Sunday August 3 ^rd 2008
Today was a dead day. The shop was closed and Maria was nowhere to be seen. In frustration I drove to Palma to look at the other Mallorca Security shop.
If anything it looks a harder nut to crack. It sits in the shadow of Palma ’s cathedral or as it’s known ‘La Seo’; a building that had its foundation stone laid in 1229, was not finished until 1601 and was still undergoing alterations as late as 1904. I have known a few builders like that in my time.
The Mallorca Security building lies on the Paseo de Born — a street dominated by a central walkway. The store is wedged between a fashion boutique and a bank. I tried to get round to the rear but as far as I could tell there seems to be no back entrance.
The day was proving to be a washout and, even though I had only been on the island three days, I was getting nervous. My flight was on Friday and come hell or high water I had to be on it.
I retired to a cafe and was making my nerves worse with more coffee when I caught sight of a man walking down the centre of the street. Well dressed, he had a tall slim woman hanging from his arm.
It was really the woman who caught my attention. I’m sure in Spain six feet women, dressed to kill, are the norm but even so she was a stunner. What was more intriguing was that that I knew those legs well. I caught a glimpse of the man as he turned his head to say something to her. The coffee cup in my hand froze mid air. I knew him!
I jumped up, threw a pile of Euros on the table, sprinted across the road and onto the walkway. I dropped in behind the couple and followed them as they wandered across the road and up towards the cathedral.
The stairs up to the cathedral were busy with tourists coming and going and I had to sprint the last dozen or so as my quarry turned right and out of sight. I rounded the corner into a short street that led to a square that fronted the main entrance to the cathedral. The couple jumped into one of the many horse drawn buggies that queued up outside the entrance catching the tourist euro.
I assumed they would return at some point.
The man’s face played in my head. I knew it well. He was one of the two that I thought I had known from the photo back in Inca and I now knew who he was. As soon as I saw him with the long limbed beauty, two and two made four.
I had met him before and not in Spain.
On my wanderings from the hostel in Glasgow I often took a turn past a Spanish tapas bar that sat on Renfield Street. There was no way I could afford to eat there but the pair of legs that had just walked away from me in Palma, belonged to one of the waitresses in the tapas bar. It was the main reason I tortured myself with the smell of good food. I had nicknamed her Eleven — as in legs eleven — for lack of anything more imaginative.
After I moved in with Martin I discovered that the bar was one of his regular haunts. I asked if he knew Eleven. He said vaguely. That surprised me. You could hardly see those legs and vaguely remember them — not unless you were dead or not into women.
The man that I had just lost was a regular customer at the restaurant. Me in the rain, him sitting in the comfort of a dry restaurant sipping wine, chatting to Eleven and nibbling on plates of hot food. The other guy in the photo was his mate. What in the hell was Eleven doing here with one of them?
Martin is holding back. I can’t believe that he hasn’t seen the men in the restaurant.
I wandered for a few more hours but there was no sign of Eleven and her man. It was getting late and I gave in and drove back to Inca.
Another day gone.