by Antonio Hill
He looks behind: his colleagues will take at least ten minutes to arrive, so he can stop there, as a mark of respect for the group and to take a rest. He’s run too much, he thinks as he waits, satisfied by being the first to arrive. For once this weekend he’s beaten Brais Arjona. It seems competitiveness is one of the few attributes that don’t weaken after the age of forty.
Four and four, those were the directions the instructor gave them this morning. A quick draw. Eight numbered scraps of paper put into a bag: he, Gaspar, Manel and Sara had taken out even numbers; Brais, Amanda, Sílvia and Octavi the odds. Each member of the team had been given various envelopes with clues marking two different routes with the same final objective. A real wonder of imagination on the part of the organizers, a cabinet of recruitment and development personnel earning money on every one of those envelopes as if the secret formula of Coca-Cola were hidden inside them. Well, here he is: a plain extends before his eyes and straight ahead, silhouetted against some dry, earthy mountains, is the damned cabin. Or the shed, or whatever the hell those four badly assembled logs are, where according to clue number seven, which Sara read aloud, the “loot” is to be found.
A loot his team will reach, if all goes well, before Brais’s. He doesn’t understand why it pisses him off so much that the brand manager is shining on these away days, which really aren’t important. But it does piss him off, a lot, that the previous day Brais Arjona turned out to be the fastest, most mentally agile … in short, the cleverest. Even beating Octavi and Sílvia in solving problems of logic—a diabolical form of entertainment dreamed up by those repugnant instructors. Then, what he’d been led to believe was a canoe trip, a purely fun, calm activity, had become a race when Brais, rowing with Amanda, had insisted on challenging him and Sílvia. She’d accepted, not thinking anything of it and, as expected, they’d lost spectacularly. In fact, halfway through their canoe had started to move in circles instead of in a straight line, and when they finally righted it and got to the opposite bank they’d had to endure Arjona’s wolfish smile and Sílvia’s own comment: “I know who I need to go with in the next test.” Well fine, luck has decided she’s on Brais’s team, but that doesn’t mean victory.
He hears footsteps and turns to the top of the trail. It’s Gaspar, the finance-department guy, who, like him earlier, is climbing laboriously up the slope. César doesn’t know him very well—that’s one of the criteria the company considers when choosing people for these away days—but in the day and a half they’ve spent together he’s been getting on well with him. The worst that could be said of him is that he’s a little dull. Bland. He extends his hand to him to help him cover the last bit of the track.
“Hard going, isn’t it?” he says, smiling. “I hope they give us a good lunch.”
Gaspar nods, breathing easily, and squints in the dazzling sun. The cloud has moved and is now above the shed, tingeing the depths of the scenery a stormy gray-blue. It’s a beautiful sight: a furious sky about to unleash repressed rage over a simple cabin. On the right, defining that sort of country picture postcard, is the tree. Immense, unshakable. Stormproof. Gaspar Ródenas, who has binoculars he has brought from home hanging around his neck, brings them to his eyes to enjoy the view.
“What a cloud. Have you seen it? Fuck, all of a sudden it’s gone dark. Now it seems to be moving away. I think we should go to the hut and see what’s there before—”
César stops. Gaspar is not listening to him, but has let out an exclamation of extreme surprise. He takes the binoculars away from his eyes and blinks. Then, without saying anything, he puts them to his eyes once again and adjusts the image, as if he is seeing something shocking.
And then, before he can ask him what the matter is, César hears voices to his left and sees that Arjona and his group are moving diagonally toward the hut. Sílvia turns to him and waves, and César, not really knowing why, feeling like a schoolboy, starts running in the same direction. Brais, for his part, sets out on the race, followed closely by Amanda.
