Death on a Galician Shore

by Villar, Domingo

  First one to the chin.

  ‘Sorry about that.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I know you saw Trabazo. How did you find him?’

  ‘Not bad. How’s Uncle Alberto doing?’

  ‘He’s OK …’

  ‘Right,’ said Caldas tersely. ‘Will you be visiting him tomorrow?’

  ‘I go in every day.’

  Second one to the cheek.

  ‘So maybe I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he said, about to hang up.

  ‘Just one thing, Leo.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  Caldas prepared himself for a third blow.

  ‘Do you remember what the brother of Basilio, who ran the drugstore, was called?’

  ‘The one who was a bit dim?’

  ‘That’s the one. I’ve been trying to think of his name all day.’

  ‘No idea.’

  After speaking to his father, he called Clara Barcia. She told him they’d started examining Justo Castelo’s auxiliary boat that afternoon.

  ‘They didn’t lie to you, Inspector. It’s very faint, but there does seem to be a date on there.’

  ‘Do you know what it is?’

  ‘The day is 20 December,’ said Barcia. ‘But we still can’t make out if the year is 1995 or 1996.’

  ‘Ninety-six,’ said Caldas, recalling the year of the sinking of the Xurelo. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Nothing legible. It’s a really old boat and it’s been repainted quite a few times. There were lots of marks but they could have been anything.’

  ‘What about the cable ties?’

  ‘Inspector, I left you a summary of all the information. Haven’t you read it?’

  ‘In my office?’ he asked, looking around.

  ‘On your desk,’ said Barcia, before continuing: ‘We couldn’t find green ties anywhere. They may be available abroad but they don’t ever seem to have been sold here.’

  Caldas rummaged among the papers on his desk. He could find any document in the apparent chaos with his eyes closed, but only if he’d put it there himself.

  ‘Got it, Clara,’ he said, retrieving the report from a pile.

  He glanced through it. She’d been as thorough as ever.

  He left his office, with the folder of press cuttings collected by Don Fernando under his arm, together with the report on Sousa’s corpse and the summary drawn up by Clara Barcia.

  He found Estevez in the toilets. He had his coat on and was leaning over the basin washing his face.

  Caldas thought he could probably do with a splash of cold water himself to clear his head.

  ‘How about a glass of wine at the Eligio?’ he said from the door. It had been a long day. They deserved a drink.

  ‘Not today, boss.’

  ‘Not even one? It’s only eight o’clock.’

  ‘Give me a break, boss,’ said Estevez, smoothing his hair with dampened hands. ‘I’m meeting someone.’

  ‘Meeting someone?’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘Right.’

  Estevez glanced at him in the mirror. ‘Got a problem with that?’

  ‘No, no, fine,’ stammered Caldas and closed the door behind him.

  The Promenade

  It had rained heavily again by the time he got to the Eligio. The cast-iron stove was lit and several tables were occupied. Caldas hung his raincoat on the rack and went over to the empty bar. Behind him he could hear the academics, in their usual place, and Carlos’s deep voice at a table at the back.

  ‘Hey, Leo!’ one of the academics called out. ‘We were just talking about your show yesterday.’

  Caldas didn’t try to set them right – they thought Patrolling the Waves was his show and that was that.

  ‘What’s that tune you play while you’re thinking?’

  He nearly turned around and left.

  ‘What was that?’

  The man who’d asked about the tune must have noticed his annoyance because he added, raising both hands, ‘We think it’s great. If music helps you concentrate …’

  ‘What piece is it?’ asked another.

  ‘We know it’s Gershwin,’ said a third. ‘But we’re not sure about the title.’

  ‘Well …’ said Caldas, scratching his head.

  ‘It’s “Promenade”, isn’t it?’ said the first.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ said another, looking at the inspector rather than the man he was disagreeing with. ‘It’s “Walking the Dog”, for God’s sake.’

