On the second visit — unlike his first — Guzmán got the impression that Olsen’s widow’s house was rather ordinary, that the sea was too far away and the sun blazing down on the limestone facade just foreshadowed the wasteland that the entire planned community was no doubt destined to become. There was no sign of the two attractive, rosy-cheeked, IKEA kids or the hysterical yapping Yorkie. It was all quiet.
Guzmán walked into the backyard. He could see Olsen’s widow lying on the sofa, flipping through a fashion magazine. He got her attention by rapping on a window with his knuckles.
She looked up, and on seeing him her whole face tensed. Visibly displeased, she got up and opened the sliding door.
‘What do you want now?’ Her expression made it clear that she thought she never should have let him in the first time.
She had beautiful eyes, Guzmán thought.
Maybe her eyes were what Magnus Olsen had first fallen for, at one of those exclusive parties thrown at some embassy where those who make it past the red cord know they belong to a select group. Maybe the widow had been practising that look in the mirror for years, waiting for the right moment to use it, the chance to escape the Stockholm slum where her beauty fetched nothing but obscene remarks from Turkish and Armenian louts, who watched her walk by like some sort of extra-terrestrial, a diamond in a pigsty.
‘I thought we should finish our conversation.’
She looked away in irritation, her face seeming to say that no one is ever satisfied with what they’ve got, that everyone always wants more.
She looked lovely in her designer top and tight pants. Maybe she’d had to borrow money to buy her first dress; who knows what it cost her to finance that very first outfit. She must have managed, though, and maybe managed to hide the fact that her heart was racing when she found herself in some Versailles-style palace with frescoes on the walls and ceilings, surrounded by crystal chandeliers that reflected the light off her fake jewels. No doubt she’d had to force her hand not to tremble when the waiter offered her a champagne flute, had to force herself to sip it slowly, as though she’d been doing it all her life, attending these parties where upmarket hookers dressed in style, on the hunt for a golden retirement plan.
‘You’re just not going to leave me alone, are you?’
She glared at Guzmán but the disdain she felt was for herself — a life of swallowing humiliations, like a trained monkey on a leash that might be jerked by the master at any moment, a trophy to be flaunted before friends and enemies, an exchangeable good. ‘Wear the low-cut dress; the minister likes your tits’, ‘Smile at the bank manager; he wants you to suck him off in the back seat of his Mercedes and we need him to approve a loan for millions.’
Eyes like hers — eyes devoid of dreams — had tried many times, in many places, and with little luck, to touch Guzmán’s heart.
‘The day your husband committed suicide — what happened?’
‘What kind of question is that?’ she asked. Her lassitude had morphed into an expression of disgust.
‘The kind that’s got an answer. I can pay for that answer, or I can make a few calls so that all those friends, the ones who are tearing what’s left of Olsen’s estate to pieces, find out that this house is in his widow’s name. Times are tough in real estate, but I reckon they could still get a few thousand euros if they evicted you. And believe me, banks aren’t a whole lot more compassionate than your husband was, so the sight of those little blonde angels of yours won’t do much to melt their hearts. So: a cheque with a few zeros on it, or an eviction notice — your choice.’
Olsen’s widow made no attempt to suppress her disgust and scorn for Guzmán. He accepted her look stoically, waiting until she realised that expressions of pride are useless when you’re in no position to make demands. She stroked the wrinkle creasing her forehead with an index finger and then rummaged in her purse for a pack of cigarettes. Guzmán thought he saw something metallic; it looked like a pistol. Maybe she had opened her purse in search of a smoke, but he couldn’t discard the possibility that she’d done it as a warning, so he would see her weapon, the implication being that she knew how to defend herself and was prepared to do so. Guzmán was unimpressed. In order to intimidate someone, a threat is not enough.
