Mal had booked a very expensive, very lovely hotel for the honeymoon. They had a beautiful suite, an extra-large bed, and a balcony overlooking the infinity pool and the North Atlantic. They only had a week, but that would be long enough for Mal to satisfy his desire for sunshine and warm sea, and maybe long enough to persuade Daniel outside the hotel and do a bit of sightseeing. To be fair, much of Lanzarote resembles the dark side of the moon, though there are some interesting museums and a stunning coastline. And it is different to the soggy greenery of Wales. It smells like Africa, not like petrichor. There had been talk of spending the honeymoon on the Costa del Sol close to Daniel’s parents and sister but Mal wanted Daniel to himself. This week was for them.
The wedding itself had been perfect. Everyone they had invited turned up, even his mother. No one got too drunk, and Sasha’s speech had been only mildly embarrassing. Celebrations had lasted most of the night, and then Hector had kindly driven them to the airport the next morning. They arrived at the hotel in time for the vast and delicious lunch, sitting at a table by a hedge of potted herbs and flowering plants. Beyond was a well laid out mosaic footpath leading down to the sea. Beyond that was a line of palm trees shading the sun beds, and beyond them, the infinity pool. The sky was a bright, hard, blue, with just a hint of a breeze to keep it comfortable. They ate well, and were settling into the second beers, leaning back in the chairs, feeling the sun on their skin.
“Like it?” asked Mal.
“Love it,” Daniel answered.
Mal felt a contented lethargy stealing over his body. A baseball cap shaded his eyes, but he could see people wandering past to choose a sun bed, or to take a dip in the pool. If he turned his head, he saw Daniel, his blue eyes hidden behind a pair of dark glasses, and his long, golden limbs stretched out. When he had some energy back, Mal would suggest returning to their room, but for now he was content to watch the world go by.
A spectacularly beautiful young woman walked past, heading for the sun beds, wearing only a barely-there bikini and sandals and carrying a capacious straw bag. Long sun-bleached hair was piled into a messy bun on top of her head. She had possibly the most even suntan Mal had ever seen. Once settled, she produced a book from her bag, and started to read.
“Are you eyeing up female hotties?” Daniel asked from behind his sunglasses.
“Just wondering why she was on her own,” Mal said. “She’s perfectly entitled to be on her own, of course she is. I dunno why, it struck me as odd.”
And then she wasn’t on her own. A man who was either a gangster, or who wanted everyone to think he was a gangster, strolled over to the young woman and sat on the next sun bed, leaning over to run his hands over her flat stomach and kiss her breast. He had short dark hair, very tanned skin, a chunky gold watch and a tiny pair of budgie smugglers. There was a dragon tattooed over one shoulder. He was also at least twenty years her senior. The young woman turned to him, and with what Mal was certain was an entirely false smile, put away her book.
“Yuk,” Daniel said, “what a creep.”
“He might be a nice guy with a poor dress sense,” Mal murmured. He saw Daniel’s long legs clad only in denim shorts, golden hair shining against his pale skin and felt a tightening in his own shorts.“Whatever, I think it’s siesta time.”
Daniel rose lazily to his feet, lifted his sunglasses and winked at his new husband. “Is that what we’re calling it?”
A few hours later, Mal suggested a stroll along the beach before dinner.
“You don’t think we’ve worked up enough of a calorie deficit to earn our food?” Daniel asked.
“A stroll, I said, not a marathon. Plus, we will be returning to calorie burning activity later.”
The beach sand was gritty and sharp where it found its way into Mal’s sandals. He slipped them off and walked down to the water’s edge. The sea was chilly, but he could imagine swimming in it the next day. Daniel, he knew, wouldn’t hesitate to fling himself into the North Atlantic in September. Mal felt cool fingers entwine with his own. Regardless of passers-by, he turned to Daniel and kissed him, his feelings of love growing inside him as their lips met and their tongues touched. He pulled away. “I love you, new husband,” he said.
“Feeling’s mutual,” Daniel replied and pulled him close again.
