‘They both have a right to use the track,’ said Vicente. ‘That’s where the Chain is. Enrique put it across the track to stop people getting past. Gave a key to José Luis, but didn’t want anyone else getting through.’
‘Why not?’
‘Just didn’t want strangers there.’
‘It’s more than that,’ said Vicenta, giving her husband a look. ‘It’s all about the river. Tell him.’
‘I’m not going to bother the man with that,’ he snapped.
‘Please,’ said Cámara. ‘Anything might be useful here.’
He turned to Vicenta.
‘What’s this about?’
Vicenta nodded to her husband, urging him to speak. Cámara noticed their old-fashioned ways: it was the job of the man to speak to State officials. Quite how they fitted into Sunset, with their traditional kitchen and mountain mannerisms, he could not fathom.
‘It’s nothing,’ said Vicente. ‘The track leads to the river.’
‘River?’
‘More of a stream, but people round here call it the river. It’s over the hill behind us, in a fold in the mountain. It’s the source, where the river begins. People sometimes go there and swim.’
‘It’s beautiful,’ Vicenta chirped up. ‘There’s a waterfall and a natural pool with a cave. We used to go when we were young, didn’t we?’
Vicente grunted.
‘We don’t tell many people about it,’ he said. ‘Otherwise the place would be full of city types, dropping their rubbish everywhere and spoiling the place.’
Cámara was surprised. Many elderly country folk he had come across cared little for the beauty or upkeep of their environment, viewing it more as a means to make a living, with any chance to exploit it further embraced with open arms. Anyone else might have welcomed the chance to bring people in, thought of a way of making money out of them, but not this couple, apparently.
‘This place …’ Cámara began.
‘We call it the Molino,’ said Vicenta.
‘There used to be a watermill there,’ explained Vicente. ‘Years back. Nothing left now, just a few stones.’
‘Does it belong to Enrique?’
Vicente shook his head.
‘The river authority own all the streams and gorges. Enrique just owns some of the land that goes down to it.’
‘And José Luis?’
‘You can’t get there on his land, but he has rights to the track which takes you down there.’
‘The track where Enrique placed the chain.’
‘That’s right,’ said Vicente impatiently, as though he had already explained this.
‘So,’ began Cámara tentatively, ‘why did Enrique put the chain there?’
‘He didn’t want people using his track to get to the Molino.’
‘Who was going to use it? I thought no one knew about it.’
‘José Luis,’ said Vicenta. ‘He was … Well, go on,’ she urged her husband. ‘Tell him.’
Vicente tilted his chin at her, as though telling her to mind her own business.
‘I don’t know the details,’ he said after a pause. ‘It’s nothing. José Luis wanted to turn the Molino into some kind of attraction. Allow people from the club to go down there. Not quite sure when, because this is a nightclub.’
‘In the mornings,’ said Vicenta. ‘They’re here all night, then in the mornings he thought people might want to go down and have a swim. It is such a lovely spot. There’s nothing wrong with it.’
‘They’d just make a mess of it,’ growled Vicente. ‘Or drown in it. Enrique was right. Put the chain across, don’t let them near it.’
The couple had clearly disagreed about this in the past. Cámara needed to get more information out of them, hopefully without prompting a row.
‘I imagine,’ he said, ‘that José Luis wasn’t too happy about the chain going up.’
Vicenta threw her husband a look.
‘He was furious,’ she said.
‘But there was nothing he could do,’ added Vicente. ‘It’s Enrique’s track, he’s absolutely in his rights to chain it off. José Luis has access, that’s true, so he gave him a key to the padlock. But José Luis can’t let anyone else go down there. Just him. That’s how things are.’
He fell silent, staring at the floor, mouth as tight as a fist.
‘My husband tried to explain to José Luis,’ Vicenta said. ‘But he wouldn’t listen.’
‘That’s enough,’ Vicente barked. She stared hard at him. If he hadn’t been in the room, Cámara wondered if she might not have reached for a pan and brought it down over her husband’s head. She looked as though she’d thought about it a few times.
