The Anarchist Detective (Max Cámara)

by Webster, Jason

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Jason Webster

  Dedication

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  Note

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Detective Max Cámara faces a crime that reopens old wounds

  Sent on leave after his last, brutal, case, Max Cámara returns to his home town in La Mancha, famous for producing the finest saffron in the world.

  There, the past keeps pulling at him. The town is exhuming a mass grave from the Civil War, but why is his grandfather behaving so strangely? His old friend Yago is investigating a particularly nasty murder which sets off memories Max has been trying to bury for years. And then there are Yago’s whisperings about a saffron mafia...

  Max finds himself plunged into the thick of a complex and intensely personal case that will put him in severe danger and have him questioning his past – and his future in the police.

  About the Author

  Brought up in England, Jason Webster has lived for several years in Valencia, the setting of his Cámara novels. His acclaimed non-fiction books about Spain include Duende: A Journey in Search of Flamenco and Sacred Sierra: A Year on a Spanish Mountain. His first Cámara crime novel, Or the Bull Kills You, was longlisted for the CWA Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards New Blood Dagger and was followed by the equally acclaimed A Death in Valencia.

  ALSO BY JASON WEBSTER

  NON-FICTION

  Duende: A Journey in Search of Flamenco

  Andalus: Unlocking the Secrets of Moorish Spain

  Guerra: Living in the Shadows of the Spanish Civil War

  Sacred Sierra: A Year on a Spanish Mountain

  FICTION

  Or the Bull Kills You

  A Death in Valencia

  For Tanya, with love

  The Anarchist Detective

  Jason Webster

  Any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  NOTE

  There are several police forces in Spain. Chief Inspector Max Cámara works for the Policía Nacional, which deals with major crimes in the larger towns and cities. The Guardia Civil is a rural police force, or gendarmerie, covering the countryside and smaller towns and villages. Both the Policía Nacional and Guardia Civil report to the Interior Ministry, although the Guardia Civil is paramilitary and has links with the Defence Ministry.

  In addition to these national forces, towns and cities tend to have a local police force – the Policía Local, also known as the Policía Municipal. This deals with smaller crimes, official engagements and traffic duties, and is under the control of each respective Town Hall. A member of the Policía Local may sometimes be referred to as a ‘Municipal’.

  Any member of these respective police forces are said to be belonging to the Policía Judicial if they are acting under the orders of an investigating judge.

  PROLOGUE

  He’s seen dead bodies before, plenty of them. But never like this.

  Slowly, for fear of breaking them, the bones are uncovered, exposed and finally liberated from the earth.

  Over two hours have passed since he arrived, watching every step of the delicate operation. And his eyes have barely wandered as the shape of the corpse has gradually emerged. Excavators and forensic scientists work below in the pit, their movements calm and unhurried: this takes patience, and while it is important to uncover and collect every clue, respect for the dead as much as professionalism creates a hushed, almost church-like atmosphere.

  A flash goes off from time to time as the photographer records their progress. From a distance, a handful of visitors to the cemetery tiptoe around the makeshift wire fencing designed to create a sense of privacy for this sacred act. What’s happening here is an important story for the city, but many will be content to catch a glimpse of it on the local television news: a cameraman and reporter are setting up now.

  A short break. The forensic team are discussing how best to carry on – whether to concentrate on this one body or extend the digging area and perhaps reveal more of the dead gripped by the greedy fingers of the soil.

  He lifts his gaze and looks around at the walls of memory surrounding them. Cemetery names etched on metal plates bolted to niche coverings; an occasional black-and-white photo in a rusty iron frame; some dried flowers tied to a railing; others fading in the sunlight, their nylon petals only providing a temporary permanence against the elements.

  Until this moment there has been no record, no remembering of this man lying a few feet away in the ground. No plaques, no tearful relatives, no flowers of any kind. No years of honouring his name and life: small yet important steps to ensure that his death did not mean immediate forgetting and silence.

  No. This man was extinguished and cast into a nameless pit. His existence blotted out, as though he had never lived, should never have lived. And for years the earth had kept its promise, never speaking a word, never letting on about the secret lives and deaths it held close to its breast.

  Except that it never was a true secret. There was always someone who knew, someone whispering, someone who could point to the guilty.

  It has taken years, but now, finally, it is time to see, to show and to speak.

  The excavators begin again, deciding to continue working on this first body. With brushes and small scrapers, they resume the task of removing the dirt that has compacted around his sullen bones.

  A patch of fraying material covering what was once a shoulder begins to push up into the sunlight. The team moves on, along the breastbone towards the deformed sphere of a head. A few stiff hairs begin to show through the mud. One of the team bends down and carefully cuts a few strands and places them with pincers into a transparent plastic bag. She holds them up to the light, then passes them to a man standing at the edge of the pit, who examines them before placing the bag in a metal briefcase.

