‘Okay,’ said Amaia as she scribbled her signature on the authorisation papers for the seminars at Quantico. ‘Go ahead and make the call.’
26
In the past few hours, after a brief respite, the rain had returned. As if to compensate, the clouds had formed a protective layer, raising the temperature and dispelling the cold breeze. They were accompanied by the Chief of Border Police and two patrolmen, whose job it was to ensure that Judge Loraine de Gouvenain’s orders were carried out to the letter: they would remove the slab and they would descend into the crypt to verify that the children’s bodies were inside their coffins. No permission was given for them to be lifted to the surface, or disturbed in any way. The order stated that Yolanda Berrueta was permitted to look inside to make sure that her children’s bodies were where they were supposed to be.
They waited with the French police patrol and the cemetery workers, sheltering from the rain beneath the tiny portico at the entrance to the church. The priest had his arm around Yolanda, who rested her head on his shoulder, emotional yet serene, as he whispered words of encouragement to her.
The rain soaking into the porous sandstone had turned the tombs a darker shade, showing up the shiny moss and lichen climbing up the sides. Fortunately, the rain seemed to have deterred onlookers; and so far as any passersby were concerned, a group of people huddled in the entrance to Our Lady of the Assumption wasn’t so out of the ordinary, even if there were a couple of uniformed police officers among them. In the car park, next to the entrance to the churchyard, a dark blue official-looking car rolled to a halt. Moments later, the chief’s mobile rang.
‘Come with me, please,’ he said. ‘Judge De Gouvenain has arrived.’
Amaia pulled up the hood of her Puffa jacket and followed him into the rain.
The car window glided down and Judge De Gouvenain peered outside, looking none too happy at the sight of the rain pouring down. Amaia had expected someone quite different, perhaps because of Iriarte’s description of her as a tough woman, accustomed to dealing with the ugly side of life. Loraine De Gouvenain’s hair was scraped into a bun, and she wore a coral dress and lightweight coat, defying the last days of winter. The chief leaned in to speak to her, and Amaia did the same. A smell of spearmint wafted out from inside the car, coming from a tin of lozenges the judge was holding, and to which she seemed partial.
‘Chief, Inspector,’ she greeted them, ‘I imagine it will take a while to remove the slab. My legal secretary will oversee the procedure. Let me know when it’s done; I’ve no intention of ruining my shoes in this rain.’
As they rejoined the group, Amaia remarked: ‘Madame le Juge won’t be happy if she has to descend into the crypt.’
‘She’ll do whatever’s necessary. She can’t stand rain, but she’s one of the best. Her father was head of the Sûretè in Paris, and believe me, it shows. De Gouvenain is that rare beast: a magistrate who actually makes our job easier.’
It turned out Madame le Juge was right: the whole operation took well over an hour. The cemetery workers started by removing the flowers heaped on top of the slab, then exchanged worried looks.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Amaia.
‘The slab is so fragile, they’re afraid it will break if they lever it off. So, they’re going to have to use a small hydraulic crane to lift it. There’s one at the municipal depot close by, but they will need another vehicle to transport it.’
‘How long will that take?’
‘Another half hour …’
The chief went over to inform Judge De Gouvenain of the delay. The priest invited them to wait inside the church, but they all refused.
‘How do you spot a lawyer in a cemetery?’ Jonan asked. ‘He’s the only walking corpse,’ he added, indicating a group of people coming towards them through the churchyard huddled under one umbrella.
Amaia recognised Marcel Tremond. Alongside him was a man who was undoubtedly his lawyer. On his other side was a heavily pregnant young woman in a red coat, holding his arm for support. Seeing them, Yolanda let out the guttural cry of a frightened animal. Amaia turned to her, leaving the chief to deal with Tremond’s lawyer.
‘Are you okay, Yolanda?’
Yolanda leaned over and whispered something in her ear. Amaia joined the chief, interrupting the lawyer’s protests.
‘Yolanda Berrueta claims that your client is under a restraining order which prohibits him from coming within two hundred metres of her. Is this true?’
The chief’s expression hardened, as he looked questioningly at the man.
‘And who, may I ask, are you?’ demanded the lawyer.
‘Inspector Salazar, head of the murder squad, Navarre regional police.’
He studied her with renewed interest.
