He didn't know what exactly happened after the woman’s car pulled up, but Pepelito sensed something had. With no humans tormenting him, he put his head down and drank his water while he still could. Chicero drank greedily from the trough beside his, until it was all finished. Another stood in the far corner, plus one where Castella’s minions had dumped a miserable amount of food.

They’d shout at them and hit them for needing it replenished so fast.

They'd do it for any reason they wanted.

Or no reason at all.

But even before whatever happened had happened, all had not been well with his torturer. Pepelito sensed that Castella needed to prove he was still the dominant one in the herd. The matador found his behaviour and recovered strength upsetting, threatening – he was scared. And he was ill. Maybe he'd eaten something bad. Weird chemicals permeated his sweat,  much stronger than the faint whiff Pepelito had smelt in the enclosure.

The moment he'd seen Castella, something had begun replacing his fear.

Once he had drunk enough, he gave Chicero an affectionate lick. What he was learning about the grey bull made him so sad, it hurt him.

Chicero was not from Spain. He was from Italy, born on a farm that bred a few fighting bulls for export to the Spanish market, alongside the usual beef and dairy cattle. The journey had been long and difficult, and not everyone had made it. He’d escaped the arena’s deadly cruelty, but the corridas he’d had no choice but to hear left him broken.

The day before he was arrested, Valero and the others had goaded two of the bulls trapped alongside Chicero into fighting each other. The loser was badly injured; they’d driven him into one of the dark cells by the ring. Chicero had heard everything that happened next.

Pepelito was overcome with protectiveness for his new friend, the way first Ladron, then Maribel had cared for him. He knew these people shouldn’t have done these things. They’d hurt him and his friends on purpose, and now, they’d killed a human he loved before his eyes.

They enjoyed causing this terrible pain. They did it because they liked it.

Pepelito stood beside Chicero, who was grateful for the loving contact. He sniffed the air. Something had definitely happened. The place was eerily quiet. None of Castella's thugs had come back to torment them; he hadn't even heard them – and he could smell blood.

Then he heard a car pull up in the drive in front of Castella's house. Chicero was trembling with fear, and Pepelito tried to reassure him despite his own anxiety. Two men got out and spoke in an unfamiliar language. Did he recognise them? He couldn't tell. They definitely weren’t friendly.

'Ah!' Castella's servant said obsequiously. 'Henry!'

****

Javier's choice of exteriors was too vulgar and flashy for a great artist like him, Henry thought with distaste as he got out of Lord Owenstoft's vintage Mercedes, George tailing on behind somewhere. Didn't he realise, these ostentatious fountains, Roman pillars by his door and gold statues of angels and lions, and all the Lamborghinis and limousines in the drive, just made him look like a drug dealer?

The servant said in almost unaccented English, 'I think Javier is preoccupied at the moment with a lady friend. Would you like to see the bulls?'

Henry’s relief was tinged with an irrational annoyance. He wanted his achievements recognised. This flunky was clearly a man who hadn't watched the news recently, or checked it as religiously as he now constantly did.

'I would love to,' Henry said, licking his lips at the prospect of the long-awaited corrida. Was that blood he could smell? Perhaps it was simply his imagination – Castella’s servant did not seem to notice. Henry and Lord Owenstoft followed the man onto Javier's terrace, then past his infinity pool, tennis courts and luxurious lawn. One side of the lawn had a gate to a wooded path with longer grass on either side, leading to the pen and bullring.

Pepelito and Chicero were standing together in the corner of the pen furthest from them. Chicero was trying to eat a single straggly plant. No grass could be seen anywhere in this patch. Henry was pleased. At the mercy of Man, they couldn't just eat whenever they wanted.

'Let’s open the gate for a little danger,' Lord Owenstoft said. A trough of water stood next to the gate, and Chicero approached to drink as they both entered the pen. Feeling like an Eton schoolboy again, Henry gleefully kicked the container off its stand as the bull trudged towards it.

'Nothing like displaying to the beasts that this is man's dominion,' Lord Owenstoft laughed as the water splashed to the ground. Henry smiled at his friend's words as Chicero gave them a miserable stare.

'Indeed, and always will be.'

‘Aha! A swift exit is required here, Dixon!’

Henry saw what the fellow aristocrat meant. Pepelito was prowling forward, staring at them hatefully and flicking his tail. He stepped in front of Chicero as if to shield him, lowered his horns and kicked up dust, drawing himself up to look bigger the way they all did, until they couldn’t.

Now Pepelito had almost fully recovered, Henry didn't want those horns anywhere near his sensitive regions. The way he was being glared at was unnerving him, although the fence was a robust construction. Shutting the gate behind him, Henry noticed the scars on Pepelito's back. He wouldn't have understood his part in the drama. He’d have been in so much pain.

Rita would be in pain soon, too.

God it was making him hard.

'Would you gentlemen like some refreshments?' Castella's servant asked, startling him from his fantasy.

'Yes, of course.’ Henry stepped back from the fence. Pepelito stood in the centre of the pen, chewing a mouthful of feed. As Chicero nuzzled him gently, the black bull watched the men, refusing to go near them.

Henry wanted to punch them.

'I'll join you in a while,' Rupert said.

