Offering to the Storm
Page 3
‘Today was supposed to be my day off, you know. And when I arrived I found this mess. Why don’t you tell me what happened?’
He sat up, motioning with his chin towards the camera behind the glass, and the spotlight illuminating the cell. His face looked serious, in pain, but not mistrustful.
‘Haven’t your colleagues told you?’
‘I’d like to hear it from you. I’m more interested in your version.’
He took his time. A less experienced interrogator might have assumed he had clammed up, but Amaia simply waited.
‘I was taking my daughter’s body away.’
Amaia noted the use of the word body; he was acknowledging that he had been carrying a corpse, not a child.
‘Where to?’
‘Where to?’ he asked, bewildered. ‘Nowhere, I just … I just wanted to have her a bit longer.’
‘You said you were taking her away, that you were taking her body away, and they arrested you next to your car. Where were you going?’
He remained silent.
She tried a different tack.
‘It’s amazing how much having a baby changes your life. There’s so much to do, so many demands on you. My boy gets colic every night after his last feed; sometimes he cries for as long as two or three hours. All I can do is walk round the house trying to calm him. I understand how that can drive some people crazy.’
Esparza appeared to nod sympathetically.
‘Is that what happened?’
‘What?’
‘Your mother-in-law claims you went to her house early in the morning.’
He started to shake his head.
‘And that she saw your car drive away …’
‘My mother-in-law is mistaken.’ His hostility was palpable. ‘She can’t tell one car from another. It was probably a couple of kids who pulled into the driveway hoping to find a quiet place to … you know.’
‘Yes, except that her dogs didn’t bark, so it must have been someone they knew. What’s more, your mother-in-law told my colleague about a mark on the girl’s forehead, which wasn’t there when she put her to bed. She also said she was woken up by a noise, and when she looked out of the window she saw your car driving off.’
‘That bitch would say anything to get me into trouble. She’s never liked me. You can ask my wife, she’ll tell you: we went out to dinner and afterwards we went straight home.’
‘My colleagues have spoken to her, but she couldn’t help much. She didn’t contradict your story, she simply doesn’t remember anything.’
‘I know, she had too much to drink. She isn’t used to it, what with the pregnancy …’
‘It must have been difficult for you this last year.’ He looked at her, puzzled. ‘I mean, the risky pregnancy, forced rest, no sex; then the baby is born premature, two months in hospital, no sex; at last she comes home, more worries, caring for the baby, and still no sex …’
He gave a faint smile.
‘I know from experience,’ she went on. ‘And on the day of your anniversary, you leave the baby with your mother-in-law, you go out to a nice restaurant, and after a few glasses of wine your wife is legless. You take her home, put her to bed, and … no sex. The night is young. You drive over to your mother-in-law’s house to check that everything’s all right. You arrive to find her asleep on the sofa, and that irritates you. Entering the girl’s room, you suddenly realise the child is a burden, she is ruining your life, things were much better before she came along … and you make a decision.’
He sat perfectly still, hanging on her every word.
‘So, you do what you have to do, only your mother-in-law wakes up and sees you driving away.’
‘Like I told you: my mother-in-law is a fucking bitch.’
‘I know how you feel – mine is too. But yours is also very astute. She noticed the mark on the girl’s forehead. Yesterday, it was barely visible, but today the pathologist is in no doubt that the mark was made by an object having been pressed into her skin.’
He heaved a deep sigh.
‘You noticed it too, that’s why you tried to cover it with make-up. And to ensure no one else would see it, you ordered the coffin to be sealed. But your bitch of a mother-in-law is like a dog with a bone, isn’t she? So you decided to take the body to prevent anyone asking questions. Your wife, perhaps? Someone saw you two quarrelling in the funeral parlour.’
‘You’ve got it all wrong. That was because she insisted on cremating the girl.’
‘And you were against it? You wanted a burial? Is that why you took her?’
Something appeared to dawn on him.
