by David Hewson
‘Menéndez is dead. Try to work this out, Quemada. They know someone in the force has been siphoning money out somehow. You’ve been here twenty-two years. They know you’re gone – no trace – and now your name’s on the records.’
‘It is?’ asked Quemada in mock surprise. ‘Wow! How did that happen? And Maria here? Is she raking it too?’
‘A cop disappears with a close involvement in these murders and a heap of cash. A woman who’d been working with him vanishes at the same time. Even you can figure that one out.’
‘You know me. I’m just a dumb detective. I think most people who’ve seen us together would figure she’s just not my type. What do you think, Maria?’
She watched the street lights flash by, saw the long, low silver ribbon of the river emerge beyond the trees ahead. Hoardings, the dark silhouettes of construction vehicles. This place was empty, abandoned.
‘I think she agrees, Captain, but she’s too polite to say so. So why don’t we just wrap this thing up? Fair’s fair. I thought I was giving you a chance when we called back there. A chance you could get out of all this shit with some dignity. Put up your hands, say sorry. Your wife still gets the pension, maybe a few years down the line there’s parole.’
Rodríguez waved with the gun, towards the right. ‘Take the service road down there.’
The car ran down a narrow cobbled lane, beneath a line of trees, turned past a dark and deserted factory store. The silhouettes of idle cranes stood outlined against the horizon like jagged stumps of decaying teeth. The wharf looked neglected, abandoned, in the bright silver light of the moon.
Maria looked at the river and shivered. The car lurched forward onto the cobblestones of the dock. The derelict warehouses, vast and tall, blocked out the light of the moon. The river stood black and sluggish and huge at this point. The surface looked like thick oil, broken only by the odd piece of flotsam moving fast in the current.
Rodríguez barked at Quemada to stop. The car pulled to a halt at the foot of a small, ramshackle jetty that protruded out a good thirty feet over the water. The planking was as full of holes and gaps as a tramp’s smile.
‘You go in there, with the tide,’ said Rodríguez. ‘Not long after, you’re floating in the Atlantic and no one’s ever going to know.’
He rammed the gun into Quemada’s back.
‘Get out. Stand by the front of the car. You’ – he stared at her – ‘get out the driver’s side. Then come over. So I can see you. Stand by him.’
‘Captain, Captain . . .’ Quemada still had that joking edge in his voice, and she was sure it would get them killed. Right there. Right in the car.
‘The meter on that big mouth is running out so quickly.’
The little detective turned round, ranged his arms over the back of the seat and stared at Rodríguez. ‘Do you mind if I just say something here? It’s important. Trust me.’
Rodríguez pointed the gun straight into his face and said nothing.
‘See. You’re a clever guy. A serious man. You’re right about so many things. Like the tide, for instance. That’s real interesting. I didn’t know that. And the numbers, those accounts the lieutenant found. Menéndez got so close to you on that, but he didn’t get close enough. Not for a man of your standing. A captain and all that. You’re a clever guy.’
Rodríguez stared over the seat and there was a dead look in his eyes.
‘Trouble is, you got two things wrong.’
‘Really?’
‘First. Me.’
She thought Rodríguez was about to laugh. Or kill them both right then.
‘Truly,’ said Quemada. ‘Maybe I have got a big mouth, maybe my clothes sense is a crock of shit, my hairline don’t look so good, and all the rest of it. But’ – and she couldn’t believe his voice could rise like this, could get so loud that he was shouting, bawling at Rodríguez – ‘one thing I’m not is fucking dumb!’
The sound of his words died in a quiver of febrile reverberations inside the car.
‘Also, I see myself more as jaded than cynical. It’s different. Number two . . .’
Quemada bent his head down and patted his waist.
‘The ears. That boy of yours kept them to one side as a gift, I guess. A way of saying thanks, Master. I am yours forever. Which got me to thinking. Maybe I could bring along an ear of my own.’
He tapped something beneath his cheap nylon shirt.
‘That right, boys?’ he said cheerily. ‘Jaded. Not cynical. You did get that, didn’t you?’
Rodríguez blinked. The blood began to drain from his face.
‘Just a little joke, Captain,’ Quemada said with a sudden smile. ‘These radio things – these ears – they just work the one way. Unlike me, they don’t talk back.’
There were figures around the car now, and lights. The sound of feet on cobblestones rebounded around the wharf. A hand fell on the roof and faces appeared at the windows. Velasco, a revolver in one hand, a tissue clutched to his nose with the other, peered through the glass.
