Blood Song Read online

  Emily gave Aliénor a subtle glance. ‘Do you mean Jennifer, Marty?’ she replied, as Aliénor disappeared down the hallway.

  ‘Yeah, Jen … Miss Marsden, yeah,’ she spat, with a pout of disgust.

  ‘Marty, could we have a word with Jones?’

  The young woman shook her head like a stubborn child.

  ‘Why not, Marty?’

  ‘I don’t want you to see ’im like that,’ she replied, twisting the belt of her dressing gown around her index finger.

  ‘What do you mean, like that?’

  ‘The way ’e is … naked … not a stitch on ’im…’

  ‘That’s not a big deal, Marty. We can cover him up. So no one sees him.’

  ‘Yeah … I s’pose…’ Marty tilted her head to one side.

  ‘Your colleague … I don’t want ’er to come upstairs wiv us.’

  ‘No, don’t worry, Marty. We’ll go upstairs just the two of us. My colleague will stay down here. Is that all right, Marty?’

  ‘Yeah, ’s all right … I s’pose that’s all right.’

  Two armed police officers suddenly burst into the kitchen, barking orders. Marty looked up at them in a daze. Then she did what she was told and got on her knees and lay face down on the kitchen floor with her arms and legs spread apart.

  Emily went upstairs to join the two other officers, who were waiting for her in the bathroom doorway. There were half a dozen overturned candles wallowing in red puddles on the bathroom floor. A man was lying in the bathtub, his body immersed in the bloody water, right arm hanging over the side, head slumped over his chest. Jennifer also lay in the bath facing him, her throat slit.

  Emily walked downstairs and out of the Partridge house. DCS Jack Pearce was waiting for her by a marked police car. Aliénor was crouched beside the car, hugging her knees into her chest, rocking back and forth.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Emily asked Pearce.

  Her superior gulped and moistened his lips. Hesitated for a second or two. Emily stiffened. In that short silence, she sensed the pain. The urgency. And the fear.

  El Palomar, Spain

  Tuesday, 21 December 1937, 10.00 pm

  SOLE WAS ABOUT TO GET UP, but Teresa placed her hand on her shoulder. ‘Please, just sit for a while, Sole. You’re going to make me dizzy. You’ve been on your feet all evening!’

  ‘Well, I’m not exactly going to let you do everything, am I?’ Sole protested.

  ‘I don’t want to see you move out of that chair,’ Teresa insisted.

  ‘Your dinner was delicious, mi Sole,’ said Paco, stretching his long arms above his head. ‘Gracias, mi amor, you’ve made it such a wonderful birthday.’

  Sole smiled at him as she rubbed the big round belly stretching her woollen dress.

  ‘I feel like there are two of them in here,’ she wheezed, running the tips of her fingers around the contour.

  ‘I think it’s just the one, but a hefty one at that,’ Teresa replied as she cleared the table. ‘Just like his father. Have you seen the size of Paco?’

  ‘You see, mi Sole, she agrees with me,’ Paco said, draining his glass of Montitxelvo. The smooth dessert wine enveloped his mouth with its gentle sweetness as he clicked his tongue against his palate to savour every last drop.

  Teresa piled the cutlery, plates and glasses into a big metal bowl.

  ‘Are you sure you want to go to the font and do the dishes right now?’ Sole asked her.

  ‘Sí. Concha should be down there as well. We’ll have a little gossip.’

  ‘The river must be as cold as ice, Tere. You won’t feel your fingers! Why don’t you wait until tomorrow?’

  Teresa and her brother exchanged a knowing glance. It couldn’t wait until tomorrow.

  ‘I’ll be done in no time, you’ll see,’ she argued as she hoisted the bowl up and balanced it on the top of her head. The dishes shifted and clanged against the sides, echoing the first knocks at the door, which were soon followed by a louder, more insistent banging.

  Paco drew himself up to the full height and breadth of his stocky frame as he opened the door – and froze.

  A group of Blueshirts, three of them, stood in the doorway.

  Teresa gripped the handles on the bowl so she wouldn’t lose her balance.

  ‘Paco Morales Ramos, come with us!’ the one in the middle barked, adjusting his hat before hooking his fingers over his belt, where the Astra 400 was waiting in its holster.

