Fatal Sunset

by Jason Webster

  ‘But there was one mystery that was not cleared up last night,’ he continued. ‘One element of the story that was not resolved. And that was how the Romanians delivered the drugs to the distributor at Sunset. No amount of surveillance gave them any clues. Yet it always managed to get through.’

  Father Ricardo’s face began to turn crimson.

  ‘But of course,’ said Cámara, ‘the Guardia Civil never thought to watch these men as they came and went from attending mass on Sunday mornings, did they? And it’s obvious to me now that it was right here that they made the drop. Right in your church. Why else would a couple of Orthodox drug dealers come here? And, if I’m guessing right, they did everything with your blessing. Those gaps underneath the knee rests make a perfect spot for little packages. No one would suspect anything in the gloom of this building. Probably wouldn’t even notice anything in the first place, what with the low lighting, the drama of the mass taking place.’

  ‘This is utterly preposterous!’ spat the priest, struggling to get to his feet. ‘How dare you?’

  Cámara simply pulled his phone out of his pocket and held it up for him to see.

  ‘One call,’ he said simply. ‘I can make one call and have a specialised team here in minutes to start running tests on this place. It’s amazing how sensitive the equipment is these days. If there’s even the tiniest trace of narcotics in this building, the científicos will find it. Believe me.’

  He stared Father Ricardo in the eye, and slowly, like the shifting of some tectonic plate, the expression on the priest’s face changed from rage to fear. The blood faded from his cheeks. With a slump, he fell back into his seat.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll agree,’ said Cámara, ‘that with all the scandals in the Church at the moment, a new one about drug dealing would not go down particularly well, nor be forgotten very soon.’

  Father Ricardo stared into space, wordless.

  ‘You’ve been using this place as a distribution hub for some time, haven’t you?’ said Cámara.

  There was a long pause. Outside, the bell of the clock tower struck a single, clanging note as it marked the passing of the quarter hour. Father Ricardo looked petrified, muscle and skin turned to hard, haunting stone. Then, very slowly, his head moved up and down, almost imperceptibly, his eyes still unfocused.

  ‘You allowed the Romanians to leave the drugs here, then you passed them on to Paco, the Sunset manager, didn’t you? I know he comes here as well.’

  Again, the silent nod.

  ‘And – what? – you took your own cut? I mean, you weren’t going to do something like that out of Christian charity, were you?’

  ‘I thought I could bring it down from within,’ said Father Ricardo, his voice thin.

  ‘Bring what down?’ asked Cámara.

  ‘Sunset,’ the priest said at last. ‘Let it fester, be consumed in its own vice and sin.’

  Cámara laughed.

  ‘Is that how you justified it? Doing God’s work? Combating sin by allowing it to grow?’

  Father Ricardo glowered at him.

  ‘The place is an abomination!’ he cried. Tiny hair-like veins in his cheeks were turning blue. ‘Sodom and Gomorrah! Right here on our doorstep. Something had to be done.’

  Cámara looked at him with despair.

  ‘Father Ricardo,’ he said at length. ‘I am a policeman. But your drug dealing – no matter how you justify it to yourself – does not interest me.’

  The priest looked up at him confused, eyes bloodshot and yellow.

  ‘I am in fact,’ said Cámara, ‘a homicide detective.’

  The eyes were blank, searching.

  ‘And I’m trying to find who murdered José Luis.’

  The priest sat back in his chair, mouth gaping open.

  ‘José Luis,’ Cámara continued, ‘was killed by bee stings.’

  Father Ricardo shook his head.

  ‘I know,’ said Cámara. ‘It sounds implausible. But he had an allergy to them. It’s rare, but it only took half a dozen stings to send him to the next world.’

  ‘Bees?’ said the priest.

  ‘Someone managed to attract the bees to José Luis by applying pheromones to his skin. Someone who had a reason for wanting José Luis dead. The smell makes the bees aggressive, makes them want to sting you, you see.’

  Cámara paused before carrying on.

