‘Right,’ mumbled Caldas. ‘Why didn’t you go back to the police? Why didn’t you go directly to the police station?’
Irene shook her head. ‘Diego couldn’t face Somoza again. So I said I’d go to the police station, but he begged me not to. He was scared, and resigned to letting things take their course. He said there was no point in my going. Somoza was telling anyone looking into Rebeca’s disappearance that he had reasonable grounds to believe that she’d run off with some man. Reasonable grounds. He hadn’t lifted a finger and then he spoke of reasonable grounds to believe. Diego thought other policemen would treat him the same. He didn’t think it was personal.’
‘But you did?’
‘Somoza is a pig, and always has been,’ she said. ‘Now you see an old man with a sour face, glasses and gaping mouth, but for years he believed his police badge gave him the right to trample over people. The worst of it is that most people let themselves be intimidated. But not Rebeca. She was a one! There was one time she really put him in his place. She stood up to him.’
‘What happened?’
Irene drew on her cigarette before replying. ‘Somoza was always leering at her. He wouldn’t leave her alone. He thought that because she’d had a kid in her teens …’
‘Right.’
‘Rebeca was young but she told him where to go. It was one summer during the village fiesta, in front of everyone. I’m sure he never forgave her,’ she said. ‘And in the time after her disappearance he got his own back. He humiliated Diego because his mother had once humiliated him.’
‘When did the boy leave the village?’
‘A few weeks later. At the beginning of the new year. He’d had enough of not hearing anything and enduring the village gossip. Everyone believed Rebeca had gone off with a man. They still do,’ she said. ‘One afternoon, Diego came and told me he was leaving. We both knew he’d never see his mother again even if he stayed in Aguiño. He left the next morning.’
‘Do you know where he went?’
‘To his grandparents’ village. I don’t remember the name. It was up north, near Ferrol. They went back there when they retired. Diego went to live with his grandmother. The grandfather had died not long before. Neda!’ she said suddenly. ‘That was the name of the village.’
‘Does he still live there?’ asked Caldas.
She took another drag.
‘No. The grandmother died and he moved on.’
‘Where to?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You didn’t keep in touch?’
‘At first we spoke often on the phone. He’d call to find out if there was any news. He said he dreamed about his mother and the fair-haired fisherman. He couldn’t get the man’s face out of his head. I felt so sorry for him. I’d tell him to forget about the man, it wasn’t worth it, but he said he didn’t want to forget, and he’d cry. I couldn’t see his face but I knew he was crying. So was I. I felt terrible for not being able to do anything to comfort him. I just said I was thinking of him and that I loved him,’ she whispered, staring down at the table. After a moment’s silence, broken only by the screeching of seagulls in the harbour, she went on: ‘He called less and less. First it was once a week, then once a month, until eventually he stopped.’
‘When did you speak for the last time?’
‘It must have been six or seven years ago. He called me on my saint’s day, to congratulate me. He said his grandmother had died and he was leaving Neda.’
‘Did he say where he was thinking of going?’
‘I suggested he come back to Aguiño. I said their house was falling into ruins. But he didn’t want anything to do with either the house or the village. He felt stifled here. He felt stifled just thinking about coming back. He said he’d go wherever he could find work.’
‘What did he do?’
‘I don’t know. He didn’t talk about his life. He just called to let me know he hadn’t forgotten,’ she said, stubbing out her cigarette. ‘Poor Diego,’ she murmured. ‘Poor boy.’
‘Have you got a picture of him?’ asked the inspector.
‘I’ve got some upstairs. From when he was a baby.’
‘No later ones?’ asked Caldas.
Irene looked at Caldas, then at Estevez, then back at Caldas.
‘It’s Diego you’re interested in, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Has he got himself into some sort of trouble?’
‘He may have done,’ said Caldas, taking from his pocket the photograph of the crew of the Xurelo.
He placed it on the table beside the ashtray, which was now full of cigarette butts.
