‘… Or I could stay,’ she said.
He sighed and shook his head. ‘No.’
She was taken aback by his response. Only a moment ago, he had suggested that she come back later. She made no attempt to hide her confusion.
Markina gave a smile that was at once resolute but gentle.
‘It’s because of the way in which you came to be here,’ he said. ‘You were very sad last night, you needed someone to talk to, with whom to drink a toast to your friend, a shoulder to cry on, you needed to get drunk … And today, you’re here, in my house. You can’t imagine how much I’ve longed for that. But not like this. You know how I feel about you, you know that won’t change, but I don’t want anything between us to be accidental. That’s why you have to leave now, and I hope you’ll come back, because if you do, I’ll open the door knowing you’ve come for me, that your being here isn’t incidental.’
She didn’t know what to say to this. Setting her cup down on the table, she rose, picked up her coat and bag, which were draped over a chair, then turned to look at him. He was watching her, solemnly, and once again his eyes betrayed that peculiar determination, as if he knew things she didn’t. Closing the door behind her, she made her way along the stone path leading from the front door to the street, feeling the cold air solidify her damp hair like a helmet. She hailed a taxi, buttoning her coat and rummaging in her bag for gloves, which she pulled on as the taxi took her back to her car. Afterwards, she drove through the city, the streets gridlocked at that time of the morning by delivery vans and parents making the school run, double-parking outside the school gates. Cursing, she decided to take the ring road, heading in the direction of San Sebastián.
As she drove away from the city, she began to feel increasingly lost. She remembered the times when driving had a calming effect on her; she would go out in her car at dawn, without any fixed destination, and often she would find the necessary distance to be able to think, as well as the peace and quiet she longed for. But that felt like a long time ago. This morning there was no peace. Pedestrians huddled for warmth beneath bus shelters, cursing the cars splashing through puddles left by the melting snow and rain. The motorway brought no relief. The ring road was clogged with vehicles, all of them streaked with salt and grit. She couldn’t think at the wheel any more. Whenever she needed to think, she’d been in the habit of asking Jonan to drive; she’d sit in the passenger seat, staring off into space.
She pulled into the Zuasti service station and parked close to the entrance of the singular-looking building. She hurried through the rain, crossing the threshold as others were leaving. The warmth of the place enveloped her. She ordered a milky coffee in a glass and found a table by the window where she could watch the mist rolling down the hillsides as she waited for her coffee to cool so she could hold the glass in her hands. The rain pelted against the windows, which reached halfway up the building, reminding her of an Alpine chalet. She gazed at the metal girders holding up the roof and noticed a sparrow fluttering between the rafters.
‘She lives here,’ explained the waitress, who had seen her watching the bird. ‘We’ve tried to chase her out, but it’s a bit difficult, what with the roof being so high. She seems to like it up there. I think she’s built a nest. She’s been here a couple of years – that’s longer than me. When the place is quiet, she flies down and pecks at the crumbs on the floor.’
Amaia smiled at the waitress but didn’t reply; she didn’t want to get embroiled in a conversation. Her eyes drifted to the sparrow once more; a clever bird, or an imprisoned creature? The rain drumming on the window panes caught her attention once more, the droplets mesmerising her as they slid down the glass like oil. She wanted to think, to think about the case, about Jonan, about James, yet all she could think of was him: his naked feet, the glimpse of skin beneath his shirt, his mouth, his smile, his persistence, always wanting more. She gave a sigh, and decided to call James. Taking out her phone, she calculated the time in the States: just gone three in the morning. Frustrated, she left the phone on the table as she closed her eyes. She knew what she wanted to do, what she had to do, she knew perfectly well. He made the rules … yet this wasn’t a game, it was so much more than that; he wouldn’t settle for less. Meanwhile she was drowning in a sea of doubt. She left the remainder of her coffee on the table, together with some coins, and went back out into the rain.
