She spent the rest of the morning investigating roads, lanes and paths. It was shortly after midday when, driving past a house she had already ruled out, she saw the meadow. A vast expanse of bright green grass, extending from the sides and back of a house that couldn’t have been more than ten years old. The house had a red gable roof, with big picture windows at the front, wooden decking with a table large enough to seat ten, and a modern-looking barbecue. Seeing it from the bend in the road, she realised why she hadn’t noticed it until now. Although the house stood in a meadow, the whole of the front part was hidden behind a wall overgrown with vegetation. Hidden among the foliage in the middle of the wall she made out a green metal mailbox. She drove back down the road, pulled over, and saw that the wall and the fence behind were attached to the property. She walked along the wall until she reached the mailbox, where she read the name: Martínez-Bayón. She continued along the wall then turned left. There she discovered a fence covered in creepers, and behind it a modern gateway with a roofed structure, a video intercom system, and the plaque of a security company gleaming incongruously from a horizontal rafter, on to which the name Argi Beltz was neatly carved. A few yards ahead she saw a garage.
‘Argi Beltz,’ she whispered. Black light. It’s a black house, Elena Ochoa’s words echoed in her head. She walked up to the entrance, stood in front of the camera and rang the bell. She waited, then pressed it again, and then a third time, before giving up; just as she was about to walk away, she was sure she heard a faint crackle coming from the intercom, although there was no light to indicate that the receiver had been picked up. She had the feeling she was being watched, which irritated rather than disturbed her. She walked back to her car then drove up the hill to the bend in the road from where she could see the property. This had to be the place; according to Elena, it was the only house in the area surrounded by a big meadow, and yet the building itself bore no resemblance to the description she had given. Thirty years had gone by since Elena had seen it last. A new buyer could have rebuilt on the site of the old house, or, gone the whole hog and had the terrain evened out, in which case this wasn’t the place she was looking for. She drove slowly, taking in every detail, until, about a half a mile on, a dip in the landscape and the unmistakable outline of two neat hayricks indicated the next farmhouse. A carved wooden plaque bore the name Lau Haizeta (‘Four Winds’). Amaia drove towards it, stopping to look at the huge stone cross at the entrance. She wasn’t surprised by it: many of the houses and farms in Baztán had stone crosses outside to protect them, some as large as, or even larger than a person. In Arizkun, virtually every house, stable, chicken coop, had one next to the eguzkilore, or silver thistle, which also guarded the farmhouses. What surprised her was that she counted as many as six as she drove up to the front door, four dogs trotting silently beside the car. She instantly understood why. The owner of the house, a dour-looking woman, was standing in a doorway on the ground floor. She waited for Amaia to climb out of the car before approaching, presumably to get a better look at her.
‘Good afternoon,’ she said in Spanish.
‘Egun on, andrea,’ Amaia greeted her in Basque, noticing how the woman’s face instantly relaxed when she heard her Baztán accent. ‘I wonder if you could help me?’
‘Of course, do you need directions?’
‘Well, actually, I’m looking for a house. I think it’s the next farmhouse along, except that it doesn’t fit the description I was given. The place I’m looking for is old, and that house is relatively new, so I must be mistaken.’
As the woman listened, her expression hardened.
‘I know nothing about any house, please leave,’ she hissed.
Amaia was taken aback by the woman’s sudden change of attitude; seconds earlier, she had been eager to help, but now, at the very mention of that house, she was ordering her off the property. She always tried to avoid identifying herself as a police officer when she was on a fact-gathering mission; some people went on the defensive when they saw a badge, even those who had nothing to hide. In this case, she felt she had no choice. Rummaging in the pocket of her Puffa jacket, she pulled out her ID.
The effect was instantaneous: the woman relaxed, nodded approvingly, and said:
‘Are you investigating those people?’
Amaia reflected. Was she investigating them? Yes, damn it, she was. If they were in any way connected to her mother, then she would investigate them to hell and back.
‘Yes,’ she replied.
