Charon's Net

by Gemma Herrero Virto

  "Yes, it was fun. Come on, let's go."

  “No, you need to park your car properly. After that little number with the lorry, all that's left for you to do now is to leave it sprawled slap bang in the middle of the street all night."

  Natalia made her way to the car and started it up. Carlos waited for her, leaning in the doorway, with his arms crossed. She looked at him again, considering the thought that she actually did have feelings for him. She could not give a name to the emotions that had overflowed when both their bodies had been pressed together. She tried to concentrate on doing a good job of parking the Mercedes, with the aim of dispelling those absurdities from her mind. She and Carlos: the worst couple of the millennium. And in the middle of a search for a dangerous serial killer. It was not the best time for falling in love.

  ***

  They sat down in the living room, each one with the papers containing their day’s work, a steaming cup of coffee in front of them, and a cigarette at their lips. Natalia looked at her papers with an expression that was somewhere between vacant and angry. Carlos began to talk.

  “It seems our efforts are beginning to bear fruit. Natalia has as much news as I do. Have you got anything new, Gus?”

  “Nothing, but at least I’m getting to the end of all the chat threads. I think I'll have gone over all of them by tomorrow afternoon. Then I'll have the emails and messages left, but I'll soon be done with those, too... And I'll have freed myself from him forever!"

  "Don't be so quick to sing your victory. We won't be done with him until we've caught him. Okay, Natalia, tell us what you've found."

  "No, don't worry. You talk... Mine can wait," Natalia shot him a look of resentment, making it clear to him that she did not need his compassion.

  "No, you talk. Ladies first..."

  "Don't you go playing the gentleman with me after what happened down there."

  "What happened?" asked Gus, intrigued.

  "Nothing," they both answered in unison.

  "Okay, okay... I don't care in the slightest what happens between you two. The only thing I want is for one of you to start saying something, because I don't plan on spending the whole night here watching you both argue. I don't know whether you know this, but I'm a busy person. I have a course I'm neglecting, a home to go to, friends I hardly ever see..."

  "All right, fine... I'll start," Natalia decided to step in before Gus could embark upon a speech that would last the entire night. Once he got going, he was unstoppable. "The first thing is that I've at last received the final reports on the post-mortems..."

  "I'll just nip to the bathroom. You can carry on talking without me," Gus got up quickly from his seat.

  “No, you stay here... Any detail could be important, and I want the three of us to have all of the information at our disposal. Besides, it'll be good for you to know of what kind of person we're looking for," Carlos smiled at him as if he were enjoying the feeling of disgust that was already beginning to show on Gus's face. "Besides, you've spent days complaining about how corny he is. Now you're going to be able to encounter another, considerably less sweet side of him."

  "Okay, fine, but I've no intention of cleaning Natalia's sofa if I end up throwing up. Go ahead,” Gus sat back down again, dejected.

  "Let's see, I had it around here..." Natalia shuffled through her papers, and took out three reports, giving one to each. Gus opened his and began looking through it. "The information confirms more or less what I found out in the preliminary post-mortem. Look at the photographs on the third page; there is new information about the removal of the eyes. The examination of the eye sockets reveals nicks in the zygomatic bone, the orbital ridge, and the greater wing of the sphenoid bone, which indicates that he did not use a suitable instrument to remove them. He must have used the same knife that he uses to kill them. This furthermore tells us that he doesn't have the slightest idea about surgery. The fact is that he created real carnage on trying to take them out; he even left a large proportion of Bianca's left eyeball still in its socket, due to finding it impossible to remove it whole. Gus, are you feeling all right?"

  Gus did not respond; he just shook his head as he got up out of the chair. He made his way towards the window and opened it, sticking his head out so that the cold air would help clear his mind a bit. Natalia got up in order to help him. He turned around, and waved her off with one hand:

  "I'll be all right in a moment, don't worry. I just need a bit of air," he said, as he poked his head back out. "You can carry on with what you were saying."

  "Are you really all right?" Natalia seemed worried. "Listen, Carlos, do you think it's necessary that he listens to this?"

  "Don't worry, I'm okay. I'll put up with it, but I would prefer to listen from over here, without looking at the photos... I'll leave that for another day, if you don't mind," he smiled, trying to apologise.

  "What's left is not so gory," said Natalia, trying to reassure him. "Bianca lost a great amount of blood, which indicates that he struck her, rendered her unconscious, and then transported her to the place where he killed her. With Vanessa, he was much more practical, which is bad news because, the more he improves, the more difficult it’s going to be to catch him. The worst part of the whole thing is that not even with the most modern equipment and the most exhaustive analyses have we found even a single drop of blood, hair, or fibre samples from Charon.”

  "And that was all you had to say?" Carlos shot her one of his sardonic little smiles. "That we still haven't found anything?"

  "No, wait... I've left the best till last. As I already mentioned to you, I sent a sample of Charon’s ‘writing’ to a friend who is an expert in graphology, and here are the results," she took out another sheet from the mountain she had piled up in front of her. "And the first thing I have to say is that it's good news. I don't think he's a psychopath."