  ‘I thought that person, or those people, were Bogdan and Dorin. José Luis was trying to cut them out, as you probably already know. Wanted to deal exclusively with the gang who supplied the drugs to the Romanians in the first place. So Bogdan and Dorin, I assumed, were angry about this, wanted to put a stop to it. Which is why, according to my earlier theory, they killed José Luis.’

  He held up his hands.

  ‘But I was wrong. You see, another person must be involved, for this to work. And that’s the owner of the bees. Enrique. The plan could only work with Enrique’s cooperation.’

  Father Ricardo appeared to be sinking deeper into his chair.

  ‘But the Romanians and Enrique weren’t on speaking terms. I’m sure you know why – they gave him a bit of a beating some years ago, left that scar on his face. So they couldn’t have been working together to murder José Luis.’

  Cámara sighed and crossed his arms.

  ‘But there is one other person in the village who had an urgent motive for killing José Luis, for scuppering his plans to deal exclusively with the drug gang.’

  He let his arms fall to his sides.

  ‘That person, Father Ricardo, is you.’

  ‘I …’ spluttered the priest. ‘I …’

  ‘Not only would you be losing out under José Luis’s new arrangement,’ said Cámara, ‘but I know that you are a friend of Enrique’s. I reckon you must be one of the few people round here Enrique even talks to. Bit of a loner.’

  Father Ricardo fell silent.

  ‘You wanted José Luis dead,’ said Cámara. ‘And you had the means to do it. Because,’ he went on, ‘you’re ex-military, used to be a chaplain with the armed forces. You knew about José Luis’s allergy because he himself learned about it when he was an air force cadet. Those tests they run, you know. Once they found that out, poor old José Luis’s dream of following in his father’s heroic footsteps vanished. His life could have been so different but for one small biological anomaly.’

  Father Ricardo sat with a look of terror in his eyes, shaking his head violently.

  ‘Not me,’ he mumbled. ‘Not me. Not me.’

  Cámara’s phone began to vibrate in his hand.

  ‘Of course it was you,’ he said, pressing the button to answer. ‘Who else could it have been?’

  FIFTY

  ‘Chief, where are you?’ Torres said from the other end of the line.

  ‘I’m in the village,’ answered Cámara, confused.

  ‘I’m pulling into the village right now. I’ve got Azcárraga with me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘And José Montesinos,’ said Torres.

  Something focused in Cámara’s mind, like a lens sharpening in on its objective.

  ‘Come to the church,’ he said. ‘Let yourselves in through the side door.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’ve suddenly found religion.’

  ‘Something like that.’

  Torres rang off.

  Cámara looked down at the pathetic vision of Father Ricardo squirming like a wounded insect in his chair. It made something in him want to lift his foot and crush him.

  Moments later he heard footsteps coming in through the nave.

  ‘In here,’ he said. ‘In the vestry.’

  Three men walked in. Torres and Azcárraga he recognised. The third was a man in his sixties of slight build, with narrow shoulders and a thick head of hair that looked too full and too well coloured for his age. He had a clipped pencil moustache and wore a pale-lemon suit with shiny brown brogue shoes and a light blue shirt.

  ‘We’ve got him!’ said Azcárraga, gri
nning excitedly at Cámara. ‘This is José Montesinos. The man who made the anonymous call.’

  He looked pleased with himself, like a cat offering its latest catch to its owner.

  ‘Good,’ said Cámara. ‘Very good.’

  Torres could tell that they had caught Cámara in the middle of something, and he looked quizzically at the image of the priest slithering uncomfortably behind the table.

  ‘I’ll fill you in in a minute,’ Cámara said in a low voice to him.

  He turned to Azcárraga.

  ‘I need you to do something for me,’ he said.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I want you to take Father Ricardo here to the Guardia Civil office in front of the petrol station and lock him up. He’s to be detained. Understood?’

  Azcárraga nodded. ‘What …?’

  ‘You don’t have to explain anything. Say you’re with me.’

  He threw Torres a glance.

  ‘Those bastards owe me anyway.’

  He turned back to Azcárraga.

  ‘Oh, and do me a favour – send a very quick preliminary report on events up here to Homicidios.’

  ‘Do you want me to stay there with the priest?’ asked Azcárraga.

