City of Good Death: A Gripping Crime Thriller (A Detective Elisenda Domènech Investigation 1)

by Chris Lloyd

  'Plagiarism? That's a very serious allegation, Aurora. You'd better have extremely good proof of it.' Elisenda could hear the undertone of casual triumph in his voice.

  Torrent turned to Elisenda. 'I don't have proof because I hadn't published any of it yet. I had a book deal and this paper at Columbia with which I was going to make my research public. But this work by Professor Marsans has led to both being cancelled.'

  'Where is your research?'

  'On my laptop.'

  'Could anyone have accessed it?'

  'No. I never leave it here. I conduct my research at the city archives.'

  Marsans spoke. 'Then how can you claim that I plagiarised your work? I've never seen it. I've never had any interest in seeing it. You said yourself you never leave it here. I quite simply would never have had the opportunity.'

  Torrent looked at him. 'You have your little disciples scattered about the city, doing your bidding. Which one did you get to do this?'

  'This is just fanciful nonsense, I'm afraid.' Marsans started getting some papers together. 'Born of unfettered jealousy, Aurora.'

  He walked in a self-consciously casual lope across the room to the door and left. Elisenda quickly scanned through the abstract of Marsans' lecture, barely having time to finish it before Torrent snatched it out of her hands.

  'I wouldn't expect you to understand it,' the academic told the police officer.

  Chapter Sixty Nine

  Elisenda found herself at the Portal de Sobreportes, staring at the Verge de la Bona Mort. The Madonna held her gaze with the same sightless beatific smile she had given to centuries of condemned and innocent.

  Elisenda took a deep breath. To her left, the Audiència Provincial, soon to be moved to a new building nearer the centre. To her right, what every child in Girona knew to be the largest Rococo staircase in Europe. In front of her, the medieval gateway into the city, its Roman foundations still visible. Beneath her feet, what was once the Via Augusta, leading straight to Rome.

  And above her, the Verge de la Bona Mort, giving no secrets away.

  She sighed and closed her eyes.

  The day of curious limbo had been irrevocably turned into one of numb activity once the identity of the murder victim had been confirmed.

  Pere Corominas.

  She now had to view him as a victim, not a suspect, tearing down all her recent suppositions to leave her searching for new ones. Tearing down the walls of her investigation to leave her without a suspect, without a focus. And tearing down the barrier against her guilt at Xarlu's death that the search for Corominas had provided.

  Until that point, she'd moved on auto-pilot. She'd left the two professors to their squabbling and gone back to the station. Assigning tasks, reading and re-reading Pau's summaries, listening, looking, structuring. And listening to her own gut feeling. The one that shocked her.

  Something else was nagging at her.

  'His mobile phone is missing,' Pau had told her.

  'Stolen by the perpetrator.'

  'No. One of the Científica thinks she saw it at the murder scene. Now it's not in his effects. It's gone missing since the body was found.'

  'Thinks she saw it?'

  Pau looked apologetic. 'Thinks she's certain she saw it.'

  Pau had also told her that Jutgessa Roca had refused their application for a warrant to search the Corominas family farm. 'She said it was no longer necessary.' And he'd discovered that Pere Corominas was already being discussed on the website. Some contributors sympathising with the new victim, a hard core still virulently behind the attacker, others who had opposed the attack on Xarlu now backtracking and applauding the treatment meted out to a gay man.

  'I guess people choose their own morality,' Elisenda had commented, her voice tired.

  And there'd been the meeting with Puigventós and the other two sotsinspectors. More painful limbo. She'd looked at her watch, not as surreptitiously as her upbringing would have predicted, and listened to Micaló waffle on about targets and societal segments and customer-oriented crime prevention. Pijaume had glanced over to Elisenda and given her a look of bored disbelief. She'd looked away. Only minutes earlier, they'd argued.

  'Nothing is being done to trace these drugs,' Elisenda had complained.

  'I am fully stretched,' Pijaume had told her.

  'Please, Elisenda,' Puigventós had said, signalling her to keep quiet. She’d looked at him, controlling her anger.

