Terese noticed how everyone’s attention shifted to her. Faces turned to look at her, questions tumbled through the air and washed over her.
My, God. You poor thing. Wasn’t it horrid? What did he look like? Where on the beach? Weren’t you scared? I can’t understand why they don’t do something about it. What do you mean? The authorities. The EU. Those people just want what we have. And why shouldn’t they be entitled to the same things? The borders are just something the politicians have made up. In the past people were free to come across from Morocco, but when Spain joined the EU, an iron curtain came down. Bam. I think everybody should be allowed to go wherever they want, and live wherever they want. But that would never work. But we do. We live here. You can’t compare that with the fact that half of Africa wants to come here. I think we need to help them before they come here. Combat poverty. Then they won’t have to leave. But people want to leave.
In the smoky haze she saw Alex slip away, going over to join the cool surfers and the backpackers at the table where his friends were sitting. He doesn’t remember my name, she thought.
She downed the rest of her beer and set the glass down. Then she quietly followed him, her mouth dry, her heart pounding. They had kissed each other, they’d made love with each other. Surely they should be able to talk to each other.
Alex was sitting on a leather ottoman with his back turned, carrying on a lively conversation with one of the girls on the sofa. He had stretched out his long legs towards her, crossing his bare ankles. He was wearing canvas sneakers, with a silver chain around one ankle.
Terese touched his shoulder. He turned around.
‘Could we go outside for a moment?’ said Terese.
‘Why?’ Alex cast a glance at the girl, whose feet were close to his own. She was wearing tight cut-offs and had a gemstone in her navel.
‘I need to talk to you,’ said Terese.
Alex fidgeted with his glass. He leaned forward to say something to the girl. She looked up at Terese. ‘Is that true? How awful! I would have died if I’d been the one to find him.’
Alex set down his glass and got up. He pushed Terese ahead of him towards the entrance.
‘You’re not going to make a scene, are you?’ he said, once they’d come outside into the lane. He took her by the arm and drew her away from the door. ‘We had fun that night, but that’s all. Just think of it as a holiday fling.’ He let go of her and leaned back against the wall, fishing a crumpled cigarette out of his T-shirt pocket.
Terese rubbed her upper arm where he’d grabbed her.
‘You said you didn’t remember anything,’ she said.
‘You were bloody terrific.’ He plucked a shred of tobacco off his tongue. ‘But that doesn’t mean I’m in love with you.’
She swallowed hard and felt the chill of the night air on her bare arms. She was freezing. Alex turned to look up the lane, taking a deep drag on his cigarette. He blew out the smoke, which quickly dispersed in the wind.
‘I’m sorry about the dead guy. I really am. If I’d known that—’
‘You wouldn’t have left me there?’
He bent down to scratch his ankle. Terese stared at the silver chain he wore.
‘My passport disappeared that night,’ she said. ‘Do you think somebody might have swiped it?’
‘How would I know?’
‘You were there.’
‘What’s the problem? You don’t need a passport to go back home to Sweden. Not when you’re a citizen of an EU country. Haven’t you ever heard of the Schengen agreement?’
Terese stared at him, his parted lips, his crooked teeth. The words spilling out.
‘Did you take it?’ she said, fixing her eyes on the street. She waited for him to say no. She scraped the tip of her white shoe on a piece of gum stuck to the cobblestones.
Alex gave a little laugh. ‘Relax. You can get a new passport when you’re back home. You might even be able to get one here. They probably have a consulate in both Málaga and Seville.’
‘Did you take my money too?’ Terese stared at him, backing up until she could feel the wall behind her. ‘Why did you do it? Did you go through my bag after I fell asleep? And here I’d just …’ She pressed her hand to her mouth. Sobs were welling up inside her, and she had started shaking all over.
Now was the moment when he would put his arms around her and say it wasn’t true.