  Sole stood and placed one hand on her belly and the other on her chair. A film of cold sweat was spreading across her neck and upper lip. She clenched her jaw so she wouldn’t gnash her teeth.

  Paco turned his palms upwards, spread his arms wide and forced a smile. ‘What’s all this about, señores?’

  The man on the left reached out and clamped a hand around Paco’s wrist.

  ‘All right, all right,’ Paco said.

  ‘Soledad Melilla Santiago,’ the one in the middle barked at Sole.

  Not daring to say a word, Sole gripped the chair more tightly, as her belly began to contract intermittently.

  ‘No, I’m Sole,’ Teresa interjected.

  ‘Is that so? You’re Sole?’ the militiaman smirked. He took a step forwards, leaned his face down towards hers and brushed his lips against her ear. ‘Don’t you dare insult El Caudillo, you dirty little puta,’ he hissed. ‘You think we don’t do our homework, eh, before we come and round up the traitors of Spain? Think we don’t know who’s red, like your brother, and who’s blue, like us? Do you think we don’t know that bastard of a Republican brother of yours knocked up his wife? And that your husband, Teresa Morales Campos, is with the Resistance?’

  Teresa swallowed. ‘My husband died six months ago, señor.’

  ‘Are you sure about that, Tere? That your Tomeo’s been dead for six months?’

  She shivered. ‘Sí, señor.’

  The man nodded and straightened himself up, but kept his eyes trained on her. He tugged at his sleeves to adjust his jacket, then stepped back to join his colleagues. ‘Round up all three of them,’ he calmly instructed.

  Flask Walk, Hampstead, London, home of Emily Roy

  Saturday, 3 December 2016, 4.00 am

  THE PACKET OF GROUND COFFEE next to the box of English Breakfast tea. The jasmine green tea, on top of the plain green tea. Then the thyme honey. The jar of Demerara sugar. And the four boxes of Anna’s pepparkakor, one on top of the other.

  Aliénor Lindbergh breathed a deep sigh of relief. Everything was organised properly in Emily’s kitchen cupboard. She watched as the profiler put three mugs out on the worktop.

  Emily filled the stainless-steel basket with black tea leaves and put it back in the teapot. Then she poured a splash of milk into one of the mugs, forgetting again that Jack preferred to add it afterwards. One hand on the handle, she was waiting for the kettle to finish boiling. Next, the three of them would sit down at the table. The conversation would take a while to get going. Jack would be the one to say the first word. The first sentence. And she and Aliénor would listen as they drank their tea.

  Aliénor wondered whether her parents’ cellar had been reorganised while she had been away. Was the O’boy chocolate drink powder still in its place between the coffee and the peppermint tea? Had her mother arranged the books on the family shelves by colour, like she had always wanted, rather than by topic and then alphabetical order, the way they were when she left?

  That’s what she should be doing when she went back to Sweden. Before she saw her parents. Before she kissed them. And pressed her cheek against her sister’s. She should check that everything was in its place. The chocolate powder and the books. And the dogs’ baskets, in the cubbyhole at the back of the kitchen. Even though they’d been dead a while, the dogs.

  Aliénor tried to focus by running her fingers along the grooves of the vintage solid oak table. Seven months. Seven months since she had left her parents’ home. Seven months since she had started as an intern with the Metropolitan Police al
ongside Emily and Jack. Emily was training her to be a BIA like her. A Behavioural Investigative Adviser. Or, as most people would say, a profiler. Jack Pearce didn’t approve. But he didn’t know how to say no to Emily. Maybe because they were sleeping together.

  Emily had suspected Marty Partridge from the start. Her intuition had been right. She had solved the disappearance and murder of Jennifer Marsden in a matter of hours. While her own family – of sorts – was being torn apart.

  The packet of ground coffee next to the box of English breakfast tea. The jasmine green tea, on top of the plain green tea. Then the…

  Aliénor knew they wouldn’t let her kiss her parents, though. Or press her cheek against her sister’s. The three of them must be on the autopsy table right now. Or perhaps they were still in body bags? Were they naked or clothed? She had no idea.

  ‘Aliénor?’