Her body was trembling. She could feel the tension stiffening the muscles in her back, racing through her nervous system like an electrical current, converging in her fingertips, giving her the strange impression that at any moment they might burst beneath her nails to release this burning energy. Her stomach had clenched into a knot, her mouth was dry, and the air inside the car didn’t seem enough to fill her lungs. She parked outside his house, blocking the exit, and walked back up the stone path, feeling sick with each step, as her heart hammered in her chest, pulsating in her ears. She rang the bell, resolute and remorseful in equal measure, and waited with bated breath as she tried to calm the anxiety threatening to engulf her. When he opened the door, he was still barefoot, his hair, now dry, hung tousled over his brow. He said nothing, he stood looking at her, smiling in that mysterious way. She said nothing either, but raised a cold hand until her fingers were touching his mouth, his soft, warm lips. It was as if the corners of his mouth had become her goal, her fate, her only respite. He clasped her hand in his, as though afraid to lose this connection, guiding her inside the house, as he pushed the door shut behind her. Standing before him, her fingers pressed to his lips, she paused for a few seconds, searching for words to make sense of this, but she knew that there was nothing she could say now, that she must surrender to a different voice, a language that, as an outsider, she had never been able to share with anyone. Drawing her hand away from his lips, she saw herself in his eyes, which looked back at her with the same fear, the same excitement. She stepped boldly forward, and their bodies fused, while, eyes closed, he embraced her, trembling.
Looking up at him, she knew that she could love this man …
She slipped off her damp coat and led him by the hand towards the bedroom. There was scarcely enough light seeping through the blind to make out the contours of the heavy furniture; she raised it, letting the overcast sky illuminate the room. As he stood beside the bed, he was watching her with that expression that drove her crazy, and yet he wasn’t smiling. Nor was she. Her face betrayed her unease at knowing she was in the company of an equal. She drew closer, gazing at him, seized by a fresh anguish. She caressed him awkwardly, unnerved at recognising herself in him, aware that she was there because for the first time in her life she could truly reveal herself, remove not just her clothes but the shameful burden of her existence, and in doing so she saw herself reflected in him, as in a mirror. She knew that she had never desired anyone this way, she had never experienced this intense yearning for a man’s flesh, his saliva, his sweat, his semen, this desire for his body, his skin, his tongue, his sex. She realised she had never coveted a man’s bones, hair, teeth, the roundness of his shoulders, the firmness of his buttocks riding her, the perfect curve of his back, the softness of his tousled hair, by which she guided him to her breasts, her loins. There had been no man before him. That day she was born to desire, all at once, she discovered a new language, a new, vital, exuberant, creative language, and she could speak; she could feel her tongue struggling to master it, then falling silent, letting him speak, feeling his strong hands clasping her flesh, holding her hips, and the vigour with which he penetrated her, the firmness of his gestures pushing, guiding, commanding her, the strength in his arms when she straddled his body to take him into her again. The fire spilling over inside her in a delayed explosion of ecstasy, pleasure verging on madness a thousand nerve endings raw and clamouring. Then the silence that leaves the body exhausted, the mind drained, the hunger sated only for a short while.
The pale sun that had blessed the city briefly that morning had disappeared completely by the
time Amaia got back into her car. Although it couldn’t have been much later than five in the afternoon, the leaden skies had swallowed up the light, triggering the sensors in the city’s streetlamps.
She turned the key in the ignition, pausing for a few seconds as she became conscious of the changes that had occurred around her. Like a space traveller landing on a strange planet, identical to her own, but with a different atmosphere, colder, denser, obliging her to walk carefully so as not to lose her balance, giving her a new perception of things, imbuing everything around her with a dreamlike quality.
She took out her phone and checked her missed calls. First, she rang James, who explained in whispers from a distant hospital waiting room that they had just spoken with the surgeon who operated on his father, and everything had gone well. He and Ibai missed her. Then she called Iriarte. Still nothing from ballistics.
