Blood Med

by Jason Webster

  Azcárraga’s coffee was lukewarm, but drinkable. Within a few moments he began to feel its effects. Pulling the files out of his bag and laying them on the desk and on the floor in a rainbow around his chair, he began to concentrate on Amy and the investigation. After a few minutes’ warming up, the computer flickered at him as well, and his eyes darted between paper and pixels as he took up the details once again of the American girl’s murder and what they had learned so far.

  Never forgetting Oliva.

  Witness statements, reports, notes from the interviews with Alfredo Ruiz Costa, observations from Albelda, details and facts gathered from social media sites: Lozano and Castro had been looking at everyone who was connected with Amy on the Internet, checking their Facebook and Twitter accounts, blogs and websites. Meanwhile a patrol had been checking up on Ruiz Costa since he had been released from custody: Amy’s husband was spending little time at the flat. A relative – an aunt, by all accounts, a sister of his mother – had come round and he had gone to stay with her. They were not keeping formal tabs on him, but a policeman asking neighbours an occasional question could give them enough to go on for the time being.

  And for the most part the information tied in with everything they already knew or had surmised. Nothing new or fresh jumped up at him.

  Until he went over Albelda’s notes for the third time. Which was when he saw something that caught his eye: the gym opposite Amy’s flat, and its owner. Albelda had done a thorough job, trawling through the records to find every piece of information that he possibly could about the witnesses he had talked to, the people who had been closest to Amy at the time her life had been extinguished.

  And the name he read on the piece of paper lying on the floor at his feet sent a chill up his spine.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  HE ONLY BECAME aware of the footsteps at the last moment, as they approached the office door. He turned as the handle spun and looked up. It was Laura.

  ‘I thought I’d find you here,’ she said. ‘I needed to catch you before you left.’

  They took the lift.

  ‘The first shifts will be coming in soon and we won’t be disturbed up here,’ she said.

  ‘There’s something I want to talk to you about,’ Cámara said.

  ‘Good.’

  They stepped inside her office and Laura closed the door behind him.

  ‘You go first.’

  He had picked up the papers from the floor of the murder squad office and now spread them on Laura’s desk.

  ‘The gym opposite Amy’s flat,’ he said. ‘I think we should take a second look at it.’

  Laura fell into her chair on the other side of the desk, her mouth open with surprise.

  ‘It’s officially owned by a private security company,’ Cámara continued. ‘Protegival. I’ve come across them before. They do all sorts – guarding shopping centres, office buildings, patrolling industrial estates. But they’re mainly known for operating in the nightclub and prostitution business. Almost every brothel in the local area has Protegival men on the door. You can always spot them – they have dark green, military-looking uniforms with a red, shield-shaped badge on the shoulder.’

  Laura nodded as he spoke.

  ‘I know some of this,’ she said. ‘But go on. I haven’t been in the city for long – I’m sure there are gaps in my knowledge.’

  ‘They’re something of an institution in Valencia,’ Cámara said. ‘Because they’re everywhere and because they sometimes get into trouble. There have been cases brought against their guards on more than one occasion, usually for excessive violence. Two or three years ago one woman had to have her face rebuilt after falling foul of Protegival men at a disco.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘The guard got off. Not guilty.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘There are reasons to suspect that the company has powerful friends. The head of the organisation is a man called Francisco Soler. Former military commander – he left the army in 1982, after the Socialists got into power for the first time. Which is when he set up the security company.’

  ‘And you’re saying the gym opposite Amy’s house belongs to him.’

  ‘To Protegival, yes. I was aware that they had one in the city somewhere. I just hadn’t clocked that it was that one. Presumably they use it to train and beef up their guards. The thing is, they’ve been operating in the city for the past thirty years, and they’ve built up a network of powerful connections.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘I’m saying that working side by side with various police organisations over that time has created a bond between Protegival and a certain number of our colleagues. Only last year the director general of police here in the city awarded medals to half a dozen of Soler’s guards. Meanwhile Protegival has its own training academy where, among other things, they teach recruits how to handle explosives and how to pass the necessary exams to get into both the Policía Nacional and Policía Local.’

  Laura pressed her fingers to her temple, listening.

  ‘Quite a few of the people who work with us here in the Jefatura,’ Cámara said, ‘were trained by Soler’s organisation before joining us.’

  ‘Is there anything wrong with that?’

  ‘Perhaps not on the face of it, I agree. But what I didn’t know until a few days ago is that Soler is not only head of the Protegival. He’s also the leader of some shadowy political party called the LOP.’

  Laura sat up.

  ‘Yes, the Legionaries of Order and Progress,’ she said. ‘I know about them.’

  ‘Soler was on TV a couple of days ago,’ Cámara said. ‘The day of the corralito. He rarely appears in public. But he was holding a press conference as a political leader. Talking about upholding the unity of Spain, sending troops into Catalonia and the Basque Country.’

  There was a moment’s silence. They were straying into politics – not the petty, personal kind that interfered with their work as police officers, but the politics of parties and ideologies that could split the country apart.

