Chapter 47 “It’s Not What It Looks Like”
“It’s Not What It Looks Like”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Exactly what I said,” Roberto said patiently. “Varatorta’s got a secret.”
“We’ve all got secrets,” Ibaibarriaga snapped. “What’s so important about this one right now?”
“It could decide whether we live or die.”
“Go on.”
“He lied about why he took so long to come back. I realized as soon as he said there was no one else on the beach.”
“Bullshit!” Ibaibarriaga said, but a few worried creases appeared on his forehead. “Varatorta’s like family. He’d never lie to me.”
“Think about it,” Roberto insisted. “Do you really think those Colombians could have made it to the island in a speedboat on their own, in the middle of that storm? Ons is hardly easy to get to, especially in those conditions. They’d have needed a local skipper, someone who knows these waters.”
Ibaibarriaga’s brow grew even more furrowed. “That’s true,” he muttered, more to himself than to Roberto. “But . . . why would he lie to me?”
“Isn’t it obvious? He’s planning something.
If you ask me, I think he’s done a deal with the Colombians.
They’re his chance to get his hands on the money.
Your money. As soon as they get here, he’ll go and throw open the door to them, and we’ll all be screwed.
They’ll kill us all. Those people don’t leave witnesses. ”
“Surely not . . .” Ibaibarriaga shook his head in disbelief. “He’s one of our own. I’ve been living with him under this roof for three years. I know him . . .”
“How well do you really know him? Do you know anything about him, apart from day-to-day stuff at the lighthouse? The things he likes doing, his past? His ambitions in life? You don’t know what goes on inside his head.
Really, you know next to nothing about Varatorta, apart from what he wants to show you . . .”
The shadow of doubt, a horrible, gripping doubt, was spreading in Ibaibarriaga’s heart. His expression went from one of doubt to one of confusion and from there, in quick succession, to one of anger.
“For all I know,” Roberto said in a low voice, “he could be at the front door right now, about to let them in. Given the deal I suspect he’s done with them .
. . Why do you think it took him so long to come back?
Varatorta isn’t what he seems. You have to act, álvaro, or your money’s going to be gone. ”
A dense silence descended, accentuated, if anything, by the crackling of a log in the fireplace. Then Ibaibarriaga slammed a fist down on the table, making the crockery jump.
“There’s only one way to get to the bottom of this,” he growled. “And if it turns out to be another one of your games, I’ll sling the two of you straight out the door, and you can fill in the Colombians.”
In a fury, he jumped up and ran out of the kitchen to find Varatorta.
“Hurry!” Roberto urged Antía. “Let’s go after him!”
Ibaibarriaga hurtled down the hall, moving surprisingly quickly for a man of his size. Reaching Pazos’s room, he stopped dead in the doorway, confounded by the scene that presented itself.
Sitting at the foot of the bed, next to the unconscious body of Borja Pazos, Varatorta had opened out a cloth roll containing an array of scalpels, a small saw, and a number of long copper nails.
He looked up at the intruder in surprise, which quickly turned to annoyance.
Ibaibarriaga looked from Varatorta’s sinister set of instruments to his face.
“What the hell’s going on?” Ibaibarriaga cried. “What’s all that?”
Varatorta’s only answer was another of his freakish smiles. Then, at lightning speed, he grabbed one of the scalpels and leaped at Ibaibarriaga.
But Ibaibarriaga was not an easy man to knock down.
When Varatorta crashed into him, the big man wrapped his huge arms around him, and the pair whirled like an enjoined spinning top in the small space of the room.
They fell into the table in the corner, sending the record player and computer flying.
With grunts and flailing fists, the two men were locked in what would clearly be a fight to the death.
Varatorta brought his elbow down on the nose of Ibaibarriaga, who let out a howl as blood cascaded from it.
With a roar, he returned the favor with a brutal headbutt to his opponent’s forehead.
A watery crack sounded, and as Varatorta staggered back, sight swimming, Ibaibarriaga took full advantage, going after Varatorta, getting him by the throat and, arms locked, beginning to throttle him.
The pair fell to the ground, kicking and struggling, but Ibaibarriaga kept up the stranglehold, progressively squeezing tighter and tighter.
Varatorta’s thrashing soon grew weaker as he ran out of oxygen. His wild eyes spun, and for a second, they focused on Roberto and Antía watching in the doorway. He stretched out one of his hands to them, in a final, pleading gesture.
Antía tried to go in, but Roberto held her back.
“No,” he said. “He deserves it.”
“But . . .”
“Leave him.”
As Varatorta’s gaze clouded over, a final glimmer of understanding and rage shone through, before disappearing altogether as Ibaibarriaga gave a last, brutal squeeze, bringing a dull crack. Varatorta’s legs kicked for a couple of seconds, and, finally, he was still.
For a moment there was absolute silence in the room, a second frozen in time.
“Goddamn . . . goddamn bastard.” Ibaibarriaga, panting, lifted himself to standing. “He . . . he tried to kill me. You saw! Oh, fuck!”
The big man doubled over in pain. His gaze came to rest on the handle of Varatorta’s scalpel, which was protruding from his groin. A bright red bloodstain was rapidly growing around it.
“Shit,” he muttered, his voice gummy. “Now I’m really screwed.”
And just at that moment, two gunshots echoed from the esplanade outside the lighthouse.
Osvaldo Salazar and his men had arrived.