“Out! Out!” he yells at his bosses. “Everybody out! What the hell is going on here? If you stay where you are, I’m not doing the show. Is that clear? Jesus, I can’t believe it … Now! Clear out! I don’t get it: one day you suspend me, and the next, every pooh-bah at the station wants to hang out with me. This isn’t the circus here, and I don’t make a habit of broadcasting for an audience. I’m warning you: I’m going to leave now to meet my guest and smoke a cigarette. If you’re still here when I get back, I’m going home!”
Diego leaves, carrying his files under one arm and a cigarette already hanging from his lips, cursing the station directors. He has no idea how they will react. But he meant what he said—if they want him to do the show, they’re going to have to get the hell out of the studio. He’d rather shoot himself in the foot than play their game. He’s just finishing his cigarette when David Ponce appears out of nowhere. Diego explains the situation to him. The judge laughs and guarantees there will be nobody left in the studio when he goes back in. The station directors aren’t that stupid. David’s right; you can almost hear a pin drop in the studio when they arrive. The producer can’t believe Diego’s ruse worked, but everyone started to leave almost as soon as Diego took the elevator back upstairs. The producer heard they were moving to the boardroom and would listen to the show together there. They were disappointed to learn there would be no video feed. But Studio 4 is the only broadcast studio at Radio Uno that is not equipped with webcams or video cameras. Which is why Diego prefers it. Whoever thought of filming a radio show? It’s what’s done now, it’s what people want, it’s Radio 2.0, radio that connects with people, they all say. It’s all bullshit, as far as Diego’s concerned. He wanted to go into radio precisely because he wouldn’t have to show his face. And now they want to put a camera in every studio.
The journalist and the judge take their places. There is just enough time to do a quick sound check before the show launches. Headphones on, Diego greets his listeners with his usual, “Good evening, night prowlers,” and announces the program for this special edition. David Ponce watches him go through his paces. He appreciates the journalist’s professionalism and admires Diego’s poise and easy banter. He fiddles with his lighter and smiles when his host signals to him to get ready for his interview but that he has time for a quick smoke if he wants, all the while speaking into the microphone as if nothing else was going on. He has exactly three minutes, while Prosecutor X’s segment airs. A rerun tonight. With everything happening, there was no time to prepare a new one.
“So before we get started, how should I address you tonight? Your honor? Mister Ponce? David Ponce?” Diego begins.
“David is fine, thanks. We’re not going to pretend anymore that we don’t know each other. As for my professional title, for the moment, I am still a judge, but I don’t know for how long.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“Listen, I’ll be honest. I won’t say I’m not upset. But I’m not particularly surprised. When I called into your show to announce I would be opening an inquiry into this story of babies kidnapped under the Franco regime, I knew what the risks were. I would do the same thing again.”
Diego questions David for the next twenty minutes. The judge makes a good impression. He doesn’t want to be the victim here. His goal is for everyone to understand that the National Association of Stolen Babies has very valid reasons for existing. That justice must be delivered. That it’s time the people responsible for this odious crime are made to pay for it.
“One last question, David, if you don’t mind. It’s along the same lines as the one I asked you at the start of this interview. I’ll admit I already know the answer, but, for my listeners, I have to ask it, and I know that everyone listening is in for quite a surprise. … So I’ll just go ahead. David, are you Prosecutor X?”
“I’ve been unmasked!” David Ponce jokes. “Yes, that’s me.”
“There you have it, listeners; yet another revelation tonight. The true identity of our famous Prosecutor X, anonymous no longer. I hope that, beginning next week, David will return to regale us with his mordant observations, in plain view this time.”
A musical break follows so that everyone—the producer, David, and Diego at his microphone—can catch their breath before continuing. Isabel Ferrer’s interview is up next, and it promises to create an even bigger sensation. Diego insists on choosing the music for every show himself. Between two and three songs, depending on the week. Always reflecting the content of the show in some way. For tonight, he chose a song that everyone in Spain knows by heart, the 1974 hit “Porque te vas” (Because you are leaving), sung by Jeanette: an obvious nod to Judge Ponce’s imminent dismissal from the magistrature. A doubly significant choice because it was the theme song of Carlos Saura’s 1976 film Cría Cuervos, not only an allegorical tale of death and the loss of a loved one, but also about the complicated relationships between children and adults, namely between the members of a rigid bourgeois family entangled in the morals and codes of Francoist Spain. Upstairs, in Radio Uno’s boardroom, no one is listening to Diego’s musical selections. The station directors are trying to look like they didn’t just learn the identity of Prosecutor X, live on the show like everyone else. Whispered conversations circle the table. The question on everyone’s lips is whether to keep this rather bothersome but cheap chronicler (David has never asked to be paid for his information) or forbid him from coming back on the air, effective as of the next show.
In the studio, Diego and David are enjoying the fuss they’ve created. The judge plans to stay to listen to Isabel’s interview and respond to it on the air. The recording hasn’t even started to run, and already the show is an overwhelming success. The audience must be huge, judging from the number of calls coming in on the switchboard. For the first time in the history of Radio Confidential, Diego will run a full hour of the interview, much longer than he has ever done. The context, the interviewee, and the content persuaded him he didn’t have any other choice. The fact that he didn’t have enough time to edit it into a tighter format also had something to do with it.
