by Chris Lloyd
'Come on,' he said now in Spanish to the figure slouched in the chair opposite him. 'You fall asleep in Sant Daniel, you wake up on a bridge half a dozen kilometres away. How'd you do it?'
'I didn't do it,' Manuel PM objected.
'So who did?' he said, the palms of both hands raised centimetres from Manuel PM's nose.
'Think I'd tell you?'
'Think he actually knows?' Pau said in Catalan to Elisenda, both hands resting lightly on the table.
She sat in silence. If she was honest, she was too enthralled with Pau's exaggerated way of chopping and changing language to answer. It was like a linguistic bipolar disorder, she thought, wondering for the first time what effects it must have on an individual's psyche. She was already beginning to learn that the newest member of her team had a way of seeing things that she and the others often didn't.
'I'm not saying a thing without a lawyer,' Manuel PM said.
'We're not questioning you as a suspect,' Pau replied, 'but as the victim of a crime. We're here to help you.'
'Like hell you are.'
Manuel PM sat back even more heavily in his metal chair. Released straight from hospital into the prison set amid a gridiron of dreary apartment blocks on the northern outskirts of the city, he had spent most of the meeting in the interview room sulkily staring at the wall behind Elisenda and Pau.
Elisenda leaned forward and spoke for the first time. 'You're right, of course. I couldn't give a toss what happens to you. We just want to ask whoever killed Chema GM why they didn't do a proper job on you while they were at it.'
Pau looked at her, even more stunned than Manuel PM but trying not to show it.
'I don't have to sit here and listen to this,' the prisoner replied.
Elisenda looked at the two-tone brown walls and the bars on the window set high up in the wall. 'Well, I don't see you going anywhere in the foreseeable future, so I reckon you do have to sit here and listen to this.'
'I'm not telling you anything.'
'No, you're not, are you? You're not the brightest spark. Even Chema GM's hotter than you and he's lying in a freezer.'
It was Pau's turn to sit in silent thrall. Manuel PM sniffed, his lips tightly shut, his right thumbnail scratching back and forth into the table top. He looked up, defiant. 'Not so smart, since he's the one that got killed.'
Elisenda shrugged. 'That was just luck. Unless it was you that bought the wine, spiked the bottle.'
'Someone gave us the bottle.'
'Bet it wasn't sealed, though. You could have slipped something in it.'
Manuel PM thought back. 'No, it was already open when we got it from the barman.'
'Where was that?'
'Place in Sant Daniel. By the river.'
'So the barman did it?'
'No, he just gave it to us. Said it was from another customer.'
'Who'd buy you a bottle of wine?'
Manuel PM shrugged. 'Didn't see. Someone keeping on our good side.'
'No, doesn't wash,' Elisenda said, shaking her head. 'Odd you didn't drink much of it.'
'I drank as much as Cristobal and Juan.' Elisenda noticed he'd dropped the initials.
'The three of you, then. You made sure Chema GM drank the most. You were afraid of him. Wanted him gone.'
'Fuck off, that's not true.'
'Masó give it to you?'
'Masó? They don't come anywhere near our part of town.'
'So when did you get the drugs?'
'I didn't get any drugs,' Manuel PM objected, slowly shrinking in his chair. 'Someone gave the wine to us.'
'Joaquim Masó?'
'Like he'd give us wine.'
'Not a friend of yours, then?'
'Joaquim Masó? He's a headcase. Not even Chema wanted to cross him again.'
'Again?'
'He saw us. The day Chema was killed. Told us to keep out of his way.'
Elisenda whistled. 'You don't want to go up against the Masó family.'
'Not the family. Just him.'
'So how did you get Chema GM out of the bar?'
'We didn't drink it in the bar. We drank it over by the river.'
'See anyone?'
'No one to see.'
'Not much call to go that way,' Elisenda agreed. 'Not much traffic.'
'Just a van,' Manuel PM said, some of his bravado coming back. 'Quiet. No one bothers us.'
