The Andalucian Friend Read Free Page A

villas of Stocksund. She got lost in the maze of little roads that seemed actively to want to stop her reaching her destination, and ended up driving around in circles. It felt like she was driving up and down hills at random, until eventually she found the right road. She checked the house number and pulled up outside a small, yellow wooden villa with white detailing.
    She sat for a while behind the wheel, looking around. It was a quiet area, leafy, birch-trees about to flower. Gunilla got out of the car and the scent of bird cherry hit her. She did a full turn, looking at the neighboring houses. Then she looked at Sophie’s house. It was beautiful, smaller than its neighbors, and she got the impression that it was less tidy than the others. She turned around again, comparing them. No, Sophie Brinkmann’s house wasn’t untidy, it was normal. It was the neighboring houses that were odd: a sort of perfectionism — dull, soulless order. Sophie’s house again: more alive ; the woodwork hadn’t just been painted, the grass hadn’t just been cut, the gravel path hadn’t just been raked, the windows hadn’t just been cleaned.
    Gunilla took a few tentative steps through the gate and walked carefully up the gravel path. She peered in through the kitchen window facing the road. What she could see of the kitchen looked tasteful. Old and new styles in an attractive combination; lovely brass taps, an Aga stove, an old oak worktop. A ceiling lamp that was so lovely, so unusual and well-chosen, that for a moment Gunilla felt a pang of envy. She went on looking, her gaze settling on the cut flowers in a large vase in the hall window. She backed away and looked up. She could see another beautiful arrangement on one of the upstairs windowsills.
    In the car on the way back to the city her brain started working at high speed.

2
    Leszek Smialy felt like a dog, a dog with no master. He got anxious when he wasn’t close to his master. But Adalberto Guzman had told Leszek to go, had told him what to do. Leszek had gotten on the plane and landed a few hours later in Munich.
    He hadn’t left Guzman’s side for ten years, apart from one week every third month. His life was made up of three-month shifts, work followed by a week off. During those weeks he usually booked himself into a hotel, stayed in his room, and drank himself into a stupor, day and night alike. When he wasn’t too drunk or sleeping he would watch the television. He didn’t know any better. He just waited for the week to be over so he could get back to work again. Leszek never understood why Guzman insisted on making him take the time off.
    He had just concluded one such week. The first days back after his vacation he had been unfocused and shaky from the hangover, and had cured it with exercise and eating properly, and now he felt like he was on his way back up again.
    Leszek was sitting behind the wheel of a stolen Ford Focus in the fashionable town of Grünwald outside Munich. Large villas in big, enclosed gardens, not many signs of life anywhere.
    Guzman had given Leszek some photographs of Christian Hanke, twenty-five years old, good-looking, short dark hair. Also in the enlarged black-and-white photographs was his father, Ralph Hanke. Leszek thought they looked nice: successful smiles, tailored suits, and neat haircuts.
    He had been watching the young man through his binoculars but hadn’t been able to build up a clear picture of him, except that he came home at around eight o’clock in the evening, parking his BMW on the road outside the villa. He had female company, a housekeeper, and the light in his bedroom was on until two o’clock in the morning. Then, at half past seven the following morning, he walked from the front door down to the iron gate in the wall, crossed the road to his car, and drove off into Munich. That was all Leszek had to go on, that was what he had seen during twenty-four hours of surveillance.
    The car radio was playing southern German