“You’re clearly very organised,” said the woman, more relaxed, and brandishing a wide smile. “With a person like you at the helm, it shouldn’t be difficult to make this a profitable business.”
Sebas’ felt his ego significantly inflate with that comment, although he thought that it was not a good time to show it.
“I imagine that your employees are very happy,” continued the woman who now definitely seemed to have recovered from her shock.
“Well, I just try to make things easier in the business. Do you have all the information you need now?”
“Yes, I think so,” her satisfaction now more evident. “Between what I have collected here, and what is already at the office, I think that I will be able to present you with a great offer on the day I come back here.”
“That would be good news, definitely,” Sebas was also feeling satisfied.
“Yes, trust me. But I will call you before I visit you again, so as not to disrupt your timetable for that day,” she said, smiling, whilst she put her raincoat back on.
Sebas also smiled, as his form of goodbye. He accompanied her off the premises, and followed her with his gaze for a long time. Then he returned to the office. His employees were just on the verge of finishing and, as soon as they had, they would begin the grinding process.
Emma, on her part, walked away slowly. Concentrating, with a serious expression, and only one agenda in her hand.
Four hours later, Sebas looked out of the corner of his eye to the clock in his office. It was almost two. It would not be long now before his employees would be back, and he had already finished the administrative work. He had even timetabled the following day.
Once all of the deliveries were completed, they would call it a day. Whilst he waited, he decided that it would be a good idea to send María a text. A romantic detail always benefits a loving coexistence, he thought. She had probably already arrived home, and he hoped that it would not be long before he would be doing the same.
He opened the office window, poured himself the last coffee of the morning and, sitting back in the chair, began to type, with a smile on his face: ‘Hello darling. How’s my little girl? Are you already home? I will certainly be leaving soon, so I was thinking that, if you prepare the bath, before eating we cou...’ He did not manage to finish writing the word. On the other side of the window, a shadow moved in front of his eyes and, instinctively, he looked up.
“Hello, Emma!” he exclaimed.
“Hello. Are you all alone?” she asked. “It’s so silent.”
“Yes. Although I don’t think it will be long before the guys get back. But anyway, I’m afraid I’ve made a really stupid mistake: when they went, I didn’t tell them that as soon as three o’clock came, we would all be going home. So I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them decides to save time by not coming back much earlier than three, and save themselves the need to start up another delivery,” he explained, laughing. “But tell me, what brings you back here?”
“As you’ll see, I arrived back at the office and realised that I didn’t have one of the agendas that I always carry with me. As it’s vital for my work, I tried to remember all of my steps this morning and I’m completely sure the only place I could have left it was here.”
“Well I haven’t found anything,” he said, seeming to exculpate himself, as he looked on top of his table. “But we can look for it, I have time,” he suggested.
A timid smile from Emma was enough to make him understand that that was just the invitation she was hoping to hear. Nor did Sebas play hard to get. He left his mobile on the table, stood up and left the office. Outside, he was able to see that Emma’s skirt was now even shorter, and the little heels from earlier in the morning had now given way to some comfortable trainers.
“I remembered that you told me that you would not be leaving until three, and I didn’t hesitate in coming back here,” noted Emma, as she approached him.
“You have a good memory. And you, are you still working at this hour?”
“No,” answered Emma, with a malicious expression. “This a personal visit.”
Sebas did not know how to interpret that sentence but, deep down, he was not displeased by the tone the girl had just used. He thought that it was always stimulating to feel flattered by a woman like this. And, more so during a surprise visit.
“And tell me, do you have any idea of the moment when you could have put it down it?”
“No, I really don’t.”
“I remember that we didn’t go into the preparation room,” said Sebas, trying to help.
“Yes, I remember that. But we were up there,” she said, pointing up towards the scaffolding.
“You think that it could be there?”
“It’s possible,” she replied, shrugging her shoulders. “But don’t worry, I’ll go up.”
The woman did not wait for a response, and went up towards the steps, under Sebas’ attentive watch. On the first step, she turned around and said:
“Why don’t you turn on the grinder for a moment, whilst I look up here? That way, while I’m up here anyway, I will be able to see how it works.”
“Don’t you think that’s a little dangerous?” he objected, surprised, even though deep down he loved the curiosity that the woman showed.
“Yes, but you said yourself that if I saw it working, it would convince me that it wasn’t dangerous.”
She didn’t need to ask twice. He turned around and, within a moment, the machine’s rollers began to stretch out before Emma’s eyes, as she had now arrived at the top. She leaned, with apparent enthusiasm, on the edge and contemplated the inside for a few moments. Then she looked at Sebas, who remained next to the controls, waiting anxiously. In barely a second, she focussed her attention back to the machine’s interior, but this time her enthusiasm was transformed into surprise, much surprise.
She caught Sebas’ attention from the scaffolding and made a signal for him to come up. He obeyed. When he arrived next to her, Emma pointed to the end of the chute.
“What is that there?” she asked.