  Caldas felt like saying that he didn’t know the title, hadn’t chosen the damn tune and, far from helping him think, it completely put him off, but he simply shrugged and promised to find out the name the next day at the radio station. He turned and waited for Carlos to serve him. Leaning on the marble counter with his chin in his hands, he stared at a small picture on the wall opposite, by the newspaper rack. It was an oil painting of the head and shoulders of a woman, by Pousa, one of the many local artists who’d found refuge in that enlightened bar. Caldas had seen the picture hundreds of times. The woman was dressed in yellow and turned to the side with a sad look. She reminded him of Alicia Castelo, with her only brother dead and her husband away at sea. The model who had posed for Pousa had dark hair and wore yellow, while the dead man’s sister was blonde and dressed in mourning, yet both women had the same sorrow in their eyes.

  ‘It’s for breaking a meigallo, a spell,’ said Carlos, setting two glasses on the counter.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The little bag of salt. Didn’t you want to know what it was for?’ said Carlos, filling the glasses with white wine. ‘It protects against meigallos, wards off evil spirits. Same as the figa really,’ he finished, placing his thumb between his index and middle fingers.

  Caldas took a sip of wine, savouring it for a moment before swallowing. Then he said, ‘Yes, a fisherman in Panxón told me this afternoon.’

  Carlos drank from his glass and indicated the academics behind the inspector. ‘They knew,’ he said. ‘But I had no idea.’

  ‘Nor me,’ said Caldas.

  Once Carlos had returned to the kitchen, the inspector opened the folder, pulled out the report the pathologist had written more than twelve years earlier, and placed it on the bar.

  ‘Wouldn’t you rather sit at a table?’ asked Carlos a moment later. ‘The small one at the back’s empty.’

  ‘Actually, I would.’

  ‘More wine?’

  Caldas nodded.

  ‘How about something to eat?’ Carlos asked as he refilled his glass. ‘We’ve still got some veal with chickpeas. Tastes even better today.’

  Caldas shook his head and mumbled an almost inaudible ‘No, thanks’. He didn’t want a heavy meal that would have him tossing and turning in bed. He needed a good night’s sleep.

  On the tiny table, beneath an orange sunset by Lodeiro, the open folder hardly left room for his glass of wine. Caldas turned his attention to the pathologist’s report. He read it twice, the first time straight through quickly, the second looking at the photos alongside the pathologist’s comments. There was nothing to make one think that the body found entangled in the nets of the trawler might not be Antonio Sousa’s, but there was no real proof either. The lengthy spell in the water had made the nails and skin on the fingers begin to decompose, so it hadn’t been possible to take fingerprints and compare them with the missing man’s.

  The pathologist hadn’t even been able to confirm that the corpse’s eyes were the same colour as Sousa’s. The dark eyelids were closed in the photos, but they had probably been shut by the fishermen who found him, as the autopsy stated that the skipper’s eyes had been partially eaten away by fish.

  Identification, as Dr Barrio had told him, had been based on the clothes and medallion, and the son’s statement. The clothes, however, were waterproofs like those worn by any fisherman, and there was nothing especially distinctive about the medallion. As for the son, Caldas felt sure he’d only cast a quick glance at the body in t
he morgue. The pictures in the report showed a corpse with greenish eyelids and lips, standing out in a livid, pulpy face. Even for someone like Caldas who was used to dealing with dead bodies, it was difficult to look at such a disfigured face.

  He’d known Barrio for years. He was sure the pathologist wouldn’t have wanted to prolong the family’s and the village’s pain unnecessarily. They had endured weeks of anguish and uncertainty over the skipper’s fate. On hearing that a body had been recovered, they must have been keen to have it released to them, so that they could bury it and start the healing process. Caldas could imagine the family’s distress. Without an identified body, there could be no death certificate, no payout from the insurers, no widow’s pension. If the corpse wasn’t found, hardship was joined to grief in the missing man’s home.

