Lucas was growing frustrated. Armada spent so much time going over the excruciating minutia of the people involved. What if he put this much effort into examining evidence instead? How much faster would the case be solved? Look at what he’d discovered today by a few hours spent wandering around an empty field.
“So the next obvious question is those who were with him the day he died. Who was out in the field with our victim?” Armada said.
“Enrique Talavera, sir. And his jefe Jose Padilla.”
Armada hesitated.
“Yes,” he said with a lowered tone. “Señor Padilla. There is someone else that makes less sense the more I think of it. On the surface, it would be easy to name him as the culprit. After all, he was there in the field that day. But without knowing why he would want his friend of many years dead, it’s impossible to be sure. Besides, he couldn’t have been the killer. He was behind the fireline at the time. Jose would hardly have leapt through a blazing inferno twice just to kill a long-time friend. It makes no sense.”
Lucas’ heart sank. He hadn’t thought of how much of a dilemma it would be for him that morning when he’d set off for the delta. Lucas didn’t expect to really find anything, so he hadn’t considered the ramifications of discovering something that could help the case in any significant way. If he had, he might have realised that to reveal what he knew meant revealing that he’d disobeyed Armada in a way he’d never done before. But it also meant possibly finding Amparo Rodriguez’ killer. There was no other way to do this.
“Sir,” Lucas said.
“I must speak to Enrique.” Armada was mumbling to himself. “He knew Amparo as well as anyone. There may have been something else going on we aren’t aware of yet. Perhaps…”
“Sir,” Lucas repeated.
Armada was still locked in his thoughts. “He was behind the fireline too, but he may have known something was…”
“Sir!”
“Yes, Lucas. What is it?”
“I found something today, sir. A clue that might help.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, sir. I…I was down in Jose’s field today, sir.” Lucas stared at the ground, finding it hard to look into Armada’s disapproving eyes for the moment. He hated this feeling. It took him right back to when he was seven, admitting to his father that it was he who had thrown the burning stick into his father’s favourite orange tree. He hadn’t meant to do it. He was just playing with his friends.
His father had been unmoved by Lucas’ explanations and had only shot back a look very similar to the one Armada was giving him now. It angered Lucas. Armada wasn’t his father. What right did he have to look at Lucas like that? In all probability, it was Armada’s lack of flexibility in his approach to investigations that led to his parents’ killer going free in the first place.
“I only wanted to look around a bit, in case there were…” Lucas said, but stopped himself. He was reaching for excuses again. But he shouldn’t have to do that. He should just tell Armada what he found, and be proud of the sacrifice he’d made.
“There was a trail there, sir. It led through the cane along the back side of the fireline, through the unharvested bit. There was blood all over it, and it led down to where Amparo’s body was found. I think it means he may have been killed somewhere else and dragged to that spot.”
Armada said nothing for a long, tense moment.
“To make it look as though Miguel had killed him,” Armada finally said.
“Yes, sir.”
Armada, his sherry glass empty, contemplated this new information. For a moment, Lucas felt he just might be in the clear. This information seemed quite explosive.
“I was wondering when you were going to admit what you did, Lucas. It took you quite a while.”
“Sir?”
“I have a nose, Lucas. It smells as though you’ve set this entire room on fire. And there’s only one place you could have picked up a smell like that.”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.”
“It’s not the smell I mind, Lucas, but that you refuse to let go of the ridiculous notions professed in that Italian book.”
That Italian book. It was always how Armada referred to Riselo’s work now. It made the tome sound smaller somehow, less significant, as if it were merely a book of children’s jokes or silly songs.
“Just tell me one thing, Lucas. How close did you let the fire get to you?”
“Closer than I should have, sir,” Lucas said.
Armada said nothing. He didn’t need to. Lucas knew what he was thinking. And he resented it. Yes, things had gotten a little dangerous, but only because he hadn’t been paying enough attention. It was a mistake Lucas swore he wouldn’t make again. There was no reason for Armada to place so much importance on what was essentially a minor indiscretion.