‘Hey, come on.’ He ground out his cigarette butt with his foot and then gave it a kick to send it flying into the gutter. ‘How much was it, anyway? Twenty or thirty euros? You said you were here with your father. I’m sure he can give you more cash.’ His turquoise T-shirt slid up as he scratched his stomach. He glanced in both directions, then leaned in close. ‘Don’t go running off blabbing about this. If you do, people are going to hear plenty about you too.’ Behind him the lights in the bar dimmed and the reggae music stopped. Electronic techno rhythms started up, throbbing club music. A few people were already dancing.
‘But that was my passport.’ Terese forced herself to say the words. ‘What were you going to do with it? And that was my money. Did you take my shoes too?’
‘Quit your blubbering.’ His face came closer. ‘Do you know how many people need passports around here? People who are desperate to get hold of one? They can’t go running to their daddy or to the consulate to ask for a passport. You’re acting like a spoiled brat. You’re so typically middle-class, so fucking narrow-minded and stingy. It doesn’t even mean anything to you.’
‘Did you give my passport to somebody else? That’s illegal.’
Alex whooped with laughter. ‘Sure, honey, but I didn’t just give it away. If I did that, I’d never get to Australia. I don’t have a rich father paying my way.’
He took two steps towards her, and she felt him grab the back of her neck. His lips close to her ear. ‘Don’t run home and tell Daddy about this or I’ll tell the cops how you screamed for more. And how you paid me to do it over and over again.’
He’s going to hit me, she thought, shrinking back. I don’t want him to hit me.
‘You got what you wanted,’ he said, and pushed her away.
Just before he re-entered the bar, he turned to look over his shoulder. Terese was still standing against the wall on the other side of the lane, shaking all over.
‘You’re off your rocker,’ said Alex, laughing loudly. ‘Why the hell would I take your shoes?’
Chapter 12
Lisbon
Tuesday, 30 September
Seeing Lisbon in the pale morning light was like meeting a drunken old whore who’d been at it for far too long. Tiles had slid off the facades in places, windows gaped blankly, and electric wires dangled from the buildings. A faded beauty, enticing, with a scent of something sweet and long gone.
I had gone into the hotel, only to turn around and leave. The woman at the reception desk shook her head when I asked about Patrick. She referred me to the hotel manager, who was not in at the moment.
I went down the hill to Avenida da Liberdade, the fashionable street in the centre of town. The sidewalk rippled under my feet as I walked, as if the ground had buckled in protest when the pavement was laid. A burned smell wafted towards me on the smoke rising up from the little stalls selling roasted chestnuts.
This time I wasn’t going to wait to notify the police. I was not going to vacillate or postpone or take Patrick’s views into consideration. Josef K had plunged off a viewpoint terrace. Even if the police believed it was suicide, they must have conducted an investigation.
‘I have information about a murder,’ I said when it was my turn to speak to the receptionist at police headquarters. ‘It’s about a man from Ukraine who was killed two weeks ago, here in Lisbon.’
The receptionist raised her eyebrows and asked me a few routine questions, including my name and address. Then she picked up the phone, and seven minutes later a uniformed officer came to get me. He ushered me along five corridors, zigzagging through the buildi
ng until I finally found myself three floors up in the opposite wing, with a view of the Tejo river.
The sign on the door said: Inspector Helder Ferreira. The man who received me was in his forties, wearing civilian clothes. A shirt and tie, with a stomach that bulged over the waistband of his trousers.
‘So you have information about the death of Mikail Yechenko?’ he said. He spoke excellent English and gave me a firm handshake.
‘Oh, is that his name?’ I replied.
The officer motioned towards a wooden chair with a leather upholstered seat and then sat down behind his desk.
‘What do you know about Yechenko?’ he asked.
I sat down and said, ‘I know he was from Ukraine.’ I had decided to tell him what I knew. It was not my problem what the evasive Nedjma might think about the matter. ‘He was hiding in Lisbon because he’d defected from a criminal network that deals in human trafficking and slavery. He was preparing to be interviewed by an American journalist.’
The inspector picked up a ballpoint pen from his desk. He leaned back in his chair and tapped the pen against the palm of his hand.
‘Yechenko didn’t kill himself,’ I said. ‘He’d given up his old life. He wanted to start fresh. He was lured into a trap.’
