The crowd converges on the site, on the central stage where they are already doing the soundchecks, a human tide pushed by a centripetal force, flowing slowly in the same direction. He wants to speed up but he can’t; one foot after the other, one foot at a time. In this cold, nobody expected such a big turnout, so much enthusiasm for classical music at the end of autumn, especially considering the midwinter temperatures, and there are hardly any more police than normal.
His feet are barely moving, his face is pressed into an anonymous neck in front of him. One more step, so slow that he despairs and begins to lose his patience. The red coat, he can’t lose sight of the red coat. He feels in his pocket, clutches the weapon, feels the metal digging into his fingers, the cold steel in the palm of his hand as it opens and closes. Despite the situation, he smiles. In a world devastated by war, serial killers, massacres, earthquakes and genocides, assassinating an individual human being has an almost artisanal touch. This doesn’t mitigate the crime, of course, but does at least make it less sordid.
He looks at the tall man in front, looks at his back, and there, two or three heads away, is Ursula López’s red coat, but he’s struggling to stay close, the tide of people has its own capricious logic, one that is difficult to predict or outwit. He pushes with his elbows and his hips and his shoulders, struggling to move forward through the crowd that is pressing towards the stage upon which the musicians have already begun to appear and are now tuning their instruments.
The loudspeakers spit out high sounds that make his skin crawl, and low sounds that hammer at his skull.
(One-two-three, one-two-three, testing, testing.)
More than once he loses his balance, but his body is wedged in between other bodies. Perhaps, even if he stumbled, he wouldn’t fall immediately, he thinks; his body would be suspended for a few moments, held up by the multitude. How long would a body take to fall in the middle of this throng?
His hand is in his pocket, gripping the revolver with its silencer, his finger is on the trigger and he feels an urge to squeeze it, an urge he can barely contain. He clenches his teeth, resists the temptation, continues.
(Low chords, a cello plays a scale.)
He takes another step and then one more, the human sea slows down until it is almost stationary, Ursula’s back is still there, so close, about three feet away, there are two or three people between them. He sees the detail of the dark clip in her light hair, the texture of the wool of her scarf, he can almost smell her scent, almost smell the exotic wood and the citrus, perhaps mandarin or bergamot, but the aroma is very faint. If he stretched out his hand he could touch her face, feel the texture of her skin, trace the edge of her ear with its diamond earring.
He makes the most of a gap – one woman stops and another moves aside – and pushes forward, a couple of quick movements and he’s right behind her, inches away, his chest brushes against her back, his left hand half-opens his jacket, allowing the barrel to poke out. The pushing makes it difficult to steady his body, his arm, the weapon, but he knows he has to do it now. He looks at her for the last time, looks at the brown hair with hints of blonde, held in place by a clasp that he now sees is lined with blue fabric, the red scarf around the raised collar of the jacket, the diamond earrings. He calculates, hesitates, focuses on a point in the centre of the red and fires.
(The sound of the cymbals explodes, there are shouts, fireworks, applause.)
The shot is dry, as if wrapped in cloth, an incongruous sound lost among the other sounds emanating from the loudspeakers. The crowd is still moving, milling around, agitated. Ursula’s head advances and retreats, the red coat wobbles for a few moments before it starts to collapse, the woman’s body slides down between the people and falls gently, slowly, collapsing noiselessly and in slow motion on the grass.
The crowd closes in and shouts. A voice orders: “Get back, get back. Someone’s fainted.”
The crowd obeys, moves back, exposing the sight of a woman’s red leather shoe, an expensive brand, at an impossible angle.
“Someone’s fainted. Call a doctor.”
Some shout, others run, some have taken out their phones and are calling the police or an ambulance or friends and family. A force pushes towards the woman lying on the ground, and another equal opposing force pulls away. He looks around and allows himself to be carried towards the edge of the park, he wants to reach the side street where there are just a few pedestrians; in front of him he sees a young couple with a child, pushing their way through, shouting who knows what, perhaps calling for help for Ursula López, who is already out of sight.
He detaches himself from the crowd and walks slowly. A hundred yards from the corpse, life goes on as normal. The voices and shouts fade away, dispersed by the wind from the waterfront. He takes a side street. He is filled with a sense of joy that makes him want to jump and run. He walks another hundred yards and boards a bus. He pays the driver and sits at the back.
(Sound of a siren: ambulance or fire engine or police.)
He leans back against the seat, smiles, feels the pocket with the bulky gun inside. He smiles.
XX
That morning’s horoscope has upset her, with its prediction of a bad week for Capricorns: problems both emotional and occupational. The man who analyses the position of the stars in the cosmos on television had been clear in his predictions, had singled out Saturn – in such an unfavourable aspect for so long – and had explained the reason for its baleful influence on her constellation. Worried, she turns off the television, her mind now occupied by a fate that will be hard to avoid.
This is her Sunday off and she has the whole day to herself, to do whatever she wants. However, Captain Leonilda Lima doesn’t want to do anything special; in fact, she doesn’t know what to come up with to fill this free time which, far from being a break, is a long and tedious bridge between one day of work and another. In other words, what we have here is that huge cliché of literature and of life: a single woman waiting for her day off to come to an end so she can return to activity. She doesn’t know it yet, but she won’t have to wait long.