  More minutes pass. There would once have been a face where their tools are picking and smoothing away, he thinks. Now it is a featureless skull: no smile or frown, no worry lines on the brow, no shining eyes. Just holes. And a few teeth.

  Activity around the corpse’s face intensifies: the team have found something – something that might help identify the person who once lived in these bones. He peers in, but the excavators’ bodies block his view.

  He looks up at the cold, cloudless November sky. No birds, no wind, not even a plane cutting through the blue. Was he right coming here? Perhaps he should have
stayed at the hospital. But he wanted to see for himself. There is no one else to mark this moment. Only him. He is the last of them, the last of the line. Not long, and he might be entirely on his own.

  The man with the metal briefcase is talking to the team leader again. He nods as she comments on what they’ve found near the dead man’s face. After a moment, he gets up and walks over.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Glasses,’ the man says. ‘The same model, the same shape as the ones in the photograph.’

  ‘And the hair? That was his hair you were looking at earlier on.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Neither of them speaks for a moment. He looks over again at the body.

  ‘You think it’s him?’

  ‘A DNA test will tell us for sure. We can take a sample from you now. Then we’ll do the procedure, just to be a hundred per cent. But it will take a few weeks.’

  The man puts his hands on his hips and looks over at the body.

  ‘But for my money, that’s him. That’s Maximiliano Cámara.’

  ONE

  Wednesday 28th October

  A DOOR OPENED.

  ‘Max?’

  He turned and saw a small, badger-like woman shuffling along the corridor towards him.

  ‘Hello, Pilar.’

  ‘I saw you coming. The window looks over the entrance.’

  ‘Is he . . . ?’

  ‘He was on the kitchen floor, couldn’t move.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘And he’d messed himself. I had to clean that up. But they were quick about it. Only five or ten minutes after I called. I didn’t like to tell anyone, the neighbours. But what with the sirens, and them banging up and down the stairway, well, of course, people hear noises, and they open their doors to see what’s going on. I had to tell them something. Said he’d taken a turn. Didn’t know myself for sure till the doctor said. But I did wonder, when I saw him, saw that he couldn’t move properly. I thought, this looks like one of those embolias.’ A stroke.

  An orderly was slowly pushing a cleaning trolley down the corridor, preparing for a final sweep and mop before leaving the ward in the hands of the night shift. Cámara glanced up at a clock on the wall: it was gone eleven.

  ‘I came straight from the station,’ he said.

  ‘I rang you as soon as I got a chance. Had to get him here and make sure he was all right first. I didn’t know . . . well, I didn’t know if he was about to head over to the other barrio.’ To the other side.

  She frowned at him.

  ‘It’s them funny plants he’s got growing on the patio, Max. They’re evil. And they make the flat smell appalling. It’s just not right. You should know, being a policeman. You should arrest him. I know he’s your own grandfather, and he brought you up, but it’s the only way. It’ll just kill him otherwise.’

  That being arrested might change Hilario’s views on anything brought a fleeting smile to Cámara’s face. But he was anxious to go in and see his grandfather; he was still alive, that much was clear, if little else was.

  And Pilar should head back home. Their housekeeper had been with them since the beginning, since Cámara had moved in to live with Hilario as a shocked, angry twelve-year-old, and she was the closest he had to an extended family in Albacete – a bustling, dark-eyed widow, coming and going from the flat at will, cleaning, cooking, tidying, and prodding them along, fulfilling a role she felt she had to perform in the absence of any wife or mother in the house. She had no family, and neither did they, and so the three of them had made a curious trinity.

  Cámara looked in the direction of Hilario’s room.

  ‘Is anyone in there with him now?’

  ‘No. The doctors came this afternoon. They stabilised him, or something. Gave him pills to clear his blood. Because it’s a clot. Gets into the brain. But they say he’s all right now. Got him under observation. On his own in there, which is nice. You don’t really want to be sharing a room when you’re not feeling good.’

  ‘But we can go in and out?’

  ‘Oh, yes, it’s fine. They seem to think the company does him good. Familiar people, like me or you. Helps him, they said.’

  ‘You should go. Get some sleep. You’ll have been here for hours.’

  ‘He needs someone here, as I said. And you made it as quickly as you could.’

  She made to move. They kissed on both cheeks and he stepped to one side to allow her to shuffle down the corridor.

  ‘I know my way out. I’ll be back in the morning.’

  From behind he heard the wheels of the cleaning trolley squeaking as the orderly started heading towards the exit. The lights in the corridor dimmed as the woman passed through the swing doors and he was left on his own.

  He took a step towards Hilario’s room, then checked himself. A sound of papers being shuffled had come from further up. Following his ears, he turned and walked towards the ward reception area. A nurse was sitting behind the counter, writing notes on a form.

