It was a hot day. He took the motorbike, riding back to the flat in the late morning to eat something at last and catch a couple of hours of sleep. Alicia offered to drive him in her car to the funeral parlour for this last time, but he shook his head. She grabbed her bag and helmet and left the flat with him.
‘I’m coming too.’
He was exhausted and his mind was dulled with pain, but riding forced him to concentrate, to sense his body again as he cornered, turned and wove his way through traffic. It was difficult, but it felt the right thing to do.
‘Be sad but don’t sink into sadness,’ Hilario would have said. ‘Change, adapt, move forward, live.’
He would have been proud of him.
It was just before five when they reached the funeral parlour. Hilario was still in the small room where he had left him.
‘I could have come,’ Alicia said, crying. ‘I could have been with him while you were resting. He’s been here on his own.’
‘It’s all right,’ Cámara said, kissing her head. ‘Everything’s all right.’
The hearse left the centre at six. Cámara and Alicia followed behind. They rode helmetless, out of respect.
A crowd of around two hundred people was gathered at the cemetery entrance, Cámara’s police brain automatically estimating their numbers. The previous burial must have been of a popular person, he thought. Then he caught sight of Daniel, Dídac and several others from the underground, and realised they had come to see Hilario off.
‘I had no idea so many people in Valencia knew him.’
Torres was there, along with Albelda, Castro, Lozano and half a dozen others from the murder squad. Each one embraced him. Castro kissed him affectionately.
‘I’m so sorry.’
He thanked them all and tried not to cry. It moved him more than he could have imagined to see them there with him.
‘I appreciate this.’
Lozano held a large wreath in his hands. On it, printed in gold letters on a dark blue ribbon, he read the words, ‘Deepest sympathy and commiserations from the Spanish National Police murder squad (Valencia)’.
The old anarchist’s death was being mourned by agents of the State. He choked as the tears mixed with laughter.
Daniel and the others from the metro kept to one side, not wishing to get too close to the members of the police who were also present to mourn Hilario’s passing. Cámara shared a few more words with his work colleagues before heading over to talk to them. Alicia was already there, along with Enrique, Cámara’s flamenco-singer friend from the Cabanyal district.
Daniel embraced Cámara tightly, as though holding his weight in case he might fall.
‘I owe your grandfather an enormous debt,’ he whispered into his ear. ‘He taught me so much, showed me the way. Now I must live by what he said.’
He pressed his face hard against the side of Cámara’s head.
‘And I must pay the debt through you, his only blood relative.’
He relaxed his grip, but still holding Cámara, he looked him in the eye, with a black, energised expression on his face.
‘I will do anything for you. You know that. Absolutely anything.’
He kissed Cámara on the cheeks, embraced him once more and then pulled himself away, tears shining on his face.
‘Everyone wanted to come,’ he said. ‘Once word got round. Look how many have shown up.’
Cámara recognised a handful of the faces there, but mostly they were unknown to him. He saw people of all kinds: middle-aged men wearing suits, like bank clerks; young men and women with tattoos and loose, colourful clothes; a dozen Moroccans – men, women and children – huddled in a small group at the side; Ecuadoreans and Peruvians, shorter than the rest, with broad noses and straight black hair; a group of five black Africans standing at the centre, chatting with some of the metro helpers. Then there were others already walking into the cemetery. So many that he could scarcely believe it.
‘They’re all here . . .?’ he started.
‘Because of Hilario,’ Daniel said. ‘He helped a lot of people, in a genuinely kind way. That travels, people sense it and respect it. When they heard what had happened they all wanted to come. Even people who only met him once or twice and have moved on. The word spread, as though it had a life of its own. And here we are.’
There were no relatives to inform. Cámara was Hilario’s one remaining family member and now he was the only Cámara left. But this was his grandfather’s true family, he thought, a random, ill-defined tribe united only by their appreciation of him and his kindness. It was the best send-off he could have hoped for.
A flame appeared, then another and another. Someone had brought some home-made torches – toilet rolls dipped in diesel and stuck on the end of poles. Within a few minutes several dozen were lit, held aloft by the mourners; and the group, as though acting by instinct, moved en masse towards the entrance of the cemetery. The attendant looked shocked when he saw the fire, and was about to say something, but thought better of it faced with so many people; it was the last burial of the day.
Alicia held Cámara’s hand as they walked through the gate and into the small enclosure. Niche walls with holes for the dead three high stretched ahead of them in neat rows. The funeral directors carried the coffin on a cart with pneumatic wheels, the group following them. Some of the Moroccan children ran ahead, laughing as they skipped through rose bushes growing in patches of garden. No one tried, or wanted, to silence them.
There was no ceremony, no speeches were made as the coffin was hoisted off the cart. Cámara stood by a pillar of the colonnade, his chest constricted, his throat tight, face muscles aching. The sun was beaming low orange light on to them, sharp and defining, casting slashing black shadows over the bodies of the mourners. The torches burnt slowly, the smoke rising from each one and joining above their heads to form a single grey-and-white chimney shooting high into the windless sky.
