by David Hewson
‘Realized what?’
Maggi Bartolomé poured herself another drink and said, ‘Realized she was taking money from that old bastard.’
Quemada stopped making notes and looked at her. She was leaning well back in the scruffy armchair and there was something liquid about her eyes. He shook his head and said, ‘Your own mother was a cleaner, an honest woman, then she started pimping you?’
‘That’s right.’
‘But why?’
She laughed and Quemada tried to stifle the thought that it was quite a pleasant sound. ‘He could do that kind of thing. Charm the birds out of the trees if he wanted. That was how he was. He played the tune, the world danced. And he had something else that nobody else round our way had.’
Velasco said, ‘Let me guess. Money.’
She nodded. ‘Lots and lots and lots. God knows where he got it from. They said he took it from some charity he was involved in, but there was more money than that. He must have been putting it away for years. Me, I think he was a gangster. He controlled people. All over. Everywhere. He could pay for anything he wanted and he did it in this really clever way. So that you didn’t know you were being bought and sold. That was the smart thing. You never realized until it was too late.’
‘You mean your mother didn’t know?’
She pushed the drink over to the other side of the table and stared at them. ‘Don’t let me have any more of this crap, will you? If I start on it this time of day, I can’t move by eight and I got work to do this evening. No one pays good money for a drunk whore.’
Quemada got up, picked up the glass, then poured the drink back into the bottle.
‘That’s impressive,’ she said. ‘Some self-righteous shits would have poured it down the sink. You’re economical. Nice.’
‘I just don’t like the idea of making you work harder to buy more, that’s all,’ Quemada replied. ‘Seems you work pretty hard as it is.’
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘But I don’t clean houses. Like my mother did. She cleaned. She got on her hands and knees and she cleaned and polished and did whatever they told her. Then came home with enough money to buy a loaf and a few vegetables. If we were lucky. I get a little more than that. Not a lot. But enough so’s you’d notice. And when I get down on my hands and knees, I don’t have to stay there too long.’
Quemada said, ‘She cleaned for him. That’s how it began.’
‘Twice, maybe three times a week. She’d been doing this for a year. Then, one day, she took me with her. Just to help a little. I was eleven, twelve maybe. I can’t remember.’
‘And you saw him?’
‘No. I never did. He saw me. Little girl, some cheap school uniform my mother had made herself. I was quite pretty then, too. You might find it hard to believe, but I was.’
‘I don’t find it hard to believe, Maggi, really I don’t,’ said Quemada.
‘Wow! A cop who’s a gentleman. Is this for real?’
‘How soon did it start?’ he replied.
‘Can’t really remember. I was a kid. A few weeks maybe. Wasn’t quick. He was a sly old bastard. First of all my mother said, “You got to come round the Alvarez house with me, the señor likes having you around.” So I’d go and while my mamma did the cleaning he’d show me things. Show me a record player, some paintings, rooms that had this good furniture in. Things I’d never seen before. It was like magic. Like being some place you’d only dreamed about before. I was a kid. I liked it. Who wouldn’t?’
‘And nothing happened at first?’
‘Nothing. Nothing at all. He was just this old guy. He looked a little ill sometimes. There was a smell about him, a kind of old smell, like bad breath, but worse. I didn’t like that and sometimes he used to get close so I really didn’t like it at all. But my mamma always said to me, “He’s a good man, you should do as he says.” I was just a quiet little brat. So I did.’
‘Did you know he was giving her money?’
‘I knew we had more money. More food, better clothes. I knew in some way it had something to do with me. That my cooperation, my doing like I was told, sort of guaranteed that the money would keep coming. I didn’t put it all together until later, of course. You don’t. It doesn’t work that way. One day he’s showing me his record player, playing these songs from Disney movies I’d only heard of, and I’m sitting there listening with my mouth open. The next he’s saying: Listen to some more, sit on my lap. Then he’s saying: Touch this, it will be nice, touch it, we’ll all be happy, you, your mamma, me; all be happy together. So I touch it, this thing I didn’t even really know existed. Then one thing leads to another. Next thing I know, he’s coming to the house, I’m seeing him where he lives, when he likes, doing what he likes, things I don’t understand. Things that hurt me. And when I say to my mamma I don’t like it, Mamma, it hurts, she’s saying: Think of the food, think of the clothes, think of the little holiday we’re going to have in El Puerto, the first holiday we’ve ever had.