Henry followed the servant past the long, luscious lawn, the tennis courts, the pool and sprinklers to Castella's terrace, where an imposing statue of the man himself crowned a magnificent fountain. Vulgar and vain, but he’d have to make inquiries; a similar statue of a great torero, Juan Belmonte perhaps, could grace the club’s headquarters, or Henry’s own drawing room. The man disappeared, returning shortly afterwards to present him with a bottle of Cava.

Yes. He could smell blood.

He wasn't imagining things.

Clearly, the help hadn't noticed, or knew better than to look.

As the attendant went inside the kitchen, using a servant's side entrance, Henry waited until he was out of sight. Then he entered through Castella's back door, strolling past the stuffed Miura bull from Javier’s extraordinary Bogota performance. Henry remembered that day well. It wasn’t every day one could see six bullfights in a weekend!

And in a country with such high crime rates, he'd let himself relax as far as forensics went, the authorities fighting a losing battle against the powerful cartels. Those he took out were troublemakers. All things considered, he’d done the police a good turn.

Henry's eyes settled on the dark footprints leading from the stairs out of the front door. Silently he followed them, taking care not to step in any blood himself, a Herculean task Javier’s multitude of mirrors made easier. Once on the landing, he followed the trail into the master bedroom and sharply took in his breath. This was unexpected. He'd imagined a dead prostitute.

The gory profanity daubed on the mirror was in English. As realisation of the likely culprit dawned, Henry smiled in spite of the shocking scene in the bedroom. Javier was a giant among men, who had completely redefined toreo with his exquisite veronicas. The editors of La Salida would no doubt pen a fitting tribute in next month’s edition. But he did have to admire the handiwork before him.

Hell really did have no fury.

Without a word he tiptoed back down the stairs and into the garden. He calmly finished his glass and poured himself another one, hoping no servants would check upstairs until he had left. He considered turning on his burner phone and asking Eloise grouse shooting on her own. He decided against risking his whereabouts; besides, if crossed, she was a touch too formidable. Glass in hand, he got up and strolled the several hundred metres back to the enclosure, not wishing to be seen by the police when they inevitably showed up here.

The police.

Rita would surely come here, backup or not.

A few employees from Castella's business ventures had pulled up on the dirt track by his private bullring. Henry hoped none of them would recognise him; there was no honour among thieves!

One of them had got in the pen. Chicero was chasing him. At the last minute the man dodged out the way. Unable to stop his momentum, the bull skidded and tripped over the dry, grassless soil. He staggered to his feet, grunting. Pepelito, who was stubbornly avoiding any interaction with his tormentors, nudged Chicero away from the man and imposed himself between the two, menacing and defiant.

Henry's chest tightened. His fists clenched.

How he hated that bull.

Suddenly, he saw himself in Belmonte’s costume, plunging a sword into Pepelito’s back to the sound of Rita’s horrified screams.

Like many committed aficionados, Henry had attended that two-month course in Mexico. He knew how to dispatch his own bull, on his own terms; he could avoid danger once enough punishment had been inflicted.

'Can I have a word?' he said to Lord Owenstoft, wanting to avoid others overhearing.

'What is it, old chap?'

'Javier's unwell, flu or something. And I need to leave Spain shortly. I cannot possibly stay here,' Henry said, thinking back to their conversation in the car, where he'd told him everything and nothing at once.

'I understand. What a pity about Javier. I wish him better. Am I to understand from that, that the corrida won’t take place?’ Lord Owenstoft said, his voice concerned.

Henry shook his head, making a sympathetic noise. Lord Owenstoft gave him the same wounded look of disappointment as when Henry denied being a serial killer.

Henry smiled, speaking in an undertone. 'Oh Rupert, but we're more than familiar with the art of the Spanish bullfight, are we not?'

The other aristocrat nodded.

‘Current circumstances, of course, present an obstacle, but the Taurine Club is no stranger to those. Recall that performance in Scotland with the American chaps and those particularly fine Highland cattle.’ A smile crossed his lips, thinking of what Caroline McKenzie, the fierce Scottish patriot and passionate animal lover, would have said had she known Henry and other ‘Wastemonster Tories’ had held a bullfight there, with her beloved ‘coos’.

'Yes. Such a pity we had to be so secretive, the blasted Cruelty to Animals Act has much to answer for,' Lord Owenstoft spat. But secrecy aside, Henry was safer at home. Just a few months ago he had attended a garden party with the King. The prospect of staying at His Majesty’s Pleasure seemed distant and unthinkable. The police wouldn’t guess his whereabouts; Scotland Yard’s finest didn’t know of his cellar. Legally, it didn’t even belong to him.

It wouldn’t happen.

It couldn’t happen.

Not to someone like him.

'It certainly does,' Henry said. 'But, one way or another, we’re taking these damned beasts to England to hold our own corrida. With real Spanish fighting bulls, not some worthless imitations.'

All they had to do, with the help of Castella's team, was round them up.

Then he'd wait for Rita.

AN: oh nooooo...but I hope it worked Pep sensing Castella was just a coward and losing some of his fear 🖤🐃
Picture by @vegan_frank on Insta and new cover by @nishapsons :)