‘Would you like a coffee?’ the woman asked, ushering Amaia into the kitchen. ‘It’s freshly ground,’ she added, unscrewing a small, Italian percolator.
She placed a tray of biscuits in front of Amaia, leaving her alone in the kitchen while she went upstairs. She returned minutes later, bringing with her an old cocoa tin, which she set down on the table. After pouring the coffee, she opened the tin, which contained photographs. She rifled through them until she found the one she was looking for.
‘This was taken fifty years ago, when my parents rebuilt the chimney, which was struck by lightning. It was taken from the roof. In the background, you can see the house you mentioned. Of course, it looks different now, but I assure you it’s the same house.’
The woman handed Amaia the black-and-white photograph. In the foreground, a man dressed in overalls and a beret posed on the roof beside an enormous chimneystack. Behind him stood an old farmhouse, with what could have been brown walls and a dark roof in the middle of a meadow, just as Elena Ochoa had described.
‘I think this might be it.’
‘I know it is,’ the woman said.
‘What makes you so sure?’
‘Because nothing good has ever entered that house, only strange people, wicked people. But they don’t frighten me. This is my land, I’m protected here.’ Amaia remembered the big stone cross, like a sentinel guarding the entrance. ‘Mark my words, evil things have gone on in that house. I never knew the original owners. It had been empty for years by the time I was born, but my amatxi told me it belonged to two brothers and a sister. Their mother died young, and their father went insane with grief. It was the custom then to confine relatives like that to the attic. The brothers were coarse brutes, who treated their sister like a slave and refused to let her marry. Apparently, she met a man, a horse trader, and they fell in love. The day the man called round at the house to take her away, he was greeted by one of the brothers. “There she is,” he grinned, pointing to a barrel. When the man opened the lid he found his beloved’s body hacked to pieces. The two brothers set upon him, but the horse trader knew how to defend himself; he stabbed one of them, then fled. My amatxi told me that by the time the Guardia Civil arrived, one brother had bled to death and the other had hanged himself from a rafter. Imagine the scene: the sister hacked to bits, one brother in a pool of blood and the other purple-faced and bloated, swinging from a rafter. But the worst was yet to come. They found the father’s mummified corpse chained to a bed in the attic. The authorities shut up the farmhouse, and it stood abandoned for seventy years. People around here used to say that the ghosts of the former occupants haunted it,’ she said with a shudder.
Amaia made a mental note of the dates so that she could check them afterwards.
‘And then in the seventies, the hippies moved in. Well, they weren’t exactly hippies, but they all lived together, girls and boys, as many as twenty, not including the visitors who came and went, some of whom seemed a lot older. They organised cultural encounters, spiritual gatherings, that kind of thing. Occasionally, I’d pass them on the road and they’d invite me along. I always refused. In those days I was a young mother with four children. I didn’t have time for all that nonsense. The house looked nothing like it does now,’ she said, pointing at the photograph. ‘Although it was built to last, standing empty all those years had taken its toll. The place was run down. They had a vegetable garden, where they grew a few things, a couple of hens, some sheep and pigs, which roamed free, rolling
in their own muck.
‘It must have been around that time when the couple who live there now arrived. I won’t call them husband and wife, because I don’t think they’re married. They weren’t Christians, and they never attended Mass. They had a little girl. I never knew her name. She died of a brain haemorrhage when she was about a year old. At the time, I remember asking the priest when the funeral was, and he told me she hadn’t been baptised. I realise that anyone can suffer a brain haemorrhage can happen to anyone, but I tell you, that child was neglected. One day – she was barely a toddler – she turned up here. She’d crawled all the way across that field on her own, presumably attracted by my children’s voices as they played outside. My eldest daughter saw her, picked her up and washed her face and hands, which were covered in mud. Her nappy was soiled and her clothes were filthy. I’d made doughnuts for the children’s tea, and my daughter decided to give her a piece. I’ve brought up four children, Inspector, and that girl wasn’t just hungry, she was ravenous. She wolfed it down so fast I was afraid she might choke, so we softened the doughnut in some milk. My daughter tried to feed it to her, but she kept plunging her hands in the bowl, cramming the pieces into her mouth. I’ve never seen a child eat like that – it was shocking.