The man looked down towards the inside of the machine, not understanding what was happening.
“I don’t see anything out of the ordinary,” he said.
“Yes there is, under the rollers.”
Sebas approached the chute, and tried to locate what it was that had surprised Emma so much.
“I don’t see anything. Everything’s normal,” he insisted.
“No, look, there,” she also insisted. “That black thing. My God, it looks like...” she said, taking refuge behind the man.
Faced with the woman’s insistence, Sebas decided to lean over the chute, which came up to just a little below his waist, supporting himself with his hand on the rim. Being in this position, in under a second, Emma bent down towards his back, decisively grabbed his feet, and pushed him forward. She did so with all of her strength, as if her life depended on it.
“Good riddance.”
Sebas cried out, and looked back at Emma, stunned. He held out his hand, like a castaway, from the other end of the chute, noticing how each one of the blades cleaved through his flesh, gobbling him up bit by bit, relentlessly. Then, at one moment, the sound from the machine dulled, for barely one slight instant. A few seconds later, without much effort, the grinder resumed its usual sound.
Once this had happened, and nothing was visible in the chute, Emma went down the steps and stopped in front of the machine’s display screen, taking care to avoid the pool of blood that was beginning to quickly work its way across the floor. There, she carefully placed a golf ball, perfectly balanced. Then she slowly walked back towards the exit, without looking back.
Before leaving that place, she entered Sebas’ office one last time, and lifted one side of the visitors’ armchair, the same one on top of which she had placed her raincoat. She reached down and retrieved her lost agenda. Nobody would have seen it until days later.
11
Time had not progressed much since three o’clock that afternoon when Eva was still sleeping peacefully in the darkness of her bedroom. Javi’s murder had affected her in such a way that she had been incapable of getting to sleep until well into the morning. She had reviewed it meticulously, weighing up the possibilities point by point, including those which at first glance seemed the most off the wall, but she did not manage to find a logical explanation for the case. There was always something that did not fit, a connection that was not convincing, and she ended up between the sheets in exasperation. Basically, the coherent idea of a hitwoman seemed to be completely at odds with a small and peaceful city like Ourense.
In the end, it was only a mug of hot milk at mid-morning, drunk in the semi-darkness of the kitchen, that had managed to send her off into a deep sleep. That, and returning to bed imagining the sweet awakening by her young husband Ramón on his return home from work at three thirty.
However, here gentle relaxation was now being threatened by the strident tone of her mobile, ringing with insistence on top of the bedside table, battling its way into her dreams. When she finally managed to identify the sound back in the real world, she reached out, with her eyes still closed, and torpidly put the phone to her ear, pressing the ‘answer’ button.
“Santiago!” The superintendent’s domineering voice resonated through Eva’s head like the most cruel and efficient of alarm clocks. “Are you still in bed?”
Eva moved the phone away from her ear slightly, to check the time: 3.10pm. She then brought the handset back to her ear.
“Sir, I had the night-shift last night, don’t you remember?” she answered, her voice heavy with sleep.
“Santiago, are you familiar with Covelo Recycling?”
“What? No, I don’t think so. I don’t know what that is...”
“It’s a recycling company over in O Vinteún. It works on grinding down every kind of material.”
“Well, I think this is the first I’ve ever heard of it. Why do you ask, should I know it from something?” What are you going on about, she thought as she answered.
“Because today, about an hour ago now, a man fell into a grinder, and everything suggests that it was the owner, Sebastián Covelo. Does that name ring any bells?”
“Oh, the poor man!”
“You can leave out your ‘poor man’ and gratuitous sentimentalities. The situation at hand is that we have a body in pieces after being visited by a dark-haired woman during the first hour of the morning’s work,” he barked forcefully. “The body was discovered by one of his employees when he returned from his delivery...”
“Sir, are you waking me up so I can cover an accident?” Eva interrupted, still not understanding the situation.
“I’m waking you up because next to the body was a golf ball. Still sound like an accident to you?”
Eva started so much that she sat up in bed.
“A golf ball?” she asked immediately.
“Yes, carefully and, I’m afraid, strategically placed on the machine’s display screen. That is why I’ve called you. I believe that last night you became acquainted with one of those balls.”
“Yes, I’m on my way now,” she answered hurriedly, as she got out of bed. “Give me ten minutes. Who will be there now?”
“The two patrol officers we sent. And Miguel and Juan too, who are here to start their shift, and also wanted to go. But they are all constables, and I need an inspector. Do you want to go, or shall I send another?” insisted the superintendent.
“No, no, I’ll get dressed and I’ll go,” she responded, now out of bed. “Do me a favour and call Antón, and send him there.”
“What?” exclaimed the superintendent immediately, “Santiago, he also did a night shift last night. You are the inspector; are you not capable of sorting them out alone until he comes in to work on time?”
“No, call him,” she answered brusquely, “and don’t worry, I’ll explain it all to him.”