After a moment, Mal became aware of the other people on the beach. He cleared his throat.
“Not sure what the laws are on public indecency in Spain,” he said, “but we should probably stop.” Daniel laughed and they resumed their walk, still holding hands as the sun began to sink. The hotel cast a shadow over the beach. Under its cover, Mal put his arm around Daniel’s waist, remembering his first sight of his husband-to-be, walking into the autopsy suite in Cardiff, lean and strangely cat-like. The truth was that he’d been lost from that moment. Whatever doubts there had been along the way, he had no regrets. He was about to say something of this, when he heard other voices. The young woman he had seen earlier on the sun beds was standing much as he and Daniel had been, entwined with someone tall and blond. Which is to say, not the man she had been with by the pool. He nudged Daniel and raised his eyebrows. Daniel leaned forward and whispered, “trouble in paradise?”
“This one’s more to my taste, anyway,” Mal whispered back.
Daniel snorted with laughter and the couple looked up sharply, jerking away from each other, the man stumbling slightly in the soft sand.
“Dinner,” said Mal and began to walk towards the hotel, Daniel following. They stopped to put their sandals back on when they got to the path.
“Oops,” Daniel said, “I guess we weren’t supposed to see those two. Or not together, anyway.” Mal shrugged. “Guess not.”
Dinner was as delicious as lunch, and the night as satisfying as the siesta had been.
“I can get into this honeymoon thing,” Daniel said over breakfast, “especially if we can spend the rest of the day in bed.”
“Nice try,” Mal replied. “We have volcanoes and vineyards to visit, and swimming in the sea.”
“And that’s just before ten o’clock, I suppose.” Mal smiled.
The volcanoes were impressively awful, according to Daniel. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to have seen them, but all that broken and jagged black rock covering the land. Couldn’t live with that. Not even for year-round sunshine.”
“Not very green, not exactly restful on the eyes,” Mal agreed. “Things grow on it, though, which is amazing. Lichen. If we came back in a million years, who knows what would be here? A jungle?”
Daniel drove them back to the hotel, saying he had been enough of a tourist for one day, and promising to participate in a further excursion tomorrow. They passed several lines of camels, and the unique Lanzarote vineyards: each plant encircled by a crescent of black stones providing shelter from the wind.
“I thought it was going to be all beaches with sun beds, and Irish bars,” Daniel said.
“It’s that, too, and nothing wrong with it. But honestly, I came for the sunshine, and the hotel looked like the business.”
The hotel was the business, and proved it with another excellent lunch. Afterwards they took a leisurely dip in the pool, where they were joined by an older couple who smiled politely but spoke a language Mal didn’t recognise, and a few minutes after that, the beautiful young woman from the day before. She nodded at them all, and began swimming lengths of the pool, complete with tumble turns. There was no sign of either of her two suitors.
“Sun bed?” Mal suggested when he’d had enough. “I’ll go and get our books if you get some beer.”
“Deal,” Daniel said.
When Mal returned with the books and sun cream, Daniel had bagged two sun beds close to the pool where they had a view of the beach and the sea through the palm trees. Mal put his book on the floor, sipped at his beer and let his mind drift, watching the people strolling along the shore. Next to him, Daniel appeared to be doing the same. Then he said, in Welsh, “Don’t look now, gangster incoming from the left.” Mal looked casually to his left, and there was dragon-tattoo-man, walking towards the pool. He called out to the young woman, and she exited the pool gracefully, wrapping herself in an enormous towel. Mal watched, curious to see their interaction. As he had the day before, the young woman seemed unexcited by the man, but she submitted to his caress of her shoulder, and to the kiss he planted on her lips. He said something in rapid Spanish, and putting his arm around her shoulder, led the way back to the hotel. Which was when Mal spotted the other man, the blond the young woman had been with on the beach. He was following the couple, odd amongst the half-naked sunbathers in that he was wearing well-pressed shorts and a loose cotton shirt, with trainers on his feet rather than flip-flops or sandals. Mal turned onto his side to see what happened, and next to him, felt Daniel do the same.
