish you when you’ve been away, he is curled up in Amy’s lap. Steve is having to pretend he’s fine with that. Soon enough though, everyone will be gone, and his will be the only lap in the house. You won’t be so cocky then, will you, Trouble, my friend?

‘You had no idea?’ Amy asks. ‘About Korbin working with Jakob Eriksson?’

‘We still don’t know he was working with him,’ says Vern. ‘With all due respect.’

‘Working for him, perhaps,’ says Steve.

‘We definitely don’t know that,’ says Vern. ‘The whole thing is muddy.’

‘So it’s a coincidence that they’re at the same airports together?’ says Amy. ‘Time after time?’