César wants to stop. He knows he’ll lose—they are closer and faster—and that his humiliation will be greater for having tried when there was no chance, but he can’t help it. The only thing that could make him more ridiculous would be to trip and fall flat on his face. And suddenly he notices his right foot is tangled in something sticking up from the ground, a treacherous root just there to fuck him over, and his whole body is propelled forward. Having foreseen it, however, helps him to cushion the fall with both hands, which just then affords some small comfort to his ego, more battered than his poor knees.
He stays still on the ground for a few moments, and hears Gaspar’s voice, more upset than normal, saying to him: “César … César, are you all right?”
It takes him a little while to answer. He is ashamed to raise his head from the ground and face Sílvia’s smiling or, even worse, compassionate expression, but when he does he meets neither. In fact, no one is looking at him. The other four, and Gaspar too, appear hypnotized by something in the tree. When he looks toward it he understands why.
Dogs are hanging from its branches. Three, as far as he can see. Ropes have been put around their necks and they move, suspended like ornaments from a profane fir tree.
“Was finding the house difficult? Sometimes at night it can be hard to navigate these towns if you don’t know them well.”
Octavi Pujades received him dressed in a blue tracksuit, which he wore with the same grace as his office suit.
“Well, just a little,” answered César, who had spent twenty long minutes going in circles on a road of detached houses all alike until he found the one he was looking for. He felt obliged to add, “Octavi, I’m sorry to turn up here like this.”
“Don’t be silly. You haven’t shown up without warning, and anyway, I’m happy you’re here. I feel very disconnected from everything these days.”
César nodded.
“How is she?” he asked, still standing in the hallway.
Octavi Pujades shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t know what to tell you. In June the doctor gave her no more than six months to live and here we are almost halfway through January and still the same. I suppose it could happen any time … But go through, sit down.”
The sitting room was a big, comfortable space, with no obvious luxuries but well furnished with colonial-style pieces. César was grateful the fire was lit, as the temperature had started to drop. There, although they were only a few kilometers from Barcelona, it was much colder.
“Would you like something to drink? I’d offer you a whisky, but then you have to drive.”
César thought of the bends in the road and shook his head.
“I have alcohol-free beer for visitors,” suggested Octavi, smiling. “Sit down, I’ll bring you one.”
César watched him go toward the kitchen and thought it would be better for death to take his wife before he was consumed by the job of taking care of her. He found him older, bags under his eyes. Octavi Pujades wasn’t yet sixty, but the last half-year had aged him ten years, César told himself. If he compared him to the man who had participated in that damned team-building weekend, which had taken place in March of the previous year, the whole of him seemed to have shrunk. He was thinner and the weight loss was noticeable above all in his face: his cheeks sharp as corners and his eyes sunken, black as stubbed-out cigarette butts.
“Here, do you want a glass?”
“No need. Thanks.”
“Cheers.”
They drank and contemplated the fire for a few seconds. Octavi put the beer on a wooden side-table and took out a cigarette.
“You don’t smoke anymore, do you?”
César was going to shake his head; but he changed his mind. He’d given up smoking when it became serious with Sílvia, who profoundly detested the smell of tobacco. At that time he believed that whatever happened with his relationship, giving up wouldn’t do him any harm. “I only smoke the odd time,” he said, also taking
a cigarette.
“All this stuff about health and tobacco is nonsense,” affirmed Octavi. “Eugènia has never tried a cigarette in her life. Anyway, you have to die of something.”
The last sentence wasn’t especially reassuring, and César, who’d just taken his first drag in almost eleven months, had a sudden attack of nausea. How could he have liked something that tasted so bad? And yet at the same time the flavor was like meeting up with an old friend, one you’ve known so long you’d forgive them anything. The second drag felt better. He took another gulp of beer before resolving to speak.
“You know why I’ve come. Sílvia is very anxious. Well, I suppose we all are …” The cigarette felt strange in his hand and he left it in the ashtray. A fine column of smoke rose between them.
“No wonder. The Sara thing was a terrible blow. Killing yourself in such a … bloody way.” He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it.
