The Invisible Guardian

by Redondo, Dolores

  43

  She had slept beside James after slipping silently into the bed like a stowaway at almost four o’clock in the morning, knowing that she ought to sleep and afraid she would not manage to due to the uneasiness ruling her mind. However, she had gone out like a light straight away and it had had the distancing and reparative effect that her body and, most of all, her mind needed. She woke before dawn, feeling calm and focused for the first time in a long time. She went down to the living room and paused to light the fire in the hearth, following the ritual she used to carry out every morning when she was a little girl and which she had not performed for so many years. She sat down opposite the fire, which was catching tentatively, and she managed to do it. Reset. ‘That was good advice, analytical Agent Dupree,’ thought Amaia. And it gave immediate results.

  Fermín Montes woke up in the room at the Hotel Baztán where he had spent the night with Flora. There was a note under the pillow which said, ‘You’re wonderful. I’ll call you later. Flora’. He picked it up and kissed it noisily. He smiled, stretched until he touched the padded headboard and got into the shower singing a little tune, unable to stop thinking for a moment about what a miracle meeting that woman had been. Life meant something to him for the first time in more than a year, because he had been like the walking dead in the last few months and now he was more aware of it than ever. He had been like a zombie trying to pull off the illusion of appearing alive, an illusion that couldn’t seem more false to him now. Flora was the miracle that had brought him back to life, resuscitating a heart that had ceased to beat; like a human defibrillator she had got it working again, unexpectedly and with a big shock. Flora had arrived imposing herself, steam-rollering him, and had installed herself in his life without asking permission, making him recover his senses and his direction. He had been surprised by her strength as soon as he met her, the indomitable character of a woman who had made herself what she was, who had built up her business and watched over her family. He smiled again as he thought of her, of her warm body between the sheets. His fear of that moment had been almost as strong as his desire for it, because the shot of poison his wife had delivered when she left him had been releasing itself slowly during the last few months, acting like a chemical castration that had prevented him from having sex with any women since she left. His face clouded as he recalled her parting words … The pathetic nature of his pleas almost made him blush. He had begged her on his knees, wanting to make ten years of marriage worth something, he had grovelled, he had wept as he pleaded with her not to go, and, in a final act of desperation, he had asked her for explanations, he had asked her for a reason, as if a rationale or a motive could justify the way she had wrecked his life. But the absolute bitch had replied with a parting shot, a final salvo with its sights set exactly on the waterline.

  ‘Why? Do you really want to know? Because he fucks me like a stud, and when he’s finished he fucks me all over again.’

  Then she went out, slamming the door behind her, and he didn’t see her again except in court.

  He knew that it was satisfaction, spite, scorn and weariness mixed in equal measures, provoked to a certain degree by himself in the death throes of love, but, even so, her words had festered inside him and echoed in his head like unwelcome tinnitus. Until he met Flora. The smile returned to his lips while he shaved, looking at himself in the mirror at the hotel where she had preferred to stay so as not to cause talk in the town. A discreet, confident woman, so beautiful it made him catch his breath. She had surrendered herself passionately in his arms and he had responded.

  ‘Like a macho man,’ he said to himself as he looked at himself in the mirror again and thought that he hadn’t felt this good for a long time, and that perhaps, when this case was closed, he might apply for a position in Elizondo.

  Amaia wrapped up warm and went out into the street. It wasn’t raining that morning, but the damp fog covered the streets with a sheen of ancient sadness that made the people walk hunched over as if they were carrying a heavy burden and seek refuge in the warm cafés. She had rung San Sebastián first thing to find how the analyses were going.

  ‘I’ve already got them underway,’ Josune had replied. ‘Listen, you could’ve told me that Deputy Inspector Etxaide was that good-looking so I could shave my legs.’

  It was a running joke from their university days, although she was aware that Josune’s interest was more than feigned. She was about to tell her that she was wasting her time, but then decided not to. Her smile lasted for some time after she hung up.

  She dawdled for as long as she could before going to the police station. She wanted to walk up to the Church of Santiago first, but she found the building closed. Then she walked through the gardens and the children’s playground, deserted on a Monday morning. Then she admired the plumpness of the gang of cats who seemed to live under the church and could barely squeeze themselves through the external vents. She walked around the church following the line of its wall and remembering the not-so-old belief described by Barandiaran which said that if a woman walked three times round the perimeter of the church she would become a witch. She went back to the entrance and looked at the slender trees that were competing with the clock tower to see who could be tallest. She considered going to the town hall, but the strong gusts of wind that were starting to buffet the low clouds brought discouraging drops of freezing water. She changed direction and set off up Calle Santiago as far as the patisseries where various women were eating breakfast in little groups of friends. She went into Malkorra and felt the curious looks as she went over to the bar. She ordered a milky coffee, which tasted like the best she had had in ages, and bought a couple of bars of the café’s famous urrakin egiña, Elizondo’s traditional local chocolate, handmade with whole hazelnuts, before she left.

