“So what can I do?”
“You can’t do anything. But Rosenthal can. The federal judge presiding over the case is an old friend of his, Arturo Fader. Simply get him to take a statement from the man who was apprehended on the boat and get him to bear in mind that my client has been in prison for two years and can’t control who boards his boat. As you can see, it’s simple.”
“Not that simple, but I can try.”
“Look, my friend, I can’t give you anything until there’s a formal statement from the court. And I can’t even tell you how many lawsuits El Gallo has against him. I’m giving you the most straightforward one. I’m making it easy for you.”
Federico didn’t want to tell Doctor Rosenthal what was happening. He wasn’t above sending the marines in to fetch his daughter and bring her back to Buenos Aires. Not that Federico thought that a terrible idea. He got hold of a copy of the case file relating to El Gallo Miranda’s boat, and decided to risk going directly to Judge Fader. He lied to him, saying he needed Miranda not to be tried for a federal crime. He explained that he was making this personal approach because he had started going out with Miranda’s sister. The judge chided him, saying he shouldn’t get involved in these things, that it was clear the detainee was lying and Miranda was involved in smuggling arms. Federico put on his most forlorn expression.
“You have always been very supportive of the firm.”
“Aarón is like my brother, and I know how highly he thinks of you. I’ll help you this time, but don’t get used to it. You need to pick your battles carefully. This one wasn’t worth it.”
That afternoon he called Verónica, on an impulse. He wanted to hear her voice, know she was well. It was pointless in a way, because he couldn’t talk to her about his suspicions regarding Peratta or help her in any way. He just needed to hear her talking. All the same, she had sensed something was up.
Two days later, Federico called Mateo to let him know his demands had been met. The judge had finally acquitted Miranda on all counts. Half an hour later they met in a bar in Puerto Madero, beneath the building where Mateo lived.
“The guy needed to gather some intelligence. Have someone followed. At no point did he clarify who that was. The work was done for him by two kids, Nick and Bono. I’ve already spoken to them. I said they had two options: either you’d use a couple of heavies to get the information out of them or they could give it to you for cash. We agreed on fifteen grand. I got you a good price.”
Mateo phoned them there and then, said he had the money and arranged a meeting with Federico two hours later in a bar on Dorrego and Córdoba. When he hung up he said:
“I can’t do better than that for you. I’ll give you time to go and get the money, then you can bring it to me and head off to Colegiales.”
Federico went to the office to pick up the money. They always kept a supply of cash for paying informants and he was no longer expected to account for every withdrawal. He took out the money, returned to Puerto Madero, paid Mateo and then went to the bar. There was the redhead and another youth. They looked like two nerds escaped from the ORT Jewish science and technology school. You could tell they were uncomfortable about what they were about to do – breaking professional confidentiality – but that Mateo had convinced them. It was very likely these kids would see only a slice of those fifteen thousand pesos.
Nick told him everything that had happened with Danilo Peratta. How they had got into Verónica’s apartment and on which day, what information they had found. He told Federico that Peratta was planning to travel to Tucumán, that he didn’t want to wait in Buenos Aires.
Federico went back to the office wondering what excuse he could use to go looking for Peratta in Tucumán. He had to find him before Peratta found Verónica. The guy couldn’t have flown there because that would be too risky. It was unlikely that he had driven, either. He must have gone by bus. If Federico flew to Tucumán he could narrow his lead. From what Nick said, Peratta didn’t know exactly where Verónica was. Federico could call her and find out. It would look very strange if he turned up where she was for no good reason.
The first flight left at 6 a.m. He had time to drop by his parents’ house, and that was what he did. His parents weren’t surprised he had come round and invited himself to dinner. Over coffee, Federico told his father he was thinking of going hunting that weekend in the province of La Pampa.
“I wish I could go with you. I haven’t been hunting for years.”
“Have you got the R8?”
“Take it if you like.”
Federico had never liked his father’s hobby: hunting large and small game. Almost against his will (or rather, to honour his father’s will), he had learned to use a rifle. He wasn’t the best shot in the world but he knew what to do, and his father had always made sure Federico had a licence to bear the arms he never used.
His father appeared with the Blaser R8 in its plush case, in which the butt, the muzzle, the magazines, the sight and all the extras pertaining to the German rifle were stored separately. When they got to the airport he would check the rifle in – just like any other hunting enthusiast with a licence to kill animals.
He went back to his apartment to have a shower, shove some clothes in a bag and work out how not to alarm Verónica. He had a few hours in hand but he wasn’t tired. There was another problem, though: what he would say to Aarón Rosenthal. As if he had summoned up his boss, Federico’s mobile started ringing. A Ros appeared on the screen. What was he doing calling at this time of the morning?
“Federico, I have to ask you a favour. It’s about Verónica. I need you to go to Tucumán.”
Federico felt as though he were falling into a bottomless pit. He couldn’t breathe. When he spoke, his words seemed to emanate from the depths of a swimming pool.
“Has something happened to Verónica?”
“No, she’s fine. But I’ve just had a call from Tucumán. Two girls who were travelling with her have been found dead.”
“I don’t understand, Aarón. I’m sorry – I don’t understand what you’re telling me.”