“Bodyguard?” Mal said in Welsh, “For the gangster, I mean, not the woman.”
“Looks that way,” Daniel replied, also in Welsh. Then he laughed. “What are we like, making up stories about the people around us? We’re supposed to be on our honeymoon. Time enough for being suspicious when we get home. I’m going to get another beer.”
This time, Mal opened his book, though the image of the young woman and the two men occupied much of his mind.
That evening at dinner, they were not surprised to see the young woman at a table with dragon-tattoo-man. Mal thought she appeared solicitous of her companion, re-filling his wine glass, propping her head on her chin to listen to his conversation, smiling often. But it seemed to him that when the man looked away, the woman’s mask slipped, along with her smile. Perfect make- up didn’t quite (in Mal’s opinion) cover a look of tiredness. This evening, the woman was wearing a long, black, fitted dress, cut so that it hung in soft folds at the front and low at the back. Instead of jewellery, she wore a silver scarf wrapped around her neck with the ends hanging down behind her. Another scarf was tied into her hair. Daniel kicked him under the table.
“Why are you staring at that woman?”
“I’m not,” Mal said. “OK, maybe I am, a bit. I don’t like the look of her companion. The sort of man who sets all my alarm bells ringing.”
Daniel smiled. “Mine, too. But Maldwyn, we’re on holiday. Let it go.”
“Actually, I want to talk about work,” Mal said. “Specifically the Cold Case Unit.” Daniel put his knife and fork down and leaned forward. “Hmmm, thought that might get your attention.”
“What about it?” Daniel asked.
In answer, Mal got his phone from his pocket, tapped it, and handed it over.
To: M Kent, Det C Sup
From: C Const
Enjoy your holiday, Mal, and come back ready to set up your Cold Case Unit. Thought you’d want to know.
“He’s texting you on your honeymoon?”
“Apparently. But I am glad to know. I want you to head it up. If it’s going ahead as per my proposal, there will be someone with the rank of DI — that would be you — plus two others. I’ve got an idea for one of them and we can look around for the third. There’s plenty of space in the Melin building, but the cases are from all over Clwyd.” He couldn’t help a hopeful smile, though he tried to cover it up with a mouthful of wine. The Cold case Unit had originally been a response to an attack on local policing, but the more he had thought about it, the better it had sounded.
“You’re a sneaky bastard, you know that?” Daniel said. “Seduce me with sun, sea, and sex, then try to get me to agree to come and work for you.”
“That’s the thing. You’d only nominally be working for me. You’d be running the unit, and reporting directly to the executive. It’s an eighteen month trial, with the aim of clearing the most stubborn cases. After that, who knows?”
“Let me guess, starting with the holiday cottage murders?” Daniel asked. “Can’t tell a lie, I’d love to have a go at those. Eighteen months, huh? So, the trial would end just about the same time that you would be looking for other jobs? Actually, sneaky hardly covers your duplicitous nature.” But he was grinning.
Mal felt relief roll over him like a wave of warm breeze. This was the response he’d hoped for, but it could have easily gone the other way. Whatever other cases there were, and there were plenty, solving the holiday cottage murders was at the top of the list. The case had generated national publicity when the middle-aged couple had been found dead fifteen years before, and even re-opening it would bring kudos to Clwyd Police. Whether it was solvable or not, Mal didn’t know, but he did know that Daniel had a better chance than most. So, he might have been sneaky, but it looked as if it had paid off. The rest of the world faded around them, and Mal’s attention was entirely taken up with Daniel, his face tanned golden and his blue eyes shining. How had he got this lucky? He reached for Daniel’s hand, the one with the wedding ring engraved with trees. As he did so, he became aware that the young woman had stood up and was passing their table with a waft of Opium. The scarf around her neck had become loose, and slithered to the floor beside their table. Daniel picked it up, and stood to hand it back. The young woman blushed and thanked him in heavily accented English. Behind her, dragon-tattoo-man glowered, as she replaced the scarf. Mal’s eyes followed them as they left the terrace.
