The presenter carried on as if he were the MC at a boxing match and he was introducing one of the pugilists.
‘And now, here with us, the criminals’ nemesis, the unflagging defender of the good citizen, the fearsome guardian of our homes, the patrolman – Inspector Leo Caldas. Good evening, inspector.’
Not for long, thought Caldas, and replied: ‘Good evening.’
‘Inspector Caldas is here at Radio Vigo to assist you with any problems you may have, dear listeners, on this Patrol on the Air we’ve created for your benefit.’
Rebeca put up a sign and Losada took the call.
‘Inés is the first one today to seek the protection of the law. Good evening,’ he greeted her, and the long-suffering inspector put on the headphones.
After a polite greeting, the woman specified the reason she was calling. It was a traffic matter that she described in a vague manner. In any case, it was the responsibility of the Municipal Police.
Caldas wrote down: one-nil.
After half an hour, his black-covered notebook recorded the depressing score of: Municipal Police seven – Leo nil.
Rebeca, in the control room, showed the sign with another name on it: Carlos.
‘I’m calling to express our strongest condemnation of the aggression that a member of our community endured yesterday, 13 May, during his leisure time at a bar in our city.’ The man spoke without pausing to breathe. He was obviously reading from a text.
‘Do you want to lodge a complaint with Inspector Caldas?’ asked Losada.
‘That won’t be necessary.’ Carlos’s voice sounded a bit more camp when he wasn’t reading. ‘He was at that bar drinking a beer and was able to take it all in with his own eyes.’
Leo moved his mouth away from the microphone, trying to find mental shelter in the sunny view of the Alameda square.
‘Shit! That’s all we needed now!’ he muttered.
‘In fact,’ the listener went on, ‘it was Inspector Caldas himself who came to the rescue of the assaulted man, overpowered the homophobe and threw him out of the bar.’
‘Did he now?’
Losada’s sarcasm invited the caller to carry on. The man provided a detailed account of what had happened the night before, launched into vigorous criticism of public institutions that allowed animals such as the aggressor to be a part of their security forces, and rounded off by demanding that the responsible parties be held accountable for this. The impassioned Carlos didn’t fail to thank Inspector Caldas properly for what he considered ‘heroic behaviour in favour of our complete integration’.
Throughout the speech, Leo Caldas repeatedly mimed a pair of scissors with his index and middle fingers up in the air, motioning Losada to cut the call. However, in a surprising democratic gesture, Santiago Losada allowed his exalted listener to finish his plea.
As soon as the ads came on, the inspector took the chance to demand an explanation.
‘Why did you let him go on? We’re not supposed to make people afraid of the police here. Quite the opposite.’
‘Freedom of expression comes first,’ Losada justified himself.
‘Freedom? I didn’t know that was a word in your vocabulary.’
‘You’re just angry because he’s revealed on air that you were in such a peculiar bar,’ said Losada, in a deliberately impertinent tone, ‘but what’s the problem? Our society has grown, and now accepts any orientation.’
‘Do me a favour, Santiago – go to hell.’
Caldas gave the presenter a scornful look, put a cigarette in his mouth and touched the flame of the lighter to it.
‘Nuria, good evening. You are through to Patrol on the Air, the forum presided over by the incorruptible Inspector Leo Caldas,’ greeted Losada, glancing at Caldas with an insolent look.
The ninth caller of the evening shared with them the story of how frightened she felt at night, as over the past two weeks a couple of lowlifes had taken to sleeping in the hall of her building.
Breaking and entering was indeed the inspector’s responsibility, and he picked up his pen to record one point. Seven–one.
In spite of the headphones, he heard a thud over the high-pitched voice of the caller. He raised his eyes and saw Rafael Estévez in the next room, knocking on the glass very near him. Rebeca and the sound technician did not interfere with him, and looked on as frightened as they were surprised. The officer, gesturing wildly, was asking Caldas to come and speak to him at once. And just at the moment when the caller was enquiring what the solution was, Caldas left the studio without Losada’s noticing.
