The Summer of Dead Toys

by Antonio Hill

  “You know why we’re here, don’t you?” asked Leire, placing herself between the inspector and Eduard Rovira. “We’ll all go to the station, and there we can talk more calmly.”

  Leire observed Aleix, who was sitting on the other side of the table in the interrogation room, not daring to look up. The red stain had almost disappeared from his cheek, but a slight scratch was still visible.

  “We have to talk about Edu, Aleix.” Her voice was cold, impartial. “You know your brother is sick.”

  He shrugged.

  “All right. How long have you known? Did he abuse you too?”

  “No! He doesn’t—”

  “He doesn’t like boys. Just a detail! So he prefers girls. When did you find out?”

  “I’m not going to say anything.”

  “Yes. Yes you’re going to say. Because it could be that your brother killed Marc and Gina to hide all this. And maybe Marc mightn’t matter to you, but you loved Gina . . .”

  “Edu hasn’t killed anybody! He didn’t even know about this until yesterday.”

  Leire was treading carefully. Any error could be fatal.

  “If that’s true, talk to me, Aleix. Convince me. When did you realize Edu liked little girls?”

  He looked her in the eyes; she knew he was calculating all the possibilities and mentally crossed her fingers until he finally answered.

  “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “Yes you do . . . You like knowing things about others, Aleix. And you’re nobody’s fool.”

  Aleix smiled at her.

  “Well, let’s say a couple of years ago, one summer that he came home, I found some things on his computer. I’m good at passwords. But you can’t prove it because you won’t find anything on it now.” He kept smiling. “Not a trace.”

  Thanks to you, motherfucker, thought Leire. Aleix was bragging; he wanted to show that he was the cleverest. I’m going to get you for being cocky, asshole.

  “And when Marc came back from Dublin determined to find the boy who had abused Iris, you ended up putting two and two together and thought it could be Edu, didn’t you? You remembered he’d been a camp monitor with Fèlix, and it’s obvious your family and the Castells got on well. Marc didn’t even remember Edu, or know you when all this happened. And Edu’s been away for years . . . In places where he does humanitarian work. And plays with little girls.”

  He held her gaze insolently.

  “You said that, not me.”

  Leire paused. They were getting to the most important point in this whole matter, the point at which she stopped knowing and had to ask, the point at which she needed to be more adept than this conceited brat. She took a few seconds before forming the next question.

  In the adjoining room, a silent and terrified Eduard was facing Inspector Salgado’s harsh, tense voice. He’d told him, point by point, detail after detail, everything contained within Iris’s diary.

  “And what’s more, you’ve been unlucky,” he finished. “Because for some legal reason I can never understand, these cases of abuse expire after fifteen years. And that summer was only fourteen years ago. Have you heard what they do to paedophiles in prison?”

  Edu paled, and gave the impression of cowering in his seat. Yes, everyone had heard of that.

  “Well, in your case it will be worse, since I’ll make sure the guards tell the reliable prisoners. And in passing let slip that you’re a good boy who evaded justice for years because of Daddy’s contacts.” He laughed inwardly, seeing the face this worm was making. “If there are two things prisoners hate it’s paedophiles and rich kids. I really wouldn’t want to be in your shoes when three or four of them corral you in one of the rooms while the guards look the other way.”

  He seemed on the verge of breaking down. Good, that’s how I like it, thought Salgado.

  “Of course if you cooperate a little, maybe I’ll do the opposite. Ask the screws to protect you, tell them you’re a good boy who’s made a few mistakes.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “What did your brother tell you?”

  Leire was about to form the next question when a serious Héctor Salgado appeared in the room and, moving slowly toward Aleix, said to him very quietly:

  “Edu’s been explaining a few things to me. The idea of going to jail has made him very communicative.”

  Salgado sat on the edge of the table, very close to Aleix.

  “And by the end I’d formed an opinion of you. Want to know what it is?”

  The boy shrugged.

  “Answer me when I speak to you.”