“Yes, although it’s not just that.” César chose his words carefully. He didn’t want to be alarmist. “When the Gaspar thing happened … Well, I thought it would all end there. But now there are two: two deaths in little over four months, two people who were there that weekend. And then there’s the photos.”
Octavi continued smoking slowly. The brightness of the fire was reflected on his tired expression when he spoke.
“Did you really think Gaspar would be the end of it?”
César took a breath and looked away.
“He came to see me, did you know that?” Octavi commented. “At the end of August, when he had only a couple of days of vacation left.”
“And what did he want?”
“I thought he wanted to talk about work, of course. He was going to replace me officially until … until this whole thing with Eugènia is over. And we all know that my early retirement is coming, so in a couple of years Gaspar would have been the financial director of Alemany Cosmetics. That weighed on him a little …”
“And I suppose having to deal with Martí Clavé weighed on him too,” César suggested.
The other man shrugged.
“Clearly Martí expected to be chosen. He’s older, he’s been with the company longer … He was my natural replacement.”
Neither of them made any further comment. Octavi leaned toward the ashtray to put out his cigarette and César noticed his hand was shaking a little.
“But it wasn’t just that … I mean he didn’t just come to talk about work. He was … How can I put this? Upset.”
“And remorseful as well, no?”
Octavi sighed slowly, as if there were still smoke in his mouth.
“I calmed him down as much as I could. I also assured him he was prepared for the job. That he deserved it … I don’t know if I convinced him, although he gave me the impression that he left a little calmer. Then, barely a week later, I heard about what he’d done. I suppose he was weaker than we thought.” He paused and asked again: “Did you really think the Gaspar tragedy would be the end?”
“Maybe I was kidding myself.” César slowly shook his head. “What I never thought for a moment was that it would affect the others so badly. Sara, for example.”
“We agree on that. And maybe—I only say maybe—it will end here.” Octavi Pujades leaned forward and lowered his voice. “César, the worst thing we can do is panic. Up to now, yes, there have been two suicides. A young man who lost his head and killed his family, and a sad secretary who was fed up of being alone. That’s what I think, and what everyone will think. Both of them working for the same company is simply a coincidence. At least neither of them revealed anything.”
“That’s what Sílvia says. But what about the photo?”
“That’s another matter. Only one of us could have taken that photo. That is, you, Sílvia, Amanda, Brais, Manel or I, of course. Do you remember who was carrying a camera that day?”
“Not me. Sílvia, I think. And Sara too. I’d say almost everyone. Also you can take photos like that on cell phones.”
Octavi nodded.
“Of course. I hadn’t thought of that. I show my age in these things … The photo. And that command: ‘Never forget.’ ”
“Have you forgotten?” asked César. “Because I haven’t. For a few months, yes. Not that I totally forgot, of course, but … it faded. Like those confessions that come out when you’re drunk. With time, they lose importance, and in the end, they’re forgotten.”
Octavi smiled and took another cigarette.
“I’m not sure that’s a good example, César.”
“I suppose not … Though it doesn’t matter. It’s not what I came to discuss with you. We have to work out a plan.”
“Sílvia told me on the phone you’re meeting tomorrow, just as Arjona proposed in his email. I don’t think I can attend, but I’ll agree with whatever the majority decides.”
“That’s why I came to see you. Sílvia is in favor of continuing as we are, and the truth is I couldn’t care less about what the others think. Even Arjona, not because he’s an idiot, but because I don’t trust him an inch. I really want to know what you think.” He said it sincerely, almost begging.
Octavi Pujades slowly exhaled smoke. César seemed to hear a groan proceeding from the depths of the house.
“It’s half past eight. In a moment I’ll have to give her morphine. It’s all I can do for her: alleviate the suffering.” His tone changed and he looked César in the eyes. “I don’t know if I have a very clear-cut opinion on what should be done. What I do know is panicking won’t help at all. That must be made clear. And, César … if I were you, I’d trust no one. No one,” he repeated.
