City of Buried Ghosts (An Inspector Domènech Crime Thriller Book 2)

by Chris Lloyd

  Elisenda slowly backed away from Micaló, standing up straight, her eyes not leaving his once. When she trusted herself to speak, her voice was strained. ‘You will drop all charges against my informant.’

  Micaló looked from Elisenda to Puigventós. Elisenda could see by the dull glint in his eyes that the corporate politician in him had already calculated that this was no longer a battle worth pursuing. He nodded his head once and turned away to call through the closed door.

  ‘Mosso, come in now.’

  The door opened and a uniformed cop walked into the room, his cap in his hand. Elisenda looked on in shock.

  ‘Mosso Paredes,’ Puigventós uttered, his disbelief echoing Elisenda’s.

  Elisenda watched as Paredes came to attention and thought how the nervous young mosso with butterfly fingers she’d first met some six months ago had given way to an assured cop, his cold stare resolute, even now.

  ‘What’s this about?’ Elisenda asked.

  ‘A disciplinary matter,’ Micaló replied. ‘Not your area of authority, I’m afraid.’

  Puigventós pulled his gaze away from Paredes and turned to Micaló. ‘I don’t think any of us would have any problem were Elisenda to stay,’ he told him.

  Grudgingly, Micaló assented with a nod of the head. He was visibly nonplussed by Puigventós’ apparent lack of support for him and gathered himself before continuing to speak. He glanced once at Elisenda before doing so.

  ‘Mosso Paredes also appears to be above pursuing low-level crime,’ he began, his voice steadily strengthening. ‘He was seen refusing to arrest a member of the public as part of your initiative, Xavier.’

  ‘Paredes?’ Puigventós said to the mosso.

  Paredes looked at Elisenda before replying. She gave him the slightest of nods in encouragement. The mossos’ dark eyes seemed even more intense in the oppressive atmosphere of the inspector’s office.

  ‘It was the man who stands on Plaça del Vi, outside the Town Hall, the one with the banner protesting about council spending.’

  Puigventós nodded. ‘I know who you mean. Boldú. He was made redundant a few years ago.’

  ‘That’s him, Inspector,’ Paredes answered. ‘He kicked his old boss’s car this morning and dented the passenger door.’

  ‘Criminal damage,’ Micaló interrupted. ‘Which Mosso Paredes failed to arrest him for.’

  ‘With respect, Sotsinspector, he’s unemployed. He lost his temper at the person who fired him. I felt it was better to give him a warning rather than arrest him.’

  ‘Why so?’ Puigventós asked him curiously.

  ‘Because he’s having a hard enough time as it is, Inspector. He’s never been in trouble with the police before, but if we charge him with an offence, he then has a criminal record, which will make his chances of getting another job even slighter than they already are. I believe we serve him and the city better by giving him a warning and nothing more.’

  ‘You do understand why we’re pursuing low-level crime, I take it.’

  ‘Yes, Inspector.’ Paredes glanced at Elisenda for support. ‘And I’ve been true to it, but I feel that we should be allowed some leeway to make sure the campaign doesn’t hurt the people it’s supposed to be protecting.’

  ‘So you feel you have the right to decide,’ Micaló commented, ‘not your superiors. Not the law.’

  ‘I feel I have the duty to exercise restraint, Sotsinspector.’

  Micaló looked in disbelief at Paredes and tried to find words. Elisenda broke in before he was able to.

  ‘I think that’s exactly the way we should be tackling this initiative,’ she said, addressing Puigventós. ‘We have to be selective in how we approach petty crime.’

  ‘Selective?’ the inspector questioned.

  ‘Using our judgement. Not at the expense of creating antipathy towards the Mossos, or of victimising individuals we should be protecting, but dealing with the crimes that really do have an effect on the majority of the people in the city.’

  Micaló snorted. ‘For pity’s sake.’

  Puigventós stared at Elisenda and at Paredes for what seemed to Elisenda an age.