‘What will happen to the body now?’
Amaia was intrigued by Esparza’s choice of words; relatives didn’t usually refer to their loved one as a body or corpse, but rather as the girl, the baby, or … She realised she didn’t know his child’s name.
‘The pathologist will perform a second autopsy, after which the body will be released to the family.’
‘They mustn’t cremate her.’
‘That’s something you need to decide among yourselves.’
‘They mustn’t cremate her. I haven’t finished.’
Amaia recalled what Iriarte had told her.
‘What haven’t you finished?’
‘If I don’t finish, this will all have been in vain.’
Amaia’s curiosity deepened:
‘What exactly do you mean?’
Suddenly, Esparza seemed to realise where he was, and that he’d said too much. He immediately clammed up.
‘Did you kill your daughter?’
‘No,’ he replied.
‘Do you know who did?’
Silence.
‘Perhaps your wife killed her …’
Esparza smiled, shaking his head, as if he found the mere thought laughable.
‘Not her.’
‘Who, then? Who did you take to your mother-in-law’s house?’
‘No one.’
‘No, I don’t believe you did, because it was you. You killed your daughter.’
‘No!’ he yelled suddenly. ‘… I gave her up.’
‘Gave her up? Who to? What for?’
He grinned smugly.
‘I gave her up to …’ He lowered his voice to a muffled whisper: ‘… like all the others …’ he said. He murmured a few more words, then buried his head in his arms.
Amaia remained in the cell for a while, even though she realised that the interview was over, that she would get no more out of him. She buzzed for them to open the door from outside. As she was leaving, he spoke again:
‘Can you do something for me?’
‘That depends.’
‘Tell them not to cremate her.’
Deputy Inspectors Etxaide and Zabalza were waiting with Iriarte in the adjoining room.
‘Could you hear what he was saying?’
‘Only the part about giving her up to someone, but I didn’t hear a name. It’s on tape; you can see his lips move, but it’s inaudible. He was probably talking gibberish.’
‘Zabalza, see if you can do anything with the audio and video, jack up the volume as high as it’ll go. I expect you’re right, he’s messing with us, but let’s be on the safe side. Jonan, Montes and Iriarte, you come with me. By the way, where is Montes?’
‘He’s just finished taking the relatives’ statements.’
Amaia opened her field kit on the table to make sure she had everything she needed.
‘We’ll need to stop somewhere to buy a digital calliper.’ She smiled, as she noticed Iriarte frown. ‘Is something wrong?’
‘Today is your day off …’
‘Not any more, right?’ she grinned, picking up the case and following Jonan outside to where Montes was waiting for them in the car with the engine running.
5
She felt a kind of sympathy bordering on pity for Valentín Esparza when she entered the room his mother-in-law had decorated for the little girl. Confronted with
the profusion of pink ribbons, lace and embroidery, the sensation of déjà vu was overwhelming. This little girl’s amatxi had chosen nymphs and fairies instead of the ridiculous pink lambs her own mother-in-law had chosen for Ibai, but other than that, the room might have been decorated by the same woman. Hanging on the walls were half a dozen or so framed photographs of the girl being cradled by her mother, grandmother and an older woman, possibly an aunt. Valentín Esparza didn’t appear in any of them.
The radiators upstairs were on full, doubtless for the baby’s benefit. Muffled voices reached them from the kitchen below, friends and neighbours who had come round to comfort the two women. The mother seemed to have stopped crying now; even so, Amaia closed the door at the top of the stairs. She stood watching as Montes and Etxaide processed the scene, cursing her phone, which had been vibrating in her pocket since they left the station. The number of missed calls was piling up. She checked her coverage: as she had suspected, because of the thick walls it was much weaker inside the farmhouse. Descending the stairs, she tiptoed past the kitchen, registering the sound of hushed voices typical at wakes. She felt a sense of relief as she stepped outside. The rain had stopped briefly, as the wind swept away the black storm clouds, but the absence of any clear patches of sky meant that once the wind fell the rain would start again. She moved a few metres away from the house and checked her log of missed calls. One from Dr San Martín, one from Lieutenant Padua of the Guardia Civil, one from James, and six from Ros. First she rang James, who was upset to hear that she wouldn’t be home for lunch.
