‘What this country needs . . .’
‘. . . is a fucking revolution.’
They clinked glasses.
‘Poor old Oliva,’ Cámara said. ‘Just another suicide statistic.’
‘And he’s not even dead.’
‘Are you sure it was a suicide attempt?’
Torres took a long time stubbing his cigarette out.
‘I went to see the ex-wife today,’ he said at last.
‘Oliva’s?’
‘The same. She’s absolutely cut up about it.’
‘How long have they been divorced?’
‘A couple of years. But they stayed in touch. She said he’d been depressed. That was the reason why they split up – she couldn’t cope, she said. And he wanted to be alone, like he just disappeared into himself. Said she couldn’t get at him any more.’
He stopped for a moment and sniffed.
‘Yeah, well, we’ve all been there to some degree, I suppose. But anyway, they’ve stayed in touch, and he was really down about money and he was going to lose his flat. But they’d been seeing a bit more of each other recently.’
‘What?’ Cámara said. ‘Like, physically?’
‘I don’t know. But she said Oliva had asked her if they could get back together.’
‘When was this?’
‘A few days ago.’
‘And what did she say?’
Torres knocked back his glass of wine.
‘She said yes.’
FOURTEEN
THE ONE ASPECT of the case that no one was mentioning, and which was staring them in the face, was the matter of Amy’s work, her blogging. Was there a connection with her murder? An under-achieving husband mourning his mother’s death, or a jealous ex-lover – or some combination involving the two – was still the obvious line to pursue. But something was niggling him about Amy’s online life and the investigations she appeared to have been carrying out in the weeks before she died. That word – ‘scoop’ – kept floating back into his mind, quietly signalling to him from beyond the noise generated by the suspicions of his colleagues. And he had learned long before that these were precisely the thoughts that needed attending to. It was not a gut feeling – it was too calm for that. It felt more like a lighthouse, its steady flashing faintly visible on the other side of the storm lashing around him. It was time to heed its call.
Alicia would be ideal for the job. After being sacked from the Madrid newspaper, she had been freelancing whenever she could get the work, writing occasional articles for a national magazine that, miraculously, could still afford to pay journalists to carry out proper investigations. Then there had been some media consultation with companies developing brand awareness. But none of it was regular, and she was effectively living off the money she got from renting out her Valencia flat. Buying it outright had been the one good thing that she got from her divorce settlement years back. After she moved in with Cámara, it provided a necessary, if small, amount of cash – rents had gone down sharply across the city as the crisis kicked in, almost dropping by half in some areas.
Now, although she was kept busy helping out in the metro station, she had the time to do some research for him. Her English was better than his, and although not a news blogger herself, she would have a better understanding of what Amy had been up to. More than that – she had a playful, analytical mind: she would undoubtedly see or mention something that could be of use.
The tendency in the police was never to take work home; it had practically been part of the course at the officer academy. And the culture inside the Jefatura enforced it. Police stuff was what you did with your colleagues; it was what bound you together. And also separated you from those outside. And much as you loved them – or not in some cases – family was not police, they should not be involved. Many justified it on the grounds of keeping their own sanity intact. Take it home with you and you would soon crack up: it was necessary to have a division between work and the rest. But some things you took with you anyway, he had found, whether you wanted to or not. And by carrying it around silently, not sharing it with those closest to you, you ended up creating new divisions – emotional ones. Best to talk about it, otherwise you became a stranger at home.
But there was another reason that many used to justify not speaking to their family about work: keeping them safe. The police acted as a shield, keeping the bad people away from the good, and if the bad ever did get through to cause harm, then the police hunted them down and made sure they never did it again. And in this business of protecting, the police saw horrible things. Should ordinary people – especially the ones they loved most – be exposed to what they knew?
Then there was the ever present threat of revenge. A policeman’s weakest point was always his family: criminals sometimes hit back. Which was why almost all officers lived on the outskirts, their addresses known only to a trusted few. Cámara bucked the trend as he always had by staying in the heart of the city, but the danger existed for him as much as for the others.
He remembered the plughole at the bottom of the metal table, drinking up the fluids as they seeped out of Amy’s corpse. There was a rare and disturbing violence about her killing. He knew what Alicia’s answer would be, but doubts about getting her involved gnawed at him as he rode the short distance home.
‘Something is happening, something quite important. It’s just not totally visible yet.’
Hilario was in the kitchen, crushing ice with a hammer to make some cocktails. Cámara saw sprigs of mint and a bottle of rum on the counter: mojitos. He had arrived just in time.
‘Feeling better?’ he asked.
‘Better than you.’
He kissed his grandfather on the cheeks and looked fondly into his eyes.
‘One of those will perk me up.’ He motioned towards the line of glasses waiting to be filled.
‘One of these babies can wake the dead. If you learn how to mix them right. They know a thing or two, those Cubans. Best health system in the world.’
‘They cure everyone with mojitos?’
‘They have to. Sugar cane, limes, mint – they don’t grow much else there.’