‘Ah, so you’re Salazar. Well, you have no jurisdiction here.’
‘Wrong again,’ retorted the chief sarcastically. ‘Read the court order. If you can’t, I’ll translate it for you.’
The lawyer looked daggers at him, then focused his attention on the document. Turning towards the couple waiting beneath the umbrella, he whispered something that prompted angry protests.
‘You have twenty seconds to leave the cemetery,’ said the chief. Without waiting for a reaction, he turned to the uniformed officers: ‘If they resist, arrest them and take them to the police station,’ he ordered.
The lawyer escorted his clients out of the cemetery, although from where she stood, Amaia could see that they came to a halt two hundred metres down the street, respecting the restriction.
The rain was pelting down, forming puddles between the tombs. After the crane arrived, it took a further fifteen minutes to secure it on the stony ground. Then they slid a couple of straps beneath the slab and slowly started to raise it.
‘Halt!’ cried the chief, running towards them, his phone pressed to his ear.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Amaia, alarmed.
‘Put the slab back where it was, Judge De Gouvenain has revoked the order.’
Amaia opened her mouth, incredulous.
‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘She wants a word with you.’
Once again, the swish of the window, and behind it Judge De Gouvenain keeping her distance.
‘Inspector Salazar, could you explain to me why I’ve just received a call from a Spanish magistrate who informs me that he is in charge of this case, and has expressly refused to allow you to dig up any children’s graves. Who do you think you are? You’ve made a fool of me in front of one of my colleagues, to whom I have been forced to apologise – all this because you don’t know where to draw the line.’
As Amaia leaned towards the window, the judge looked with visible displeasure at the large raindrops trickling down the sides of her hood and falling on to the upholstery inside the car door.
‘Your honour, Judge Markina refused the order for a different case, which in principle is unrelated to this matter. I already explained—’
‘That isn’t what he told me. By going over his head, you’ve placed me in a very awkward position, Inspector. I am extremely annoyed and I intend to take this up with your superiors. I hope you never need my help in the future, because I assure you, it won’t be forthcoming,’ she declared, pressing the button to activate the car window, which slid up making her disappear in her spearmint bubble, as the engine started.
Amaia’s face flushed with humiliation and anger. She could feel the chief’s eyes boring into her as she took out her phone, which immediately got wet, and dialled Markina’s number. She heard one, two, three rings then nothing. Markina had cut her dead, in more ways than one.
27
Jonan drove, while Amaia sat in the back, letting Iriarte take the passenger seat. Distancing herself from her silent colleagues, she tried to banish the deep sense of shame gripping her chest, threatening to burst out in a cry of rage against the world. The gravediggers’ irritation; Yolanda’s sobs as she demanded an explanation; the priest’s silent disapproval; th
e Chief of Border Police’s solemn face as he murmured an apology; the wolf-like grin of the lawyer, Lejarreta, as they passed him on their way back to the car …
She couldn’t face going into the police station. As soon as they arrived, she took the wheel from Jonan, and left without saying a word. She drove slowly, observing the speed limit, concentrating on the hypnotic movement of the windscreen wipers as they swept the raindrops off the glass. Her languid demeanour belied the rage seething within her; a fury so intense it seemed to consume every ounce of energy she possessed.
She left Elizondo, driving through the banks of fog hovering above the motorway like gateways to another world, creating the impression of entering another dimension. As she kept an eye out for the exit that would take her on to the road that followed the river, she caught sight of sheep standing miserably in the fields, water cascading off their winter fleeces. It was hard to tell where the fleece ended and the grass began; making them look like strange creatures that had sprouted from the soil.
When she saw the bridge, she stopped the car, rummaged in the boot for her wellingtons, checked she had her phone, which a hundred yards further on would have no coverage, and her Glock.
The intense cold meant that the snow on the peaks hadn’t yet thawed, so despite the rain the river wasn’t too swollen. Plumes of fog rose into the air like ghosts where an occasional stone riffled the surface. As she crossed the footbridge, she could see the wreckage from the floodwaters that had swept through only a month previously, on the night her son had come close to dying at the hands of Rosario. On one side, the railing had disappeared, as if it had never been there, while the bars of the other were wreathed with twigs and dead leaves. Could an elderly woman have survived the current of a river that had washed away an eight-metre railing as if it were a dead branch?