“People knew right up to the highest echelons of power, and no one said a thing.”
Isabel’s statement closes the interview with the finality of a guillotine blade. Ten seconds of silence, an eternity, add the final punctuation mark. Diego is a master of suspense and knows how to manipulate the codes of radio broadcasting to his advantage. He can wield a microphone like others would a sword. A razor-sharp one. David Ponce says only that he would rather let the lawyer’s words speak for themselves, praising Isabel’s courage and wishing her and the NASB the best of luck in their fight. Closing credits. Tune in next week. For a return to more standard fare. Or not …
A strong smell of paint hits Isabel as she enters her building. Despite her exhaustion after staying up all night with Diego, she has only been home to change clothes before returning to the NASB’s offices. The staff has been gripped by paranoia ever since the meeting with Ana, and Isabel needed to calm her team down. Ana has not finished checking the backgrounds of the volunteers, but nothing has turned up yet. Isabel is troubled too by the way she said goodbye to the journalist. When she kissed Diego, it seemed like the natural thing to do; still, she doesn’t understand why she did it. It’s not that Isabel doesn’t find him attractive, quite the contrary, but she wonders what it could lead to. To take her mind off it, she has thrown herself into her work even more than usual. She has gathered so many documents, photos, and stacks of papers that it will take an obsessive attention to detail to make sense of it all. Lost in her thoughts, Isabel doesn’t notice that several of her neighbors are gathered at the foot of the staircase. They are speaking to her in loud voices and trying to get her attention. She jumps when she finally sees them. Some look angry, and some look worried. They have been waiting for her. The president of the building’s co-op board silences everyone with a gesture. The woman begins explaining to Isabel what has happened. Without h
earing the president out, she runs up the stairs to the second floor. Out of breath, she stops dead in her tracks in front of her apartment door, petrified. The strong odor in the building is coming from here. Her door has been splattered with red paint to resemble blood stains, and there is a note whose meaning leaves no doubt as to the vandals’ intentions: “You are Satan. You will burn in Hell.”
The attacker who found her in the street has now made it to her door. The threats are more violent and have crossed from the public realm into the private one. Clearly, she is no longer safe at home. The first thing she does is take photos of the door from as many angles as possible. Isabel disturbs none of the evidence and calls Ana, even though her first instinct is to phone Diego, to hear the sound of his voice. But she needs to keep her head on her shoulders. The private detective will know how to advise her on what to do. Isabel refuses to listen to her neighbors, who are insisting she call the police. She would really rather not. There’s no guarantee they would even investigate properly, aware of what everyone knows about her now. In fact, the opposite would more likely be true. And what if this was a government-ordered job? Moreover, letting the cops into her apartment would not be a good idea. The last thing she needs is a police search that would turn up her weapons and the files on her victims, which would create an even more embarrassing situation.
When Ana arrives, she finds Isabel sitting on the stairs, head in her hands, alone and dozing. Isabel’s exhaustion has finally caught up with her. Ana takes one look at the door and makes a phone call, then wakes Isabel gently and the two women enter the apartment. A brief look around confirms there was not a break-in as well. Isabel collapses onto the couch while Ana pours her a glass of wine. Something to get her spirits back up and help her think through the next few days. The detective suggests she come stay with her until things calm down, which she accepts gratefully.
“And there’s something else I need to tell you,” Ana continues. “Have you noticed a gray delivery van parked outside your building?”
“No. To be honest, I haven’t paid much attention.”
“Well, let me explain. You’ve been under surveillance by the CNI, you know, the National Intelligence Center.”
“You’re joking!” Isabel says, shocked.
“The only thing that would surprise me is if that wasn’t the case. At least it proves the CNI is doing their job. I know one of the directors there. I called him as soon as I got here and saw what happened. The two agents assigned to your case are going to come up here and take a good look at your door. Then, you’re going to go with them. They want to talk to you.”
“Go with them? Where? I thought I was going to your place.”
“They just want to go over some things with you,” says Ana, reassuringly. “My contact wouldn’t say anything else. But don’t worry. I guarantee you, he’s on our side. When you’re done, I’ll come get you, and tonight, we can have a girls’ dinner, just the two of us.”
By the time Isabel has put together an overnight bag, the two agents have arrived to meet their suspect in person for the first time. Back in the street a few moments later, Isabel is about to get into the gray van when her phone rings. It’s a call from France. Her mother. With the news that her grandmother has just been taken to the hospital in critical condition.
