Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George [211]
After a few false trails, she was able to find an article on the mayor of Santa Maria et cetera that included a picture. It looked like an anniversary photograph— perhaps a graduation picture?— but in any case, it was something having to do with the nuclear family because they were all spread out on the steps of an unidentifiable building: the mayor, his wife, and their five sons. Barbara examined this picture.
One fact was obvious immediately, with or without a translation: In the roll of the genetic dice, the five sons of Esteban and Dominga had hit the jackpot. Barbara read their names: Carlos, Miguel, Angel, Santiago, and Diego. They were a handsome lot, ranging in the photo from nineteen years old down to seven years old. But a scrutiny of the article told Barbara that the picture had been taken twenty years earlier, so any of them could easily have been married at this point, perhaps one of them to Alatea. The next step, according to Nkata’s explanation of how these things worked, would be to check on the five sons. Carlos would be first. All Barbara had to do was cross her fingers.
No luck, though, as far as any marriage went. She found Carlos far more easily than she would have thought possible, but he appeared to be a Catholic priest. There was an article that seemed to be about his ordination, and the entire family posed with him again, this time on the steps of a church. His mother was clinging to his arm, gazing up at him adoringly; his father was grinning, a cigar clutched in his hand; his brothers were looking vaguely embarrassed at all the attendant religious hoopla. So much for Carlos, Barbara thought.
She went on to Miguel. Again, it didn’t take long. Indeed, it was so easy that Barbara wondered why she hadn’t been checking up on her neighbours for years. In the case of Miguel, she found his engagement picture. The wife-to-be looked vaguely like an Afghan hound, all hair and thin face with a suspicious lack of forehead suggesting a paucity of marbles in the prefrontal lobe. Miguel himself was a dentist, Barbara decided. Either that or he was in need of dental work. Her Spanish dictionary was a little iffy on the topic. But at any rate, it didn’t seem to matter. It took her no step closer to discovering anything about Alatea Fairclough.
She was about to go on to Angel when her mobile chimed out the first two lines of “Peggy Sue.” She flipped it open, said, “Havers,” and heard Azhar— at long last— telling her that he had found someone who could translate Spanish for her. “Where are you at present?” he asked.
“Internet caff,” she told him. “I’m down the street from the BM. I c’n come to you. Easier than anything. Cafeteria near your office or something?”
He was silent for a moment, perhaps thinking about this. At last he said there was a wine bar in Torrington Place, near Chenies Mews and Gower Street. They would meet her there in a quarter of an hour.
“Right,” she said. “I’ll find it.” She printed the documents she’d so far found and went to the till, where the shop assistant named an exorbitant price for them and said, “Colour printer, luv,” when Barbara protested.
“Colour robbery more like it,” Barbara said. She took her copies in a paper bag and made it over to Torrington Place, where the wine bar was easy to spot and Azhar was waiting inside with a leggy girl in a cashmere jacket upon whose shoulders spilled a luxury of dark curls.
Her name was Engracia, no last name provided, and she was a graduate student from Barcelona. The girl smiled at Azhar as he passed this information to Barbara. “I will do what I can to help you,” she said, although Barbara reckoned it was Azhar to whom she wished to be useful, and who could blame her? They made a nice-looking couple. But then, so did Azhar and Angelina Upman. So would Azhar and pretty much anyone.
She said, “Ta,” to the girl. “In my next life I plan to be multilingual.”
“I shall leave you to