  Cámara shook his head.

  ‘Once you’re finished, come back here and find me. And if there’s a Corporal Rodríguez there, bring him with you. Tell him I insist.’

  Azcárraga took a step over to the priest and slipped a hand under his shoulder to lift him up.

  ‘What do I do if he starts talking?’ he said. Father Ricardo allowed himself to be eased out of his chair. He looked unsteady on his feet, as though he might topple over like a cut-down tree. Azcárraga held him up and began leading him away.

  ‘Ignore him,’ said Cámara. ‘Or shut him up. I don’t care how.’

  The priest began to sob.

  ‘I shall be seen,’ he wept. ‘Everyone will see me.’

  Torres dug a hand into his pocket and pulled out a bunch of keys.

  ‘Use the car,’ he said to Azcárraga, tossing them to him. ‘And copy Narcotics into your report.’ Cámara said nothing.

  They waited until the two men had left the building, then Cámara pointed at Montesinos.

  ‘You,’ he said. ‘Wait there. Don’t move.’

  He stepped out of the vestry and into the nave of the church. Torres followed. They stood underneath the altar, by the steps leading up to the altar table.

  ‘What’s going on, chief?’ Torres said. ‘The priest?’

  ‘Why are you here?’ Cámara asked. ‘OK, so you’ve got Montesinos. But …?’

  ‘I’m in Narcotics now, remember?’ Torres grinned.

  ‘So?’

  ‘What happened here last night, the arrest of the Romanians – it came through on WebPol. The Guardia Civil weren’t going to keep that quiet, wanted to let the whole world know about their success. So naturally, I got to learn about it.’

  ‘So you’re here …?’

  ‘I’m here as a representative of the Policía Nacional Narcotics unit doing some routine follow-up in case there’s any overlap with investigations of our own.’

  ‘Nice,’ said Cámara.

  ‘Which I’m sure there is, at some point down the line. But in the meantime I can come up here and see if my old chief, recently of the Special Crimes Unit, but now back in Homicidios, needs a hand with his own case: the death of José Luis, formerly of Sunset discotheque.’

  He paused, looking Cámara in the eye.

  ‘Or is it actually murder we’re talking about?’

  Cámara jerked his head in the direction of the vestry.

  ‘Montesinos. Said anything?’

  ‘So far very little. Azcárraga got in touch as soon as he found him. I had my excuse to come up here anyway. So I figured we’d bring him straight to you. Far better than doing anything back at the Jefatura. The moment you got through the door Rita would probably have you lynched.’

  ‘That good, is it?’ said Cámara. He shrugged. ‘There’ll be time for that later.’

  He paused, staring at the vestry door, then up at the gilded decoration of the baroque altarpiece. He walked up the steps and stood in front of the altar table, staring out over the empty pews. It was a powerful position; he could sense the energy and confidence building in him: a position of dominance, of lordship.

  Torres knew him well: no words were needed. He went back to the vestry to fetch Montesinos. Moments later, he brought him to Cámara, placing him squarely in front of him, two steps down and overshadowed by his colleague like a member of the faithful about to receive the sacrament. Then Torres himself took a couple of steps to the side.

  ‘José Montesinos,’ bellowed Cámara, staring down at the man with open hostility.

  Montesinos nodded uncomfortably.

  ‘You are charged with withholding evidence and wasting police time.’

  Cámara threw his arms out, splaying his fingers in a dramatic, almost operatic gesture. Montesinos cowered before him.

  ‘Do you know how serious a matter this is?’

  Montesinos shook his head nervously.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I mean, yes. It’s serious. I’m certain it’s serious. I didn’t mean—’

  ‘Anonymous calls! Accusations of murder!’

  From the side, Torres could see that Cámara was enjoying this.

  ‘I didn’t—’

  ‘But we have you now, Montesinos.’ Cámara’s voice echoed around the nave, resonating and growing in power and strength.

  ‘And you’re going to tell me exactly what you know.’

  ‘Y-yes,’ said Montesinos.

  ‘Everything!’

