The Summer of Dead Toys

by Antonio Hill

“Aleix is right. It’s not worth—”

  “Fuck off!” His answer startled her as much as the firework. “I don’t understand why you’re so worried. You don’t have to do anything else. Give me the USB and I’ll take care of everything.”

  She went back to Aleix. Not knowing what to say, she finished off her drink so greedily she almost choked.

  “There’s no USB, Marc. It’s gone,” he said.

  Marc looked at Gina, disbelieving. But seeing her hang her head, not denying it, he exploded:

  “You’re a bastard! A real bastard. I had it all ready!” And he continued in a lower voice, “Don’t you know how important this is to me? We’re supposed to be friends!”

  “And we are, Marc. That’s why we’re doing it,” repeated Aleix.

  “Wow, great favor! I could do you one too.” Marc’s voice sounded different, bitter, as if it were coming from his stomach. “Stop doing this shit that’s turning you into an idiot. Or did you think we haven’t noticed?”

  It took Aleix a few seconds to understand what he was referring to. Long enough for Marc to have a head start in rushing to his backpack.

  “What the fuck are you doing?”

  “I’m doing it for you, Aleix. It’s a favor.” He’d taken out the little bags, meticulously prepared in the amounts he usually sold, and he ran toward the door with a triumphant smile.

  Aleix leapt after him, but Marc pushed him and ran downstairs toward his bedroom. Gina, astonished, watched as Aleix followed him, grabbed him by the collar of his T-shirt and forced him to turn around. She screamed when the first blow rang out: a slap which Marc took full on the mouth. The two friends were still. Marc noticed that his lip was bleeding, ran his hand over the cut and dried it on the front of his T-shirt.

  “Man, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hit you . . . Come on, let’s forget this.”

  The knee in his groin left him breathless. Aleix doubled over and squeezed his eyes shut while a thousand miniature fireworks went off in his head. When he opened them, Marc had disappeared. He could only hear the sound of flushing in the bathroom. An insolent, definitive stream of water.

  Asshole, he thought, but when he tried to say it out loud the pain in his crotch became unbearable and he had to lean against the wall so as not to fall to the floor.

  He heard the front door and guessed that his parents and brother had already left. Knowing he had the house to himself gave him a momentary sense of relief, which faded little by little when he realized that, of that reunion of three friends who ended up falling out, two were dead. Dead. Aleix hadn’t ever thought about death. He’d never had to. Sometimes he remembered the long months of his illness; he tried to recall if, while he was in the hospital bed subjected to the tortures of the men in white, he’d ever been scared of dying, and the answer was no. It was afterward, with the passing of the years, that he became aware that others, affected by the same disease, hadn’t managed to survive. And realizing that had made him feel powerful, as if life had put him to the test and he with his strength had managed to overcome. He’d shown he was brave. Edu had said it over and over: you’re very brave; just bear it a little longer; it’s over now.

  He got out of bed, with no desire to shower. His room was a disaster: clothes everywhere, trainers scattered on the floor. Without wanting to, he thought of Gina’s room, the rows of teddies on the shelves which she’d resisted discarding and which formed part of the charm of a room that still kept a certain trace of innocence. Gina . . . An alarm bell went off in his head. What shorts was he wearing the last day he saw her? He rummaged around in the three pairs thrown any which way on the chair. He sighed with relief. Yes, the damn USB was there. He connected the USB to the computer out of habit, not because he felt like looking at what it contained. That was for certain. In fact, he wanted to do himself what he’d asked Gina not to do, simply because he didn’t trust her in anything to do with Marc: delete it, so those images would disappear without trace forever.

  When the screen began to display its contents he was stunned, and that quick irritation toward others, the disappointment that overcame him on realizing, again and again, that he was surrounded by idiots, seized him. He reproached himself for being angry with Gina now the poor thing was gone, but . . . Fuck, she had to be stupid to get the devices mixed up and give him her Art History notes. Annoyance gave way to another even more intense alarm. Damn. The USB was still in Gina’s bedroom, within reach of her parents and the police: that stern sudaca and the agent who’d be a good lay. It took him five minutes to be dressed and running out for his bike. Well, he thought maliciously, at least his father would be happy.

