SPANISH ROCK Read online

  By the same author

  ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER JACKAL

  END AS AN ASSASSIN

  – Andre Warner, Manhunter Vol I

  I KILL

  – Andre Warner, Manhunter Vol II

  THE MAN WHO HUNTED HIMSELF

  – Andre Warner, Manhunter Vol III

  REACTION OF THE TIGER

  – Andre Warner, Manhunter Vol IV

  SHE KILLS

  – Lisa Power, Vigilante

  Published in 2019 by Kaybec Publishing

  441 Avenue President Kennedy

  Suite 1003

  Montreal

  Québec

  H3A 0A4

  www.kaybecpublishing.com

  Copyright © Lex Lander 2019

  Lex Lander has asserted his moral right to be identified as the author of this work under the terms of the 1988 Copyright Design and Patents Act.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All rights reserved. no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-1-989030-06-6 (Paperback)

  ISBN: 978-1-989030-08-0 (mobi)

  ISBN: 978-1-989030-07-3 (epub)

  SPANISH ROCK

  Contents

  Cover page

  Title page

  Copyright

  Part1

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Part2

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Part3

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  I

  ENGLAND HATH NEED OF THEE…

  Chapter One

  Cassandra screamed.

  The oncoming headlights flared across the windshield, brighter than the sun, whitewashing the interior of the Aston and erasing the night. At a closing speed of 100mph or more we were only seconds from impact.

  Noise hammered at me: Cassandra squealing, the bellow of the oncoming car’s horn, the wailing protest of the tyres as I instinctively trod brake, making the car judder as if it were travelling on a badly-maintained cobbled street.

  Then the glare was gone, wiped away, the lights ripping past on our left as the other driver took to the wrong side of the road to avoid a head-on smash and its probably fatal outcome. The Aston crunched onto the shoulder and came to a stop, canted over like a beached ship, offside wheels in a shallow ditch. In the rear-view mirror, twin pinpoints of red oscillated crazily, then stabilised before dwindling finally to nothingness.

  Cassandra’s scream tapered to a whimper and the music from the CD player became audible once more – a piece from Chopin by the New York Philharmonic. Bizarre what trivia lodges in your mind after a near-death experience.

  I sucked oxygen into deflated lungs. It was heady stuff. Cassandra sat limp as a discarded rag doll, her face skeletal in the dashboard lights. I killed the CD; I was a classical aficionado but I hadn’t been able to appreciate it anyhow, not with the vocal competition from Cassandra.

  I wasn’t drunk, or even near it. Two glasses of a dry and too-long-in-the-bottle white wine were all my stomach contained. No, the cause of my being where I had no right to be lay not in alcohol, nor even in my forgetting I wasn’t in a country where driving on the right held sway, but in the heated exchange between Cassandra and me. Verbal abuse, distracting enough on its own, had degenerated into assault; Cassandra lashing out with her bag, causing me to jerk sideways to avoid it, inadvertently wrenching the steering wheel over, losing control …

  Strands of mist writhed in the headlight beams. The engine throbbed, a mechanical heartbeat. For safety’s sake I should be making haste back to my own side of the road, but traffic was sparse on this little-used shortcut between Beaconsfield and Cassandra’s house, and I needed a moratorium, needed to regroup my wits.

  The after-effects of shock might have been expected to put a stop to the slanging, even flung us into a reconciliatory embrace. But no such romantic notions for Cassandra this night. Our three-month diversion had run into a cul-de-sac. She was too spoiled, too rich, too used to getting her own way. The bedtime romps didn’t quite compensate for the daytime brawls.

  She stirred. Without looking at me she said slowly, every syllable precisely pronounced, ‘It’s over, André. Sincere apologies and all that. I’ve met someone else more to my taste.’ More accommodating of her brattishness, was my guess. ‘So let’s stop pretending there’s a core of goodwill to rebuild on. It’s an illusion.’ Her eyes swivelled towards me, glinting with tears. ‘What I need you can’t provide, and vice-versa. Okay?’

  It was more or less okay. It had never been love between us, just a physical pull of the kind that usually burns itself out once the novelty has ceased to be novel.

  ‘Sure,’ I said, forcing off-handedness into my voice. Or maybe I didn’t have to force it. ‘You’re right, honey. You go your sweet way, I’ll go mine. Just like it was before we met.’

  I gunned the engine and, offside wheels skidding a little in the ditch, gingerly guided my precious heap of metal back onto the road.

  * * * * *

  The Giovanni Paolo Hospital in Venice had done a fine job of digging the two bullets – 9mm calibre – out of my tender flesh and patching me up inside and out. Damage to my left lung had been superficial and would cause no long term issues, I was assured in halting English.

  The surgeon had been skilful and careful, the nurses caring and attentive, and the bill astronomical. They restored me to my former functionality and got me fit again. Liza came to visit at least once a day, and sat with me for hours. Through the open window came the sounds of birds chirping and vaporetti chugging. If Liza had been the love of my life, it would have been near-perfect.