  Amaia tried to keep out of the rain, walking briskly beneath the balconies. She bought the Diario de Navarra and the Diario de Noticias and went to her car, which she had parked on the premises of the old police station about halfway along the street. She waited for a woman driving a small car to pass and thought she recognised her from the photos that Iriarte had on his desk. She drove through the streets at delivery rush hour and finally, when it was almost midday, she arrived at the police station.

  The same photos were on her desk, along with a report that she had already received on her smartphone which told her what Dr Takchenko had already said two days ago: that there were no matches among the flour samples. DNA amplification. And something new. The oily mark on the goat skin found on the cord with which the girls had been strangled was an oxide with traces of hydrocarbons and wine vinegar. All very enlightening.

  Iriarte and Zabalza had gone out; one of the duty officers explained that they were re-interviewing the last people to see the girls alive. The Hospital of Navarra rang to tell her that Freddy was making good progress and his condition was now less serious. Padua rang just before one o’clock.

  ‘Inspector. Some of the results from Johana’s case have arrived and I think this might interest you: either an electric knife or a jigsaw was used to cut her arm off, although they think the former is more likely due to the direction of the cut; we’re assuming it must have been battery-powered since there’s no electricity there. And the apparent erosion present higher up on the wound is a bite … You remember they took a mould during the autopsy.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well it turns out that they are undoubtedly human tooth marks.’

  ‘Fuck!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘I know what you’re about to say, but we’ve already compared it with her father’s dental imprint and it doesn’t match.’

  ‘Fuck!’ said Amaia again.

  ‘Yes, that’s what I thought,’ he replied. ‘Johana’s funeral and burial will take place tomorrow, her mother asked me to let you know.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said as if she were thinking about something else. ‘Lieutenant, an informant told me that they noticed suspicious activity on the righ
t bank of the river in the Arri Zahar area. It looks like there are some caves the other side of the beech wood, about four hundred or so metres up the slope. I’m sure it’s nothing, but …’

  ‘I’ll let the Nature Protection Service know.’

  ‘Yes, do, thanks.’

  ‘Thank you, Inspector,’ he stammered a bit and lowered his voice so that nobody could hear what he was about to say next. ‘Thank you for everything. I owe you, you’ve proven to me how good an investigator you are. And a good person, too. If you ever need anything …’

  ‘You don’t owe me anything, we’re in the same boat, Lieutenant, but I’ll keep it in mind.’

  She hung up and stayed very still, as if any movement might upset the flow of her thoughts, then she looked up an internet forum and sent a question to the administrators. She made herself a milky coffee and drank it slowly in small sips whilst looking out of the window. She rang James around one.

  ‘Do you fancy having lunch with your little woman?’

  ‘Always, are you coming home?’

  ‘I was thinking of eating out.’

  ‘OK, I’m sure you’ve thought of where as well.’

  ‘You know me too well! I’ll see you at two at El Kortarizar, it’s one of Aunt Engrasi’s favourites. It’s very near the house, next to where the road from Irurita comes into town, and I’ve already booked. Order the wine if you get there before me.’

  She left the police station but she saw that there were still three quarters of an hour before they were due to eat. She went up the Camino de Alduides and drove to the cemetery. There was another car parked at the entrance, but she couldn’t see anyone inside. She walked unhurriedly between the graves, getting her shoes wet in the over-long grass that grew between the tombs, until she found what she was looking for. It was marked with a small iron cross. She was saddened to see that one of the arms had fallen off. The plaque in the centre read: ‘Familia Aldube Salazar’. She had been seven when her grandmother Juanita died and she didn’t remember her face, although she did remember the smell of her house, sweet and slightly spicy, like nutmeg. The mothball smell of her wardrobe, the freshly ironed smell of her clothes. She remembered her white hair, tied back in a bun secured with hairpins, silver pins decorated with flowers embellished with tiny pearls, which had been the only jewellery she wore apart from the slim wedding ring on her finger which Amaia had never seen her take off. Amaia remembered the way she used to swing her legs rhythmically when she sat on her lap, like a little horse trotting, and the songs her grandmother sang in Basque in her sweet voice, so sad they sometimes made Amaia cry.

  ‘Amatxi,’ she murmured. And a smile spread across her face.

  She went to the top of the graveyard and mentally drew the lines, starting from the cross that established the subterranean pathways of that underworld Jonan had been talking about. She heard a hoarse murmur, but although she looked round she didn’t see anybody. The rain drumming on the fabric of her umbrella hid the sound completely, but when she turned round she thought she heard it again. She closed the umbrella and listened carefully. Although the sound was muffled by the sound of the rain on the tombs, it was perfectly audible this time. She opened her umbrella and walked in the direction from which it was coming.

  Then she saw the umbrella. It was red with maroon and orange flowers around the edge. Its colour was incongruous in that place where even the indestructible plastic and silk flowers were washed out by the rain. But, even more incongruous, it was a man who was holding it. He was resting it on his shoulder at an angle, almost entirely covering his upper body. He was motionless and, although the position of the umbrella projected almost all of the sound of his voice in the opposite direction, she could hear his ceaseless weeping while he murmured something she couldn’t catch.