  25

  Standing before the stately, black-grilled door that led up to the Martís’, Héctor consulted his watch. He had fifteen minutes before meeting Castro, whom he’d called on leaving Joana’s house, and he told himself another coffee wouldn’t be a bad idea before facing what awaited him upstairs. It seemed he wasn’t the only one who thought so, since as soon as he entered the café, out of the corner of his eye he saw Fèlix Castells at the end of the bar, paper open, absorbed in his reading. He was someone he wanted to speak to one to one, so he didn’t hesitate for a moment. He went over to him and greeted him, using the ecclesiastical address almost without thinking.

  “Call me Fèlix, please,” he said, affably. “No one calls us father these days.”

  “Would you mind if we took a seat at this table?” Héctor indicated one at the back, relatively isolated.

  “Of course not. In fact, I’m waiting for my brother and Glòria. Given the situation, we thought it best to arrive all together, and stay only as long as is necessary.”

  Very considerate, thought Héctor. The Castells, en masse, offering condolences to Salvador and Regina on the death of a daughter who might have killed their son and nephew. Of course, if there was something for which he should be grateful to all those involved, it was that, up to then, they had behaved with the greatest delicacy. Even Salvador Martí’s outburst the previous night had sounded more tired than insulting.

  Once seated, cups of coffee in front of them—Fèlix had ordered another to join the inspector—Héctor hastened to bring up the subject before the others arrived.

  “Does the name Iris mean anything to you?”

  “Iris?”

  Stalling, thought Héctor. Eyes lowered, spoon stirring the sugar: more stalling. A sigh.

  “I suppose you’re referring to Iris Alonso.”

  “I’m referring to the Iris who drowned in the pool during a summer camp years ago.”

  Fèlix nodded. He drank his coffee. He moved his cup and rested both hands on the table under Héctor’s penetrating gaze.

  “It’s been a long time since I heard that name, Inspector.”

  It’s been a long time since I thought about Iris, remembered Felix.

  “What do you want to know? And,” he hesitated, “why?”

  “I’ll tell you in a moment. First tell me what happened.”

  “What happened? I wish I knew, Inspector.” He was recovering, his voice was gaining strength. “As you said, Iris Alonso drowned in the pool of the house for summer camps we rented every summer.”

  “Was she one of the little girls in your care?” He already knew the answer, but he had to extract more information: he wanted to get to Marc, the six-year-old who saw that macabre image.

  “No. Her mother was the cook, a widow. For a little over a month, she would move into the house with us.”

  “Us?”

  “The monitors, the children and me. The kids arrived in groups and stayed for ten days.”

  “But Marc stayed all summer?”

  “Yes. My brother has always worked a lot. Summers were a problem, so yes, I took him with me.” He lifted both hands from the table with a slightly impatient gesture. “I still don’t see—”

  “I’ll explain it all to you at the end, I promise you. Please continue.”

  Héctor told himself that the man be
fore him was more accustomed to listening than to expressing himself. He held the priest’s gaze without blinking.

  “How exactly did Iris Alonso die?” he insisted.

  “She drowned in the pool.”

  “Yeah. Was she alone? Did she have stomach cramp? Did she hit her head on the side?”

  There was a pause. Maybe Fèlix Castells was determined not to be pressured; maybe he was simply organizing his thoughts.

  “That was many years ago, Inspector. I don’t—”

  “Did many little girls drown while they were in your care?”

  “No! Of course not!”

  “Then permit me to say that I don’t understand how you could have forgotten her.”

  The answer came from his soul, if souls exist.

  “I haven’t forgotten her, Inspector. I assure you. For months I couldn’t think of anything else. It was me who took her out of the water. I tried to give her mouth to mouth, revive her, everything . . . But it was too late.”

  “What happened?” He changed his tone, perhaps softened by the pain in the face in front of him.