  ‘Now will you retire?’ she demanded, the afternoon of the monthly anniversary of my admission to the hospital.

  ‘I keep trying,’ I countered. ‘But the dark forces won’t let me.’

  That didn’t spook her at all. Not much did.

  ‘Simple solution.’

  I regarded her with a degree of circumspection. This girl, who had risked so much to track me down to proclaim her love. This girl, who had become a woman too qui
ckly and been spoiled in the process. Not physically – her loveliness, though superficially marred, was intact, the rest of her blooming as ever. It was inside her head where the damage had been done. Where the sickness still festered. Not in an obvious way: she talked and behaved much as any girl not yet twenty-one would talk. But her outlook on the world was warped by the hurt and degradation she had endured at too-tender an age.

  ‘A simple solution, eh?’ I said.

  ‘Sure. Eliminate the dark forces.’

  * * * * *

  In the end I persuaded her by subterfuge that she should take off and visit her mother in Massachusetts. It was on the day they told me I could check out next morning. When Liza showed up at about eleven, I pretended to her that I would be kept in hospital for another week at least.

  ‘A week! Is there something wrong you’re not telling me?’

  I gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. ‘Nothing like that. The doc said there would be risk of complications if I left prematurely, is all.’

  She didn’t argue. She most likely figured that any objection on her part would make it sound as if my health didn’t matter. Accepting the bogus ruling with an ill grace, she was still resistant to my suggestion that she drop in on her ma. Any separation from me was as welcome to her as the curse. But she had a sense of duty, and conceded that she would have to go sooner or later, and that it might as well be now, while I was confined to a bed.

  Because it was our last meet-up, and maybe destined to be a permanent farewell, I remember with the clarity of crystal how she looked that morning. Her tawny hair was long and loose, almost down to her waist. Her grey eyes, devoid of enhancement, her mouth a perfect combo of lips and teeth, her body exquisite in the dark blue crop top and white shorts; skimpy but not brazen. Just right for the climate. She would have been easy to love as a lover. Instead I loved her mostly as a daughter. Couldn’t help it. Our history, back when she was in my care, when we lived together in my house in Andorra, was too rooted in my memory. It couldn’t be dislodged. Not that I hadn’t tried.

  ‘I’ll skype every day,’ she promised. ‘Make sure you’re available.’

  ‘You bet.’ I hoped my enthusiasm didn’t sound as fake as my excuses.

  We kissed. Lips to lips, with her trying to make it a full-on job, and me trying to respond with restraint. I felt bad about the deception.

  Next morning, as I dressed, still a bit shaky, she called me on WhatsApp video, with Venice airport bustling in the background. She looked happy enough, which I was glad about. We would be parting on a high. It would only last on her side for as long as it took to find me out in my lies. Forgiveness was likely to be slow in coming.

  A flight was announced over the speaker system. It was hers. We exchanged multiple goodbyes and blown kisses, then the screen went abruptly blank.

  Within the hour I was in a cab, en route to Mestre collect a Hertz rental. From Mestre it would be a fast haul on the autostrada across the Po Plain to Ventimiglia and France. Alone again, but at least alive. For the present.

  * * * * *

  Now here I was, back to being alone unless you counted the staff in Cassandra’s stately home, Waverley Hall. Big enough to house a jumbo jet. It had been my home too, since I moved in at the peak of the rutting season, a couple of months back. The squatter’s rights granted by Cassandra had now been foreclosed. It wasn’t in writing; it didn’t need to be.

  My relationship with her had been what is known as “open”. If either of us felt inclined to wander, we were allowed a slack rein. No deception, no apologies. Uncommonly, I hadn’t once felt the urge. She, on the other hand, was on permanent heat. Her sexual demands exceeded the capacity of mine, leaving nothing in reserve for chasing other opportunities.

  When it began to go bad on us, easy-come easy-go degenerated into bickering which led to flaming rows and slammed doors and abuse and deadening recriminations. Culminating in that first show of violence between us in the car, marking the end of the sham our co-habitation of convenience had become.

  Something soft and warm brushed against my leg, mewing imperatively. I reached down absently and tickled the receptive chin of Simba, Cassandra’s Burmese cat, all the while staring out through the tall window at the line of elms, unscathed by the disease that had all but obliterated the species from the land. Long denuded of foliage, they did nothing to relieve the dreary skies of December in England.

  In some respects I would miss Waverley. It had been a short stay, but fun while it lasted, and being waited on by the staff had not been a disagreeable experience. To them, no doubt, I was just a grubby freeloader.