‘And how is it that you know all this?’
‘It was my husband who was supposed to interview him.’
‘Are you also a journalist?’ he asked, pointing his pen at me.
‘No, I’m not.’ I looked out of the window at the ponderous stone buildings and a statue of a man on horseback, facing away from me. Off in the distance I saw the river, which was as wide as a small sea, and flowed into the Atlantic, the ocean that separated my old life from the unfamiliar surroundings where I now found myself.
‘I’m a set designer,’ I said. ‘I create stage sets for the theatre.’
‘Aha!’ Inspector Ferreira gave me a big smile. ‘I love the theatre. My mother was an actress.’
‘What do the police know about what happened to Yechenko?’ I said. ‘Did you find any evidence? Were there any witnesses?’
Ferreira flicked his pen.
‘We do have a suspect,’ he said. ‘But we haven’t apprehended him yet.’
‘Who is he?’
‘We’re looking for a black man.’
I stared at him.
‘Why’s that?’
He frowned and gave me a searching look. I felt my cheeks flush.
‘Witnesses saw him at the scene,’ said the inspector. ‘Several are certain that he was the one who threw Yechenko off the terrace.’
Slowly I leaned down and opened my bag, taking out the photograph. I met Patrick’s eye before I reached out and placed the picture on the desk. Two of the corners were bent, and a big stain on the left above his chest was a reminder of that drunken night in Harry’s Bar in Paris.
The inspector’s expression shifted as he leaned forward to look at Patrick’s face.
‘Who is this?’
‘Could he be the one?’ I asked.
He picked up the photo, frowning.
‘That’s my husband,’ I told him. ‘Patrick Cornwall. Freelance journalist from New York.’
Ferreira studied the photo carefully, then looked at me and back at Patrick, as if comparing our faces, weighing one against the other.
‘He didn’t do it,’ I said. ‘They’re after him too.’
I fixed my eyes on the inspector’s face, forcing myself not to look away. A black man. Those witnesses were full of shit. They saw what they wanted to see.
But Patrick had been there. It was possible they did see him, even though they misinterpreted what he was doing. They must have misinterpreted.
Ferreira reached for his glasses and read from a document that was on his computer screen.
‘Joana Rodrigues, twenty-seven years old. Sitting on the café terrace on Largo das Portas do Sol, reading a textbook.’ He tapped his pen on the screen. ‘She’s studying psychology and often goes to a park or a café if the weather is nice. She shares a room with a classmate, but the room is cramped and there’s no view, so …’ He jumped down a few lines in the text. ‘At approximately 3.10 p.m. she hears a commotion and somebody screaming, so she looks up from her book. A man is standing nearby, staring at her. She thinks he looks crazy. Here it comes.’
Ferreira peered at me over the rims of his glasses.
‘The man is black,’ he said.
I could feel my pulse racing. My mouth had gone dry. The inspector pushed up his glasses and continued to read: ‘The black man was standing near the footbridge that leads up to the terrace look-out. The next second he was gone, according to Joana Rodrigues, psychology student.’
He leaned back, motioning towards the computer screen with his pen. ‘Largo das Portas do Sol is a popular place in Alfama, filled with tourists admiring the view, with students and lovers. We have three more witnesses who claim to have seen a black man at the scene. One of them is positive that he was the person who threw Mikail Yechenko over the railing.’
‘That’s not true.’
I closed my eyes, then opened them again, but the nightmare was still there.
‘António Nery, seventy-two years old, retired. Born and raised in Alfama, and still living there. He was out walking his dog and happened to be high up on the stairs near the look-out when Mikail Yechenko plunged twenty metres to the lane behind him. The black man then came running towards Nery, forcing him to step aside, right where his dog had …’
I got up abruptly from my chair.
‘Patrick is a journalist, for God’s sake. That’s where he and Yechenko were supposed to meet. Go ahead and call his editor in New York if you don’t believe me.’
Inspector Ferreira took off his glasses and folded them up. His eyes had taken on a stern look.