Once he was sure they were out of earshot, Mal turned to Daniel.
“Did you see …?”
Daniel was already nodding. “Her neck? Yep, I saw. But some people do that stuff for, like, fun. Sex fun. Doesn’t appeal to me, but maybe don’t read too much into a few bruises.”
“People die,” Mal said flatly. It was true. It was also true that some people found choking enhanced their sexual pleasure, and it wasn’t his job to police what went on in their bedrooms. He didn’t have to like it, though, not when the bruises were on this young woman. Not when he’d seen her with both dragon-tattoo-man and the other, possibly-bodyguard man. He was distracted by the arrival of their waiter with the offer of dessert.
The next day passed without a sighting of the young woman or either of her two men. Mal and Daniel breakfasted, swam in the sea, lunched, took a siesta and strolled around the harbour and marina, watching fishing boats deliver their catches, and admiring the various yachts, then had a swim in the pool and yet another excellent dinner and an early night. They talked about nothing much: their friends, Sasha and Hector’s unexpected discovery that they were expecting a baby, the impending birth of Rhiannon and Huw’s second child and Bethan’s barely-contained panic at the departure of her oldest son to university. Their dog, Flora was staying with Sasha, and she and their children were visiting the smallholding every day to water the plants and feed the cats.
“No doubt she’ll want paying in babysitting, once this baby is born,” Daniel mused.
They went for massages at the hotel’s spa, and retired, boneless and utterly relaxed, to bed, drifting off to the sound of their favourite eighties music.
After that, all their intentions of visiting other islands, seeing the few museums and going cycling, faded away in the pleasures of doing not very much, and doing it in the sun, with a good book close at hand. On their penultimate evening, they did manage to bestir themselves to wander along the promenade — if that was what it was called here — to eat at an Indian restaurant recommended in their guide book. And it was there that the beautiful young woman re-appeared.
Mal didn’t notice her at first. He and Daniel sipped their beers, sitting opposite each other, at right angles to the street, so they could people-watch. They ordered food, and settled down to dissect the passers-by, telling each other that there was no shame in wearing fluorescent pink just because you were in your seventies, and wondering at the number of Irish rugby shirts. But the food did seem to be a long time arriving. Mal tuned in to the conversation at the next table:
“… she dashed off to the bathroom and never came back. Look, she’s left her bag and phone on the table. Who leaves their bag …?”
“Wasn’t there a boyfriend?”
“Well, if there was, he isn’t there now.”
“I think I saw him, guy with a tattoo on his neck.”
Both Mal and Daniel came to alertness. Mal looked over at the empty table.
There was a large straw handbag, and there was also a familiar-looking silver scarf.
Mal stood up. “I’m going to see what’s up,” he said, “see if you can spot the boyfriend.”
Daniel had barely looked round by the time Mal returned. “I told them to call the ambulance and not to mess around. She’s throwing up in the ladies and she looks like shit.”
“No sign of the boyfriend. Either of them.”
“Someone must have seen him go,” Mal said. “Come on.”
Mal walked to the next table and started asking the surprised diners if they had seen what happened. Daniel shrugged and began to work the other side of the room. Thankfully everyone in the restaurant was either English or Irish.
The ambulance arrived, and two remarkably good-looking paramedics made their way to the back of the restaurant, appearing a minute later supporting the young woman between them. She looked pale and ill. The bruises on her neck stood out darkly against her skin. Mal grabbed her phone, bag and scarf and followed.
“You need to call the police,” he said to the paramedic, ignoring the stares of the people around them, and the look of puzzlement on the paramedic’s face. “Police, now,” Mal repeated. “This woman has been attacked, poisoned. Her boyfriend is missing.” Mal cursed his inability to speak Spanish. “I’m an English police officer,” he said desperately, “There has been a crime.” One of the paramedics took out his phone, but who he called, Mal didn’t know. When he looked round, everyone in the restaurant looked away as if embarrassed to be caught being nosy. Of Daniel there was no sign.
Dammit.
Suddenly there was a shout from the beach.