‘Lately we’d hardly seen each other. Everyone assumed we took off, went to Stockholm — but I can’t go back there. My husband’s company used me as a front for some of their deals and the police would arrest me the second I set foot in any territory of the Swedish crown. That’s just one of the reasons I hate him. We were hardly sleeping together anymore, and I spent much more time here than at our Madrid apartment.’
‘But the night he committed suicide you were all in Madrid together.’
‘He’d called me the day before. Said he wanted to see me and the kids, but didn’t say why. He never gave explanations, just expected his orders to be carried out, immediately and without question. So I took the kids to the apartment in Serrano. The problems had already begun with his firm in Sweden — tax inspections, accusations of fraud and embezzlement — and I’d gotten used to the way he’d aged and become taciturn, irascible. He was quickly destroying himself, the man who was always so proud of having made it out of the gutter by his own wits, having tripled his fortune in a few short years. It was all slipping out of his grasp. And he couldn’t stand it. But that day he opened the door and greeted us, and he was like a new man. Maybe not the one I’d first met, but at least a faint reflection of him. He was euphoric, confident, had the same ravenous expression he used to have. He told me he’d found a way out of his legal and financial troubles. “A trump card just fell into my hands,” that was what he said. He promised me everything would go back to the way it had been, in the good old days. Even though we could never return to Sweden, we’d start again here, then Tarragona, then Málaga, and then Murcia … He’d build another empire from nothing. And I believed him,’ she concluded bitterly. ‘I had no choice but to believe him.’
‘That trump card, did he tell you what it was?’
She looked as though she’d just been caught in a crossfire in no-man’s land, no barricade to hide behind.
‘No, he didn’t tell me. He never told me anything, and I didn’t need — or want — to know about his schemes.’
Her reply was as obvious as it was disheartening. But Guzmán hadn’t come to ask questions he knew wouldn’t be answered. He’d just been feeling her out. The real reason he was there was to clear up another kind of doubt.
‘When your husband hung himself, what was the first thing you saw?’ He stared at her, wondering how much sincerity he could expect. She must have read his mind, because she smiled maliciously.
‘His body swinging from a crossbeam in the living room and a pile of shit on the floor. It was still dripping from his pants. Excrement, falling from his feet. I don’t know why but he was barefoot. He’d taken off his socks and shoes, but not the rest of his clothes — except for his belt, which is what he used to hang himself.’
Guzmán remained pensive for a moment. He wished he could have seen Olsen’s body before the police and medical examiners had gotten there and taken him down. Most people think committing suicide is easy, but they’re wrong. If they knew how hard it was, lots of people wouldn’t try to go all the way; they’d give up first. Hanging, in particular, is a process that seems simple, but it’s not. If you’re lucky, you break your neck. That’s quick and you almost don’t feel the pain; there’s just a snapping that you have no time to process. But if you don’t calculate all the variables properly — the weight, the noose, the height you’re jumping from — and something goes wrong, then you just suffocate, and it takes entire minutes of sheer agony before you die.
He’d seen a ‘file’ hang himself in a cell once. The man had used a sheet, but didn’t tie the knot in exactly the right place. For minutes the guy was flailing, kicking and swinging his arms in
the air, just a few centimetres off the ground. Guzmán stood there, watching, dodging his desperate attempts to grab hold of him, begging with his eyes for help. Guzmán refused to give it. He could have lifted him up by the knees — the prisoner hardly weighed anything at all — but stepping in would only have made matters worse. That man had decided to put an end to his life, and he had no right to stop him. The poor wretch would have regretted it later, once his initial panicked fear passed, as soon as the unbearable torture and interrogations started back up. All he had to do was overcome that fear, the instant of absolute terror in the face of death. And then let go. As far as Guzmán was concerned, interfering with nature’s destiny is wrong.
‘Your husband weighed, what — a hundred, hundred and ten kilos? That must have been a really strong belt to take his weight. And it must have been very well tied to the beam. I can only imagine he’d have struggled desperately to get it off when he couldn’t breathe.’
‘What are you insinuating?’
