Contra-Flow

Like me, you’ve probably spent a lot of time on Britain’s motorways at a brain-numbing 50mph through road works where no-one actually seems to be working. After two lots of 20 miles of that on an almost deserted M1 I found the one place in the country they were actually doing something: they had closed the roads completely around Luton Airport. It wasn’t as if Easy Jet hadn’t told me, they even sent me a text suggesting I allow more time for my trip. More time, to be herded through security, shouted at to keep moving, told to strip, surrounded by Polish and Latvian voices… not a good impression to make on those of my age for whom such things have a very dark precedent.

My ticket had priority boarding, giving me the right to be first in the queue to wait for the party of old duffers to try and lift their strictly restricted cabin bags into the lockers. Cure for more shouting from the guards…

Because of some mix-up, the people who had paid extra to sit by the emergency exits were two rows away and so there was more chaos and upheaval before the captain came over the tannoy to reassure us that we weren’t going to crash and burn but that we ought to pay attention anyway. Pilots must be trained to make announcements as if they are ‘really bored to be lifting this cattle-truck off the ground when I really ought to be in a fighter-jet’ I reckon that they time the mid-flight announcement for when the most people are asleep, waking them with a start to let them know that everything is ok and we are currently at a phenomenal height over a country we’ve never visited and we are about to go over the bay of Biscay – yeah, whatever!

I sound grumpy, but it’s not because they have taken the part of the safety demonstration out where the stewardess demonstrates blowing up the lifejacket, I always loved that, no, it’s the way that I was conned into taking this job by the Office.

‘We have spare ticket for a week in Sicily’ she said

‘You’ll love it’ she said

‘We went last year, the markets are to die for – sorry – no pun intended! Lol - All you have to do is a little job, more of a jobette, really and the rest of the week is your own’

‘OK, send it, I’d like to see where they raced the Targa Florio anyway’

‘The Wahta Floriwhat?’

‘Never mind, just send it’

Which is why I’m here, on a special tour ‘In search of Montalbano’

The TV series of the ‘Inspector Montalbano’ detective books were a hit in Italy before being shown in the UK with subtitles, which doesn’t help their popularity. The group of people that I am struggling to share a plane and yet not be seen with are the kind who don’t mind subtitles at all, in fact they love that it makes them feel part of a more exclusive club: The ‘Don’t listen and can’t lift a suitcase’ club. A lot of them seem to be retired teachers so I guess that it goes with the territory. The problem I have is that I need to be a part of the group without actually appearing on any lists as one of them. I have acted as a coach driver on previous ‘events’ but coach-driving is a bit of a closed shop in Sicily unless you are family if you know what I mean.

With only a weeks prior notice I read and re-read the background on the author, his books and filming locations so that I was expert enough to act as tour guide. One of the secrets of being a good guide is to acknowledge the person in the party who is an obsessive expert and knows more than you – there’s always one – and use their knowledge to enhance the experience of the others without letting the 'Anorak' take over

What I think Melissa will look like today

 

What Melissa actually does look like today

 

 

 

Sicily again

When it rains, as it often does in Yorkshire, England, my back aches and I remember Sicily and the treachery of a woman. I have the twin scars, physical and mental, of the stab in the back and simultaneous shot to the heart, that nearly ended me on the slopes of an ironically erupting Etna so many years ago. We were supposed to be working together but work had strayed over that invisible line into leisure, then pleasure, as I allowed myself to let go of all sense and training, completely, for the first, and almost certainly last, time.

Men are often accused of objectifying women, dividing them into mere body-parts to the exclusion of their higher virtues.  If they knew what I know about really dividing people into their body parts they may not be so quick to judge. In any case Melissa Generossi was infinitely more than any sum of her exquisite parts that you might imagine. Italians, especially in the hot, irritably poor South, often sound like they are arguing. As a Northerner from the shores of the lakes, she had an accent that, when talking her own language was as an angel, laughing, but when speaking English….. she was like a hair-trigger to the testosterzone. I was always pleased to see her and I actually did have a pistol in my pocket (It was a Sig Sauer 9mm automatic but that would have spoiled the alliteration) She worked for some national anti-mafia squad and I was assigned to the case as there were connections with the smart, young, London boys who had filled the gap after the likes of the Krays had imploded and their ‘colleagues’ in the Met had been routed-out. I actually knew some of them from University which in those days was the only kind of facial-recognition available (University, eh? And I’ll bet you thought that we were all estate-boys done good, like the SAS, didn’t you?).