From the side, Enrique began to sing:
I throw my voice to the wind
And cry to the highest heavens
Because I have
A living flame
In my breast.
It was a seguiriya, the saddest style of song in flamenco.
Cámara took a step forwards as the coffin was placed into the niche and laid his hand on the wooden top. Just a second, a last goodbye to the person he loved most in the world, the man who had done so much to make him who he was. Pulling his hand away, he placed his fingertips to his mouth and kissed them.
Goodbye. My grandfather, my father, my friend.
The cemetery workers pushed the coffin all the way in. A woman gave a high-pitched wail and buried her head in the neck of a friend standing nearby. The collective sound of a mourning, crying, silent and sobbing group of people swept around them like a fog.
‘¡Ay, Hilario!’
Hilario. Their Hilario.
The cart was wheeled away. Another man appeared with a small bucket and a pile of bricks and started closing up the niche hole, deftly spreading the mortar over at the finish to seal it up. In less than five minutes he had packed up and was gone.
Slowly the group began to peel away and Cámara remained with Alicia for a moment longer. The plaque would be going up a few days later. They had agreed the wording at the funeral parlour earlier that afternoon.
Hilario had been surrounded by death for much of his life – a father executed by the Francoists; his wife lost to cancer; his son, granddaughter and daughter-in-law all lost in the few short years before he took in Max. Yet Hilario had loved life; he had rarely, if ever, dwelt on the past or the dead themselves. You mourned, you got through it, you digested and understood and learned from the experience, and then you moved on. Visiting cemeteries to remember lost loved ones had never been part of what he did or who he was. And Cámara would try to live by that, by what Hilario had taught him. This niche, he knew, only held his grandfather’s physical remains. Yet he would be returning – at least for a wh
ile. Perhaps only later, in years to come, would he be able to walk away and leave it behind for good.
Hilario, I am you. I am an anarchist. I am a Cámara.
Alicia stayed close by his side as they paced towards the exit.
Behind them, a group of tiny flies darted around the fresh cement of the niche, like a mist, ready to find a crack or the tiniest of fissures and get inside to begin their work.
EIGHTEEN
IT WAS TORRES’S way of telling Maldonado to fuck off: notes from his case were left in a neat pile on the corner of Cámara’s desk with a hip flask of brandy on top as a paperweight. Cámara lifted the flask to his lips, took a long swig and let his body relax into the chair. He was going to need this.
The new law, passed only a month before, reduced the amount of leave given to civil servants after the death of a family member from four to two days. As a chief inspector, Cámara still had some say over his work conditions – although ever fewer. Yet the new law did not say at what time on the third day he had to return to work, and so he had arrived at a quarter to midnight, making sure that the policeman on reception duty made an official note of his time of entry. It was calm that night – the mood in the streets appeared to have quietened as, in Madrid, doctors still struggled to keep the King alive and the novelty of his condition wore off. Hardly anyone was left in the Jefatura, and Cámara and the policeman – a man called Azcárraga – had a smoke together on the central patio for a few minutes.
‘My wife’s ill,’ said Azcárraga, ‘and can’t look after the kid. I asked for a different shift so I could help out.’ He laughed. ‘So they gave me the graveyard slot. Bastards.’
Cámara nodded sympathetically.
‘Who’s in?’ he asked.
‘Just me and you and the guys in the situation room. Four of them. The rest are out on patrol. Or in bed.’
‘You should lock the doors and put your head down for a few minutes. Looks as though you could do with some sleep. If anyone tries to get in they’ll rattle the doors so much you’ll wake up.’
‘Yeah, nice idea. I might try that.’
‘I’ll cover for you.’
‘Thanks. Here, aren’t you lot supposed to be in uniform these days? Heard something about it.’
‘You going to grass me up?’
‘Hah! Don’t be daft.’
They headed back inside.
‘I’ll come and check on you in an hour or two,’ Cámara said. ‘We may be doing night shifts but I’m sure there’s some work directive about mandatory breaks every so often.’
‘I’ll look it up,’ Azcárraga said. ‘Nothing better to do. No demos scheduled for tonight.’
‘Let’s hope it stays quiet.’
The truth was it was worth an excuse to get up and walk around every so often. He did not like the murder squad offices – they were small and dark and grubby. In the previous building – the sci-fi structure designed by local architect Montesa – the lack of common-sense things like enough toilets or storage space had been a nuisance, but at least everything was white and somehow uplifting. This place, however, back in their old home, felt like a pit.
He had slept deeply the previous night. Long after the cemetery closed he had remained with a core group outside the entrance, talking, embracing friends and smiling that so many people had come, that there were so many good memories of his grandfather. At the flat, he had barely enough energy to get undressed before falling into bed as exhaustion gripped him. He had expected to dream of Hilario, to find him and communicate with him in some way, but when finally he awoke, late the following morning, he had no recollection of any of his dreams.
There were bureaucratic matters to start dealing with – banks, government agencies, the funeral parlour. He knew it could take months. Long after a person was physically dead a thousand pieces of paper could still be clinging on to their life, more reluctant than the people who loved them to let them pass away.
