The Invisible Guardian

by Redondo, Dolores

  Folding her serviette carefully, Engrasi said, ‘James, there are times when the pain is so great and buried so deep that one hopes and believes that it will stay like that forever, hidden and silenced; we’re unwilling to face the fact that pain that hasn’t been wept for and dealt with at the time comes back into our life time and again. Pain such as this arrives on the beach of our reality like the debris of a shipwreck, reminding us that there is an entire sunken ship beneath the waves that will always keep coming back, bit by bit. Don’t reproach your wife for what she hasn’t told you. I don’t think even she has thought about it this clearly one single time since the night it happened.’

  Amaia looked up, but all she said was, ‘I’m very tired.’

  ‘We need to put an end to this, Amaia,’ he begged, ‘and now is the time. I know that it’s very painful, but perhaps because I see it from outside, without any emotional involvement, I think you ought to look at it from a different point of view. What happened is horrible, but in the end you have to accept that your mother is just a poor, unbalanced woman; I don’t believe she hates you. Very often the mentally ill turn on those they love the most. It’s true that she hit you, like she hit that nurse, as the result of an attack of insanity that unbalanced her, but there was nothing personal in it.’

  ‘No, James. The nurse she attacked had long blond hair, was about my age and had a similar complexion. When the other nurses found her, my mother was laughing and shouting my name as she hit her. She attacked her because she mistook her for me.’

  41

  The telephone was whining with its annoying buzz.

  ‘Good evening, Inspector.’

  ‘Ah, hello, Dr Takchenko,’ she answered, recognising the scientist’s voice. ‘I didn’t expect you to call so soon … Have you looked at the footage?’

  ‘Yes, we’ve looked at it,’ the woman answered evasively.

  ‘And?’

  ‘Inspector, we’re at the Hotel Baztán. We’ve just arrived from Huesca and I think you ought to come over here as soon as you can.’

  ‘You’re here?’ she was surprised.

  ‘Yes, I need to speak to you in person.’

  ‘Is it to do with the footage?’

  ‘Yes, but not just that. We’re in room 202.’ She hung up.

  The hotel car park was unusually quiet for a Sunday evening, although there were several cars parked at the far end by the entrance to the restaurant. Only half the lights in the café where they had met last time were on, the chairs were upside down on the tables and a couple of women were cleaning the floor. The teenage girl on reception had been replaced by a boy of about eighteen with a face covered in acne. Amaia wondered where they found their receptionists. Like his predecessor, he was absorbed in a noisy online game. She headed to the stairs without stopping, went up to the second floor and found herself in front of room 202 as soon as she entered the corridor. She knocked and Dr Takchenko let her in straightaway, as if she had been waiting behind the door. The room was pleasant and well lit. On the bed were a laptop and two folders with brown cardboard covers.

  ‘I was surprised to receive your call, I wasn’t expecting to see you here,’ said Amaia by way of a greeting.

  Dr González greeted her as he unwound some cables, placed a computer on the small desk, switched it on and turned to Amaia.

  ‘This is the recording made last Friday in observation zone seven. It corresponds with the place where we spoke on the day we arrived in Elizondo and where you said you’d seen a bear. The images are going to be a bit out of focus since we always position the cameras in high places so they can cover more ground and focus them on the natural paths through the wood. These are the routes that animals take out of instinct and which, as a rule, are not the same as those taken by humans.’

  He started the recording. Amaia could see a portion of the majestic beech wood; for a few seconds the image appeared motionless, but suddenly a shadow burst into view, occupying the bottom part of the screen. Amaia recognised her blue jacket.

  ‘I think that’s you,’ commented Dr Takchenko.

  ‘Yes.’

  The figure moved from one part of the screen to another and then disappeared.

  ‘Alright, now there are ten minutes when nothing happens, Raúl has skipped over them so you can see the bit that interests us.’

