“Or how they vanished from the apartment,” I said. “Don’t forget, the big mystery here is how they got out through the main entrance when there’s no sign of them on the CCTV footage from either the local stores or the forty-three traffic cameras covering the area. Here is an aerial photograph of the Medieval Quarter,” I said, putting a Google Earth image on the projector. “Crime scene one, where the girls were abducted, is on the same block as crime scene two, where they were found. Look closely and you’ll see that both buildings have a skylight. Perhaps the kidnapper took them across the roofs to avoid being caught on camera. I want you to contact the construction company hired for the La Cuchillería job and ask for a list of employees who have worked on the apartment. Find out if the company does any construction on tall buildings. We can’t rule out a sexual motive just because the girls weren’t assaulted, so do a background check on the employees who have experience using harnesses. Have any of them been reported for harassment or sexual violence? It’s possible the culprit intended to rape them in the apartment, but things got out of hand, maybe they screamed or fought. There were two of them, after all. He may not have intended to kill them. Walling them in may have been an afterthought. And we can’t get too caught up in the case’s similarities to the novel. We need to focus on the physical evidence: the plastic bags, for instance. What can you tell us about them, Doctor Muguruza?”
“There’s no evidence that the bags were dragged across a roof, but the girls were certainly put inside them. We’re cross-checking other bags found at the site; interestingly, these two are different. They’re white with a red stripe at the base, but there are no other identifying features from a manufacturer or a sales outlet.”
“Milán, Peña, I want you to check with all the companies that supply materials to DIY stores and construction firms,” said Estíbaliz. “Anything you find, send to forensics so they can run a cross-check. Someone had to make them, and someone had to sell them.”
* * *
—
Two days later, I got an unexpected message: Send me all the info. But this is the last time you involve me in your work.
MatuSalem. He’d backed down. Within minutes I had e-mailed him everything he needed. The case was stalling, and I knew we had to make progress somehow.
Twenty-four hours later, he got back to me: I know who sent it. This evening at 7:00 in the New Cathedral crypt.
I was feeling optimistic, so I was as punctual as a suitor on his first date. I descended the deserted steps to the crypt and scanned the polished pews for my contact. He hadn’t arrived yet.
I paced restlessly between the bare altar and some bouquets of wilted flowers nearby. They smelled faintly of death. Dead flowers always reminded me of funeral wreaths.
Time passed. My phone remained stubbornly silent. Finally it began to buzz, and I half expected to hear Matu apologizing, even though that wasn’t his style. But it was Estíbaliz. Since I was alone, and there was nobody to chastise me for taking a call in a place of worship, I answered.
“What’s the matter, Estí?”
“Bad news, Kraken. A boy’s been found.”
“A boy?”
“Yes, in the River Zadorra, near Gamarra,” she said. “He’s inside a barrel that someone threw into the water. But that’s not the weird part: the barrel also contained a snake, a dog, a cat, and a rooster. What the hell is going on?”
“Dammit, you haven’t read the novel yet. What the hell are you doing every night? I told you it was a priority.”
“Are you listening?” she shouted. “I’m telling you a child has been drowned in a river, in a barrel with four animals, and you say I should read a book.”
“Yes, Estíbaliz! Yes! If you’d read the novel, you’d know that this boy is the victim of a medieval punishment called poena cullei—‘penalty of the sack.’ ”
18
THE COUNT’S CHAMBER
DIAGO VELA
Winter, the Year of Our Lord 1192
“He’s burning up, and the fever shows no signs of weakening. The wound on his side is festering. I doubt he’ll survive. They say it is the Vela’s fate to die young,” the elderly physician whispered to a woman holding a candle who was peering down at me.
I awoke in my bed, dazed, with a searing pain in my back.
Onneca waited for the physician to leave, then sat on the bed we had often shared in happier circumstances.
My chamber was large and the fire in the hearth kept the stone walls warm. But when I looked into her eyes, I found coldness.
“We were together in the old mill, you had every opportunity to tell me and yet you said nothing about my father having been murdered.”
She was reproaching me. She sounded angry and hurt.
“They were suspicions, nothing more,” I managed to say, even though I could barely speak and knew I was on the verge of delirium. “I was on my way to La Romana Inn to make inquiries when I bumped into you.”
“There was a time when we shared everything, even our suspicions. Especially our suspicions.”
“We were betrothed then, nothing stood in our way. You are my sister-in-law now, and Nagorno will always come between us.”
Onneca rose and pummeled the wall with her fist.
“I’ve had no word from my sisters since Father died. I wrote to inform them of his death, hoping they might leave their immurement, but they didn’t attend his funeral. I am alone, Diago. Without my sisters, and without you. I have no one.”
Just as I was mustering the strength to respond, Nagorno walked in.
It was hard to tell how long he had been eavesdropping. He was as stealthy as a reptile.
“How determined you are that I should become Count Vela, Brother,” he offered as a greeting. “Are you planning to face many more attempts on your life?”
I closed my eyes, too weak to give a worthy rejoinder.