‘Your husband must have hated a man like Yechenko. Isn’t that right?’ he said, leaning across his desk. ‘We’ve found out a lot about him from Interpol. A ruthless white scumbag who bought and sold people. A slave trader. Doesn’t your husband hate slave traders?’
I had no intention of showing any reaction. I kept my expression impassive. The inspector leaned back, studying me.
‘Maybe Yechenko threatened him,’ he went on. ‘Maybe he called him a nigger. He wouldn’t like that, would he?’
‘They followed him,’ I said. ‘It was a trap. They beat him up on a street in Paris, trying to make him abandon the story. They were after both Yechenko and Patrick. Two flies with one blow. Because they were trying to ruin their trafficking business.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Ferreira. ‘But it’s my job to consider all the possibilities.’
He stood up. I looked out of the window at the clouds drifting across the sky.
‘Could I make a copy of this?’ he said, picking up the photograph of Patrick.
I nodded without saying a word. He left the room, leaving me alone. Tears filled my eyes. I kicked the desk, sending a sharp pain shooting up my leg.
Shit, shit, shit. It was always the same thing. All they saw was a black man. If there was one thing I never cared about when it came to Patrick, it was the colour of his skin. That he was black and I was white was a ludicrously irrelevant difference, a non-existent fact, as important as the length of a person’s toenails. That was what I’d decided the minute I realized that I’d fallen in love with him.
The only thing that matters is you and me.
If you love me.
I love you.
Just as I am?
Just as you are.
I felt suddenly dizzy.
When the inspector returned, I was ready.
‘This may sound absurd to your ears,’ I said as he handed me the photograph and then went back to his desk to sit down. ‘But there’s one thing Patrick wanted more than anything else. He wanted to win the most prestigious prize that a journalist can get in the United States, because he wanted to prove he was just as good as — no, better than — those errand boy
s on Wall Street who make millions by writing phoney stock forecasts. Maybe it also has something to do with Patrick’s paternal grandfather and great-grandfather. Maybe not. What’s important for him is to show the magazine and his colleagues and his father and the whole world that it’s possible, it has to be possible, to write stories that aren’t solely for the sake of the advertisers or the magazine owners or the rich subscribers. To write simply for the sake of telling the truth.’
Helder Ferreira laughed.
‘Yes, we can,’ he said, raising his fist. ‘So some of you actually still sound like Barack Obama.’
Then he leaned back and fell silent for a moment.
‘I considered making it public that we were looking for this mysterious black man who was suspected of murder, but my boss vetoed the idea. We’d be drowning in information about well-dressed black men. Every decent, hard-working civil servant from the colonies would end up being suspected.’
A seagull flew past the window. I caught the movement out of the corner of my eye. At least they’d noticed that Patrick was well-dressed.
‘So. Patrick Cornwall, American journalist.’ The inspector jotted something down on a piece of paper on his desk. ‘At least we now have a possible identification.’
‘So he’s not a suspect?’
I sank down on the chair, feeling worn out and drained.
‘We have another witness.’ Ferreira leaned closer to his screen. The computer was at least ten years old, and gave off a low humming sound.
‘Marlene Hirtberger, fifty-two, a German tourist who had just stepped onto the terrace to have a look at the view. She says that two white men approached the look-out and a commotion ensued. Then she heard the screams.’
‘It must have been them.’ I leaned forward to get a partial view of the text. ‘What else did she say?’
Ferreira squinted. He’d forgotten to put on his glasses, so he practically had to press his nose to the computer screen.
‘Jorge Maurício, thirteen, who was skateboarding on the wall nearby, collided with a white man who was running towards the street. Jorge didn’t see Yechenko fall, but he heard screams as he got back on his board, and then he lost his balance, forcing him to throw himself to the right in order not to plunge ten metres down in the other direction. Crazy kids, always trying to defy death. I hope he got a good scare so he never does that again. Jorge flew right into that man. He says the man, and I’m quoting here, “told me to get the fuck out of the way”, and ran off across the street, heading for Mouraria. He was white and wearing a suit, according to young Jorge, whose parents are from Angola.’
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