Death on a Galician Shore

by Villar, Domingo

  ‘What about the keys for the boat?’

  ‘Still on the boat, I suppose.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Caldas replaced the bag on the tray. He was about to pick up the one containing money when someone came in with a message for Barcia: Alicia Castelo had just arrived and the pathologist wanted Clara to be with her when she identified her brother’s body.

  Alicia

  Justo Castelo’s sister had identified the body. She’d been asked to wait for a moment before leaving, and she was sitting on one of the benches in the corridor. She was alone, leaning forward, resting her elbows on her knees, chin cupped in her hands and her gaze fixed on a point on the floor, between her feet. She was wearing dark clothes and her hair was as fair as her brother’s.

  As Estevez approached, she looked up, her blue eyes red from crying. On seeing the policeman who had spoken to her that morning she smiled faintly. Caldas was pleased to see that his assistant’s visit to Panxón had not made a bad impression. At least not on her.

  After exchanging a few words with her, Estevez beckoned to the inspector.

  ‘Inspector, this is Alicia Castelo, the sister, you know … I’ve told her you’ve only got a few questions.’

  Caldas held out his hand. ‘Please, don’t get up.’

  ‘Inspector,’ she said, taking his hand.

  ‘I’m sorry to trouble you at such a difficult time, but we need to speak to you,’ began Caldas gently. ‘If you don’t feel strong enough we can leave it till tomorrow.’

  Alicia Castelo looked at him and Caldas liked her face. Even though it was dulled by grief, the blue eyes ringed with shadows, he found it attractive. He thought she must be about ten or twelve years younger than her brother.

  ‘Do you think he committed suicide, too?’ she asked.

  ‘What reason would we have for thinking that?’

  ‘He went to sea and his body turned up on the beach with his hands tied,’ she whispered. ‘What else could you think?’

  Caldas exchanged a look with Estevez.

  ‘You don’t believe it?’ he asked.

  ‘I know that my brother would never do such a thing,’ she said. ‘Not while our mother is still alive.’

  ‘We’re not convinced that it was suicide either,’ Caldas assured her. ‘It may be that someone tied your brother’s hands and threw him … Well …’

  The drowned fisherman’s sister ran her hand through her hair and lowered her head, looking down at the floor again. After a few seconds, she looked up and asked: ‘Do you have any idea who might have done it?’

  ‘That’s exactly what we wanted to ask you,’ replied Caldas.

  She thought for a moment, and then shook her head.

  ‘You didn’t live with him, did you?’ asked Caldas.

  The woman swallowed. Caldas realised that she had shuddered inwardly on hearing her brother referred to in the past tense.

  ‘No. I live with my husband and my mother. She has trouble getting around so she lives with me. Anyway, my husband spends months at a time away at sea. She and I keep each other company.’

  ‘Your brother lived alone?’ asked Caldas.

  She swallowed again. ‘Yes, alone. In the house that used to belong to our grandparents.’

  ‘Do you remember the last time you saw him?’ asked Caldas.

  Without needing to reflect, Alicia Castelo replied, ‘He came to the house on Friday afternoon. He dropped in to see our mother almost every afternoon, before baiting the traps and setting them out at sea. She hardly ever goes out.’

  ‘Did you notice anything unusual about your brother?’

  She thought in silence. ‘No.’

  ‘Do you know if he’d had an argument with anyone or if anything was worrying him?’ the inspector pressed.

  ‘If it was, he didn’t mention it.’

  ‘Was he in a relationship with a woman?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. Justo was very reserved.’

  ‘Any new or strange friends?’

  Again, she thought not. Remembering the little plastic sachet in the dead man’s pocket, Caldas tried another tack: ‘What about drugs?’

  Alicia looked down once more. ‘I don’t know what you’ve been told, Inspector, but Justo gave them up a long time ago.’

  ‘How long is a long time?’

  ‘Years,’ she said. ‘He did it for our mother. He came off all that junk because he wanted to stop hurting her. That’s why I know he’d never have committed suicide while she was still alive. Never.’

