A Small Death in Lisbon

by Robert Wilson

  It was New Year's Day 1982 and Miguel and Lurdes Rodrigues had invited Pedro and Isabel Abrantes with their three children over to Cascais for lunch. The sun had shone all day but it was cold and when, in the late afternoon, the sun went down, the temperature hovered around freezing point.

  Pedro's wife was seven and a half months pregnant with their fourth child. She was enormous which had surprised her, because with the first three she'd hardly altered shape. It meant that on the way back to Lisbon she sat in the back seat with the two girls, while the young Joaquim travelled up front with his father.

  They were just driving out of'são Pedro do Estoril in their six-month-old Mercedes estate in the fast lane of the Marginal when three things happened at once. Little Joaquim stood on the seat, a car coming the other way swerved briefly over the double white line into the oncoming fast lane, and a BMW overtook Pedro on the inside. Pedro put his hand across to pull Joaquim back into his seat. He yanked the steering wheel across to his right but hadn't seen the BMW which hit him in the rear wing. The Mercedes span twice, turned over the roadside kerb, rolled on to its roof and back on to two wheels on a high bank which dropped down to some rocks by the sea. The Mercedes rolled, twisted, and slid down the bank. The front end crunched into the rocks shattering the windscreen. The three children spilled out. The car somersaulted over them and finished roof-down in the freezing Atlantic.

  The Bombeiros Voluntários were there within ten minutes. People were already weeping at the crushed bodies of the three children on the rocks. The firemen quickly ascertained that Pedro had not survived but that Isabel was still breathing and crushed between the front and rear seats. It took an hour to cut her out and they rushed her straight into Lisbon with a police escort. The foetus, a baby girl weighing 2.7 kilos, was delivered by Caesarean section and placed in an incubator. Her mother's heart, weakened by the shock of the accident, did not survive the operation.

  The funerals took place twenty-four hours later at the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos in Belém. The coffins were all closed, the spirit of the congregation broken by the size of the smallest three. The Abrantes family were placed in a family mausoleum in the Cemitério dos Prazeres in Lisbon, which already contained Joaquim Abrantes senior whose body had been brought back from Lausanne in 1979.

  Miguel da Costa Rodrigues didn't get out of dark glasses for weeks and when he did his eyes were bruised and ruched. His brother's death blackened him in a way that had only happened once before. He derived small consolation at the delivery from the incubator of the: child they named Sofia which had been her intended name.

  It was from early January 1982 that Miguel da Costa Rodrigues began to get visits from Manuel Abrantes. The Banco de Oceano e Rocha moved from the Baixa into larger temporary offices on the Avenida da Liberdade while the construction of the Largo Dona Estefânia building was completed. Miguel decided to maintain his brother's office in the Rua do Ouro. He began trawling the streets around the Praça da Alegria for girls.

  On the 26th March 1982 he found himself climbing the stairs of an old eighteenth-century building on the Rua da Gloria followed by a twenty-three-year-old prostitute from Sines. The top floors belonged to the Pensão Nuno, which rented rooms by the hour. He dinged the bell and heard a newspaper fold in a nearby room. Into the light of the neon strip above the reception came Jorge Raposo, his old colleague from the Caxias prison days.

  Miguel da Costa Rodrigues no longer had to walk the streets of the Rua da Glória. Jorge Raposo arranged for the girls to visit him in his office on the Rua do Ouro.

  From the beginning of April, Friday lunchtimes and afternoons were spent in the Rua do Ouro office. Any papers that needed to be signed were brought to him by secretaries from the main office who kne:w where to leave them.

  On May 4th 1982 a secretary from the bank's law firm needed a signature which couldn't wait until Monday. There were no bank secretaries available to take the papers so she went down to the Rua do Ouro office herself.

  Chapter XXXVI

  Wednesday, 17th June 1998, Lisbon

  I caught the train in early to Cais do Sodré. I walked along the river, buffeted by purposeful people arriving for work from the ferries. It was another hot day and I had my jacket off and over my shoulder. I looked out across the river and saw the massive Lisnave gantry crane rising up out of the early morning haze. I thought about Carlos Pinto. I thought about seeing him again, working with him, accepting him.

  You think you know yourself until things start happening, until you lose the insulation of normality. I would have called myself 'aware' before I lost my wife. People would look at me, Narciso for instance, and think there goes Zé Coelho, a man who knows himself. But I'm like anybody else. I hide. My wife was right. I'm inquisitive for the truth but I hide from my own. The stuff I've carried with me and ignored.

  My father—a good man who thought he was doing the right thing for his country. He died of a heart attack without ever talking to me. Maybe a three-line conversation would have been enough, and we could have unburdened ourselves.

  My daughter, unable to bear my disappointment ... like an unfaithful lover. An horrific concept. The sight of her and Carlos in the graphic act...

  An image flashed in my mind, Lucy Marques' description of what Teresa Oliveira had seen. Her daughter. Her lover. Pumping buttocks. Ankles around the ears. What an absurd act, but what a crucial one. An unrecoverable situation.

  I saw it then looking out over the water of the Tagus, the dazzling, shimmering river. I saw that I could pick up another bag of rocks, hump another sack of guilt or history and carry that through the rest of my days. Or I could accept, trust, accommodate ... give myself a break.

  But if I was going to do that there was something I had to see first.

  I turned away from the river, walked up through the Baixa to the Largo Martim Moniz and caught the Metro north.

  Carlos and I were called straight into Narciso's office without a word being exchanged.

  'I sent you down to Alcântara yesterday,' said Narciso, his mood unchanged in twenty-four hours.