'Van delivering to the bar?'
He shrugged. 'Just parked there. One of those big Citroens. White.'
'Any name on it? Anyone in it?'
'No, nothing.'
Elisenda gathered up her bag and got up. Pau followed. 'Well, that's about it. You haven't told us much.'
Manuel PM sneered up at her.
'Unless, of course, you count the bit about the van,' she added, walking to the door leading out of the cloying hopelessness of the interview room. 'And the wine. And Joaquim Masó.'
*
'Can you tell everyone to wait in my office?' Elisenda asked Pau when they got back to Vista Alegre. 'I'll be there in five minutes.'
Pau nodded and went on in. Elisenda checked her mobile for any messages from Científica about the DVD but there was nothing. She knocked on the glass door separating Pijaume's office from the main room and waited until he invited her in.
'Anything I can do for you, Elisenda?'
'Drugs, Narcís.' He looked taken aback. 'Do you know if any more have gone missing from the Hospital Josep Trueta? Or any of the other hospitals?'
'Not that I'm aware. Let me check.' He tapped something into the computer on his desk. 'No, nothing. Those are the only two incidents we have on record.'
'Have any of them shown up around town?'
'No record of any being dealt. That doesn't mean they're not being sold. Just that we haven't found anyone doing so.'
'None found on anyone else? In anyone else?'
He tapped a few more details in. 'Nothing. Why do you need to know, if I may ask?'
'We're simply trying to find out the link between the drugs and the victims of these attacks,' she told him. She saw him shaking his head at something on his computer and asked him what was wrong.
'Someone appears to be throwing things on to the statue of the Verge de la Bona Mort?' he told her. 'Some dolls and a toy bat.'
'And someone's reported it? That means there's at least one person in Girona with less of a social life than me.'
Pijaume switched the screen off. 'And a lot more time on their hands,' he added, with his twisted smile.
The rest of her team were waiting for Elisenda in her office. She asked Pau to sum up the interview with Manuel PM for the others. When he'd finished, Elisenda could see a faint optimism in the others that had been missing for some days. Ruefully, she recalled her fears of a few days ago that her unit didn't have enough work to justify its existence. Now it had too much for a team that comprised just one sergent, three caporals and her.
'We'll have a clearer picture once we've seen this DVD,' she told them, 'and then we'll divide up the areas of the investigation, but first things first, we need to follow up the sighting of the white Citroen van and any possible link between the four muggers and Joaquim Masó. Pau, can you follow up the white van? Check for any reported stolen around the time the four muggers went walkabout, and if there are any, see if they've turned up again.'
'Are we convinced the van is significant?' he asked.
'We need to follow it up. If it is, it means our man, or men, drugged them, put them in the van, drove them around town until the early morning, dropped three of them off seemingly at random and then hung the last one over the balustrade by the cathedral.'
'How?' Josep asked. 'And why?'
'Why indeed?' Elisenda murmured.
'Do we know if these are the only attacks?' Pau asked. 'Daniel Masó, the muggers and Mossèn Viladrau, I mean.'
Elisenda looked at him. 'We aren't supposed to be seeing any links between the attacks, remember.'
'I know we
aren't, Sotsinspector, but there are. My question is if there are any more.'
'That we're not supposed to be seeing, you mean?' Elisenda asked him. The others laughed wryly.
'If there are,' Pau said, 'a clearer picture might emerge.'
Elisenda looked at him thoughtfully. 'Worth looking at. Montse, can you look for any other attacks in the last month that appear like they could be related?'
'And missing persons,' Pau added. 'That might be significant.'
Elisenda looked at him and back at Montse. 'Missing persons, too.'
They were interrupted by a knock on the door. It opened and a mosso from the Científica came in.
'Sotsinspectora Domènech, I have the DVD for you. We've completed our tests on it.' He left the DVD in a transparent envelope on the table and backed out of the room.