  Caldas could understand why the pathologist had not investigated further when everything pointed towards the body being that of Captain Sousa. He was sure there had been no bad faith or negligence. He had the feeling that, had he been present at the recovery of the body, he himself would have urged the pathologist to speed things up so that the body could be returned to the family as soon as possible. The business with the ghost seemed ridiculous but, as he discovered more of the circumstances of Justo Castelo’s murder, he was prodded by increasingly sharp doubts.

  The third time Carlos came to refill Caldas’s glass, he brought a plate of fried sardines that the inspector hadn’t ordered.

  ‘You shouldn’t drink on an empty stomach,’ said Carlos.

  ‘True.’

  Caldas put the report away in its folder, which he placed on the floor leaning against the leg of his stool. But once Carlos had gone he pushed the plate to the corner of the table, picked up the folder and took out Clara Barcia’s summary.

  It didn’t include details of the examination of Justo Castelo’s rowing boat, though on the phone Clara had corroborated what the carpenter in Panxón had said: the date of the sinking of the Xurelo had been painted on the dead man’s rowing boat and subsequently erased. The Forensics team hadn’t been able to decipher the word that accompanied the date, but Caldas didn’t need to wait to be told – he already knew what it was.

  He started reading Barcia’s report. Justo Castelo, known locally as El Rubio, was forty-two and single. He was from Panxón, where he worked as a fisherman. He lived alone and didn’t have a girlfriend as far as anyone knew. His widowed mother lived with his sister and her husband in a house in the same village. The dead man’s brother-in-law had been on a trawler off the west coast of Africa for the past two months.

  The man’s body had been found floating in the surf at the Playa de la Madorra on Monday morning. When he was pulled from the water he was wearing a thick jumper over a white shirt, corduroy trousers and rubber boots. Around his neck he had a gold medallion of the Virgin of El Carmen. In his pocket he had a figa, a little bag of salt, some half-disintegrated banknotes and two keys on a ring.

  The summary included a statement from the man who had spotted the body from the road and that of others who had been present at the recovery. Everyone agreed that Castelo had gone out fishing in his boat first thing on Sunday morning, though Barcia stressed that none of them had actually seen him set off, and she doubted that he was intending to do any fishing as the market was closed that day.

  Caldas smiled. Barcia was not only extremely thorough, she was also intuitive and had plenty of common sense. He was glad to be working with her.

  She had included the most relevant details of El Rubio’s autopsy. She confirmed that he had drowned, and distinguished between the two blows to his head – one to the back caused by a long object and the other, more unevenly shaped, to the forehead, probably a result of being dashed against rocks.

  As for the wrists, she echoed the pathologist’s opinion: since the fastening was round by the little fingers, she didn’t think it possible that Castelo had tied his own hands.

  The main suppliers of cable ties in the area had been contacted. They were only supplied in an unusual colour by special order, and there had been no orders for green ones.

  At the end of the summary came the list of calls made from the deceased’s phone during the past week. There were only three, all local. Two to his mother’s house, and a third, on Saturday afternoon, was a very short call to a neighbour whose name meant nothing to Barcia. Caldas, however, had to read it twice. Justo Castelo had spoken on the phone to José Arias, his crewmate on the shipwrecked boat.

  ‘Damn,’ muttered Caldas.

  He looked at his watch. It was almost ten at night. He took out his mobile and dialled his assistant’s number. Estevez answered with a grunt.

  ‘Are you busy?’ asked Caldas.

  ‘A little.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Are you calling just to piss me off?’

  ‘No, no. It was just to say that we have to go back to Panxón. Pick me up at the same time.’

  ‘At seven in the morning?’ complained Estevez. ‘Can you tell me why we always have to get up so bloody early?’

  ‘Castelo phoned José Arias the afternoon before he died. Arias lied to us and I want to know why.’

  ‘Does it have to be at seven in the morning?’

  ‘I don’t want him to be asleep when we get there.’

  ‘Don’t worry, boss. If need be, I’ll wake him for you.’