‘Well, inspector?’ asked the presenter, foolishly looking at the empty seat to his right.
‘They’ve wiped him out, chief. He won’t talk now,’ blurted Estévez in the sound booth, his face all flushed.
‘What?’
‘I found the DJ at home. He’s dead,’ explained the officer. ‘I’ve been trying to contact you for an hour. Is your mobile off?’
‘Yes. Who else knows of this?’ asked Caldas.
‘Just you and me.’
‘Let’s go then,’ he said, and they made for the street.
On the loudspeaker in the corridor they heard Losada, on the brink of a nervous breakdown, pretending the caller had been cut off and presenting a ridiculous song.
Impression
The block of flats on Avenida de las Camelias was one of those functional buildings that multinational companies with branches in the city rented for employees who were transferred to Vigo. It was cheaper for those companies to keep a number of flats all year round than to finance their executives’ numerous nights in hotels one by one.
Caldas and Estévez got out of the taxi, went into the hall and climbed up the stairs to the fifth floor. Estévez stopped in front of a door with a small brass plaque that read Orestes Grial.
‘And this?’ asked the inspector. As he pushed the door, he noticed the lock was smashed.
‘I rang the bell,’ said Estévez by way of an excuse, ‘and as nobody answered I kicked it a bit and …’
‘I see.’
The inspector took a quick look at the empty flat. A single large room, with dark floorboards and white walls, served as living room, dining area and bedroom. The modern open-plan kitchen was next to one of the two windows overlooking the street. On the shelves on the wall were a dozen books, two photo albums, a digital camera and a few hundred CDs. Everything was neat and tidy, except for the unmade, pillow-less bed.
‘Where is he?’
‘In there,’ replied Estévez, pointing to a closed door.
Caldas went into the bathroom and found Orestes spread-eagled on the floor by the toilet bowl. He’d bled from the back of his shaven head and the blood had spread into a red puddle, which contrasted sharply with the white marble – an unsettling sight.
The DJ was wearing only striped pyjama-bottoms, and his bare chest revealed how thin he was. The pillow was on the floor, stained with blood.
‘Did you move anything?’
‘Of course not. After I found the stiff and called you eighty times on your mobile, I made sure there was no one else here, pulled the door shut and went to get you at the radio station.’
Leo Caldas inspected the hole the bullet had made in the back of the boy’s neck. He didn’t want to touch the wound, and with all the blood he wasn’t able to calculate the calibre of the gun. He tried to locate the shell of the bullet on the floor, also unsuccessfully. As he was looking for it, he lifted the pillow slightly by one of its cleanest corners, and saw a hole going through it surrounded by a blackish stain. The murderer had used the pillow to muffle the shot. He pointed it out to Estévez.
‘I noticed that already, chief,’ said the officer. ‘A home-made silencer, but an efficient one nonetheless.’
Caldas left the pillow on the floor. No sign of the shell.
‘They caught him pissing,’ said Estévez.
Caldas nodded.
‘Perhaps the doorbell woke him up,’ he speculated. ‘He must h
ave got up to go and open the door, and then he needed to urinate.’
They decided to look for clues on their own before calling anyone in from the police station. Caldas, using a handkerchief to make sure he didn’t leave any fingerprints, turned the digital camera on and saw its memory was empty. Then he concentrated on the albums on the shelf. Meanwhile Estévez, who had put on a pair of gloves he’d found in the kitchen sink, carried out a search round the flat. He went through the night-table, the table in the living room, the cushions on the sofa, the kitchen … Then he opened the wardrobe, rifled through its drawers one by one, and checked the pockets of all the trousers and jackets on the hangers.
Caldas devoted his time to looking through the first of the photo albums. He scrutinised every picture with a watchmaker’s meticulousness, but he didn’t find any known faces there. He put it back on the shelf, next to the CDs, and reached for the second one.