Eva hung up and, without wasting any time, finished getting dressed. Immediately after, she tied her curly mane into a ponytail, and grabbed her coat from the peg, along with three slices of mouldy bread from the kitchen and, before leaving, wrote on the noticeboard on the fridge:
‘Hi darling- unforeseen circumstances.
I’m really, really, really, really sorry,
And I love you even more,
And I want you,
Lots of love xxx’
All of this took place in less than a minute. As for finishing arranging herself and eating, she would do that on the way. It’s a rare skill, being able to put on one’s makeup in the rear-view mirror whilst driving a police car at top speed with a mouthful of bread.
When she was just about to arrive at the crime scene, Eva turned off the siren and went down the straight Rúa do Vinteún in her blue C4 as if it were any other car in the neighbourhood. At the end of the street, the residential buildings finished, and the industrial site began. Arriving unannounced was an old custom that she always put into practise on any occasion that called for it. Perhaps it was a false intuition, but something inside her head was telling her that Juan and Miguel’s interest in being at that site was greater than it logically ought to have been, under normal circumstances.
From the middle of the street, she made out three police cars at the back and, at her side, some tape cordoning off a wide area in front of a large industrial unit. Directly above the entrance door, there was a big white and green sign: Covelo Recycling. She parked on the right, level with the end of the residential buildings, and on whose pavement the neighbours were milling around, trying to catch a glimpse of the scene. She got out of the car, with the last slice of bread in her hand, and approached the factory as she calmly ate. None of those present suspected that she was one of the police.
When she was still a certain distance away, she waved a greeting to the officer guarding the taped-off area, who returned the greeting whilst conversing in a forced manner with a journalist. Then she focussed on the movements that were coming from within the restricted zone: three men, of different ages, were waiting to the side of the unit with distressed faces. Inside one of the police cars, one officer remained seated whilst the other, Miguel, was talking with an older man who was waiting outside. She concluded that the other officers must have been inside the unit.
Just to the side of the tape, a young press photographer contemplated the scene in the hope of being able to capture a relevant photograph, without noticing Eva’s arrival. She swallowed the last mouthful of bread, and approached him.
“What’s happened?” she asked, from near his shoulder.
“Inspector!” responded the surprised young man. “You’re asking me?”
“Yes, they’ve only just told me,” she explained. “Anyway, I’m sure you know how to wheedle information out of a witness better than any of my men,” she continued.
“That’s for sure,” he said with conviction, “I don’t have such a desire to get answers in an accident,” he said, pointing towards Miguel, who continued to insistently interrogate the man. “Unless it wasn’t an accident...”
“I still don’t know,” Eva was unperturbed by the insinuation. “Before confirming it, we always have to discard all other options.”
The young man accepted the reply with the indifference of one who does not expect any concession from the person they are speaking to. In reality, he did not even understand why an inspector should have stopped to speak with him of all people before entering the scene of a crime.
Eva advanced towards the inside of the taped-off area, and stealthily approached where the three men were with Miguel. As soon as the latter noticed her presence, he turned to face her:
“Good afternoon, inspector.”
“Constable, I’m the one who questions the witnesses here,” she whispered to him, almost in his ear. “Don’t forget it.”
Miguel bowed his head. His face was like that of a child whose teacher had just caught him copying.
Then he said, excusing himself:
“I was only asking him if he had seen her. He has to remember something about that woman.”
“And I hope that you remember what I have just told you.”
There was no need for her to press the matter. Miguel gave a reserved look towards the three men, and then got into the patrol car in which Juan, his partner, was waiting for him. They set off on their way. At the end of the day, they should not have been there.
Once the patrol car had gone, Eva directed herself towards the inside of the unit. There, the usual aroma of crushed metal did not manage to conceal the cold and yet penetrating odour of lukewarm blood. She had barely taken a few steps forward. She could make out to her left what was undoubtedly the office. Ahead was the grinder, in front of which one of the officers was tirelessly taking notes. To the left of him, and skirting the edge of the office, was the rest of the unit: it was an elongated space, and perpendicular to where she was standing. She deduced that the lorries with the crushed material would leave through the main entrance, and enter with the uncrushed material through the other side, even though this was certainly a trivial detail as far as the investigation was concerned, and as such she preferred to focus her attention on the grinder, and on the more than evident consequences of that morning’s bloody occurrence. The officer who was taking notes took no time in approaching her:
“Good afternoon, inspector. Are you leading the case?” he wanted to confirm.
“Yes, Míguez has called me.” She did not need to give any further explanations. “What do we know?”
“Well firstly that this poor guy has suffered a brutal death,” he said, a tone of compassion and fatalism was evident in his voice. “And his three employees have had to see something that no human being would ever want to see. Imagine the scene; one of them arrived and found the grinder working flat out and a wet, red mass underneath the exit chute. I don’t think even ten minutes had passed since it had happened. Then the other two arrived, and that was when they deduced that it had to be their boss who had fallen inside. He was alone, and was not expecting any visitors.”
No Resurrection Page 6