“My cousin Severo called me. A few hours ago they found the bodies of two foreign girls. Verónica had travelled with them on part of her trip and, from what Severo says, she was one of the last people to see them. Verónica’s in Salta now, but they’re going to call her back to Yacanto del Valle, which is where the crimes took place. There’s already a district attorney there. I need you to go to Yacanto del Valle to be with her, and to accompany her if there’s a court order. I also need you to follow the case, because the crime took place after a party that was attended by people our family know. You may need to stay a few days in San Miguel de Tucumán. I don’t trust in what Severo may be able to do. All the same, first thing tomorrow morning I’m going to talk to the judge leading the case. There’s a flight leaving Tucumán at six o’clock tomorrow morning. Can you go?”
6 Yacanto del Valle
I
“If some day we live together, I’d like it to be here,” Luca had said to Mariano as they drank coffee in Amigo’s bar looking onto the main square in Yacanto del Valle. For him to come out with something like that was quite a gesture, a declaration of love, even. And at that moment it smacked of utopia, because Mariano had just ended a ten-year relationship, because Luca had never been in a relationship for more than a month, and because it would be crazy for a successful architect like Mariano and someone who aspired to be a chef in prestigious restaurants, like Luca, to go and live in small-town Tucumán. And yet what he had said that day on their first trip together had ended up happening, because Mariano had completed a couple of projects that made him a great deal of money and because Luca was never going to triumph in the most fashionable kitchens. He had studied cooking, he could make sushi or a dish of molecular food, but he had learned his art alongside his mother and grandmother, two Italians who worked all their lives in a delicatessen in the Colegiales neighbourhood of Buenos Aires. His strengths(and the
things he was most proud of) were pastas, stews, casseroles, shepherd’s pie, pickled aubergines, eclairs with crème patissière, and tiramisu. Most importantly, what had begun as an affair – with a bit of travel thrown in – became a lasting love. Besides, they were tired of Buenos Aires.
The second time they travelled to Yacanto del Valle, they discovered a ruined old house that had been on the market for a long time. It was as though it had been waiting for them, and as soon as they saw it, they knew it was perfect for their hotel. They didn’t even have to haggle much over the price because the owners, four siblings who were winding up their father’s estate, wanted to complete the sale quickly.
They took a short lease on a small farm with two houses. Into one of the houses they moved themselves and into the other Mariano’s most trusted employees: a master builder, a painter, gas fitter and an electrician who all regularly worked with him. They hired bricklayers, a plumber and two more painter-decorators. Mariano wanted to recapture the house’s colonial spirit while also giving the interiors the look of an international hotel.
The work took six months. Some of the furniture and decorative objects they bought in the town itself. For the rest they had to go to San Miguel de Tucumán and to Salta. Luca took charge of hiring staff: a cook, an assistant, three cleaners, a couple of waitresses and a receptionist to work nights. They had what they wanted: a boutique hotel, a small restaurant and abundant nature, far from the mayhem of Buenos Aires. Once the work was finished, Mariano swapped his job as an architect for hotelier at the Posada de Don Humberto. He didn’t miss anything about his previous life.
When they had first opened for business, four years previously, the hotel was not a regular stop on the tourist trail, but every season their numbers increased. The inn was always full in the summer and they took reservations a long time in advance. At this point in March the number of visitors always decreased until the beginning of Holy Week. So when the two foreign tourists and the girl from Buenos Aires turned up, there was no difficulty finding them rooms. These three women seemed no different from the ones who regularly arrived with their rucksacks, chatting in English or another language, cheerful and carefree. It didn’t strike Luca and Mariano as particularly odd that one of them, the one from Buenos Aires, left the next day. But when three days went by and nobody went in or out of the foreign girls’ room, they began to get concerned.
“Something’s happened to them, I’m sure that something’s happened to them,” Luca said to Mariano, who wanted to wait another day.
They decided to report them missing. It wasn’t the first time they had gone to the police station in Yacanto del Valle. There had been thefts, the odd fight between guests, threats made by an ex-employee. They didn’t like the police there. And, although nothing had ever been said to them, it was clear the police didn’t like them either. They filed a missing person report with Officer Benítez, who got them to sign a statement.
“So what will you do?” Mariano asked.
“We’re going to investigate.”
“But what, concretely?”
“We’ll make some enquiries in town, and if there’s no new information we’ll inform the headquarters in Tucumán so they can investigate in the rest of the province.”
They left the police station with the feeling that nothing was going to get done. Not even the little that had been promised.
“So are we going to sit here with our arms folded?” Luca asked Mariano.
“No, no. Let’s wait until tomorrow. We’ve got the phone number of the girl who arrived with them. Perhaps she knows something or can give some guidance.”
It wasn’t yet dark. Luca was in the kitchen preparing sauces for the cook to use when making that night’s dinner. Mariano was searching the internet for information about the two girls. He had found Petra’s Facebook page and some of Frida’s academic work, but nothing to suggest where the two tourists might be now. He had their email addresses and phone numbers, so he sent them a message asking where they were. No reply came.