Armada sat down in the chair opposite Lucas, the only chair in the room. Lucas suddenly felt as though he were being asked to submit, like a vassal to his lord, as he’d been left standing.
“And what do you suppose I should do about it?” Armada asked. “I very specifically asked you not to go down there.”
“I understand, sir. And I’m sorry. But I did find out something valuable. I think it proves that…”
“It proves nothing but the fact that I was right when I told you it would be too dangerous,” Armada said. “Your life isn’t worth this case. Your safety is my responsibility and it’s not one I take lightly.”
Armada considered his empty sherry glass and set it roughly on the table, as if disgusted by it.
“Now kindly go and get the barley bread you were supposed to get so we can have dinner on time.”
Lucas normally would have responded with a “yes, sir” to acknowledge he’d heard Armada. It wasn’t something he’d been asked to do, just a habit he picked up back during his earlier, more enthusiastic years when he’d been much more eager to please the man who had saved him from a life of begging in the streets. Now, however, Lucas was not quite so eager. Although it seemed like a little thing, it felt quite hostile now as Lucas left the room without saying anything.
Once down on the street, he let his anger seethe. He’d risked his life to help the case and the old man didn’t even acknowledge it. Did he not get that Lucas cared about the case too? That maybe he wanted justice for Miguel Guillen as well? He was a man now. Surely he was in charge of his own safety? He didn’t need Armada to watch over him like a baby bird anymore. He wasn’t a child, and Armada certainly wasn’t his father. He hadn’t asked Armada to take him on after his parents were killed. He hadn’t asked for any of this. It wasn’t fair.
Lucas gritted his teeth all the way to the bakery, where he was told the baker had just left for siesta and wouldn’t be back for two hours.
Lucas would have to wait.
Chapter Fourteen
Back in the room, Armada was left with a vague sense that he’d said something wrong. He’d noticed a change in Lucas over the past few months. The boy seemed less open-minded than before, and more inclined to offer his opinion, or to question Armada’s methods. And certainly not as eager as he’d once been to follow Armada’s instructions to the letter.
Lucas now seemed much more interested in finding his own way of doing things and would become defensive when Armada pointed out the flaws in his thinking. He couldn’t understand it. Lucas was just a boy; how could he not see that? Surely Lucas didn’t honestly believe that he knew better than a seasoned, experienced investigator like Armada. And yet he reacted as if Armada were almost insulting him with what was obviously common sense.
Armada wondered if the boy was finally buckling under the weight of his grief for his parents. It had been nearly four years since the whole tragic affair and Armada had rarely seen Lucas show his sadness, or even mention his parents. Armada wondered if the boy even thought of them much anymore. They had been taken so suddenly. Lucas, so young at the time, hadn’t been able to accept that they were really gone. He’d assumed they were simply
on a trip and would be back for him soon. It had taken Armada weeks to convince the boy they’d been murdered. Once the reality set in, Lucas seemed to lose all hope.
With no other family to take him in, Armada had offered to let the boy stay with him. Those first few nights were long, with the boy spending hours sobbing into a pillow. Armada saw no other way to lift Lucas out of his dark abyss other than to offer him a job. It had been a desperate move, really. He hadn’t known Lucas well back then, and had no way of assessing the boy’s skills. But he felt responsible for Lucas. For it was Armada’s failure that had led Lucas to lose all hope in the first place.
Since then, Lucas had focused on doing the job as best he could. Armada knew the grief must still be under the surface somewhere. Deep within his mind, Lucas was probably still spending long nights sobbing into his pillow as he once had. Back then, Lucas had turned to Armada for comfort.
But something had changed. Lucas was turning inward, preferring instead to find a way to comfort himself without anyone’s help. Armada wondered if the boy blamed him for his parents’ death. It would help to explain his sudden disdain for Armada. But why now, after so many years? What had changed?
