‘I’ll give you a summary,’ said Torres. ‘It’s a manual for kidnapping and extortion. A plan to turn them into legitimate military tactics. It goes into great detail – methods, preparation, materials, the works. But the section on targets is particularly interesting, we think. Terreros recommends the kidnapping of children in order to coerce their parents. All kinds of advantages, apparently – children are smaller, not as strong, eat less and are therefore cheaper to keep alive if the kidnapping period stretches out. And the emotional impact of a person’s child being taken away from them is so powerful that they end up doing practically anything to get them back.’
Cámara leaned in closer to Segarra.
‘The plan was officially shelved – apparently there were people higher up who found it unacceptable for the armed forces to be turning minors into legitimate military targets. But what we found interesting is this insistence Terreros makes on the young. And then we reckoned that the payment you took down to Ceuta was probably the last one – you knew you were being investigated by the tax authorities, and your wife had died, so it made sense to wind things down, to take the heat off. And, of course, there was the mistake with the briefcase switch.’
‘So that was three months ago,’ said Torres, taking the baton. ‘Which means that Terreros hasn’t been receiving his bi-monthly case of cash from you. Cash which, as a former legionario and comrade, you were sending down to Ceuta. Perhaps to help retired soldiers, perhaps for other purposes. We don’t know because you’re not telling us. But then all of a sudden, Fermín, your son, the son of the man who’s been taking Terreros the money, disappears.’
‘And is found dead,’ said Cámara. ‘Now that’s not the same as kidnapping, we know. But what if the kidnapping went wrong? It can happen. Perhaps the kidnapper got scared, or carried away. There could be any number of reasons why things turned out as they did.’
‘So what we want to know is—’ said Torres.
‘Did Terreros threaten you?’ Cámara finished the sentence for him.
Segarra sat motionless throughout, his hands on his lap, his eyes focused on the ground. After a pause, he lifted his head, sighed heavily, and very suddenly got up, turned away from the table and walked briskly into the house.
Torres was about to follow him, but Cámara put a hand on his arm. Torres hesitated for a moment, half-raised from his chair, before sitting down again.
Cámara gave him a look: just wait.
Torres took his glass of tea and sipped on it nervously, anxious that they had let Segarra out of the trap.
They could hear noises inside the house: footsteps, a few muffled words being exchanged. After a few moments Julia, the daughter, reappeared.
‘My father sends his apologies,’ she said. ‘He’s not feeling well. We’ve called a doctor and he’ll be here in a moment.’
‘Is he—?’ Cámara began.
‘It’s Fermín,’ said Julia. ‘It upsets him to talk about it. And I have to ask you to leave.’
Reluctantly, Cámara and Torres got up from their chairs. Julia led them through the house back to the front door and the car outside.
Once they had descended the step and were about to get in, she held out her hand.
‘My father asked me to give you this,’ she said.
It was a white envelope.
‘Do you know—?’
‘I have no idea,’ she said abruptly.
Cámara took it from her.
‘Now please go,’ said Julia. ‘I have to attend to my father.’
TWENTY-EIGHT
HE HEARD BIRDSONG through the open window. It was first light and most of the city was still sleeping, only its feathered inhabitants and the odd early delivery van breaking the silence. He rolled over, kicking the sheet off his legs, and pulled closer to the waking body beside him. His lips brushed her shoulder and he squeezed closer in, his erection pulsating against her hand lying at his side. She opened her fingers and gripped it gently, murmuring with pleasure, her eyes still closed.
His kisses turned to nibbles, tenderly biting the skin up towards her neck and behind her ear. His hand gently and slowly circled over her chest, caressing small hard nipples, the crevice of her navel and down to the softness below. Her mouth found his and they kissed with force and passion, his arms wrapping powerfully around her, breath and heartbeats quickening in an instant.
‘I love you,’ he said, his eyes boring into hers. ‘I want this.’