  She tuned in for a second only to realise that Micaló was still talking and tuned back out. Corominas. She could now see how the killer's mind might see Corominas as being a suitable victim simply by being gay. And she could also see how the same appalling mind might see a connection between a gay man and the ambiguous sexuality of the statue of the lioness. What she couldn't see was the connection of the drawing of the fly on the back of the tile. She knew it was to signify Sant Narcís and the flies emerging from the tomb, but nothing she knew of in the life or legend of the saint pointed to an attack on a gay man or a link with the lioness legend. Nor could she understand the timing. He had to have been murdered at roughly the same time as Masó and Chema GM and the body left until now to be discovered for the flies in the tomb to have a meaning. But in the meantime, the killer had attempted an attack on Foday Saio, an immigrant, also to coincide with the Sant Narcís holidays. That incident did at least tie in with the legend of Sant Narcís repelling invaders, in the attacker's mind anyway, even if this latest one didn't, but she couldn't see the reason for the two attacks. She also wondered what fate he'd had in mind for Foday and shuddered.

  She'd been to see Foday Saio the previous night. There'd been one too many ghosts at home when she'd got in from the scene of Corominas' murder, so she'd picked a book off her shelves – one she'd loved as a child but had no reason to keep any more – and driven out to Salt. Foday had answered the door to the tiny flat and asked her in, surprised.

  'I just wanted to go over what you remember seeing,' Elisenda had told him.

  Patricia rushed up to her at the door, but then hung back, clinging to her father's legs.

  'Hi Patricia,' Elisenda greeted her, bending down. 'I thought you might like this book. It was one of my favourites when I was a little girl. It's about a dog called Quin Desastre who's always getting into trouble.'

  The little girl thanked her and ran off to the living room with the book. Foday ushered Elisenda into the same room, where Patricia was already ensconced on a small red sofa immersed in the illustrations, and went to the kitchen to make coffee. Elisenda watched the little girl engrossed in the tale, letting out a loud belly laugh every now and then. She smiled, remembering the stories and how her own daughter had, in turn, loved them.

  'Do you like the pictures?' Elisenda asked her. Patricia nodded. 'If you look carefully, you see lots of little things going on that you didn't see the first time. Like the day you were in the park with your daddy. Can you remember anything like that, Patricia?'

  The little girl looked at the picture book and frowned. 'I saw a very old man. He had white hands and he was carrying a bottle.'

  White hands, Elisenda realised. Latex gloves.

  Foday came in carrying a tray with two coffee cups and a steaming glass of hot Cola Cao for his daughter. Elisenda looked up at him and he signalled for her to carry on.

  'Did you see what colour his hair was?' Elisenda asked Patricia.

  'No. He had a cap on. It was blue. And he was wearing a coat. It went all the way up his face.'

  Elisenda smiled at her but she knew she wouldn't learn any more from her. The one eye witness they had was too young to know what she'd seen and the attacker was evidently too clued up to show much of himself. She asked Foday if he'd remembered anything else, but he hadn't.

  'Has the Masó family come back?' she asked him.

  'No. I reported the vandalism to the police all three times, but they did nothing about it.'

  Elisenda was shocked to hear that and apologised. It should have gone
on record and been followed up. In the ensuing silence, they both looked at Patricia laughing at the book.

  'Do you have any children?' Foday asked.

  Elisenda looked back at him and placed her cup on the coffee table, surprised at how steady her hand was.

  'I had a daughter but she died.'

  Foday hung his head. 'I am sorry, Elisenda.'

  'You weren't to know.' She smiled at him. She felt like talking. The first time in years. 'She's called Lina. Short for Catalina. I named her after my sister.'

  'How old was she?'

  'Six. I got married and had her when I was still a student. Much too young. Her father and I didn't even make it to two years before we split up.'

  She shrugged and looked up. Foday looked so upset at having said anything that Elisenda felt she had to tell him more. Show him it was all right.

  'My ex-husband had a small plane. Five years ago, he was flying Lina to Mallorca for the summer holidays. One of those summer storms blew up and they never made it to the island. Nothing was ever found. No debris. No . . . Nothing. So Lina flew away from me one morning and she won't be coming back.'