Estévez drew near to take a look at the CDs. Almost all of them were copies, with the artists’ names written in indelible ink.
‘Do you realise? Only idiots buy CDs these days. At this rate, a plumber will soon make more money than a rock star,’ declared Estévez sententiously.
‘Indeed,’ muttered Caldas, engrossed in the photographs.
Estévez went over the CDs hastily, and looked around as if something were missing.
‘Where the hell did he play them?’ he asked, thinking out loud.
‘What?’ asked Caldas without taking his eyes off a photograph taken at the Idílico.
‘Nothing, it’s there,’ said Estévez, calmly looking at the kitchen. ‘I was wondering where he played the CDs, but it must be on that laptop.’
‘What did you say?’ asked Caldas, raising his eyes.
‘That he must have listened to his CDs on that computer there in the kitchen,’ repeated Estévez.
Leo Caldas had already noticed the flat object on the kitchen surface near the cooker, but he thought it must be a sandwich maker or some such appliance. Nor had the gizmo which sat right next to it on a stack of garish paper attracted his attention.
He went over to the kitchen surface, opened the laptop, and turned it on. The futuristic object to the right turned out to be a small laser printer sitting on a ream of paper.
As the computer started up and logged on its profiles, the inspector finished checking the second album; he didn’t find anything of interest there either, and returned to the shelf.
He went back to the keyboard and opened the recent-items menu. He saw that the last programmes used were the web browser and the image processor. He clicked on the latter, and accessed another complex menu. The inspector was no expert in new technologies, but was familiar enough with computers to realise that Orestes kept thousands of digital photographs stored on the hard drive of his.
There was a search option on that screen allowing you to set parameters in order to find certain files more quickly. Leo Caldas wrote the name he was looking for: Luis Reigosa.
A moment later twelve icons showed up. He clicked on the first, and a photo opened at once, filling the screen.
‘Bingo!’ said the inspector.
Rafael Estévez approached.
‘What’s up, chief?’
Leo Caldas didn’t reply. He kept opening the images and pressing the print key.
‘They knew each other,’ muttered Estévez, with his eyes riveted on the first picture that came out of the printer. ‘Son of a bitch!’
Trace
The wooden gate slid to one side, and the car advanced among the trees before stopping in front of the steps. The maid was waiting for the officers in the same martial posture she’d adopted in the morning, and led them round the house to the porch just like before.
Yet things were different. The sun wasn’t high in the sky but setting over a shimmering sea that seemed covered in gold leaf, and to Estévez’s relief the temperature had dropped a few degrees since noon. The officer was no longer sweating.
On the path leading to the quay, they saw the slender Mercedes Zuriaga silhouetted against a background of bright light. She had put a long white chemise over her cream dress. She went past them and stopped as she recognised them.
‘Good evening, officers. Another visit?’ she asked politely.
‘Yes, we need the doctor’s advice once again,’ lied Caldas.
‘Does he know you’re here?’
Leo nodded.
‘I was about to ask for some tea,’ she said, pointing to the sliding door leading into the living room. ‘Would you like a cup?’
They said no, thank you.
Merecedes Zuriaga disappeared into the living room for a minute, and after giving some terse instructions, came back and sat down with them under the porch. A little later, the maid in the cap appeared carrying a small silver tray and left it on the table.
‘If it’s all right, I’ll keep you company until my husband comes down.’
‘Of course,’ agreed Caldas. ‘Is the doctor feeling better?’
‘It would seem so. A little after you left he went out on some errands and to do a bit of shopping,’ she explained. ‘It’s a good sign if he’s in the mood to spend money,’ she joked.
‘Naturally,’ admitted Caldas.
‘Are you sure you won’t have any tea?’ she insisted, lifting the teapot.
Caldas and Estévez thanked her, but again declined. The three of them sat there, appreciating the view and hearing the sea hit the rocks as Mercedes Zuriaga stirred her tea with a spoon.