But desire and warmth were not reflected back at him. There was pain in her expression, sorrow, distance.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, pulling away. ‘Not now.’
His fingers stroked her cheek.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Perhaps later,’ she said. ‘When we’re alone.’
‘Alone?’
He looked up. At the end of the bed, sitting with his back straight, turning away as though out of politeness, was Hilario.
‘What?’
‘Not the best time, I know,’ said his grandfather.
‘What the hell’s going on?’
‘Do you know what you’re doing, Max?’
Cámara shifted his weight on to his elbows, pulling himself upright and covering himself with the sheet.
‘I should hope so. It’s not the first time, you know. And what the bloody—?’
Hilario laughed.
‘I’m not referring to that, you idiot. Although, now you mention it, I’m sure there’s a trick or two I could teach you. If you were to listen, that is.’
‘Hold on,’ said Cámara.
‘Yes, all right. You want an explanation. Always an explanation, a solution. As though the world were made up of mysteries that all had a solution somewhere. And that you can find them.’
Cámara rubbed his eyes.
‘Hasn’t it ever occurred to you,’ Hilario said, ‘that sometimes the mystery may be the solution? No, of course not. Still black-and-white thinking after all these years, everything that I tried to teach you. Always division, “this or that”. Never “and”. Never seeing the underlying union.’
He turned to look at him squarely in the face,
‘You’re caught in the trap, Max. You think that all you have to do is solve this, and the next one and the next one, and then everything will be all right, life will become marvellous and wonderful. Paradise on earth. Believe me, that’s not how things work. The problems, the working things out, the having mysteries to solve in the first place, that’s the …’ He sighed. ‘Oh, what’s the use? If you weren’t going to understand before, there’s no real reason to think you’ll understand now. My patience wears thin with you sometimes. But I was given you. That was – that is – my duty, my task.’
‘I’m hearing you,’ said Cámara. ‘I can hear you again.’
‘Well, I should bloody well hope so. Whether or not you’re listening is another matter. Probably not, based on previous experience.’
‘What …? Just a minute. I was …’
‘You were about to make love to Alicia. That failed.’
‘Because you turned up all of a sudden.’
‘No, I did not. I’ve been here the entire time. It’s just that you can’t always see.’
Cámara held his head in his hands.
‘Too much for you?’ said Hilario. ‘Stop trying to work things out. It only creates conflict. And that kind of thing makes you ill. Are you eating properly? I bet not. This case is eating you, though. I can see that.’
‘The case?’
‘The little boy. What was his name? Fermín?’
Cámara nodded.
‘Sad, sad business. And I can see why you’ve gone ahead and done it.’
‘Done it?’
‘Sold your soul, you idiot. What? You think you could pull that one over my eyes? A crafty old anarchist like me? His only flesh and blood getting into bed with an officer from the secret services? Believe me, the alarm bells have rarely rung so loudly. And they ring pretty loudly with
you sometimes. But that? Pfff.’
‘I had to.’
‘Don’t shrug like that. What are you? A victim of the situation? ¡Me cago en Dios!’ I shit on God! ‘And that’s from me, who doesn’t even believe in Him. Don’t go thinking you can play this Carlos along. Who are you trying to kid?’
‘So what the hell was I supposed to do?’ Cámara’s hands trembled as he held them out, pleading.
‘You want me to give you the solution?’
‘Yes.’
‘After everything I’ve been saying? About …? Oh, forget it.’
He turned and got up.
‘No, wait,’ Cámara called. ‘Don’t go.’
‘You’ve got things to think about,’ Hilario said over his shoulder, ‘but you’re so busy worrying about what’s not important that you can’t see.’
‘Hilario!’
‘You can’t see. Two good eyes, but there’s still so much that you can’t see.’
He disappeared, and Cámara slumped back into his bed, his hands cold and damp, a sickness in his stomach.