  “You’re going to tell me anyway, aren’t you?” replied Aleix.

  “Yes. You’re a clever guy. Very clever. At least in school. First in class, leader of the pack. A good-looking boy with a rich family behind him. But deep down you know there’s lots of shit hidden in this family. The rest don’t matter, but Edu is special. You’ve done a lot of things for Edu . . .”

  Aleix looked up.

  “Edu helped me a lot years ago.”

  “Yeah. Because of that you couldn’t let Marc’s plan proceed. It was a somewhat crazy plan, but it could have come off and your precious Edu would have had to face a very disagreeable time. You killed Marc for that? So it wouldn’t go ahead?”

  “No! I’ve told you a hundred times. I didn’t kill Marc. Not me, not Edu—”

  “Well, right now it’s on you. It all adds up.”

  Aleix looked at Salgado, then at Leire. He didn’t find even a hint of understanding. Finally he threw his head back, closed his eyes and inhaled. When he opened them again, he started speaking slowly, almost relieved.

  “Marc got really angry with his uncle when he refused to tell him who that monitor was. And then that stupid idea occurred to him.” He paused. “You know everything already, don’t you? I suppose you found the USB at Gina’s house.”

  Leire didn’t know what he was talking about but nodded. “I was lucky. I grabbed it when you left.”

  “Well, then you’ve seen it. The photos of Natàlia, ready to be downloaded on to his uncle’s computer. In a way it would have been funny: seeing enormous Father Castells’ face when he turned on the computer and found photos of a naked little girl on it, along with some others Marc had downloaded from the internet. Also, Marc worked on the photos. He took lots of the little one one night while she was asleep. Did you know that little Chinese girls are very popular with paedophiles?”

  Leire tried not to let the emotion and disgust she felt show in her appearance. She was mentally putting two and two together, trying to anticipate and not put her foot in it. But then Salgado intervened.

  “It would have been difficult for him to explain those photos if someone had seen them.”

  “Of course. And for once the cassock wouldn’t protect him from the rumors. Rather the contrary.”

  “Rumors like the ones you spread in school about that teacher,” said Héctor, remembering it at that moment.

  Aleix smiled slightly.

  “Yes. Stupid bitch. I found a profile of hers on the internet, all very decent, I swear. I stole the photos, played around with Photoshop to enhance certain charms, added other text and then sent the thing to her whole list of contacts. And not just private ones; I even included the principal of the school. It was brilliant!”

  “And Marc thought to do the same with Father Castells’ email account and the photos of Natàlia,” added Héctor.

  “More or less. Really Marc wanted to use it as a threat. Thanks to a few things I’d taught him, he’d deciphered his uncle’s account password. His plan was simple. On one hand, upload the file with the photos on to Father Castells’ computer, then after the San Juan long weekend call and corner him: either he gave him the name he wanted or those disgusting photos that Fèlix, horrified, was seeing for the first time would be revealed to all his contacts. Knowing his password and having the USB with the photos, Marc could do it from home. Enric, Glòria, the priest’s colle
agues, the clerical associations—can you imagine their faces if suddenly an email arrived from Castells containing photos of his naked niece?”

  “It’s sick,” Leire pointed out. “He was going to do that to a man who raised him, who’d almost been a father to him?”

  Aleix shrugged.

  “Marc’s theory was that Fèlix would have talked. In the moment of desperation he’d reveal the name he wanted. And then he wouldn’t have to carry out his threat. Anyway, he didn’t feel too bad about giving him a fright: at the end of the day he was an accessory.”

  “And you thought he’d get his way?”

  The boy nodded.

  “The plan could have failed spectacularly and Fèlix could have refused, but . . . It’s a bad time for priests regarding this subject. He wouldn’t have risked his reputation to protect Edu . . . I tried to dissuade Marc, point out the risks. I insisted that this wasn’t a school joke any more, it was a much more serious thing. If the truth came out he and Gina could have had a bad time of it. I managed to convince him to postpone the whole thing for a few days, at least. I told him we should think about it so as not to put our foot in it and I persuaded him to leave it until after the exams. He didn’t bring up the subject again, but through Gina I knew he’d gone ahead with the plan behind my back.”