  Amaia looked towards the screen again and when she saw it she felt her heart miss a beat. She had not dreamed it, it had not been a hallucination brought on by stress. There it was, and there was no room for doubt. The anthropomorphic figure was more than two and a half metres tall and its powerful musculature was visible under the dark mane of hair that hung from its head, covering a strong, defined back. The lower part of its body was so hairy that it looked like it was wearing animal skin trousers. It was busy picking bits of lichen from a tree, burrowing with long, capable fingers. It stopped to do that for more than a minute, then it turned slowly and lifted its majestic head. Amaia was amazed. Its features reminded her of a big cat, perhaps a lion. The lines of its face were rounded and well defined, and the absence of a muzzle gave it an intelligent and peaceful air. The hair that covered the face was dark and grew longer beneath the chin, forming a rough beard that hung halfway down its stomach in two locks.

  The creature looked up very slowly and gazed at the camera lens for a moment. Its eyes, and their various shades of amber, were frozen on the screen when Raúl stopped the recording.

  ‘Tell me, is this your bear?’

  Amaia looked at it, without knowing what reaction to expect. She answered evasively.

  ‘Yes, I suppose so, I’m not sure.’

  ‘Well let me tell you, this is not a bear.’

  ‘Are you completely sure?’

  ‘We are completely sure,’ said Dr Takchenko, looking at her husband. ‘There is no breed of bear with those features.’

  ‘It might be a different kind of animal,’ suggested Amaia.

  ‘Yes, a mythological one,’ he replied. ‘I know what I think it is, and so does Dr Takchenko. Now you tell me, what do you think it is?’

  Amaia hesitated, weighing up the response that was on the tip of her tongue. They seemed two genuine people, but what effect might something like this have on them?

  ‘I don’t think it’s a bear,’ she answered ambiguously.

  ‘I see you’re still reluctant to take a risk. I’ll say it for you. It’s a basajaun.’

  Amaia sighed again as the tension spread to her legs, causing a slight tremor, which she hoped the scientists hadn’t noticed.

  ‘OK,’ she conceded, ‘regardless of what this creature we’ve seen might be, the question is what’s going to happen now?’

  Dr Takchenko went over to her husband and looked at Amaia.

  ‘Inspector, Raúl and I have dedicated our lives to science. We have an important role and a research grant and the principal objective of our work has been and will continue to be the defence of the natural world, in particular large plantigrades. The thing that appears in this recording is not a bear. I don’t think it’s an animal of any type; I think, as does my husband, that it’s a basajaun. And I think the fact that the cameras recorded it isn’t the result of chance or the creature, as you call it, being careless, but a fulfilment of the creature’s desire to show itself to you and to us in order to be accepted. You needn’t worry, neither Raúl nor I have any intention of making this discovery public. It would definitely destroy our careers. Its authenticity would be questioned, because I’m sure that we wouldn’t manage to record any further images of this creature even if we put a camera in every tree in the forest. And, what’s worse, the mountains would be assailed by a plague of obsessives searching for the basajaun.’

  ‘We’ve erased the original and we only have this copy,’ said Dr González, opening the CD drive and handing Amaia the DVD.

  She took it carefully.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘thank you very much.’

  She remained seated on the end
of the bed with the DVD throwing rainbows in her hands, unsure of what to do.

  ‘There’s another question,’ said Dr Takchenko, interrupting her thoughts and jerking her out of her reverie.

  Amaia stood up and took one of the brown covered folders that the scientist was holding out to her. She opened the cover and saw that there was a copy of the flour analysis inside.’

  ‘Do you remember I told you I’d do a further analysis of the samples you gave me?’

  Amaia nodded.

  ‘Well, I did a mass spectrometry test on each of the samples. It’s a test that we didn’t use to begin with because what we wanted was to compare the samples to establish matches, for which we use the DNA amplifier. But since we didn’t get any matches, I decided on this test, which provides a complete run down of the minerals present, establishing even the slightest trace presence and listing each and every one of the minerals which comprise each sample. Are you following me?’ Amaia nodded expectantly. ‘As I’ve explained, such a detailed analysis wouldn’t have helped us much at the start when we were trying to establish a simple match.’