  She went back to the cross and turned towards the upper path, from where she would have a better view of the Elizasu family tomb. The wreaths and bunches of flowers from the funeral were piled on the marble forming a kind of pyre. The flowers had become soggy and waterlogged and the bouquets wrapped in cellophane were white and misted by the drops of condensation from the flowers rotting inside them. As she drew near she recognised the black and white trainers belonging to Ainhoa’s brother who was sobbing like a little child, unable to control himself, his eyes fixed on his sister’s tomb, and repeating the same words over and over again.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’

  Amaia took a few steps back, deciding to leave without him seeing her, but the boy seemed to sense her presence and started to turn round. She just had time to cover herself with the umbrella. She pretended to be praying in front of the tomb before her until she no longer felt the boy’s penetrating gaze. She turned back the way she had come, making a detour to the gate and keeping her face covered to avoid him recognising her.

  James and her aunt had already ordered a bottle of Remelluri red wine and were chatting animatedly when she arrived at the restaurant. She had always liked the atmosphere of El Kortarizar, the dark beams that held up the ceiling and the fire that was always lit, combined with a familiar aroma a bit like roast corn which made her feel hungry as soon as she walked through the door. She was happy to join them in ordering fried cod and T-bone steak, but she refused the wine and ordered a glass of water.

  ‘Are you really not going to try this wine?’ James was surprised.

  ‘I expect I’ll have a hectic afternoon and I don’t want that drowsy feeling I get if I drink wine.’

  ‘Does that mean you’re making progress?’

  ‘I’m still not sure, but I think that I’ll get a few answers at least.’ Sometimes the answers are not the solution to the enigma. Step by step, she thought.

  They ate hungrily, chatted about the improvements in Freddy’s condition, which they were all pleased about, and enjoyed some of James’s anecdotes about his first steps in the art world. Amaia’s telephone began to ring as they were bringing the coffee. She got up and went outside before answering.

  ‘Jonan, what have you got to tell me?’

  ‘The flour from Ros’s house and the flour used to make the txantxigorri are a complete match, and the S11 flour and the flour from the little cake are a thirty-five per cent match.’

  ‘Thank Josune for me, find a fax machine and wait for me to call you.’

  She hung up and went back inside to say goodbye, in spite of James’s protests and the untouched coffee, waiting until she was back outside before dialling again.

  ‘Inspector Iriarte.’

  ‘Good afternoon, I was just about to call you.’

  ‘Any news?’

  ‘There might be, one of Ainhoa’s friends remembered that she walked past on the opposite side of the street on her way to meet her sister, who was waiting for her further down the road, while Ainhoa was waiting for the bus. She says a car stopped at the bus stop and it looked like the driver was talking to Ainhoa from inside the car, but then it drove on without Ainhoa getting in. She says she hadn’t remembered about it because she didn’t think it was important, she’s not even sure whether the driver was a man or a woman, but she says that the girl didn’t get into the car either way.’

  ‘It might be someone who stopped to ask her something, or to offer her a lift.’

  ‘It could also be the killer. Perhaps he offered her a lift and she refused the offer because she was still hoping the bus would arrive, but as the minutes passed and she saw that it wasn’t coming she started to get nervous and he didn’t have to do anything other than wait patiently until she was nervous enough to agree to get into the car. The second time he offered it didn’t seem like such a bad option, her salvation, even …’

  ‘Does she remember anything about the car?’

  ‘She said it was light coloured, beige, grey or white, with two doors, like a small delivery van, and she thinks that it had some writing on the side. I showed her photos of the eight most common van models and she couldn’t tell the difference. We can look
for owners of vans fitting that description in the valley, but I should warn you that there are heaps of them: almost all the shops, supermarkets and estates have at least one, and they’re normally white by default. It’s a work vehicle, so most of them are registered as belonging to men aged between twenty-five and forty-five.’

  She thought for a moment.

  ‘We’ll go through them anyway; we don’t have much else to go on. We’ll check first whether any relative or friend of the victims had a similar one, or if anyone remembers somebody who has one, and we’ll start with Ainhoa Elizasu’s family. Her brother was in the cemetery this morning, asking for forgiveness in front of his sister’s tomb.’

  ‘Perhaps he feels guilty for not telling their parents sooner. They blame him. I was at their house after the funeral and he was a pitiful sight. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have to bury another child if they keep putting all this pressure on him.’

  ‘Sometimes this sort of act hides more than is visible at first glance. Perhaps they’re a pair of savages, or perhaps they suspect something and this rejection is their way of channelling their suspicions.’

  ‘Are you at the station?’

  ‘I’m just heading down there now.’

  ‘I saw your wife this morning, I recognised her from your photos …’

  ‘Oh, did you?’

  ‘Do you think you could persuade her to lend us her car this afternoon?’

  ‘You want to borrow my wife’s car?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll explain later.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think it’ll be a problem if I leave her mine.’

  ‘Good. Bring it with you, but don’t park it at the police station.’

  ‘Alright,’ he agreed.

  Amaia went up to the meeting room and read the statements made by Anne and Carla’s friends and the information about the families’ vehicles while she waited for Iriarte to arrive.