“Leave us alone, dear wife, this is no place for you,” he ordered Onneca.
Onneca rose to her feet again. She was taller than my brother, and one of the few women who did not submit to him when he raised his voice.
“On the contrary, I’m staying. Your brother has a lot of explaining to do. What’s this about my father being poisoned, Diago?” Onneca drew closer, holding my gaze.
I was incapable of sitting up. My body was burning with fever and my head was spinning as if I were on one of Gunnarr’s ships.
“I recognized the signs as soon as I saw the body. I know it was a sacrilege, but I hope you will forgive me. I cut him open and rubbed the skin of a rabbit against his viscera. The beast’s skin immediately blistered. Your father was killed with two pinches of Spanish fly. He was butchered.”
Nagorno cast Onneca a sidelong glance. She clenched her fists and turned to hide her face.
“Have you proof?” she asked, still averting her eyes.
“The rabbit is in that trunk. It will be much decayed by now, but it will still serve. If necessary, we can disinter your father to confirm my story. Given the recent frosts, his body will be well preserved.”
“I trust that won’t be necessary,” she murmured.
“We’ll need witnesses at the trial,” I continued. My voice was a whisper, but I think they could hear me. “Alix de Salcedo assisted me during the experiment and will support my findings. Nagorno, go to La Romana Inn. The landlady’s son sold Ruiz three pinches of Spanish fly some days ago.”
“Will the boy talk?”
“I expect so,” I replied. “Ruiz has mistreated him and his aunts. Besides, Lope knows his clientele will grow once the townsmen hear that his powders work.”
“Did you see your attackers?” Nagorno asked. “I assume there were more than one, for I’ve seen you in a fight.”
“This was no fight. We were serenading on Saint Agatha’s Eve. I was not expecting the scoundr
el to set upon me, and my guard was down. But you’re right, he whistled and two men appeared. They attacked me from behind. All I could see were their boots and sticks, and then Ruiz kicked me in the head.”
“Whoreson!” my brother hissed. “And I defended him at council meetings.”
“So I was told,” I replied, “but I wanted to hear it from your own lips. Why did you do that when the family has such a bad reputation?”
“He’s a nobleman. A petty one, but a nobleman all the same. A town made solely of artisans and traders cannot thrive. We need noblemen from the surrounding settlements to build their homes here, to spend their money. Without that, our walled town will be forgotten, lost to the mists of time.”
“You should choose your allies more wisely, Nagorno! Look where your association with him has led,” I shouted, wincing from the pain. “Look what they’ve done to your wife!”
“They did this because, like you, Count de Maestu sided with the artisans and traders. Pure folly. Now they’ve turned their sights on you. You must tread carefully.”
“I refuse to tread carefully on the streets I helped pave. We must speak of the trial. What have you to say, dear sister-in-law?”
Onneca listened to the daughters of the Mendozas and the Iruñas as they sat spinning in her parlor, discussing openly what men dared not. Women pacified, poured water on the fire, before tempers became inflamed.
“The traders believe God should decide whether Ruiz is to burn and are demanding trial by boiling water or red-hot iron. Tempers are frayed. Before your return, my father was their main champion on the council.”
“That is impossible,” I said. “Eleven years ago, King Sanchez outlawed trial by ordeal in the jurisdiction of Victoria.”
“Is my father, your faithful friend, to receive no justice, then?” cried Onneca.
“Justice will be done. You have my word, sister-in-law. However, we must uphold the law, for the king’s lieutenant and one of his coroners from Tudela are sure to attend the trial, and they will report back to him. We cannot take the risk.”
“My brother is right, dear wife.”
“What will the sentence be, a simple reparation, blood money?” asked Onneca, agitated. “My father’s life was worth more than five thousand ducats.”
“There is another matter,” interjected Nagorno. “According to our charter, any man who unsheathes his sword inside the town with the intent of wounding a fellow citizen shall forfeit his right hand.”
“I saw no sword unsheathed,” I said.
“Judging from that stain on your cloak, I beg to differ.”
I was unaware of the blood oozing from my side. It was soaking into the white bearskin cloak Gunnarr had brought me from Friesland, turning it red.
Nagorno raised the cloak, exposing my bruised, naked body, which was swathed in a bloody bandage.
“Onneca, help me lift him. I want to examine the wound on his back.”
Onneca and I looked at each other uneasily.
“You won’t see anything you’ve not already seen, Wife. This isn’t the time to play the pious lady. Help me lift your brother-in-law, and let us take a look beneath these bandages.”
Merely being upright increased my lightheadedness, and just before I toppled over onto Onneca, I smelled the delicious aroma of meat stew. Alix de Salcedo had appeared in the doorway holding a meat pie, and she hurried to help my brother and his wife so that I would not fall to the floor.
“What are you doing? I thought the count was on his deathbed! Whose idea was it to make him sit up like this?” Alix asked, bewildered.
“You two, slip your arms under his shoulders,” Nagorno ordered, undaunted, “while I remove these bandages.”