  Over the great Regency fireplace with its marble surround was a study in oils of Cassandra, commissioned, so she told me, on her thirty-third birthday. It depicted her at her magnificent best, in an eighteenth century ball gown, a style that might well have been created for her figure – low cut at the front, a hint of shadow between her well-defined breasts, nipped-in at the waist, flaring at the hips in an exaggeration of Cassandra’s own rounded form. Her skin was pale, her hair naturally ash blond, sweeping her bare shoulders. Her blue eyes were haughty, in keeping with the manner she was prone to adopt with anyone she perceived as her social inferior. To describe her as beautiful, even sensational, was to miss the point. Cassandra was a woman on whom superlatives were wasted.

  I lifted my glass to her. It was empty but that was somehow apt.

  ‘Here’s to you, bedmate.’

  The arched eyebrows seemed to mock me, the eyes to glint with scorn. I weighed the chunky glass in my hand, debated whether to let her have it full in her luscious kisser.

  Then the telephone rang and I shrugged off such pettiness. The library extension was on a pert little accent table by my elbow, which enabled me to lift the receiver ahead of the butler.

  It was Tobias Wyatt, older brother of Cassandra by twelve years, known to family and friend alike as Toby. For me, the name Toby always evoked visions of jolly little fat men in tricorn hats. Not so this Toby, who was uber-tall and built to last.

  ‘Hello there, old bean.’ He really did talk exactly like that. To my surprise, considering my socialist-inclined views on inherited wealth, he and I had hit it off from the get-go.

  ‘Hi, Toby,’ I said flatly.

  ‘Hoped I’d catch you in. Fact is, we’re throwing a binge on Saturday and thought you might care to grace it with your ungraceful presence.’

  ‘How could I refuse such a flattering invitation. Who thought – you or Sam?’

  An impatient snort. ‘Does it matter?’ Pause. ‘Sam, as it happens. She’s developed rather a soft spot for you.’

  Tall, svelte, energetic Samantha had once demonstrated how soft was that spot by dragging me down onto a bedful of coats – mostly fur, of course – at some West End shindig a few weeks ago. It was her long legs I remembered best of all, and the white self-support stockings that set them, and me, off. Since then, whenever her name came up, I had this vision of elasticised stocking tops and twin pillars of pale thigh emerging from them. We didn’t consummate the act, mostly because she was too smashed and I had too much liking and respect for Toby.

  ‘It’s mutual.’

  ‘Saturday then?’ Toby prompted.

  ‘Are you sure you really want me there? You do realise Cassandra and I are no longer an item.’

  Toby sighed. He could sigh very forcefully.

  ‘André, don’t be so damned tiresome. We enjoy your company with or without Cassie. We might even be able to sneak away for a game. You owe me a chance to get even.’

  He was talking about chess. We had played a couple of games, and I had beaten him twice.

  ‘Is Cassandra on the guest list?’

  ‘You need not fear. She was, but declined. So we can count on you?’

  I grunted an affirmative.

  ‘Any time after eight,’ he said briskly. ‘Dress informal.’ Which meant lounge suits, not jeans and a Stuff-the-World T-shirt. ‘There’ll be a running buffet,
so come hungry.’

  ‘I’ll look forward to it.’

  ‘Good.’ No gush, just warmth. Just pleasure. In time, Toby could probably become a true friend if I kept the contact going post-Cassandra.

  From the telephone I turned back to her portrait.

  ‘You see,’ I jeered at it. ‘Somebody in your lousy family still loves me. How does that grab you?’

  The eyebrows remained as aloof as ever and the derisive glint was undimmed. If anything it glowed brighter, as if she were saying, ‘So what? Toby was always a poor judge of character.’

  Against Cassandra I don’t think I would ever have been able to win. Except by walking out on her, and she had even denied me that small triumph by doing the walking herself. Leaving me in possession of Waverley – a transitory monarch under notice to quit. Three days’ notice, to be precise.

  I collected my parka from the stand in the hall and went outside. I strolled down the gravel path, past the stone arch where Cassandra and I had made drunken love one evening the day I moved in. The halcyon days.

  Whatever there had once been here for me at Waverley was no more. It had fled with my paramour, beyond recall or rekindling. The house was just a house, the garden just a garden, and my life once more stretched ahead, barren and pointless.

  * * * * *

  My only sister, Julia, was in town with her Scots husband, Willie, CEO of the London division of a US computer outfit. Julia was very blonde like me, blue-eyed like me, and inclined to mother me, though she was a couple of years younger. Willie was of medium build, very fit, and prone to beat me at squash, snooker, and chess.

  Since Cassandra entered my life we had made up a few foursomes, usually dining at the Travellers Club, in Pall Mall. This occasion we were down to a threesome. They were sympathetic, supportive.

  ‘Maybe you can still patch it up,’ Julia said, in her rather drawly home counties voice.

  ‘Not a hope.’ I was trying to stay upbeat so as not to spoil the evening.

  ‘So live a little,’ pragmatic Willie said. ‘Go back to playing the field.’

  Julia swirled cognac around her balloon glass. ‘Maybe André doesn’t want to. Maybe he’s still in love with Cassandra.’