  ‘All right, Mosso Paredes,’ he finally said. ‘I’ll accept your argument for now. I agree with you that we have to observe the correct spirit while targeting low-level offences. But I will insist on you exercising restraint in exercising restraint. This initiative is important to the city.’ He turned to Micaló. ‘I trust you’ll be satisfied with that, Roger.’

  The politician’s mask was in place. ‘Of course, Xavier, and I shall make sure my unit observes the spirit, as you call it.’

  The inspector dismissed Paredes, who managed to leave the room without letting out a huge sigh, and Elisenda waited until Micaló left before she spoke again.

  She pointed at the closed door. ‘You see why I want Paredes in my unit. He has the right character traits to work in my team.’

  Puigventós sat down. ‘He has seventeen credits, Elisenda. He’s at least a year away from qualifying for promotion and he’s much too inexperienced. Give him time.’

  ‘He can learn as he goes along. You’ve seen how quick he is, how he reasons. He has the right sort of mind, the right sort of intuitive logic, for the Serious Crime Unit.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Elisenda, it’s simply not going to happen, and that’s final.’

  She turned to leave, but Puigventós had one more thing to say.

  ‘And don’t think that I will always take your side, Elisenda.’ He signalled for her to go. ‘Because I won’t.’

  ‘No, Xavier,’ she answered in the room.

  ‘No shit,’ she added outside.

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  There was an email waiting for Elisenda back in her office. From Gemma Cardoner at the Archaeology Service. She read it and called Àlex in, telling him first about her visit to Barcelona.

  ‘I’ve got something too,’ he told her when she’d finished and signalled to him to read what was on her screen.

  He put down some papers he was holding and angled the monitor towards him, quickly scanning first the email, then the attachment. When he finished, he looked at her once and sat down on the chair opposite her.

  ‘So he did try to blow the whistle on Arbós,’ he finally commented.

  Elisenda nodded. ‘Martí Barbena was telling the truth.’ She checked the date on the document on screen. ‘Eleven years ago, he wrote a report about Ferran Arbós, just as he said he had, accusing him of trading in stolen artefacts and faking provenance.’

  ‘So where does that leave us with him and Eulàlia Esplugues?’

  One last time, Elisenda quickly skimmed through to the most salient parts of the report that an evidently angry Barbena had written. ‘Not so cool when he wrote this, was he?’ She thought for a moment. ‘It simply means he wasn’t working with Arbós, so therefore Arbós’s murder wouldn’t have been a falling-out between partners.’

  ‘Or a warning to a former partner.’

  ‘But if it does turn out to be Mascort in the grave at El Crit, then we still have to consider both of them for that murder at least. And it still leaves the possibility of Arbós blackmailing Esplugues after Mascort’s body was found.’

  ‘That’s if there was anything to blackmail her for and Arbós knew about it.’

  Elisenda sighed heavily and rubbed her eyes. ‘Everything seems to bring people and motives into focus while moving them out of it at the same time. Who’s the first victim? Why is he a victim? Why was Arbós killed? And from that, who had the motive and means to kill one or the other or both? There’s something else. Something that Doctora Fradera told me this morning made me think that we should be considering a third person, one who’s nothing to do with Mascort’s ex-wife or with the original team of archaeologists at El Crit.’

  Àlex leaned forward and picked up the papers he’d left on her desk.

  ‘That’s what I had to tell you. I’ve been going through Arbós’s bank statements. His bank h
as released his accounts for the last ten years to us.’ He laid the papers out on the table, printouts of a current account statement in Arbós’s name, and pointed at a number of entries highlighted in yellow marker. ‘Up until six years ago, he received payments from a company based in Andorra. Not regular, but substantial when he did get them.’

  ‘Andorra?’ Elisenda commented, one eyebrow raised.

  Àlex nodded. ‘Precisely. A tax haven. I’ve got Josep looking into it too, but we’ve been running around in circles. As far as we can ascertain, the company folded a little under six years ago.’

  ‘Any names of directors?’

  ‘That’s the problem. So far, all the directors we’ve found were other companies, all of them offshore. And the directors of the one company of those that we’ve been able to track down so far are also other companies. I think we’re going to find that across the board. No individual’s names have come up yet. Evidently, if it were an honest business, that just wouldn’t happen.’

