Mobile: Unknown.
Leads: None.
Immediate actions: Focus on the case of Corregidor Cuatro.
Awaiting post-mortem and fingerprint reports.
When Eva had already walked out through the door, Antón called her back, offering her the telephone.
“It’s Inspector Lago, from Vigo,” he whispered.
Eva returned immediately. She took the phone and then sat down. She proceeded to listen attentively, and also with a certain air of powerlessness. A short while later, she hung up and sat thinking for a moment. Then she looked up at Antón, who was waiting expectantly:
“They’ve found Aurora’s body in her residence,” she said. “The think it could have been a suicide. Tomorrow morning, they will send us a report with everything they’ve been able to find out.”
Antón said nothing. He knew the significance of that news.
When Eva had now gone, he searched for the previous night’s report, took out his pen, and added onto it, just to the side of the word ‘Aurora’: ‘She has been found dead in her home (probable suicide)’.
HOLY WEDNESDAY
12
Marc took off his t-shirt and contemplated his naked torso in the mirror. Broad shoulders, smooth pectorals, defined abs. It was all perfect. Then he brought his hands together in front of his abdomen and tensed his muscles as much as he could. More than perfect. Impressive. Lastly, he looked down at his ribcage: the place where it was almost impossible to acquire visible musculature, due to the most basic limitations of the human body itself. He contemplated it for a long minute, perhaps more. Then he made a satisfied gesture of approval. He was already beginning to appreciate some slight undulations in that area. Very small, but very valuable to him, given that he had spent three weeks working intensively on improving that part of his body. One can have perfect abs, that is not difficult, but to recover the ribcage with musculature is a whole other story: it is the Achilles’ Heel of any bodybuilder. It does not really allow itself to be covered by muscle, in spite of all the time spent in the gym.
The checks now finished, Marc put back on the close-fitting t-shirt he had chosen to wear that day. He had always been concerned with having a well-toned body, but had begun to take it more seriously, making it more chiselled in the gym, since he had begun working as a bouncer. That was also the moment when he decided to shorten his name. What body-builder was called Marcos? None, he thought in that moment. Marc was a far more suitable name. It struck him as a name with character and personality. He did all of this no more than five years ago.
He adjusted his tight jeans and went to the kitchen. He squeezed the juice out of three oranges, mixed into a bowl some honey with a decent handful of oats, and took out of the fridge some fat free yoghurt and a carton of egg whites. He left the yoghurt on the table, next to the juice and the bowl, and chucked into the saucepan the equivalent portion to six egg whites along with a whole egg, previously beaten together. Whilst the omelette set, he contemplated the glass of chocolate milkshake that his mother had left prepared for him before she had left for work. She just doesn’t get it, he thought. No matter how many times I repeat that my breakfast has to be special, she doesn’t listen. When the omelette had turned golden, he put it onto a plate and took it to the table, along with his customary everyday multivitamins. Upon finishing his breakfast, he washed, dried, and put away all of the utensils he had used. Lastly, he poured the chocolate milkshake down the sink and left the glass in there, dirty. That way, at least he wouldn’t have to put up with sermons at midday, when he would be coming back to eat.
He returned to his bedroom to grab his rucksack, mobile phone, and put on some comfortable trainers. It was already ten in the morning and he needed to get going. He had ahead of him a full and perfect day: a morning at the gym, an afternoon of rest, and a night of work. Beforehand, he would have a black coffee in the café downstairs; very strong as always, to stimulate the central nervous system before beginning work with the weights.
As soon as he left through the door on the Avenida de Marín, he took a right and walked towards the car-parking spaces. Checking the state of his car just as he was leaving the flat had formed part of his daily routine for years. Marc walked forward only a few metres and, in the distance, he contemplated his little jewel. It may not have been the most modern, or the most sophisticated, but it perfectly fulfilled everything that he asked for in a car: big, sporty, and powerful. He had invested a lot of money in prepping his Opel Calibra 1994 into its current state: impeccable red, with an imposing spoiler, and a suspension lowered as much as the law would allow. And, of course, it was petrol. In an ideal world, diesel cars should be abolished, Marc would often say. They’re a great source of pollution, and only serve to express the complexes of those who drive them. Often, men and women who make modesty their main virtue are simply trying to hide the fact that they really don’t have any others.
Basically, he could pay for a private garage, but, who would want to have a car, just to hide it away? Marc was of the opinion that a true man had to be proud of three things in life: his body, his car, and his amorous conquests. And for him, the three needed adequate publicity.
He didn’t bother to approach it. As soon as he checked from a distance that the spoiler was still intact, he turned around and retraced his steps in order to go towards La Rotonda, the café situated on the other corner of the street. His morning coffee awaited him.
On the way, he savoured the idea that as it was the Wednesday before several festive days, the place where he worked would be especially crowded at night. Deep down, he felt privileged. He had a comfortable job that allowed him to feel powerful, to decide of his own free will who could enter and who couldn’t’ and, at the same time, it opened the doors for him to meet teenage girls who were keen to enjoy moments of intimacy, without the danger of his receiving unwanted calls the next day; those of regret that they have fallen in love after a night of pleasure, or those who are simply hoping to repeat the experience.
