hand. A little twitch in his eye was quite noticeable, likewise a slender scar above his lip.
‘Papa!’ said Miguel, his voice rich with contempt.
The son had his hand raised; for a ghastly moment it looked like he was actually going to clout José, to beat his own father. José flinched. Fermina cried out. Miguel’s black eyes flashed around the room; David saw the dark shape of a holster, under the terrorist’s leather jacket.
Fermina Garovillo was pushing her son away, but Miguel was shouting at his father, and at Amy and David, shouting in Basque, his words unintelligible – the only thing that was obvious was the ferocious anger. José shouted a few words in return – but weakly, unconvincingly.
And then Miguel shouted in English. At David. His deep angry voice vibrated in the air.
‘Get the ffffffuck out of here. You want the whore? Then take her. You take all this shit out of here. Go now.’
David backed away. ‘We’re going…We’re going…’
‘First time I hit you. Next time I shoot you.’
Amy and David turned and ran into the yard and jumped in the car.
But Miguel followed them outside the house. He had taken out his gun, he was holding a black pistol in the air. Holding it – as if to show them. David got the strange jarring sense of something inhuman about him: a giant. A violent jentilak of the forest displaying his strength and anger. The gun was so very black. Glinting in the watery sunlight.
David urgently reversed. He spiralled the wheel – and at last they turned, revving in the mud, and then they rocked down the track, skidding out onto the road.
For half an hour David drove fast and hard, into the green grey foothills, just driving to get away.
When the panic and shock had subsided, David felt a rising anger, and a need to stop and think.
He pulled over. They were halted at the edge of a village, with a timberyard on their left. The distant Pyrenees seemed a lot less pretty now; the pinetops of the forest were laced with an insistent and smothering mist. A church, surrounded by circular gravestones, sat on a hill above them.
Everything was damp, everything around them was faintly, ripely, perceptibly rotting away in the damp.
David cursed.
‘What. The. Fuck.’
Amy tilted her face, apologetically.
‘I know. I’m sorry.’
‘What?’
‘Sorry…’
‘It’s not your fault.’
‘But…’ She shook her head. ‘But it is. Maybe you should go home, David. Miguel is my problem.’
‘No. No way. This is my problem too.’
‘But I told you what he is like. Murderously jealous. He…really will…do something. He might even…’
‘Kill me?’
She winced.
David felt the surge of a rebel spirit.
‘Fuck him. I want to know the answers.’ He started the car and negotiated the road slowly for a few minutes. ‘I want to know it all. My grandfather wouldn’t have sent me here – sent me into all this – unless he had a reason. I want to know why.’
‘The map.’
‘Exactly. The map. You heard what José said, saw how he reacted – there is something – something –’
He was searching for a way to describe the complexity of puzzles; his next words were interrupted.
‘Don’t stop.’
‘What?’
‘Drive on.’
‘What?’
David felt the cold possibility constrict around his heart.
Amy confirmed.
‘Miguel. In the car. Right behind.
9
Her eyes were locked on the mirror. David copied her gaze.
‘Jesus.’ He squinted. ‘Are you sure? Is it the same one?’
‘Numberplate. It’s him.’
The road ahead was narrow, the fog was thickening as they climbed the mountainside.
‘But…’ David gripped the steering wheel tightly. ‘Was he there all along? Following?’
‘Who knows. Maybe he followed us. Or…’
‘What?’
‘He is ETA. This is real ETA territory.’
‘So…’
‘They watch the roads all the time. He has friends and contacts all over. Maybe someone made a phone call. We were just parked there by the village. What do we do?’
The fear was tangible. But David felt the rising defiance – again. He thought of his beloved mother and father: who left him alone. He thought of his loneliness: he’d had to fight his way through college, on his own, with just a distant grandfather in Phoenix. He had made it through all that shit, he had dealt with all that, so he wasn’t going to be frightened off, even by the most demonic of murdering terrorists. Not now. Not when he knew his grandfather’s mystery was linked to his own background, his own identity. This revelation of his Basqueness.
And he didn’t like being hunted.
‘Let’s lose this bastard.’
Pressing the throttle, he accelerated up the narrow, sharply curving road; the noise of the