“I think I get the picture.”
“The day after I met him, the same man introduced himself as Ramiro Alvar. He didn’t recognize me and had no recollection of what he’d said and done the previous day. He is introverted, doesn’t wear a cassock, and is always cold. Unlike Alvar, he wears prescription glasses. He is rather informal and doesn’t stand on ceremony. His timidity doesn’t lend itself to narcissism. I suspect he’s highly intelligent: he holds degrees in history, economics, law, and psychology that, curiously, he claims he studied to be worthy of his family inheritance. However, he made no mention of having studied theology. He manages the family estate efficiently and seems like an old soul. I suspect he prefers the company of books to people, but I also get the sense that he is driven by trauma. He’s obviously afraid of something. It is apparent from the moment you meet him. He keeps a well-thumbed copy of Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations close at hand. His fondness for the Stoics is all the more remarkable because the day before he had described himself as a hedonist. His voice is several tones higher than Alvar’s. It’s astonishing, you have to hear it to believe it.” She smiled, as if that didn’t surprise her. “I could have sworn they were two different people.”
“Is there more?”
“Yes, one other puzzling detail: he says he’s the twenty-fifth Lord of Nograro, whereas Alvar says he’s the twenty-fourth. I suspect Ramiro Alvar may suffer from agoraphobia. The few people who have met him say they’ve never seen him leave his estate.”
“A quick throwaway question before you go on. Are you absolutely sure you’re not describing two different people?”
“I am. They have the same build, the same body odor, and identical iris patterns. Both have attached earlobes, which is a recessive trait. Also, the morning after Alvar stayed out all night carousing, Ramiro Alvar came to the door unshaven with bags under his eyes, claiming he hadn’t slept well. Oh, and one last thing: The day I met him, Alvar must have literally just divested himself of Ramiro Alvar and his glasses. I managed to take a photo of him, and when I blew it up, I could see the telltale indentations on the bridge of his nose. I bumped into him on the street later that day and he didn’t recognize me until I was standing right next to him—a sure sign he’s nearsighted.”
“Okay, so we have Alvar the twenty-fourth, the priest, and Ramiro Alvar the twenty-fifth, the bibliophile,” she said, as though it were the simplest thing in the world.
“That’s correct.”
“Ramiro Alvar is the apparently normal personality, or ANP. Alvar, our priest, is a typical alter identity. Alters are habitually dramatic, larger-than-life caricatures. He’s a creation from Ramiro Alvar’s mind, which has chosen those strong traits for a specific reason. His alter isn’t like you or me; he isn’t a person in his own right. His personality lacks nuance, rather it’s made up of broad brushstrokes—”
“How do you know that?” I cut in.
She smiled and shrugged. “This alter is abusive. He has Ramiro Alvar under his thumb.”
“Is that how it works? People with DID create alters that abuse them?”
“Alters are a defense mechanism. An individual with this type of personality disorder has a ‘split self.’ I try not to use the term multiple personality. I prefer to talk about alternating identities, fragments of the patient’s personality that haven’t been properly integrated.”
I motioned for her to continue.
“At home with your family, you’re Unai. At work, you’re Inspector López de Ayala; sometimes you have to be tough on suspects and behave in ways you never would with your loved ones. With your friends perhaps you regress, you play the fool like you did when you were a teenager. To the media and the people who don’t know you, you’re Kraken. They ascribe traits to you that you may or may not like, but these traits certainly don’t correspond with the Unai you are with those you’re closest to.”
I stared at a pool of water on the floor. Being dissected like this made me feel uneasy.
“Generally speaking,” she went on, “this is true for all of us. We’re the mother, the friend, the daughter, the lover, the boss. Our behavior changes depending on where we are, whether we’re at work, with our family, in a social situation, or in an intimate moment. Most of us have integrated these different facets of our personality into one whole. We call on them as and when we need them. Individuals with DID can’t do this, and that’s where amnesia comes into play. Their general memory isn’t affected, but parts of their life disappear—like, for example, they can’t remember what their alter did the day before. They bury those actions through amnesia and dissociative fugues. As a result, they are highly mistrustful and paranoid. They don’t trust themselves, or rather they are suspicious of what their alter gets up to. That’s why most of them live solitary lives. They’re incapable of forming relationships or holding down a normal job without being discovered. This is a highly disabling condition that the majority of sufferers spend their entire lives disguising and hiding from those around them.”
“You said these are defense mechanisms. What are they defending against exactly?”
“Previously, DID was believed to be the result of early trauma or disorganized attachment experiences in the person’s childhood and adolescence. When confronted with unbearable levels of stress, the self splits, and the patient develops alternate personalities: the savior, the persecutor, and the victim. One of these personalities suppresses the memory of trauma in his or her everyday life, while the alter or alters fixate on those experiences and take defensive action. Some clinicians suggest that people with DID have an aggressive, an evasive, and a submissive side. I’m not sure I agree, nor do I believe that childhood trauma is necessarily a factor, although it’s certainly common among those who have the disorder. I do believe, however, that DID can be triggered or aggravated by a stressful episode, particularly if that episode has particular significance to the patient.”