‘You know something? Before I was fourteen I knew how to do things to men most wives out there still don’t know, most of them will die without knowing. And that was him. That was all him. I hated it. Every moment. I hate it still. Sex, it’s something I do with my body that gets me money, like the way a butcher cuts up a carcass of meat. To think that someone gets pleasure out of it, that kills me. It really does. I’ll tell you something else. When I go out there at night, the number of times a man wants it plain and simple I can count on one hand. What they want to do, you got to imagine. But there’s never anything – not one thing – that Antonio didn’t do before. That was him. What we were to him was something unspoiled, something he could mess with, ruin. That was his kick. He didn’t use whores. He made his own. Then, after a while, when he thought they’d got spoiled themselves, he forgot about them. You were out on your own with just a little money to keep you quiet.’
Velasco rapped his pencil on his notebook, then said, ‘Why didn’t you keep quiet?’
‘I wanted to. I felt dirty. Ashamed. As if it was my fault somehow. It was her. She was getting the money. She wanted it forever. So she made me tell lies. About my periods. And then they weren’t lies at all. They were for real. Antonio tried to be careful. He used condoms when he remembered. He didn’t want the hassle of girls getting pregnant. But he was old. He didn’t always remember. Also, I think, he didn’t always want to remember. He just wanted to do what he wanted. When I used to go in there, I’d no idea what he wanted. Sometimes it might be something that could make you pregnant. Sometimes not. You couldn’t guess. My loving mother made me lie about my period, so it got more likely I would get pregnant – not that I knew. And I did. Surprise, surprise! Thirteen years old with one of Antonio’s little bastards inside of me. I wasn’t the first. I guess you know that.’
Quemada scanned through his earlier notes. ‘We looked at the case files. Most of them are still there. Why didn’t he wind up in court?’
‘Something happened. Some money. With my mother. I never saw any of it. Except for one thing.’
‘What?’ asked Velasco.
‘They put me on a coach to Cadiz, said I was going on holiday. I got there, someone gave me something to drink, I passed out. When I woke up I was bleeding. Down there. They’d got rid of the baby. Never said anything to me about what they were going to do. I wouldn’t have understood in any case. To be honest, I don’t think I really knew I had a baby there. I was so young. So young.’
‘Did you see him after that?’
‘No. Once or twice in the street. I never let on, and to be honest I don’t think he would have recognized me. He never looked at your face once it all started. The way he treated us was . . . I don’t know how to put it. When you were there, when he was doing what he wanted, there was nothing else in his life. In a way I think he genuinely loved you. He tried not to hurt you too much. He tried to be kind in a way. But once you were out, once he’d decided there was nothing left to spoil, you didn’t exist.’
‘You mean legal relatives? Not that I know of. He had a wife. He talked of her sometimes, talked of her like she was an old, dead person, not part of his life. But they never had kids or brothers and sisters, as far as I know. He never talked about any. He used to say I was his family. I guess he used to say that to everyone. He had a whole line of bastards here and there. You know that?’
Quemada nodded. ‘There’s a string of complaints in the book. We don’t understand how none of them ever came to court.’
‘A whole line,’ she repeated.
‘Did you know any of the others?’
She lit another cigarette. ‘Jesus! It’s such a long time ago. I can’t remember. I mean, we didn’t go around comparing notes. It wasn’t the kind of thing you wanted to talk about.’
‘Did he always finish one relationship before he started another? Was it consecutive like that?’
‘“Relationship.” That’s a nice way of putting it. No. I think he kept a number of girls working at the same time. He even had our pictures in the house. In his study. Pictures of girls, young girls, portraits – you know, like school portraits. Sometimes they’d be there one week, and the next they’d be gone. I guess that happened to mine too. I liked my picture. It was the best anyone had ever taken of me. He could have given it to me. I would have liked it.’