‘They’ve been with us all the way. Ever since we left that place in Triana. Long before you took the bait at the hospital. I mean, I didn’t know when you’d pick us up, did I? Just knew you would. It seemed like a reasonable idea to stick in the wire too. You wouldn’t believe the toys I found in Menéndez’s desk when I broke in there. Along with all the other stuff too.’
Rodríguez raised the gun and, for a moment, Quemada found himself lost for words, found himself thinking that this time he might have gone too far. Then the barrel went higher, the dull metal gleaming, and turned round and Rodríguez pushed the nose of the weapon into his mouth.
‘Out of the car,’ Quemada ordered. ‘Nice and quick, please.’
Maria opened the door and stepped out. The chill night air made the sweat cling to her skin. Around the vehicle, slowly and deliberately, men waited, guns in their hands.
Quemada looked over the back of the seat, opened his mouth to say something, thought better of it, then climbed out of the driver’s side. He walked around the car, took her by the arm and they walked to the river.
On the far side of the water, beneath a line of fairy lights, couples slow-danced to the music of a small Latino band. The notes floated across to them, lazy and lilting, a sax playing catch with the keyboard, the husky voice of a female singer drifting in and out of the melody.
She listened to the song, the words meaningless and banal, and found herself crying. The tears slipped warm down her cheeks. She could taste them salty in her mouth and they felt good. Quemada’s arm slipped gently, tentatively, around her shoulders. Briefly there was a commotion behind them, the sound of a short, sudden report. Then Quemada walked her silently along the riverbank to a squad car, put her in the back.
She looked at him through the window.
The little detective nodded, struggled for something to say, wondered at this new-found feeling of being lost for words, looked back to the little crowd of quiet, serious men, now bunched around the car at the foot of the jetty.
‘Get me out of here,’ she said.
‘You bet,’ he murmured, unable to take his eyes off the dancers across the river, swaying to and fro, absorbed in one another, lost.
On the torn and grubby bench seat Maria Gutiérrez lay down and went to sleep.
EPILOGUE
Six weeks later she sits in the little bathroom in this new place in the city. She wears only a light cream shift. Her hair is cut short, a tight bob that just touches the ear, the collar of her gown. The lines, at the corners of her mouth, around her eyes, are more marked. She looks older, different. It is ten in the morning and there is no noise, nothing to disturb her thoughts, the big, bright wheeling thoughts that whirl and circle her mind like great primeval birds. Maria sits and feels a mix of physical emotions, great strength, great weakness. In her hand she holds a small, clear plastic phial, the liquid in it changing colour, yellow to blue. A bright peacock-blue, a blue full of life and beauty and hop
e. A blue she has seen before, only to let it slip away from her.
She gets up from the toilet, wipes away the tears, places the phial on the ledge by the side of the sink, washes her hands, washes her face, then walks into the living room. It is large and airy, with a big, well-polished teak table at its centre, the sort of table where people gather and eat and drink and talk late into the night. She sits at the table and rubs her palm along the wood, enjoying its smoothness, its calm, unfussy solidity.
There is a diary there. She pulls it over and looks at the provisional appointment scribbled for the following day at the clinic in London. One hour behind.
She calls to confirm. Then she phones the airline and buys a ticket for the only flight left, early that evening.
The decision is made.
She walks to the panoramic window of this bright, new, shiny apartment, on the fourth floor, above the noise and the fumes and the dirt of the street. She looks out over the familiar skyline towards the Giralda standing gold and glorious in the morning sun. She can see the ragged rooftops of Santa Cruz, can imagine the slow, lazy mass of the river curling away in the distance beyond the bullring.
A little while later she packs and, when she’s done, she sets the small plain suitcase by the door, then sits and waits, unable to read, to listen to music, to focus on anything.
Just before midday the bell rings. It makes her jump. She checks carefully on the entryphone and is both surprised and pleased when Torrillo’s voice, booming, full of life and health, responds.
He is walking with a stick and carries a huge bouquet of roses and mimosa, lilies and carnations. He has little to say about himself. The police department is still in flux. Awkward questions are being asked. Quemada is both hero and villain, and relishing both roles. Torrillo will remain on sick leave for another month at least before returning to duty. He hates the waiting.
His hair is longer. It is pulled back from his face and the ponytail falls softly on his shoulder, a yellow elastic band around the end. Somehow he looks younger.
