by Antonio Hill
“Clearly it was in everyone’s interest that Gaspar didn’t blab.” Héctor looked at each one in turn. “You made another pact, didn’t you? To eliminate anyone showing signs of remorse?”
“And you think we killed him and his whole family?” asked Octavi in a clearly sarcastic tone. “We’re not members of a criminal gang, Inspector.”
“No. You’re not. But that night you crossed a dangerous line, Señor Pujades. There’s no going back. I don’t know how you convinced each other that covering up two violent deaths could go unpunished, but I’m sure you’ve had few moments of peace since then.”
Brais Arjona rose from his chair and put on his jacket. He seemed extraordinarily calm when he spoke.
“You’re right, Inspector. And now, if you don’t want anything else, I’m leaving. I have things to do.”
Héctor wanted to keep them in, but he couldn’t: he’d hoped that discovering what had happened months before in that house far from the city might bring an almost instantaneous solution to the mystery of the alleged suicides. It could be that one of the men before him had been assigned the role of executive arm to protect the others, in the same way that they could all be victims of revenge; just then there was no way of knowing.
He watched them leave, one by one, encased in their wool blazers and well-cut overcoats. Kings and henchmen of a gray army. Subjects without a queen, who was still locked up after betraying them. Enough nonsense, Salgado, he told himself. There are no princes or kings here, just normal men. Albeit with a good bit more money than most …
And suddenly, as if they were no longer people but dominoes, able to fall in sequence with the lightest touch, Héctor stood up, left Señor Alemany and almost ran up the corridor toward the room where Sílvia remained. The queen about to be overthrown.
He burst in so forcefully she jumped.
“Answer me a question. When do you have to deliver the money they’ve asked for in exchange for keeping quiet?”
Sílvia moved her head and pressed her lips together. Much was riding on this answer and she knew it. But she also knew that the enemy wouldn’t cease in his pursuit.
“Come on, answer. I can extend the twenty-four hours. You’ve lost. You’ve all lost.”
“Friday, tomorrow,” she finally answered. “Before five.”
“Don’t tell anyone. And do exactly what I tell you.”
Héctor didn’t see Fort at his desk and decided to go outside and smoke a cigarette. His lungs were craving nicotine and his brain fresh air. It’s already night, he said to himself. The day was over and he hadn’t even seen daylight.
When he went back in, Fort was waiting for him at the door of his office.
“Inspector,” said the agent, suddenly animated on seeing him, “I thought you’d left and there’s something I wanted to tell you.”
“Something to do with the case?”
“No, sir—”
“Then it can wait until tomorrow,” Salgado resolved.
“The thing is, sir, it can’t.”
“Okay, tell me.”
There was already too much noise in Héctor’s brain to concentrate on something that didn’t bear close relation to what had occupied him in the last few hours. So he didn’t manage to pay attention until, among the murmur, he made out two words that together set off every alarm: his son’s name and the word hospital.
“What did you say?” he asked.
“Your son Guillermo called, Inspector,” repeated Fort. “He’s in Sant Joan de Déu, at the hospital. But don’t be alarmed, it’s not him. He went there with Agent Castro. She’s in labor.”
From then on Roger Fort could brag that he was one of the few who’d seen Inspector Salgado completely floored by something.
42
Newborn babies have the virtue of arousing tenderness in adults, thought Héctor, and fear in kids. Or at least that’s what he guessed looking at Guillermo, who was contemplating the tiny creature in a kind of waterless fish tank with a look that fused fear and apprehension.
Although perhaps the fear isn’t due to the newborn, Héctor said to himself, but to all Guillermo had had to tell him on his arrival and which he still hadn’t processed completely. Little by little, while they waited for news from the doctor attending Leire, Héctor heard about how and why she and his son had met at Ruth’s house, and also the Charly story. Damned Charly … Héctor didn’t know whether to get angry or not, or with whom, but slowly other pieces fell into place: the theft of Ruth’s file, the refusal of Sergeant Andreu to explain further …
“Are you angry?” Guillermo asked him.
