Some years back, the doctor’s uncommon desire for privacy had produced the opposite effect in the press, and allusions and speculations on his slippery personality had naturally proliferated. In time, however, the media had ended up getting used to the fact, and at present it was only very seldom that they alluded to it.
‘You still haven’t told me what we’re doing here, chief,’ commented Estévez looking at his superior.
‘I haven’t, no.’
Leo Caldas sat quietly in one of the chairs under the porch. He didn’t have an answer for his assistant, not a solid enough one anyway. He could have said that they were paying Zuriaga a visit because he had white hair, or tried to explain he’d had a strange feeling when he’d seen the portrait of old Gonzalo Zuriaga. He might have added that Zuriaga had been away from the Foundation for two days, which coincided with the time that had passed since the murder of Luis Reigosa; he might have commented he didn’t believe in coincidences. But the inspector kept silent.
He knew these lines of reasoning were based on very little, and didn’t need Estévez to remind him with his usual bluntness. Come to think of it, he didn’t even have a reason to go after a man with white hair. The only real justification for it was that the play of sunlight on that person’s head had attracted his attention at the cemetery, and that the musicians were unable to tell him who he was. That was all, and it wasn’t much.
To make matters worse, he hadn’t seen the man’s face, which made it very unlikely, not to say impossible, that he should recognise him if he saw him ever again. True, the hair was exceptionally white, but there must be hundreds of white-haired men in the city, and it wasn’t an unheard-of coincidence to come across someone with that kind of hair at one of the hospitals they had visited. Quite possibly he had crossed other men in that category who had not attracted his attention. And he didn’t need to pay Doctor Zuriaga a visit to confirm that age had given him a hoary head. His niece had confirmed this without Caldas’s even asking.
Besides, even if Dimas Zuriaga did turn out to be the man from the cemetery, the only reasonable conclusion was that he knew Reigosa. But many people did, and that didn’t make them all suspects.
So the inspector was well aware that he hadn’t looked hard enough into all this and that the visit might prove premature. He hadn’t even talked to Reigosa’s mother or his colleagues at the conservatory where he had taught as a supply teacher. The man with the unusual hair might be a relative, a childhood friend or co-worker. He might even be the saxophone teacher the musician was temporarily replacing.
In addition, Caldas knew he wouldn’t get much from a conversation with the doctor, and that a slip vis-à-vis such an important man might entail irreversible consequences. Zuriaga moved in social circles where the sexual aspects of the case would prove scandalous, and the gutter press would not be slow to divulge such a thing. Even so, he decided to go ahead and follow his hunch, which hardly ever failed him, although he made it a point to act with the supreme caution that someone like Zuriaga required and deserved.
So he hadn’t had time to slip up – not yet.
Excuse
Sitting in the shade under the back porch of the doctor’s imposing house, Leo Caldas and Rafael Estévez awaited Dimas Zuriaga. Estévez, panting, said that that morning, when he had looked out of the window to see what clothes he should wear, he had only seen grey mist. Now at noon, the May sun shone on his corduroy shirt, and he was boiling.
The inspector was looking at the photograph of Luis Reigosa when an elegantly dressed woman came out of the house through a sliding door.
‘Good afternoon,’ she greeted them.
As if a colonel had turned up in front of two recruits, both policemen stood to attention, and Caldas returned the picture to his pocket.
‘Good afternoon,’ they said back.
‘Please, don’t get up,’ said the woman, matching her words with a soft gesture of her hand. ‘They’ve told me you’ve come to see my husband. Would you like anything to drink while you wait? Knowing him, it wouldn’t surprise me if he takes his time to come down.’
‘Well …’ Estévez’s imploring eyes sought his boss. To no avail.
‘We’re fine,’ stammered Caldas, who was a bit surprised that Dimas Zuriaga was married to such a woman.
‘I’m Mercedes Zuriaga,’ she said, offering her hand.
Caldas shook her long fingers gently.
