This post’s been brewing for the last few days because I’m not really sure what it’s about or where it’s going. I don’t think it’s got to the end yet, in fact I’m sure it hasn’t, so I’ll add to it as and when I can and date each update, as I have a few already.

Wednesday (11.01.23)

After I’d had a wander round Denia, about which I posted earlier today (link), I came back to the hotel for lunch. The dining room, despite being huge, was pretty busy and, unable to find a table to myself, I ended up sharing with a very nice woman from Ingatestone in Essex, who comes here often with her husband. He was off playing golf.

We chatted as we ate and I learned that she was seventy-nine and called Edith. Actually, I’ve changed her name for reasons that will become clear later.

She and her husband had lived in Ingatestone for the last fifteen years after he’d sold his business and they’d both retired. He used to import fruit and veg and the sale, as she explained smiling, had enabled them since to “live the good life”. She’d been a seamstress in a clothing factory and had been glad to leave it behind having developed arthritis after years bent over an industrial sewing machine. A wheeled walking frame sat beside our table.

Her husband, Ray (I’ve changed his name too), now indulged in his love of golf whenever he could and, while here, as Edith joked with a chesty smoker’s laugh, he spends more time “swinging his clubs than swinging with me”. When I’d asked if she minded being left alone all day she said she knew a few regulars, so was rarely without company, and winked as she pointed to a half drained bottle of wine on the table.

Friday (13.01.23)

I saw Edith a few times in the days that followed, usually alone, and we did small talk about the weather etc. Then, on Friday evening, I passed her table and she beckoned me over to meet Ray, who stood and shook my hand. I asked him if he’d had a good game today and, with a smile that revealed a set of impeccably white teeth and a single gold incisor, he said that it hadn’t been too bad, sat down again and got back to his steak. He seemed nice enough, if a little less keen to do small talk than Edith. There was nothing remarkable or unusual about this, he was a bloke after all. But then something odd happened on Saturday.

Saturday (14.01.23)

After I’d hired a bike and cycled along La Via Verda (link), I’d come back to the hotel and locked my bike up in a special room beside the hotel’s car park. Several guests are cyclists and it’s a popular place with the Lycra brigade, who pedal off in small groups around the local hills every day. I was worn out after my bumpy ride along the old railway line and had a snooze in my room during the afternoon. I had to get the bike back to the hire shop by 6.30, so went down to get it around 6.00.

As I emerged from the lock up with the bike I’d stopped to strap on my helmet and, as I fumbled with the clasp before heading off, I heard Ray’s voice across the car park. He was stood by the open door of an English registered white Mercedes and was talking to someone on the phone. I couldn’t make out much of what he was saying but from what I could hear it sounded like he wasn’t happy.

I didn’t think much of it and pedalled off across town. Then, near the marina, I spotted Ray’s car again, parked on a corner. He was stood with two other men and a woman. She wasn’t saying much and I couldn’t hear anything from where I was anyway, but the men seemed animated and there was lots of gesticulating. It looked like it might have been a continuation of the earlier phone call in the car park.

Again, I didn’t think much of it, assuming it was all about golf. The two other men looked like they might have been Spanish and there’s nothing unusual about gesticulating in Spain; they do it when they’re talking about anything. But as I got ready to pedal away, Ray was walking back to his car and I heard him shout “just get it fucking sorted – I’ll see you there every bloody day, as usual, and I’m not leaving until it’s done”.

That got my interest piqued and, later that evening, I began to wonder what I’d just witnessed. I didn’t have much to go on and couldn’t really go and ask Edith, so I Googled Ingatestone and found a headline on Essex Live: ‘Essex’s ten most expensive towns and roads: Ingatestone tops the list’ (link). It went on to say that Ingatestone has been named as the most valuable town in Essex, accompanied by the picture at the top of this post. It’s not a very good one because I lifted it from Essex Live, but it’s of a very expensive looking house with a long drive behind high steel gates. It probably doesn’t belong to Ray and Edith but it’s a small piece of a jigsaw for which I’m beginning to think that there might be a few more here in Denia.

