‘No, of course not.’
‘What brings you here, Inspector?’
‘I’ve heard that you used to be keen on photographing the fishermen in the harbour.’
‘I still am,’ said the priest. ‘I’m not quite dead yet.’
Caldas smiled. The priest got up, leaning on his cane with both hands, and beckoned Caldas to follow him to the door through which he’d just come.
‘It’s been a long time since anyone took an interest in my photographs,’ said the priest over his shoulder as he headed along the corridor, his cassock sweeping the floor.
He stopped in front of a door, opened it and stood aside to allow the inspector to enter first. Caldas found himself in a room with a coffered ceiling. Through the window opposite, the sea was visible beyond the rooftops of the village.
The bookcases, in the same dark wood as the ceiling, were crammed with books and papers. There was a large desk and a studded, leather-backed chair.
‘Most of the photographs are in those binders over there,’ said the priest, indicating thick leather binders lined up on shelves. ‘Which ones are you interested in?’
Caldas cleared his throat: ‘Have you any of Captain Sousa?’ Behind the strong lenses, Don Fernando fixed his huge eyes on the inspector.
‘A few,’ he said, sitting down in the chair. ‘Would you mind handing me that binder down there?’
Caldas did so, and the priest opened it out on the desk and began slowly turning the self-adhesive pages covered in neat rows of black-and-white photos. Now and then, a larger picture occupied almost an entire page.
‘You’re not convinced that El Rubio’s death was suicide, are you?’ asked the priest.
‘You aren’t either?’
‘I have absolutely no idea, Inspector. But unfortunately I know how far a desperate man can go,’ said the old man. ‘I went to see the family this morning. His sister believes that someone threw him into the sea.’
‘I know,’ said Caldas.
‘So the police are after the late Captain Sousa,’ murmured Don Fernando, still turning pages, leaning so close he might almost have been trying to identify them by smell.
‘Well, as I’m sure you know, some people are claiming to have seen him around.’
‘We have to believe in something. God willed it so,’ mumbled the priest. Then, placing a finger on one of the photos, he said: ‘This is Sousa here.’
Caldas leaned over the priest’s shoulder. The picture must have been taken around the same time as the one Trabazo had shown him. Sousa was too far away and the macana was a blurry line hanging from his belt.
‘Are there any more?’ asked Caldas.
The priest turned another page and slid the open album towards the inspector. A large photograph filled the entire page. It showed a seaman of advanced years wearing a woollen hat and rubber boots. He was smiling, sitting on the jetty on a bollard to which a thick rope was tied. His legs were crossed so his belt was not visible.
‘Is this the captain?’
Don Fernando nodded. ‘And this is him, too,’ he said, pointing at the page opposite.
Caldas held his breath when he saw the two pictures on that page. They were much more recent. Antonio Sousa’s face was deeply lined beneath the familiar woollen hat. He was on the deck of a fishing boat, staring straight at the camera. On the bridge, beneath the window, the name Xurelo was painted in dark letters.
In both photos the macana on the captain’s belt was so clearly visible that Caldas felt he could have reached in for it. It was just as Trabazo had described it: a thick wooden club with a rounded end.
‘Could I borrow one of these photos? I’ll bring it back tomorrow.’
‘If you think it might help …’ said the priest.
‘Many of your neighbours believe that Sousa has something to do with Castelo’s death.’
‘Blaming a ghost is reassuring. It gives a name to uncertainty. That’s what faith is. It’s preferable to thinking that someone has chosen to kill himself rather than go on living, or that we have a murderer in our midst, don’t you think?’
Caldas concurred, not taking his eyes off the wooden club in the photograph.
‘Do you remember the sinking of the Xurelo?’ he asked.
‘As if it were yesterday.’
‘Did you see the captain’s body?’
Don Fernando shook his head. ‘The coffin was closed when it was sent from Vigo. Why would I want to see my friend’s body?’
Caldas didn’t know what to say.
‘Poor Gerardo, Sousa’s son, saw it,’ said the priest. ‘That was his last memory of his father. Isn’t that a shame?’