Héctor thought so. Or at least he would have been if he didn’t also feel happy about this child, born weak but healthy. And because he was worried about Leire, lying in bed with her friend María at her side. Her family would arrive the following day and Héctor didn’t want to ask about the little one’s father. He was satisfied by knowing that neither Leire nor the baby was in danger.
“We’ll talk about it all another time, okay?” he told Guillermo, putting an arm around his shoulders. “It’s better if we go home now. There’s nothing else to do here.”
They spent a few more minutes gazing at the newborn baby, at Abel, who was going to spend his first night in a world that, at the beginning, was already mistreating him a little. He could only hope that it would treat this child a little more gently from now on.
The woman looks at the world through lost eyes, of pale blue. Eyes that no longer seem capable of seeing the present as it is, lost in the mists of a past that insist on pervading that bedroom, furnished with sturdy pieces of wood aged by the years. The half-lowered blinds block the light from outside. Héctor doesn’t dare raise them: clearly the old woman prefers shadows to the sun’s dazzling rays. Perhaps she feels better enveloped in this friendly darkness. Brightness has become an enemy: in the sunlight everything acquires defined, yet remote and unknown contours.
Héctor approaches the corner where the woman is sitting, facing the balcony, and she finally seems to notice his presence. For a moment the cloud blotting her mind disperses a little, enough to notice someone is there: someone whose features are familiar, although it’s been a long time since she had them before her.
“Hello,” he whispers, coming a little closer. And he raises his hand to caress that cheek, which, despite time and illness, is still surprisingly smooth, but the embrace hangs in the air, halted by the sudden panic attack that overwhelms the old woman. Her eyes fill with tears in an instant, although Héctor barely has time to see them, because the woman covers her face with her arm, as if she wants to defend herself against a presumed aggressor. “Don’t hit me. Please. Don’t hit me anymore.”
Héctor takes a step back and looks at himself in the mirror on the wall, a mirror as old as the furniture, with a gilded frame. And then he understands what is frightening his mother. She doesn’t see him, her son Héctor, and yet she recognizes his face. The face of that bastard husband who hit her for years in secret, in that very bedroom.
The worst thing is that he also sees him in that mirror: in his own reflection, in his face, identical to what he remembers of his father when he was the age he is now.
The worst thing, thought Héctor, still awake on the terrace in the early hours, is that this isn’t a customary nightmare, but a real and painful memory. The last trip to Buenos Aires while his mother was still alive, seven years before. It was the trip that marked the end of his relationship with Lola and the beginning of a new stage in his marriage to Ruth. There were many ways of hurting a wife, of doling out invisible blows. Of making her suffer.
And that was something he couldn’t permit himself.
43
“Are you sure they’ll come for the money today?” Lola asked. She’d come to the station because she didn’t want to leave before seeing the outcome of the case. Héctor knew she had to return to Madrid that same night to cover an event taking place on Saturday in the capital. If the weather permitte
d, that is: they kept announcing the possibility that, however strange it seemed, snow might fall on Barcelona in the next few hours.
It was five o’clock on Friday afternoon.
“Let’s just say I don’t think they’ll be able to resist the temptation to come. They’ve done a lot of things for this money, apart from sending photos, and they must really want to get their hands on it. They won’t wait.”
Lola gestured as if to agree, although she wasn’t totally convinced.
“In any case, we’ll know soon enough. Sílvia Alemany has already carried out the instructions and left the bag in the locker. Fort is around there, keeping watch. If someone goes to take it out, he’ll see them.”
And, unconsciously, his glance rested once again on the telephone, still insultingly mute.
“I still don’t understand how you worked out that they were blackmailing Sílvia.”
He smiled.