  ‘Can you think of anything that might have made him …?’

  Caldas didn’t finish his sentence. He saw the grief in the woman’s eyes and decided not to push her further. He knew there was no point in continuing to question her when she was like this. Alicia Castelo needed time to rest if she was to think clearly and provide answers. Caldas granted it to her.

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll give you my number in case you think of anything,’ he said, handing her his card. ‘I’m afraid we’ll have to trouble you again. I hope you understand.’

  Alicia Castelo put the card away without looking at it. ‘Do you know when we’ll be able to bury him?’

  ‘Soon,’ the inspector assured her. ‘Though it’s up to the pathologist and the coroner.’

  While they were seeing her out, Estevez placed one of his great big hands on her shoulder as she wiped her eyes on her sleeve. ‘Try to get some rest, Alicia,’ he said. ‘You’ve got a difficult day ahead of you tomorrow.’

  El Eligio

  ‘At least someone doesn’t mind all this rain,’ said Estevez, indicating the statue as he stopped the car.

  The inspector looked up. Through the rivulets coursing down the glass, he saw the merman on his pedestal, illuminated by streetlights. Estevez was right. With the scales of his tail glistening in the rain, the half-man, half-fish seemed to be smiling down on the city.

  Caldas got out of the car. He made his way briskly down the Calle del Principe, turned right into the first side street and pushed open the wooden door of El Eligio.

  ‘Good evening, Leo,’ chorused the group of academics sitting at the table nearest to the bar.

  ‘Good evening,’ he called back, struggling to remove his wet raincoat. When he’d succeeded at last he hung it on the coat rack beside the iron stove and approached the bar.

  Carlos was totting up a customer’s bill. He always jotted down orders in pencil directly on to the marble counter. Once he’d finished he brought out a bottle of white wine and poured the inspector a glass.

  ‘Everything OK?’ he asked. Caldas responded with an ambiguous gesture.

  Oroza, the poet, was standing at the bar beside him. He’d enjoyed the radio show that afternoon.

  ‘That story about the man who was breathalysed every time he took out the car was very clever,’ he remarked.

  Caldas no longer bothered explaining that it wasn’t his show and that the calls to Patrolling the Waves were unplanned and unscripted. There had been a time when he’d tried to convince people of this, but he’d given up, realising it was futile.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said simply, and saw Carlos smile behind his moustache.

  He was planning to have something quick to eat and then go home to bed. Estevez would be picking him up at seven the next morning for the drive to Panxón. The fish market opened at eight, and Caldas intended to get there in time to speak to the dead fisherman’s colleagues. He also wanted to see the beach where the body had washed up and go to Castelo’s house. He’d had it cordoned off until he could get to inspect it.

  Dr Barrio would be releasing the body to the undertakers specified by the family in the morning. Unless absolutely necessary, Caldas preferred not to question the sister again until she’d had a little time to recover from the funeral.

  ‘Have you got anything to eat?’ he asked.

  ‘How about some of the veal with chickpeas left over from lunchtime?’

  Eating pulses late a
t night didn’t agree with him, but the Eligio’s veal with chickpeas was hard to resist. He’d been there a few times when they were preparing it and his mouth watered at the thought of it. Leg of veal, boned and chopped small, was simmered over a low heat all morning together with onions, leeks, carrots and seasoning. After about three hours on the hob, the chickpeas were added and, at the very end, a sofrito of onions, garlic and paprika.

  ‘Is it very spicy?’ he asked to salve his conscience.

  Carlos gave him the answer he wanted. ‘No,’ he replied, ‘it’s the same as always.’

  Caldas ordered a small portion and carried his glass of wine to his usual table in the corner. He leaned back against the stone wall which so many famous artists, habitués of the tertulias, the gatherings convening around the stove and wine barrels, had covered with paintings over the decades.

  He stared at the floor between his feet while he waited for his meal, in the same position as Alicia Castelo had sat in earlier. He recalled her relief when she had found out that they too believed her brother had not committed suicide.