And throughout it all Alicia had simply been beside him. She was mourning Hilario as well, but she slipped into the role of carer more easily than he would have imagined, preparing food, helping to arrange the next steps in the cleaning-up process, making a first stab at sorting out Hilario’s things – and they were both surprised how few he had: just some clothes and books and personal effects. Cámara had been certain that his grandfather had owned more. Where, for example, was the Luger pistol that he had brought back with him from the Eastern Front? Had he got rid of it during the move from Albacete? He must have thrown away much else besides – papers, furniture, his computer. It was almost as if he had been stripping himself down, doing away with his possessions until he was left with a handful of basic necessities.
It was almost as if he knew that soon he was going to die.
There were other mysteries – a letter from a financial adviser referring cryptically to the ‘recent work’ he had carried out on Hilario’s behalf, for example – but they would deal with each one in time. Right now he had to clear his head enough to get back to the Amy Donahue investigation.
He had dozed again in the evening, then drunk a full pot of coffee before setting off. Alicia had kissed him as he left.
‘I think I’ll stay up as well,’ she said. ‘If you’re going to make a habit of this, I want our body clocks to be on the same time.’
‘It’s for the best,’ he said. ‘It’s the only way I’ll get anything done. No one to distract me.’
He drew her tightly towards him.
‘Thanks.’
Sitting at his office desk he took another swig from the flask of brandy and started going through Torres’s notes. His colleague had guessed correctly that Cámara would be popping in some time. And by sharing his findings he was doing his best to undermine Maldonado’s attempt to get the two detectives competing. Although much was at stake. For both of them.
The first thing that Cámara read was that Diego Oliva was still alive and being treated at the hospital. According to the latest prognosis, the doctors were cautiously optimistic that they might be able to lift him out of the coma at some point soon. Although the risk of infection and complications was still high.
The word ‘hospital’ triggered a flash, and he did his best to push it to one side. Was Oliva’s intensive care unit far away from the emergency ward? Thankfully the bullet fired from his gun had caused only superficial damage to the building. Although he had a hazy memory of the security official complaining that it could have cut through wires or piping essential for patient care.
His mind was wandering. Another drink of brandy and back to Torres’s notes.
He flicked through them: the rest appeared to be a summing-up of what Torres had already told him. But there was one new piece of information. Before losing his job at the Caja Levante bank, Oliva had worked directly under a woman called Felicidad Galván, the head of the investment department and a senior member of the board. Torres had talked to work colleagues who told him that there had been bad blood between Oliva and ‘Feli’ when his contract was not renewed. Torres wrote that it might or might not be relevant, but that he was going to look into it further.
Cámara wondered for a moment. It seemed fairly normal that an employee would be upset that his contract was not being renewed. What was meant exactly by ‘bad blood’? Whatever it was – and Torres’s notes were ambiguous here, if clear elsewhere – it must have been enough for him to warrant making further inquiries.
Unless Torres was hiding something. The thought popped up almost of its own volition and Cámara swept it away. Why leave his notes on Cámara’s desk in the first place?
He had no idea how much time had passed, but he fancied another cigarette by this point so he went to look for Azcárraga at reception. He was unable to find him until a rumbling sound came from below the desk. There, lying underneath, with his police cap under his head as a makeshift pillow, Azcárraga was snoring. Cámara went out on to the patio on his own, smoked and stared up at the few stars visible agai
nst the street-light fog.
The idea came as he walked back inside. Torres might have left notes on his desk, but the person he had expected to had not done so. In fact Laura Martín had not even sent him an email with developments in the Amy Donahue case. It was probably an oversight – unlike Torres she would not have guessed that he was going to work through the night on his own.
Her office was one flight up. It would almost certainly be locked, but he knew spare keys for all offices were kept at reception. Being careful not to trip over the dormant figure of Azcárraga, he found the right one from the board hanging at the back of the key cupboard, flicked it off its hook and skipped up the stairs to the next level.
Laura’s office smelt of air freshener; he walked straight to the window and opened it. The place was little smaller than the murder squad’s – not bad for a one-woman team. He noticed a small teddy bear sitting to the side of her desk. They could come in useful if a child needed distracting while a witness was being questioned – not an uncommon situation in her cases, he thought.
Along the shelves were lined academic studies of sexual violence and profiles of the kinds of men who tended to commit it. They were the set texts and he had seen them before. Nothing like them had really existed when he was training to become an officer. Awareness of the problem had only developed recently and there were still people – politicians even – who wanted to play down its importance. Unbelievably, a couple of months back the current health minister had insisted that only women who had been actually hospitalised by their attackers should be added to the sexual violence statistics. A slap or a punch was all right – as long as the husband did not break anything.
Cámara glanced around, interested in what the office told him about Laura. There were very few personal things, he thought. Apart from the teddy bear there was a small photo of Laura with a small bearded man – a wedding shot. Laura younger and heavier – she had lost a lot of weight since then – in a white dress with an oversized veil; the man in a grey suit with a white rose in his buttonhole. He had the air of a university professor. There were no photos of any kids.
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