“If I bring him to you, do you think you could give me a diagnosis, or at least tell me if he’s faking? I need to find out what’s going on, Marina. I have evidence but not enough to satisfy a judge. Everything I have points to him, but it would be enormously beneficial to have your professional opinion.”
“He sounds like an interesting case, and with therapy, the prognosis for integration is good. You’ll need to discuss it with Ramiro Alvar. His alter, Alvar the priest, will be dead set against it.”
“Why wouldn’t he want to get better?”
“I don’t think you quite understand, Unai. Alters will do whatever it takes to survive. Believe me, he’ll do everything in his power to prevent integration from happening.”
23
THE LADY OF THE CASTLE
UNAI
October 2019
I arrived in Laguardia early that morning. My two ladies were on the hotel terrace, peacefully eating their breakfast. Alba was relaxing, her head resting against the back of her chair in order to absorb more sunlight on the balmy autumn day.
I glanced at the newspaper an early riser had left behind and prayed that Alba hadn’t read it.
“Will you come up to the tower with me?” I asked after kissing them both hello.
I lifted Deba onto my shoulders, and we climbed the octagonal spiral staircase to the ramparts and then stepped outside.
“What’s going on?” asked Alba. She seemed suspicious, as though afraid of more bad news.
I pulled three pieces of red silk from my inside jacket pocket, waving my arms like a magician. I had woven each of us a wristband using slipknots. I knew the circumference of their wrists, so they would fit perfectly. They looked slightly disappointed, though.
“I want chessnuts,” whined Deba, before a dragonfly distracted her.
I perched on the tower’s wall and sat her on my lap. “I’m going to tell you a story that my grandmother told me,” I said. “You see Mount Toloño?
Well, that’s where you come from. You and your mother stayed with the god Tulonio for a few days, and Mother Earth took care of you. She’s another goddess, the most important goddess of all, actually. People here used to call her Lur. You see, Lur is a spinner, and she likes to spin at night by the light of the waning moon. She spins threads of destiny.”
“What’s desty-nee?” asked Deba, suddenly interested.
“It’s what brought the three of us together; it makes us a family,” I explained. “You can tie knots in these threads to make them longer or shorter, but they can never be broken: Lur won’t allow it. Now we’re each going to put on our wristbands, and we’ll be joined by these threads forever. You can wear it every day, and if you feel sad, you can touch it and remember that Dad and Mom are wearing theirs, and that we are all looking out for one another. That is what families are for.”
Alba looked at me and smiled. I think she was touched. I tied their bands on their wrists, and it made me happy to see our three matching bracelets.
“How do you manage to make me emotional this early in the morning?” she whispered in my ear.
Deba clapped her hands when we kissed; it had become a noisy habit of hers. I found it adorable.
“Let’s go downstairs,” Alba said cheerfully, “I have a thousand things to do. I’m organizing some events with the Laguardia Town Council, and we have a meeting this morning. I want to offer guided tours of the underground bodegas, with a glass of wine at the hotel to follow. I also want to set up Segway tours of the vineyards, and I think we should participate in this year’s Medieval Tapas Contest.”
I followed them down the stairs. Alba had the same energy and focus she always did, but she’d never smiled this much at the police station, and I’d never felt the positive energy she was exuding since she had moved to Laguardia.
The bubble burst a few minutes later. I was in the kitchen slicing an apple for Deba when Alba came in with the newspaper.
“What’s this?” she asked, pointing at the headline above a photograph of Tasio and me sitting on the tombstone at the cemetery.
Kraken and Tasio: The Keys to the lords of time Mystery?
“Hey, Deba, why don’t you go to your room and get your coloring books? I want to see what you’ve been doing,” I suggested.
Deba happily obeyed. As soon as she left the kitchen, Alba came over to me. I thought I saw fear in her eyes.
“Tasio Ortiz de Zárate is back in Vitoria and you didn’t tell me?”
“I wanted to let you mourn in peace,” I explained. “It would only have scared you. I don’t want you to live in fear.”
“It’s too late. How can I not be afraid when Tasio has made it clear that he wants to be a part of Deba’s life?”
“He came to Samuel Maturana’s funeral. He had every right to be there. They were close. But this nonsense in the paper has nothing to do with the case. We just talked. I told him to stay away from Deba, and I hope he takes me seriously.” I sighed.
Alba had been clutching the newspaper without realizing. She was furious. She turned around, went over to the window, and stared out at the garden.
“It’s happening again,” she finally said.
“What’s happening again?”
“You’re endangering the lives of those around you by associating with murderers.”
It would’ve been so easy.
To cut her down. To wound her deeply.
To remind her that her instincts had failed her in the past, that she had, at one point, become a cliché: a police officer who consorts with a killer. But I didn’t. These small decisions show us where we want a relationship to go—they trace its trajectory with laser precision. I didn’t want to be the kind of partner who went for the low blow when we argued.