‘Yes,’ said the inspector. ‘I suppose it is.’
‘The Xurelo isn’t the only boat from the village to have foundered, Inspector. You can’t fight against the rocks, the wind and the waves,’ said Don Fernando, looking out of the window. ‘Out there, sandbanks lie in wait for sailors. Like a snake stalking a rabbit, they lurk, quite still, waiting for a moment’s inattention. We have to live with it.’
The priest tapped some blue folders on one of the top shelves with the tip of his cane.
‘One of them is marked Xurelo. Would you mind getting it down for me?’ he asked the inspector.
When the folder was on the desk before him, Don Fernando removed the rubber bands securing it. Inside were several folded yellowed newspaper cuttings.
‘This is what was reported about the sinking of the Xurelo from the time it went down to the day the captain’s body was found,’ he said.
He slid the photo of Sousa inside the folder and handed it to the inspector.
‘As long as you don’t lose it, you can take this, too.’
They chatted in the study for a few more minutes. Don Fernando recounted tales of other men drowned in the bay in such detail that it seemed he himself had been at the mercy of the waves.
‘Do you go out fishing yourself?’ asked Caldas.
The old man’s eyes widened behind his thick lenses.
‘We priests don’t go out in boats, Inspector,’ he said, with a wink like the flutter of a bird’s wings. Then he added: ‘It brings bad luck.’
Caldas returned to the car at the foot of the hill. Estevez had reclined the seat and was dozing with his hands behind his head.
Caldas got in and closed the door gently but woke up his assistant nonetheless.
‘How did it go, boss?’ asked Estevez, setting the seat upright.
‘Well, I think,’ replied Caldas, opening the folder and glancing at the photo of the captain again.
‘There’s still an hour till Castelo’s funeral,’ remarked Estevez. ‘Where shall we go in the meantime?’
Caldas didn’t want to wait. ‘Back to Vigo,’ he said, lowering the window slightly, just enough to let in some fresh air.
He wanted to show Barrio the picture of the macana, to see if it could be the object with which Castelo had been struck before he was thrown into the water. He took his cigarettes from his pocket and placed one between his lips but didn’t light it, playing instead with the lighter.
‘What’s in the folder?’ asked Estevez as they drove off.
‘Cuttings about the sinking of the Xurelo and a photo of Antonio Sousa taken a few days before he drowned,’ replied Caldas, removing the elastic bands and showing him the photograph. ‘Look at the club he’s got on his belt. Incredible, isn’t it?’
‘What’s incredible is that you believe this ghost story, too,’ replied Estevez.
‘I don’t know what to believe,’ said Caldas, taking the unlit cigarette from his mouth and drumming on his lighter.
Estevez gave him a sidelong glance. ‘Inspector,’ he warned, ‘if you’re about to spit, do me a favour and open the window a little wider.’
Spiral
Caldas called the pathologist from the car. More than a decade had passed, but Barrio still remembered the recovery of the veteran seaman’s body caught up in the nets of a trawler
from Vigo. It had been one of his first cases.
‘The body had been in the water almost a month,’ he said. ‘You don’t easily forget a case like that, Leo.’
‘I can imagine,’ said Caldas. ‘Do you remember how it was identified?’
‘No, but I always keep a copy of the report I send to the judge.’
‘Could you get hold of it?’
‘Is it urgent?’ asked the pathologist, and Caldas detected a hint of annoyance in his voice.
‘Were you about to leave?’
‘In a little while,’ he replied, but he sounded as if he already had his coat on. ‘Unless you need me to stay …’
‘Would you mind hanging on for twenty minutes or so?’ asked the inspector. ‘I’ve got something important to show you.’
When he hung up, Caldas opened the folder again, set aside Sousa’s photograph and unfolded the first cutting. Beneath the headline ‘Fishing Boat from Panxón Sinks near Salvora’ ran a half-page article about the shipwreck, including a photograph of rough seas at the scene of the accident and another of the boat’s port of origin. The news that the skipper of the boat was missing was emphasised in bold type.
