Then he spotted his way out–a disused length of television aerial cable, hanging limply from the wall where it had been disconnected. There was no time to wonder if it would take his weight: the door on to the balcony above was already being opened. He swung his leg over the railings, lodged his heel as best he could in a ledge of brickwork and launched himself towards the cable.
The skin on the backs of his fingers scraped against the masonry as his hands were propelled forwards, grasping at the dirty white plastic lifeline. He caught hold of it just as his weight started to pull him down to the greasy floor below. There was a tug, then a lurch, as he tightened his grip, only for the cable to start popping out of its brackets higher up the wall. It wouldn’t hold him for long. Quickly, he slid down as fast as he could while simultaneously putting a brake on his downward progress.
Above him one of the Municipales was out on the balcony, casting an eye over the adjoining terraces. Cámara was partially hidden from view, but still had another three metres to go before hitting the ground. Some instinct, however, told him the cable was about to break, it couldn’t hold him any longer: he had to jump.
He let go, staring down hard at the spot where he would land, calculating the roll he would need to break his fall. But the force of the impact took him unawares and his jaw cracked on his knee as his legs bent to absorb his collision with the earth. In a second he found himself lying in the dirt, face up, winded and struggling to breathe. But as his eyes adjusted to the light streaming down from the slit of sky above him, he could see that there was no face staring down at him, no Policía Local up on the balcony. He must have gone back inside.
He picked himself up and scrambled to get to his feet. He could feel blood welling up in his mouth from where he’d bitten his tongue. Spitting red as he emerged back out on to the main street, from the corner of his eye he could see a squad car parked outside the main door. Ignoring it, he walked in the other direction, only to be passed by the Policía Nacional who was meant to have been on guard duty all the time. The policeman passed Cámara at a trot, a strong scent of brandy and coffee clouding around him. He gave Cámara a bemused look as he sped past, then carried on.
The morning was turning out to be less peaceful than expected.
Sixteen
‘You look, er, different somehow.’
Torres was sitting at his desk cross-referencing some material on Sidenpol, the police intranet, as Cámara walked in.
‘Been on the piss?’
‘Where did we put the files on the Roures case?’ Cámara said.
‘I mention it because you often get this weirdly relaxed, almost serene expression on your face afterwards. While we mere mortals suffer from hangovers, you seem to get a kind of cathartic release from alcohol poisoning.’
‘Fuck it. We were only working on it a couple of days ago. Can’t have gone far.’
‘Although it does seem to affect your short-term memory. They’re on the second shelf. And a couple of the later reports were still floating around your desk the last time I looked.’
‘Spying on me again?’
‘It’s that Maldonado gets me to do it, chief. Seduces me with his bad skin and halitosis.’
‘Tart.’
‘So what’s this? Leaving me to do all the work–yours and mine, I mean–on the Bodí case? Back to Roures? Sod the orders? To be honest I didn’t see you staying the course that long, but this has to be something of a record, even for you, right?’
Cámara gave him a look.
‘I need a minute,’ he said.
Torres grunted and turned back to the computer screen as Cámara picked up the box file he was looking for and started rifling through the papers. Eventually he found the one he wanted and placed it out in front of him, ran through the details for a couple of minutes and tightened his lips.
‘Do me a favour, will you?’ he said, lifting his head to look across the office at Torres. ‘Check up the clinic in Paris where Sofía Bodí used to work, the first one. Should be in the background section on your screen somewhere.’
‘Do you want me to give you a foot massage while I’m at it, chief?’
‘No. It’d just slow us down. The address and phone number of the clinic will do for now. But thanks for the offer.’
‘No problem.’
Torres’s fingers tapped away at the keyboard for a moment or two, then after a couple of clicks of the mouse, he said, ‘Clinique Fontaine. Rue Floréal. Number: 01 44 19 16 66.’
Cámara pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket–a leaflet from the brothel–and scribbled the information down with a ball-point pen in a gap between photos of bare-breasted women. Oblivious to the images of naked skin, he sat staring at the digits for a while and then reached over to pick up the phone.
‘You’re calling them now?’ Torres said.
‘Might be.’
‘Shouldn’t you put a request through to Interpol?’
‘And die of old age before they get back to me?’
‘This isn’t entirely by the book.’
‘You know that. But they don’t.’
Cámara heard the high-pitched sound of a French phone ringing at the other end. He wanted to make contact with this lead, this urgent connection that had burst through from nowhere, even if it only meant ringing up early in the morning and hearing an answer machine at the other end.
There was a click as the ringing stopped.
‘Allo?’
He paused. This was no answer machine. Over in Paris, someone had answered the phone. Cámara lunged desperately for the French that remained to him from school.
‘C’est la Clinique Fontaine?’
‘Oui, monsieur.’
‘This is Chief Inspector Cámara of the Spanish National Police,’ he said, continuing as best he could. ‘Who am I speaking to, please?’
‘My name is Madeleine Marché. I’m the secretary of the Clinique. How may I help?’
‘I’m investigating the disappearance of a former employee of yours.’