  "What do you mean, he's not a psychopath?" asked Gus, after sitting back down again. "His hobby is killing little girls."

  "Of course, but the fact is that on top of the antisocial behaviour, psychopaths are characterised by high intelligence combined with a total lack of emotion, which makes it very difficult to catch them," Natalia realised from Gus's expression that he was not understanding her at all. "You see, the intelligence of a psychopath has no emotional hindrance, nor does it follow moral guide lines, for which reason they are considerably more effective,” the faces of both Gus and Carlos made it plain to her that her explanation was still not making sense to them. She cleared her throat, and started again. "Let’s see, putting it another way; when you need to find a solution to a personal problem that means a lot to you, the anxiety to find that solution can cause your mind to become foggy, and it ends up being harder for you to find the way out, or that the exit is not viable from a moral stand point. Are you following me so far?"

  Carlos and Gus nodded in unison. Natalia began to feel uncomfortable, as if she were sitting an oral exam on psychopathology, but she managed to continue with her explanation:

  "For example, a person could decide that the solution to their work problems is to murder their boss, but their conscience will not allow them to do it," Natalia paused. They nodded again, demonstrating that they were still understanding her. "Well, a psychopath doesn't have those problems. He doesn't have emotions, or follow a moral code; he has no conscience or feeling of guilt; there is nothing that can disturb the decision he has to make. He is pure intellect and efficiency, without limits or barriers of any kind."

  "One might say that you admired him. Don’t you remember the forest? Or the beach?" asked Carlos, feeling angry.

  "I already told you that Charon is not a psychopath. And don't get me wrong," she tried to explain. "I don’t admire psychopaths, but it makes me sad to think such a perfect faculty of reasoning would be so misused. What I mean to express with this is that, if he were a psychopath, capturing him would be very difficult. They plan everything out so well that they can calculate every one of the factors so as not to leav
e the slightest trace, to commit a perfect crime. For example, Andrei Chikatilo, the Rostov Ripper: it took them twelve years to catch him, and when they did, he had already committed over fifty murders... But I've already told you that that’s not the case here. We won't have to deal with fifty murders on our consciences."

  "I'm glad, because I don't want to spend my life working with you guys," Gus intervened. “God, by the time we finished the investigation, I would be thirty-three, I'd be finished. I would have lost all my youth, missed out on shindigs with my mates, benders, girls...”

  "To say nothing of the whole heap of money you'd have cost us," said Carlos, cutting him off. "So, if he's not a psychopath, what is he?"

  "Let's say that our guy is no little angel either. According to my friend's analysis, we are searching for an aggressive and out-of-control individual, who suffers from an obsession characterised by great feelings of guilt that cause him to be destructive either towards others or to himself, and that, in addition, he could have strong homosexual impulses."

  "Homosexual? So then why does he kill little girls?" asked Carlos in surprise.

  "Well, I have a hypothesis," she answered. "If you remember, when we began our investigation, I mentioned to you that our killer could have some kind of deformity. In accordance with this, the deformity could exist only in his mind. He feels guilty for being homosexual and is trying to change it. It is a type of disorder known as Ego-dystonic Sexual Orientation, or rather, not agreeing with one’s own sexual identity. That’s why, when he tries to seduce the girls, he uses such empty words; because he doesn’t feel them, he is only acting. During the dates, he harbours the hope of being able to maintain a sexual relationship and of ‘curing himself’, in a manner of speaking, of his homosexuality. When he sees that this does not work, he feels filled with hatred and rage against himself, but he focuses the blame towards the girls, which is why he murders and mutilates them.”

  “God damn it, what a piece of work... I don’t know if I preferred the thing about the psychopath,” Gus lit another cigarette with unsteady hands.

  “It’s still just a hypothesis. There are things that don’t tally up, such as, for example, the fact that the victims don’t show any signs of there having been any attempt at rape. The most logical thing would be that at least he would try to verify to see whether he’s able to do it. Furthermore, his anger at the time of mutilating them ought to be unleashed upon the victims’ sexual organs, and not against the eyes and hands... Those points don’t make sense, but I suppose that everything will end up falling into place if we keep investigating. Besides, I’m still not understanding why he would firstly kill Alex, and now, however, he would move on to murdering young girls. The only thing that occurs to me is that Alex could have been his first homosexual relationship; that perhaps they were even lovers. On feeling contempt for that sexual identity, he put all of the blame on Alex, which was why he killed him. The rest, I already told you earlier: that he tries to maintain a heterosexual relationship with the girls he meets in ICQ, and upon not being capable, he feels furious and kills them.”

  “It’s a possible explanation...” admitted Carlos. “Let’s take it as valid for now.”

  “All right, but I’m still not convinced,” insisted Natalia.

  “Well, at least we’re starting to know something about him. Well done,” Carlos smiled at her. Natalia felt so proud that she could not help blushing. “And from a practical point of view, how does this help us?”

  “On the one hand, it gives us hope, because this type of murderer can’t bear the guilt for very long. They end up leaving trails, or handing themselves in, or even committing suicide.”

  “Well he’d be doing us a real favour, but, what do we do if he isn’t like that?” insisted Carlos.