But Marc did not fall in love, nor was he ever with the same girl twice. His sculpted body allowed him to change his partner every night. And they were always young, very young. Because as he himself often said, if a girl has a body and the will, who cares about her age? Who’s bothered if a young girl spends a pleasant time in your arms? Her parents? If her parents are the ones who are bothered, they shouldn’t let their daughters stay out until dawn. Nature is wise; it wouldn’t give desire to someone who couldn’t handle it, he always concluded.
He pulled the glass door open and entered, taking a look through the entire café, giving the room a once-over, without lowering his chin even a centimetre. Two women seated alone, each at a table. At the bar was one dishevelled-looking man, and another man doing nothing. On a table at the back, on the wooden flooring, a couple concealed with some effort that their routine was becoming unbearable.
But in spite of his grand entrance, nobody looked up when he walked in.
13
Marc made his way to the end of the bar, striding confidently as he always did. Then he carelessly dropped his phone and keys on top of the counter, and waited for Roberto, the waiter, who was already making his leisurely way to attend to him.
“What’s up with your customers today, are they asleep?” said Marc, as a greeting.
“Calm down. When you get here tomorrow, I’ll roll out the red carpet for you.”
Marc smiled. It was the most basic action in his repertoire, but one that he always used whenever he could not immediately find some ingenious response. This often happened to him with Roberto, who was approaching forty, who neither acted like a dazzled teenage girl, nor felt any special predisposition for muscular men. Very much on the contrary: he was of the long-held opinion that body-builders, for all their egocentricity, were some of the most difficult people to serve in a bar.
“Coffee as usual?” asked Roberto.
“Yes, very strong.”
As the wait
er was placing the cup underneath the machine, Marc went towards the café door, without saying a word. The strident sound of his mobile announcing a call spoke with even greater clarity than he usually did.
“Miguel, c’mon mate, listen. You have to call me right now? Can’t you wait just a few minutes?” He could be heard throughout the entire café as he opened the main door.
On the other end of the line, the other speaker neither wanted nor needed to create a scene; and wanted even less to joke around:
“Leave out the crap. Are you coming to the gym today?” Miguel asked gravely.
“Course, wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he answered, looking carelessly back towards the café’s interior, and stopped on one of the women very close to the door. She was attentively reading the newspaper, oblivious to all, sitting with her legs crossed and wearing a curious pair of glasses that gave her an extremely intellectual appearance.
“Yes, yes, but I wanted to know if you were coming to the gym, because I have to talk to you as soon as possible,” could be heard from the other end of the line.
Marc’s attention remained on the woman, without missing a single detail of her movements. First, she smoothed down her hair, then repositioned the glasses on her small nose and, finally, uncrossed her legs and re-crossed them again in such a careless way that it ended up being extremely sensual.
“And you mean to tell me that it’s something urgent enough for you to be calling me now?” asked Marc, with an unusual slowness.
“Yes, it’s important,” replied Miguel, brusquely, without providing any further explanations. “But I’ll tell you properly at the gym.”
Marc stopped listening for a moment. The woman had looked up until her eyes met with his, holding his gaze for a few intense seconds.
“Are you listening?” demanded Miguel.
“Yeah. Like I told you, I’ll be there, like always. I’ll be there around eleven, and you can tell me then,” Marc concluded.
When the woman had lowered her gaze, the young man studied her attentively: around thirty years old, dark hair, slight build, and enigmatic, very enigmatic.
“Okay Marc. I’ll see you then.”
“Okay.”
As soon as he hung up, Marc looked at his phone and for a moment, reflecting on the conversation that he had just had, and made a gesture of bewilderment. Miguel, his friend since childhood, gym companion, and accomplice on more than one night out on the town, was not the type to become nervous often. And even less so since he had joined the police force. Inevitably, there must have been a powerful reason for him to have called him when only a few minutes later they would be meeting up at the gym. Anyway, he would find out soon, he thought. And he forgot all about it.
He went back into the café, with a cheeky countenance as he passed the enigmatic woman, who was by the front door, and made himself comfortable once more at the end of the bar, where Roberto was waiting for him.
“Who’s the girl by the door?” he asked, trying to give off a certain air of disinterest.
“I don’t know. I think it’s the first time she’s come in here, but she’s been sitting there all morning,” explained the waiter, as if that fact made him uncomfortable.
Marc looked again towards the door. The enigmatic woman, oblivious to the conversation, had closed the newspaper and was now making her way towards the two men. Roberto, on his part, did not seem disposed to consider her a topic for conversation:
“You working today?” he asked, looking at his customer.
“Yeah... and I wouldn’t mind if a girl like that were to have a drink with me,” Marc said, pointing towards the woman, who at that moment passed by his side.
She did not look at the men, nor change her course. She simply limited herself to passing by and going into the toilets.
“She’s a bit old for you, isn’t she?” noted the waiter, eventually, whilst he entertained himself with reading one of the many newspapers that were on top of the bar.
