Read Lime's Photograph for Free Online

she was from the security …?”
    “Security police. Intelligence service. She rang my mobile. She’sstaying over there.” I pointed at the Hotel Victoria, the lovely old bullfighter’s hotel, looking like a sedate white ship in the streetlights at the far side of the plaza.
    “What does she want?”
    I shook my head and pulled my arm away, took out a cigarette and lit it.
    “I don’t know. I haven’t got a clue what it can be about,” I said.
    “She said she’d ring again.”
    “I’ll talk to her.”
    “Are you hungry?” asked Amelia. “Shall we go out? Have a few tapas?”
    “I’m not particularly hungry. I’d rather eat at home. Let’s give the kids ten more minutes.”
    We put our arms round one another and talked like good married couples do, about everything and nothing. Amelia was a teacher at a special school for children with learning difficulties. She was very poorly paid and in any case didn’t actually need to work, but she wouldn’t have given it up even if they stopped paying her altogether. She was the kind of person who got great satisfaction from even the smallest step forward. She told me about one of the children who could now spell his way through a comic. He was 15 and there was no real hope of improvement, but it was enough for Amelia that three years of work had enabled him to read a speech bubble. I wouldn’t have lasted an hour in her job, but I enjoyed listening to her, feeling myself gradually relax.
    A woman of about 40 approached our bench. She was wearing a blue skirt which came to just above the knee, with a matching blue jacket over a white blouse. She wore red lipstick and a trace of eyeliner. Her hair was combed back, making her look slightly prim and severe, but her blue eyes were friendly.
    “Peter Lime?” she said.
    She said my name the Danish way. Amelia sat up straight. She seldom heard my name pronounced like that.
    “Clara Hoffmann,” the woman said, and held out her hand as Danes do. I stood up and shook her hand. It was dry and slender, but her fingers were strong.
    “My wife,” I said in English. “Amelia, this is Clara Hoffmann. From Copenhagen.”
    The two women shook hands and took the measure of one another.
    “We’ve spoken on the phone,” said Clara Hoffmann.
    “I didn’t catch your name at the time,” said Amelia in her slow, but correct English. “We Spaniards aren’t very good with names beginning with h.”
    “Please excuse me intruding like this,” the woman said. Her voice was light and young; it didn’t seem to match her age. “I was going for a walk, it’s such a lovely evening, and I saw your husband sitting on the bench …”
    “How did you know it was me?” I said.
    “I’ve seen a few photographs of you. True, they were taken when you were younger, but I could tell it was you.”
    Amelia looked from her to me.
    “Why don’t you go over to the Alemana while I get the children in, then you can speak in Danish?”
    Clever move. Get it over with, and then I could go home for supper. It’s always easier to get rid of someone once you’ve bought them a drink. But Amelia was also being friendly. It was natural for her to think that maybe we would like to speak Danish together. Amelia got terribly tired if she had to speak English, even for a very short time. She was a homebody who was reluctant to leave Madrid, unless it was to go to our holiday cottage in the green mountains of the Basque Country.
    “OK,” I said, and kissed my wife again. She looked a bit taken aback.She didn’t like that kind of show of affection in front of a woman she didn’t know, but at the same time she was probably glad that I displayed my love openly. Amelia took my holdall. It wasn’t very heavy. She knew that I never let go of my camera bag.
    “This way,” I said in Danish, and led Clara Hoffmann towards the Cervezeria Alemana on the other side of the plaza. She was wearing sensible shoes and only reached my shoulder. She smelled of a