She laughed a lot, showing her perfect teeth and then touched your arm and all the other things that I should have recognised that she’d learnt in her the Flirting module of her Body-language course,  (She would have got a ’Distinction’). Instead and quite foolishly I’d allowed myself to think that I really was that attractive…

This not Melissa, but a young Sophia Loren. Melissa is better-looking…

For these and other reasons I was heading off to Luton airport with mixed feelings.

Deadly revolver

There is a large parking space outside the Gigolo marked ‘Hotel Use Only’ and yet it seemed that our concierge friend seemed keen to allow only a select few access. A barely opened window, a swift exchange of something each way between concierge and passenger and that was it. No-one got out or tried to enter the hotel at all. Now I may be somewhat advanced in years and more than a little naïve but I know a drug-deal when I see one. In many countries the Police have all but given up trying to control drug-taking and concentrate instead on catching large shipments at or about the point of entry. Spain is no exception but this amount of ‘traffic’ was blatant so I had a good look around for any others who might be watching the coke-dealing Concierge. Witnesses are an unwanted intrusion in my game and you never know, some ‘ambitious ‘Guardia’ might be looking to make his name by getting in my way. It wasn’t long before I spotted some workmen who were a little out of place as they came in and out of a building with a skip outside further down the street.

The skip never seemed to get any fuller despite their constant tipping and then I realised that the lump of rubbish in the wheelbarrow stayed where it was as they tipped-it, just a handful of dust flew as the front of the barrow hit the skip – clever! A van that seemed impervious to parking restrictions also figured in my observations so it looked very much as though I wasn’t the only watcher. It looks as though I’ll have to work a little cleverer here.

We judge and remember people in many ways, maybe their walk, what they are wearing or something that they are carrying. I have noticed that if you wear brown clothing and carry a broom you are rendered invisible in most situations. Wear black clothing with maybe a tie or scarf in a primary colour people assume you are staff and therefore also invisible. Carry a clipboard and the illusion is complete. Turn that clipboard into a weapon and you’ve cracked it.

Not all clipboards are created equal. Most are plastic or covered paper but a rare few are made of metal. I bought one of those and sharpened one corner with a hand-file and emery-paper to a keen edge that would cut toilet paper, so skin and tissue won’t be an issue.

 

Hotels have cameras facing out, usually, to see who is arriving, so it was important to stay in the zone of the revolving doors, allowing the glass to distort images and also so that I can go out again straight away.

Before long the target reveals himself by making a rare effort to help a customer into their waiting Mercedes.

Once the car has gone I follow him into the revolving door, waiting until I am almost right around and out again before bumping the glass. The door stops – once – twice and he comes back at me, shouting angrily to ‘stay away from the door’, putting his hand in to push me back from the divider. As if to comply I step back, slashing the clipboard into and smartly across his neck and pushing him back out of the doorway at the same time. The door spins, then stops again, with room for me to walk smartly away outside, as he blunders into the next segment of space, fountaining around the rapidly reddening, no longer rotating, scene of his demise.

On the street, all is quiet at first, but then a scream from the hotel doorway lets the ‘builders’ know something is wrong. They  shout into their sleeve-microphones and run towards the building. The doors of the badly -parked van burst open with more men as a black BMW pulls up at the kerb, decides better of it and speeds-off – directly into the path of the now no longer-parked van. Choas and confusion cover me as I round the corner and pick up the accordion again. Slipping the  clip-board into the back, I pull the bellows together and strap the instrument up before slowly resuming my get-away. I deserve a coffee, perhaps in the Thyssen gallery, a very civilised way to spend an afternoon in Madrid.

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.

Most of the time I work on my own, for obvious health and safety reasons (my health and safety, obviously, not others) but I have to own up to using certain friends in certain places, one of them being Barcelona. Over the years I have met and worked with people whose abilities and integrity I trust (almost) implicitly and one of these is Donatila Alvarex-Snuff Countess of Catalunya. I am not sure if she is actually a real Countess but that doesn’t matter a jot. She moves in all the best circles and knows everyone who is anyone in the very structured world of Catalan society. Her only frailty is in a weakness for over-endowed young men which can sometimes affect her judgement in matters of the heart. In matters of stopping someone else’s heart she is coldly professional. A quick social media post established that she was in the city so we arranged to meet.
You might think that social media are not secure but you would be surprised how a simple code can enable easy communication. When you see those pictures of ugly babies with ‘Gorgeous child’ replies or women who are not obviously contenders for a beauty contest with ‘Lovely Lady’ you have to realise that all is not as it seems!