He poured the mixture into each glass and gave one to Cámara. A small amount was left in the jug. He tipped it into the final glass.
‘This one’s for Alicia,’ he said with a smile. ‘She needs it more than you.’
They walked through to the living room. The flat was large. Despite the cuts, Cámara’s salary was still enough to get them somewhere decent, particularly in a less sought-after part of town. Valencia had changed and become more gentrified over the past couple of decades, but the Barrio Chino retained a rough edge, not least thanks to the Latin American and sub-Saharan prostitutes pacing the streets below. Which meant that good deals on flats could still be had. So used to evicting drug dealers from his property, the landlord had almost cried with joy when Cámara told him – in confidence – where he worked.
They had the entire first floor: what previously had been two separate flats had been knocked into one. The three of them cooked and ate and spent a lot of their time together, but the arrangement meant that Hilario could – if he wanted to – retreat into his own ‘quarters’ at the back, and a sufficient level of privacy was maintained for Cámara and Alicia to live as a couple.
It had been surprisingly easy. Despite his stubborn refusal to get old, Hilario could not live on his own. The obvious thing was for Cámara to take him to Valencia with him. But at the same time Alicia was being made redundant in Madrid and thinking about what she was going to do, and where she might go.
‘Move in with me,’ Cámara had blurted out, the words barely formulated in his mind. ‘I mean, with us.’
Would she want to live with him if his grandfather was also around? Would it be a good idea if she did? How would it work? Would it damage their relationship? A hundred doubts had skipped their way through his brain in the split second it took her to respond.
‘OK.’
And th
at was it. Four months in and everything going so well, he wondered why he had questioned it in the first place. Alicia and Hilario had met for the first time the previous November. Now they acted as if they had been friends their entire lives, and working together in the metro refuge gave them something in common beyond sharing jokes about Cámara.
Alicia was sitting in an armchair reading Confessions of a Revolutionary. Hilario waved the mojito in front of her face. She looked up, smiled and took the drink. Seeing that Cámara was also there, she got to her feet and kissed him affectionately on the mouth.
‘Hello.’
And seeing her face – her gazelle-like eyes, her fine nose and the tiny gap between her front teeth – he felt, as he always did, the light expanding within him.
He leaned down to kiss her again.
‘He’s got you reading Proudhon, then,’ he said.
‘It’s strangely relevant stuff, for something written a hundred and fifty years ago.’ She took a swig of the mojito and gave a low grunt of delight.
‘Mutualism, a people’s bank offering no-interest loans to ordinary people.’ Hilario stood by the window, looking down into the street. He was steady on his feet, his back straight, limbs relaxed and strong.
‘She’s right. More people should be reading him. They might better understand what’s going on. It’s happening now, right in front of us – small, anarchist societies are being created below the radar. People getting on with life in their own communities, having as little as possible to do with the apparatus of the State.’
Cámara flopped on to the sofa and beckoned Alicia to join him. It was late – past eleven – and he was not sure if he was in the mood for this. When he was younger his grandfather had been the lightning rod for his anger and resentment. Hilario had brought him up, taking on a familial duty that Cámara’s parents had given up on after the murder of their daughter, and now he was his only remaining relative. As a young man Cámara had thanked Hilario by rebelling in the most acute way that he could imagine against his anarchist beliefs – by joining the police. But the anger and self-pity had subsided over time and he had come to love his grandfather deeply, to respect and even – this was the most incredible thing – to share some of his ideas.
But despite seeing him in a much more positive light, Cámara recognised that Hilario had one fault: a tendency – on occasion – to preach. And tonight he felt some kind of sermon brewing.
Not for the first time, though, Hilario read his thoughts. He turned, as though to start speaking, then faced the window again and drank from his glass. Alicia snuggled up to Cámara and rested her head on his shoulder.
‘Daniel said an interesting thing earlier,’ she said.
‘What was that?’
‘We were talking – him, me and Hilario.’
At the window, Hilario did not move, watching the women shuffling in and out of the shadows on the pavement below.
‘We were wondering – well, Hilario said something about setting up more places like the refuge, taking over other stations along the line. You could have a whole underground city there.’
‘And what did Daniel say?’
‘He said we weren’t in the business of building empires.’
Cámara laughed, and Hilario stepped away from the window.
‘He’s more anarchist than me, that man,’ he said with a grin. ‘Never thought I’d ever say that of anyone.’
Cámara kept silent; he could tell that there was something his grandfather needed to say.
‘Change is coming,’ Hilario said at last. ‘Change is happening, and more is coming. Things like the refuge. There’s more stuff going on around the city. Similar. Someone mentioned they’re setting up an alternative currency system in the Ruzafa area. People are bartering more. New ways of doing things are popping up. They might not all survive, but it shows people want something different.’
He sat down in the chair where Alicia had been earlier. The copy of Proudhon was lying open on the armrest.