  ‘Did you want something?’

  Cámara leaned in over the counter.

  ‘I’ve just arrived from Madrid. My grandfather, Hilario Cámara—’

  ‘Room four.’

  ‘I know. I just wanted to talk to someone about him before going in to see him.’

  The nurse reached over for a card from a box file at the side of the counter.

  ‘Brought in just after eleven this morning,’ he read off the report. ‘Mild stroke, blood clot in the left hemisphere of the brain. Partial paralysis of the right side of the body. He’s under observation.’

  ‘Prognosis?’ Cámara asked.

  The nurse looked up.

  ‘I’ve seen worse cases, but someone his age?’

  He glanced back down at the report.

  ‘Does he suffer from MS?’

  Cámara shook his head.

  ‘No. Not that I know of. Why?’

  ‘Blood tests show traces of cannabinoids. Some MS sufferers take it. It’s illegal, I know, but it’s supposed to help relieve the symptoms.’

  Cámara sniffed.

  ‘Look, is there anyone else I can talk to?’

  ‘The doctor will be making her round at half-past nine tomorrow morning.’

  The nurse put the card back in the box and turned back to his forms.

  ‘You can talk to her then.’

  Room four was in partial darkness: an emergency light on the wall gave a dull, yellowy glow. Cámara opened and closed the door as quietly as he could.

  ‘Max!’

  The voice was slurred, but loud enough to wake most of the ward.

  ‘Is that you? Turn the fucking lights on. Like the Dark Ages in here.’

  Cámara found the switch.

  ‘Took your time. I’ve been in here for days.’

  Cámara moved towards the bed. A drip was feeding into the back of Hilario’s hand, while an oxygen mask was hanging loosely below his chin.

  ‘Or at least it feels like it.’

  Cámara leaned over his grandfather and put a hand on his arm. Hilario’s face had changed: tenser, paler, as though the skin had been stretched in some places yet lay hanging in folds in others.

  ‘You might want to keep your voice down,’ Cámara said.

  ‘El tiempo es oro y la vida un tesoro.’ Time is gold and life is a treasure. ‘Besides, what’s the good of keeping quiet? Frightened I might wake up the neighbours? They’re all brain dead in here. A seventeen-gun salute couldn’t wake them. Have you seen them? They’re all old and decrepit. Glad they haven’t put me in with any of them.’

  ‘I just don’t want you to get tired, that’s all. And you’re slurring your words.’

  ‘Course I’m slurring my words. So would you if a blood clot the size of a tennis ball had got stuck in your brain. What am I supposed to do? Get up and dance a tango?’

  ‘All right. Calm down.’

  ‘I am calm. Just these wires and masks and things they cover you with. Makes me nervous.’


  He motioned towards the side of the bed.

  ‘Here, have a seat. It’s good to see you. Come from Madrid?’

  Cámara reached out for the plastic chair and placed it at Hilario’s side.

  ‘Still with Alicia? Is that going well? Give her my love.’

  ‘You haven’t met her yet.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. Don’t be so rational. Always was your problem. I feel like I’ve met her. In fact, I reckon I know her better than you. She’s good for you, that girl. You should stick around with her.’

  ‘We’re doing all right.’

  ‘That will have to do. A good relationship, good sex, these things are important. And I’m not just talking about relieving physical urges. It’s more than that. Gives meaning to life. And that’s not easy.’

  Cámara grinned. Alicia had already left for work at the newspaper by the time he got the call from Pilar, and he was just getting ready to start his shift at the bar. He rang her as soon as he got to Atocha station. He would have to wait for a couple of hours before he could get the first train down to Albacete. She said she would try to make it over before he left, and ran in just as he was making his way to the platform. Enough time to kiss him and hope Hilario would be all right.

  ‘She sends her love,’ Cámara said.

  ‘See? And she hasn’t met me, either.’

  ‘Perhaps. One day.’

  ‘Get her down here. I’m not going to be here for long.’

  Cámara twitched.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘I mean here in the hospital, idiot. I’m not planning on checking out of anywhere else in the near future.’

  ‘You should take it slowly. I’ll talk to the doctors in the morning, but in case you hadn’t noticed, half your body’s paralysed. You’re not going anywhere in a hurry.’

  From behind the contorted mask of his face, a hard, unwavering stare settled in Hilario’s eyes.

  ‘I’ll go where I like, whenever I like.’

  Cámara shrugged.

  ‘Anyone would think you’re adopted,’ Hilario said. ‘Can’t believe you’re flesh and blood sometimes. Didn’t you learn anything? It’s all that bollocks they’ve filled your head with in the police. Taking orders. Doctors are just the same. They call me a patient but I’m really an inmate in here.’