‘You heard of the bullfighter? Jaime Mateo?’
‘Sure. Antonio, he was the father. Everyone says that. Don’t ask me who the mother was supposed to be. We didn’t keep track of those things. We didn’t like to ask. So what? It was so long ago.’
Quemada scratched his chin with the top of the pencil. He looked lost. ‘Maybe. But it’s still jerking someone’s chain.’
‘Beats me who. Now you got anything else to ask, or do I get some sleep before I go to work again? You know the old joke: been on my back all day.’
Quemada closed the notebook and put it in his pocket.
‘Why do you bother with this, Maggi? You’re smart enough. You could get a job.’
‘What? Cleaning floors. You don’t get it, do you? Cops never do. This is my job. It’s what I choose to do.’
‘Hell of a thing to choose,’ said Quemada.
‘And what you do is so much better? Hassling the likes of me? Pulling in drunks? That’s a real public service. At least I send them home happy, most of the time anyway.’
She reached for another cigarette and Quemada watched as the mask went back up, hard and coarse and impenetrable.
‘Do you send yourself home happy?’ he asked.
‘I gave up dreaming about that a long time ago. When you’ve got some old guy sticking his thing in places you thought had other functions, every time he feels like it, just around the time you ought to be thinking about going to school and learning how to write, your horizons change a little.’
‘Yeah,’ said Quemada. ‘I can appreciate that.’
‘Can you?’ she answered and Quemada didn’t want to look in her eyes.
‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘I can’t. But it seems a shame to let him fuck up your life twice over. And maybe not just yours. What about . . . ?’ He jerked his thumb upstairs. ‘Is she out there, making it too?’
She laughed. ‘My daughter, Detective, works in a supermarket. Or should I say worked. She got knocked up by some kid who used to stack the shelves. Now she sits moping at home, listening to junk music and waiting for me to come back with the spending money. There’s justice for you. You may not like the idea, but I’m the respectable wage-earner in this family.’
Quemada let out a little laugh too then, and it caught him by surprise.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ said Velasco, looking uncomfortable. ‘We still got loads of names on the list.’
‘Can I see that?’ she asked.
‘Sure,’ said Quemada and handed her the sheet of paper. She ran down the names one by one, never stopping.
‘You know any of them?’ he asked.
‘Some of the names sound familiar. Triana families. Santa Cruz. He always went for the poor ones. All . . .’
Her voice drifted off into nothing. The two cops watched and waited for her to come back.
‘You’re thinking,’ said Quemada when the wait got too long for him.
‘It happens from time to time. Full moon, leap years. Sometimes I get to think and walk at the same time too.’
‘Is this a private thought or do we come in on it?’
She looked at them and, for a moment, the mask dropped again.
‘What I just told you was wrong. We weren’t all from the barrios. There was someone else. A picture. The girl was older than the rest of us. Not much, but older. I never saw her. Just saw the picture. Sometimes he’d talk about her and it was different, the way he talked. He was screwing her, for sure. Why else would he put the picture there along with all his other trophies? But I got the impression she was special. Her photo had been there before ours ever got on the wall. I felt like it was going to stay there long after ours came down. She didn’t come from the barrio. I remember he said that. Maybe she even lived outside town for a while. El Puerto, Cadiz, somewhere on the coast. Shit, I can’t remember. My mind isn’t what it was.’
‘Not one of these names? On the list?’ asked Velasco.
‘No. Definitely. This kid came from somewhere else.’
Quemada pulled out a card from his pocket and gave it to her. ‘If you remember the name, give me a call. It might be important. Whoever this guy is, he’s dangerous. He’s killing people and we don’t know why, except maybe it’s got something to do with Alvarez. Anything you can tell us – anything – might help.’
She looked at the card. ‘Quemada, C. What does the C stand for?’
‘Carlos. Most people just call me Quemada.’
‘You don’t look like a Carlos. Maybe that’s why.’
