THE FEAR OF THE DANCE (excerpt)

Alvaro Herce stared through the stern window of the Jetcat as it powered its way through the water to Uruguay. The few passengers on board were reading newspapers or taking a siesta. He leant on the rail before the window watching the churn of the wake and Buenos Aires fade from view. It would be good if he never saw the city again, he thought. What had happened in the last year was beyond belief. His sister, brother-in-law and niece were all dead. His wife and two children and what remained of the rest of his life were waiting for him on the other side of the river.

He needed to think clearly, and to some extent the spray upon the window and the trail of white water pointing back to the dock helped him do that, as the great urban mass receded behind the catamaran; that hive of intrigue that had been his home for all of his fifty-two years. He’d learnt at an early age the skills required to survive there; the art of the lie and the extraordinary ambition needed to keep going in a land of constant shocks.

He’d learnt not to be surprised and never disappointed by the treachery of those around him. He’d learnt to foster support in the right places and knew where to place his money and who to bribe. And that had made sense to him until now. The world worked that way. If there was nothing in it for the rest, then there was nothing in it for you. Success came at a price and you found the money to buy it any way you could.

But he was tired now. It had only taken one year for life to lose its meaning. It wasn’t that long ago that he’d crossed the river with a broad smile on his face. He’d bought ‘Los Abedules’, twenty kilometers along the coast from Colonia only two years before; three hundred hectares of gentle rolling hills. Green fields, where his three hundred head of Hereford cattle could grow fat. It was just the change he’d needed after twenty years as a banker. But now it meant nothing to him. Everything, save his family, meant nothing to him. He had to think clearly for them, to redirect his energy towards their life.