Murder in Madrid

Madrid is a capital city and like all such beasts, its power sucks in money and power from the country around. Where there is money and power there will always be crime and criminals at the highest levels, which means lots of work for me. I don’t usually find out too much about my targets, or ‘VIPs’ as I call them, but in general they do tend to be actual VIPs, since the lower orders are more easily disposed-of and their passing draws less attention, so the speciality disposals for which I charge so much are not needed. This time my target data package is about the concierge at a city-centre hotel. Anything unusual like that sets off a warning light with me, so I decided to spend more time than usual on observation. I got a bit fed-up of my old ‘Homeless man’ disguise and so this time decided to hide in plain sight. 

 

 

Now I don’t know how it happened, but I have managed to meet a woman in most Spanish cities who have helped me over the years. Not all of them are like la Contessa, but my friend in Madrid, Laura Valrojo Campos comes close. While Madame Alvarez-Snuff is an exotic mixture of cultures, Laura is achingly Spanish, from the casual elegance of her dark, curling hair to the rapid-fire quickness of her speech and the thought process behind it. So far as I know she has never been involved in any of the darker activities of my profession but she was originally an actress and it shows in her ability to watch, copy and blend into any social situation. Her real strength is in her discrete network of family contacts across the city that can save you days of work. Her Grandmother was evidently one of the notorious ‘Rojas’ an all-female gang in the thirties. Across Spain Communists later became known as ‘Rojos’ but in Madrid the name of Valrojo still commands respect if not fear.

 

A swift chat with Laura sent me in the direction of a back-street, traditional music shop. The owner, who basked in the name of Jaimi Castro Hernan-Gomez, had stayed in business long enough to see his beloved vinyl return to popularity but no longer had the money or energy left to take advantage of it. He told me much of Madrid and its music scene but thankfully that left no space for questions, as he sold me an old, non-functioning accordion (at a no-doubt inflated price) into which I inserted some I-pad speakers and a jack socket from El Corte Ingles, the Madrid branch of which is the largest department store in Spain. An adapted selfie-stick mechanism and a carefully drilled hole turned the accordion into a stealthy camera as well. Thus equipped and with the theme to ‘Maigret’ and the ‘Third Man’ downloaded to overcome my acute lack of musical ability (and protect any musically sensitive passers-by) I found a prime spot across from the ‘Hotel Gigolo’ and watched.

 

An hour passed, one euro and fifty cents overflowed from my orange collection box and I got an idea of what was going down at the dark, tiled entrance of the hotel.