Caldas started reading the article but by the third line he was feeling carsick. He placed the cutting back in the folder and opened the window a little wider. Breathing deeply, he leaned back and closed his eyes.
Guzman Barrio sat in his office waiting for the inspector. He’d hung his coat back on the rack.
‘Let’s see whatever it is that’s so important it couldn’t wait till tomorrow,’ he grumbled as they entered.
Caldas set the priest’s photograph of Captain Sousa down on the desk.
‘I wanted you to see this,’ he said, placing the slip of paper with the outline of the blow to Justo Castelo’s head beside the photograph. ‘Look at the club on the man’s belt. It’s narrow with a rounded end, like your drawing here, see?’
The pathologist looked closely at the macana.
‘Yes, they are similar.’
‘So do you think Castelo could have been hit with this?’ pressed Caldas.
‘Maybe,’ replied Barrio after a moment’s thought.
‘Any way to confirm it?’
‘We could try,’ said the pathologist. ‘You haven’t got the club itself, of course …’
Caldas shook his head.
‘Any more photos?’ asked Barrio.
‘None as clear as this one.’
The pathologist looked at the picture again and smoothed his hair with his hand.
‘Give us a couple of days, let’s see what we can do,’ he said at last, before asking, ‘Who’s the man in the photo?’
‘That’s why I called you, Guzman. It’s that fisherman whose body was found years ago in the nets of the trawler.’
‘Antonio Sousa?’
Caldas nodded.
‘What’s he got to do with all of this?’
‘He was from Panxón. Castelo was on his boat the day it sank. It’s not clear what happened.’
‘And?’
‘He’s been seen again in the village.’
‘Who?’
‘Sousa.’
‘Sousa?’ echoed the pathologist, puzzled.
‘That’s why I asked you to find the report.’
‘They think it’s his ghost,’ added Estevez, with a mocking smile quickly erased by Caldas’s reproving glance.
There was a moment’s silence, then Barrio asked Caldas, ‘Surely you don’t think so, too, do you?’
‘It doesn’t matter what I think,’ replied Caldas. ‘I just want to know how the body was identified. Just in case.’
‘It’s absurd.’
‘Absolutely. Have you got the report or not?’
Barrio motioned to a spiral-bound document.
‘Any photos?’ asked the inspector.
‘At the end.’
Caldas flicked through the pages until he found the photos taken during the recovery and autopsy of Sousa’s body. Seeing them alongside the one taken by the priest, it was hard to believe they showed the same person.
‘The face is completely decomposed,’ he said, holding a photo out to his assistant.
‘Bloody hell,’ cried Estevez in alarm. ‘Don’t show me that.’
‘Did you confirm that it was him?’ asked Caldas.
Barrio motioned towards the report.
‘So it states in there.’
‘Oh, stop it, Guzman. I’m not trying to catch you out. I just want you to tell me how you knew it was Antonio Sousa. I need to be certain that there was no mistake, that’s all.’
The pathologist took the report from him and, after leafing through it, said:
‘His own son identified the body. Is that certain enough for you?’
‘You know better than I do that you can’t rely on the relatives. His son probably could hardly look. He’d have identified anything just so as to be able to bury the body,’ said Caldas and, pointing at Sousa’s face, he added: ‘I mean, look at the state it was in.’
‘It had been in the sea for weeks. What would you expect?’
Estevez smiled, but the inspector wouldn’t give up.
‘Was a DNA test carried out?’
‘Of course not, Leo. We’re talking about more than twelve years ago.’
‘How about dental records?’
‘We didn’t check them either,’ replied Barrio. ‘We’d been waiting for the body to turn up, you know. The search had been on for weeks. Anyway, we had enough to make an identification.’ He turned the pages of the report again. ‘The clothing was what Sousa had been wearing when the boat went down, and the medallion of the Virgin of El Carmen was the same.’
‘There are thousands of fishermen with one of those around their neck.’