The streets in the old quarter were crowded. She decided to leave her car at the underground car park in Plaza del Castillo and walk from there to the house on Mercaderes. Approaching the front door, she noticed a bundle of junk mail jammed into the letterbox. As she pulled out the supermarket and petrol station flyers, she saw that wedged into the space was a brown paper parcel tied several times with fine, dark red string. She knew instantly who it was from, but was surprised that he had sent it to that address. Agent Dupree’s spidery writing covered the surface of the package, which bore her name. She clasped it to her chest as she entered the house.
She was relieved to get out of her clothes which she felt she’d been wearing for a week. After taking a long, hot shower, she emerged from the bathroom and paused to look at her dress uniform, still laid out on the bed like a memento of Jonan’s funeral. It occurred to her that she ought to put it away in the wardrobe, even as a voice inside her argued that the uniform was a kind of homage to Jonan, an intangible yet powerful symbol of his honour and commitment, but also of the doubts that were assailing her, and which she was unable for the time being to put to rest.
Finally, she picked up Dupree’s parcel and went into the kitchen to cut the string, pondering as she did so how very ‘New Orleans’ the packaging was. She unwrapped the paper, removing a piece of cotton cloth, slightly damp to the touch, which enveloped a volume bound in dark, soft leather. There was no title on the front or spine of the book, which felt oddly heavy for its size. Behind the silk flyleaf was an intricate illustration, amid whose cursive flourishes she was just able to make out the title: Fondation et religion Vaudou.
She marvelled as she ran her fingers over the fine pages trimmed with gold leaf, wondering again at the incongruous weight of the book.
The first few chapters were devoted to the origins of the religion, which had millions of followers the world over, and was the official religion in several countries. Then she noticed a kink in the tightly packed pages. She separated them carefully until she found one that Dupree had marked with a small black feather. Amaia took it gingerly between her fingers, reading the cramped pencilled writing with which her friend had filled the margins and underlined several passages:
Provoking death at will. The bokor, or witch, initiated into Lucumí, the priest or houngan who has chosen to use his powers for evil.
A few pages later, Dupree had circled a couple of sentences:
Un mort sur vous
Un démon sur vous
Below he had written:
The dead man who mounts you, or the demon who mounts you, in Latin America ‘se te sube un muerto’.
The book went on to give a detailed description of an attack by an immobilising demon, sent by a bokor. The demon paralysed its victim while he slept, permitting him to remain fully conscious of what was happening, as he endured, terrified, the torments of the malevolent spirit, which perched on his chest, preventing him from moving or breathing, sometimes to the point of death. Some victims claimed to have seen a hideous creature with a gigantic head crouched on top on them, still others a foul dragon.
‘A Komodo dragon’s saliva contains enough bacteria to cause septicaemia’: San Martín’s words came back to her.
As she flicked through the book, searching for further annotations by her friend, a second feather flew out from among the pages and floated ominously to the floor. She stooped to pick it up and read the passage of text, which was headed ‘The Sacrifice’.
The words, placed in inverted commas to highlight their level of importance, strangeness, or repeated usage, reminded her of Elena Ochoa’s account of ‘the sacrifice’. She was also reminded of what Marc had said on that snowy roof terrace overlooking Pamplona only yesterday, though it seemed like years ago now: ‘offering’ – a word Jonan had told him she would know how to use.
The bokor made an offering to the devil of the most monstrous crime, the most coveted quarry, which by virtue of its pure, innocent nature remained untouchable. The sacrifice had to be carried out by the only people who had true ownership of it, who had brought it into the world: the parents themselves. A ceremony was performed during which they offered up their progeny, their newborn, and in exchange for the child’s life, the demon would grant all their wishes.
An illustration showed a baby on an altar. Standing beside it were two enraptured figures, presumably the parents, and a priest who, with raised arms, was urging on a sinewy reptile that loomed menacingly over the child, covering its nose and mouth with its foul maw. Just below, Dupree had written several short sentences.