  Amaia was growing impatient, but she waited in silence.

  ‘I analysed all the samples again and in one of them there’s a partial match with a lot of elements.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means that the elements in that particular sample were present in one of the flours, but together with others that weren’t in the cake.’

  ‘And what might be the explanation for that?’

  ‘A very simple one: the sample you brought me had a mixture of two types of flour: the one used in the cake and another one.’

  ‘And why might that be?’

  ‘It’s possible that the container holding the flour used to make the cake had been used to hold a different type of flour previously and they hadn’t bothered to empty it entirely of what was left, so that although the overall flour sample doesn’t match and the quantities in which the other flour appears are very dilute and almost unnoticeable, they’re still there. And the chromatograph misses nothing.’

  Amaia started to leaf through the pages with the graphs; the coloured columns mingled to form random patterns.

  ‘Which one is it?’ she asked urgently.

  Dr Takchenko came to her side, took the report and looked carefully through the pages.

  ‘It’s that one, S11.’

  Amaia looked at her in disbelief. She slumped down onto the bed, looking at the perfectly drawn graph. Sample number 11. S for Salazar.

  It was raining again when she left the hotel. She considered running to the car, but her low spirits and the speed at which her brain was processing thoughts left her steps slow as she walked through the car park, letting the rain soak her hair and clothes, an act of pure baptism that she hoped would wash away the confusion and bewilderment that were bubbling inside her. When she reached the car a figure standing out in the rain caught her attention. The light glinting off the Lube and the leather jacket were unmistakable.

  ‘Víctor? What are you doing here?’ she asked.

  Her brother-in-law looked at her. He was distraught with pain. In spite of the rain, Amaia could see the tears pouring down his cheeks.

  ‘Víctor,’ she repeated, ‘what …?’

  ‘Why’s she doing this to me, Amaia? Why is your sister doing this to me?’

  She looked towards the interior of the restaurant and saw her sister. Flora was laughing at something Fermín Montes was telling her. He leaned in towards her and kissed her on the lips. Flora smiled.

  ‘Why?’ repeated Víctor, completely dejected.

  ‘Because she’s a bloody fool,’ said Amaia, her eyes still fixed on the window. ‘And a total bitch.’

  Víctor started to moan, as if his sister-in-law’s words had opened a bottomless abyss in front of him.

  ‘We spent the evening together yesterday, and this morning she called me to invite me to dinner with you all. I thought things were better between us, and now she does this. I do everything for her. Everything. So that she’s happy with me. Why, Amaia? What does she want?’

  ‘To do harm, Víctor, to do harm because she’s a bad person. Like Ama. A manipulative witch with no heart.’

  His weeping grew louder and he bent double, as if he were about to collapse to the ground. Amaia could feel nothing but immense sadness at the sight of him like that. Víctor had not been a good husband. Or a bad one. Just a drunkard left to rot under the weight of her sister’s tyranny. She took a step towards him and hugged him, inhaling the aroma of his aftershave mixed with the smell of his damp leather jacket.

  They remained like that for a few minutes, hugging in the rain, and Amaia listened to Víctor’s hoarse weeping as she watched her sister smiling with Fermín and tried to marshal her thoughts. Her mind was churning at full throttle as it worked through all the information the scientists from Huesca had brought, which was going round and round in her head and starting to give her a severe migraine.

  ‘Let’s get out of here, Víctor,’ she suggested, sure that he would put up some form of resistance. But he agreed meekly. ‘Do you want a lift?’ she asked, gesturing towards the car.

  ‘No, thank you, I can’t leave the motorbike here, but I’m OK,’ he murmured, wiping his eyes. ‘Don’t worry.’

  Amaia looked at him, concerned. With the state he was in, he seemed capable of doing all kinds of stupid things.

  ‘How about we go somewhere and chat for a bit, then?’

  ‘Thanks, Amaia, but I think I’ll go home, have a hot shower and go to bed. You ought to do the same,’ he added, trying to smile. ‘I don’t want to be responsible for you catching a cold.’