‘Pardon me, but I have to say you don’t look much like a Magdalena, neither.’
‘You don’t read the Bible, Carlos, do you? I’m just following the calling.’
‘Yeah,’ he grunted. ‘Well, you got the card. Phone me if you think of something.’
Velasco walked out the front door, leaving the two of them in the room.
‘Hey,’ Quemada said. ‘Mind if I suggest something?’
Her eyebrows made wide inverted Vs on her forehead. ‘I guess that kind of depends.’
‘No. What I meant was this. You should go a little less heavy on the make-up. A woman don’t need that stuff, a good-looking woman. It makes them look hard, makes them look old. Use a little, but use it lightly. I used to tell my ex-wife that, but she still went out looking like something out of the chorus in the shows. Like talking to a brick wall. When a man looks at a face he wants to see the face, not something that looks like someone’s painting a new bathroom.’
‘Thanks for the advice,’ she said. ‘When I start meeting men who look at my face, maybe I’ll think about taking it.’
She held open the door; the two cops walked out into the bright sunlight. The day was as hot as when they went in. There was humidity in the air, and off in the distance the ominous low gatherings of storm clouds far away on the plain.
‘You like it, don’t you?’ said Velasco as they walked back to the car. ‘You actually like talking to these women, these whores?’
‘Seemed to me there might be quite a nice person in there struggling to get out.’
‘Sure. Doing ten tricks a night. Real nice.’
Quemada stopped in the street. Velasco came to a halt and watched him.
‘Tell me something,’ said Quemada. ‘Ordinarily I wouldn’t ask, but this isn’t ordinary, is it?’
‘Ask away.’
‘You’ve been on Vice too. When you stop the girls, when you caution them, did you ever accept something? You know. A little propina?
Velasco went bright red and looked as if he was going to explode. ‘You’re suggesting, you�
��re seriously suggesting . . .’
‘No,’ Quemada corrected. ‘I’m asking. Not suggesting. Asking.’
‘What kind of a question is that? What kind . . .’
Quemada turned his back, then started walking again, stuck the key in the car door and climbed inside. When Velasco was strapped into the passenger seat, he turned to him and said, ‘I didn’t enjoy it, either.’
Then he turned the key and drove off at a steady thirty kilometres an hour.
FORTY-TWO
Cristina Lucena’s face, dappled by the rippling shadows of a eucalyptus tree outside the high casement window of the private room, looked much older. She lay back on the pillow, eyes closed. Wrinkles puckered the line of the mouth. The skin, relaxed in sleep, drew back from the jawline, making the skull become visible, real beneath the flesh.
Maria walked in quietly, sat down on a plain green metal chair by the bed and thought: She’s dying. Slowly, in front of me.
And then wondered: Was her story, the story of La Soledad, some part of the process, some stage in her release?
She was in a different, smaller room now, moved for those inexplicable reasons that seem so important to the bureaucracy of a hospital. Yet the place where they had first spoken about the war, about La Soledad, was still imprinted on Maria’s mind. She could remember how it looked, its smell, its character, the way the heat hung in the air, the light came dazzling through the window. This was a moment in time that would live with her, that held some extra, unwanted importance. She looked at the frail body on the bed, watched the sheets rise almost imperceptibly with each laboured breath and wondered if the time for revelations was past. If Cristina Lucena had one tale to tell, one lament to sing. And, having sung it, would feel the need to live no more.
Maria closed her eyes and let her head fall backwards, resting. From outside came the faint, distant chorus of birdsong and the low, complaining rumble of traffic. Elsewhere in the hospital gurneys travelled corridors on squeaking wheels, doctors and nurses spoke slowly in low, conspiratorial voices, there was the clatter of dishes, the tired, shallow sighing of the infirm. She thought back to the hospice, the painting by Valdés Leal, the peace – the apparent peace – they had witnessed there. A pair of artists murdered in an artistic fashion. An unexplained attack. The killing of an official of one of the brotherhoods, and such a strange, such a sinister one too. Her own close brush with death.