by Chris Lloyd
‘His conviction has been overturned,’ Elisenda told him. ‘He was released from prison on Friday.’
‘Oh yes, I know. But still, no smoke without fire, as they say.’
‘Have you heard from him since his release? Has he been to the city council offices? Or called you?’
Comas shook his head. ‘No, I haven’t seen him since he was imprisoned.’
‘Senyora Miravent?’ Montse asked. ‘Do you also know Pere Vergés?’
The politician seemed to be weighing up her answer, fishing for what the Mossos knew before committing herself. ‘Yes, I did. But I imagine you already knew that, otherwise you wouldn’t be asking about him.’
Elisenda saw Comas’s head begin to turn sharply towards his wife, but he caught himself in time. She found the reactions of both husband and wife surprising: Comas’s attempts to keep up suspicion on Vergés and his response to his wife’s words, and Miravent’s evident testing of the water to see what she and Montse knew about the couple’s relationship with Pere Vergés.
‘Have you seen him since his release?’ Montse asked Miravent.
She shook her head. ‘I have had no contact with Pere since he was found guilty of fraud.’
‘May I ask what your relationship with him was?’ Elisenda asked her.
Miravent turned her gaze to Elisenda and gave a cold sigh. ‘You evidently know that Pere was also a good Christian; a member, as you call it, of Opus Dei. Perhaps my husband was not as forthright as he should have been about his relationship with Pere, but we both knew him socially, through our faith.’
‘I haven’t not been forthright with you,’ Comas complained, his words over-complicated. ‘I said I had little professional contact with him despite both of us working for the city council. Yes, I knew him socially. We used to meet at church and on social outings organised by our organisation. There’s nothing wrong with that.’
‘Well, evidently there’s nothing wrong with that,’ his wife snapped at him.
‘Is there any reason that Pere Vergés might have to hold a grudge against you?’ Elisenda asked them. ‘Either professionally or personally?’
‘You think he could be responsible for Jaume’s disappearance?’ Miravent asked her, stunned.
‘Can you think of any reason why he would?’ Elisenda insisted.
‘None. I mean we knew him as a member of our church. Perhaps he brought shame on his family and on our community, but we certainly did nothing for him to punish us in this way.’
‘And you, Senyor Comas? Would he have any reason to hold a grudge against you professionally?’
Comas shook his head vigorously. ‘None whatsoever. I told you, I had very little to do with him at work. I only really saw him through church. I haven’t done anything that he could remotely blame me for.’
Elisenda pointed to his fingers. ‘Was it Pere Vergés who attacked you in the street?’
A look of panic ran across his face. ‘No. I told you, I don’t know who did it. It was just a mugging.’
‘Do you genuinely believe that the attack you suffered had nothing to do with Jaume’s disappearance?’
‘Nothing. I told you.’
Elisenda nodded. There was some movement in his eyes that was out of place, a hurried rubbing of the good fingers on his right hand, a response that was a fraction too quick. She was convinced he either knew more than he was saying. Or feared more.
‘As Jaume’s mother,’ Miravent suddenly said, ‘I really don’t feel that this is a profitable line to be pursuing. Pere was a very mild-mannered man, he lived with his mother. Even if he did for some incomprehensible reason believe us to be responsible in some way for his fall from grace, his was not the sort of character to exact revenge in this way. He had his faith; that would preclude any such behaviour.’
‘He’s spent four years in prison without cause,’ Elisenda replied. ‘That precludes no behaviour. Does he know Jaume?’
Startled by the change in tack, Miravent replied immediately. ‘Of course. They would have met at one of the community’s outings. We go to Montserrat or sometimes to the country.’
‘And has he been to your house?’ Montse asked.
‘Yes, I think he has. We occasionally used to throw parties for the community. I’m sure he came to one or two with his mother.’
‘Did you know his mother well?’ Elisenda took up the reins. ‘Apparently, Pere Vergés wasn’t released from prison to attend his mother’s funeral.’