Before his turn, Estévez wiped his sweaty palm on the leg of his trousers.
Mercedes Zuriaga was tall and slender. She was wearing a cream dress with a belt that hugged her waist. Her décolletage exposed her collarbones, and she had a long elegant neck. Her dark hair was tightly combed back and tied into a ponytail. The inspector guessed she must be in her late forties, but whatever her age she was still very attractive. Perhaps even more attractive than she had been as a young woman.
‘Do sit down, please,’ she said, and the policemen obeyed even though she remained standing.
‘You referred to yourself as inspector. Are you policemen?’
Leo’s awkward frown confirmed it; he knew that police visits had the same terrible reputation as that of the albatross on a boat at sea.
‘Has anything happened?’ asked Mrs Zuriaga anxiously.
‘No, nothing to worry about,’ said Caldas reassuringly. ‘We’d only like a word with your husband. We were at the Foundation, and as we missed him there we took the liberty of coming over.’
The woman nodded with an oscillation of her heron’s neck, and the inspector went on:
‘Your niece already told us that Doctor Zuriaga …’
‘My niece?’
‘Isn’t the girl who works at the management office a niece of yours?’
‘Oh, Diana, of course.’
‘That’s right, Diana,’ confirmed the inspector. ‘We saw her this morning. She’d warned us that Doctor Zuriaga was a bit unwell. I hope it’s nothing serious – we wouldn’t want to trouble you.’
‘Don’t worry, inspector. These days my husband says he’s ill, but I don’t think he’s got anything, really.’ Mercedes Zuriaga gave him a slightly conspiratorial smile. ‘It’s often just an excuse to work from home, without phones ringing or people interrupting him.’
Caldas took this in a spirit of sportsmanship.
‘I’m not surprised he prefers to stay in. You have a beautiful house.’
‘Yes, that’s true,’ replied Mercedes Zuriaga looking at the garden that dropped off into the sea. ‘Quite beautiful.’
When Leo Caldas finally saw the doctor he was slightly disappointed. He’d been expecting an inner voice confirming Zuriaga was the person he had noticed at the cemetery, but no such revelation occurred. Although he knew that its absence proved neither one thing nor the other, it was a small drawback for someone who trusted his instinct.
Dimas Zuriaga was wearing a loose white shirt, which he hadn’t tucked into his blue trousers. His dark-rimmed tortoiseshell glasses were hanging on his chest by a brown piece of cord. His nose was large, and his hair white. Very white.
He approached the porch and, after greeting them politely, asked in a deep voice:
‘Haven’t they offered you anything to drink?’
‘They have, thank you. Your wife insisted, but there’s no need.’ Caldas looked around for the doctor’s wife, but she had withdrawn as silently as she had appeared, leaving the three men on their own. ‘We won’t be long.’
Dimas Zuriaga sat down, and the policemen did likewise.
‘They called me from the Foundation to inform me of your visit. I expect they treated you well,’ he said, and Caldas nodded. ‘I would have seen you myself, but as you no doubt know, my health is not at its best these days. I hope you’ll excuse me.’
‘Of course, doctor. They’ve told us you haven’t left the house for a few days. Are you feeling better?’
‘Well, no worse than usual,’ he replied.
He obviously didn’t understand the
reason that had brought the policemen to his home address, so he added:
‘I gather that they gave all the information you were looking for at the Foundation. Is that so, inspector?’
‘Indeed, your niece was very kind,’ replied Caldas laconically.
Dimas Zuriaga waited a few seconds for another answer that might explain the presence of the policemen there, but was greeted with silence.
‘Is anyone going to tell me the reason for this visit?’
Estévez, as eager for an answer as his host, fidgeted in his seat, making its wicker creak unpleasantly. Caldas decided to get straight to the point and show Zuriaga the picture of Reigosa. He slid it on the table, as a croupier would a card, in the direction of the doctor.
‘Do you happen to know this man?’