  “According to my friend’s report, Charon is subject to terrible anxieties and self-destructive impulses, for which reason I believe we should ask psychiatric facilities throughout the whole of the Basque Country for reports of people who have committed botched suicide attempts in recent years. Perhaps we may be lucky and find a profile that tallies with our killer.”

  “That will be easy. There has to be a court ruling to admit someone into a psychiatric facility after a suicide attempt, so they must be on file. We’ll start from the date of Alex’s murder all the way up to today in order to narrow it down a little, and if we don’t find anything, we’ll search further back in time,” he looked at Natalia and she nodded, showing her approval. “Tomorrow, I’ll ask for a list from David, the young man in the archives, and pass it on to you as soon as I have it. You’ll have to go over it, in order to ask for the psychiatric reports that could fit. We’ll need a warrant for each one of the reports, so try keeping your list limited to just those suspects who look like they could be more than a reasonable fit for Charon before requesting them. Anything else?”

  “For the moment, no. You can talk now,” she gave him a smirk. “Let’s see if you’ve got anything better.”

  Carlos got up and gave them a theatrical bow:

  “To tell the truth, you’ve made it very difficult for me but, at least, my news has practical use,” he smiled at Natalia and winked at her. She looked away. She was not going to give him the satisfaction of getting angry again. “I now have the arrest warrant for Eneko. We’ll be going for him tomorrow, and I’ll be able to question him at the station in San Sebastián. And I have also attained a warrant to requisition his computer, so they’ll be bringing it to the station and we’ll be able to access Alex’s files.”

  “Don’t get your hopes up too much regarding that. If he put so much effort into getting the computer because it might have things that would implicate him, the most certain thing is that he already re-formatted it a long time ago,” intervened Gus. “Don’t pull that face. I’ve already told you a thousand times that re-formatting means erasing.”

  “Sure, but you know I never listen to you,” retorted Carlos. “The problem is that I can’t take the computer away from the station, and I’m not going to be able to search to find out whether there’s anything that could incriminate him. What could we do?”

  “Well, we could send in a Trojan Horse; I think that SubSeven could do the trick. You’d then have to connect to the Internet so that I would have access to Eneko’s computer from here. All you would have to do would be to contact me to tell me his IP address, and leave me for a little while, and I’d be able to look at the information I need.”

  “I’ve told you a thousand times not to talk to me in double-Dutch, because I don’t have a clue what you’re saying.”

  Gus puffed. Now he was going to have to explain the whole thing to a person with the least idea of computers he had ever met in all his life. He placed a chair next to his own so that Carlos could sit down, and he armed himself with patience in the face of what promised to be a very long night.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I disconnected from the Internet and lay down on my bed. I would have liked to have spoken with Patricia for longer, to make sure that she was still in love and trusting, but I was still feeling very weak. The cuts on my wrists had turned out to be deeper than I initially thought, and I had lost a good deal of blood. There were moments where I feared I was not going to be able to stop it, and the fear of dying made me think about calling for a doctor but, luckily, I had been able to control myself and tend to the injuries without anybody’s help. I did not want to go back to spending two months in a cold asylum, with my head dazed by a bunch of drugs I didn’t need, and having to put up with the company of a ton of crazy people who were shouting, or hitting the walls, or rocking, immersed in their own world of nightmares. I was not like them, and I was not going to go back to that hell. And I did not want the drugs to make me lose control. I could end up saying things that would do me no favours.

  Besides, I had very important matters to resolve. Every time I thought about how that child had been on the verge of wrecking the whole thing, I felt my wrath rising like a tide,
threatening to burst the dam of my sanity. But the danger had passed now. Now my mind was clearer, my will was steadier, and I knew what the target was that I needed to focus that fury onto. From now on, my decisions would be as indisputable as those of God himself, as inexorable as destiny. There would no longer be any more guilt, doubts or postponement. Patricia would die on Saturday night.

  ***

  Carlos looked up from the report on Alex's murder, which they had passed on to him that morning in San Sebastián, and looked at Eneko, contemplating whether he was making mistake with him. The young man had already been the prime suspect in that particular investigation and, nevertheless, they had had to let him go without any evidence against him. They had not found even a single trace of him on Alex's body. The first thing he had done, no sooner had he arrived, had been to call the police, without touching a thing, so as not to ruin the crime scene. All of his answers in the interview room were perfect, and his alibi was rock solid. On his way to Alex’s home, he had bumped into an ex-girlfriend, and had spent a short while talking with her. He had even crossed paths with a female neighbour of Alex’s, who opened the main door to his apartment building for him two minutes before he called the police to report the murder. Carlos wondered how he was going to manage to find anything where the previous investigation had failed.

  "Damn it, I've been here for seven hours," the young man's voice brought him out of his reverie. "How much longer am I going to have to put up with this?"

  Carlos looked at Eneko whilst he took his time to take out a cigarette and light it before answering him. He was also beginning to grow tired of asking the same questions over and over again; of attacking the same topic from all possible fronts without getting anywhere but, even so, he continued:

  "For as long as I say, as you already know. I can hold you here for up to forty-eight hours, and that's what I'll do unless you give me an answer I like."