The Dark Circus by Ana Ballabriga & David Zaplana

Author:Ana Ballabriga & David Zaplana [Ballabriga, Ana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781503951792
Publisher: Amazon Crossing
Published: 2018-01-29T22:00:00+00:00

28

The convent of the barefoot Carmelites stood in the center of Caravaca in the pedestrian zone halfway along Calle Mayor. Elías found parking and took a moment to duck into a clothing shop, where he bought a knit cap and a poncho. He locked his fedora and trench coat in the trunk of the car, put on a backpack, and covered it with the poncho. As he walked up the hill, he checked trash cans until he found a cardboard box. He smeared his face with dirt from a flower pot, flattened out the box, and squatted in a vaulted doorway. Covered by the poncho and squatting on the cardboard, he looked like a beggar. He was desperately uncomfortable, but he had a perfect view of the convent entrance. His uncle had said the matter would be settled that very night, and Elías needed to know how this story was going to turn out.

He checked his watch: nine o’clock. He huddled shivering in his poncho, fighting the urge to fall asleep. He watched the empty street and looked up at the archway that sheltered him. He pretended he was in a cave, one of many in the region where Moorish ghosts guarded their riches and Christian slaves bewailed their fate. This had been a land of mercenaries, a country where battles and epidemics laid waste to the harvests, a frontier where the kings of Castile allied with the Knights Templar and the Order of Santiago to battle the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada. Both Moors and Christians fought to defend their legacies and preserve their ways of life.

Elías had been just a child when history had come alive for him. Their mother had taken them to a children’s play at the Roman amphitheater. Elías had been spellbound by the play and the site, and from that day on, he’d been caught up in the thrilling world of the Romans, the Carthaginians, the Barbary pirates, and the rebels of the region. Before long, he’d become curious about national and then world history. That enthusiasm for the past had led him to study art history, and art appreciation had become his route to truth. He was, above all, a devotee of aesthetics. That was his choice. Chance and circumstance had impressed upon him every other aspect of his identity: faithful Catholic, son, nephew, husband, and detective.

Thirty minutes after his arrival, a black car rolled up the main street and stopped, despite the signs marking the pedestrians-only zone. Two hulking men got out. They wore black suits and matching leather overcoats.

Shit, he thought, Midas’s men. They must have followed him; he hadn’t been careful enough.

He recognized one from the confrontation in Madrid. Elías pulled his poncho up around his face and prayed they wouldn’t notice him. The two thugs knocked at the entrance to the convent.

What are they up to? How did they know I was here to investigate the sisters?

They waited a moment and then started knocking again, hammering on the heavy wooden door and holding down the buzzer.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.