‘This is the crew of a boat that sank near here, on rocks near Salvora,’ he explained. ‘They foundered the night Rebeca Neira disappeared. They may have put in at Aguiño, at least for a few hours.’
Irene placed a finger on the fair hair of Justo Castelo in the photograph. ‘Is that him?’
‘It could be,’ replied the inspector.
Holding back her hair, the woman leaned over the photograph and peered at each of the faces.
‘Which one went inside Rebeca’s house?’
‘It could have been any of the others.’
‘Do you think she was on the boat, too?’
Caldas shrugged.
‘Did they survive?’
‘The three younger men did. They managed to swim ashore. But the skipper drowned.’
Irene looked at the photograph again and Caldas told her what had brought them to Aguiño. ‘The fair-haired one was called Justo Castelo. Last week his body washed up on the beach at Panxón. He’d been murdered. We’re investigating his death.’
The woman looked up from the photograph. ‘You think Diego had something to do with it?’
Caldas decided not to tell her that a few weeks earlier the word ‘Murderers’ had been daubed on Castelo’s boat. Nor that the date of the sinking, of Rebeca Neira’s disappearance, had been inscribed beneath it.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘That’s what we’re trying to find out.’
A Packet of Cigarettes
‘We’ve just come from the canteen at the fishermen’s association,’ said Caldas after giving his name. ‘The waiter there said that the Aduana was the only bar in the harbour that was open in the evenings in 1996.’
‘That’s right,’ replied the man, staring wistfully at the floor. ‘I closed up in 1998, after thirty-five years. Now the canteen’s the only place for fishermen to go. But it closes in the evening. And why not? Boats stopped going out fishing at night a long time ago.’
Caldas nodded and the man went on, ‘Don’t be fooled by the empty harbour – this place was one of Galicia’s most important fishing ports once. They caught a lot of sardine, a lot of hake. A major port,’ he said. ‘Did you see the boat that’s a bit bigger than the others?’
The policemen nodded, recalling the trawler half-glimpsed through the mist.
‘It’s the Narija,’ said the man. ‘There used to be dozens like it here. The market was overflowing with fish. Crates of hake coming out of the door. But then stocks started to go down. You think it’ll never happen, but it does. Of course it does. The only boats left now go out for octopus,’ he said contemptuously. ‘At the market you can buy percebes, clams, roughy … But hardly any fish – real fish, that is.’
‘Of course,’ said the inspector, encouraging him to continue. He was happy to let the old man talk, granting him the time that death would soon deny him.
‘People came from all over,’ said the former owner of the Bar Aduana and listed the towns that had supplied the Aguiño fleet with crew. He went on: ‘We made a living from the harbour. Our children expect to make theirs from the beach.’
‘Things change,’ murmured Caldas.
‘Some,’ said the man. ‘Not others.’ Then he asked, ‘Why are you here?’
‘We want to know if you remember any of these men,’ said Caldas, showing him the photograph. ‘They were the crew of a boat from Panxón that used to come
and fish in this area.’
The man peered at the picture. ‘I remember the older one,’ he said, placing his little finger on Antonio Sousa’s woollen cap. ‘Everyone referred to him as Captain Sousa. He sometimes moored in the harbour and came into the bar for water or a meal.’ He looked up at the policemen. ‘But I thought he was dead. Didn’t his boat founder by the Asadoiros islets near Salvora?’
‘That’s right.’
The man looked at the photograph again. ‘You know I saw him the night his boat went down?’
Caldas and Estevez exchanged glances.
‘He came into the bar?’
‘That very night,’ he said, going on unprompted. ‘There was a storm. The fleet was in harbour and the local fishermen were all at home, enjoying a night off with their families. I was about to head home myself. I’d already turned out all the lights when the skipper arrived. He asked if I could get him and his crew something to eat. The stove was off so I made them some sandwiches and left them water and wine on a table in the gallery. The Aduana had a glassed-in gallery at the front, so people could sit and look out at the sea even when the weather was bad.’