He enunciated the words slowly, but, he hoped, correctly. Years had passed since he’d last practised, and he could understand much more than he spoke.
‘Yes, Sofía. We heard. Have you found her?’
‘No. Sadly not. But I do require some information from you.’
‘Bien sûr, bien sûr. If there’s anything I can do. Is this about the phone call we had from Sofía last week?’
Cámara cleared his throat.
‘That was part of it,’ he said. ‘Could you tell me about the call?’
‘Yes, of course. She rang last Wednesday. I answered the phone myself. I didn’t work here when Sofía was an employee, but I’ve met her on several occasions at gynaecological symposia here in Paris, and in Switzerland. So we know each other, and of course there’s the link to the clinique.’
‘What did she ring about?’
‘It was about a patient who had been at the clinic years ago, many years ago. It was a little strange, but she said she needed to check something. I assumed it had a bearing on the investigation they were carrying out into her. That’s not you, I take it?’
‘No. That was…others,’ Cámara said. ‘Different police. We’re only interested in finding Sofía as quickly as possible.’
‘Good. It’s a sorry state of affairs when we have to be frightened of the police just for carrying out our work helping women, you know?’
‘I understand. But please, you were saying–something about a patient? Could you tell me more? It’s very important.’
‘Yes,’ came the answer. ‘It was about a Spanish girl who came here back in the seventies. Can you hold on for a moment. I’ll just check the record again.’
There was a hiss at the end of the line as the phone was put down and Madeleine walked away. From his desk Torres was staring at Cámara with his eyes raised, amazed that he had got so far, but sniggering at his French.
‘Stop laughing at your superior,’ Cámara said. ‘That�
��s an order.’
There was a shuffling back in Paris and Madeleine picked up the phone again.
‘Here it is,’ she said. ‘Third of November nineteen seventy-seven. She wanted to know the names of the girls we saw that day. I’ve got the list here, but there was one name in particular she was interested in.’
Cámara waited with his pen ready.
‘And that was?’
‘Here it is,’ she said. ‘I remember. Lucía Bautista Sánchez.’
Cámara swallowed.
‘She didn’t…? Did Madame Bodí say anything about why she was interested in this particular girl?’
‘No. I didn’t ask. As I said, I assumed it had something to do with the investigation. That perhaps this girl–or woman as she will be now–might be able to help, or something. But I don’t know exactly why. She didn’t say.’
‘All right,’ Cámara said. ‘You’ve been very helpful.’
‘Not at all.’
‘Just, er, one other thing.’
‘Yes?’
‘Was there any indication where Lucía Bautista was from in Spain? Is there any record of that? An address, perhaps?’
‘No, we don’t have that information. But Sofía herself said Lucía was from Valencia. From her own home town. She mentioned it when she rang. She said she remembered feeling homesick when girls from Valencia came to the clinic. Of course, the sunshine, the paella. It must have been hard for her back then.’
Cámara put the phone down, stood up and stared out of the window at the facades of tower blocks behind the Jefatura. A thousand lives stacked into slot-like boxes, defined and delineated by the cubic dimensions of each identical apartment. Except that human lives had the tendency to spill beyond these restricted spaces.
Behind him, Torres had got up from his desk and was looking down at the notes beside Cámara’s phone.
‘Lucía Bautista Sánchez? That’s—’
‘Roures’s ex-wife. Yes.’
‘Same name, at least.’
Cámara spun round.
‘Let’s check Sidenpol again, shall we?’ He walked over to Torres’s terminal. ‘Come on, you’re faster at this than I am.’
Torres grunted and sat down again at his desk.
‘How many women with that name are there in Valencia province?’ Cámara said.
‘I’m on it.’
After a few moments accessing the database, three women, complete with photos, came up on the screen.
‘Well, it’s not her,’ Torres said, pointing at a little ten-year-old girl. ‘And even this one’s too young. She’s only thirty-five. Still wearing nappies in nineteen seventy-seven.’
‘Which leaves Roures’s ex-wife,’ Cámara said.
They both looked at the photo of a woman with black curly hair and fleshy features, her skin pale and shiny from the over-powerful flash of the photo booth. It was the same photo on the file they had for the Roures case.
‘She’s better-looking in real life,’ Torres said.
‘She’d have been fifteen or sixteen in nineteen seventy-seven.’
‘Makes sense. Got banged up. Too young for a kid, so off to France for an abortion.’
‘At the clinic where Sofía Bodí was working at the time.’
‘Coincidence?’
So why did Sofía mark her down in her diary? Why did she ring up her old clinic to check her name just days before disappearing? They had a dead man and a missing woman.
And Lucía was the unexpected link between the two.
Seventeen
Lucía Bautista lived in a traditional El Cabanyal house on the Calle Barraca, not far from the port. The facade was tiled in blue-and-white check, with vegetal motifs over the entrance. The large wooden door had a smaller door inside which opened into the house itself. Cámara peeped through the glass, shading his eyes from the glare of the sun, trying to see if anyone was in, before lifting the Hand-of-Fátima door knocker and banging it a couple of times against the metal panel.