A couple of hours ago she cleaned the house, made her bed, polished the three pyramids – one bronze, one steel, one copper – dusted the ceilings, swept up the last molecule of dust which might impede the flow of chi. She waits until midday to suspend her boredom; that’s when she’ll decide whether to eat a yogurt or perhaps a salad, to have a siesta or go for a half-hour walk.
She turns on the television again, watches the start of a soap opera that she can’t make head or tail of, unthinkingly changes channel and, paying no attention, plays with the buttons on the remote control. She hears her phone ringing. She hurries to look for it and finds it lying on the pillow. Her heart leaps at the sight of the number: it’s the chief of police, Inspector Clemen.
“Did you hear the news, Leonilda?”
“I’ve just woken up,” she lies. “What’s the time?”
“Late. You haven’t read the papers either, then? No, of course not. Yesterday, at 6 p.m., Ursula López was murdered.”
“What? Murdered?”
“At 6 p.m. precisely.”
“Where did it happen?”
“Right in front of her house, in the park.”
“Oh my God! It’s my fault, I should have given her protection.”
“No, Leonilda. You consulted me and you did the right thing. She hadn’t been threatened.”
“Even so —”
“I know, it doesn’t feel good.”
“Why wasn’t I told earlier?”
“There was a mix-up and they gave the case to Leonardo Borda.”
“A mix-up? It wasn’t his any more, Inspector Clemen.”
“I agree, it was my mistake. Borda thought it was still his case and he got involved. But there’s no point worrying about that now. We need to look to the future.”
Something’s not right here; Borda knew perfectly well she was in charge of this case. She can’t show her mistrust of the chief insp
ector without proof or at least some better clues about the decision to keep her away from the case. But strange things have been happening for a while. She decides to leave this issue for later.
“Are there any suspects?”
“There are always suspects. Someone made a complaint yesterday that could be linked to this case or to the investigation into the Candyman murder, the one you’re working on.”
“What was the complaint?”
“Assault, bodily harm, threats – but I don’t think the victim is prepared to follow through. She didn’t even agree to a medical examination.”
“And who’s the victim? And the suspects?”
“The alleged victim is Mirta Tellez; she reported an assault, but her statement was very unclear. She came back this morning and told us the name of her attacker: Ricardo Prieto, alias the Hobo. Does that ring a bell, Leonilda?”
“Christ, what a small world we live in!”
“And she gave a more detailed statement about what happened. It seems the guy turned up at her house, threatened her, questioned her about how the nieces of the woman he murdered a year back might have been involved in his trial and the subsequent prison sentence. And you’ll never guess the name of one of those women, one of the nieces. Ursula López.”
“This is my case, Inspector.”
“Of course. I know there’s been a mix-up. That’s why I’m calling you, even though it’s your day off. If you agree, then it’s all yours from now on.”
“Certainly, Inspector.” Leonilda has sprung back to life. She puts on a local news channel, looks for the papers, gets some clothes. She nibbles a few slices of cucumber that she’s found in the fridge, reads some newspapers, checks the story she’s interested in, browses the internet and takes a couple of notes. Two shadows cross her mind: the negative outlook for Capricorn for the whole of this week, and Clemen’s insistence on giving her the Ricardo Prieto case, one which has now been passed between her and Borda three times. She drinks some yogurt, two glasses. She finishes getting dressed, applies a little natural grapefruit and coconut perfume, touches the image of the Virgen Desatanudos, says a quiet prayer to ask for her help in solving this impossible case, remembers that the Skinflint hasn’t called her back, and rushes out.
XXI
It’s past midday in the Old Town.
Sometimes, like today, she goes out for a stroll and constantly changes her route to extend her walk, to postpone her return home. She wanders down cobbled streets, pretends to lose her way and then to find it again. At each corner she searches for them, the dead, as if on such afternoons all of them – Mother, Father, Auntie Irene – were headed for some meeting place to which she, too, had access.
She waits for it to be time; sometimes she wanders at length and searches for them in the places where they used to go, trying to remember what those people, their houses, were like back then. She pursues the names of the people who lived there and tries to remember if she ever went inside, what the furniture, the courtyards, the stairways and walls were like, if they echoed with the shouts of children or were silent. But all this effort just produces shades of the past, a sepia photograph.
It’s sunny today and she’s been wandering among strangers for almost two hours, walking and swallowing carbon monoxide; today there are businessmen and tourists, people rummaging through the garbage, office workers with lunch boxes, students and beggars. Ursula looks at everything and smiles discreetly – they’re not part of her past, they’re not the ones she’s looking for. Aloof and somewhat hostile, she walks among these strangers, observing them with curiosity, behaving the way an adult might behave at a circus or in a square where children are playing. She feels like crying, and she doesn’t feel like crying alone. That’s why she’s looking for the dead.