The policemen nodded.
‘I went home. I’d locked up the bar itself but left the gallery open so they could eat in there, and the skipper went back to get the crew. The next time I saw him was in the papers. He drowned that night.’
He looked at the faces in the photograph. ‘The boys survived, didn’t they?’
‘Yes, all three of them,’ said Caldas.
‘I don’t know what they were thinking, putting out to sea. The skipper seemed like the cautious type.’
Caldas had his own ideas about why they’d set sail despite the storm.
‘Do you remember a woman who was known as Rebeca the First?’ he asked, putting away the photograph.
‘Rebeca the First,’ said the man quietly. ‘Of course I remember her. She lived in a stone house about five minutes away. She left the village years ago.’
He fell silent, smiling as if at a pleasant memory.
‘Rebeca the First,’ he said again. ‘What became of her?’
Caldas shrugged. ‘Was she a customer of yours?’
‘In a way,’ replied the man, still smiling. ‘We didn’t get many pretty girls at the Aduana. They preferred a different kind of bar. Rebeca the First only ever came in for cigarettes.’
‘She got her cigarettes at your bar?’
‘Nearly always,’ he said. ‘She’d come in, put coins in the machine, bend down for the pack of cigarettes and leave, with us all staring after her.’
‘At one stage, she went missing and the area was searched …’ said Caldas, leaving his sentence hanging in the hope that the man would say more.
He did. ‘Yes, I remember. For the first few days it caused quite a stir. Later we heard she’d run off with a man.’
‘The night she disappeared she went out for cigarettes,’ said Caldas, again encouraging him to continue.
‘That’s right. I was asked if she’d been into the Aduana. But the bar was closed that evening. There was a storm,’ he said and fell silent, as if listening to the echo of his own words, looking Caldas straight in the eye.
So now you see it, too, the inspector said inwardly, and asked the man: ‘Anything wrong?’
‘No, nothing,’ he said, signalling to Caldas that it was time to listen carefully. ‘Would you mind showing me that photo again, Inspector?’
Caldas put it on the table and the man placed a finger on Justo Castelo’s fair hair.
‘I was asked if I’d seen a fisherman with very fair hair in the harbour that weekend.’
‘Who asked you?’
‘Irene, from the pharmacy,’ he said, staring at the photo.
‘No one else?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I told her I hadn’t. I never saw the skipper’s crew. Do you think Irene was referring to this lad?’
‘Maybe.’
Outside Caldas lit a cigarette and put his hands in his pockets. Pale mist still lay over the village, shrouding it in damp.
Caldas and Estevez walked in silence, towards the church tower that loomed above the other buildings. As they passed the canteen of the fishermen’s association, they heard laughter. By contrast, the seagulls had ceased their screeching and alighted mutely on the ground.
As they got back to the car, Estevez jerked his head towards Somoza’s front door. The former deputy inspector was shuffling out in his slippers.
‘Aren’t we going to talk to him again?’ asked Estevez.
Caldas watched Somoza, trying to picture him as the arrogant policeman who had humiliated Diego Neira. All he could see was a defeated, stooping old man with a short-sighted squint and gaping mouth. ‘What for?’ he replied. ‘There’s no point.’
At the quay, they glimpsed the Narija between houses. It was fading into the mist like the ghost of Captain Sousa that had brought them to Aguiño that morning.
The Man on the Billboard
At eleven thirty, as the last of the village houses receded behind them, Estevez asked, ‘So, what do you think?’
‘About what?’
‘Do you think they murdered that woman, Rebeca Neira?’
‘Don’t you?’ said Caldas.
‘Please don’t start!’ muttered Estevez. ‘I’m asking you.’
‘Why else would they set sail in a storm? And, anyway, even if they didn’t do it, her son’s convinced they did.’
‘You think it was him who killed Castelo?’
Caldas nodded.
‘How did he track them down after all this time?’ asked Estevez. ‘Panxón is south, and Diego Neira went to live a long way north.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Caldas, looking out of the window.