  “Iris was a strange little girl.” He looked to one side, beyond Héctor, beyond the café, the street, the city. “Or maybe she was at an especially difficult age. I don’t know. I’ve lost the ability to understand young people.”

  The priest gave a faint smile and continued speaking without Héctor having to pressure him.

  “She was twelve, if I’m not mistaken. Full pre-adolescence. That summer her mother didn’t know what to do with her. The previous years she’d been a happy little girl, secure; she amused herself with the other kids. She even took care of Marc. But that summer it was all rows and sulky faces. And then there were mealtimes.” He sighed. “In the end I had to speak to her mother and ask her to ease up a little.”

  “Iris didn’t eat?”

  “According to her mother, no, and it’s true she was skin and bone.” He remembered her soaked, fragile little body and shuddered. “Two days before her death she disappeared. God, it was awful. We searched for her everywhere, we scoured the wood for a whole night. The townspeople helped us. Believe me, I mobilized everyone to find her safe and sound. Finally we came across her in a cave in the wood we would usually go to on hikes.”

  “Was she all right?”

  “Perfectly. She looked at us so coldly and told us she didn’t want to go back. I must own that at that moment I got angry. I got very angry. We took her home. On the way, instead of being more docile and understanding the fright she’d given us, she was still indifferent. Insolent. And I was sick of it, Inspector; I told her to go into her room and not come out; she was being punished. I would have locked her in if there had been a key. Maybe you think I’m exaggerating, but I assure you that during those hours of searching I prayed without stopping that nothing serious had happened to her.” He paused. “She even refused to apologize to her mother. The poor woman was devastated.”

  “Nobody went in to see her?”

  “Her mother tried to talk to her. But they ended up arguing again. That was the evening before she died.”

  This man’s story in essential points coincided with the one on Marc’s blog. But the end was missing, and Héctor hoped the priest could shed some light on it.

  “What happened?”

  Fèlix Castells lowered his eyes. Something that could be doubt, or guilt, or both, took over his appearance for a moment. It was a fleeting expression, but it was there. Héctor hadn’t the least doubt of that.

  “No one knows exactly what happened, Inspector.” He looked him in the eyes again, in an attempt to ooze sincerity. “The following morning, very early, a little boy screaming woke me. It took me a minute to figure out that it was Marc and I went running from my room. Marc was still screaming, from the pool.” He paused and swallowed. “I saw her as soon as I got there. I jumped into the water and tried to revive her, but it was too late.”

  “Was there anyone else at the pool?”

  “No. Only my nephew and I. I told him to go away, but he didn’t listen. I wanted to save him seeing the little girl’s body laid out beside him, so I stayed in the water, with Iris in my arms. I still remember his frightened little face . . .”

  “And the dolls.”

  “How did you know?” The priest stroked his beard. He seemed truly disturbed. “It was . . . sinister. There were half a dozen of them in the water.”

  Little dead Irises, recalled Héctor. He waited a few seconds before continuing.

  “Who put them there?”

  “Iris, I suppose . . .” He’d made a great effort to hold back, but the tears glinted in his tired eyes. “That little girl wasn’t well, Inspector. I didn’t know how to recognize it, despite what her mother said. I realized too late that she was disturbed . . . deeply disturbed.”

  “Are you telling me that this twelve-year-old girl committed suicide?”

  “No!” The negative came out of the priest’s rather than the man’s mouth. “It must have been an accident. We guessed that she’d gone down to the pool by night, with the dolls, and at some point got dizzy and fell into the water.”

  “We guessed? Who else was in the house?”

  “It was three days before the next group of children was to arrive, so we were alone: Marc, the cook and her daughters, Iris and Inés, and I. The monitors were to turn up that afternoon: some were on a summer-long contract and worked through all the camps, but others rotated all summer. However, even the summer-long ones had gone back to the city for a few days. You can’t have young people in the country too long, Inspector. They get bored.”

  Héctor sensed the priest hadn’t finished. That he had something else to tell him now his guard was down. He didn’t have to wait long.

