The Invisible Guardian

by Redondo, Dolores

  His modus operandi revealed a lively intelligence, in the care he took to protect his identity, in allowing the necessary time to commit his crime, make his escape and leave his signature, the unmistakable sign that identified him beyond the shadow of a doubt. He didn’t target prostitutes or drug addicts who were accustomed to going with just anyone. And although at first glance teenage girls might have appeared vulnerable, the fact was that girls nowadays knew how to take care of themselves pretty well. They knew the risks with regard to assault and rape and tended to move around in fairly closed groups of friends, so it was quite unlikely that a girl would have agreed to go with a stranger. There was the fact that Elizondo was a small town, and like in most small towns, the majority of people knew one another. Amaia was sure that the basajaun knew his victims, that he was very likely an adult male and so would have a vehicle available with which to transport them and make his escape in the middle of the night, probably the same vehicle he used to entrap them. The basajaun chose low risk victims. In small towns it was normal for locals to stop at the bus stop when they saw somebody waiting and offer them a lift, at least as far as the next town. Carla had ended up alone on the mountain when she argued with her boyfriend and Ainhoa had missed the bus to the neighbouring town; if she was near the bus stop, and bearing in mind that she would be nervous and worried about her parents’ reaction, the possibility that she got into a car belonging to someone she knew, someone middle-aged, someone she’d known all her life, became stronger.

  She looked at the girls’ faces one by one. Carla was smiling seductively, her lips were very red and her teeth were perfect. Ainhoa was looking timidly at the camera, as people who know they aren’t photogenic tend to do, and the photograph certainly didn’t do justice to the youngest victim’s emerging beauty. And then there was Anne. Anne looked at the camera with the indifference of an empress and a smile that was arch and demure at the same time. Amaia looked carefully at her green eyes and it wasn’t hard to imagine them lit up with scorn and ill-will while she laughed in Ros’s face. Although that was impossible, since she was already dead when Ros saw her. A belagile. A witch. Not a fortune-teller or a healer. A dark and powerful woman with a terrible pact hanging over her soul. A servant of evil capable of twisting and contorting facts until they bent to her will. Belagile. It was years since she had heard that term; in modern Basque the words sorgin or sorgiña were used; belagile was the old word, the true word, the one which refers to the servants of evil. The word brought to mind childhood memories of when her Amatxi Juanita used to tell them stories about witches. Legends that were now considered part of popular folklore, attractive to tourists, but which came from a time not so long ago when people believed in the existence of witches, servants of evil, and in their sinister powers of raising chaos and destruction and even causing the death of those who stood in their way.

  She picked up the copy of José Miguel Barandiaran’s Witchcraft and Witches again, which she had sent someone to borrow from the library as soon as it opened. The anthropologist asserted the popular belief, deep-rooted throughout the north of the country, and especially in the Basque Country and Navarra, that someone was undeniably a belagile if they didn’t have a single mark or freckle on the whole of their body. The image of Anne’s naked skin on the autopsy table had kept coming back to her, her mother’s story about the day she took Anne home, the constant references to her marble-white skin. Surely it had been the strangeness of her skin that had alarmed the sister-in-law.

  Amaia read the definition of a witch: ‘I use the term witchcraft to refer to that manifestation of the popular spirit which considers certain people to be in possession of extraordinary talents, by virtue of their magical science or their communication with infernal powers.’ It would have sounded laughable if not for the fact that belief in the existence of witches and wizards had brought death, torture and horrible suffering to hundreds of people accused of making pacts with the devil in the valleys of Navarra that surrounded Elizondo, for the most part women accused by Pierre de Lancré, the ferocious inquisitor of the diocese of Bayonne. A large part of Navarra had belonged to the diocese in the fifteenth century, and de Lancré was an insatiable persecutor of witches, convinced of their existence and their demoniacal power. He expressed these convictions in a book published at the time, in which he described in great detail the infernal hierarchy and its corresponding hierarchy on earth; a work of complete fantasy and paranoia which describes absurd practices and ridiculous signs of the presence of evil.