Comas looked at his wife for guidance, but it was she who answered anyway. ‘We were there. Sadly, after Pere’s trial, when it was thought that he was indeed guilty of fraud, his mother felt deep, deep shame, and I’m afraid that that led to her disowning her son.’
‘Did she visit him in prison?’
‘Not that I’m aware. You might not understand, Elisenda, but our community is based on faith and on high moral values. To his mother, Pere failed in that duty. She couldn’t forgive him. We have to accept that.’
Struggling not to rise to the bait, Elisenda asked her, ‘What about faith in your child?’
Miravent smiled indulgently. ‘I see you don’t understand. That isn’t faith, that’s semantics.’
‘You’re a politician, you deal in semantics. Why would your faith prevent a mother from wanting to comfort or protect her child?’
Without waiting for a reply, Elisenda stood up. She’d asked them all the relevant questions she’d wanted to ask, and she was worried that staying any longer would only make her lose her temper. Montse stood up, too, but the politician and her husband remained seated. The only other person in the room to move to see them out was Bofarull. He stepped forward, away from the window, and Elisenda was able to see his face without the glare of the sunlight behind him.
‘Did you know Pere Vergés?’ she asked him.
He shook his head, the spin doctor in him embarrassed by the turn the conversation had taken with Miravent. ‘I don’t, I’m afraid.’
Back in the city centre, Elisenda asked Montse to drop her off. ‘After Bellsolà and those two, I need to walk to clear my head,’ she commented. ‘Tell Josep to find out as much as he can about Pere Vergés and to look into his relationship with both Miravent and Comas. There’s maybe more to him than we thought.’
Her caporal left her near the covered market and she walked briskly down Ronda Sant Antoni Maria Claret, past her old dentist’s and past Doctora Puyals’ building, and on as far as Plaça Poeta Marquina. She was instantly deafened by the noise of the starlings bickering with each other for space in the trees above the Café Núria, a city landmark. The sound of them calmed her. Taking out her phone, she dialled a number she hadn’t dialled in nearly a year and waited for a reply.
‘Meet me for a coffee,’ she told the person at the other end.
Chapter Thirty-Two
‘Tell me what you know about Marc Comas and corruption.’
David Costa stared across the table at Elisenda. They were sitting under one of the square parasols in the shade of the plane trees behind Café Núria. The shelter was there more as protection against the birds’ over-active digestive systems than from the heat of the sun. It had taken him under ten minutes to walk there from his newspaper’s office after her phone call.
He stirred sugar into his coffee. ‘It’s all still vague. I was hoping you’d have something when I came to see you on Tuesday night. I know there’s something going on, but I don’t know what. And it keeps going on. There’s a piece of land heading south out of the city that was earmarked for construction for houses before the recession. A builder had the licence, but a meeting of the housing and planning committee on Tuesday that Comas chaired revoked the licence. It was confirmed yesterday and I can’t print anything in the paper other than the bare facts of the meeting’s ruling. The builder is perfectly solvent and has never defaulted on any payment or social security or anything, so it just seems an odd decision. The problem is, as always, there’s nothing tangible I can put my finger
on to say “there’s your corruption”, but I know it’s there and I’m certain that Comas is involved.’
Despite all that had happened and his unrequited crush on her since their school days, she had to admit that she found this dogged and impassioned David eager for evidence attractive. More attractive than the puppy-eyed David she’d known for years, at any rate.
‘Do you know who else might be involved with him?’
He shook his head, his expression one of frustration. ‘There’s got to be someone, but whoever it is, they’re covering their tracks pretty well. I’ve got names of people I think are involved. Robert Vega, Salvador Canet, Antoni Planas, any one of them.’
Elisenda filed the names away, all ones she knew. ‘We’ve had Salvador Canet and Robert Vega in our sights for some time, but we’ve never found anything.’
‘That’s why I was hoping you’d take a look.’