  “Inspector, Iris’s mother is a good woman, who’d already lost her husband. Thinking that her daughter had died of her own volition would have finished her.”

  “Tell me the truth, Father,” said Salgado purposefully. “Forget your collar, your vows, that girl’s mother and what she could or couldn’t take.”

  Castells took a deep breath and half-closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he spoke with resolve, in a low voice and almost without stopping.

  “The night before, while we scolded her for running away, Iris looked at me very gravely and said to me: ‘I didn’t ask you to come looking for me.’ And when I insisted that we had suffered a lot because of her, that she’d done something very bad, she smiled at me and replied in a scornful voice: ‘You can’t imagine how bad I can be.’ ”

  From where he was sitting, Héctor could see Leire Castro poking her head around the door of the café.

  “Anything else you’d like to tell me, Father?”

  “No. I’d just like to know where all this is coming from. Digging up old tragedies can’t help anyone.”

  “Did you know your nephew Marc wrote a blog?”

  “No. I don’t even know exactly what that is, Inspector.”

  “A sort of diary. He talked about Iris in it, about the day he found her.”

  “Hmmm. I thought he’d forgotten about it. After that summer, he never mentioned it again.”

  “Well, he remembered it while he was in Dublin. And wrote about it.”

  Leire was still at the café door. Héctor was about to say good-bye when Fèlix said something else: “Inspector . . . if you have any more questions, you can ask Savall.”

  “Ask Savall?”

  “He was an inspector then and stationed in Lleida. It was he who took care of everything.”

  If the news surprised Salgado, he did everything he could to hide it.

  “I’ll do that. Now I must go. Thank you for everything.”

  Fèlix Castells nodded.

  “My brother should be about to arrive.”

  “We’ll see each other upstairs then. See you soon.”

  As he walked toward Leire, he saw that her eyes were fixed on Father Castells. She looked at him distrustfully, harshly, with
out the least compassion. And Héctor knew she’d also read Marc’s blog, and that the same dark thoughts that had seized him were crossing Agent Castro’s mind, be they just or unjust.

  26

  Leire had read Marc’s blog that morning, before meeting the inspector and after getting through a fresh bout of morning sickness. Though she didn’t know why, Marc’s tale had moved her more than she would ever have imagined. She was definitely more sensitive in front of her computer at home, she told herself as soon as she’d finished reading. For once she wished she had someone at her side to share this worry, this feeling that she—both in body and mind—was changing at an alarming rate. The image of that little girl—the same one as in the black-and-white photo—submerged in the water turned her stomach and filled her with a mixture of rage and sadness that lasted long enough to make her wonder if there was any other cause of the intertwined emotions. Of course there was. She was grateful to be obliged to go to work, even though in theory it was her Saturday off. Anything except hanging around waiting for Tomás to call.

  She’d seen his note when she arrived home the night before. “You’ve been ages . . . some colleagues called and I’m going for a drink with them. See you tomorrow. T.” T.? As if that afternoon she’d been fucking a Tomás, a Tristan and a Toby . . . Tomás’s way of leaving his stamp on everything he did was beginning to irritate her. And spending half an hour wondering how to break the news to him only to come back to an empty flat irritated her even more. Knowing that wasn’t entirely fair didn’t help calm her down.

  So, at the café door, when the inspector came toward her, leaving Father Castells sitting at the table looking as if he’d seen a ghost, Leire thought exactly as Salgado suspected. That she didn’t like stories of little girls and priests at all.

  “Let’s go,” Héctor said to her. “Did you sleep OK? You don’t look well.”

  “It’s the heat,” she lied. “Shall we go up?”

  “Yes.”

  “Nice shirt,” she said as they crossed the street, and was surprised to see him blush a little.

  Salvador Martí opened the door to them and for a moment Leire thought he was going to throw them out again. However, he stood to one side and let them in without saying a word. They could hear voices in the lounge, but Gina’s father didn’t take them there but to the stairs that led to the upper floor, where the bedrooms were. They followed him, and waited while he went to his wife’s room and entered after knocking softly at the door. He came out shortly afterward.