  Emily’s voice. Her posture mirrored Jack’s, their hands cupped tightly around their mugs, which were no longer steaming. They were watching her. With a stern look in their eyes. Or concerned, perhaps. Yes, it was a look of concern. She recognised the crease above the nose, between the eyes.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Is nine in the morning all right?’ Emily repeated.

  ‘What are you talking about? I wasn’t listening.’

  ‘The flight at nine in the morning to go back to Falkenberg.’

  ‘Yes, that’s fine.’ Aliénor pressed her index finger into the groove in the wood. ‘Are you coming with me?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Of course I’m coming with you.’

  Falkenberg, Strandbaden Hotel

  Saturday, 3 December 2016, 12.00 pm

  ALEXIS CASTELLS FILLED HER GLASS, and her mother’s, with Christmas beer.

  ‘Mon Dieu, that saucisson is good! What’s it made with?’ Mado Castells asked, licking her lips as she wolfed down her third slice.

  ‘Are you sure you want to know, Maman?’

  ‘Listen, I used to make you fritters with sheep brains when you were little, and we eat rabbit, don’t we? So I’m not afraid of eating Bambi and friends. Go on, tell me what’s in there.’

  ‘Elk.’

  ‘Ha! I knew it, Madame Eklund.’

  In two weeks’ time, Alexis was going to become ‘Madame Stellan Eklund’, as her family liked to tease. Even though they were actually doing the opposite, with Stellan taking Alexis’s last name. That was all the rage in Sweden, apparently. Mr Stellan Castells was going to be a true poster boy for multiculturalism. Alexis’s father Norbert was over the moon that his son-in-law to be was embracing their family’s Catalan heritage to the point of carving it into his family tree.

  Mado polished off her plate and went back for seconds to the julbord, the traditional Christmas buffet Swedish restaurants served during the festive season.

  They had enjoyed their relaxing mum-and-daughter date that morning at the market in Halmstad, where they had sampled some local glögg, the traditional mulled wine sprinkled with raisins and slivered almonds. Mado had splashed out on lots of candles and Christmas decorations, gleefully anticipating her husband’s protests when the time came for them to pack their suitcases for the trip home. She figured they would have plenty of room, considering the kilos of Sassenage and Morbier cheese they had brought over from France for Alexis and her in-laws.

  ‘It’s actually quite a sweet little tradition, isn’t it?’ Mado conceded, dipping a chunk of sausage into a dollop of Västervik mustard. ‘A bit like Christmas tapas, don’t you think? I mean, it’s not as classy as the food chez nous, but it’s not bad, I suppose.’

  ‘Maman, can’t you give the poor Swedes a proper compliment for once? Don’t you think it’s a bit snobby to criticise their food all the time?’

  ‘Me, a snob? That’s a bit rich, isn’t it? I used to put up posters for the Communist party, I’ll have you know!’

  An icy gust of wind whipped the bay window. Mado flinched. The wind was toying with the sea, stirring up frothy waves that teetered their way in to the shore before crashing against the jetty.

  ‘You’re going to end up settling down here, I know it…’ Mado sounded like she was trying to come to terms with the tragedy of such a conclusion.

  Alexis stiffened. Keep calm, she told herself. ‘Maman … you know it’s easier for me to move to Sweden. I can write my books from anywhere. But Stellan’s business is so Scandinavian, it’d be impossible for him to work from London. The company he runs with Lena is here, not there, you know that.’ She stroked her mother’s face, and Mado nuzzled her cheek into her daughter’s palm.

  ‘I get that it’s more complicated for you to travel to Falkenberg,’ Alexis carried on, ‘but you have always said London was too sprawling and intimidating for you. Falkenberg is much more of a human-sized town.’

  Mado wriggled free of her daughter’s embrace. ‘Well, yes, I suppose it is, but still, it’s going to be a shock for you to go from a city of millions to a town of a few thousand people. It’d be one thing if you were moving to Stockholm … but Falkenberg? Good heavens! They might as well bury you alive. And you know I never have the chance to get used to you living somewhere before you pack up and move again!’

  ‘Oh, come on, Maman, give it a rest. I’ve been in London more than ten years!’

  Alexis’s patience was already wearing thin. Mentally, she was drumming her fingers on the table.