It was Elisenda’s turn to shake her head in frustration. ‘Comas’s son is missing. There’s no way on earth the judge is going to grant me the right to start investigating him.’
‘Roca? I sympathise with you.’
She grimaced. ‘And right now I don’t have the resources to start a Mossos investigation into him so that I can put together my own recommendation that I could take to Roca. Without that, my hands are tied. I wouldn’t be able to proceed.’
David laughed and mimicked her. ‘New police, same old legal system.’
‘Watch it.’ She wagged a finger at him. ‘Do you think Comas had anything to do with what happened to Pere Vergés?’
He looked surprised. ‘Pere Vergés? Why are you interested in him?’
‘Just keeping an open mind. Do you think Comas could have been involved?’
‘Why? Do you?’
‘Stop being a journalist and answer a question for once.’
‘Well, it’s not something I’d thought of, I have to confess. I always thought there was something dodgy about Vergés’s conviction. He looked like he’d been set up. I know he was in the IT department, but anyone with a knowledge of computers could have done the scam. It didn’t mean Vergés had to be involved. But I don’t see that it necessarily has to mean that Comas is involved either. I think he’s got much bigger fish to fry.’
‘It was four years ago. He could have started out that way. Worked his way up to greater things.’ She took a sip of her coffee. Her glass of water stood untouched on the table. ‘You know that Vergés is Opus?’
David snorted. ‘Who’d have thought we’d be talking about Opus in this day and age? But the way Madrid’s going, they’ll be taking us back to those times before we know it.’
‘Do you remember the two girls who died when we were kids? A car crash. Two school friends were killed.’
‘What about it?’
‘Their families were Opus. I remember the reaction. My mum saw one of the mothers in the street just afterwards and tried to tell her how sorry she was for their loss. This woman looked at my mum like she pitied her and told her how happy they were that their daughter had been chosen by God. They never spoke to us again.’
‘Your point?’
Elisenda sighed. ‘My point is it’s hard to gauge the reaction of Miravent and Comas. Just because they’re not showing the normal grief or concern we’d expect, doesn’t mean we have to read too much into that. But that in its turn is confusing the issue. For all we know, they are involved in their son’s disappearance in some way and their beliefs are shielding that. I’m finding it impossible to read them, especially Miravent. To me, they seem an odd set-up, like three individuals in search of a family.’ She looked directly at David. ‘And when I was married and had a child too young, I sometimes felt like a family in search of being an individual again.’
Her own confession shocked her, because that was where so much of her guilt came from. And because it was a thought she’d never voiced before. David looked like he was searching for the right words to say, but she carried on speaking before he had to, her voice restored to a professional calm.
‘And now we know that Vergés is Opus, I don’t fully know where he fits in.’
David paused before answering, struggling to pull back from her revelation. ‘If it helps, he’s always been part of the in crowd. Or he was. They all shunned him after he got arrested.’
‘I know his mother did. He didn’t go to her funeral. I thought it was that he hadn’t been given leave, but I get the impression now that he chose not to go because she’d disowned him.’
‘She wasn’t the only one. None of them would have anything to do with him. Normally, when one of their number is in trouble, they move heaven and earth to help, with lawyers and what have you. But in his case, they just left him out in the cold. No one lifted a finger. I think they felt he’d brought shame on Opus Dei at a time when it had come under greater scrutiny since making the big time in the movies.’
‘Did that include Miravent and Comas?’
‘Most definitely. Miravent was already in government by then, she could have done something, raised questions, but she didn’t. She used to organise family days out for Opus, which were big on their social calendar. I remember I was reporting on it at the time. Between the judge opening the investigation into Vergés and him being arrested, they held one of their jamborees out in the country somewhere and he was told that it would be best if he didn’t go.’
‘How did he take it?’
David laughed wryly. ‘I think he had other things to worry about at the time.’