‘I told you, his son identified the body,’ said the pathologist, laying the report on the desk open at the page with the photos.
The inspector looked at Sousa’s decomposed face once again. ‘Just tell me one thing, Guzman. Could it have been someone else?’
‘Of course not,’ said Estevez, but Caldas ignored him. He wanted to hear it from the pathologist.
‘Could it?’ he repeated.
‘What do you want me to say, Leo?’
‘Just tell me if it’s possible.’
‘If what’s possible? That another drowned man was wearing Sousa’s clothes and his medallion and looked like him?’
‘Is it possible or not?’
‘Bloody hell, Leo …’
‘Yes or no,’ said Caldas.
Estevez reflected that even under torture the pathologist would be unable to give a definite answer. He was proved right.
Cold Water
Caldas took refuge behind the glass door of his office. He dropped the folder of cuttings about the sinking of the Xurelo and the report on the recovery of Antonio Sousa’s body on the desk, and sank into the black desk chair. He needed to recharge his batteries after an almost sleepless night and a day in Panxón. He rubbed his eyes hard and kept them closed, but the thoughts churning in his head prevented him from resting. He knew that the information gathered in the first few hours of an investigation was always the most useful. After that, instead of solidifying, traces became blurred and disappeared, and details merged into a thick fog that hid the truth and made solving a case not a matter of time, but of chance.
This was why, at the very start, he liked to enter the crime scene and examine it, trying to find the essence of the criminal that pervaded it. But in this case Caldas had nowhere to search. The clock was ticking and Justo Castelo’s boat still hadn’t turned up.
A few old fishermen had been frightened by the spectre of Captain Sousa but, judging by the lucky charms in Castelo’s pockets, they weren’t the only ones to be afraid of ghosts. And, though they denied it, El Rubio’s crewmates were frightened, too. Caldas had seen it in their eyes.
He thought of the date of the sinking daubed on El Rubio’s rowing boat and the wo
rd painted on the hull: ‘Murderers’. Murderers. Castelo hadn’t simply dismissed it as a sick joke, Caldas was sure of that. He’d immediately removed all trace of it from the boat but hadn’t been able to erase it from his mind. This was why his family had sensed that something was worrying him. Worrying him so much that he’d stopped whistling a tune he’d been whistling for years.
The macana also pointed that way. The club that Sousa had won in a card game was similar in shape to the mark on Castelo’s head. Caldas didn’t believe in coincidences. And Trabazo had spoken of Sousa’s skill in handling the weapon. The pathologist thought the impact to Castelo’s head had been violent enough to knock him out and, long ago, in Newfoundland, Sousa had felled a much bigger man than Castelo with a single blow.
Caldas took another look at the photo of Sousa’s putrefied face in the pathologist’s report, and an inner voice told him that things were usually what they seemed.
If Sousa was alive, if he hadn’t drowned when the boat sank, why had he waited so long to settle scores? If, as the report stated, he’d died over a decade ago, was it possible that someone was avenging the death of the skipper of the Xurelo? And, if so, what had prompted it now, when time should have healed the wounds?
Trabazo had jotted down the telephone number of Sousa’s son – who’d left Panxón because of all the rumours – on a slip of paper. Caldas took it from his pocket and picked up the phone, but hung up again almost immediately. He had no idea how to handle the call. What could he say? Was he going to make an accusation, or ask a son who had seen what he believed to be his father’s corpse whether the man was still alive?
Caldas thought of his own father. He’d missed their lunch and hadn’t managed to get to the hospital that afternoon either. He looked at his watch and wondered if his father was still in town. He dialled his mobile number – if he hadn’t gone back to the estate yet, maybe they could meet for a drink.
‘You’re back in Vigo?’ said his father when he answered.
‘I’ve just got here,’ Caldas lied. ‘Are you still around?’
‘No, no, I’m back home. There’s more pruning to do tomorrow so I want an early start. And I needed to breathe. I’d been in town since late morning.’
Death on a Galician Shore Page 15