‘Let’s go,’ hissed the older woman. ‘If Gabe’s not coming—’
She never finished her sentence. There was a split second when all the air in the room seemed to expand, then a white flash followed by a deep sickening boom that Grace felt in her chest. She was thrown into the steps, her arms still around the twins. She was dimly aware that she was covered in tiny pieces of wood and glass and that Olivia was lying on top of her screaming, but the noise seemed to retreat around her as if she was underwater. She pulled Joseph to her; he was bleeding from his forehead and shaking violently. Then, in a rush, the noise came back and everywhere was shouting and running footsteps and the crackle of flames.
‘Grace! Are you all right?’ For a moment, Grace didn’t recognise Gabriel and drew the children closer to her. ‘It’s OK, baby, it’s me, it’s me,’ he said soothingly, pulling her up and sitting her on the marble steps.
Unable to reply, she looked down and was horrified to see that her arms and legs had been lacerated by glass from the shattered windows. The huge double front doors had been blown clean off their hinges; beyond that, all she could see was thick billowing smoke that had engulfed El Esperanza’s courtyard.
‘Oh my God, Caro . . .’ She staggered to her feet and ran to the door.
‘Grace, don’t go out there!’ shouted Gabriel, his arms tight aro
und the children. She ignored him and ran out into the bright courtyard. A hundred feet in front of her, Gabriel’s car was now a ball of twisted metal and flame. She shielded her face from the intense heat.
‘Caro!’ she screamed. ‘CARO!’ Then she sank to her knees, sobbing, knowing that there was nothing she could do to save her friend.
Gabriel grabbed her and pulled her back from the burning car. ‘Don’t look, don’t look,’ he whispered.
Grace couldn’t breathe, couldn’t take it in. She should have been in that car. They all should: her, Gabriel, the twins. They should be dead, not her friend, not Caro.
‘Oh God,’ she said, turning her bloody, tear-marked face towards Gabriel. ‘What have we done? What have we done?’
33
According to the police, it had only been a matter of time before a car bomb took out a senior member of CARP. It was a popular method of murder in Parador. During the troubles in the seventies, not a week had gone by without a judge or politician being eliminated in this way, and twenty years later it was the chosen assassination method of the drug cartels. The fact that it had happened within the grounds of El Esperanza, where they spent hundreds of thousands of US dollars on security, had shaken the entire family to the core – not just for the questions it raised about their own safety but for the future of democracy in Parador. If their enemies could reach right into the heart of their organisation, they could get to anyone, anyone at all.
In the days that followed Caro’s murder, Grace had walked around like a ghost. With security breached and El Esperanza badly damaged, she had taken the children to their house high in the hills, where they had been under twenty-four-hour armed guard. She played with the twins, she dressed her wounds and she tried her best not to fall apart. Despite Gabe’s appeal that she carry on and help him provide a united front in the run-up to the elections, she could barely bring herself to get out of bed in the morning. Racked with guilt, she played endless games of ‘if only’: if only Caro hadn’t come to Parador, if only Grace hadn’t asked her to work at El Esperanza, if only she hadn’t asked her to pick up that sculpture. If only. You could drive yourself mad with that game.
There was no body to take back to New Zealand, but Caro’s family were holding a memorial service in their home town. Grace had been surprised when Gabe had insisted they all go and take the family jet, although no opportunity was wasted: a CNN film crew was at the airport to see them off.
Caro’s family lived in a small town forty miles from Christchurch airport, where the rich green rolling countryside reminded Grace of rural Oxfordshire on a particularly lush hot summer’s day. It was a beautiful part of the world and Grace wondered why Caro had spent half her life running away from it; then again, Grace knew about the desire to run away from a life that, on the face of it, seemed perfect.
They drove straight to the church, a white clapboard jewel on the outskirts of the village, a for the small and discreet service, followed by a wake at Caro’s parents’ farmhouse. Isabella’s PA had checked them into a luxury lodge a short drive away from the church, where they were to stay the night before returning to Parador. Gabriel immediately went out on to the balcony with the telephone and began talking intensely, so Grace unpacked their few belongings and put the twins to sleep in the two travel cots. There were still a couple of daylight hours left, and in the distance she could see a river glistening silver, so she knocked on the adjoining suite and asked if Isabella could sit with the twins while she got some fresh air.
Although it was February, it was New Zealand’s summer. The air smelt crisp and full of promise and new life. Grace grimaced at the irony of it. She walked away from the lodge across an emerald meadow and sat on a bench on the river’s edge. She had eaten very little all day, but still she felt nauseous. In the church, she had not been able to shake off a terrible sense of shame; it was like some physical weight pressing down on her. If only.
Hearing footsteps behind her, she turned. Gabriel had changed out of his sombre funeral suit into jeans and a blue shirt that made his skin look more olive and golden.
‘We have dinner reservations at seven thirty,’ he said. ‘Apparently the restaurant at the lodge is excellent. We need to be refreshed for the flight home, anyway.’
‘I’m not hungry,’ said Grace, looking away.
‘Why not?’
‘Why not?’ she snapped. ‘We’ve just been to my best friend’s funeral, that’s why not. The funeral of a friend who was murdered at our house – with a car bomb meant for us. Is that enough?’
‘She was unlucky,’ said Gabriel quietly.
‘Unlucky?’ Grace hissed. ‘Gabriel, she’s dead. Dead. She died and we lived, don’t you feel bad about that?’
He looked at the ground but didn’t speak.
‘I have to ask you something, Gabe,’ she said suddenly. ‘Have you been dealing with the cartels?’
He shrugged, his eyes still on the floor. ‘You know I’ve met them.’
‘Yes, but what I’m asking is did you accept money from them?’
His cheeks flushed. ‘What? Of course not!’