  Amaia looked up until she saw Anne’s eyes again.

  ‘Were you a belagile, Anne Arbizu?’ she asked aloud.

  She thought she saw a shadow stretch out towards her from Anne’s green eyes. A shiver ran down her back. She sighed and tossed the little book onto the table while she cursed the central heating in the brand-new police station, which was barely warming the building on that cold morning. The corridor was getting noisier. She looked at her watch and was surprised to realise that it was already midday. The police officers came into the room with a rumble of dragged chairs and a rustle of papers and carrying the damp on their clothes like a crystalline sheen. Iriarte started to speak without preamble.

  ‘Well, I’ve checked the alibis. On New Year’s Eve, Rosaura and Freddy went to his mother’s house for dinner, along with his aunts and some friends of the family; at around two in the morning they went to some of the bars in town, lots of people saw them over the course of the night and until well into the morning and they were together the entire time. On the day Ainhoa was killed, Freddy was at home all day with various friends who arrived as others left so that he wasn’t alone at any point. They played on the PlayStation, went to Bar Txokoto to pick up a few sandwiches and watched a film. He didn’t leave the house. His friends say he had a cold.

  ‘OK, that rules him out as a suspect,’ said Jonan.

  ‘Only for the murders of Carla and Ainhoa, not for Anne’s. It seems he wasn’t as sociable as usual during the last few days. Rosaura wasn’t living at the house anymore and his friends say that although they went round several times, he sent them away with the explanation that he wasn’t feeling very well. They all swear that they didn’t know anything about Anne and they thought he was genuinely ill. He was complaining about his stomach and the same day that Anne was killed he said something about going to A&E.’

  ‘Have you spoken to all of them? Ángel what’s-his-name too? The one who found Freddy at home; he seems to be the one who was most worried about him. Perhaps he can tell us something.’

  ‘Ostolaza,’ supplied Zabalza, ‘Ángel Ostolaza.’

  ‘He’s the one I’m missing, he works at a workshop in Bera but his mother couldn’t tell me what it was called, although she did have the telephone number. He comes home for lunch, so he’ll come down to the station at round half past one.’

  ‘Have we got anything else?’

  ‘You were right with regard to the girl’s mobile, chief, she changed phones two weeks ago. She told her father that she’d lost it and didn’t want to keep the same number. We found Freddy’s latest bill amongst the post; with his wife no longer at home he didn’t bother to hide or destroy it and pretty much all the calls and texts to Anne’s old number are on it. Anne’s computer reflects a very intense social life, lots of followers but no intimate friends. She didn’t trust anybody enough to tell them her secrets, although she did boast about her relationship with a married man. There’s nothing more.’

  Jonan lingered for a few moments when the meeting had finished, leafing through the copy of Witchcraft and Witches. Amaia smiled when she noticed.

  ‘Come on now, chief, don’t tell me you’re going to try and look at this case from a different perspective.’

  ‘I don’t know what perspective to look at it from anymore, Jonan. I feel like I know more and more about this killer, and that we’ve done a good job, but everything’s happened so fast I almost feel dizzy, and in any case, you shouldn’t confuse logic a
nd common sense with bloody-mindedness. I learnt a lot about serial killers while I was in Quantico, and the first lesson is to know that however much we analyse their behaviour, they’re always a step ahead, turning up the pressure. I don’t believe in witches, Jonan, but perhaps the killer does, or at least in a certain type of evil, specific to very young women, based on certain signs that he interprets in his own way in order to choose his victim. And this,’ she said, gesturing to the book, ‘is because of what various people have said to me about Anne; and to give me something to think about.’

  Ángel Ostolaza gave her the impression once again that he was really enjoying his involvement in the investigation. She had seen it on other occasions, but it never ceased to surprise her that someone should feel secretly proud of finding themselves implicated in a violent death.