The Bar El Gato Negro is in the Barri Gotik area which is very touristy but an obvious place to be seen if you are pretending to be a tourist. The countess entered like a force of nature, oblivious, imperious and entitled. I had seated myself in a corner with my back against the wall (old fieldcraft habits die hard) and she joined me, starting the process of an extravagant continental greeting from several metres away. ‘Darling!’ She held out her hand and I kissed it, clicking my heels like Captain von Trapp at an Officers ball. She leant forward, and almost nibbled my ear, whispering conspiratorially ‘who are we topping this time – or did you just have a desperate need to see me’ the waiter brought over a glass of her favourite local red wine served cold, (as it was designed to be) without prompting and gazed in unabashed admiration over the dark polished wood of the bar. ‘You have an admirer there’ ‘Oh, Jordi Mas, you mean’ she laughed ‘he was good, but I broke him – I break them all, but I never’ she smiled’ broke you, darling’ ‘Sadly untrue’ I countered.

With the pleasantries over, we got down to business and I made my goodbyes, leaving her thinking about giving Jordi another try and him hoping she would have ‘una mas Mas’.  Back at the Fisherman’s houses, Mrs Victor had pounced on the brochure for the Besos Tower and demanded that they visit it ‘as a family’ that very afternoon, which is why I was following their taxi on my borrowed scooter. As I guessed, Mrs V and the boys darted for the playground whilst Victor headed up the stairs for some peace, quiet and a view of the coast. A call on my mobile set up the next phase and soon I heard the rhythmic whump-whump of a helicopter approaching. The tall buildings around deflected the noise so it could be coming from anywhere. Victor reached the top landing and another message sent the helicopter hurtling at low level over the top of the tower.

The sudden noise and shock sent a surprised Victor spinning around, grabbing for the safety-cable rail. My cork bands had kept the acid next to the cable long enough to do its weakening work whilst giving the appearance of rust, before dropping off (it wasn’t cork, really, but I’m not giving you all my secrets).  His motion was barely arrested as the cable snapped and he went over the edge. People who do that in films scream, but in reality the shock and disbelief usually stun them temporarily before the ground does a more permanent job.

I moved in towards the body as did others, since moving away immediately is suspicious, before turning back towards the scooter and leaving. La Contessa had ordered the helicopter to collect her from the ‘W’ hotel but to wait behind the Besos until called. The pilot’s timing was superb and she was obviously beyond reproach.

Job done and I have a few hours to wait before my flight so I’m going to visit the new motorcycle museum. They have a Ducati in there that won the ‘24 horas of Montjuic’ race in the seventies and I’d really like to see it…

Victor hasn’t been making his wife happy. You don’t need to be an expert linguist to work out that his excursions to meet Wanda have not been popular. I once stayed in a similar fisherman’s house near Agde in Southern France and you could hear every conversation in every house as you laid awake in the summer heat. From my quiet corner next to a rubbish bin with ‘homeless’ looking clothes and filthy hat I would have gotten the gist of her argument, even if it hadn’t been punctuated by a pan flying out of the window. The kids are a bit of a handful so I don’t think that can be helping her mood – which gives me an idea…

Like most hotels, the Arts has a rack of leaflets detailing local attractions and I swap over to a cleaner hat and jacket then take a selection for perusal over a Turkish coffee in the seafront bar that our target liked. It’s called the ‘Carpe Diem’ and I note it as a likely dinner venue since they have Kobe beef which is a particular favourite of mine. Barcelona is built between two rivers, the Besos and the Llobregat. The Besos used to be Europe’s most polluted river but now that much of the industry it served has gone, things are looking up, for the fish, if not the workers. One of the industrial features that remain is the Besos Water Tower (Torre de las Aigues Besos) which is open to visitors who like to climb the many steps to get a view of the coastline and Barcolonetta Beach.

At the foot of the tower is a children’s playground of the type that the Spanish do so well. I select the relevant leaflet and returning to tramp mode, slip a couple of leaflets through Victor’s house door. 

Hardware stores, or Ferreteria are some of my favourite haunts in Spain. Like old-fashioned stores used to be in England they stock everything, from Fork Handles to Four Candles and I soon find one that has what I need.