There was no way to know. At least not until Lucas was ready to talk to him. And by the looks of it, it wouldn’t be any time soon.
But Armada couldn’t help but wonder—was Lucas right about Amparo’s movements? Was it possible he was killed where he was working and his body was then dragged to somewhere near Miguel? Dragging a dead body through uncut cane could not have been easy or discreet. Was it possible that one of the men working there saw something? Besides Amparo, Miguel, and Jose there was only one other person working in the field that day. A person who might have more answers.
Armada was glad to be out of the smoky room and was soon back outside. He came down off the hill and felt the winds ease their assault as he crossed the delta, where once lush forests of cane were now quickly being replaced by bare-earth wasteland. He soon found himself on the beach. Armada removed his shoes, preferring to feel the warm, silky sand on his feet as he walked along the empty shoreline.
The wind was gentle today, allowing Armada to walk close enough to the waves to feel the warm, inviting Mediterranean Sea lap at his ankles, relaxing him. Armada was all by himself on the beach as far as he could see in either direction. He promised himself someday that he would come to a beach while not on a case, giving himself far more time to enjoy moments like these where one could be alone with the sea.
Turning west, Armada walked toward where the setting sun would soon be slipping beneath the hills that led to Almuñécar. On his left, he passed El Peñon, getting his first close-up look at it. It was a long, skinny pile of massive boulders that jutted out into the sea like a pier. On the east side, where the waves were calm, a gentle sloping hill, easily climbable, was covered in spikey green weeds.
On the west, however, where the winds were punishing and the waves slammed into its base every day with ferocity, the gentle slopes had been worn away into vertical cliffs, where the waves threw up violent spurts of foam into the air and the currents swirled about in massive pools, threatening to swallow up anyone who came too near.
Just beyond the Peñon Armada found a quiet cove, sheltered from the winds by a tall hill covered almost entirely by rows of almond trees. There were hundreds of them, all lapping up as much summer sun as they could, knowing in a few weeks they would have to begin shedding their green leaves and go dormant again for the winter.
Armada crossed this cove, glancing at the vegetation just beyond the reach of the beach sand. It was the usual mix of hardy, dark green weeds covered in spikes and thorns, with tufts of wild cane whose seeds were caught by the wind from the neighbouring cane fields, and the odd twisted trunk of a struggling palm tree. There were remnants of fences here, most now eroded until they were little more than rotting wood posts marking the edges of fields long ago ruined by the drifting sands of the shoreline.
Amongst these former fields, sitting just at the top of the beach, sat a four-wheeled wagon. It was large enough to be pulled by two or four horses, and had once been entirely covered by a canvas frame. As Armada got closer, however, it was plain that the wagon was of no use now.
It had been sitting in this spot for many years now, its wood-frame rotted out by the sea air and sagging in the middle. The wheels were half buried in the sand, the cast iron axles long ago rusted and probably unable to ever turn again. The original canvas top was long gone, replaced by a patchwork of tattered quilts and torn linens that had been crudely sewn together and thrown over a frame made of bits of wood and cane, and other materials scavenged from the local area.
Just off the back of the wagon was a bare patch of ground surrounded by debris that suggested someone lived here. In the middle of the clearing a ring of stones had been built, in the middle of which were a thick pile of ashes and burned wood. Over the top of this fire pit a frame had been constructed to suspend a cast iron cooking pot just above it.
Just beyond was a graveyard of bones. Small animals, probably caught in the grasses during hunting expeditions into the long weeds. Mice and rabbits made up the majority of what Armada could recognise, as well as a small wild boar skull. The rest were other assorted bones Armada didn’t recognise, some big, some small, and all strewn about the left side of the wagon as if the beach itself had vomited them up, refusing to play the role of graveyard.
Armada approached the back of the wagon and could hear someone shuffling about inside.
“Enrique Talavera?” Armada called.