  Foday asked her if she wanted to stay for dinner but she declined, saying she had to get home. She kissed Patricia and left, standing outside the building for some minutes to get her breath back. She looked down. Now her hand was shaking.

  Chapter Seventy

  Carles Queralt swore for the third time at the four giant brightly-coloured letters squashed down on the pavement like they'd been dropped from high in the sky. There's always money for modern tat like those new statues, he thought, but never anything to solve the city's parking problem.

  'Try the disabled spaces again,' Anna, his wife, told him.

  'Are you blind or what? You can see I've been trying them.'

  In the back seat, their son Jordi started to whimper.

  'Now see what you've done,' Anna told him, shifting round in her seat to calm the boy. 'Happy now.'

  'I'm never fucking happy,' Carles muttered under his breath.

  Anna rubbed her fourteen-year-old son's legs and made shushing noises, but he was already starting to cry. Carles looked at his son in the rear-view mirror and tried to smile at him.

  At the lights, he turned left around Plaça Catalunya in one last attempt to find a space amid the cars parked in brightly-coloured battery. In front, separated from him by two cars, a grey Volkswagen reversed slowly out of a disabled space and drove off. The first car in the queue drove off after it, but the second turned into the space. Carles banged the steering wheel with his fist.

  Before starting off again, he watched the driver get out of the car and lock the door. He was alone. There was no one else in the car. And he looked perfectly able-bodied to Carles.

  He opened his window and shouted. 'That's a disabled space.'

  The other man shrugged. 'What's it to you?'

  Carles started undoing his seat belt and opening the door.

  'Please don't get out,' Anna asked him. Jordi began crying again.

  Carles ignored his wife and got out.

  'I said it's a disabled space.'

  The other man waved him away with one hand. 'I'm in a hurry. I've got to get to the bank.'

  'I'm in a fucking hurry, too. And my son is disabled. I need this space.'

  'I was here first.'

  Carles advanced towards him. 'It's a disabled space. You have no right.'

  He carried on walking to the other man, his hands already raised. Through a dark tunnel, he could hear the drivers in the cars behind him start to sound their horns. He could even hear his son's mewling under the harsh sound.

  The last thing he heard was Anna screaming.

  Chapter Seventy One

  Elisenda opened her eyes and turned away from the Verge de la Bona Mort, setting off almost at a jog up the cathedral steps towards Vista Alegre.

  There were two surprises waiting for her when she got back to the station. The first was Sergi, Catalina's husband, waiting for her by the front desk.

  'Have you got time for a coffee?' he asked her.

  'Okay.' She led him to La Llosa, wondering what he wanted, and sat down at a table away from the bar, ordering coffees for them both from the waitress.

  'What is it?' she asked him after they’d been served.

  'Catalina. I think she's depressed.'

  Elisenda stared back at him. 'Sergi, of course she's depressed. She's pregnant. She's scared.'

  'Of what?'

  'Of the birth. Of the days after the birth. Of going home without an instruction manual. Of the next twenty-odd years.'

  'I'll be there.'

  'You're never there.'

  He was still stirring his coffee, so Elisenda took the spoon from his hand and laid it down in the saucer.

  'I work hard. For her.'

  Elisenda realised this was probably the longest exchange she'd ever had with her brother-in-law. It felt less comfortable than browbeating murder suspects and hopeless judges. She suddenly felt sorry for him. 'Don't listen to me. I'm having a long day.'

  He just sat and watched his coffee going cold. 'No, you're right. I should spend more time. I know you and I aren't close. But I do want what's best for Catalina.'

  'Yes, I suppose you do. But I think you want what you think's best for Catalina. You should listen to her more.'

  'Would you talk to her?' He finally took a sip of his coffee and grimaced when he realised it was cold. 'She listens to you.' He suddenly looked at his watch. 'I have to go.'

  Surprised, Elisenda watched him get up.

  'I'll call her, Sergi,' she told him. 'But it's not my job, it's yours.'