  The inspector took his mobile phone from his trouser pocket and placed it on the table. Carlos arrived with a steaming earthenware dish of chickpeas.

  ‘How’s your uncle?’ he asked.

  ‘Not too good.’

  ‘Careful – it’s hot,’ Carlos warned, putting the dish down. ‘And your father?’

  ‘I was just about to call him,’ said Caldas, glancing at his watch and seeing that it was almost nine thirty.

  ‘Give him my regards,’ said Carlos before heading back behind the bar.

  Caldas hadn’t had time to get to the hospital that afternoon, so he did want to ask how Uncle Alberto had been that day, but mainly to know how his father was. He’d thanked his father for the lift back to Vigo with that rude departure, and hadn’t even suggested they meet for lunch. He owed him an apology, so, lighting a cigarette, he pressed the call button on his phone.

  ‘How are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Fine,’ replied his father. ‘Back home, getting all that traffic and noise out of my system. I don’t know how you can all live there.’

  ‘I didn’t get a chance to drop in on Alberto after all,’ Caldas apologised. ‘How was he?’

  ‘We had quite an enjoyable afternoon,’ answered his father. ‘Partly thanks to you: we listened to your show.’

  ‘Glad to be of use,’ said Caldas, not bothering to point out that he was simply a contributor to the programme.

  ‘By the way, we like the new tune they play while you’re thinking.’

  Caldas felt like hanging up.

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Yes, it’s great,’ his father assured him. ‘I think it works really well. So does your uncle. Was it your idea?’

  Caldas avoided answering by raising his cigarette to his lips. ‘You called me, didn’t you?’ he said after a moment.

  ‘Yes, from the hospital. When you didn’t answer we realised you must be on air so we switched on the radio.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I just wanted to find out the name of that boy you were at school with who’s now a town councillor.’

  What did his father want with that bore?

  ‘Pedro,’ he replied. ‘Pedro Moure.’

  ‘That’s right – Moure. I remembered it later.’

  The last time Caldas had bumped into him, after years in which he’d done little more than raise his eyebrows in greeting, Pedro Moure had crossed the road and given him a big hug. That day Caldas had begun to worry about the growing influence of Patrolling the Waves.

  ‘If you need something from the City Council, I know other people there. Pedro Moure’s a moron.’

  ‘That’s exactly why I wanted his name, Leo. Remember that I’m updating my Book of Idiots.’

  Was this all his father had called for?

  ‘You had mentioned it, yes,’ mumbled Caldas, concealing his bemusement. ‘Will you be coming into town tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes, of course. I’ll be spending the afternoon at the hospital.’

  ‘I’ve got to go to Panxón first thing and I’ll call you when I get back. Let’s have lunch together.’

  Before he’d had time to put the phone down on the table it rang again. Dr Barrio’s number flashed up on screen.

  ‘Still there?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve been on duty for the past two nights,’ complained the pathologist. ‘Have you got a moment?’

  ‘Is something up?’

  ‘Nothing serious,’ said Barrio, ‘just odd. Do you remember the substance we found in the drowned man’s pocket that tasted like salt?’

  Caldas didn’t reply, waiting for the pathologist to answer his own question.

  ‘Well, I’ve just got the test results: it is salt,’ said Barrio.

  ‘Salt?’

  ‘That’s right. Don’t ask me why but the man was carrying around a little sachet of salt.’

  ‘What about the blood test?’

  ‘Clean,’ said the doctor succinctly, confirming what Alicia Castelo had said.

  Once he’d rung off, Caldas ate the veal with chickpeas, which had stayed warm in the earthenware dish. Carlos came over with a bottle of white wine and an empty glass. He sat down, poured himself a glass and refilled the inspector’s.

  ‘Pretty good, wasn’t it?’ he said, lighting a cigarette and indicating the dish, which the inspector had scraped clean.

  ‘Delicious,’ replied Caldas. Turning towards the table where the academics were deep in conversation, he asked: ‘Are they still on about the breathalyser man?’