  ‘It almost makes you wonder what his guards are really for,’ she said, lowering her voice. ‘Make the connection between Protegival and the LOP and they almost sound like members of a private army.’

  Both of them had lived through the difficult years of the 1970s and the country’s transition from dictatorship to democracy after Franco died. Small political groups had been springing up all the time, not all of them peaceful, and various terror organisations had been born – some longer lasting and more effective than others. As the regime crumbled, the forces doggedly resisting change and those demanding it had clashed and brought violence into the ordinary lives of many people. Now that the most notorious and successful of them – ETA – had renounced violence, it was easy to forget that those years had, at times, felt like an echo of the months leading up to the outbreak of the Civil War, when assassinations and bombings had become almost daily events. Now, once again, the country seemed to be caught in a downward spiral – economic collapse, endemic corruption, moves by certain regions to break away and become independent. And this time the central figure around which the country could unite was incapacitated. The King was still lying in a private hospital bed; his son was unproven as a stabilising force.

  From his party’s name and the language he had used during the press conference, it was clear what Soler’s agenda was: the LOP was a Far Right Nationalist organisation yearning for the days of Franco.

  ‘Why do you want to check the gym out?’ Laura asked.

  What Cámara had detailed so far was interesting, but the connection with Amy’s murder was not obvious.

  ‘It doesn’t feel right,’ he said. ‘There may be nothing in it, but I want to take a closer look at them.’

  ‘The funny thing is,’ said Laura, ‘I think I’ve already got something.’

  Cámara looked surprised.

  ‘This idea of yours that there may be a link between ou
r case and the death that Inspector Torres is investigating,’ she said. ‘Do you remember the neighbour who talked about hearing someone saying cartero over the intercom?’

  ‘Yes. What was his name? Hernández?’

  ‘Manuel Hernández. I went to see him yesterday. Wanted to talk to him myself.’

  ‘Did you mention this to Torres?’

  Laura paused.

  ‘I sent him an email,’ she said. ‘Of course, with all the hundreds arriving in our inboxes every day, it’s anyone’s guess whether he’s read it yet.’

  Cámara smiled. Perhaps she was not as straight as he had imagined.

  ‘OK. Go on. What did you find out?’

  ‘Hernández is an old man living on his own. And he’s clearly frightened by what happened to Diego Oliva.’

  ‘But he told you something.’

  ‘Yes. He didn’t just hear the supposed postman calling from the street. He saw him as well. Or I should say, them.’

  ‘Them?’

  ‘There was a group of them. Hernández was on his way to the market to do some grocery shopping. He had just stepped outside his own front door and was about to call the lift when he heard “cartero” being called out from downstairs. He remembered clearly because it wasn’t the time that the postman usually comes.’

  ‘Just like with Amy’s place,’ said Cámara.

  ‘So he waits for a moment and looks over the banister to see who it might be. He thinks he saw three men.’

  ‘Description?’

  ‘Not much we can go on. They were all wearing baseball caps and he was looking at them from above.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘They called the lift from the ground floor before Hernández was able to press the button, so he decided to walk down the stairs. By the time he reached the second floor – Oliva’s flat – they had gone.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘He doesn’t know. But he’s convinced that not all of them went up in the lift. He heard footsteps on the stairs as he was walking down. But there was no one there by the time he reached the lower floors.’

  ‘Did he hear anything?’

  ‘Nothing. Even assuming that the men were inside Oliva’s flat by this time, he might not have heard what was going on inside. That’s a solid structure, thick walls. The only reason why he heard the men calling from outside was because there was a missing pane of glass above the door opening out to the street. The stairwell acted like a sound chamber.’

  ‘A missing pane of glass?’

  ‘It’s been replaced now. I checked.’

  ‘So we’ve got three men wearing caps, probably pretending to be postmen or delivery men, entering Oliva’s block of flats just before he takes a dive off his balcony,’ Cámara said. ‘But what’s the connection with the LOP?’

  ‘Hernández gave one other detail about the men he saw.’

  ‘From above.’

  ‘That’s right. Not the best angle, but every time he mentioned them he seemed to puff himself out, as though trying to make himself bigger. I asked him what he was doing, and he said – he was a bit confused – but he said they were big young men. And he put his hands over his shoulders, as though to bulk them out, or show big muscles.’

  ‘They worked out,’ said Cámara.

  ‘Yes, in his own way I think that’s what he was trying to say.’

  ‘So the men Hernández saw in Oliva’s block of flats were young and beefed up.’

  ‘And were pretending to be postmen.’

  ‘That’s it? That’s the link with the murder of the American girl?’

  ‘Well, we’re looking at links, aren’t we? It seemed worth investigating. Then I started digging around and found a connection between the gym opposite Amy’s flat and the LOP. Two years ago an anti-fascist group tried to burn the place down, claimed it was a recruiting centre for the Far Right. All they did was leave some scorch marks on the outer shutters. The connection between the LOP and Protegival was unclear, but I started looking into the party to see if Webpol had anything on them.’