A little before 9 p.m., a police car drew up outside the hotel. Officer Benítez got out.
“The bodies of two women have been found in the hills. They seem to be gringas. You need to come and identify the corpses.”
II
She was desperate for a piss. This always happened to her and she was annoyed with herself. She should have gone an hour before leaving, when there was still nobody in the house. The children were at the club, the señora still hadn’t returned from having tea with her friends and the señor was somewhere on the estate. But she was so absorbed by her ironing – or rather by the telenovela she was watching while she ironed – that she had lost track of time and, by the time she realized, the whole family was back, running all over the house. And she didn’t like to use the bathroom in those circumstances. She felt watched, judged. She was convinced her employers didn’t like her using the bathroom either, not even the one at the front of the house, the visitors’ one. So whenever they were around she held on as long as she could. And she could, for a long time – but not any longer.
If her grandmother knew about this, she’d give her a clout. One of those slaps on the nape, not very hard, but effective when it came to getting her grandchildren to do as she said. Her grandmother would say: Mechi, you dolt, I’m going to have to talk to your bosses so they make you piss before you leave. The thought of her grandmother talking to the señores terrified her.
To make things worse, it took about fifty minutes to get to her house. Forty if she hurried, like now, legs pressed together and trying to focus on the trees, on the birdsong, on the first shadows of dusk. She had already been walking for half an hour. She was ten minutes from home. Feeling her bladder would burst at any moment, she walked with her toes squeezed, her arms rigid like a wooden doll. What if she ran? She was good at running, and from that part of the mountain to her home she wouldn’t come across anyone who might see her sprinting like a person possessed. It was one of the few advantages of living in the middle of nowhere, somewhere overlooked even by the most curious tourists, the ones who came daily to visit the supposed beauty of Yacanto del Valle. She didn’t understand why the tourists liked this hilly wilderness full of horrible insects and animals. Nor could she find any appeal in an old town like Yacanto.
Think of something else. She told herself to think of her brothers who had gone to work in the sugar harvest. Of the one brother who had stayed with her grandmother and her because he was working at the ironmonger’s in town, although he was almost never at home. Of the chickens her grandmother looked after, of Niebla, who’d had five puppies two months ago, four of which had survived. They would have to give them away – but who to? There weren’t many people who liked dachshunds.
She couldn’t hold it any longer. She might as well piss right where she was. Not in the road, because, even though by this time the tourists would have gone back to the town to sit at a bar in the square, if she started pissing now some neighbour was sure to appear and then she would have no choice but to commit suicide or move to another town. If she walked a little way into the undergrowth she would be shielded from any locals or disorientated tourists wandering in the area. She stepped away from the road into the vegetation. Not very far, just a few yards. And she saw them.
It wasn’t that she saw a foot, or part of a leg, or an arm. She saw their whole bodies, lying in the weeds. One face down and the other side on. The bodies of two women. They looked like abandoned mannequins. They were dead. She knew that straightaway. She wanted to scream, but the howl didn’t come out. She felt herself pissing. That warm stream burst out of her bladder and down her jeans, soaking her legs, her tights, her sneakers. Warm piss that seemed to have no end, as suffering would have no end. Because she didn’t see the corpses of two strangers. Those two bodies became just one: her sister’s. Bibi, she thought, or shouted, and ran back to the road, without thinking about her soaked jeans. “Bibi, poor Bibi,” she kept repeating, weeping as she ra
n. Would they never finish killing her sister?
III
That morning Álex Vilna had a meeting with the vice-governor. It was an informal meeting – not an interview – and completely off the record. That much had been made clear to him by Bollini, the Tucumanian congressman who had arranged the meeting from Buenos Aires. It had also been Bollini who had called him when the narco police story jumped from Tucumán to the national news. That time they met at a bar in the Museo Renault in Buenos Aires.
“There’s a big power struggle going on within the police,” Bollini told him that day as he fiddled with a pack of cigarettes.
He was afraid that everything being reported in the papers could taint the governors, the party, everyone, when the only people genuinely mixed up in this were the Secretary of Justice in Tucumán and the chief of the Salta police, together with the head of the regional police division. Unruly political factions in two provinces. And the governors’ hands were tied. If they took disciplinary measures against the conspirators, they looked like accomplices of the police officers already under arrest. But if Vilna was prepared to write a favourable piece, Bollini could pass on to him all the material and contacts he would need in Tucumán.
And how could one say no to Bollini? Not only was he a congressman, but he was a trade unionist too. He was secretary general of the Argentine Union of Sugar Cane Workers, one of the main unions for rural labourers. The AUSCW was the main advertiser for the radio programme Vilna presented on Saturdays. Bollini had also brought in a couple of new advertisers: a sugar company and a private clinic.
Álex promised him he would do everything possible, both on the radio and at the magazine. So when at the editorial meeting Society proposed for the cover a story he had thought of doing as a double-page spread, he had no option but to offer to write it himself. He didn’t want to leave what Nuestro Tiempo might have to say about this episode in the hands of another staff writer, much less one from Society. When Bollini found out Vilna was travelling to the province, he offered him not only contacts but also a plane ticket and a hire car.
The Foreign Girls Page 12