“Maldwyn! He’s here!”
Mal ran, ignoring the taxis, cyclists, and pedestrians, and leapt off the promenade onto the sand. “Where are you?” He called, and Daniel answered, then shone the light from his phone onto a prone figure by the water’s edge.
“Too late,” Daniel said, when Mal reached him. Dragon-tattoo-man lay on the sand, bloody vomit trickling from his mouth. All Mal could hear were the waves crashing onto the beach, sucking the coarse sand and small stones back out to sea when they retreated. The remains of a pale moon was the only illumination, unless he looked back to the strip of bars and restaurants behind them. The smell of ozone, and death, filled the air. He took Daniel’s hand. All they could do was wait.
“This was murder,” Mal said.
“Though how the hell we are going to persuade the Spanish police of that, God only knows,” Daniel replied.
They didn’t have to wait long to find out. A group of uniformed police tramped their way across the sand towards the body, followed by two men with a stretcher. The police officers treated Mal and Daniel with courtesy, but their suspicions were plain to see.
“Please, come,” one of them said, gesturing back to the promenade, where police cars stood, lights flashing silently. They arrived to see a short, grey- haired man in a dark suit, get out of an unmarked car. There was a rapid exchange of Spanish, and then the grey-haired man said, in an American accent, “Wait here, please. I would like to talk to you.” His air of authority and the deference with which he was treated, told them that this was the man in charge.
“I know this guy,” Mal said. “Or rather I’ve spoken to him.” He rubbed his face and then ran his hands through his hair. “Why the fuck did we come to Lanzarote? We should have stayed at home.”
“Sunshine? Beaches? Palm trees?”
“Barry Island has all of them, and if it doesn’t, Llandudno surely has.” Daniel looked at his phone. “If it’s any comfort, it’s raining in Melin Tywyll, and fifteen degrees.” He tapped for a moment. “Barry Island is only thirteen degrees.”
“You’re not helping,” Mal growled, then suddenly they were both laughing.
“Fucking busman’s holiday,” Daniel spluttered.
“I’m glad you are amused,” a voice said from behind them. It was the man in the suit.
Mal stepped forwards and held out his hand. “I’m Detective Chief Superintendent Maldwyn Kent of Clwyd Police in north Wales. This is my husband, Daniel Owen. I believe we spoke on the phone about one of my officers, Charlie Rees?”
“I remember,” and the policeman shook Mal’s hand. “Now you may speak to me about the body you just found, and the poor young woman who has been taken to hospital.”
Mal took a deep breath. “That poor young woman may be complicit in this man’s murder,” he said, and looked at Daniel for confirmation.
Daniel nodded. “There was a witness. If she’s still there. I asked her to wait, but …”
“Tell me,” the man said. “Let me worry about witnesses.”
It was late when Mal and Daniel got back to the hotel. The bar and restaurant had long closed, but they had stopped at an all night supermarket for beer and chocolate. They sat on their balcony, chairs next to each other. Daniel put his legs over Mal’s lap.
“Do you think the local police will investigate, or just chuck her out?” Daniel asked.
Mal shrugged. “I guess it depends how much effort they are prepared to put in to finding your witness. Even if they find her, all she can say is that she saw a blond man beckoning dragon-tattoo onto the beach. A decent lawyer would cast all kinds of doubt on that. It was dark, she couldn’t say for certain which person was being beckoned, she only saw the man for a moment, and so on.”
“If they even find the blond man. Because identifying him on the brief glimpse we got of him won’t be easy, either.”
“They’ll find him,” Mal said confidently. “Because he’ll be waiting for her to come out of hospital so he can claim his prize. Whereupon, she will deny all knowledge of any conspiracy to kill her husband. The Spanish won’t even have to chuck her out. As soon as she’s got his insurance, she’ll be off to the next place, and the next husband.”
“Cynical, much? I diagnose too much pulp fiction and Film Noir.”
“Maybe,” Mal said. “Or maybe she dropped her scarf in front of the only two men in the hotel who would look at her neck rather than down the front of her dress.”