“Let’s just say it was a sudden inspiration. Pieces were falling into place, but something was missing. Someone had the opportunity and the motive. The motive to report the whole thing, at least to expose it publicly. But they hadn’t done that, so I had to look for something else. And in the end it occurred to me that money is usually a very reasonable incentive to do terrible things.”
“I don’t know if I follow,” she said.
“There was something worrying me throughout the investigation. I could understand how one of the others might have killed Gaspar, Sara and Amanda, but why be so cruel to Ródenas’s wife? And the little one. Octavi Pujades said so as well.”
“Well, someone was cruel to them.”
Salgado tried not to think about the terrible incident that must have occurred that night. “And another thing: of the three victims, Gaspar Ródenas clearly fulfilled the requirements of a possible suicide.”
“He couldn’t bear the weight of guilt …”
“That on the one hand; the acquisition of a weapon on the other. I don’t know if he was planning what he was going to do when he got hold of the pistol or if it occurred to him then, but he certainly used it. Against himself and his family. His case was filed as such, and for four months nothing else happened.”
Lola nodded.
“And then we come to Sara. Another key to this whole affair. So alone on the one hand, and so loyal on the other. At heart, so vulnerable to anyone who might come close and show her affection. When I found out that the photo arrived after her death I guessed this had to mean something. Gaspar had committed suicide four months before and everything had continued as normal for them. The only possible explanation was that during those four months someone had become close to Sara to obtain information—”
Then the phone rang and Héctor picked it up on the first ring. It was a brief conversation of short tense sentences; when he hung up, he leaned back in his chair and exhaled a long sigh.
“They’re on their way,” he said. “Fort has just arrested Mar Ródenas as she was taking the money from the supermarket locker where Sílvia Alemany put it. Her fiancé was waiting for her in the car and tried to run, but they caught him shortly afterward.”
“You were right,” Lola congratulated him.
But Héctor didn’t seem satisfied. “I didn’t believe that Gaspar would have committed suicide without saying why he was doing it. And Mar was the only person who could have found a note that could have put her even partially in the picture of what had happened in Garrigàs. That gave her the opportunity. The desire for revenge against the others was a good motive. And economic necessity, or greed, made her modify her plans. As sometimes happens, she and her fiancé had beginners’ luck. The luck of perverse consequences.”
Mar Ródenas was much more serious that evening than the other times Héctor had seen her. Despite everything, he couldn’t help a strange feeling on seeing her handcuffed, sitting in the same room where Manel Caballero had been. Not compassion exactly, but a kind of sadness. At heart he was sure this young woman in front of him would never have taken that step, but when greed is aligned with revenge the results could be horrible.
“Hello, Mar,” he said.
She didn’t answer.
“To tell the truth, I never expected to see you in these circumstances until yesterday.”
“No?” Her voice was hard, bitter. “We all make mistakes, Inspector.”
“You’re right. Mine was trusting appearances. Yours was thinking you could get justice on your own and in passing make the most of it.” Héctor looked hard at her and continued, “Although in your defense I will say there’s something I can understand. The scene you found at your brother’s house must have been devastating for you. Seeing that Gaspar had killed his wife, his daughter and then shot himself would be enough for anyone to lose their mind. And reading the note he wrote must have been a traumatic experience. Then, on the computer, among other things, you found the photo of the dogs.”
She remained silent, expectant, but he didn’t give her much of a break.
“I want to think that at first you kept that note with good intentions. Without it, your parents could always believe their son hadn’t committed that atrocious crime. You kept it and began to become obsessed. Especially because it didn’t tell you everything, right? I don’t yet know what it said, but I imagine it referred to a killing carried out in the Garrigàs house, after returning from burying those dogs in the photo and with the complicity of the others, not giving more details than their names. If he’d described it in detail, you wouldn’t have had to approach Sara Mahler. You met her at Gaspar’s funeral, didn’t you?”
She looked away, but couldn’t help a fleeting nod.