I buy rubber gloves that I ‘try on’ whilst handling the other items and pay for in cash from my ‘clean’ bag – ie money that I haven’t actually touched. It’s not far to the Besos Tower and soon I am standing on the top landing at the back of a small group, the last of the day, who are taking lots of photos, more photos in fact, than a Japanese man with a new camera on his first holiday. They gradually make their way down and I get to work, wrapping thin strips of cork around the end of the safety bars and then dosing them with the acid that I have in a glass bottle with a glass stopper. That stuff is too strong for any other material to hold it. You can’t buy it in England due to EU safety laws but in Spain… Now I just need to make a phone call to a contact at the airport and we are in business…

Crema Catalan

Barcelona is one of my favourite cities. I have good friends who live there but I love its colour, life and excitement. In England we would have long-ago knocked down the buildings of Gaudi (personally I prefer those of Josep Puig i Cadafalch

which are more stylish and less psychadelic) as impractical and extravagant and put up an Arndale Centre or Tescos Express. I think that maybe here the proud ‘Epiritu de Catalanes’ or spirit of the Catalans has bred a culture that allows a freedom of thought and expression. Whatever, I’m here to do a job so I should really be getting on with it. It must be a bit of a cheapo as the ticket I was sent was for a budget airline that, like most of its kind, keeps telling you the dire consequences of not following the seemingly arbitrary rules it has designed to make you feel like an unwanted annoyance. I was seated in front of a group of three unwanted annoyances who talked incessant, irrelevant, inconsequential shite for the whole journey. Like all good actors it is important that I remain in character all the time, so as not to arouse suspicion or attract unwanted attention. Naturally I did not turn around and ask them to be quiet but I can tell you now that I would gladly terminate their miserable existence at no charge to the agency. My cover this time is that I am attending a pharmaceutical conference which means that I am now something of an expert on certain physical enhancements for ladies chesticles. I have a contact called Sarah Gledhill in the conference-management company who has supplied me with all the passes and wristbands I might need.

I don’t know what Sarah did that gives the agency a hold over her but she couldn’t have been more helpful. My ‘pack’ even included vouchers for free drinks at a nightclub which might be useful if I need to bribe one of the English delegates. VIP1 (the target) this time is called Victor and he has been staying here with his family for a week or so before the conference in one of the small fisherman’s houses down in the Port that have been converted into a holiday home.

From my notes he has been spending quite a lot of that time meeting-up with Wanda, a rather attractive woman. From my observations Wanda always reports back after these tete-a-tetes to a man who is staying at a nearby hotel called ‘The Arts.’, They originally met up in the entrance foyer but this building is a triumph of style over substance in that it has a constantly running, splashily noisy waterfall from roof to floor.

Whilst great for concealing conversations, it also provoked in Wanda an acute need to visit the toilets, so now they talk in the sea-front café around the corner, which is a lot easier to observe. Some women always manage to look as if they have just got dressed in brand-new clothes and Wanda, despite a name that might suggest she belonged at the back of the sales counter in Zara, is obviously no stranger to the front. Her clothes fit in such a way that they look slightly oversized and never under obvious strain at any point. There is, so far as I can tell, no sexual tension between Victor and Wanda (Women can hide that kind of thing but men never can) so their liaisons must have another aim. These are not the observations of a pervert (Well, not completely) but the result of a lifetime spent studying targets for every helpful detail of body language or habit. We shall see…

Next day dawned windy (again) with a dull sky that promised rain but never delivered. I reviewed the camera footage for any changes to VIP’s activities and checked my messages for new instructions. I have heard of occasions when a contract is cancelled at the last minute and the notification doesn’t get through – whoops! My agency prides itself on still paying the fee or finding other work if that happens but they aren’t all so ethical. With everything still getting the green light I need to sort out some alternative looks and plans ‘B’ ‘C’ and ‘D’  just in case. There’s a huge Chinese supermarket here called Fuer China

that sells absolutely everything so I pick up a couple of different colours of baseball caps, T-shirts and beach hats. It’s really surprising how another colour of hat and a shirt can make you look really different. Next stop the harbour to buy ferry tickets and the internet for flights. The local Binter Air prop-liners hop between islands and have less rigorous checks than the international carriers. They fly low and slow enough to enjoy the view

and are very friendly, even if you do almost expect to see goats and chickens as your fellow passengers. Tasks completed, I wait until just dark and order the same meal as VIP does from Namaste, collecting it in my England football shirt, wearing full-sleeve tattoos underneath. They actually are sleeves, in that they pull on and off. Safely back at the apartment I add my special sauce to VIP1s favourite Peshwari nan and carefully repack it. Applying a big ‘taxi-driver’ moustache, full gaucho shirt and Cuban heels I walk round the corner to VIP Villa and press the bell. SG takes his time to answer and I holdup the meal. In his very basic Spanish, full of ‘Niet’ and other rudenesses, he tries to explain that he didn’t order it. As he goes to close the door I say ‘Podarok, Podarok, Regalo para las nueve annio . Namaste, Namaste’ in a voice which is supposed to sound like I’ve smoked 40 a day for my entire life. How SG imagines that a Spanish taxi driver knows the Russian for ‘gift’ I have no idea but a dim bulb goes on in his head and he takes the bag, shutting the door without a Spasibo or even a Gracias to add a veneer of politeness to the moment. I walk around the corner and up the road until a dark corner allows me to pick-up and put on the coat and baseball cap I stashed earlier before returning to my accommodation. Resisting the urge to celebrate too soon, I watch ‘Suicide TV’ – or BBC World, the most miserable news channel ever, to make sure I look sufficiently serious for later. At about 6 in the morning an unnecessary siren and flashing lights announce the arrival of an ambulance