  ‘All right, then, spit it out. Tell me what’s really ruffling your feathers. Is there something about Stellan that’s bothering you?’

  ‘No, no, not at all, it’s not that,’ Mado mumbled into her plate.

  Alexis suddenly had the feeling the roles were reversed. Or maybe not. Surely mothers sometimes felt the need and were within their rights to seek reassurance from their grown children.

  ‘It’s the Scandinavian culture, Alexis. It’s … such a world away from our own. It’s … full of little quirks. It’s … They’re unemotional, indifferent, stuck up, almost, while we Mediterraneans, we’re spontaneous and expressive, if not a bit over the top. Every time I open my mouth, they jump out of their skin. As if I were some kind of alien! I know I’m larger than life, but they’re so lukewarm they make me want to slap them sometimes. Seriously, though, these people are bizarre. Take that cartoon with the duck, for instance, what do they call it?’

  ‘Donald.’

  ‘No, the name of the cartoon, not the character. What’s it called again?’

  ‘Kalle Anka.’

  ‘That’s the one. Every Christmas Eve, they show the same cartoon on TV at exactly the same time, and they’ve been doing that for the last fifty years or more! Seriously? Not to mention that dried-out bread they put on the table that you have to slather with butter and load up with cheese to give it half a chance of tasting like anything. It’s like eating a straw mat! Back home, we wouldn’t even feed that to the chickens. And what’s with their obsession about golf…? Well, it’s your choice, I suppose…’

  ‘Here I was, thinking you were enjoying yourself…’

  ‘Now, if you were to tell me you’re doing all this because you’re planning to start a family, then I’d understand, you know,’ her mother carried on, oblivious.

  There it was. Mado had finally spat it out. Now they were getting to the heart of the matter. Alexis was childless and fast approaching forty. For Mado Castells, nothing was worse than letting the sacrosanct uterus go fallow. If you asked her, women flourished and proved themselves through motherhood. Above all else, women were mothers. Mothers – and she-wolves too. So, ladies, show us your wombs, then bare your teeth!

  Alexis spread some butter on a piece of crisp knäckebröd, which promptly broke in her hand.

  ‘You see. What did I tell you? Just like straw, that stuff is!’

  ‘Oh come on, Maman! Don’t tell me you’re going to get on your high horse about the almighty French baguette now, are you?’

  ‘I don’t even have to,’ Mado argued, as she swept the crumbs of unleavened crispbread awa
y with the tips of her fingers.

  Alexis sighed. It was going to be a long afternoon. Like a day without bread, as her mother would say.

  El Palomar, Spain

  Tuesday, 21 December 1937, 10.30 pm

  THE SHORTEST OF THE THREE FALANGISTS, the thin one who had grabbed Paco by the wrist, shoved them into the back of the van. There were two bench seats, one facing the other, down the sides. He barked at Paco to sit on the right, and Sole and Teresa on the left. Then he slammed the rear doors shut and the van pulled away.

  Teresa wrapped an arm around Sole’s shoulders and placed a hand on her sister-in-law’s belly. She could feel her nephew rippling around like a little sardine, and caught Paco’s eye when she looked up. She wished she could snuggle up to her brother now, clasp his fingers in hers and give him a kiss for their mother. For herself too. And for the Yaya. He was the man of the family now. The only one left. Apart from the little one in Sole’s belly. Teresa was sure they had been blessed with a baby boy.

  Paco looked back at his sister with eyes full of resignation. Teresa tried to swallow her fears, but they lodged in her throat.

  The van slowed down and came to a halt. Teresa heard the front doors open and slam shut, then the dull thudding of boots on the ground. Slow, shuffling steps that kicked up the dust beneath their soles as they went. They were taking their time, as if they were enjoying the anticipation.

  Suddenly, Teresa felt a wetness spreading under her buttocks. Sole shot her a look of panic and started to tremble, right as the rear doors were flung open.

  ‘Outside! Now!’ one of the Falangists barked.

  Teresa helped Sole out of the van. Paco offered his arm for his wife to lean on, but the thin man shouted for him to keep his hands off her. Paco did what he was told and retreated behind Sole.

  ‘She’s pissed herself!’ the thin man cried, when he saw the big stain seeping through Sole’s dress.