‘That maybe he didn’t commit suicide.’
‘That’s what the police report says. You should consult it before launching into that kind of speculation.’
‘I have. From the time you found him until the time you made the call, over thirty minutes went by. The report also states that the apartment was neat and tidy and there were no signs of robbery or struggle, but the cleaning woman who came three times a week said in her statement that she found the drawers and the clothes in his closet jumbled and put back different from the way he kept his things organised.’
Olsen’s widow looked away. Those beautiful, dead eyes. Shame, he thought. For a second they’d reminded him of Candela’s eyes, the first time she asked him if he was going to kill her.
‘I straightened up — drawers, dressers, the whole apartment — before I called the police.’
The memory of Candela vanished.
‘Why?’
‘My husband always kept a large amount of money stashed in the house, cash and jewels. That money and those jewels went to a whole slew of little whores. He liked girls, the younger the better, and kept a reserve fund so he could satisfy his urges. I wasn’t about to let the lawyers hand those funds over to the creditors after the properties had been searched, so I looked everywhere until I found the money. It was a substantial sum, substantial enough for me to start fresh somewhere else. I don’t know, it was all so fast, and I was thinking a thousand things at once — that I’d tampered with evidence, that my fingerprints would be all over everything, that if they found me with the money they’d make me give it back or, worse, I’d be considered a suspect or an accomplice to murder.’
‘Can you remember anything else?’
She looked pensive, as though debating something. Then she gave him a distrustful look.
‘You said before you were willing to pay for my answers. About that cheque … how much are we talking?’
Guzmán looked around with resignation.
‘I imagine it’ll be enough to throw a couple coats of paint on the walls and buy the lamps this place needs. It’ll be less than a defence attorney’s fees, true, but at least I might decide not to report you to the police for giving false testimony and absconding with frozen assets.’ Guzmán had no idea how to say ‘son of a bitch’ in Swedish, but guessed that that was exactly what she was saying under her breath.
‘While I was searching the apartment, someone phoned. I didn’t pick up, I let the answering machine get it. It was a man. He sounded very old. And very pissed off. He mentioned a recording and insisted that Magnus hand it over.’
Guzmán’s eyes flashed like a flame being reflected on a dark surface. He could guess whose voice it had been.
‘That’s not in the police report either. Doesn’t it strike you as relevant?’
‘I told you, I never wanted to know anything about his business transactions and I still don’t. I erased the message. Are we done?’
‘Just one more thing. This will be the last one. The first time we saw each other, I mentioned that I worked for a man named Arthur Fernández. You said you’d never heard of him, and you almost convinced me. I admit you’re good at hiding your reactions; I suppose you’ve had a lot of experience. But you were lying. A tiny blink gave you away — you know, like when you open the window and a gust of wind rushes in.’
Olsen’s widow stood up, decisively. She looked at Guzmán with an expression that said she was the kind of woman who made her own decisions and faced up to the consequences.
‘I don’t know who the hell you are or what you’re looking for. But we’re done. Pay me for what I’ve told you if you want, or turn me in; the truth is I don’t care anymore. I want you to leave and never set foot in this house again.’
Guzmán weighed up her determination with an expert eye. He saw Candela in the interrogation room that first time, standing before him, hands tied behind her back. You can break my back if you want. You’ll never get what I have inside. Guzmán didn’t know it at the time, but that was the start of his only failure and only triumph in life. What she had inside — her hopes and dreams and will to live — he never got.
Before leaving, he handed Olsen’s widow a cheque far more generous than necessary. After all, Arthur was the one paying his expenses, and being generous with other people’s money was something that made him feel especially good.
‘Why so much?’ she asked in wonder.
Guzmán gave her an appreciative glance. He liked survivors. He liked her, no point in denying it.
‘Because I hope the money will encourage you to take a long trip to another part of the world. Maybe you can make a fresh start someplace where nobody will treat you like a bimbo.’
