Page 40 of His Worst Crime

Together they searched for the stud farm owner’s name: Simon Howard. So was David his missing son? David Howard. Though it was a common name, a quick Internet search came up with several photos of his Davey, among others, from a variety of social media sites. Among them were newspaper reports for the robbery and assault, showing photos of Davey, the younger Howard son, who was wanted to help the police with their inquiries. And it was his David, his blue-eyed Davey, staring out at him from the screen.

twenty-three

David stood at the crossing. Cars and trucks flashed by, bare yards away, the wind of their passing blowing exhaust in his face, but he didn’t move, either to step back or….

It had all gone to custard, as he’d known it would. So what had been the point? All he’d achieved was to hurt Ramon, and use him for his own… because he needed to… And it had worked. He’d had sex. Now he knew what that was all about. It had been fantastic, the feelings, the sensations… how Ramon had touched him, made him feel, used him in a way too… because Ramon had got his own agenda, sure he did. David hadn’t minded that, he’d liked it in fact, being used by Ramon, wished it could have gone on. So why was he feeling so terrible now? They’d both got what they wanted. Surely that was it; that was all there was. They’d each got what they came for, and he’d cut it off before it got too dangerous. He’d got away. Here was the living proof. Here he was, standing free… could go anywhere he wanted… free to start again. Andalusia would be the place. They had horses down there. He’d find somewhere, a small stud farm, somewhere out of the way.

So why was he standing at the on-ramp for cars going in the direction of Barcelona? He didn’t want to go back to that city. Too much chance of running into Ned again… or Ramon. He’d hurt Ramon so badly, he’d felt it. The guy had just clamped up, gone quiet. When David had split off, taken his leave, Ramon had barely nodded. The guy hadn’t even tried. If he’d maybe said “stay, don’t leave,” would David have listened to him? He was a criminal, running from his past, and Ramon was a cop. Where could that ever lead them? David would end up behind bars, and so would Ramon if he helped him. So the safest course of action, for them both, was for him to leave, get as far away as he could and forget all about this. Still, if Ramon had said “stay”, he would have. But he hadn’t. Why hadn’t he? So, he should leave, head south, not creep back into the jaws of the tiger, not travel back to Barcelona. A truck rumbled to a stop before him, and he ran toward the cab. The driver opened the passenger door, and David swung himself and his pack up into the cab—into a heady cloud of cognac fumes.

“Where you headed?”

“Barcelona.”

“I can take you as far as Reus.”

David nodded and settled back against the door, his pack between his legs. Ramon had not asked him to stay, so David would ask him why, and tell him everything else. Then, watching the lights of the freeway flick by, while the cars, beetle-like, jockeyed for position in the lanes below them, for the first time in months, Owen came to mind. He had some responsibility in all of this. It all had to come out in the end.

“What’s in Barcelona for you?”

The driver was older, heavyset, bald and unshaven. His Catalan sounded strange to David’s ears. Was it that he was from somewhere outside Barcelona, or the effect of whatever he was regularly slugging from the battered thermos between his legs? The truck barreled along the freeway, regularly veering across the lane divider into the next lane.

“I’m going back home. I was on holidays.”

“You live there? How long?”

David nodded. “Three months.”

“Your Catalan’s good. Only three months?”

“I studied it for a year before I came.”

The driver nodded and accelerated out of his lane to overtake another truck. David heard a car horn from behind, but the truck driver seemed not to notice.

“Hate Barcelona,” the driver said, as he swerved back into the slow lane. “Too big a city. I prefer Reus.”

“That’s your city?”

The driver nodded. “Born and bred. You know Gaudí?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“His home town.”

The driver took another swig from his flask. After that, he seemed to run out of conversation. David hoped they would reach Reus soon—and safely. Despite his fears, he dozed off.

“It’s failsafe. I’ve thought it all through, I promise you.”

Another of Owen’s assurances which, from long experience, Davey knew weren’t worth the paper they were written on. Not even as toilet paper.

“Failsafe? Doesn’t sound it. Owen, he’s our old man. You can’t be thinking of doing this.”

“He won’t know. He’s always asleep by ten. Don’t you want to go to university?”

“Not this bad.”

“You’ve got no mettle, Davey, no grit.”

“I don’t want grit. I want to work with the horses, and study for my diploma, so I can go to Barcelona one day and be understood. And then… yeah, maybe university.”