‘But, Amaia, it’s your day off—’
‘I’ll be home as soon as I can, I promise, and I’ll make it up to you.’
He seemed unconvinced.
‘But we have a dinner reservation …’
‘I’ll be home in an hour at the most.’
Padua picked up straight away.
‘Inspector, how are you?’
‘I’m fine. I saw your call, and—’ She could barely contain her anxiety.
‘No news, Inspector. I just rang to say I’ve spoken to Naval Command in San Sebastián and La Rochelle. All the patrol boats in the Bay of Biscay are on the alert and they know what to look for.’
Padua must have heard her sigh. He added in a reassuring tone:
‘Inspector, the coastguards are of the opinion, and I agree, that one month is long enough for your mother’s body to have washed up somewhere along the shore. It could have been swept up the Cantabrian coast, though the ascending current is more likely to have carried it to France. Alternatively, it could have become snagged on the riverbed, or the torrential rains could have taken it miles out to sea, into one of the deep trenches in the Bay of Biscay. Bodies washed out to sea are rarely found, and given how long it’s been since your mother disappeared, I think we have to consider that possibility. A month is a long time.’
‘Thank you, Lieutenant,’ she said, trying hard not to show her disappointment. ‘If you hear anything …’
‘Rest assured, I’ll let you know.’
She hung up, thrusting her phone deep into her pocket, as she digested what Padua had said. A month in the sea is a long time for a dead body. But didn’t the sea always give up its dead?
While talking to Padua, she had started to circle the house to escape the tiresome crunch of gravel outside the entrance. As she followed the line in the ground traced by rainwater dripping from the roof, she reached the corner at the back of the building where the eaves met. Sensing a movement behind her, she turned. The older woman from the photographs in the little girl’s bedroom was standing beside a tree in the garden, apparently talking to herself. As she gently tapped the tree trunk, she chanted a series of barely audible words that seemed to be addressed to some invisible presence. Amaia watched the old woman for a few seconds, until she looked up and saw her.
‘In the old days, we’d have buried her here,’ she said.
Amaia lowered her gaze to the trodden earth and the clear line traced by water falling from the eaves. She was unable to speak, assailed by images of her own family graveyard, the remains of a cot blanket poking out from the dark soil.
‘Kinder than leaving her all alone in a cemetery, or cremating her, which is what my granddaughter wants to do … The modern ways aren’t always the best. In the old days, we women weren’t told how we should do things; we may have done some things wrong, but we did others much better.’ The woman spoke to her in Spanish, although from the way she pronounced her ‘r’s, Amaia inferred that she usually spoke Basque. An old Baztán etxeko andrea, one of a generation of invincible women who had seen a whole century, and who still had the strength to get up every morning, scrape her hair into a bun, cook, and feed the animals; Amaia noticed the powdery traces of the millet the woman had been carrying in the pockets of her black apron, in the old tradition. ‘You do what has to be done.’
As the woman shuffled towards her in her green wellingtons, Amaia resisted the urge to go to her aid, sensing this might embarrass her. Instead she waited until the woman drew level, then extended her hand.
‘Who were you speaking to?’ she said, gesturing towards the open meadow.
‘To the bees.’
Amaia looked at her, puzzled.
Erliak, elriak
Gaur il da etxeko nausiya
Erliak, elriak
Eta bear da elizan argiafn1
Amaia recalled her aunt telling her that in Baztán, when someone died, the mistress of the house would go to where the hives were kept in the meadow and ask the bees to make more wax for the extra candles needed to illuminate the deceased during the wake and funeral. According to her aunt, the incantation would increase the bees’ production three-fold.