“Poor Sara …” said Héctor. “She was reserved, discreet and at the same time in much need of affection. And you presented yourself to her as what you then were: a girl whose brother had died tragically; an unemployed young woman and, with the way things are, with no very promising future. You told her you’d found Gaspar’s note and hidden it to avoid causing further pain to your family. Sara, with a father who didn’t love her, was touched and confided in you.”
Mar was still locked in sullen silence and Héctor went on.
“Sara gave you presents and spent money on dinners and other things because she grew to care for you and because, like everyone, she needed someone to talk to. Not only about that, but also about herself and the company, even Amanda and her sexual habits. What’s more, if the subject of Garrigàs came up, she didn’t feel she was betraying anyone: you’d convinced her you were going to keep a secret of which you already knew something, not for them, but for your parents, and little by little you wheedled the rest of the information out of her. At the end of the day, she must have thought you had a certain right to know. There was only one thing, a detail she refused to reveal despite your insinuations: what they had done with the bodies.”
The inspector paused. There were many things he didn’t know, that he had to guess; information to obtain from this girl who right now seemed ready to remain silent forever.
“What happened, Mar? Did you try to convince her to help you in this blackmail?” He’d been talking to Víctor Alemany that very morning, and the company director had related his strange encounter with Sara in Sílvia’s office the night of the Christmas dinner. “Did you tell her you both deserved something better? A tangible reward in exchange for your silence?”
Mar Ródenas shrugged.
“Why not?” she finally said. “That was all they could give me.”
“But Sara couldn’t do it. I don’t think she was capable of betraying them; she didn’t dare leave the photograph of the dogs in Sílvia’s office.”
“Sara didn’t have a shred of ambition!” Mar retorted.
“No,” said Héctor. “Sara was loyal, but suddenly she saw her loyalties were divided. On the one hand she had the pact with her colleagues; on the other, her liking for you. In any case, her faithfulness to the pact won out. And you got angry, didn’t you? She’d gone from being an a
lly to an obstacle: she knew too much.”
Inspector Salgado was putting the facts in order following reasoning that led him to the only conclusion possible.
“So the night before Reyes you decided to meet her to insist once more she tell you what you didn’t know. And she flatly refused. You argued. By the way, you were blond then, weren’t you? You both had dyed hair: you blond and she jet black.”
Mar turned to him. A slight trace of fury still shone in her eyes.
“She tried to dissuade me, and I knew she was just like the rest. And I told her so.” The fury in her eyes became rage. “I blurted it all out, I insulted her. I reminded her that any moment what she feared so much could happen again.”
“Sara Mahler had been the victim of sexual assault, hadn’t she?” Given what he knew of Sara it was a reasonable possibility.
“Years ago,” she said scornfully. “Sara was frigid and men terrified her. She couldn’t even take a taxi; anything not to be alone with a man.”
“What did you do to her?” said Héctor quietly.
“I didn’t do anything to her. I just told her my fiancé and his friends would take care of her. I’d decided: if Sara didn’t respond to the easy way, we’d do it the hard way.”
Héctor shook his head, tried to piece it all together.
“I don’t know how you arranged it—while she was in the bathroom, I suppose—but you took her cell phone and deleted all the data to avoid, at least for that night, her being able to call anyone when you pursued her. And then it was also very convenient that we wouldn’t find any trace of your friendship.” Héctor’s tone changed. “You called Iván, your fiancé. To wait for Sara in the station. Sara left upset and went to the metro. She felt awful: she’d betrayed her colleagues and you had disappointed her. What’s more, she was terrified by your threats.”
Héctor had the projection ready.
“Neither of you anticipated that Sara would die. It was enough to frighten her. But things got out of hand,” he said, thinking of Fort’s explanation, which had turned out half true. “This morning the images recorded on the other platform arrived. I think you’ll find your Iván in them. Your great hope was anonymity, that no one would link you to this. That they’d suspect each other. That we wouldn’t know who to look for.”