Elisenda finally took a sip of her water. She put the glass down thoughtfully. ‘And now he’s had four years to worry about little else.’
* * *
Back at Vista Alegre, Elisenda was surprised to see Àlex and Armengol leaving the building.
‘Going for a coffee,’ Àlex told her. ‘Sotsinspector Armengol wanted to brief us on his part of the investigation. And I need a coffee.’
‘Come with us,’ Armengol invited her. ‘I was waiting to see you but no one was sure what time you’d be back, so I thought I’d pass what I had on to Àlex.’
Elisenda studied them both for a moment and shook her head. ‘Got to get on. Àlex will keep me posted. Thanks.’
She watched them go and went on into the building. Josep had more news for her when she got to her office. He sounded a little embarrassed at having to tell her.
‘Out with it, Josep.’
‘Pere Vergés had counselling in prison.’
Her head snapped up. ‘All the best people do. Do you have a name for the counsellor?’
He checked his notes. ‘Doctora Puyals. She’s got an office on Ronda Sant Antoni Maria Claret. I’ve tried calling her, but there’s no reply.’
‘Right.’ Elisenda stared at him. Her unit knew she’d been forced to undergo counselling, but none of them knew who her counsellor was. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll try and get hold of her.’
‘There’s one other thing. Vergés had a car that was later registered in his mother’s name when he went into prison. A blue Renault. I’ve put out a notice for Seguretat Ciutadana to look for it.’
‘Have you checked if he has a parking space?’
‘Not yet, but I will.’
Before she could speculate further on Josep’s news, Montse came into the room and pointed to the filling cabinet.
‘The sergent at the front desk has just rung through. Someone’s come in to claim Siset’s bag.’
Elisenda smiled for probably the first time all morning. It felt as good as the freshly-baked bread had smelled.
‘Oh, Siset, you’re so predictable. Montse, can you ring through and get them to show him to an interview room and keep him there so he doesn’t chicken out and do a runner?’
The caporal went into the outer room to make the call. Manel was at another desk studying a computer screen, but he didn’t appear to be typing anything or scrolling down any screens. He didn’t react at all when Montse began speaking into the phone opposite him. Without wa
iting for Montse to finish talking to the sergent at the front desk, Elisenda jumped up, leaving Siset’s bag safely where it was.
‘Come with me, Josep.’
The two of them hurried along the corridor and down the flight of stairs to the foyer.
‘Room two,’ the sergent mouthed at them.
Elisenda pushed open the door into the interview room back along the corridor and saw a woman sitting at the table under the gloomy light. She stopped and Josep almost piled into the back of her. Deflated, they both entered the room slowly and closed the door. She could tell by his look that Josep didn’t recognise the woman.
‘Elena,’ Elisenda greeted her. ‘What are you doing here?’
Elena looked up, her movements faltering, her eyes torpid. Elisenda could see she was only there thanks to some artificial encouragement.
‘Siset sent me. His bag. It was stolen. He’s only just discovered it.’ She paused and seemed to be casting around for the rest of the script. With a jolt of her head and a faint triumphant smile, she remembered it. ‘Anyone could have planted anything in it without him knowing. Can he have it back, please?’
Elisenda sat down opposite her and wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. ‘Oh, Elena, why do you let him make you do his dirty work?’
‘Because I love him.’ She laughed and sneezed a fine spray.
Elisenda wafted the air away in front of her. ‘Well, I’m going to be on a high for a week now. Josep, could you go and ask someone to bring Elena a cup of coffee? And a bottle of water. I think she could do with it.’
The caporal left the room and Elena slumped forward, resting her head on her arms on top of the table.
‘I’m sorry, Elena, but I can’t give you Siset’s bag. I need to give it to him.’
Through her tangle of hair and arms, Elena said something that Elisenda couldn’t understand. Struggling, the young woman raised her head up and focused on Elisenda to try again. ‘He said he trusts you, Elisenda, and that it’s all right to give me the bag.’