They sit opposite each other in pale modern chairs, drowning in the perfume of flowers.
She looks at him, thinks before saying the words, then asks, ‘Do you mind if I ask you a question?’
He nods, waiting.
‘This sounds crazy,’ she says. ‘I know it does. And if it is crazy, then fine. I don’t care.’
His eyes glint back at her, something amused skittering around their depths.
‘You know Woodstock? The movie? The rock festival? I was wondering. Did you ever see it? I know it’s a strange thing to ask a cop . . . but . . .’
The impossible happens. The grin gets wider and Torrillo leans forward, speaking quietly, as if speaking in confidence.
‘That’s a very strange thing for you to ask. And I’ll tell you the truth, so long as you promise to keep it to yourself, ’cos if that loudmouth Quemada ever gets hold of it, my life’s a misery.’
A faint chill is walking down her spine.
‘I promise,’ she says and there is nothing in the world now except the two of them, in the bright, airless room.
‘I didn’t need to see the movie. I was there. You believe that? Right there, the whole three days.’ He watches her expression. ‘You OK?’
She nods. Her throat is dry and there is a rushing sound in her ears.
‘Go on.’
‘I had a cousin from Miami who humped gear for Santana, enough money for the air fare, the rest all came together. A different me. A different Bear. If you see the movie, watch the part where Country Joe and the Fish come on. I’m in it. Right close to the front. Just a kid then. More hair, less weight. That’s me.’
She stares at him and the air looks a little fuzzy around his head, the bright midday light plays tricks with her vision.
‘No rain,’ she says.
And he laughs, a slow, pleasant, physical sound.
‘No rain, Maria. No rain.’
‘Did it stop?’ she asks, and wonders whether she really wants to hear his answer.
‘In the end.’
‘Did you stop it?’
‘Me and everyone else,’ he answers, his great chest bucking and heaving with amusement. ‘What else were we supposed to do? Hide?’ He shook his head. ‘It’s just rain. It comes. It goes. It’s not so bad. It’s the sun that matters.’ He glances out of the window, at the city beyond. ‘Nothing else.’
Torrillo looks at the suitcase by the door and asks, ‘Are you going somewhere?’
Same arrangements. Same clinic. Same hotel. Same airline.
The green mask and the red velvet walls.
Same still, drab life afterwards, in the north, where emotions are kept in check, in their place.
The decision to go to London seemed so logical, so automatic in the circumstances. The kind of choice she was born to make.
She struggles for the words. Struggles a long time. He shuffles on the chair, blushes a little, aware that he’s asked something awkward, ignorant of what it was.
Then she says, ‘No. I just came back.’
A month later. The morning nausea is receding. She looks out of the same window in the city, places her hand on her stomach and feels the warmth of another life.
DEATH IN SEVILLE
David Hewson was born in Yorkshire in 1953. He was a journalist from the age of seventeen, working most recently for the Sunday Times. In addition to travel books, he has written a number of novels, including eight titles in his Italian crime series featuring Detective Nic Costa. He lives in Kent.
Critical acclaim for David Hewson
‘Hewson is a daunting talent – a writer who is a master stylist, who respects the audience’s intelligence and who effortlessly keeps the thrills coming a mile a minute’
Jeffery Deaver
‘A thrilling tale of vengeance . . . chilling to the core . . . A highly dramatic tale for those who like a sprinkling of culture with their crime thriller’
Woman
‘Thorough research and a strong narrative make The Cemetery of Secrets a rich and surprisingly romantic tour de force’
Guardian
‘Compulsively readable . . . Hewson is a cunning storyteller . . .’
Daily Express
‘David Hewson has a superb sense of pace and place, his characters feel real, and he writes a page-turner detective story like no other’
Choice
‘Elegant . . . [a] smart literate thriller’
Publishers Weekly
Also by David Hewson
Nic Costa series
A SEASON FOR THE DEAD
THE VILLA OF MYSTERIES
THE SACRED CUT
THE LIZARD’S BITE
THE SEVENTH SACRAMENT
THE GARDEN OF EVIL
DANTE’S NUMBERS
THE BLUE DEMON
Other titles
THE PROMISED LAND
THE CEMETERY OF SECRETS
First published in the UK in 1996 as Semana Santa by HarperCollins Ltd.
This edition published 2010 by Pan Books
This electronic edition published 2010 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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ISBN 978-0-330-54045-2 PDF
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Copyright © David Hewson 1996
The right of David Hewson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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