at VIP Villa, at which point I give it 5 minutes then stroll unsteadily along like an early-morning drunk to see the action. The paramedics are fetching out VIP1 on a trolley. They have masks on their faces and need them. I move up wind of the ambulance to escape the stench and wait with a couple of other onlookers as VIP2 and SG reverse the Range Rover out to follow the ambulance. As everyone’s attention is on their departure and are deciding that the show is over I collect the motion sensor from the gate and return home for a well-earned rest. Next day, the Guardia Civil are outside Namaste which I think is a little quick of them but they haven’t made the connection yet and are just collecting lunch.

I don’t think they’ll be back to eat anytime soon. Food-poisoning is a nasty thing, especially when you concentrate a culture of it in a colourless form on sugar. A young, fit person has a chance, but not a middle-aged man with high blood pressure and lots of stress. I feel a little sad if Namaste cops the blame but thanks to the local knowledge gleaned from the helpful proprietor of the English bookshop, I know that it is owned by one of the ‘five families’ of the Island, who have a Teflon-like ability to slide out of trouble and are very keen to avoid bad publicity. I’d be surprised if anyone ever gets to hear of it. I just have a little house-keeping and rubbish removal to do before the apartment-cleaner arrives and then the rest of the week is mine. The forecast is for sun, with wind. I’d like to bet VIP1 thought it was just wind, too, at first.

There are many forms of ‘hit’ and very few of them are of the traditional shooting variety. Sometimes the situation warrants a more subtle and less obvious technique and that is my preference. I feel that you have to be creative, building a story or reason behind your actions so that the result seems perfectly reasonable to those in power who might otherwise be looking for evidence. At one time ‘asphyxiation by incorrectly installed water heater’ was popular but like all trends it ran its course. Natural disasters offer great cover for my job but also have their attendant risks and difficulties born of timing and access, plus the presence of many cameras. At the moment I rather like the use of ‘food poisoning’, especially in holiday areas, as it seems almost compulsory to suffer some form of Montezuma’s Revenge’ or Delhi Belly’. With that in mind I watched the Namaste delivery.

A taxi brings the food to the steel gate where SG answers the bell. No money changes hands, just a tab signed, meaning, I guess, that VIP1 has an account. SG walks into the villa and I can see him take the food into the conservatory so no silver service training there, then. More importantly, no checking or tasting, either. He then retires to his own room with some of the containers and leaves VIP1 and 2 to their meal. Fuerteventura means strong wind in Spanish so it was no surprise to notice that the taxi-drivers copy of the receipt blew out of his door as he closed it. Chasing it down, I had a huge stroke of luck in that it listed the order. Unfortunately it wasn’t in a language or shorthand I recognised but I know a man who will. My old friend Mr Google made short work of deciphering the note, so I can duplicate the order. I have a whole day before the next stage so I content myself with checking VIP2 as she visits the hairdresser, noting that SG has forsaken his usual black jacket for a shirt that reveals his muscles to the girls at the salon. I guess he needs the help as his language skills are not fantastic. The owner is out cleaning the windows as they arrive and VIP2 greets her like a sister, which, with her blonde hair, she may well be.

The salon looks a lot like a massage parlour so maybe that's why SG has his 'guns' out! Hair, nails and whatever was attended-to in the back room completed, VIP2 and SG share a table at the central  court of the Centro Commerciale, where he has a steak (for his muscle-building, presumably) and she a salad. Once again, his security protocols and general fieldcraft are dreadful but I make a mental note not to be complacent and accidentally put myself in the way of those big arms. Returning to the Villa, I park my rental Fiat Panda in its usual space and check the camera is sighted correctly. Now for a bit of tourist stuff to build my cover. Behind the port of Corallejo is a volcano crater that marks the start of a dirt track which winds its way scenically

up and over the mountains to El Cotillo, home of one of my favourite restaurants, so that’s my afternoon and evening sorted.