by Chris Lloyd
Almost immediately, he came across a second path that veered off from the first. He decided on impulse to take it. He thought he'd give it five minutes and turn back if he'd found nothing by then. Concentrating on his footing, he suddenly paused for a moment and took half a step back. Something he'd almost missed. Off to the left, he saw what he first thought was a large rock, but what he quickly realised were the remains of an old stone hut.
Reaching the hut, he saw it was abandoned. Some of the stones had crumbled and part of the roof had fallen in. The lock on the door had long since rusted away and the wood was rotting at the top and bottom, leaving gaps large enough for small animals to get in. Footprints and the smell told him they frequently did. He put on latex gloves and gingerly pushed at the door. It resisted stiffly for a brief moment before lurching inwards, coming to a rest against the raised earth floor. The light that came in through the gap in the roof lit up the shambles of the tiles and splintered timbers lying across the ground. Against the far wall, an ancient wooden chest stood rotting, its lid oddly cleared of the debris from the roof with the exception of three large stones placed at regular intervals along the top. And hundreds of little black objects scattered like raisins on a cake.
Josep stared at the chest for a while and went back outside to ring Montse. 'I think I've found something.' He gave her directions to the hut and went back in. As his eyes grew more accustomed, he made out more of the black crumbs lying by the right-hand corner of the chest, where the wood had rotted through. Stepping carefully forward to the far side of the room, he moved the three stones off the lid and placed them on the floor. It was only at the moment he put his hands under the lid to lift it that he registered that the black objects were dead flies. In their hundreds.
The lid was up before his brain had time to send the message back to his hands and a swarm of tiny orange and black flies rose in a bitter cloud from inside the cask. He pushed away, fighting the flies off, knocking the lid back against the wall, propping it open.
Behind him, Montse came in as he was backing away from the chest, his hands flailing at the flies. She went forward to help her colleague when she saw inside the old storage box.
'My God,' she said, dragging Josep back outside into the pale autumn sun.
Her hand shaking, she took out her phone and dialled.
Chapter Sixty Six
'This place is so lonely.'
Elisenda brushed a thorn aside and considered Àlex's comment. It was a lonely place. She remembered Sunday morning rambles along this same path with her parents when she and Catalina were children, but they never went beyond the lion fountain.
When Montse's tremulous call had first come through, she'd caught herself feeling almost a sense of relief that she'd be making the trek out to the disused drinking fountain in the woods rather than roaming amid the precarious floors and walls of a medieval terraced house looking for a dead child. That had gone now they were walking with four Científica along a shaded path to a dead body.
Behind her, Àlex stumbled and she caught him. A penknife fell out of his waistband and clattered to the stones on the path. Hurriedly, he picked it up and put it back.
'Rules are there to be broken,' Elisenda commented.
He looked sheepish. 'Hangover from my uniform days.' Many Seguretat Ciutadana kept a penknife in their waistband, even though it wasn't standard issue and was frowned upon.
The noise of snapping twigs and foul language from behind them made them turn. Another party was making its way along the path, with Albert Riera and his assistant sandwiched between two Mossos. The language was Riera's.
'Out of the way,' the forensic doctor told them as he drew level.
'Please,' Àlex replied, more in reflex than thought.
'Just get out of the fucking way.'
Elisenda stood in front of him. 'Doctor Riera, I would be grateful if you didn't talk to members of my team like that.'
Riera stopped up short and looked at Elisenda in surprise. 'I am in a hurry.'
'I don't care. If you are going to talk to anyone in my team like that, then you are talking to me like that.' She leaned forward. 'And if you ever do that again, I will have words with you. Do you understand?'
Riera stared straight at Elisenda. 'Thank you, Sotsinspectora, I will remember that. Now, if you don't mind, I have work to do. Our victims come before our personalities, as I am sure you will understand.'
Elisenda stood aside to let him pass and they carried on walking, past the fountain, and along the path to the hut. There, one of the Científica handed her and Àlex an overall each and they put them on over their clothes. Elisenda recalled the cold cruelty of a killer who could leave a man to drown in rainwater and calmly place a rubbish bin below to recreate a drum. She could already feel the sweat trickle down her spine as she steeled herself for the scene that she knew would knock the breath out of her.
*
Elisenda took a sip of water from a plastic bottle and she and Àlex watched a Científica team, their white suits ghostly in the diffuse sunlight, set up a small generator and a quartet of arc lights to shine on the hut. The sun still had some way to go before it would sink behind the trees, but the light was so gloomy in the dense wood that it was becoming harder to discern shapes. They were waiting to be told when they could go back into the hut. There was little to say.
The judge and the court secretary were standing to one side, away from them. Not Jutgessa Roca mercifully, as this was far too dirty and far too far from the city centre for her to come, but the two court officials still kept themselves to themselves. Elisenda was more than happy with that. And they certainly weren't too worried about entering the hut a second time to allow the body to be removed. They'd already signed that piece of paper. Anything to avoid going back inside the stifling cabin with its lonely occupant. For once, Elisenda didn't blame them.
Riera came out of the hut and walked over to her and Àlex.
'Elisenda,' he said. They were still treading carefully after their argument on the path.