  Caldas put everything back in the folder and stood up. The plate of sardines sat untouched. He took his raincoat from the rack, paid and said goodbye to Carlos. The academics were still discussing music as he opened the door to leave the Eligio. He closed it and headed over to their table.

  ‘Have you heard of “Solveig’s Song”?’ he asked.

  All four men nodded.

  ‘It’s by Grieg,’ said one.

  ‘One of the movements from Peer Gynt,’ added another.

  Apparently Caldas was the only person not to know the piece. ‘Do you know how it goes?’

  The academics looked at each other and one of them began to hum. Soon all four of them were humming the tune that Justo Castelo had whistled until not long before his death.

  Caldas didn’t recognise it.

  He left the bar. In the street, the rain was beating its own rhythm.

  Underwater

  Caldas hung his wet raincoat on a hanger over the bath and, in the sitting room, switched on the radio almost automatically. At home, where others found a haven, he found only loneliness.

  He looked at the shelves of records and wondered whether ‘Solveig’s Song’ was among those that Alba had left him.

  For a long time their relationship had seemed like a candle burning down. Only by extinguishing it could something be preserved, but he had preferred to let it burn to the end. It was Alba who had snuffed it out.

  The next day, her wardrobe had been empty, but many of her books and records remained on the shelves. For weeks, Caldas had wondered whether she’d forgotten them, or if it meant that she’d left the door ajar behind her. One day, as he put on a record, he recalled a conversation they had had. And then he realised: Alba had left behind everything in which he’d ever shown an interest.

  He couldn’t find the song El Rubio had whistled every afternoon at his mother’s, so he picked something by Louis Armstrong and put it on the record player.

  He was still thinking about El Rubio’s phone calls. The list of numbers confirmed that José Arias had been lying when he said they never spoke. They had kept in contact. At the least, they’d had one conversation. They’d spoken on Saturday afternoon, the day before Castelo died. Had that been the last time?

  Estevez had persuaded him that they didn’t need to get to Panxón first thing. And if he was honest Caldas thought he’d rather their visit caught Arias by surprise. Still, he was keen to know what the phone call had been about, to scrutinise the big man’s face when he found out that they knew he’d lied.

  The inner voice in which Caldas had such faith told him he was on the right p
ath. It was whispering that he should seek the solution to Castelo’s murder in the night of the sinking of the Xurelo and Captain Sousa’s supposed death. Caldas was determined to listen.

  He lay down on the sofa, opened the blue folder and took out the cuttings the old priest had given him.

  The first was from Sunday 22 December 1996, two days after the boat sank. Above a photo of the rocks, and another of the Xurelo’s port of origin, ran the headline: ‘Panxón Fishing Boat Sinks Near Salvora’.

  Caldas read the article closely. It contained a lengthy account of how the Xurelo had foundered on rocks off the island of Salvora and how the three crewmembers had swum ashore and been taken to hospital, to be discharged soon after.

  One of the men who had led the rescue team complained that bad weather was hampering the search for the missing man, and believed it foolhardiness unworthy of an experienced seaman to have ignored advice to return to port. By contrast, the skipper of another fishing boat in the area claimed that Sousa had informed him by radio of his intention to take shelter, and couldn’t understand why he had changed his mind.

  News of the sinking featured in other papers that day. All the articles contained the same account of events and description of the adverse weather conditions. Some included comments from local people who had come to the aid of the crew, but Caldas could only find a statement from one of the survivors in one paper: Marcos Valverde explained how, despite the skipper’s efforts to steer the boat, the storm had driven them on to the rocks. The boat had gone down in seconds. ‘Where were you headed?’ the reporter had asked. Valverde’s reply was short: ‘Home.’

  The next cutting Caldas unfolded was from the following day, Monday the 23rd. There were three articles with accompanying pictures. One showed the latest petrol station held up by a couple of motorcyclists who’d been eluding the police since the previous summer. Another showed people searching for a woman who had disappeared in Aguiño three days earlier. In the third picture, much larger than the others, Captain Sousa’s weather-beaten face looked out from beneath a woollen cap.