“Doesn’t hurt to change your habits every now and then. I’m starting to get sick of drunk little girlies.”
Roberto, without looking up from the newspaper, made a gesture to say that he always had a hard time understanding him, whilst Marc put his hand in his pocket to take out his wallet.
“This is for the coffee.”
The waiter took the ten-euro note that Marc was offering him and went towards the till:
“Listen son, enjoy yourself while you’re young,” he imparted from there. “Just look at the owner of Covelo Recycling,” he said, pointing towards the newspaper, “twenty-eight years old, a whole life ahead of him, and he ends up falling into the grinder and, less than two minutes later, he’s nothing more than minced meat.”
Marc grabbed the newspaper, oblivious to the change that Roberto was holding out for him, and read it for a few seconds without paying attention to anything. Then he exclaimed:
“Shit, I know him!”
“Well, you knew him...” corrected the waiter.
“Yeah, it’s Sebas. We were friends a while ago. Stupid guy; a real bighead.”
Roberto couldn’t hold back a laugh.
“Yes, I can see. And yet you were friends...” he said ironically.
“Yeah, we were. But then he got married with a good little girl. Her father supported him with setting up the business and then he just cast everyone else to one side. You never really know a person, or just how much they can change.”
“Did you stop being friends?”
“Completely. I can’t stand that type of person. Before, he’d spend the whole day glued to a joint, and now he spends it between the legs of his little wife. So I guess he did have something to gain by changing. But anyway, serves him right,” he added, with a certain air of superiority.
The waiter did not respond this time. He went to the other end of the bar where the woman, who had, by now, left the toilet and returned to her table without anybody noticing, called for his attention so she could pay. She asked for a small bottle of mineral water, to take with her, and she paid for it along with the breakfast that she had had during those long two hours. Then she gave a furtive look to Marc, and left with the same intellectual air with which she had been reading the newspaper.
“Tell you the truth, she really wasn’t bad at all,” said the waiter, on his way back.
“Like I already told you. Ideal for a long night of sex.”
“Son, you have an overactive imagination.”
“You were the one who told me earlier to enjoy myself while I’m young. So that’s exactly what I’m gonna do. And if the idiot Sebas had done the same, you know, ‘one night and then total amnesia the next day’ sort of thing, then he’d definitely be alive now.”
Roberto was unable to continue the conversation. A text message took all of Marc’s attention. As soon as he had read it, he said goodbye.
“Well I’m off. I dunno what this is all about,” he said, pointing to his phone as he left. “He has so many crazy weird feelings about stuff that anyone would think he was a policeman.”
The waiter didn’t know what he was talking about. But in all honesty, he didn’t care either.
14
Marc left the café reading the message. It read: ‘Where are you? Are you coming or not? Give me three rings when you get here, alright?’ He didn’t answer. He erased the message, put the phone in his front pocket and, as he walked, could not avoid exclaiming out loud:
“What are you on this morning?!”
He approached his car at a good pace. Miguel had one big virtue: punctuality. And one defect: trying to impose it on the rest of the world via sermons. And today, Marc was in no mood to put up with any sermons.
When he drew level with his vehicle, he noticed that it was leaning slightly towards the driver’s side. He went around the back of the car, and from there could see that his front right tyre was flat, with the wheel rim resting on the tarmac. Goodbye speed and hello sermon, he thought at that moment. Altho
ugh at the same time, he also thought it was always wise to be philosophical about such things.
He unlocked the car with the fob and, from inside, activated the switch to open the boot, leaving his jacket on the back seat. A few seconds later, he took out the spare tyre, which he rested against the vehicle, and he took out the jack, which he left on the ground, just to the side of the flat tyre. Then he lightly rolled up the sleeves to his t-shirt, bent down next to the flat tyre and loosened the bolts holding it in place. Once he had done this, he grabbed the jack, which he placed in the part of the chassis designed for such a thing, and starting to crank up the handle, the vehicle began to rise up immediately.
“It’s not a puncture,” he heard directly behind him.
Marc stopped. Standing next to him, speaking, all serious and with her irresistible intellectual appearance, was the enigmatic woman with whom he had tried to flirt barely a few minutes ago. Her image, which had appeared slight inside the café, seemed much larger now that he was bent over. For a moment, he was happy at having to change that wheel.
“Hey! And how would you know?” asked the young man, with a smile on his face.
“When I left the café, I was about to go into the post office, but I heard a noise. I approached, and saw a man letting down the tyre. That very one,” she affirmed, pointing to the one that Marc was about to change. “The man ran away as soon as he saw me.”
“Quite the heroine.”
“No, no,” the woman corrected, with conviction. “If I had been, I would have restrained him. But to do that, I would need to have your strength, and I don’t think I do,” she said, as she looked at Marc’s biceps.
“Well, at least you being here stopped him from damaging anything else. Thanks, really.”
“It’s nothing, I would have done it for anyone. Anyway, I didn’t know the car was yours.”
“Well yes, it is, as you can see. What a coincidence.”
“In any case, it’s clear to see that neither you nor your car are shrinking violets.”
No Resurrection Page 8