Through the open window he heard the grinding, hissing sound of heavy morning traffic. It was first light and the city was screaming into wakefulness.
And Alicia lay sleeping at his side, her breath leaden and condensed.
The phone purred by his bedside. He threw out a hand and picked it up.
‘¿Sí?’
‘It’s time to act.’
He recognised the voice instantly and pulled himself up, pressing the receiver hard against his ear.
‘This line is secure,’ he said.
‘I know,’ said the voice.
‘What’s happened?’
Terreros swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up straight, glancing at the clock: it was half-past six in the morning.
‘The Hacienda report,’ said the voice. ‘A copy was made.’
‘As I expected.’
‘Things are developing quickly and you have to be ready. Is that understood?’
‘Of course.’
‘Now listen. Your name, as you know, is in the report and you are now the target. I suggest you start making the necessary arrangements immediately.’
‘I’m already prepared.’
‘You need to have everything covered. It all depends on what happens now. I cannot stress that enough.’
‘Who has the information?’ asked Terreros.
‘That’s classified.’
‘It will help.’
‘I can only tell you this – the move will come from within the Policía Nacional.’
Terreros shook his head and smiled. ‘I get it.’
‘You can expect a visitor soon from the mainland. Now I need to hang up.’
‘Cámara,’ Terreros said. ‘You’re talking about Max Cámara.’
There was a pause; the line vibrated in dull silence.
‘¿Hola?’
‘As you said yourself, Colonel, he’s a useful fool.’
And the connection went dead.
TWENTY-NINE
THE HELICOPTER FOR Ceuta left Málaga airport at 09.15. Cámara and Torres had just twenty minutes from their Valencia flight landing to change to the heliport terminal and jump aboard. The pilot knew that they were on police business, but would not be kept waiting too long.
They ran through the vast halls, past souvenir shops selling bottles of sangría and black plastic bulls, walls of sheer smoked glass soaring high above. At check-in desk 2, the young man glanced at their tickets, tutted at their lateness, and beckoned them past. Outside, the blue-and-white helicopter was waiting on the tarmac, engines already running in preparation for take-off.
Within seconds of sitting down and strapping in, they were airborne, lifting into the sky and out over the blue of the Mediterranean. The air was muggy and the visibility low, but in the distance, to their right, Cámara could make out the silhouette of the Rock of Gibraltar and the strait beyond. Just across, on the African side – lower and less dramatic – he could glimpse the beginnings of the peak of Ceuta, Monte Hacho.
The flight took only a few minutes. Next to him, Torres swallowed hard and kept his eyes closed. It was clearly his first time in a helicopter.
Cámara checked his case: the paperwork from Judge Andreu Peris was there, as was a copy of the letter that Segarra had passed on to them. Terreros’s threat had been written by hand with an old-fashioned, slightly unsteady lettering. The wording, however, was hard, direct and cold:
Funding must resume with immediate effect.
Gravest consequences for non-compliance.
There will be no further warnings.
You know my capabilities and my methods.
Pardo had given them his blessing.
‘I don’t know how, but this guy’s involved,’ he said when they showed him what they had. ‘Go get the fucker.’
Ostensibly to question him in connection with Fermín’s death. But they had the authority to arrest him if he proved uncooperative. In his head, Cámara could hear the clicking sound of things beginning to fall into place. Soon, quite soon, this case would be tied up.
Alicia had half-woken before he left early that morning – enough to kiss him lightly and wish him luck. She only knew that he was going to Ceuta and would hopefully be back that night if things went all right.
‘We’ll have that dinner very soon,’ he said as he left the flat. ‘I promise.’
About his dream – of her, of Hilario – he said nothing. Moments after he had arrived at the Jefatura to pick up Torres, he was barely certain that it had happened at all. By the time he was on the plane, he had forgotten about it altogether.