  ‘What did you find out?’

  ‘Like you were saying, accusations of violence, but nothing that has ever stuck. Not one single member of the LOP is on the police DNA database. But,’ she raised a finger, ‘it’s interesting that you remember the case involving the woman who had her face destroyed. There’s a curious pattern of violence against women in the cases that are brought against them. Beating up girlfriends – or accusations, I should say. But also harassment of women at nightclubs. There was even an incident in which one young man was killed – he had a heart attack while they were beating him up.’

  ‘Protegival guards,’ Cámara said.

  ‘The reports didn’t say,’ said Laura. ‘But now you mention it, the pattern fits.’

  ‘You never feel you’re getting the full story with these guys, as if someone is always covering up their tracks.’

  He paused, his eyes staring into space. Laura coughed.

  ‘So this case,’ he said.

  ‘Like with all of them,’ Laura said, ‘he got off. Insufficient evidence, according to the judge. The boy was shown to have had a heart condition, so they couldn’t prove that the arrest had actually caused his death. But it was also reported that the guard had been trying to grope a woman at the disco. The man who was killed was her boyfriend. Again, there’s the element of sexual assault. There’s a pattern.’

  An image of Amy’s shattered head flashed through his mind.

  ‘Five shots to the head,’ he said. ‘We always said there was something wrong about that.’

  The next step to take was obvious, but there was the official way of doing it and then there was the Cámara way.

  ‘We’ll need permission from the investigating judge,’ Laura said as Cámara got up.

  ‘Why don’t you ring up the LOP yourself and tell them we’re coming round? You might as well with the number of friends they’ve got. Not just in the police but in the judiciary as well, by the looks of it.’

  ‘Cámara, we can’t.’

  ‘You take whatever means of transport you like and I’ll meet you there.’

  He opened the door and stepped out.

  ‘I’m taking the bike.’

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  MINUTES LATER CÁMARA was on Amy’s street. The shutters in her flat were closed from the inside – firmly, as though making a statement. He wondered if Ruiz Costa was in or had left.

  On the other side of the street, the metal shutters of the gym had also been drawn down and firmly bolted to a ring in the pavement. Through the grime and dust that had built up over the years, Cámara could make out the phrase – written with a felt-tip marker long before – ‘strength through joy’. An in-joke among the gym’s members, presumably, to use one of the catchphrases of Nazi Germany.

  It was still early, but already the street was alive to the sounds and movements of a working day. Cámara glanced up and down a few times before kneeling to see if he could pick the lock. But the key was one of the more modern types, less easily fiddled with. He looked around for something heavy: sometimes just giving the things an almighty bash could spring them open. A loose slab of pavement might do the trick. He spotted one nearby and was about to bring it down on the padlock when he heard a shout.

  ‘Stop!’

  It was Laura.

  ‘You took your time.’

  ‘Cámara, please. You’ll just make it more difficult to prosecute. The judge will be all over us.’

  A new voice spoke.

  ‘Wouldn’t do much good.’

  Cámara looked up. From the building next door an elderly man with a grey peaked cap and blue overcoat had appeared.

  ‘Those locks are tough as nails,’ he said. ‘That’s why I always use them.’

  He sucked on the toothpick jutting from the side of his mouth.

  ‘And I reckon you wouldn’t find much even if you did get in.’

  Laura stepped over and identified herself.

/>   ‘I knew you were police,’ the man said. ‘Some of your lot were here the other day asking questions. It’s about the American girl who lived opposite, right?’

  ‘You’re Antonio Pascual,’ Cámara said.

  ‘That’s right. I take care of this place.’

  He jerked with his thumb back over his shoulder at the block of flats next door to the gym.

  ‘Sold them that padlock myself,’ he said. ‘Had a spare and they needed one. Like I say, they’re good. Hardest ones to break.’

  ‘You know the people at the gym.’

  ‘Course I do. I’m here every day. You get to know people. Part of my job. I’ve helped them out a couple of times. Odd jobs, that sort of thing.’

  ‘What time do they open?’ asked Laura.

  Pascual frowned.

  ‘Don’t reckon they’ll be opening up at all today. Or tomorrow.’

  ‘Why? What happened?’

  ‘Can’t say for sure. They were here last night, making an awful racket they were. I didn’t want to get involved, just watched them from inside my place. Going a right pace, like they were in a rush. Big van parked outside, throwing stuff in. Then they locked up and shot off. Like I say, had something almost terminal about it. That time of night, rushing around. Didn’t like the look of it.’

  ‘Did you see who they were?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t come out, like I say. But I’ve known them long enough. There were three of them, I reckon. One of them was Julio, I’m pretty sure. He’s got this funny-shaped bald head and a big tattoo on his forearm. Can’t say who the other two were.’

  ‘Do you know where they went?’ Laura asked.

  ‘Haven’t got a clue. Just shot off.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘Oh, I should say some time after eleven. Can’t be more exact.’

  Laura walked up to the shutters locking her out of the gym and looked as though she was about to kick them with frustration.