  The second surprise was brought to her by Pau when she walked back into the unit's offices. It was a piece of paper covered with times and dates and explanations for each one.

  'You're going to need this,' he told her.

  She didn't have time to ask him what it was about before a uniformed caporal came through to ask her to go with him to see Inspector Puigventós. Pau simply pointed at the sheet of paper he'd given her as she followed the caporal out through the door. Pijaume had watched her exchange with Pau and smiled encouragement at her before turning back to his computer. Along the corridors towards Puigventós' office, Elisenda hurriedly read through the notes Pau had given her, not entirely understanding what they meant. There was a name at the top of the page that she didn't recognise.

  The Seguretat Ciutadana caporal knocked on Puigventós' door and opened it to let Elisenda in. She was surprised to see Micaló in the room with him. She entered and the caporal pulled the door shut behind her. Puigventós invited her to take a seat. Micaló pointedly ignored her arrival.

  Puigventós spoke first. 'There's been a development, Elisenda.'

  'With your investigation,' Micaló added. 'In your absence.'

  Elisenda nodded, looking at Puigventós. She waited until one of them spoke again, to give her an idea of what was going on. Of how to defend herself, since she knew that that was about to become necessary.

  It was Puigventós who continued. 'A man has been arrested this morning, Elisenda. After an incident. We believe that it is related to the events that have been occurring in the city.'

  'Incident?' It was the only word Elisenda could get out.

  'A man attacked another man on Plaça Catalunya this morning for parking in a disabled space,' Puigventós explained. 'It appears the attacker has a disabled son, while the victim was not disabled. He also has a history of violent assaults. On his first wife, two counts of threatening behaviour in bars when he was younger and another traffic-related incident. Sotsinspector Micaló's men took him into custody and he began boasting about the attacks taking place recently. About how the city and everyone in it had it coming.'

  'Boasting? Or just invoking?'

  Micaló snorted. 'Boasting, Sotsinspectora Domènech. Boasting.'

  'It does appear so, Elisenda,' Puigventós agreed. 'When he was brought into the sta
tion, he made continuous references to the other attacks and claimed that this latest victim would now at least be able to use disabled parking spaces in all honesty from now on. The man he assaulted is in a coma. The prognosis isn't good, apparently.'

  Micaló joined in again. 'And my team has made the arrest, Sotsinspectora Domènech. Not your unit with all its budget and hype and political allies, but a proper policing unit with targets and goals and infrastructures.'

  'We're sure it's not just someone who snapped in a given situation? A copycat?' Elisenda asked Puigventós. 'Was there a warning of a tile or anything on the Verge de la Bona Mort to announce it? Any staging of the victim?'

  Puigventós looked down at the papers on his desk, embarrassed.

  'Please accept that your conducting of the investigation is going nowhere at best,' Micaló told her. 'We feel that now is the opportunity to hand the investigation over to a more serious unit. To my unit.'

  Puigventós looked for a moment as though he were about to apologise to Elisenda. She just felt tired at the constant rearguard actions she was forced to take. 'This is a mistake, Xavier,' she told him. 'What's the man's name? The attacker?'

  Again, it was Micaló who got his answer in first. 'Carles Queralt.'

  Elisenda glanced down at the piece of paper that Pau had given her just a few long minutes ago. The name at the top was Carles Queralt. She quickly reread what Pau had written for her and looked up.

  'And you feel the investigation should be given to you?' she directed at Micaló.

  'Yes, Sotsinspectora Domènech. I trust you can accept that.'

  She held up the piece of paper. 'Then I suggest you do your homework first.'

  'What is it, Elisenda?' Puigventós asked her.

  'A caporal in my team has cross-checked the dates and approximate times of the attacks against Carles Queralt's movements. It appears that he was at a sales conference in Madrid at the time of the Daniel Masó killing. A credit card receipt for petrol shows he was three hundred kilometres away in Zaragoza on the night of the attack on Mònica Ferrer. And it would seem that the entire family was in Lourdes throughout the whole of the Sant Narcís festivities, which is when Foday Saio and Xarlu were attacked and the tile announcing the death of Pere Corominas was placed.'