'Albert. What have you got for me?'
'I'm not an expert in this field, but we think that the flies that are still active are calliphoridae, blow flies. And there are beetles, too. Silphidae. I've come across them before, obviously, but as I say, it's not my field.'
'What does that mean?'
'Well, you'd need an expert and they'd have to check temperature and so on recently, but given the flies and the state of decomposition, I'd say that the body must have been there between one to two months. That's as specific as I can be at present.'
'Thank you, Albert, I appreciate it.'
He made to go back to the hut, but turned again to face the two Mossos.
'What's happening to this city, Elisenda?'
'I think I'm beginning to get an idea, Albert.' They looked at each other for a moment and the forensic doctor returned to the hut, pulling his mask up over his face again.
'I don't envy him in there,' Elisenda muttered as she and Àlex watched him being swallowed by the dark of the small stone building.
Àlex made a calculation. 'One to two months. Between the end of August and the end of September. And it's been very hot since the summer, so I'd put it nearer one month than two.'
'End of September, then. Meaning it took place around the time of the Masó killing.' Elisenda tapped her empty water bottle against her leg, issuing a hollow dull sound. 'I just don't see how it all fits together. Why stage this for now? Why not reveal the victim at the same time as the attack? At the same time as the attacks on Masó and Chema GM?'
'The fly,' Àlex said simply. 'The fly drawn on the back of the tile. To coincide with Sant Narcís.'
'So where does Foday Saio fit in? Two victims to mark Sant Narcís? And it can't be in response to the attack on Foday failing as this was obviously carried out long before.'
They watched two more Policia Científica enter the hut, evidently summoned by someone inside.
'Besides which,' E
lisenda continued, 'what is this attack suppose to be reflecting? Sant Narcís and the flies? Or the lioness? He's mixing the legends.'
Àlex nodded to where a white-suited figure was emerging from the hut and walking in their direction. 'I suppose we have to wait and see who this victim is to find out where they fit in.'
The figure in white, one of the Científica, paused before reaching Elisenda and Àlex and removed her mask, gulping in a deep breath. She was holding a pair of objects in two transparent evidence bags.
'Sotsinspectora Domènech,' she said. 'Doctor Riera has lifted the body. He thinks that the victim was dead before he was put in the box. We found the victim's wallet underneath the body.' She held up one bag, which contained a stained leather wallet. 'This was inside it.'
She lifted the second bag for Elisenda to see. Inside was the victim's national identity card, kept sadly clean by its plastic coating and the protection of the wallet.
Elisenda simply stared at the name and the picture on the card.
'Thank you,' she said.
Chapter Sixty Seven
Carles Font's injuries were healing, but David Costa still turned up most days to make them both breakfast and keep the website ticking over. They were almost like old friends.
Costa had seen straight away that Font had been the one to set up the website. He had recognised his style, his turn of phrase, even his punctuation. Font had expected the editor to go to the Mossos with it, or at least lose him his job. Instead, he had come to Font with a proposition. Work together on the website. Guide it, say what they were unable to say in the newspaper, promote sales of the newspaper. And it had worked. Circulation had trebled since the attacks had started. The fact that the website had drawn out the worst and most vindictive in people was neither here nor there to either of them. They were reaping the benefits of increased sales and augmented repute in a mutually rewarding relationship. Font would make his name and eventually move back to Barcelona. Costa would garner favour with the paper's owners and get rid of his young rival on terms that suited them both.
Costa went into the living room with the breakfast tray and set it down on the table before sitting down next to Font. Font's laptop was already open and logged in to the administrator page. They checked the latest posts and saw that the tide continued to turn. Both journalists were glad they'd foreseen the gradual shift and had reflected it equally gradually in their articles.
The news of the body in the woods had broken the previous night, but since no identity for the victim had been confirmed, all the postings so far were speculation. A neighbour who'd suddenly gone quiet, a boss who hadn't turned up to work. Wishful thinking and gleefully shocked anticipation of who the dead man should be.
Font typed in a couple of postings to add to the voices raised in horror at the turn of events, and a third to keep up the antagonism towards the victims.
'We ought to shift focus, perhaps,' Costa suggested. 'Bring in more people to blame. Float them, see what the mob says.'
Font took a bite out of a croissant, brushing away the crumbs that had fallen onto the keyboard. 'The Mossos? They're an obvious target.'
'Yes, I think we should up the ante against them. Maybe even make it more personal.'
Font considered for a moment. 'There's Micaló. He's not popular with other Mossos, it might stir them up.'
'Not so sure,' Costa replied, breaking the end off a croissant and chewing it slowly. 'There must be other more high-profile Mossos we can target.'
Font snapped his fingers. 'Domènech. Of course. She's the one in charge of the investigation.'
Costa considered that for a moment. 'Yes, if you think so. Domènech. But we need a hook to hang her on.'
'Imply her involvement in the comedian's death. We could never get away with that in the paper.'
'Yes, if you think that's a good idea.'
Font opened a new account and began to type a bitter posting about Elisenda. Costa stared at his own dark reflection on the laptop screen and at a faint smile playing around his mouth.