  “And you couldn’t allow that . . . So you convinced Gina to keep the USB,” Héctor continued interrogating him. “It was easy. She was hugely jealous of the girl from Dublin and she was really frightened. Also, Gina was a sensitive girl.” He smiled. “Too sensitive. Seeing those photos horrified her. Marc saved them on the USB to delete them from his computer. At my request, Gina convinced him that it was better that she kept it in her house until he had the opportunity to access Fèlix’s computer.”

  “And the opportunity arose over San Juan weekend,” said Leire, recalling that Fèlix was staying with the rest of his family in Collbató. “But Gina didn’t bring the USB to the party and Marc got angry,” she continued, sure of herself thanks to Rubén’s story. “He got angry with you and with her and ended up flushing the drugs you had to sell. The drugs you still had to pay for, incidentally. You tried to stop him and you hit him. The T-shirt he was wearing got stained with blood. Because of that, he then took it off and put on another.”

  “More or less . . .”

  “You said you left, and your brother confirmed it, but your mutual alibi isn’t very satisfactory now, would you say?”

  He leaned toward the table.

  “It’s true! I went home. Edu was there. I didn’t tell him any of this. God, I only told him last night because I need money to pay these guys. If not, I’d never have told him anything. He’s . . . my brother.”

  Leire looked at Héctor. The boy seemed to be telling the truth. Salgado pretended to ignore his colleague and sat down at a corner of the table.

  “Aleix, what I can’t understand is how a boy as clever as you could make such a crude mistake. How did you let Gina keep the USB? You were in control of everything. And you knew you couldn’t trust her—”

  “I didn’t!” he protested. “I asked her for it the same day you came to question her. But she got mixed up and gave me the wrong one. You know something? I am cleverer than you. Do you have the transcription of the suicide note that Gina wrote to hand? Do you remember it? Gina would never have written that! She was incapable of leaving off an accent or using abbreviations. Her father, the writer, hates them.”

  Héctor watched Aleix, not saying anything. But it was Agent Castro who caught his attention then, as, in a voice trying to be firm, she asked: “What was on the USB Gina gave you, Aleix?”

  “Her Art History notes. What does that matter?”

  Leire leaned on the back of the chair. Far away she could hear Héctor continuing to interrogate the witness, although she knew it was pointless. Aleix hadn’t killed Marc, and of course Gina hadn’t either. He was an idiot and he deserved to have his face smashed in by the dealers, but he wasn’t a killer. Neither was his brother, the pious paedophile.

  Without saying anything, she left the room and made a call. She didn’t need anything else: just to confirm something with Regina Ballester, Gina Martí’s mother.

  40

  Sitting on the white sofa of the Castells’ house, while Glòria finished bathing the little one before coming down to join them, Héctor said to himself that in this lounge he was breathing in the same peace he’d noticed the last time they were there. But now, while he contemplated the elegant décor and heard the soft music floating in the air, Héctor knew that all this was nothing more than a set. A false calm.

  He and Leire had argued a lot on how to approach the next part of the matter. Salgado had listened to Castro’s reasoning and together they’d joined all the dots to arrive at the same conclusion. But when they got to the end of the process, when the name of the person who had killed Marc, and probably Gina as well, was clear to both of them, Héctor remembered something he’d said to Joana: “It’s possible this case may never be resolved.” Because, even with the truth before them, the proof was minimal. So minimal that he could only trust that the tension and fear combined would be stronger than endurance and cold blood. For that reason he’d imposed his will and gone alone. For what he was going to do, two was a crowd.

  Enric Castells was tired, Héctor said to himself. Dark circles cast a shadow over his expression.