She felt her feet sink into the marshy expanse covered with bright green grass that had shot up once the waters of the River Baztán receded. Below the pristine surface, the earth yielded beneath her feet, slowing her advance, as with each step she had to extract her boots from the mire.
When she reached the abandoned farmhouse, she leaned against its solid walls, scraping off the build-up of mud that was weighing down her wellingtons. Then, lowering the hood of her jacket, which restricted her vision, she took out her Glock and entered the forest. She didn’t care if it was logical or not, her instinct told her that someone else besides the lord of the forest was watching her, someone who had been about to show themselves … Or perhaps that encounter the other day had only been a wild boar, and the whistle she’d taken to be a warning had merely been a shepherd summoning his dog … She was sure she’d seen someone – or something – disappear into the shadows, but it could easily have been a wild boar, she told herself.
‘All right, girl, but be prepared,’ she whispered. ‘And if paranoia is what comes with post-traumatic stress, then at least let it be of some use.’
She threaded her way through the trees, following a path made by animals. She glimpsed a deer through the undergrowth, their eyes meeting for an instant before the animal fled. Beneath the thick canopy of trees, the water of the past few hours had traced small, dark rivulets that led her to the clearing where the stream flowed noisily down the hill between moss-covered rocks. She crossed the little stone bridge, passing the spot where a beautiful young woman trailing her feet in the icy water had once announced that the lady was coming. She glanced up at the sky, which continued to bleed that soft drizzle which would go on all day, but which showed no sign of the approaching storm.
She reached the hill, out of breath after making her way through the undergrowth. Looking up, she saw that the stairway in the rock, wet from the rain, was also covered in mud. Calculating the effort it would take, she tucked her gun into her waistband and began her ascent. Once she’d passed the outcrop that formed a natural viewpoint, she pulled up her hood for protection and started to climb a narrow pathway, overgrown with brambles. The thorns scratched at her Puffa jacket, making soft hissing sounds. When she emerged into another clearing, she pushed her hood down and glanced about. A few yards above her loomed the low, dark mouth of the cave, only partially visible. To her left was the precipice, perilously obscured by vegetation; behind her, the path she had walked up, and to her right the table rock, empty of offerings. She could tell from the overgrown path that no one had been up this way since she was last there. Overwhelmed by the solitude, she stooped to pull a jagged stone out of the soft ground, and rubbed it on her clothes to clean off the mud. She stepped forward, placing it on the polished surface of the table rock. And then, nothing.
The effort of climbing had consumed the rage fuelled by her humiliation and shame, leaving only cold, dead embers. Motionless in that place, her face damp from the rain, aware of the round droplets weighing on her eyelids, Amaia Salazar lowered her head. The raindrops falling from her eyelashes unleashed a sea of tears that flowed from her with such force that she stumbled forward, overcome. Falling to her knees, she pressed her face to the rock and covered her eyes with her hands. She was oblivious to the rain trickling down the back of her neck from her sodden hair. Oblivious to the hardness of the surface, to her wet, mud-soaked trousers, to the earthy smell as she attempted to bury her face in the rock, as if it were the lap of the mother she never had.
Then she became aware of the soft, warm hand resting on her head in that ageless gesture of comfort and blessing. She didn’t move, or stop crying, but her tears lost their urgency and soon became an expression of gratitude. She held on to that illusion, knowing that if she looked up, no one would be there and it would only confirm that the soothing hand was not real.
She couldn’t say how long she remained in that position; a few seconds, perhaps longer. She waited, then raised her head and got to her feet. Once again she pulled up her hood and set off along the bramble-covered track. She turned only once: the stone she had placed on the table rock had vanished. A loud rumble of thunder made the mountain shake.
Amaia didn’t return to the police station. Not that she thought anyone would blame her for what had happened, but she felt mentally drained and physically ill. All she wanted was to go home.