Chapter Sixty Eight
'Actually, it's not called Font dels Lleons because wolves used to go there to drink. That's just a popular myth to try and romanticise it because of the name. It's simply called that because the fountain originally had a shield carved into the rock featuring the twin lions of Bishop Lorenzana.'
'Nineteenth century?' Elisenda asked.
'Eighteenth,' Marsans corrected her. 'He was the bishop of Girona who had the chapel to Sant Narcís built in Sant Feliu church, partly using stones from the area where the fountain was subsequently built. The fountain was probably put there to mark his part in the chapel's construction.'
'Why lions?'
'He was from León. As simple as that. The vast majority of legends that pass into popular culture really are exceedingly mundane in their origins.'
Elisenda looked away from the lecturer and out through the window of his office, but she wasn't registering the view over the city walls. It had been a curiously unreal limbo since the discovery of the murder victim the previous afternoon. Elisenda had gone to the university that morning to clarify the legend of the lioness so that she could get the perpetrator's thinking straighter in her mind. And to get away from Vista Alegre to think. She still couldn't see the connection with the fly and Sant Narcís. The post mortem was scheduled for that morning, rushed through thanks to Albert Riera's surprisingly co-operative insistence. And to the slow panic of the Mossos and the authorities finally breaking down the resistance of formality and procedure. She looked at her watch. Riera knew to ring Elisenda the moment he had news from the post mortem, if only to confirm the victim's identity. Àlex and Pau were going through the attacks on Masó and Chema GM to try to find a chronology that included the latest body they'd found. The rest of her team were sifting through the evidence of the more recent attacks, looking for anything they'd missed first time round. And Puigventós had called a meeting for later in the morning.
She sighed heavily and turned away from the window.
'So there's actually no relationship whatsoever with the statue of the lioness,' she finally said. 'That's interesting.'
'Why?'
Elisenda considered for a moment how much she wanted to say. 'Because the first thing I thought of when the tile was found at the lioness was the Font dels Lleons. And that's evidently what the attacker thought too.'
'Perhaps he knew you'd think that way.'
Elisenda looked back out of the window. Studded amid the evergreens and lawns locked within the city walls, the leaves on the deciduous trees were finally beginning to turn red and gold, escaping the deceit of summer's reluctance to leave. She shook her head very slightly. She wanted to get into the attacker's head. She didn't want him in hers.
Marsans turned to look beyond the walls. 'It's a beautiful view, isn't it? I love rambling in these hills.' Elisenda sensed him moving closer to her, almost touching her as he stood alongside to gaze out of the window. 'This is a dreadful thing that's happening to our lovely city.'
'We've been checking Pere Corominas' phone records, Professor Marsans. He made a number of calls to you.'
Marsans moved back very slightly before replying. 'He often calls me with doubts about his research. He can be really quite needy.'
'His views on the lessons of history are pretty radical.'
'Pere is a very intense young man, but also rather skittish. His views have a tendency to metamorphose before your eyes.'
'You also know Antoni Sunyer and Roser Caselles, friends of his.'
'Students, past and present. You're not suggesting they have anything to do with Pere's disappearance? With what's going on?'
The door into the office opened and Elisenda turned to see a woman walking in. She was clutching a small sheaf of papers in her left hand, the printed sheets crushed in her grip, her knuckles white. Her eyes were red, as though she'd been crying.
'How could you?' the woman said.
Marsans tur
ned to face her slowly. Watching him, Elisenda registered a fleeting expression of alarm on his face.
'I'm most awfully sorry, Aurora, I'm afraid I don't know what you mean.'
The woman shook her fistful of paper at Marsans. 'This. How could you?'
Elisenda turned fully, her eyes scanning back and forth between the two. Marsans was next to speak, relying on his charm to defuse the woman's anger.
'But where are my manners? Elisenda, may I introduce my colleague, Professora Aurora Torrent. Aurora, this is Sotsinspectora Elisenda Domènech from the Mossos d'Esquadra. She's investigating these simply terrible events that have been occurring in the city.'
Torrent brandished the papers. 'I've just received this, Octavi. It's an abstract for the lecture you're giving in New York.'
Marsans turned to Elisenda. 'I have been invited to give a lecture at a conference at Columbia University. Professora Torrent had assumed she would be doing so too, but her proposal was rejected.' He turned to Torrent. 'I'm sorry, Aurora, but this does rather smack of professional jealousy.'
Torrent almost lunged forward and Elisenda had to calm her. Elisenda looked at Marsans. 'If you wouldn't mind, Professor Marsans, perhaps Professora Torrent could explain.'
'I was invited,' Torrent went on after she'd gathered her thoughts, 'but then the invitation was revoked. They claimed another person was giving a paper that was too similar to my own. Then I found this.' She thrust the papers at Elisenda. 'It's the programme with the abstracts. Professor Marsans is the person giving the talk that is too similar to mine.'
'You know as well as I do, Aurora, that we work in parallel fields. There's bound to be an element of similarity in what we do.'
'This isn't similarity. This is plagiarism. There are phrases lifted directly from my own work in the subject. Conclusions that I reached. Research only I undertook.'