Winning an argument by reminding her of those failures would’ve been taking the easy way out—and I didn’t do easy.
I took a deep breath, trying to imagine water flowing from a mountain spring. It took me far away, but also anchored me.
“We get to set our own limits,” I said. “And if you can’t accept that part of me…Look, Alba, I want us to be together. I know that you’re grieving, but I want to be with you even though you’ve set out on your own and taken Deba with you. I know she’s enough for you, and I’m not demanding your affection or your company. I want us to be a family, and I haven’t given up on that. But I need to know that you don’t want to go on without me. It’s your decision. I’m going to work.”
I needed to work, to clear my head, to swap one obsession for another, to fall into my own patterns. That was my emotional trigger. I knew myself well; I’d learned to accept my faults.
And so to work.
I took Alba’s copy of The Lords of Time, the one I’d given her with the line from Joan Margarit.
I moved my hair over my scar, a habitual gesture I repeated a hundred times a day. I felt naked if I didn’t cover it.
Heading upstairs, I sneaked into one of the empty bedrooms in the hotel. I think it was the Love and Madness room. Definitely two things that should be kept apart. I installed myself in a wingback chair and started rereading the novel, a pen and a pad of hotel stationery beside me.
I was looking for parallels—surnames, professions, motives—for what drove that dark world. Who was the magician behind the curtain, the unseen character pulling the strings? Was he right in front of me, hiding in plain sight?
Soon afterward, Alba entered the room. She sat on a corner of the bed and studied me.
“I thought you were working,” she said at last.
“That’s exactly what I am doing,” I replied, scanning the novel.
…And then I found it.
A familiar name, a surname that had caught my attention the first time I read it.
But it was more than just a name. I’d found a character: Héctor Dicastillo. He was the Lord of Castillo, one of the settlements surrounding the ancient town of Victoria. My attention had been drawn to what he’d said to his kinsman: “There has always been a chain of violence going back to the earliest ages of mankind.”
I’d heard that expression before.
A close friend had said it when we were immersed in the Water Rituals case. “There’s a chain of violence going back to Paleolithic times.” Was it a family saying that had been handed down, generation to generation? Whatever it was, I had nothing to lose by making a call.
I rose from the armchair and climbed the spiral staircase that led to the tower. I needed to make three calls.
The first call.
“Inspector, what a pleasant surprise! How are you?” he said in his calm voice.
“Hello, Héctor, what’s new in Cantabria?”
“Actually, my brother and I are in London, on family business. What can I do for you?”
For several years, Héctor and Iago Castillo had been joint directors of the Cantabrian Archaeological Museum, the CAM. They’d worked with me on a couple of past investigations.
“I’m not sure where to begin, so I’ll get straight to the point. Have you read The Lords of Time?”
“I’m sorry?” he asked, puzzled.
“The novel. The Lords of Time.”
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about, Unai. Can you explain?”
“It’s a historical novel that came out recently. It’s gotten rave reviews. I assumed you’d heard about it in Santander.”
“My brother and I have been abroad for several months. We’re not really in the loop. Why do you ask?”
“Well, because it’s set in Vitoria, or rather the town of Victoria,” I explained, “at the end of the twelfth century. It chronicles the power struggles between the kingdoms of Navarre and Castille, and also features prominent families in Álava. It was published under a pseudonym, by someone calling himself Diego Veilaz.”
“Yes, and the protagonist is also Diago Veilaz, the legendary Count Don Vela. It’s written in the first person. Since it was published, there have been several murders in the city, all of them using a medieval modus operandi like the deaths in the novel: poisoning with Spanish fly, immurement, and the poena cullei.”
“Good heavens,” he breathed, seemingly in shock.
“Exactly. I’m calling you because I think one of the characters might be an ancestor of yours: Héctor Dicastillo, the Lord of Castillo. You once told me a branch of your family came from Álava, and I know you’re an expert on northern Spain’s ancient and medieval history.”
“Yes, that’s right,” he replied. He sounded distracted. I’d have given anything to read his mind right then. “Who published the novel?”
“An independent local publisher called Malatrama. The editor received the manuscript over e-mail and doesn’t have a clue who the real author is.”
“I’m going to hang up and buy a copy of the novel. My brother and I will read it, and I’ll call you back later. That’s all I can tell you for now, okay?”
And he hung up, leaving a somewhat angst-ridden inspector standing alone on a tower overlooking a mountain.
But I had no time to give in to anxiety. There was still so much to do.
The second call.
I dialed a landline and waited as it rang.
“Yes?”
“Hello, this is Inspector López de Ayala. Is this Ramiro Alvar?”
“Speaking. What is this con…concer…What can I do for you?” he said, clearing his throat.
“I’d like to stop by the tower today, if that’s convenient.”
“Of course. I’ll be here. Has something happened?”
Oh, nothing much, just that someone killed MatuSalem using a medieval punishment.
The Lords of Time Page 19