“Will nobody cover this man’s shame?” protested Alix. “I was told the priest from Santa María is on his way to give extreme unction. If he finds the three of us with the count naked, we’ll be accused of fornicating.”
“All the more reason to make haste. Besides, you wear a three-coned wimple, so this can’t be the first pair you’ve seen,” my brother rejoined.
I was in too much pain to feel discomfited by the fact that I was naked and being propped up by two women—Onneca on my right and Alix on my left.
Nagorno began to peel away the bandages, which had stuck to my skin in places. He wet a new piece of cloth in the washbasin and dabbed my swollen flesh.
“You see people’s colors. What shade am I now?” I whispered to Alix. My brother’s ministrations were causing me to see stars and the firmament.
“You are still blue, but a deathly blue. Life is draining from you. Eat some of my wild boar and lavender pie. It will give you strength,” she whispered, as Onneca pretended she wasn’t listening.
“I’m too weak to eat.”
“Grandmother Lucía insisted I kill a wild boar and bake this pie for you. She said she would feed it to you herself if you refused.”
“You killed a wild boar?”
“My third husband was a blacksmith, he made traps. He left me enough to kill an army.”
“Well, if Grandmother Lucía has ordained that I should live, then I must force myself,” I said, smiling as best I could.
“Here’s the proof,” my brother declared in his hoarse voice. “A long, straight gash. This isn’t the work of a dagger. This cut was made by a sword.”
“Serenaders on Saint Agatha’s Eve, armed with swords? Who would be so foolhardy as to violate the decree against unsheathing them within the city walls?” asked Alix.
She looked at me, alarmed. She was struggling to hold me upright and had draped my arm around her shoulder. Her face was pressed against my chest.
“What if the two men weren’t serenaders, Diago? What if they planned to attack you all along?”
19
THE RIVER ZADORRA
UNAI
October 2019
When I arrived at the Gamarra Bridge, the area was already cordoned off, and forensics had started to process the scene. I had no idea who had called the press, but two reporters were talking in front of a camera about a case I hadn’t even figured out yet. A boy. It felt all wrong.
Peña greeted me, his hand shaking like he was playing a tambourine. I guess murdered children made him sick, too. A boy in a barrel thrown into the river didn’t sound like manslaughter to me. If this wasn’t premeditated, then God should take another look at the world. But God wasn’t paying much attention during those autumn days, it seemed. He was too busy blowing dead leaves around the city, strewing the path to insanity.
The stone bridge was raised on cement blocks that spanned the River Zadorra, like towers on top of a wall made of water. The river was flowing quickly, its green waters reflecting the weeping willows on its banks. Their fronds drooped to waist level, partially obscuring the scene.
Two police divers had taken the boy and the sodden corpses of several animals out of the barrel. The bodies lay on a piece of plastic sheeting.
“I’ve never seen anything like it, boss,” whispered Peña. “A drowned boy. He was dead when they took him out of the barrel. He was stuffed in there with a dog—”
“A cat, a rooster, and a snake,” I cut in.
“How did you know?”
“Read the book, for fuck’s sake! Poena cullei. ‘Penalty of the sack.’ It was used in Navarre in the twelfth century.”
“What kind of person would kill someone like that?”
“Don’t ask me questions you know I can’t answer,” I said with a sigh. “Do we have an ID on the kid?”
“You’ll have to ask Muguruza. There’s a lot to process, and forensics hasn’t finished yet. The judge and the chief clerk will be here any minute to move the body. They took the boy out of the barrel in case he was still alive, but…Anyway, someone reported seeing a barrel sink into the river. They said they heard
barking. No screams. I understand the dog was the last to drown.”
I went over to the soaking wet body of the boy, who was sprawled out in a white hoodie.
I genuflected discreetly in front of my colleagues, who were busy numbering and photographing dozens of footprints around me.
“This is where your hunt ends, and mine begins.”
I raised my head. The sight of dead children sickened me. The boy’s face was covered in scratches, and his hair…his hair was dyed blue.
It was worse than being punched in the stomach.
This wasn’t a boy. It was MatuSalem.
The killer had murdered MatuSalem.
* * *
—
They buried him in El Salvador cemetery, an area surrounded by fallow wheat fields. Four of his skater friends served as pallbearers, sailing on their boards through the sea of graves, the casket next to them. The Brush Brigade had painted a portrait of Methuselah across the coffin, and I caught glimpses of his face as it glided among the cypress trees. I imagined that the hacker community had paid homage to him in their forums, too.
A group of girls was consoling a young woman with a round face and blue hair. She looked about twenty years old and was stricken with grief, clutching her waist as if to keep herself warm. Maturana’s girlfriend.
I remembered what he’d said to me every time I asked him to help me on a case. For the first time, his words registered. I had never really thought of Matu as a person with a family, a girlfriend, friends. He had simply been a resource: a rare, precious resource I had to handle delicately, like a bomb disposal expert.
I’ll never forget the way that girl looked at MatuSalem’s coffin.
Her disbelief.
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