Elisenda thanked him and looked at the parcel on her desk.
'So, what was worth killing Mossèn Viladrau for?'
Chapter Twenty Five
The picture of a young woman filled the screen.
Dressed in a long coat over jeans. The gap at the top of the buttoned-up coat revealed a red roll-neck sweater. She was standing on a square, in front of a statue of a nude male, posing for the camera and laughing.
'Well, that wasn't what I expected,' Elisenda commented.
'Is that Rome?' Josep asked.
Àlex shook his head. 'Florence. That's by the Uffizi.'
The camera zoomed inexpertly in on her face. She had a shock of long, dark hair falling in curls over her shoulders, a slender nose and a gap between her front two teeth that showed when she laughed. She was saying something but her words were lost amid the noise of the camera and the hubbub of the busy square. Elisenda turned the volume up as loud as it would go, but the woman still couldn't be heard.
'Looks like autumn,' Montse said. 'Not that recent, either.'
Pau agreed. 'Look at the people around her. What they're wearing. Got to be at least twenty years ago.'
The picture went off, coming back after a blank screen to show the same setting but with a man standing in front of the statue.
Elisenda sat forward in her seat. 'Mossèn Eduard Viladrau.'
He was some years younger, but it was definitely the priest.
The woman's voice could now be heard, speaking in Italian. She was evidently holding the camera as her voice was being picked up on the microphone. She was calling him Eduard and telling him to stand nearer the statue.
'So who are you?' Elisenda asked.
Another voice spoke. A man's. The woman could be heard thanking him and the camera was lowered, showing hectic pictures of the ground and upside-down shots of the square before settling to catch the woman walking up to Viladrau to pose next to him. Linking her arm through his, the woman leaned in and the priest kissed her on the lips, holding the kiss for some moments.
'You dirty little bugger,' Elisenda muttered.
Pau laughed out loud. 'He used to come to our school and talk to us of purity. And godliness.'
'He still does,' Àlex murmured, heartfelt after all the evenings at home watching the man rant at modern amorality.
'This is Girona,' Josep spoke up. 'How come he could have done this and no one knew of it?'
Elisenda counted back. 'This has got to be well over twenty years ago. He was in Rome for a long time. He went there after Franco died because he was too much of an embarrassment in the early days of the democracy, so the church packed him off to the Vatican. He only came back about fifteen years ago.'
'So all this was going on when he was away,' Àlex added.
'Well, someone found out about it,' Josep commented, nodding at the screen.
The image went off abruptly and a new one appeared. A still shot this time. The interior of an apartment. The same woman was standing in front of the camera, her body in profile, her face looking straight at the camera. Wearing nothing but a pair of white underpants, her arms folded across her breasts. She was heavily pregnant.
'I don't believe it,' Montse said.
'I do,' Elisenda replied. 'Now.'
The image cut to a photo of the woman with a baby, then Viladrau with the baby, smiling at the camera. Other photos of a boy's childhood appeared, most alone or with just the woman, only the occasional one with Viladrau. Then more images of the man and boy together, on a beach, in the mountains, increasing again as the boy got older.
'That's here,' Pau said. 'That's up in La Garrotxa.'
'The woman and boy stayed in Italy,' Elisenda guessed. 'When he first came back, Viladrau only saw them when he went to visit. Then they joined him. She and the son are in this country.'
Another video section. Grainy, washed-out images, brown with age and occasionally over-exposed, but no sound. It looked like an old cine film, digitised.
Another woman this time. Even younger than the first one in the square in Florence had been.
'That's Barcelona,' Àlex said. 'Up by Collserola.'
'How long ago?' Elisenda asked.
'I don't know. The seventies?'
The cine camera was evidently propped against a stone and Viladrau appeared in flickering shot. Younger, but still recognisable. The woman standing next to him looked barely half his age.
'Still a dirty little bugger,' Àlex commented.
'If that's here,' Josep asked, 'how did he get away with it?'