  Elisenda scanned the papers. ‘So you think this company was masking the intermediary who Arbós worked with to traffic the antiquities?’

  Àlex uncovered another piece of paper. ‘We’ve only just started looking at this, but we think we’ve found a link between one of the shareholder companies of the original company that made the payments and a bonded warehouse in the Zona Franca customs zone in Barcelona that was raided six years ago. All we’ve got at the moment is that it was called Serveis Art. Josep and I are still digging, but so far, its name has turned up as the importer of three archaeological artefacts subsequently sold at auction, two in London, one in Berlin. All of them now known to have been stolen.’

  ‘Part of the trail of fake certificates and auctions that Doctora Fradera was talking about to give legitimacy to the artefacts.’

  Àlex nodded. ‘And Arbós was the one providing the legitimacy. Mascort stole them, Arbós faked the provenance.’

  ‘Which just leaves the person trading in them. Most probably the person behind the company paying Arbós. And possibly the person behind the murder of Mascort or Arbós or both.’ She looked at the print-outs. ‘Of course, if Mascort died in 1981, there would have to have been other archaeologists since who were involved in stealing the artefacts for Arbós and our mystery dealer to then sell on.’

  ‘They don’t necessarily have to be archaeologists,’ Àlex commented. ‘After Mascort’s death, if he is dead, the goods could have been acquired in other ways. Metal detectorists. Or even more organised: gangs stealing to order from unattended digs or from museums.’

  Elisenda shook her head in frustration. ‘We just keep widening the field. And either way, Arbós’s murderer could be any one of them.’ She thought for a moment. ‘You’d better call Josep and Montse in, they need to know the latest. That’s if they can bear to sit in the same confined space as each other.’

  Àlex looked out at the two caporals in the outer room and sighed. ‘So much changed with Pau’s death.’

  He opened the door to call the other two in, giving Elisenda a moment’s grace to hide the sadness that had caught in her throat at his comment.

  The two caporals came in and sat at opposite ends of the desk. Àlex sat down between them and shot a glance at Elisenda. Composed, she explained the theory that she and Àlex had been discussing about a third person who would have been involved in the chain.

  ‘Which also makes them a suspect for one or both murders,’ she concluded, ‘whoever they are.’

  Josep looked at Àlex before replying. ‘Have you mentioned the payments to Arbós?’

  ‘And the bonded warehouse,’ Elisenda interrupted before Àlex could reply. ‘Yes, it’s an interesting lead. Keep looking into it. The problem is I want to spring another likely avenue on you all.’

  ‘More?’ Àlex sighed.

  ‘More. Jutge Rigau in La Bisbal made some comment about the sins of the fathers. Perhaps we’re looking at the wrong generation. Mascort’s killer would be at least in their fifties if they’re still alive, and that’s what we’ve been concentrating on, but just as Arbós’s murderer doesn’t have to be the same person, neither do they have to be the same age. Maybe we should be looking for someone younger, the next generation.’

  ‘Presuming Mascort is the first victim,’ Àlex insisted.

  ‘I haven’t found any maternal relative yet,’ Montse added.

  Looking at all three of her team in turn, Elisenda told them of her decision to arrange for a facial reconstruction of the skull.

  ‘And Puigventós agreed to this?’ Àlex asked her.

  She thought for a moment. ‘He didn’t refuse.’

  ‘So if it’s not Mascort in the grave,’ Montse asked, coming back to Elisenda’s original comment, her voice doubtful, ‘the victim’s son knows who he really is and is looking for revenge on the murderer? Is that what you mean?’

  ‘We’ve ascertained that Mascort’s son is out of the frame for killing Arbós as revenge,’ Josep added, not looking at Montse. ‘He has a watertight alibi.’

  Elisenda shook her head. ‘Not necessarily the victim’s son. Or daughter. But the child of the original killer, out to cover up their parent’s crime.’

  ‘Either of which would put Arbós’s murderer in their twenties or thirties,’ Montse replied.

  Àlex let out a long breath and looked at his watch. ‘Hell, Elisenda, it’s just got even more complicated in the last five minutes,’ he complained.