  He put on his helmet and gloves and leant down to kiss his sister-in law, squeezing her hand gently. He started the motorbike and rode out of the car park, heading towards Elizondo.

  Amaia stayed where she was a few seconds more, thinking about Víctor and watching her sister dining with Montes beneath the warm golden light of the restaurant. She took off her soaked anorak and tossed it into the car, got into the driver’s seat and made a call.

  ‘Ros … Rosaura.’

  ‘Amaia, what’s up?’

  ‘Listen, Ros, this is important.’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘Do you still keep up the tradition of taking flour home from the workshop for personal use?’

  ‘Of course, just like we always have.’

  ‘Right, think carefully, when was the last time you took flour from the workshop home?’

  ‘Well it must have been at least a month ago, before I stopped working there.’

  ‘OK, I need you to do me a favour. I’m going to send Jonan Etxaide to Aunt Engrasi’s. He’ll take you to your house and take a sample of the flour in your kitchen at home. You can wait outside if you don’t want to go in, you can trust Jonan.’

  ‘OK,’ she answered, very seriously.

  ‘One other thing, who else can take flour from the workshop?’

  ‘Who? Well I’d imagine any of the workers could, but … what’s going on, Amaia? Are you investigating a flour theft?’ she asked, trying to make a joke.

  ‘I can’t talk to you about it, Ros. Just do as I’ve asked, please.’

  She dialled again.

  The woman who answered at the other end of the line delayed Amaia for a couple of minutes with her incessant chatter before Amaia could bring up the reason for her call.

  ‘Josune, I’m going to send one of my colleagues to you with some samples for analysis and comparison. It’s really important, I wouldn’t ask you if it weren’t, Josune. I need it done as soon as possible … And you need to be discreet, so don’t discuss it with anybody or send the results to the police station, just give them to the person who brings you the samples for me.’

  ‘OK, Amaia, don’t worry.’

  ‘How long will it take you?’

  ‘It depends how soon I have the samples.’

  ‘They’ll be
with you in two hours.’

  ‘Amaia, it’s Sunday today, and I won’t be back in the lab until eight o’clock on Monday morning … But I’ll make an exception and go in at six to process your samples … You’ll have them tomorrow, but not until the end of the day.’

  ‘Heaven be praised. I owe you one,’ said Amaia before hanging up and dialling again.

  ‘Jonan, take the S11 flour sample and the one from the txantxigorri and go to my aunt’s house; take my sister to her house, take a sample of the flour she has there and then go to San Sebastián. Josune Urkiza from the Ertzaintza is expecting you at the Institute of Forensic Medicine. You’ll need to stay with her until she’s got the results. When they’re ready, I want you to call me, nobody else, and don’t say anything about this at the station. If Iriarte or Zabalza call you, tell them you’re in San Sebastián to deal with a family issue and that I said you could go.’

  ‘OK, chief,’ he stammered. ‘Chief, is there something I should know?’

  Jonan was the most trustworthy police officer she knew, definitely one of the best people she had ever met, and her dealings with him had really made her appreciate him.

  ‘You ought to know everything, Deputy Inspector Etxaide, and I’ll tell you as soon as you get back. For now I’ll only say that I suspect that someone is taking information out of the station.’

  ‘Ah, I understand.’

  ‘I trust you, Jonan.’ She could almost see his smile before she hung up.

  Iriarte finished putting his children to bed at about nine; it was the time of day he liked most, when he no longer had to stick to a timetable, and he could relax and look at his children, surprised almost daily by how fast they were growing, hug them, respond again to their pleas that he shouldn’t turn out the light yet and tell them again the same story they knew off by heart. When he’d finally managed to say goodnight he went to the bedroom where his wife was in bed watching a news bulletin. Going to bed early had become a habit since they had had the children and, although they usually stayed awake chatting or watching the TV, they were normally in bed by nine. He undressed and lay down next to his wife.