‘I went down the road to tell her parents that she was safe with us, only to find them frantically searching for her. A perfectly normal reaction for any parent, except that their concern was at odds with their evident neglect of the child. Back in those days, there was no such thing as social services, people were left to their own devices, but sometimes I wish I had done more for that child. From my upstairs balcony, I can see one side of their house and the open field. I used to watch her outside, playing alone in the muck, dressed in rags. I gathered up some of my children’s cast-offs, set aside my disgust for that rabble, and took them round. The father opened the door. There were lots of people inside holding some kind of celebration. He didn’t invite me in, and I didn’t want him to. He told me the girl had died.’ The woman’s eyes filled with tears. ‘I went back home and cried for three days. I didn’t even know her name, but it still breaks my heart to think of her. A poor, neglected creature, despised and ill-treated from birth. They didn’t even hold a funeral service for her.’
‘And that same couple still lives there?’
‘Yes. Not long after that, the group broke up, but they stayed behind. I imagine they must have bought the place. They seem to have done well for themselves; the house has been completely refurbished, they’ve built a garden at the front, and a wall around the property. I’ve no idea what they do for a living, but they own a fleet of luxury cars – BMWs, Mercedes … They have a lot of visitors, who also own fancy cars; I’ve seen them parked out on the road. I don’t know who they are, but they certainly have money, which seems incredible when you think that they looked like a pair of penniless tramps when they first came here.’
‘Are the people who visit them from around here? How do they get on with the locals?’
‘Their visitors aren’t from around here, and they don’t mix with the locals.’
‘Do you know if they are at home now? I called by, but no one answered the door.’
‘I don’t, but it’s easy to find out. When they’re in, the shutters are closed; when they’re out, they are open.’
Amaia raised her eyebrows, puzzled.
‘Yes, ma’am, the opposite to everyone else. I told you they were strange. Come with me,’ she said, getting to her feet and ushering Amaia towards the staircase. They walked through one of the bedrooms and out on to an enormous balcony running the entire length of the house.
‘Well I’m damned!’ she exclaimed, pointing towards the shutters, which were open on the ground floor, and closed on the top floor. ‘I’ve never seen that before.’
The walls of the house had been whitewashed, and the original windows enlarged, the tiny screens replaced by hardwood shutters. From the balcony, Amaia had a good view over the property, which, surrounded by the garden, didn’t bear much resemblance to the old photograph.
As she thanked the woman and prepared to leave, she showed her a couple of photographs on her mobile: one of Dr Berasategui’s car, the other of her mother, Rosario.
‘I’ve seen that car parked out on the road a few times. I remember it because of the doctor’s badge on the windscreen. I don’t recognise the woman.’
Amaia had just pulled up next to the wall of the house again when a four-wheel-drive BMW sailed by, turning into the concealed driveway behind the fence. Leaping out of her car, she ran after the vehicle, catching up with it outside the automatic gates, which were slowly opening. She pulled out her badge, holding it up so that the man and woman in the car could see it, her free hand instinctively going to the Glock at her waist. The driver lowered the window, with a look of alarm.
‘Is something wrong, Officer?’
‘Nothing’s wrong. Switch off the engine and step out of the vehicle, please. I want to ask you some questions.’
The man did as she asked, and the woman walked round the car until they were both standing in front of her. They must have been in their sixties, but had a youthful appearance. The woman was elegantly dressed, and looked as if she’d come straight from the hairdresser; the man was wearing smart trousers and a shirt open at the collar. His watch was a Rolex, which Amaia had no reason to doubt was genuine.
‘How can we help you?’ the woman asked amiably.
‘Do you own this house?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m afraid I bring bad news. Your friend Dr Berasategui is dead.’ She scrutinised their faces. Clearly they weren’t surprised; there was a swift exchange of glances, as though unsure whether to admit they knew him. The man spoke first, raising a hand to silence the woman. He looked straight at Amaia, gauging how emphatic his response should be, as he decided not to deny it.