14
IT GOES WITHOUT saying that Diego’s interview with Isabel was the top story of the weekend. All the print and broadcast media and Internet news sites launched an avalanche of special editions, reports, and debates, some more serious than others and featuring professionals from every imaginable field. Or really anyone with a title who loves to be invited on set and whom television loves to put in the spotlight as soon as an occasion presents itself. Pseudo-criminologists, psychiatrists with credentials from universities no one has ever heard of, obscure constitutional scholars, and researchers who have never discovered anything in their lives. Quite simply, “experts” full of hot air who like to listen to themselves talk or throw out banalities wrapped up in savant discourse. The usual pundits, always ready to pick a fight on camera, knowing that the media, audiences, and the companies selling ad time couldn’t be happier, allowing a thirty-second publicity spot to sell for a fortune. A deplorable spectacle that sucks up all the oxygen and airtime so that the real issues can’t be discussed. Talk shows that have the blessing of the government, which much prefers that the country amuse itself, even with serious issues, rather than actually think.
In that department, the hands-down champions are the privately owned stations. But not long after the APM was elected, the public services followed suit. No one was surprised: the new minister of culture and communication was previously the director of the leading private TV station in the country. He resigned to take over the ministry, whose purpose seems to be to quash any unfavorable publicity and to grant favors to friends. Most importantly, his friends, his colleagues’ friends, friends of deputies and senators, and basically everyone who worked in the wings (by financing the APM’s campaign) to win the elections. In just the first week on the job, the minister appointed his cronies to lead the major public media outlets in a frenzy of Berlusconism. Luckily, there are a few resisters left like Diego, and he’s not alone. Several websites, available only to paying subscribers, have popped up, created by seasoned journalists who lost their jobs at the main media conglomerates due to the shake-up. All are critical, extremely critical even, of the state of affairs in the country and the austerity measures implemented to try to resolve it. The economic crisis hit the media particularly hard. Most of the national dailies have made drastic cuts to their workforces, and they all look alike now: less and less investigative reporting, and more and more of everything that is trivial or supposed to be clever or buzzworthy. If all the news shows on all the stations, public and private, were watched side by side, you would think their content was chosen for them at Moncloa, the prime minister’s residence. Just like when Franco was in power.
At the moment, however, Diego’s mind is elsewhere. His focus now is on the files that Isabel gave him. His goal is to make headway by rereading them in the light of Ana’s revelations concerning the notary public and the nun. Experience and intuition tell him that both murders are connected to the scandal of the stolen babies. Diego doesn’t have any proof yet; he’s not sure how or why, but as far as he can tell, it is the most likely hypothesis. These latest developments have only confirmed what he could scarcely imagine when he first saw the documents that were left outside his apartment with the plane ticket for Paris. One of those documents was an adoption certificate signed by Pedro De La Vega. Still, many questions remain, and Diego won’t rest until he gets some answers. His next show is scheduled in two weeks, due to a public holiday that falls on the following Friday, but that doesn’t leave him much time.
Radio Uno’s directors are exasperated. First, they had to wait to discover the identity of Prosecutor X along with the rest of the country. Second, they consented to Diego’s demand to evacuate Studio 4, effectively exiling them to the boardroom to listen to the show. And after all that, they had no other choice but to congratulate the journalist. His editorial one-two punch—two exclusive interviews: Isabel Ferrer’s about the creation of the National Association of Stolen Babies, followed by the immediate reaction of the future ex-judge David Ponce—has been the only thing anyone has talked about for the last forty-eight hours. What else could they do? Radio Uno has been getting free publicity and was served the perfect opportunity to shore up its reputation and vaunt its editorial independence from the government, as relative as that may be.
Diego’s living room looks like a document archive. Papers are strewn everywhere: on the table, on the floor, on the couch, and even on the counters of his open-plan kitchen. He has taped photos to his walls—mostly old pictures in black and white—and wherever there was any space remaining, he has pasted Post-its. Anyone walking in would declare it a disaster area, but for the journalist, there is a method to his madness.
Every document occupies a precise location, and every Post-it indicates a question. On one side of the apartment are the papers Isabel gave him, in chronological order. On the other side is Ana’s report on the notary, Pedro De La Vega, along with the statements of the Valencia police officers and the autopsy report on Sister Marie-Carmen, which he was able to get his hands on through a contact who was once one of his sources within the Madrid Police Department but who was transferred to Valencia a few years ago. Stacked in a corner are dozens of photocopies of books from his visits to the library. He has been pacing the apartment for a while, a coffee in one hand and a cigarette burning into an overflowing ashtray, studying photos, rereading a passage of Ana’s report or an extract of a certificate signed by the notary, comparing dates, and looking for what could tie it all together. Diego opens the window to get some air and turns up the volume on the stereo, which is playing “Nights in the Gardens of Spain” by Manuel de Falla, his favorite composer. Then he returns to the living room. Then he takes another look at the photos. Then he rereads another passage from the documents. Diego is worn out and feeling overwhelmed by the scope of it all. He is just lighting another cigarette when an idea comes to him. He closes the window, turns off the music, and begins looking for his recording of the interview with Emilia Ferrer on his computer. He puts on his headphones and presses “Play” while looking over the notes he took during the afternoon he spent with the lawyer’s grandmother. It only takes him three minutes to find what his subconscious had already picked up on. It was right there under his nose, or rather in his ears, so close he can’t believe he didn’t see it before. “What an idiot I am!” he scolds himself.
Mala Vida Page 13