There was silence for a moment, broken only by a slight breeze beginning to blow outside. The sound seemed to stir something in Vicenta as well, and after a roll of her eyes she stepped away from the sink and crouched down at the inglenook, where she began to place some kindling in the grate.
‘We’ll be having lunch soon,’ said Vicente, watching her. ‘You’ll join us.’
It felt more like an order than an invitation. Cámara nodded his acceptance.
‘About yesterday …’ he said. Vicente looked him hard in the eye. ‘Can you tell me what happened?’
‘I was on the far side of the estate,’ said Vicente. ‘By the old oak. The gorse has got out of control up there, grown like mad after the rains we had this spring.’
From the inglenook, Vicenta tutted at the memory of the weather they’d had, striking a match to light the fire she’d set.
‘So you were nowhere near …?’ Cámara asked.
‘Only heard about it when my wife came to find me and tell me what had happened,’ he said. ‘By the time we got back here the ambulance had arrived and they were putting him inside.’
He sighed.
‘Never got to see him.’
‘My husband might not have approved of everything José Luis did,’ said Vicenta, ‘but you liked him in your own way, didn’t you.’
‘Things they get up to here,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘But he was a good employer. Fair. Looked after us.’
‘What’s going to happen now, do you think?’ said Cámara.
‘Don’t know.’
‘Abi will know,’ said Vicenta. ‘We’ll be all right. José Luis will have thought of us, don’t you worry.’
‘José Luis is dead,’ he snapped. Vicenta turned her back on him, muttering. The flames were beginning to grow in the hearth, a thin trail of smoke steaming up the chimney, small flames licking the bottom of the blackened pan.
‘Your first thought was that José Luis had had a heart attack,’ said Cámara.
Vicente shrugged.
‘I suppose that’s what passed through my mind. Paco said something about some bee stings. Bees can’t kill a man, but perhaps the shock? He wasn’t a healthy man, as I say.’
‘And the bees?’ asked Cámara. ‘Are there some hives nearby?’
‘I told that Abi,’ Vicente muttered darkly. ‘He’s doing it deliberately, putting them right there.’
‘Who?’
‘Enrique. Put a dozen hives right at the chain.’
‘They’re Enrique’s bees?’ said Cámara.
‘I mean the chain itself, fair enough. But the hives? That’s unnecessary, provocative. I said, he doesn’t want anyone going round there, I said. Trying to frighten people off. And they’re a nasty, aggressive strain. Stung me a couple of times, they have. It’s his land, of course, he can put them where he likes. But right there?’
He gave an indignant snort.
‘How long ago did Enrique put the hives there?’ Cámara asked.
‘About a couple of weeks ago?’ He looked up at Vicenta for confirmation. His wife kept her back to him, busying herself with lunch.
‘About that,’ she said, after an appropriate pause.
Vicente gave Cámara an exasperated look. Then he got up, reached for some small glass tumblers from a cupboard and s
at down again, an unlabelled bottle in his other hand.
‘Here,’ he said, pouring light red wine out for both of them. ‘You won’t mind home-made, will you?’
Cámara lifted the glass and they drank at the same time. It tasted of vinegar.
‘I saw a black BMW when I was driving up,’ he said, placing the glass back on the table. ‘Tinted windows. Couple of men inside. Don’t know who they might be, do you?
‘Can’t say,’ mumbled Vicente, looking uncomfortably at the floor. ‘Don’t have anything to do with them. Having fun is one thing. But ruining young people’s lives is something else.’
SIXTEEN
She found Marisol’s details in an old contacts book that she kept in a drawer, a record of her pre-digital self when she had written down numbers and addresses on paper. Almost all of them were now on an electronic device of some sort, but a handful had escaped the transition and remained in this old-fashioned format. She thanked herself for not having tossed the book away.