  ‘No, they’ve moved on to something else,’ said Carlos with a smile.

  Caldas reflected aloud: ‘Why would someone carry a sachet of salt around in their pocket?’

  Carlos thought for a moment, resting his chin on his fist. Caldas was tempted to start humming the jingle Losada had started playing on the show while he was thinking.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Carlos at last, pouring more wine. ‘Why would they?’

  ‘I don’t know either, Carlos. It wasn’t a riddle.’

  ‘So why do you ask?’

  ‘A client,’ said the inspector laconically. ‘He had a little bag of salt in his pocket.’

  ‘Well, I haven’t got a clue.’

  They sat on for a few minutes at the back table of the Eligio, smoking and sipping their wine in companionable silence.

  When he’d finished his cigarette, Caldas paid for the meal and went home.

  Insomnia

  By the time the alarm rang at six thirty on Tuesday morning, Caldas had been awake for a long while, lying in bed in the dark, listening to the rain dripping from the eaves and splashing on to the courtyard below. The Eligio’s food was really good, but he’d spent all night tossing and turning, having bad dreams and getting up for water from the kitchen. As he headed for the shower, he swore he’d never order chickpeas again after midday.

  Uncle Alberto’s green face mask, his father and the Book of Idiots had filled his mind during his many wakeful moments. And, throughout, Alba’s pendant had been in his thoughts, two metal balls that produced a jingling he now missed terribly. One night she’d told him that the sound was calming to babies in the womb, and Caldas had simply turned over. Only after it was gone did he realise it had soothed him, too.

  His thoughts also gravitated to the drowned fisherman, the blows to his blond head and the green plastic cable tie scoring the flesh of his wrists.

  The pathologist supposed that the fisherman had, first, received a blow to the back of the head. He’d been struck with a metal object with a rounded end so violently that it had knocked him out. Then, once he was unconscious, his hands had been tied and he’d been thrown overboard.

  But there was something in this reconstruction that didn’t quite fit: Justo Castelo had apparently set out in his boat alone. No matter how much he tried, Caldas couldn’t see how Castelo could have been taken by surprise by someone approaching in ano
ther boat. Perhaps an attacker had lain hidden on deck, among the traps, waiting for a chance to jump the fisherman. But Castelo had sailed on a wet Sunday morning when he should have been having a day off. How could the murderer have known that he would be going out?

  It was still dark when the lights of Estevez’s car appeared outside Caldas’s apartment block.

  ‘Morning,’ said the inspector as he opened the car door.

  ‘Yeah, great,’ grumbled Estevez, staring at the rain, soon to turn into a downpour, spattering the windscreen.

  ‘Do you know how to get to Panxón?’ Caldas asked, leaning back in the passenger seat and opening the window a crack.

  Estevez shot him a look of contempt, before pulling out and setting off down the hill. They reached the fishing port as the working day was coming to an end and the rest of the city was only just waking up. The last few lorries were lined up on the docks, impatient to receive their cargoes of fish and depart. Across the road, at the counter of the Kiosko de las Almas Perdidas, fishermen and dockers were warming their bellies and trading gossip before going home to bed. Meanwhile, flocks of gulls hovered overhead, noisily demanding food.

  They drove on, leaving the fishing port behind and passing the shipyards, where the glow of welding illuminated the bowels of ships under construction.

  The inspector closed his eyes and Estevez switched on the radio, which was broadcasting a local news bulletin. There was no mention of the drowned fisherman, only a weather forecast and a report on the increasing number of pedestrians run over in the streets of the city.

  ‘Well, I haven’t run anyone over for ages,’ said Estevez. ‘The last time was in Zaragoza, but that was over three years ago.’

  Caldas’s eyes sprang open.

  ‘Hope you don’t miss it,’ he said.

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Well, good. While you’re working for me I forbid you to run anyone over.’

  *

  They followed the coast until they turned on to the ring road, which was almost empty that early in the morning, and then took the coast road out of Vigo.