  ‘Yes, everything, everything. I wanted to tell you in the first place. That’s why I called. I just—’

  ‘You lost your nerve,’ said Cámara, dropping his arms and placing his hands on his hips.

  ‘Yes,’ said Montesinos. ‘I did.’

  Cámara paused, then spoke again, this time lowering his voice slightly to a gentler, more forgiving tone.

  ‘I can understand that.’

  He took a breath and moved his hands behind his back, leaning forwards, still looking down at Montesinos with a priestly air.

  ‘But you want to do the right thing, don’t you?’ he said. ‘It’s what you’ve really wanted to do from the beginning.’

  Montesinos nodded. Something stirred inside Cámara: the fact that he was here at all, that he had taken José Luis’s death as anything more than an accident, was due to this man and to the call he had made. It was time to find out once and for all what it was all about.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said as calmly and invitingly as he could. ‘Tell me everything. Why did you make that call?’

  Montesinos looked down at his feet.

  ‘I saw José Luis a couple of weeks ago,’ he said. ‘Came down for dinner.’

  ‘You and José Luis were friends?’ said Cámara.

  Montesinos nodded.

  ‘Close friends?’ Cámara asked. ‘Intimate friends?’

  Montesinos paused before answering.

  ‘We were …’ he began. ‘We’d been lovers. In the past. A long time ago.’

  His eyes became glassy.

  ‘But we were just friends now.’

  ‘What happened?’ asked Cámara.

  Montesinos swallowed hard, quashing the emotion welling inside him in order to continue.

  ‘I’d known José Luis a long time,’ he said. ‘Almost forty years. I probably knew him better than anyone. He was …’ He sucked on his teeth. ‘What happened to him in the Air Force marked him.’

  ‘He was rejected,’ said Cámara. ‘The allergy. I know that.’

  ‘It was his dream,’ said Montesinos. ‘Following his father. Getting turned down like that had a lasting effect.’

  ‘How?’

  Montesinos looked at him with a sorrowful expression.

  ‘It made him insecure, vulnerable; he never really got over it.’
<
br />   Cámara nodded for him to continue.

  ‘I met him shortly after,’ said Montesinos. ‘Which is when we – our thing started.’

  ‘Did he …?’ said Cámara.

  Montesinos shook his head.

  ‘No. I was his first.’

  ‘It must have been easier for him, not being in the Air Force,’ said Cámara. ‘Things weren’t so relaxed back then.’

  ‘Perhaps. But I could tell he was wounded. And it seemed to establish some kind of pattern in his behaviour.’

  ‘What pattern?’

  Montesinos paused before answering.

  ‘He was desperate to be accepted,’ he said. ‘He sought acceptance all the time. From new people, friends, lovers, groups in society, whoever it was. It was as if he constantly needed someone patting him on the back, saying he was a good man, that he had a place in the world. But then …’

  His eyes began to well with tears once more. Cámara urged him to continue.

  ‘But then he would bring it all toppling down,’ said Montesinos. ‘Do things deliberately that would bring the opprobrium of those he wanted to impress. I saw it happen time and again, like some automatic behaviour that he could not stop or prevent. A self-destruct button. It was …’

  He pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed his eyes.

  ‘And you saw that this was happening again,’ said Cámara. ‘When you had dinner.’

  ‘All the signs were there,’ said Montesinos. ‘A nervousness in him. Even his voice used to change: he would speak in a higher tone, almost as though he was possessed or something. And the drugs didn’t help. He never normally took much. But at these times he would take more, pushing himself to the edge.’

  Cámara nodded, thinking about the small arsenal of narcotics that he had found back at José Luis’s apartments.

  ‘Did he engage in risky sexual activity?’ he asked.

  Montesinos nodded.

  ‘He told me about the new trends, these drug-fuelled orgies that can go on for days. It’s not my scene: it’s more a young man’s thing. But I could tell he was getting into it. Another sign, more self-destruction kicking in, like a machine.’

  ‘This dinner,’ said Cámara. ‘What did you talk about?’

  ‘He did most of the talking,’ said Montesinos. ‘Barely stopped. I thought he might be high, but Abi insisted he hadn’t taken anything that night. So we just had to listen.’