  ‘Let’s see, Anne Arbizu was killed on the Monday, right? Well, Freddy rang me that day to say that he was in agony with his stomach. It’s not the first time it’s happened to him, you know. A couple of years ago he had an ulcer or gastritis or something like that and it’s happened to him several times since then, mostly after the weekend when he drinks too much and doesn’t eat … Well, you know how these things go. He’d felt awful all day Sunday and on Monday he had a pain he just couldn’t get rid of. It would have been about half past three when he rang. I was still at work so I told him to go to the walk-in centre, but Freddy never goes anywhere by himself, either Ros or I used to go everywhere with him, so when I finished work I went to pick him up and I went to A&E with him.’

  ‘And what time was that?’

  ‘Well I get off at seven, so I’d guess about seven-thirty.’

  ‘How long were you at A&E for?’

  ‘How long? A while, almost two hours, there were a lot of people with the flu and that sort of thing and the poor guy was exhausted by the time they saw him. They gave him an x-ray and ran a few tests and eventually they injected him with some Nolotil. We left at eleven and, since Freddy wasn’t in pain anymore and we were hungry, we went to the Saioia for a couple of steak sandwiches and some patatas bravas.’

  ‘Freddy ate bravas having just been to A&E with a stomach ache?’ asked Iriarte in surprise.

  ‘It wasn’t hurting him anymore, and what makes him feel worst of all is not eating.’

  ‘OK. What time did you leave the bar?’

  ‘I don’t know, but we stayed a good while, at least an hour; then I took him home and we played a game on the PlayStation, but I didn’t stay long because I have to get up early for work.’ Ángel looked down and stayed like that for a few moments, then he made a sort of wheezing noise and Iriarte realised he was crying. ‘What’s going to happen now? He’s definitely not going to be able to walk again, he doesn’t deserve that, he’s a good guy, you know? He doesn’t deserve that.’ He covered his face with his hands and continued to cry. Iriarte went out into the corridor and returned a minute later with a cup of coffee which he placed in front of the man. He looked at Amaia.

  ‘If our friend Ángel is telling the truth, and I think he is,’ he concluded, in a kindly voice, smiling at Ángel, who looked at him hopefully, ‘it will be very easy to prove it. I’ll drop by the walk-in centre, they have security cameras, if they were there like he says they were, the footage will be his alibi. I’ll send you an email. I’ll send the report exonerating Freddy to the Commissioner.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’m off to meet up with the bear experts.’

  27

  Flora Salazar made herself a coffee and sat down behind the desk in her office before looking at the clock. Six on the dot. Her employees started to make their way towards the exit, saying goodbye to one another and waving to her through the glass of the door, which she had left half-open after telling Ernesto that she needed him to stay an hour later. Ernesto Murúa had been working for Flora for ten years and acted as workshop manager and head pastry-chef.

  Flora heard the unmistakable sound of a lorry stopping at the entrance to the warehouse and a minute later Ernesto’s sceptical face appeared at her office door.

  ‘Flora, there’s a lorry here from Harinas Ustarroz. The man says we’ve ordered a hundred fifty-kilo sacks of flour. I’ve told him it must be a mistake, but the guy’s really insistent.’

  She picked up a biro, took the lid off and pretended to write something in her diary.

  ‘No, it’s not a mistake, I placed that order; I knew they would bring it now and that’s why I asked you to stay late today.’

  Ernesto looked at her in confusion.

  ‘But, Flora, the warehouse is full and I thought you were happy with Harinas Lasa’s service and quality; we tried Ustarroz a year ago, remember, and we decided that their quality was inferior.’

  ‘Well now I’ve decided to give them another try. I haven’t been too happy with the quality of the flour recently; it’s lumpy and the texture seems different, even the smell of it has changed. They made me a good offer and it was all I needed to make up my mind.’

  ‘And what shall we do with the flour we already have?’

  ‘I’ve already arranged it with the guys from Ustarroz; they’ll take the stuff from the flour bin away, and you can throw the stuff from the kneading trough and the jars away; I want you to replace all the flour in the workshop with new flour and get rid of what we had before; we can’t use it because it’s not good enough, so out it goes.’