I’ve decided that I’m going to find out where Ray goes “every bloody day”, although I’ve no idea how. But I’m beginning to think that it’s not the golf course.

Sunday (15.01.23)

I think I’ve worked out how to do it. I can’t keep up with a Mercedes, on foot or with a bike. And I’m not going to hire a car for something that’s possibly going nowhere.

It seems that Ray leaves every morning around 10.00. I know that he travels along the road that passes the marina and then on to another, Avenue Miguel Hernandez. I’m going to go there and watch his car for as far as I can see it go off into the distance and then go to that point the next morning, and do the same again the next day and so on. If I can keep it up long enough I might be able to work it out, even if he turns on to another road, because I’ll just go to that point the next day and keep advancing. It might not work but I think it’s worth a shot.

Tuesday (17.01.32)

I’ve done it and much sooner than I thought possible. Late yesterday afternoon, having followed his route as far as I could on Monday and again on Tuesday morning, I thought why not go back to the last point I lost track of him and wait there to see if I can spot where he comes back from, or at least as far as possible?

Not only did I see the point at which he came from, I saw the actual place from which he and his car emerged. It wasn’t the golf course but a run down looking place at the end of a track on the Avenue de Gandia. After I’d seen him drive away I walked up a bit of a hill to the side and took the picture below. There’s no way I’m going to actually go down there, so I’m not sure what I’ll do next. Why he goes there’s a complete mystery at the moment. There was nobody else there as far as I could tell and he left alone, although I suppose anyone who had been might have left before him. It’s a conundrum!

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Wednesday (18.01.23)

Last night I spotted Edith and Ray in the foyer. It’s always a busy time around 7.00pm because that’s when the dining room opens and there were people standing around chatting while they waited for the doors to open. A loose queue of groups had formed and I was a few behind Edith and Ray. Edith was chatting to another woman and Ray was just stood there waiting.

Given that I’d effectively been stalking Ray for the last few days I felt a bit uneasy about making contact and kept my distance. Then Ray’s phone rang. He answered, stepping back from Edith and to the side. At the same time the doors to the dining room opened, the queue began to move forward and, suddenly, Ray and I were stood next each other, although he had his back to me and he appeared to be ending his call. All I heard was “Ok. Los Olivillos. The captain knows. Tomorrow at 2.00. Be there”, and as he turned to go back to Edith we were suddenly face to face.

The gruff, commanding tone of his phone voice was gone: “Hello again! How are you enjoying your holiday? Enjoying the sights?” he said with a smile. Feeling like I was sporting a post it note on my forehead that read ‘stalker’ I managed a “Yes, lovely thanks. How about you?” There was a bit of to and fro small talk and I began to feel at ease until Ray suddenly came out with “Didn’t I see you up the Gandia Road the other day?” I fudged along, post it note now illuminated and flashing. I said that I’d just been exploring the area, photos of the sea, sunsets etc. “You know, the usual holiday stuff.”

Ray’s voice slipped back to gruff and with a fixed stare and liar’s smile he said he’d love to see them. I tried to nothing much them with a dismissive shrug and roll of the eyes. His fixed stare intensified and he issued a whispered command that felt more like a pre-attack growl: “Show me!”

I melted. There was no going back. Thoughts that I may soon die forced a complete surrender and I opened my phone which, of course, was at the blog page I’d updated the night before and of the picture of the place he’d been. He was calm, fixed stare back on me after a cursory glance at the picture. “Delete it now. Right now. I want to see you do it” I did. Then: “Ok. I don’t know what you’re up to but it stops now – understand me? Now. And if you tell Edith I’ll be very unhappy. Understood?” I nodded and he turned to walk away. “Whatever you think, it’s not that. You and me need to have a chat later. I’ll find you”, and off he went.

To cut to the chase I had a terrible night, door firmly locked, picture deleted on the blog (since restored), and a feeling that I was way out of my depth, falling helplessly into something I should never have touched.