It was a mobile number, from the time when they had last been in touch. And she tried to remember when that had been. Perhaps ten years before. Marisol was the kind of person from whom she was happy having long breaks. Fleeing the nest was as important a step with one’s former mentors as with one’s parents.
Would she still be at the Ministry? It was a good job, the kind of secure, well-paid, not-too-stressful kind that everyone hoped to land in order to see out the years before full retirement. Perhaps she had already left, been given the push with all the cutbacks and changes over the years. But if anyone could survive, it would be Marisol. Toughness, doggedness – these were the qualities she had always stressed to her protégées. They had to be consistently better, harder, more stubborn and flexible than the men around them. It was the only way they might ever be treated as equals.
Her hand paused over the keypad, waiting to punch in the numbers. Would Marisol be at the other end? Would she be happy to hear her? Alicia felt a pang of self-doubt as she prepared herself – the feeling that speaking or being with Marisol always produced.
It doesn’t matter, she whispered to herself. I could never have lived up to such high expectations. None of us could.
She listened as the phone at the other end rang a couple of times, and felt the pulse in her temples.
‘Alicia! Darling!’
Marisol’s voice rang clear like a siren, as though she were standing in the same room.
‘What a wonderful surprise! How are you?’
‘Hello, Marisol,’ Alicia said. ‘It’s good to hear you again.’
‘And you. And you. My goodness, how long has it been? No wait, don’t tell me.’
They chatted for a few moments, going through the motions of reconnecting, recalling their last conversation – during a rare trip Marisol had made to Valencia, when Alicia was still at Llevant – and making the expected noises of pleasure at being able to speak on the phone again.
‘I think of you so often,’ said Marisol. ‘Almost every day, in fact. You were my favourite, Alicia. You know that.’
Alicia let the comment pass.
‘We shouldn’t let such a long time pass without getting in touch,’ Marisol continued. ‘It really won’t do. It is so wonderful that you called. Now, darling, you must tell me everything – what you’re doing, where you are, all your projects. I look out for your byline all the time, but can’t find you anywhere. And I know you’re not wasting all that talent you have, Alicia. You’re too good for that. So there must be something big brewing, I can feel it. You’re on to something. And you must tell me all about it.’
Alicia smiled to herself.
‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I was calling to find out about you.’
‘About me?’ Marisol said theatrically.
‘Yes,’ said Alicia. ‘Listen, are you still working at the Ministry of Defence?’
‘Oh, they haven’t managed to get rid of me yet. Not for want of trying. But I know too much. About everyone here. That’s a press officer’s real job – not communicating with the outside, but finding out everything about the organisation you’re working for. Especially the dirty secrets. So firing me would be dangerous, no matter who is in government.’
Alicia laughed.
‘Am I amusing you, darling?’
‘It reminds me of what you used to say.’
‘What was that?’
‘It became a kind of unofficial mantra for us,’ said Alicia. ‘Your motto. “In the end a journalist is judged not by what they say, but by what they know.”’
‘And my views haven’t changed one bit,’ said Marisol. ‘If anything I’m even more convinced of the truth of it.’
‘So perhaps,’ said Alicia, ‘you may be able to help me.’
‘Of course, darling. I can tell there’s something on your mind. Delightful though it is to chat, you’re fishing for something. And if I can help, then you know you can count on me.’
Alicia picked up a pen, her hand hovering over the notebook on the table at her side.
‘It’s just some background, really,’ she said. ‘I’m trying to find out what’s really happening on the island of Cabrera. You know, that uninhabited rock just off the south coast of Mallorca.’
She paused, but Marisol made no sound.
‘And something to do with the term “Clavijo”. It might be a military code word. Do you know anything about that?’
