Page 80 of We Chase Shadows

‘Wasn’t he, Mike?’ says Sue without missing a beat. She is rolling a joint with a dexterity that seems to impress even Rosie.

‘Like someone shaved an egg,’ says Mike.

They are on the roof terrace of Mike and Sue’s townhouse, a five-minute walk from the Bridge and Whist Club. There is sangria on the table and Fleetwood Mac on the stereo. The Mediterranean Sea sparkles in the distance. Steve still doesn’t love being abroad, but he can sort of see the appeal.

‘They say he killed himself?’ says Rosie.

Mike and Sue laugh.

‘Course he did,’ says Mike. ‘Course the bugger did.’

‘Unless someone’s killed him since,’ says Sue, ‘he’s as alive as you and me.’

‘He left his passport though,’ says Amy. ‘He never touched his bank accounts again?’

‘He had plenty of passports, old Baldy,’ says Sue. ‘And plenty of money.’

‘Sold vitamins,’ says Mike. ‘Lots of money in vitamins.’

It’s what they suspected, but nice to hear it with such certainty.

‘What was your line of work?’ Rosie asks the happy couple.

‘Shipping,’ says Mike. ‘Mainly to Morocco and back.’

‘And you, Sue?’ asks Steve.

‘Arson,’ says Sue.

‘Nice that you were in different fields,’ says Rosie.

Mike nods. ‘Always something to talk about. Why the interest in Baldy Brooks? Old news, no?’

‘We’re looking for a man called Jakob Eriksson,’ says Steve. ‘He’s in the same line of work as Connor Brooks.’

‘Uh huh,’ says Mike.

‘And he appeared when Brooks disappeared,’ says Amy.

‘We gotcha,’ says Sue.

‘And he’s as bald as a shaved egg,’ says Rosie.

Mike and Sue laugh again. What a joyful team they make, these two. On their roof under the Málaga sun, that pitcher of sangria a rich, ruby red on the table. Steve feels that familiar prick of jealousy at their happiness. That they’d made it through together, the drug runner and the arsonist. Holding hands, listening to Fleetwood Mac, talking to strangers about the good old days and their bad old ways. What Steve wouldn’t give.

But they knew Connor Brooks, and they were happy to talk.

Sue lights her spliff. ‘So you’re saying Baldy Brooks and Eriksson are the same man?’

‘Is that possible?’ Steve asks. ‘Would you reckon?’

‘I’d say so,’ says Mike. ‘If he’s supposed to have drowned himself, the body would’ve washed up, I guarantee you that. I once had to ditch eighty kilos of something over the side of my boat, doesn’t matter what or why, but the whole lot was ashore by noon the next day.’

‘Washed up by an old nunnery about fifteen miles up the coast,’ says Sue. ‘Private property. Mike couldn’t get to it. Police couldn’t get to it.’

‘Never saw it again,’ says Mike. ‘But next time I saw the Mother Superior she was driving a Lexus.’

‘I offered to burn the place down,’ says Sue. ‘But the Spanish are a very religious people.’