Groups of the same gender.
Specific time period.
Precise location.
And scrawled beneath these notes, a brief message to which Dupree had added his signature:
Press reset, Inspector.
She flicked through the rest of the pages, pausing to look at the ghoulish illustrations, and searching for further annotations in Dupree’s handwriting. Then she closed the book, stood up, and began to pace about the house, wandering from room to room.
Still barefoot and in her bathrobe, she felt the creak of the wooden floorboards that crossed the house from end to end, resounding through the empty rooms. As she passed the sitting room, she noticed her old desktop computer, gathering dust. She searched in the kitchen dresser for the jotters she used to make shopping lists, some sticky tape, a pad of yellow Post-it notes, and a couple of marker pens, then returned to the sitting room and switched on the computer. She printed off a map of Navarre from the Internet, and taped it to the bookshelf; then she marked with a dot the different locations where the children’s parents had lived. She quickly realised that she would need a bigger map, as Ainhoa was the other side of the border, France. She found one, printed it off, placed it next to the first, and added to it the children from Ainhoa. Besides the fact that most of the locations were in the Baztán Valley, there appeared no obvious connection between the various dots. She studied the pattern, aware that it made no sense to her, and recalled Dupree’s words: ‘Press reset, Inspector … Forget everything you think you know and start from the beginning.’
Her mobile rang out in the silence of the house, interrupting her musings. As she took the call, she realised that the day, with its tenuous light, had given up the ghost, yielding to night without having dawned, and that she was still in the bathrobe she had put on after her shower.
‘What have you been doing all afternoon?’
She looked at the maps, which now covered a large area of the shelves, then at Dupree’s book, open on the table, and felt a sudden pang of guilt.
‘Nothing. Wasting my time,’ she replied, switching off the light and walking out of the sitting room.
‘Are you hungry?’ asked Markina, on the other end of the phone.
‘Very.’
‘Will you have dinner with me?
She smiled. ‘Of course, where do you want to meet?’
‘At my place,’ he replied.
‘Are you going to cook for me?’
‘Cook? I’m going to do everything for you.’
39
Oh, Jonan, Jonan. She could feel Zabalza’s arms immobilising her as she dissolved into tears for her dead friend, for his spilled blood, his hands resting on the floor … She moaned, waking in the darkness, broken only by the faint light seeping through the doorway. She fumbled for her mobile: just gone seven. The screen illuminated the room as a call came in, and she was glad she’d put the phone on silent. It was Iriarte. She slipped out of bed and walked out of the room.
‘Inspector, I hope I didn’t wake you.’
‘Don’t worry,’ she replied.
‘We have some news from ballistics. According to the marks on the two projectiles recovered during the autopsy, the gun is the same one used to kill a bouncer at a discotheque in Madrid six years ago. A gun linked to Eastern European mafias, which was found at the crime scene and then disappeared from the evidence room at a courthouse in Madrid.’
‘Disappeared from a courthouse? How is that possible?’
‘It seems there was an arson attack and some of the evidence was destroyed or damaged. Afterwards, when they sifted through the wreckage, they discovered it was missing. I’ve just emailed you a copy of the ballistics report. Also, I should warn you that Internal Affairs are likely to want to interview us again …’
She sighed by way of a reply.
‘Are you coming into the station today?’
‘Not unless you need me, I’m officially on holiday.’
There was silence on the other end of the line.
‘Iriarte … About the gun; it doesn’t mean anything, the investigation isn’t over yet.’
‘Of course not.’
She went back to the bedroom, gathering up her clothes as her eyes became accustomed to the darkness. She made out the silhouette of the sleeping man’s shoulders and back and stopped in her tracks, overwhelmed by the intense fantasies which the sight of his body provoked in her.
She dropped her clothes on the floor and slipped back into bed next to him.
Offering to the Storm Page 30