SEVENTEEN
On Carlos’s desk was a framed photograph. It showed the colour image of a woman perhaps in her early or mid-thirties, with brown hair held up with clips on the sides of her head and cascading down the back – very straight, very combed. She wore a blue-and-white striped top buttoned up at the neck with a small rounded collar. Her face was soft and pretty – in an ordinary, not exceptional, kind of way. She smiled at the camera with just the slightest shine on her bottom lip from where the flash reflected on her pale lipstick. Her nose was small, straight and unthreatening, and her eyes, which were faintly outlined with black pencil, were dark brown and shone with a polite yet not overly generous kindness. She looked like the sort of person one might see attending mass (although only once a week, perhaps – not too regularly), an impression confirmed by the delicate silver cross that hung from a chain around her neck – more a token of her upbringing than any statement of religious fervour. Anyone seeing the photo would have the impression of a woman of conservative social values and politics, dependable, dutiful, not overly burdened with ambition or a particularly active imagination. She would, in fact, make a very decent wife – Carlos’s wife, which was why the photo was on his desk. She was quite young, but judging from her clothes the photo had been taken some years before and she was doubtless much older now. Closer in age to Carlos himself, although how old she actually was no one could say. Asking too many questions about a colleague’s private life was frowned upon in the community – that was what vetting officers were for.
Carlos made certain that the photo was always visible, never taking pride of place, but its presence noticeable without being distracting. It was about the size of a postcard, framed in solid dark wood and placed on the other side of his desk from his keyboard and screen, perched near the corner next to a simple, unprepossessing lamp. Sharp-eyed colleagues saw it the first time they entered, others might need two or three visits. But everyone who stepped inside his office was aware of it to some degree: a little reminder of life beyond work, beyond their duty. What it was all for.
Occasionally Carlos wondered about changing it, updating it with a newer, more up-to-date image. But such a task would bring complications. As it was it served its purpose, like an icon: an image that represented, in his companions’ subconscious, Carlos’s normality, his espousal of the kinds of values that the organisation set itself to defend. His wife.
There were no photographs of children on his desk, a fact that would not have gone unnoticed. Perhaps the couple were childless. Perhaps, for whatever reason, they couldn’t have any. S
ome felt sorry for Carlos, others admired his pragmatism: child-rearing could sit ill with their line of work.
The truth was, however, that Carlos would never have children, nor a family of any sort. The woman in the photo was not his wife, nor any relation. In fact, he had never even met her. He knew her name and something about her life – he at least went to some lengths when he found her image and decided to use it. He knew that she had died some twenty years before – from complications after contracting pneumonia. He was also certain, to the best of his knowledge, that she had no connection with any of his work colleagues. She was not Spanish at all: she was French, from a village near Perpignan. But she easily passed as Spanish. That was all he needed.
And so María – he quickly rechristened her from her original Marie – had been his desk companion these past years, his quiet, dutiful wife, playing her part, not getting in the way, fulfilling to perfection the role he had assigned her. For everyone at the centre was supposed to have a life beyond, at least nominally. It was all part of the pretence. Long hours and dedication to the work were expected and demanded – to the extent that maintaining a personal life of any description was all but impossible. Yet openly to admit this, to declare an absence of any personal hinterland – effectively your addiction to the job – was impossible. If there was nothing else, what, in fact, were you sacrificing by staying in so late every night? Fernando showed them all the way, not only forgoing the pleasure of the family life waiting for him at home, but also laying his own health on the line. That was the standard, and they all had to aspire to it.
Carlos had caught himself wondering from time to time about his boss and his home life. The family photograph in Fernando’s office showing a woman with two small children on her knee had not changed for the entire time Carlos had known him. Nor did Carlos’s secretary fail to remind him the first week in every May that she needed the afternoon off because it was her little boy’s birthday, making sure to bring some cake in the next day to share around the office. Always uncut – not quite the leftovers that she intended it to be. Small mistakes like that kept her where she was, meant she would never rise any higher than her current position. And Carlos would feel warmly reassured by his greater observational skills; there were times when he imagined the entire building was engaged in the same pretence, with trinkets and photos and tiny reminders – silent signifiers of imaginary private worlds.
Fatal Sunset Page 9