Four days later, Guzmán was feeling like the outside world was somewhat indifferent, like it was keeping a prudent distance, one that varied according to the speed at which people moved. It occurred to him that he was but one tiny part of a greater whole, and that someone somewhere was watching his tiny insignificant life. Reality was a set of Russian nesting dolls — it could go on forever.
Guzmán stopped to listen to a street musician playing Spanish guitar. He was a languid-looking young man, and played extraordinarily well. His guitar case lay open at his feet, a few coins and some CDs he’d recorded lay inside it. He could have been a consummate virtuoso who earned millions playing concerts in prestigious auditoriums all over the world, but people just kept walking by, no time to stop and listen.
‘Art can’t change a boorish soul, because humans are deaf, blind boors with no soul left to lose,’ he murmured, dropping a few coins into the case. It wasn’t his line. It was Candela’s.
In the distance stood the imposing granite and limestone Palacio de Oriente. Tourists were taking pictures at the fence surrounding the courtyard while the ceremonious changing of the Royal Guard was performed. Behind the palace were the winter gardens known as Campo del Moro, which had excellent views of the palace and the Manzanares River. Tree-lined walkways prophesied the inevitable arrival of spring. That morning the sun was shining, warm but not yet suffocating. Peacocks spread their feathers like rainbows in the fields, undisturbed by the passers-by, some of whom stopped to snap photos.
But not Dámaso. Nor did he stop to feed the pigeons drinking from the Conchas fountain, despite the fact that in his hand he clutched a bag of breadcrumbs he’d purchased at the little kiosk by the east entrance.
Guzmán followed at a distance. Were it not for his constant turning to look behind him, Dámaso would have looked like what his appearance suggested — a retiree out taking a stroll on a Sunday morning, nothing to do but lose himself in nostalgia. Even his clothes seemed to confirm his harmlessness: light-coloured shirt buttoned to the neck, knitted cardigan, grey trousers belted tightly and worn too high, rubber-soled shoes, eyeglasses hanging from a string around his neck, thin white hair slicked back, straight sideburns, closely shaved chin.
The picture of a venerable grandfather — maybe a slightly unsociable one, but harmless at any rate.
Seeing him walk into the public restrooms close to Caverna, an onlooker might think that maybe the man had prostate trouble, imagining that he went to the bathroom four, five, six times an hour, unable to squeeze out more than a few reddish drops with a grunt. A well-intentioned individual might have recommended he smoke less. He wheezed climbing the stairs to the restroom, his lungs like broken, leaky bellows. People on the steps who stood back to let him pass (Sunday mornings, people always try harder to be nice) might also have thought that the boy following him — no more than fifteen, covered in acne, wearing cartoonish glasses — was his grandson. Had anyone thought to compare them, they’d have realised that, quite obviously, any blood relation was improbable. The kid was too dark, his hair too curly, and his nose diametrically opposed to Dámaso’s. But people don’t think about these things when they see strangers. They don’t picture their lives, don’t ask questions about them. They have no reason to.
Guzmán, however, was asking a lot of questions. One after the other, and he didn’t let them go. People in general didn’t interest him. But the subject of one of his investigations did.
It hadn’t been hard to verify a few things about the antiquarian. People aren’t very careful with their past, especially if they think they’re safe. All he’d had to do was phone a few old colleagues, people he knew from another time, another country — a country very different from the one he was in now. His old comrades from the Spanish police force, who’d had no qualms about coming to him when they wanted help fighting ETA refugees in Chile during the late Eighties, now tried to dodge him. They told him in no uncertain terms that they wanted nothing to do with him. They had become commissioners, police chiefs, deputies; they had a lot to lose and little inclination to lose it. They used bullshit excuses, hiding behind their families and careers, making guilt-ridden proclamations — What we did back then was wrong — to cover their fear. None of the arseholes who’d hung up on him had lost more than him, but still he feigned compassion, understanding.
The Heart Tastes Bitter Page 29