She parked outside the archway leading to Engrasi’s house. Realising that she still had on her muddy wellingtons, she sat down on one of the stone benches to pull them off. When she stood up, she felt drained. Her clothes were soaked through and covered in mud, her wet hair plastered to her head. Amaia was no stranger to humiliation and disgrace; she was well-schooled in those particular subjects, so much so that by the time she was nine she’d graduated with flying colours. She’d come to realise that, far from making you stronger, these lessons in life prepared you for nothing; constant exposure was merely an unrelenting drill that kept grinding into the rock that is you, seeking out a vein of weakness. If you were lucky, you could hide away for years, but sooner or later the pain would return, making you want to bury yourself in that dark cavern where the human heart resides, renouncing the light that only served to accentuate your misery. She thought about Yáñez, his wife’s blood staining the sofa, the shutters closed so he couldn’t see, so he couldn’t be seen, hiding his shame.
She took off her wet, muddy Puffa jacket and flung it on top of her wellingtons, then went into the house. Dragging her legs, which had become as heavy as alabaster pillars, she felt instantly enveloped by the warm atmosphere of her aunt’s home. Her skin pale from the rain and cold in the hills, she entered the sitting room where her family were preparing to have lunch. She had no appetite whatsoever. It was all she could do to find the strength to hug her aunt.
‘I’m just tired and wet,’ she said, registering Engrasi’s look of concern. ‘I’ll have a shower and a nap, and I’ll be good as new.’
She gave James a fleeting kiss. He realised something was wrong, but chose simply to watch her in silence as she focused all her attention on Ibai. He was playing in what looked like an inflatable swimming pool. It took up a sizeable
area of the floor space, which explained why the coffee table in front of the sofa had been pushed against the wall.
‘For heaven’s sake, James, haven’t you gone a bit overboard?’ she said, grinning at the profusion of colours, shapes and fabrics that made up this monstrosity, big enough for at least four children, although Ibai seemed to love it.
‘It wasn’t me. Why do you always assume I’m responsible for such follies?’
‘Who else?’
‘Your sister, Flora,’ he replied, grinning.
‘Flora?’ Thinking about it, Amaia wasn’t so surprised; she had seen the way her sister looked at Ibai, how she cradled him in her arms at every opportunity. She even kept a beautiful framed photograph of him on the sideboard of her palatial sitting room in Zarautz.
As she let the hot water wash away the cold and some of her aches and pains, she wished it were as easy to rinse away her remorse and shame, flushing it down the plughole to be carried away by the River Baztán. She felt that this morning’s events had undermined her to an extent she would never have thought possible. She’d got it wrong, she’d made a mistake, a serious error of judgement, and in Amaia Salazar’s world you paid dearly for such errors. Wrapping her bathrobe around her, she refrained from demisting the glass to look at her reflection, and collapsed on to the clean, inviting bed that smelled of the husband she believed she loved, and the son she knew she loved, and she fell asleep.
She was familiar with this dream. Occasionally she would recognise dream landscapes as if they were real places she had visited, and the reassuring thought that they were merely a projection of her mind gave her the freedom to move about inside these dream spaces, looking for information and details she might have missed the first time. In this one, the waters of the Baztán flowed noiselessly between two strips of dry land covered in circular stones, which shaped the banks of the river until it flowed into the dark region of the forest. She could hear no sound of birds, not even the murmur of the river. Then she saw her, the little girl who she had always assumed was herself aged six or seven, but who she now knew to be her sister, and a product of her imagination, for her sister had perished long before she reached that age. The little girl was wearing a white nightdress with lace edging, and the pink ribbon Amatxi Juanita had chosen for her. Oblivious to the cold, she dangled her bare feet in the water, which lapped gently at her ankles, soaking the lace edging. Amaia was glad to see her, and a sincere, childlike joy flowed from her heart, and sprang from her lips. The little girl didn’t respond, she was sad, because she was dead. And yet she hadn’t surrendered; she looked straight at Amaia, raising her arm to indicate the banks further down the river. ‘The dead do what they can,’ reflected Amaia, as she followed her sister’s gesture to see where she was pointing. On either side of the river, dozens of white flowers had sprouted, as tall as the little girl. Amaia watched their petals unfurl, and as the breeze touched them, a heady perfume of butter and biscuits reached her; she dissolved into ecstasies of tenderness as she recognised Ibai’s smell, the scent of her river child. Burning with curiosity, she sought out her sister’s gaze, but she had disappeared, replaced by a dozen beautiful young girls. Clad in sheepskins that barely covered their breasts and thighs, they sat combing their long tresses, which touched the surface of the water where their feet were submerged.
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