By this morning I’d slept little but had salvaged a thread of hope. I’d nothing to go to the police with even if I wanted to. A picture of an old shack and a man called Ray with a gold tooth didn’t really amount to much but what about Los Olivillos? What was that? It could be a piece of the jigsaw from which a picture could emerge to pique police interest. Was it a ship? He’d mentioned a captain. I Googled it and it was. I found a website called Vessel Tracker and there it was, a Spanish-registered dredger (here’s the link). Was it down at the port? I couldn’t go down there at 2.00 where Ray had told whoever he was speaking to on the phone to be. Too risky. If I was to do it I’d have to go down this morning, so I did first thing and it was there, although now painted orange. I wandered around the port pretending to take tourist snaps and took a few of the ship.

Undecided about going to the police at this stage. I think I’ll wait and see what Ray wants to chat about. More later.

I was walking back from town this afternoon and, as Ray had said he would, he’d found me. He’d pulled up in his Merc: “I told you I’d tell you what was going on. Come on. Jump in and I’ll show you.” I hesitated. Then, almost pleading, he repeated himself. “Come on, won’t take long, and I’m sorry about the other night. It was a bit over the top but it has to be kept secret.” I leant down to his window: “So is that the secret – whatever came in on the Los Olivillos? Tell me what it is and I’ll come”. He grinned: “Yes, but it’s better that I show you. It’s not what you think.” Curiosity trumped fear. Perhaps I’d got things wrong. I got in.

We drove out towards Gandia, in silence at first. Then Ray turned down the radio: “Does anyone know where you are?” Then he burst out laughing as I looked his way, eyebrows raised and thinking of jumping out of a fast moving car. He slapped my thigh “Only kidding.” Ray had a sense of humour. Ten minutes more of cheesy old hits on the radio and we turned onto the track where the shack was.

“So this is all mine. What do you think?” It was a mess of a place and looked worst than what I’d seen from the hill. “It doesn’t really seem your style Ray. Needs a lot of work.” He got out of the car: “It needs a fucking bulldozer! It’s supposed to have been here every day since we got here two weeks ago. Every day I come here, every day it doesn’t.” I remembered him shouting to the two Spanish men and began to relax.

Ray walked behind the shack to a wooden crate the size of the Tardis. “This is what was on the Los Olivillos. Got stuck in Alicante and I got the dredger to ship it up. It’s the first part of a very big jigsaw. If the bulldozer ever gets here, then we start putting all the pieces together.”

He got a claw hammer from the boot of the Merc and started to prize out the nails from the crate. I’d expected bales of weed or clingfilm wrapped heroin but it was something very different. As he ripped off layers of plastic and polystyrene casing fell away I found myself staring at an enormous hydraulic affair and a big white upholstered seat. In its disassembled state it looked like it belonged in a hospital and then I realised. It was some sort of apparatus for lifting someone, like they have beside hydrotherapy pools.

I asked him what the rest of the jigsaw looked like and he fetched a big cardboard tube from the car from which he unfurled a roll of paper the size of a dining table. “It looks like this – it’s for Edith.” And there was an architect’s plan and a mocked up illustration of a fine white villa, wheelchair accessible, one level, self opening doors and a huge pool out front.

Pointing at the crate Ray stabbed a finger at a corner of the pool. “It goes right there. It’s the first part of the jigsaw and we build everything else around it. My Edith loves to swim.” White Merc Ray from Essex, with the gold tooth, unfortunate telephone manner and scarily mysterious ways had a tear in his eye.

I’d been right about a jigsaw but so wrong about Ray.

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Footnote

This started out as a bit of wheeze cooked up with a couple of friends before I came out here. We’d thought it might be fun to weave in a bit of an action thriller as a change to the usual ‘I did this, went here today’ kind of stuff.

I was going to string it along over a few days with cliff hangers, mystery and danger. But it fell at the first fence when my brother saw right through it (I’m actually glad that he did), identifying the image of Ray’s shack as having been lifted from the internet, hence Ray’s command that I remove it.

It then veered all over the place and, wheeze thwarted, turned into a contender for a Readers Digest cheesy short story award, all hope of a proper deceit abandoned, about which I was actually quite pleased in the end. I think it was Lincoln said something along the lines that nobody has a good enough memory to be a successful liar. He was right. – it’s tricky maintaining one and got too bloody complicated.