She stops among a crowd of foreigners taking photos in different languages. At a kiosk selling newspapers and magazines, she can’t help looking at the heavenly silky beings that appear on the covers; they are never second-class women, the kind who eat and get fat, they’re beautiful people in two dimensions, their skin smooth and glowing, people with no past beyond that moment when somebody photographed them, people who will never grow old.
She’s been walking for more than two hours now. It’s time. She goes up the worn marble steps, crosses the threshold of the chapel and enters the twilight of the silent frozen space. The gloom contrasts with the light outside. She walks; the air of the church, stale with mourning, is like some perverse, irreversible corridor. The central aisle is empty, barely illuminated by the light from the stained-glass windows above the small side chapels. There aren’t many people, just blurry shadows, faceless and reclining. A smell of incense seems to come from the stone tombs. The notes of an organ can be heard, but perhaps they are part of the dream from which she never quite awakens. A priest is saying Mass for five people at a side altar.
And, as always, she sees him again, Daddy, in a satin-lined casket resting on the catafalque, covered with flowers. And beneath the roses, carnations and jasmine is the corpse, what is left of her father, the form of her father, the container, the wrapping; skin that has turned waxy, a tight blue mouth that will never open again, will never fire out words as if they were bullets, hands that will never again lock her bedroom door. Never again, Daddy, never again. She sees him there in his coffin. Standing at his side is her sister Luz in the dark-grey suit, made to measure from expensive-looking fabric, the face that could grace a glossy magazine transfigured by grief. And she sees herself enter and come down the central aisle, her footsteps, one after the other, clicking towards the altar, the echo of her heels against the marble floor in the silence, towards the dark and the irreversible. Luz approaches, hugs her, looks at her, searches her face for some sign.
“It was all so fast, Ursula. How could something like this have happened? Daddy didn’t —”
“Yes, but the Somnium —”
“He wasn’t suicidal. I know he wasn’t suicidal.”
“We’ll never really know what happened, Luz, if it was an accident or not.”
“It’s so hard to accept.”
“Depression comes without warning.”
“No, I can’t believe it. Not him.”
Her sister’s doubts disturbed her, irritated her; she wanted to get away, leave her sister behind, save herself. She wanted to stay and be condemned, to suffer. She felt that her sister’s gaze was searching for something in her, inside her, and that she might find it. She looked down.
A priest had appeared and begun to prepare himself for the Requiem. Ursula sees herself as if from some distant point in time, sees this woman who doesn’t seem to be her but who is, contemplates the strange, macabre rite of death and, just like that time, the weeping slowly rises to her eyes, pushes and comes out and, just like that time, she feels her face flooding with tears. Crocodile tears, that’s what the dead man, her father, would say if he could talk. But Ursula made sure he wouldn’t talk any more.
When the response was over, she walked to the exit alone, breathed in the salty air from the port, saw her sister Luz run towards her, hug her and cry on her shoulder, squeeze her hand, search once again for her eyes. At some point, Luz offered to take her home. Ursula remembers her refusal, talking about how she needed to clear her head, take a walk through the Old Town, until she finally watched Luz get into her silver car, the latest model, and drive off to her house in Carrasco. That day, which had also been sunny, she had wandered the narrow streets, past dilapidated buildings, past happy families holding hands, past hurrying businessmen, but she crossed the squares without seeing them, walking among faceless people until night fell and the atmosphere turned cold, silent and immobile.
She wanted to go home, but not to her home, not to that empty place where there would never be anyone but her. What is home, exactly? The place where you were born? Or is it that place you can never quite leave even though the air is unbreathable and there is no future? Perhaps it is just the place you can reach by
memory, even if what awaits you there is dark and irreversible, even if it is to find yourself stranded in grey loneliness.
She walked, wandering the streets, felt the drizzle falling; there were no people any more, just an old, grey, silent city.
After that, the days broke free like furious dogs, and for many years Ursula has walked, is always walking, through the Old Town.
XXII
The woman slowly takes off her coat, a coat which, like everything she is wearing, appears to be brand new. She hangs it on the back of the chair and sits down without waiting for an invitation from Leonilda. She appears to be interested in the walls, the portrait of General Artigas, the plastic flowers, the printed card with an image of Jude the Apostle. The visual inspection is brief; there are very few items in the captain’s office. Then the woman looks at Leonilda and asks how she can be of assistance, with that tone of voice used by customer service operatives who have not the slightest intention of helping.
She is one of those artificial beauties, the long hair, the make-up, the neat eyebrows: an afternoon soap opera star. Captain Leonilda Lima looks at her; sometimes she is attracted by this kind of woman, even though she knows she shouldn’t be, not at work. She needs to concentrate, tries to strike up a conversation with Mirta Tellez, tries to win her trust. She brings up banal topics and introduces the odd question, but so far she hasn’t managed to get the woman to say more than four words at a time. So far, it’s just been yes, no or some other monosyllable. We know Leonilda will insist.
“So, what did Ricardo Prieto ask?”
“I already told you.”
“You told the person who took your statement. But I’m in charge now, and I want to verify everything. Do you understand me, Mirta?”
A silence, an evasive look, eyes that avoid contact.
“He asked me some stuff, what they were called and where they lived. The ones who got him put away. Irene’s nieces.”
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