The shuffling sound stopped.
“Domingo Armada of the Holy Brotherhood. Can I have a word?”
He heard more shuffling. The wagon rocked back and forth as someone inside moved about. Suddenly the bit of blue fabric that served as the door whipped aside to reveal a shaggy-haired man in a sleeveless shirt and a basic black doublet, with soiled wool breeches and bare feet. He was unshaven and looked sleepy-eyed, as if he’d just be awoken from a long nap. But the strong smell of tobacco suggested he’d been busy doing something else.
“Uh…yes…” Enrique mumbled before scrambling out of the wagon. The man seemed confused. Surely Enrique knew Armada would come to call on him eventually. He was a possible witness to a murder.
Enrique loudly coughed the last of the tobacco smoke out of his lungs and scratched the greasy, unwashed hair that fell in front of his face. The man looked young to Armada, thirties at most, and was quite skinny. He had the bronze skin of a man who worked outside, but hadn’t yet begun to wrinkle and age. His voice had a soft, delicate lilt, that of someone who rarely wanted to be noticed, and only spoke when absolutely necessary. When he did speak, Armada found he had to listen closely, as Enrique spat his words out, as if talking were a chore he wanted to finish as quickly as possible.
“Have you lived here long?” Armada asked.
“All my life.”
“You were born here? In this wagon?”
“Mother moved here when she was pregnant,” Enrique said as he shifted his weight back and forth, staring at the ground.
Armada considered pressing further, but it wasn’t hard to guess the rest of the story. His mother had become pregnant illegitimately and had come here to hide the secret, either to mask her shame or to protect the father’s honour. The fact that they lived so far outside of town suggested that people in Salobreña knew their story, and did not approve.
“I wanted to talk to you about Amparo Rodriguez. What did you see the day he died? Anything strange? Or anyone you didn’t recognise running about in the field?”
“No. Didn’t see nothing. Was just working.”
“What about someone you recognised? Was anybody acting strangely just before Amparo’s body was found?”
“No.”
“Jose, perhaps?”
He hesitated and then said no once more.
Armada watched Enrique closely, but felt nothing. It was a strange sensation,
as if Armada were shouting down a well and only hearing his own echoing voice, or attempting to talk to a goat. He wondered if Enrique was as good at hiding his feelings as Madalena, or if there were none to hide.
But the mention of Jose’s name had shaken Enrique, although it was subtle. Something was there, something connected to Jose. But Enrique was shutting down. Armada had to change the conversation before he lost him.
“It’s quiet here, isn’t it?” Armada said, gesturing to the sheltered little cove that Enrique usually had all to himself. “Do you like being on your own so much?”
“I like it.”
“Yes, so do I,” Armada said. “People tend to make the mistake of thinking that living alone means you’re lonely. But it doesn’t mean that at all, does it?”
Enrique glanced at Armada, but said nothing. He seemed to be avoiding Armada’s gaze, preferring instead to stare at his bare feet.
“For some, living alone is the only way to be happy. Other people, they can be so loud, can’t they? And they make things so complicated. They’re so unpredictable. I couldn’t imagine living with anyone else now.”
Armada could see out of the corner of his eye Enrique was nodding along. He understood.
“But what galls me the most is that they pity me,” Armada said. “They think I have a hard time trusting people. But they never take the time to really listen, do they? No one ever hears me.”
“They say it’s my fault,” Enrique said. “Because I talk strange.”
“But it isn’t, is it? It’s because they don’t really want to do anything except talk about their own petty squabbles. They don’t really care about yours, do they?”
“No,” Enrique said. A half-smile was spreading across his face. He was making eye contact with Armada now.
“Yes, I can definitely see the appeal of living as you do, Enrique. Nobody notices if you don’t attend church, or join the Romería, or the Easter Procession, or any of the village fetes. You only have to talk to those you truly trust, those few people who really listen. Do you know many people like that?”
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