  Ernesto nodded, not in the least convinced, and went to the entrance to show the lorry driver where they should put the sacks that had just arrived.

  ‘Ernesto,’ she called him again. He came back. ‘Naturally I expect discretion in this matter. Admitting that our flour was bad is something that could really damage us. Not a word, and if one of the workers asks you, just tell them they made us a very good offer and nothing more, it’s best to avoid the subject.’

  ‘Of course,’ replied Ernesto.

  Flora stayed in her office for another fifteen minutes, which she spent washing her coffee cup and cleaning the coffee machine while a sinister thought took shape in her head. She checked the door was locked and walked towards the wall where she’d hung a painting by Javier Ciga, which she had bought two years earlier to decorate the office. She took it down with the utmost care and placed it on the sofa, revealing the ironclad safe hidden behind the painting. She turned the little silvery wheels with deft fingers and the safe opened with a creak. Envelopes containing papers, a bundle of receipts for bills, and wallets and folders containing documents were piled up in an ordered heap from largest to smallest, beside which was a small velvet bag. She picked up the whole pile and took it out of the safe, revealing a large leather-bound journal that had been hidden against the back wall of the safe. As she picked it up she had the impression that it was damp and weighed more than she remembered. She carried the journal to the table and sat down, looking at it with a mixture of excitement and urgency before opening it. The cuttings hadn’t been stuck in, but, perhaps by dint of the length of time they had spent pressed between those pages, they stayed exactly where she had placed them more than twenty years earlier. They had barely yellowed, although the ink had lost some of its blackness and was now grey and worn, as if it had been washed many times. She turned the pages, taking care not to alter the chronological order in which they had been arranged and re-read the name that a voice had been repeating in her head ever since Amaia left the workshop. Teresa Klas.

  Teresa had been the daughter of Serbian immigrants who had arrived in the valley at the start of the Nineties, fleeing justice in their own country according to some, although those were only rumours. They had immediately found work in the town and when Teresa, who wasn’t doing too well at school, was old enough to work, she got a job at the Berrueta farm, looking after the aged mother, who had significant mobility problems. What Teresa lacked in brains she made up for in beauty, and she knew it; her long mane of blonde hair and her body, which was well developed for her age, were the subject of much comment in the tow
n. She had been working at the Berrueta farm for three months when she was found dead behind some haystacks; police interrogated all the men who worked there, but they didn’t manage to arrest anybody. It was summer, there were a lot of outsiders around and they reached the conclusion that the girl had gone out into the fields with a stranger and been raped and murdered there. Teresa Klas, Teresa Klas. Teresa Klas. If she closed her eyes she could almost see that little whore’s face.

  ‘Teresa,’ she murmured. ‘All these years later and you’re still making my life difficult.’

  She closed the journal and returned it to its place at the back of the safe, hiding it behind the other documents. She put the little bag back in its place, unable to resist loosening the silk cord that held it closed. The dim light of the office was enough to bring out a glint in the red patent of the shoes. Overwhelmed by a strong sense of disquiet, she touched the smooth curve of the heel with her index finger. This was a new emotion for her, and more annoying than any other she had ever experienced. She locked the safe and re-hung the picture, being careful to leave it exactly aligned with the floor. Then she picked up her bag and went out into the workshop to inspect the work. She waved to the lorry driver and said goodbye to Ernesto.

  When he was sure that Flora had gone, Ernesto went into the workshop, picked up the roll of five-kilo bags and started to fill them with the old flour from the flour bin. He took a handful and raised it to his nose; it smelled the same as always; he took a pinch between his fingers and tasted it.

  ‘The woman’s mad,’ he murmured to himself.

  ‘What was that?’ asked the lorry driver, thinking Ernesto had been speaking to him.

  ‘I was saying to take a couple of bags of flour home with you if you want.’

  ‘OK, thanks,’ said the man, surprised.