  ‘That’s what makes it all so worthwhile,’ she answered him, a light smile creasing the corners of her mouth.

  Chapter Thirty

  Clara Ferré poured a glass of red wine and watched her son in idle curiosity for a few moments before turning back to the article she was reading. He was held in thrall by a computer on the dining table at the other end of the large, old living room, his earphones on, watching some streamed broadcast of an opera. She smiled wryly. At his age, she recalled going out most nights discussing the end of Spanish rule and having sex with a string of earnest young men in wispy beards and cheesecloth. Taken in all, she imagined her youth was rather more fun than her son’s.

  Turning back to her article, she imagined either would be more enjoyable than any more time wasted reading the modish cant the writer appeared to revel in, the latest in a long line of anti-establishment academics steadfastly seeking to become the establishment. She threw the journal onto the coffee table and took a sip of wine.

  The doorbell rang.

  Not the harsh buzzing of the intercom downstairs in the street, but the two-tone chime of the door to the apartment. That was odd, she thought. It was either one of her neighbours, and she couldn’t remember the last time any of them had emerged from their homes at this time of night to come calling, or it was someone who’d found the street door open and come straight in. She hadn’t heard anyone going up or down the stairs, so it wasn’t a case of someone taking advantage of the door being opened by one of the residents entering or leaving the building, in the way that door-to-door sellers did. Looking at the clock above the fireplace, she couldn’t think of anyone who’d call at this time of night without phoning first. Her son hadn’t heard the bell over his Verdi, so she got up from the sofa with a sigh and crossed the hall to the front door, listening for any sound from outside.

  As ancient as the building, the original door had an old-fashioned Judas window, a metal grille at head height that opened or closed like a dial to allow the owner to see out, but it had seized up long ago. Instead, she’d had a spyhole put in underneath. Crouching down slightly to look through, she was startled by her son’s voice behind her, asking who it was. Instinctively backing away from the door and turning to face him, she immediately flinched at the heavy sound of metal hitting metal and wood splitting violently.

  Looking back at the door, her right eye was less than a centimetre from the pointed end of a metal spike, thrust through the spyhole, the deep mahogany around it splintered and cracked. She heard her son gasp and tried
to move her head back from the sharp tip, her movements slow in her panic.

  She heard the same sound again of metal on metal powering through the spike as a second hammer blow came from the other side of the door.

  Chapter Thirty One

  ‘I hope this is all going to be worthwhile,’ Catalina complained, holding one hand on her stomach and watching Elisenda.

  ‘You wanted to come here.’

  ‘It doesn’t mean you have to enjoy it so much.’

  Elisenda looked at the ice cream she was holding in either hand and shrugged. ‘I think you’ll find it does.’

  She’d left Vista Alegre, the last one of her unit to go. Turning the lights out on her office before closing the door on the still unknown killers of Mascort and Arbós, she’d walked out of the modern building into the cold evening air, the gloom and the brume of the riverside failing to wash away her own darkness. She’d followed the Onyar towards the Rambla, a damp night promising. A seething chill rose off the river, whispering through her coat, her breath dancing multi-coloured before her in the shop-window neon as she walked quickly along the edge of Plaça Catalunya. Catalina was waiting for her on the corner of the Pont de Pedra stone bridge and the Rambla, her own coat pulled tightly around her, her face shrouded in her own damp breath.

  ‘You want an ice cream?’ Elisenda had asked her sister after Catalina had made her demand. ‘In February?’

  In reply, Catalina had flapped open her coat to reveal her bulge.

  ‘You want an ice cream,’ Elisenda surrendered.

  ‘Rocambolesc,’ Catalina clarified.

  ‘Where else?’

  Elisenda held on to her sister’s arm and walked with her along the Rambla. No terrace cafés were open at this time of year, but light from the shops and cafés and restaurants spilled out onto the promenade, washing them both with a winter pallor. The bookshops and shoe shops and clothes shops, the old and the new, would be closing in less than half an hour, but there were still plenty of people hurrying in and out of them in clouds of warm breath.