Estévez’s chair creaked again when Zuriaga took the photograph. The doctor put his glasses on his protruding nose, screwed up his eyes and, after a few seconds, shook his head.
‘I don’t know him,’ he said, returning the picture to Caldas.
‘Are you sure, doctor? Perhaps you’ve bumped into him at an official occasion hosted by the Foundation …’ insisted Caldas.
‘Completely sure. I don’t deal with many people, inspector. So I hardly ever forget a face.’
The instinct that had failed to materialise when Doctor Zuriaga appeared suddenly sprung up in Caldas: it told him that Zuriaga was not telling the truth. Almost without thinking, he took a chance.
‘How do you explain that we have a witness who’s prepared to testify that you and this man knew each other?’ he lied.
‘I don’t know, you tell me,’ replied the doctor, in the scandalised voice of someone unused to being contradicted.
Leo Caldas hesitated, but once on the offensive he couldn’t beat a retreat. He doubted he’d ever have another chance to confront the eminent man face to face. Stepping down would mean letting him get away.
‘Were you at a funeral yesterday, Doctor Zuriaga?’
‘I’ve already told you that yesterday, like the day before and today, I was indisposed,’ replied the doctor without batting an eyelid. ‘Do you understand, or would you rather my lawyer explained it to you, inspector?’
The car was making its way towards the exit among the hundred-year-old trees of the Zuriaga residence.
‘What the hell was that all about? You can’t think Zuriaga is involved in this? We’re talking about a murder. And what was all that about the witness? Could you explain that, chief? You know as well as I do how powerful that man is. He can crush us just by picking up the phone. Besides, hadn’t we agreed our man is gay? Doctor Zuriaga has a willowy brunette for a wife, inspector, you saw her as well as I did. Do you think anyone can be gay with a lady like that at home? Really, chief, I don’t know what went through your head, but we’ll get a right bollocking for this.’
Caldas remained silent, sunk in the passenger seat with his eyes closed. He had gambled – and he had lost.
Rafael Estévez wound down the car’s window.
‘Bloody hell it’s hot!’
Absence
He had remembered his lunch engagement at the last possible moment. He was now hurrying down Arenal Street – and he was late. A few seconds later he pushed a glass door and rushed into the restaurant, his eyes darting from table to table. Once he found the right one, he went over and sat down in front of an older man who smiled at him.
‘Leo!’
‘I’m sorry I’m late, Dad.’
‘Oh, don’t worry about it,’ his father said and then whispered, ‘but you asked me to meet you at a place where they don’t have my wine, and that is unforgivable.’
‘What do you mean they don’t have it? I always ask for it when I come here.’
‘Well, today they don’t have it,’ his father insisted.
Caldas didn’t want to add wine to his long list of problems.
‘Excuse me, Cristina!’ he called out.
The waitress approached the table.
‘Hi, Leo, how’s it going?’
‘All right, I suppose. But my old man here is a bit disappointed, as he thinks you don’t have his wine. I told him I always drink it, but …’
‘I’m afraid we had until a few days ago, when we sold our last bottles. Now we’re waiting for the distributor to bring us some more.’
‘You see, they usually have it,’ said Caldas to his father, who didn’t seem too pleased anyway.
‘But today they don’t.’
‘If you like I can bring you any other one. They’re not as delicious, but they’re not bad either. I can offer you a variety of labels or the house wine‚’ explained the waitress, handling the situation with aplomb.
‘Which one’s better?’ asked Caldas’s father.
‘There’s no chemistry involved in the house wine,’ she started explaining.
‘Of course there’s chemistry involved,’ interrupted the old man. ‘Or what do you think fermentation is? There’s chemistry in everything, my girl. What that house wine of yours lacks is controlled fermentation, or bacteria filters, or proper stationing in casks, and many other things which are needed for a good wine as much as grapes. But chemistry …’
‘So which one will it be?’
‘Oh, well,’ said the older man theatrically. ‘The house wine.’