From the reflection in the glass he was aware that an elderly woman was watching him from the opposite side of the road. She was sprinkling the pavement outside her front door with water to draw cooler air into the haze of her home, glancing up at him as he waited to see if anyone answered his call.
‘Que no está,’ she shouted over after a couple of minutes had passed with no sign of life inside. She’s out.
Cámara turned and crossed the road to talk to her, lifting his badge for her to see.
‘Policía!’ The woman dropped her eyes and shrugged. It was a common reaction among some elderly people–an instinct to have as little as possible to do with law enforcers, instilled over centuries of State and Church repression.
‘Do you know where I can find her?’
‘Don’t know,’ she said. ‘She goes out sometimes. Walking.’
‘Do you know how long ago?’
The woman was sprinkling the last of her water as quickly as possible on to the ground, looking for an excuse to head back inside.
‘Maybe five minutes ago.’ And she waved her hand in the direction of the port, as though to indicate the way in which Lucía had gone.
Cámara thanked her and set off in the same direction. It felt good to be back in this part of the city; the area had a village-like feel to it, a proper neighbourhood, and the traditional design of the houses gave it an elegance and sense of history that was hard to find in all parts of Valencia. More reason, he thought, for the Town Hall to want to pull swathes of it down. Like tyrannical rulers of the ancient world, the authorities had a crazed need to destroy anything that had been made before their rule, setting the clock to zero in order to remake the city in their own, shining, modern, reinforced-concrete image.
He smiled. These were political thoughts coursing through his mind. Not something he was accustomed to in himself. Hilario would be proud.
He looked up: above the line of the roofs stood a tower, perhaps another four or five metres higher. A torre-miramar it was called: one of the towers from which fishermen’s families had used to attach lights to help guide the boats back to the beach; a place from which one could see the sea over the heads of the neighbouring houses. There were fewer and fewer of them left now: already a couple had been pulled down by order of the Town Hall.
He emerged from the shade of the street and out into the open space of a square near the port. Opposite, the colourful boatyards that had been put up for the America’s Cup stood empty and dusty. This area had come alive briefly during that time, a couple of years before, when multi-million-dollar yachts were floating in and out of the harbour, but many of the bars and restaurants had closed now, a nosedive depression taking hold once the glamour set had moved on. Valencia had failed to turn itself into a new Monte Carlo, despite all the money that had been spent. Having marginalised neighbourhoods full of drug dealers next to the port area hadn’t helped.
There was a tram stop in the square, partially shaded by palm trees. From here he could catch a lift back into the centre. Locating Lucía might have to wait till the morning.
The tinted plastic of the shelter just seemed to intensify the heat, however, and he sought refuge under the portico of a nearby block of flats. The display at the stop showed that he had another seven minutes before the next tram came this way.
So close to the sea, the air was even denser here with the humidity, but a breeze was already developing, bringing partial respite from the sticky heat. He closed his eyes as the dizziness fell away from his skin, dripping like water and trickling away along the pavement. What had he been thinking, going to the brothel the night before? He’d never done anything like that before in his life. His fingers caressed the plastic bag of skunk still nestling in his pocket. He’d find a dustbin somewhere later and throw it away.
His eyes opened as a couple walked past him, tiptoeing into the sunshine to get around him and then back into the shade. He watched as they headed into El Cabanyal, then turned his head to glance back over
the square. Three minutes till the tram arrived.
A figure caught his eye: a woman wearing a white sleeveless top and beige shorts that stopped just above the knee. She was small and curvaceous, with a fleshy nose and curly hair that was almost all black save for a few white streaks.
Cámara took a step out from his shady sanctuary and crossed over towards her.
‘Lucía Bautista?’
The woman stopped and looked at him suspiciously. The man had used her surname; it was clear she didn’t know him.
‘Who are you?’
There was a bar open on the other side of the square and she accepted Cámara’s offer to go over there rather than talk in her house. No need to give further gossip material to the old woman across the road. Or others like her.
‘They know about Pep. The whole barrio does. And they know one of your colleagues came to talk to me the other day. But even so…’
Cámara ordered a café solo, still needing the caffeine to sharpen himself up after the previous night. Lucía asked for a bitter.
‘Any news?’
There was something soft and engaging about Lucía’s eyes. Torres was right, she was prettier in the flesh than in her ID photo, but there was something tarnished about her as well, like a light that had been dulled in some way.
‘The investigation is progressing,’ Cámara said. ‘You spoke to Inspector Torres, I believe.’
‘Perhaps. I can’t remember his name. Big black beard. Is there something wrong? In my statement, I mean.’
‘No, your statement was fine. We just have to do some follow-up calls sometimes. Trying to pick up something we might have missed. It’s perfectly normal. There’s nothing to be worried about.’
Lucía gave a sigh, her shoulders dropping as she lifted her glass and sipped her bright, cherry-red drink.
‘I told him as much as I could. He seemed to be interested in establishing where I was the night Pep…you know.’
‘That’s fine. And I’m not here to go over that again.’
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