It had been difficult to get hold of a photograph of Terreros – there was nothing on the Internet, despite his being named on more than one website as the head of the Veteran Legionarios’ Welfare Association. His ID picture, accessed from WebPol, showed a black-and-white image from what must have been an out-of-date passport shot. In the end it was decided to stick with that – it was too risky to get in touch with the defence ministry.
Cámara stared down at someone possibly twenty years younger than the person he was now looking for. His hair was short and combed back over his scalp, his forehead high and intelligent. His eyes were not unkind; if anything they betrayed a certain sentimentality, a softness, even. His mouth was straight, pulling down a little, perhaps, to the left-hand side; lips thin, a little tight, below a pencil moustache. Some of that would have changed over the intervening years, and of course he might have shaved or grown a beard. But certain features – the nose, or the shape of the eyes – developed slowly over time. And the probability was that, as a military man, he would still be in decent shape. He wondered what effect his wound would have. Could it produce a hormonal imbalance and bloat him out?
His ears popping told him that they were already starting to descend. He looked out the window and saw the shape of Ceuta come into focus below, like a crooked finger sticking out of the top of Africa.
Si los tontos volaran, quince años nublado. The proverb popped unbidden into his mind: If idiots could fly the sky would be overcast for fifteen years. They would be back on the ground soon enough. And Torres would be able to open his eyes again.
The helicopter landed with a jolt at the edge of a very short runway jutting out into the sea. The door was opened and they were led out to the terminal building, where a police officer in uniform was waiting for them.
‘Sub-Inspector Padilla,’ he introduced himself. ‘We have a car outside to take you to HQ.’
The squad car drove them past dirty white tower blocks, palm trees lining a sun-drenched beach and the thick, heavy ramparts of the old city walls. They might have been in any Spanish Mediterranean town but for the higher percentage of women wearing veils and the occasional man in a djellaba. Cámara felt his senses crisp and alert, absorbing a myriad of details through his eyes, ears, nose and even his fingertips as he clutched the handle above the door.
&nbs
p; ‘Almost there,’ Padilla said. ‘Ceuta is a small place. You can get almost anywhere in about five or ten minutes by car. Traffic permitting, of course. It gets worse every year.’
The Police headquarters was a squat art deco building painted in pastel shades of salmon pink and light orange. They parked by the main entrance and Padilla led them upstairs to the office with the biggest plaque on the door.
‘Commissioner Vázquez?’ asked Cámara. Padilla neither answered nor looked at him, but Cámara thought he saw a flash of complicity from the corner of his eye.
They passed inside. The commissioner was sitting behind a scuffed metal desk wearing full uniform.
‘You must be Cámara, from Valencia,’ he said, not getting up. ‘Take a seat.’
Torres and Cámara sat on the other side, in front of Vázquez. Padilla stood behind them by the door.
‘We could of course be more cooperative if we had some idea what this is all about,’ said Vázquez. ‘It’s highly irregular coming here like this without going through the proper channels. You may do things like this in Valencia, but down here we don’t appreciate it.’
The commissioner was not from Ceuta: if anything his accent suggested a Galician background. He could barely have been further from home and yet still within Spanish national territory. And what he was really upset about, Cámara thought, was being treated – in his own eyes – as some sort of second-rate police authority. His pride had been wounded.
‘Commissioner,’ he said, ‘I can assure you that everything will be put in order as soon as it possibly can. Inspector Torres here and myself are from the Special Crimes Unit. Our mission here is of the highest sensitivity both in terms of time and security. I’m as much a believer as yourself in the necessity of doing things in the proper fashion.’
At his side, Torres coughed, trying to disguise his laughter.
‘But the needs of this particular case,’ Cámara continued, ‘demand secrecy and swiftness of action.’
Vázquez nodded.
‘Until now,’ he said. ‘Or are you still going to keep us in the dark? I don’t need to remind you that I’m the commissioner in charge here. No police action can take place without my permission.’
A Body in Barcelona: Max Cámara 5 Page 16