When the doctor came out and approached the porch, Caldas experienced that gut feeling he’d missed in the morning. Now the sun was lower, the bougainvillea didn’t cast a shadow, and Dimas Zuriaga’s hair looked as immaculately white as Caldas had seen it at the cemetery.
‘Inspector Caldas, I thought I made things perfectly clear this morning,’ said Zuriaga without hiding his exasperation.
Leo didn’t want to elaborate in front of his wife.
‘Rafa, would you mind sitting with Mrs Zuriaga while I take a stroll with the doctor?’ asked Caldas.
They walked away in silence. The inspector pointed to a stone table far from the porch, near the pond-turned-swimming-pool.
‘Would you mind if we sit down over there, doctor?’
Dimas Zuriaga reluctantly agreed and, once they’d done so, asked Caldas what exactly was expected from him.
‘An honest answer,’ replied Caldas, placing on the table the photograph of Luis Reigosa and his saxophone, the same he’d showed Zuriaga that morning. ‘Do you know this man?’
Zuriaga didn’t even look at the picture.
‘They promised me this morning’s outrage wouldn’t be repeated,’ said the doctor dryly. ‘You’ve justified your impertinence as best you could, and I vouchsafed to forget the incident. But this is too much.’
‘Do you know him?’ pressed Caldas.
‘Do you think I’m one of those petty criminals you can bully just like that?’ exclaimed Zuriaga, standing up.
Leo made an effort to remain calm.
‘I don’t think anything, doctor, but let me assure you I’m treating you with far more respect than I think you deserve in the circumstances. For the last time, then, do you know this man?’
‘I’ve said I don’t!’ roared Zuriaga in his thunderous voice. ‘Now get out of my house, please.’
Leo Caldas took another photograph from the inside pocket of his jacket. In it, Dimas Zuriaga and Luis Reigosa were having an animated conversation with two beer glasses in front of them. Caldas placed it on the table, very near the doctor.
‘What do you say now, do you know him?’
He took out another picture and threw it on the table.
‘Do you know who I mean or would you rather think it over, doctor?’
Leo threw another photograph in the air. This one left no doubts as to the kind of relationship between the doctor and the saxophonist.
‘Are you not saying anything, doctor?’
> Dima Zuriaga, suddenly pale, sat back down. He held the photographs in his hand for a moment and then dropped them on the table.
‘You don’t need to show me all of them, inspector. I know these pictures.’ There was no trace of his former defiance.
‘So you do know the man who’s in them with you?’ asked Caldas once again.
‘Of course I do, inspector,’ he said at last. ‘It’s Luis. Luis Reigosa.’
‘I don’t like to be lied to, doctor,’ said Caldas, fixing his eyes on Zuriaga.
‘Why didn’t you tell me from the start that you knew all about it, inspector?’ His roaring voice had turned into a whimper.
‘About what?’ Leo Caldas didn’t know what he meant exactly, but he encouraged him to carry on.
‘The blackmail. Isn’t that the reason you’re here? Someone’s been emailing me pictures like this one for a while now. I thought no one else knew about them.’
It wasn’t such a strange reply as it might first seem. People involved in crimes would often cast themselves as victims in a last attempt to confuse their pursuers. Leo decided to follow the thread the doctor was offering and see where it was leading. Dimas Zuriaga was too important a personage for the inspector’s career to suffer another setback.
‘Did you report it, doctor?’
Dimas Zuriaga shook his head, and as he did the sun glinted on his white hair as on a mirror.
‘They threatened to forward them to my wife if I went to the police,’ the doctor glanced furtively at the table in the porch, where his wife and Rafael Estévez were still sitting. ‘She knows nothing about this,’ he added.
‘Would you rather we walked where they can’t see us, doctor?’
Zuriaga nodded and Caldas indicated the path leading to the quay.
‘No, let’s go the other way, inspector. I only like the sea from afar. I’ve been afraid of the water since I was small – I don’t even know how to swim.’
‘And the boat?’ asked Caldas.
Water-Blue Eyes Page 12