  “I don’t want to be rude, Inspector, but I hope you have a good excuse for turning up at my home on a Sunday evening. I don’t know if you are aware that this weekend hasn’t been exactly easy for us . . . Yesterday we had to give our condolences to good friends whose daughter committed suicide and maybe killed . . .” He was quiet for a moment. “And since then I can’t stop going over everything in my mind. Everything . . .”

  He rubbed his face with his hands and took a deep breath.

  “I want all this to be over,” he said then. “If Glòria ever comes down . . . Can’t we begin without her?”

  Héctor was going to repeat what he had said to him as he came in, that he needed both of them to cooperate because new and disturbing evidence had come to light in relation to his son’s death, but just then Glòria came in alone.

  “Finally!” exclaimed Enric. “Does it take so long to bathe that little girl?”

  The hostility of the question surprised the inspector. “That little girl.” Not “the little one” or “my daughter,” or even “Natàlia.” That little girl.

  Glòria didn’t bother to respond and took a seat beside her husband.

  “Well, get on with it, Inspector. Are you going to tell us why you’ve come?” asked Castells.

  Héctor stared at them. And then, before this couple who seemed to be living in a state of cold war, he said: “I have to tell you a story that goes back years, to the summer when Marc was six years old. The summer a little girl called Iris Alonso died.”

  By the expression on Enric’s face, Héctor gathered that he too had read Marc’s blog. He didn’t know how he’d learned of its existence, but it was clear that the name Iris was familiar to him. Salgado continued with his tale: he outlined the story of abuse and death to them, without giving more than the necessary details. He then went on to speak to them about Inés and Marc in Dublin, of his decision to bring the truth to light, and came to the plan devised to coerce Fèlix, who’d refused to reveal to his nephew the name he was demanding. He recounted the perverse trick for which he’d used Natàlia, and graphically described photos he hadn’t seen. Doing so, he watched the Castells’ expressions and saw what he had expected: his was a mixture of apprehension and interest; hers of disgust, hatred and surprise. He finished by telling them of Aleix’s intervention to prevent his brother’s name coming out. It was a succinct but clear summary.

  “Inspector,” began Enric, who’d listened to Salgado attentively, “are you telling me my son was trying to blackmail my brother? He wouldn’t have done it. I’m sure of that. In the end he would have bac
ked out.”

  Héctor shook his head, with a doubtful air.

  “That we’ll never know. Marc and Gina are dead.” He put his hand in his pocket and took out the USB Aleix had given him an hour before. “This is the USB that Gina took from here, the one she then gave to Aleix. But there are no photos on it. In fact, it’s not even Gina’s or Marc’s. It’s yours, isn’t it, Glòria?”

  She didn’t answer. Her right hand was clenched on the arm of the sofa.

  “It has your notes from university on it. Haven’t you missed it?”

  Enric raised his head slowly, not understanding.

  “I haven’t had much time for studying lately, Inspector,” replied Glòria.

  “I believe you. You’ve been fairly busy with other things.”

  “What are you suggesting?” Enric’s voice had recovered some of its characteristic strength, that of the lord who doesn’t allow anyone to attack his family in his own home.

  Héctor continued. He spoke in a calm, almost friendly voice.

  “I’m suggesting that fate has played a dirty trick on everyone. The USB with the photos was here for a few days before Gina took it. And Natàlia, innocent and playful, did something that’s fun for her these days. You said it yourself to Agent Castro when we were here. Natàlia took the USB with the photos and left it beside her mother’s computer, and took the one you had, with the notes of the correspondencecourse degree you are studying for, to Marc’s room. And he, not wanting to have those photos on the computer again, gave it to Gina without realizing the error. But you . . . you opened what you shouldn’t have opened. And saw those photos of Natàlia: photos of your daughter naked, photos suggesting a whole world of horror. You knew Marc had confessed to having posted that video of a schoolmate on the internet. You didn’t trust him, or love him. After all, you weren’t his mother . . .”

  Glòria went red. She said nothing; she tried her utmost to stay calm. Her hand had become a claw clinging to the arm of the sofa.