'If it was the seventies,' Elisenda replied, 'very easily. Franco in power. The church stronger than it had been for centuries, the regime closing ranks, no one daring to say anything and no free press to report it.'
The filming ended and was again followed by a series of still photos. Not snapshots this time, but documents. A plane ticket to London, dated September 1975. Elisenda sat back and sighed, her eyes closed for a second, she knew what was coming. Another photo, this time of a brochure. A family planning clinic in London. Then a letter with the same letterhead as that of the clinic. An appointment. For the young woman.
'Oh, Christ,' Àlex said.
He and Elisenda exchanged a glance. The pigs' abortions placed on Viladrau's body, they both recalled.
'He made her have an abortion,' Elisenda said.
'Why London?' Montse asked.
'It was illegal here in those days.' Àlex explained. 'But not in London.'
Elisenda leaned forward, gripping the desk. 'So while Viladrau and his like were denying every other woman in the country the right to choose to have an abortion, he was probably denying that poor young woman her right to choose not to.'
They turned back to the screen.
The final image was of a death certificate, also dated September 1975. The name on it that of the young woman in the appointment. The cause of death, suicide.
The five Mossos in the room sat and stared in silence at the blank screen. There were evidently no more pictures, but no one wanted to switch it off.
'How did he get away with it?' Montse finally whispered, echoing Josep's question of a few minutes earlier.
Elisenda leaned forward and took the DVD out, holding it up.
'He didn't.'
*
Àlex was the first to speak. 'They are punishments.'
'I think so,' Elisenda agreed. 'I will take this to Puigventós and Roca, but whether they'll be willing to see a connection between all three is another matter.'
'They've got to see they're linked,' Pau said.
'Jutgessa Roca's got her own agenda. She'll want to keep the Daniel Masó killing separate so she can take on the gangs. And I imagine Puigventós won't want to see a serial killer on the streets. He'd sooner see Masó as a gang killing, even Chema GM as well, and Viladrau as separate to play the whole thing down. The one argument they've got is that Masó was killed in a knife fight and these two both appear to have been drugged. We'll know more about how Viladrau died on Wednesday. In the meantime, we need to know how we're going to carry on.'
She looked at everyone in the room individually.
'This does n
ot go out of this unit, but we are seeing them all as linked and we will be investigating them as such. Whether that's the official line or not.'
All her team nodded their agreement.
'What about Joaquim Masó?' Àlex asked.
Elisenda considered for a moment. 'Viladrau's death would seem to put him out of the picture, but we can't rule him out completely. Pau, can you check for any historical links between the two of them, see if there's anything that would make Joaquim Masó target him. It might be some spree that killing Daniel set Joaquim on that would include the priest or it might be some massive attempt to distract. Also, what are the links between him and the muggers? Either way, I still get the feeling Joaquim Masó's falling out of the frame.
'Montse, I want you following up Daniel Masó. Watch what happens to his business, if Uncle Joaquim does appear to be taking it over, also any victims making a noise. Besides that, I also get the feeling that not much has been done about these stolen drugs. Get out to the Hospital Josep Trueta and nose around. Someone there might know something.
'Josep, you'll be concentrating on the muggers. Get out to the prison and interview the other two, see if they noticed anything about the van. If there was anyone in it. They're not the shiniest pins, but between them they might come up with something they remember. Don't let them know it's the van we're interested in, though, or they'll clam up for the sake of it. And then I want you to have a word with the barman who gave them the bottle. See if he remembers anything. And check up on known victims of theirs.'
Àlex shifted in his chair. 'That leaves Viladrau.'
Elisenda laughed wryly. 'I'm leaving the priest to the most secular of us all. Àlex, we want to find the woman, she might know something. And the son. And check out family members of the first woman, the one who died, see if any of them know what happened and might have wanted Viladrau dead. Also, look for any other women who have been victims of his.' A thought occurred to her. 'Just for reference, is anyone here religious?'