16
“Speak to his mother,” his landlady Carmen had said that same morning as they had breakfast together. Héctor Salgado trusted this woman’s instinct more than all the police reports written up by conscientious experts. “Think about it—she was his mother, but she was also a grandmother. She had to know if her son was capable of something so horrible.”
Héctor disagreed. He was certain that maternal affection could cause a kind of permanent blindness to filial defects. That it wasn’t the case with Carmen, who recognized that her Carlos was a layabout who out of sheer laziness didn’t get into deeper trouble, didn’t mean that the same applied in general terms. Even so, there was reason in her argument: Gaspar Ródenas’s mother was grandmother to Alba, whom officially he had smothered with a pillow while she slept the same night he shot his wife dead. All before shooting himself.
The police reports left little doubt about how the events had unfolded, although they contributed few certainties as to why. That’s if a thing like that could be explained in a rational manner, something Inspector Salgado tended not to believe. The how, the sequence of events that led to the killing of the family, seemed clear. Halfway through the month of July, Gaspar Ródenas bought a pistol. Héctor’s colleagues in the domestic violence unit had followed this lead with relative ease to the seller, a small-time thief who dabbled in gun-running from time to time. There was no proof of whether Gaspar informed his wife or not. All Susana Cuevas’s family lived in Valencia, and although they had spent some of the holidays together, the daughter visiting from Barcelona hadn’t mentioned it. This isn’t the States, thought Héctor. Here people don’t usually have pistols at home to protect themselves, much less a young couple with a little girl, living in an apartment in Clot, where the chances of this weapon being useful were nil.
So it was more logical to assume that Gaspar hid the purchase of the pistol from his wife. According to the report, her family had thrown little light on the case. They were so devastated by the tragedy they could barely speak. They simply said that Susana was very happy with her daughter, Gaspar had been promoted recently and to all appearances at least they were getting on well. It was clear that the family’s attention had focused on the little girl, whom they saw very seldom. “He must have gone mad,” Susana’s elder sister, who had been with them in Valencia, had said. “Su told me he was a b
it stressed about the new job. But it was just a comment and she said herself it was ‘a question of time’ and he’d get used to it.”
No one kills their family just because of a problem with stress at work, Héctor said to himself. He was sure about that. In any case, continuing the chain of events, on the evening of September 4 Gaspar Ródenas had arrived home around 19:45. A neighbor passed him on the stairs and, as usual, they greeted each other. The building where Gaspar and his family lived was made up of only six apartments, two doors on three stories; the Ródenas lived on the first floor. A lady in her eighties, rather hard of hearing, lived on the same floor and the apartment above, until then occupied by a family of “darkies” according to the same neighbor, had been empty since they returned to their own country. The other neighbors were on holiday. The man who had passed him that night from the right-hand apartment, second floor, thought he’d heard noises in the middle of the night but hadn’t for a moment suspected they were shots.
The person who found them was Gaspar’s sister, María del Mar Ródenas, who went to see her niece on Saturday at noon, just as they’d arranged. “Gaspar wasn’t answering his phone, but as I’d promised them I would come, I went anyway. I thought they were busy with the little one … And, well, the fact is Susana never picked up when we called. But when I arrived and they didn’t answer the bell or their cell phones it did seem strange. To be honest, I was a bit annoyed. I work almost every Saturday, at the Hipercor in Cornellà, and Gaspar knew I was looking forward to having lunch with the little one on the one Saturday I was free each month.” María del Mar returned home, it must be assumed pretty pissed off, given that it was at least a forty-five-minute journey by metro from L’Hospitalet, where she was still living with her parents, to Clot. She kept calling all afternoon and finally, seeing that her brother was still not responding to her messages, she took the set of keys Gaspar had left at her house and returned to the apartment. “I’d never done that, gone in when they weren’t there. And I was sure Susana wouldn’t like it, but I didn’t care. Something wasn’t right … I just wanted to reassure myself that nothing had happened.”