‘And to eat?’ asked Cristina.
‘I’m in charge of oenological matters,’ replied the father, raising the palms of his hands and waving towards Leo, as if fanning the air between them. ‘The rest I leave to my son.’
As a starter Leo Caldas ordered half a kilo of goose barnacles which he had reserved over the phone, and as a main course a huge sole he chose from the display counter. He requested that it be boned after frying, so that he and his father could share it more easily.
At these restaurants in the harbour you had to eat on a paper tablecloth, amid much noise, and sometimes even sharing a table; but they had fish and seafood fresh from the generous Galician rías, instead of the bland ones trucked over from distant seas, as in other restaurants. ‘How can you ask for goose barnacles, darling? Haven’t you seen the sea today?’ Cristina had scolded a few times when, in spite of the bad weather, he asked for his favourite dish. The food was that fresh.
Over the next fifteen minutes, father and son barely exchanged a word. They both concentrated on opening the goose barnacles with their fingernails and wolfing them down before they got cold. Caldas closed his eyes every time he put one in his mouth, as if the briny flavour of the black crustaceans might evaporate through his eyes if he kept them open.
Once the sole was on the table, the inspector’s father expatiated on how stupid, in his view, it was to live in the city, and how people slip into moral decline when they lack the time to enjoy a glass of wine in the shade. He’d found his son a bit depressed, and put it down to the city rush, the noise and the toxic fumes from the cars.
The inspector didn’t want to worry him further by adding that, barring a miracle, he’d just ruined his career in the police force. He listened quietly as his father told him that some recent rains had coincided with the flowering of the vine, making trouble for the following harvest. The autumn harvest, he lamented, would be smaller than previous ones.
‘God will have to do something about it,’ he said with a serious expression. ‘Less wine means less happiness in the world.’
‘By the way, yesterday I saw Ramón Ríos at Riofarma,’ interrupted Leo. ‘He asked me if there’s a chance you might send him a crate before it’s sold out. It seems he ordered a couple last year, but in the end he never received them.’
‘Does he do an honest day’s work these days?’
‘Sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn’t. You know, he takes his time. So anyway, what about the wine?’
‘Tell me where I should send the crate and I’ll do it as soon as I get back to the vineyard.’
Leo Caldas nodded and grabbed his mobile.
‘If you don
’t mind, I’ll ask him for the address now. That way you can sort it out yourselves without me in the middle,’ said Caldas as he dialled his friend’s number.
‘Hi, Moncho, it’s me, Leo. Is this a bad time?’
‘Not at all. I’m only working,’ joked Ríos.
Caldas was glad to find someone in a good mood amidst the tempest which seemed about to blow up over him.
‘I’ve got my father here. He’s asking me where you’d like to have that wine sent. Riofarma?’
‘No way. This place is full of thieves. I’d rather he sent it to my home. And could I have two crates?’ he added, and dictated his details.
‘Well, that was all, really …’ said Caldas after writing down the address on the back of a card. ‘And thanks again for your help. Isidro Freire was very kind to us, and gave us all the information we needed.’
‘You know, this morning I wanted to ask him what he’d thought of the man from Patrol on the Air in person, but I couldn’t find him. Apparently he hasn’t come to the lab. I hope you haven’t scared him away,’ said Ramón Ríos in a humorous tone.
‘I don’t think so, Moncho. Perhaps he’s followed your example and jumped on a boat with a mermaid.’
‘Well, I don’t know about Freire, but in ten minutes I am repeating yesterday’s sexy naval shenanigans.’
Leo Caldas’s father had fond memories of the disobedient child who, despite being from a different background, had spent so much time with his son.
‘What was that crazy bugger saying?’ he asked as Leo put the phone on the table.
‘The usual nonsense,’ replied Leo, and passed his father the card with the address where the wine should be sent. ‘And a guy I saw yesterday at Riofarma has not turned up for work today, so Moncho was blaming me for his absence.’
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