‘Oh, how dreadful! What happened? Was he involved in an accident, Officer?’
‘Inspector. Inspector Salazar, Homicide. The cause of death hasn’t yet been established,’ she lied. ‘The investigation is ongoing. What was the nature of your relationship with the deceased?’
The man’s initial restraint had vanished. He stepped forward and said:
‘Forgive me, Inspector, you’ve just informed us of the death of our friend. We’re terribly upset and need time to assimilate the news,’ he added, smiling weakly to make it clear exactly how upset he was. ‘Our relationship with Dr Berasategui is subject to professional confidentiality. I suggest you contact my lawyer if you have any further questions.’ He handed her a card, which the woman had fished out of her wallet.
‘I understand. You have my heartfelt condolences,’ retorted Amaia, taking the card. ‘In any case, I didn’t come here to ask you about Dr Berasategui, but rather about this woman,’ she said, raising her phone level with the man’s eyes. ‘Have you ever seen her with him?’
The man glanced at the screen, while the woman leaned in, donning a pair of spectacles.
‘No,’ they replied in unison.
‘We’ve never seen her before,’ said the man.
‘Thank you, you’ve been most helpful,’ said Amaia. She put away her phone, making as if to turn around, but instead moved closer to their car, where she had a better view of the house. ‘I don’t suppose you’re aware that in recent years there have been a lot of cot deaths in the area. We’re looking into all the cases in the valley. I realise this was a long time ago now, but I understand that your little girl passed away very young. I don’t suppose the cause of death was Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, by any chance?’
The woman gave a start, crying out as she clasped her partner’s arm. When at last the man spoke, his face was ashen.
‘Our daughter died of a brain haemorrhage aged fourteen months,’ he said curtly.
‘What was her name?’
‘Her name was Ainara.’
‘Where is she buried?’
‘Our daughter died during
a trip to the UK, Inspector. We didn’t have much money in those days and couldn’t afford travel insurance. We buried her there. This is an extremely painful subject for my wife, so please don’t insist.’
‘Very well,’ said Amaia. ‘One other thing: before you arrived, I rang the bell. No one answered, but I had the impression that someone was in the house.’
‘There’s no one in the house!’ the woman screamed.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Get back in the car!’ the man commanded the trembling woman. ‘As for you, leave us in peace. I told you, if you have any questions, speak to our lawyer.’
19
Although the couples they were looking for had moved house in the past few years, they weren’t difficult to find: two had stayed in the same villages – one in Lekaroz, one in Arraioz – and the third had moved to Pamplona from Elbete. The wind that had been battering Elizondo all night would keep the rain away from the valley that day, while in Pamplona it was raining so hard that, even this city, which was better prepared than most to deal with torrential downpours, seemed incapable that morning of absorbing another drop. Great pools formed around the cavernous drains clogged by the deluge, the heavy raindrops dancing off them so it looked like it was raining backwards, the water sprouting from the ground, soaking the shoes and trouser legs of passers-by. Montes and Zabalza made a dash from the car, sheltering as best they could beneath the narrow awning outside a café. They closed their umbrellas, already sopping wet, and Montes cursed the rain as they entered the café.
He approached the counter and ordered two coffees, feigning interest in a sports newspaper while he watched Zabalza, who had flopped onto a chair and was staring at the TV screen. The guy was in a bad way, probably had been for some time, but Montes was so immersed in his own problems, he hadn’t noticed until now. He recognised the same traits in himself: constantly angry with everyone and everything, convinced the world owed him something, and smarting at the injustice of never getting it. He felt sorry for Zabalza. It was like crossing a desert, and the worst thing was, if no one came to your rescue, you were doomed to die alone and mad … With your manhood intact, granted. For men like Zabalza, brains and brawn were practically synonymous, and often in such cases, the courage needed to evolve was overtaken by hollow pride, which engulfed you with its amalgam of hatred and self-pity. Montes knew from experience, he had been poisoned by it, to the point of preferring to take his own life rather than admit he was mistaken.
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