‘Sometimes I think there’s a default setting for this country, and that after a brief interlude we’re going back to it. Spain is about poverty and struggle . . .’ He paused. ‘And brilliance. And I can see all three of them – like laws of nature or ancient gods – playing out their drama once again on our little stage.’
He took another drink.
‘And we are not the audience. We’re the players.’
‘You’re talking about the King,’ Alicia said. ‘You think there’s going to be a big change.’
Hilario thought for a minute before answering. Cámara could not remember him in such a pensive mood.
‘It may or it may not take place,’ he said eventually. ‘I think more and more that these seemingly important events are no more than the outwardly visible side of something much bigger taking place, the small tip of a much larger iceberg under the surface. The King is close to death. He was not a bad man, neither was he all good, but on balance he probably acted more to the better interests of the country than against them. What happens next depends on how people react. But in some ways I think the result was predetermined a long time ago. Or not. The future, like the past, is always in motion.’
He finished his drink and stood up.
‘I need to go to bed,’ he said. ‘And you youngsters need some time on your own. If I keep you up any longer you won’t have any energy left for sex.’
Alicia giggled.
‘Oh, I’m not sure about that.’
‘It’s this,’ Hilario said, hovering in the doorway as he made to go. ‘It’s almost like a natural law.’
Alicia fell silent.
‘The importance of things – the real importance of things – is in inverse proportion to the amount of attention they demand from us, or the noise they create. Follow the things that don’t call out to you, listen to the quieter voices, and you could do far worse in life.’
He looked Cámara in the eye.
‘Just keep going straight,’ he said. ‘That’s all you need to do.’
He turned away and left them, his feet padding softly along the corridor.
‘Don’t make too much noise!’ he called out.
Alicia smiled, then looked up at Cámara.
‘He seems a bit odd tonight.’
Cámara stood up, pulling her with him out of the sinking contours of the sofa.
‘Come on. Finish your drink.’
Inside the bedroom, he pushed her backwards on to the bed and started taking his clothes off. His pistol fell out and he slipped it into a jacket pocket.
‘Is this the bit where I make a joke about your big gun?’ Alicia said, a grin stretched over her face.
‘Shut up and take your clothes off.’
‘Ooh,’ she said, yanking her shirt over her head. ‘You’re steaming tonight, baby.’
Naked and erect, Cámara crawled on to the bed, his body over hers.
‘I said no more talking.’
When they had finished, and lay curled in each other’s limbs, he mentioned the case to her, the blogging and the scoop. He could feel her face rubbing against the hairs on his chest as she nodded. Yes, she would do it.
And they fell into blissful sleep.
A full half-hour passed before either of them heard the banging.
FIFTEEN
LATER CÁMARA COULD not say whether Hilario’s arm rhythmically striking his bedroom door like that had been deliberate or fortuitous. The glass panel rattled slightly, which meant that the sound travelled across the flat. But competing against the background hum of the city, the noise of their lovemaking and the weight of their own bodies subsequently demanding sleep, it took Cámara and Alicia longer to hear it than they would have wished.
Hilario had managed to make it out of bed and across the floor, but there the paralysis had stopped him and he was now soiled and dribbling at the mouth. His eyes stared wildly ahead, fixed and desperate. His pyjama top was open, as though he had ripped at it, and the pasty loose
skin of his chest seemed to flash in the half-light, contrasting with the deep tan of his face and hands.
I’m losing him, Cámara thought. Not with his mind, but with some lower, gut-like brain. A second later Alicia was by his side.
‘Oh my God.’
‘Call an ambulance now. I’ll clean him up.’
He sprinted to the bathroom, grabbed cloths and towels, and was back with his grandfather as Alicia was dialling 110 from the landline in the hall.
‘We’ll sort this out,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll get you to the hospital. You’ll be all right.’
Hilario’s body was tense and quivering like a fist. His breathing was short and stuttered, a low grunting sound coming from his throat. The left side of his mouth arched down as though being pulled by a dentist to inspect his gums. Cámara pulled his pyjamas off and quickly rinsed him down. They needed to act as quickly as possible; everything would depend on how soon he could get medical attention.
Alicia appeared in the doorway and Cámara looked up. Her expression worried him.
‘What is it?’
‘The ambulance people.’
‘What?’
‘They said they couldn’t promise they would get here for at least an hour.’
It took a second for the information to sink in.
‘What?’
‘The cuts. They’re overstretched . . .’
‘You told them this was a stroke.’
‘Of course I bloody did. But they wanted to know how old he was and—’
‘What did you say?’
‘Well, I didn’t expect the question. I said he’s in his eighties, and then—’
Cámara stood up and touched her on the arm.
‘Are they putting him low on the list because he’s old?’ she asked.
‘It’s not your fault.’
‘I can’t believe it.’
‘We need to get him to a hospital as quickly as possible. Where’s your car?’
‘I – I parked it about three blocks away.’
‘Get dressed, go and bring it here.’
She ran back to the bedroom. Cámara knelt down next to Hilario.
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