The sea was still hidden by a mantle of mist, but a strong smell of brine revealed its proximity.
Caldas took out his mobile phone and called Olga to get the number of the police station in Ferrol. When he got through there he asked for Quintans.
‘Could you do me a favour?’ he asked, once they’d exchanged greetings.
‘Hit me,’ said Quintans.
‘I’m looking for a twenty-eight-year-old man who lived in Neda for a time from the start of 1997. His name’s Diego Neira Diez,’ said Caldas, looking at the missing persons report.
‘Have you got a recent address?’
‘All I know is that he lived at his grandparents’ house in Neda at least until six or seven years ago. Then he moved away, but he may have come back. I need any information that might help me find him: where he lives, if he has a partner or friends, what he does for a living – anything.’
‘I’ll call you back tomorrow.’
‘Don’t make it any later than that,’ said Caldas. ‘It’s urgent.’
‘Don’t worry, I won’t,’ said Quintans. Before hanging up, he asked,‘How are you doing?’
‘Fine.’
‘And Alba?’
‘She’s fine, too,’ replied Caldas, his voice so steady it sounded sincere even to him.
Then he closed his eyes, but it wasn’t Alba he saw behind his eyelids, it was a mother torn from her home one rainy night. As the Léo Ferré song Trabazo had quoted on the boat went, time makes you forget the face and voice of those who are no longer here. His thoughts travelled back to the harbour in Aguiño, the fishermen hastily setting sail so that no one could place them there that night, the Xurelo foundering on rocks, the men in their waterproofs calling out, terrified, in the storm.
‘Who do you think went inside Rebeca Neira’s house?’ he asked.
‘There are only two possible candidates,’ replied Estevez.
‘Three,’ said Caldas.
‘You think the skipper …’
‘Why not?’ replied the inspector. ‘It must have been someone with authority over the others. If not, how do you explain them agreeing to set sail in those conditions?’
‘That hadn’t occurred to me,’ admitted Estevez
. ‘Do you think they were all in on what happened to the woman?’
‘I wouldn’t be surprised. You saw how Arias and Valverde reacted when we mentioned Aguiño,’ said Caldas. ‘Let’s see what they have to say now.’
A little later he made another call, this time to Clara Barcia’s mobile. He asked about the footage from the security camera on the house in Monteferro.
‘We were going to go through it this afternoon,’ she said. ‘Would you like us to do it sooner?’
Caldas glanced at his watch: it was a quarter to twelve.
‘This afternoon’s fine,’ he said, and leaned back in his seat. He wanted to hum ‘Solveig’s Song’, which Justo Castelo used to whistle in his mother’s house. But though the academics at the Eligio had sung it to him, he couldn’t remember the tune. He clicked his tongue and looked out of the window. On a billboard an advertisement for a fishing tackle shop showed a man proudly holding up a fish that dangled from a fishing line.
‘I know how he tracked down El Rubio,’ he said suddenly.
‘How?’ asked Estevez.
‘It was around this time last year.’
‘How do you know?’
‘You went to Castelo’s house?’
‘Yes, with you.’
‘Did you notice the photos in the sitting room?’
His snort conveyed that he hadn’t.
‘About a year ago, Justo Castelo caught a sunfish,’ said Caldas. ‘It’s a big round tropical fish, as rare off the coast of Galicia as a great white shark. Several newspapers ran features about it, with a photo of Castelo holding up the fish. There was a framed copy in his living room. He was even interviewed on TV.’
‘Bloody hell,’ muttered Estevez, raising his eyebrows. ‘Since last year … Why has he waited until now?’
The inspector had a question of his own: ‘How long since his mother went missing? Twelve, thirteen years?’
‘About that.’
‘I don’t think he was in any hurry. The murder wasn’t committed on an impulse. He was patient,’ said Caldas, recalling the graffiti that had so disturbed Castelo a few weeks before his death. ‘He planned it well.’
Death on a Galician Shore Page 27