Touched by the woman’s gesture, Amaia imagined she could hear her Aunt Engrasi saying, ‘When all else fails, we return to the old traditions.’
‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ she said.
Ignoring Amaia’s hand, the woman embraced her with surprising strength. After releasing her, she lowered her eyes to the ground, wiping her tears away with the pocket of the apron in which she had carried the chicken feed. Amaia – moved by the woman’s dignified courage, which had rekindled the lifelong admiration she’d felt towards that generation – maintained a respectful silence.
‘He didn’t do it,’ the woman said suddenly.
Trained to know when someone was about to unburden themselves, Amaia didn’t reply.
‘No one takes any notice of me because I’m an old woman, but I know who killed our little girl, and it wasn’t that foolish father of hers. All he cares about is cars, motorbikes and showing off. He loves money the way pigs love apples. I should know, I courted men like that in my youth. They would come to pick me up on motorbikes, or in cars, but I wasn’t taken in by all that nonsense. I wanted a real man …’
The old woman’s mind was starting to wander. Amaia steered her back to the present:
‘Do you know who killed her?’
‘Yes, I told them,’ she said, waving a hand towards the house. ‘But no one listens to me because I’m an old woman.’
‘I’m listening to you. Tell me who did this.’
‘It was Inguma – Inguma killed her,’ she declared emphatically.
‘Who is Inguma?’
The old woman’s grief was palpable as she gazed at Amaia.
‘That poor girl! Inguma is the demon that steals children’s souls while they sleep. Inguma slipped through the cracks, sat on her chest and took her soul.’
Amaia opened her mouth, confused, then closed it again, unsure what to say.
‘You think I’m spouting old wives’ tales,’ the woman said accusingly.
‘Not at all …’
‘In the annals of Baztán it says that Inguma awoke once and took away hundreds of children. The doctors called it whooping cough, but it was Inguma who came to rob their breath while they slept.’
Inés Ballarena appeared from around the side of the house.
‘Of course,’ murmured Amaia. To her relief, at that moment a call came through on her mobile. She excused herself and moved away to a discreet distance to take the call.
‘Dr San Martín, have you finished already?’ she said, glancing at her watch.
‘Actually, we’ve only just started.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I’ve asked a colleague to help me on this occasion,’ he said, unable to disguise the catch in his voice, ‘but, I thought I’d let you know what we’ve found so far. The victim was suffocated with a soft object, such as a pillow or cushion. You saw the mark above the bridge of the nose; when you conduct your search, keep in mind the measurement I gave you. Forensics are currently examining a few soft, white fibres we found in the folds of the mouth, so that’ll give you some idea of the colour. We also found traces of saliva on her face, mostly belonging to the girl, but there is at least one other donor. It might have been left by a relative kissing her cheek …’
‘When will you be able to tell me more?’
‘In a few hours.’
Amaia ended the call and hurried after the two women. She caught up with them at the front door.
‘Inés, did you bathe your granddaughter before you put her to bed?’
‘Yes, the evening bath relaxed her, it made her sleepy,’ she said, stifling a sob.
Amaia thanked her, then ran up the stairs. ‘We’re looking for something soft and white,’ she said, bursting into the bedroom.
Montes lifted an evidence bag to show her.
‘Snow white,’ he declared, holding aloft the captive bear.
‘How did you …?’
‘From the smell,’ explained Jonan. ‘Then we noticed that the fur looked flattened …’
‘It smells?’ Amaia frowned; a dirty toy seemed incongruous in that room where everything had been carefully thought out down to the last detail.
‘It doesn’t just smell, it stinks,’ said Montes.
6
By the time she left the house, Amaia’s mobile showed three more missed calls from Ros. She’d resisted the temptation to return them, sensing that her sister’s unusual persistence might herald an awkward conversation, which she didn’t want her colleagues to witness. Only once she was in the privacy of her car did she make the call. Ros answered on the first ring, as if she’d been waiting with the phone in her hand.