  'That's where we went, Senhor Engenheiro,' I said.

  'You went there but you didn't stay, Senhor Inspector. A PSP officer saw you leave the crime scene and board a train in the direction of Cascais. I want to know where you were going on police time?'

  'I went to see Dr Oliveira...' I said, and Narciso's tanned face purpled, '...to offer my condolences.'

  'As part of the Inspector Zé Coelho service?'

  I didn't answer. Narciso looked between Carlos and me.

  'And what can you tell me about the murder of this eighteen-year-old down in Alcântara, Senhor Inspector? The maricão in the bin ... what's his name?'

  'He doesn't have a name, Senhor Engenheiro,' said Carlos. 'He's known as Xeta.'

  'Cheta? As in não tenho cheta?' I haven't got a penny.

  'It's Brazilian for "kiss", Senhor Engenheiro.'

  'These people. My God. Just tell me what's been going on.'

  'The investigation...' started Carlos.

  'I want the investigating officer's report,' Narciso cut in.

  'The boy was a known prostitute. We've conducted...' I started.

  'Don't give me any more bullshit, Inspector. You don't know anything. You haven't done anything. You're heading for suspension, you know that, suspension without pay. And, agente Pinto...'

  'Yes, Senhor Engenheiro?'

  'The Narcotics agents who'd mounted a surveillance on the Inspector's property noted that you went in there at six-thirty p.m. What the hell were you doing in Paço de Arcos?'

  'I wanted to brief the Inspector on developments.'

  'There haven't been any.'

  'To discuss alternative approaches.'

  'With the Inspector's daughter?'

  'She let me into the house, yes. I had to wait some time before the Inspector turned up.'

  'You're at the end of the road now, agente Pinto. If you don't make your assignment with Inspe
ctor Coelho work, you're finished. You're out. You'll be looking for a job in the PSP. Do you understand me?'

  'Perfectly, Senhor Engenheiro.'

  'Get out, both of you.'

  Carlos made it out of the door first. Narciso called me back. I clicked the door shut. He stuck a finger in his collar and pulled it out, too much blood stuck up in his head and the collar not letting it back down.

  'Your tie, Senhor Inspector,' he said. 'Where did you buy it?'

  'My tie?' I said, marking time, looking for the angle.

  'What you have around your neck, Senhor Inspector?'

  'My daughter made it for me.'

  'I see...' he said, embarrassed by that. 'Would she make one for me?'

  'You'd have to ask her, Senhor Engenheiro ... she'd have to see your face, you know, to work out what would suit.'

  He wiped his face with his hand and waved me away. I left his office with his aftershave in my nostrils and went back down to my own. Carlos was staring out of the window at the crowds of people in the photo booths in Rua Gomes Freire. I collapsed into my chair and lit an SG Ultralight and drew on it fiercely, desperate for a proper hit of nicotine.

  'Who's going to get coffee?'

  Carlos left without a word and came back with two mini plastic cups with an inch of coffee in each.

  'Are we going to talk?' he asked, putting my bica down.

  'Have you spoken to your father?'

  'What about?'

  'About what happened last night.'

  'No.'

  'No. I didn't think you would. You wouldn't have made it into work with two broken legs after he'd thrown you off his balcony.'

  He looked off out of the half-open door with his hands clasped between his knees.

  'So, you want to talk,' I said. 'Let's talk. Let's talk about how agente Carlos Pinto has gone through my life in a pair of jackboots, trampling everything underfoot.'

  He ran a hand over his cropped hair and rubbed his nose vigorously with his finger and thumb.

  'She's sixteen. You're twenty-seven. Shit. I'm beginning to sound like that bloody lawyer now. We have laws about sex, agente Pinto. Do they cover that in the police academy these days?'

  'They do have laws, yes, and they cover them, but as you know Inspector, you can be an old hand at fourteen or an innocent at twenty-four. That's a ten-year grey area.'

  'Twenty-four?' I said, engaging his eyes.

  He stuck his chin out ... daring me.

  'That's right, Inspector, I live with my parents. It's not so easy.'

  Olivia had said he didn't know what he was doing.

  He grinned, his nerves getting to him.

  'You're lucky, agente Pinto. You're lucky Narcotics turned up. You're lucky I talked to Olivia. You're lucky I was married to an Englishwoman for nearly half my life. You're lucky...'

  'To have met her,' he said, fixing me with a look. 'I'm lucky to have met your daughter ... and you for that matter.'

  'That's what she told me,' I said, riding that wave, struggling with all sorts of things now.

  'I'm in love with her,' he said, the statement of fact, no frills.

  'I'm not sure if she's been around long enough to know the difference between someone who's in love with her and someone who's just looking for an easy lay.'

  The anger flared in him, quick and bright as a magnesium flash. It was what I'd wanted to see.

  'At least I'm not black,' he said, which I probably deserved.

  I pointed a finger at him, my longest, most penetrating one and jabbed it at him.

  'I trust you, Carlos Pinto,' I said, 'and that was the last reason why you were lucky.'

  He sat back, blinking. The anger gone now and something like pain in his face. He nodded at me. I put the finger down and nodded back. I pulled the drawer open in my desk and put my feet up on it and stared at the ceiling and sipped my coffee for five minutes, wincing.

  'What now?' asked Carlos, still nervous.

  'I'm thinking that this tooth here under my new bridgework hurts when I drink something hot.'

  I called my dentist who said she'd fit me in some time during the afternoon.

  'What about Xeta?' asked Carlos.

  'Narciso knows that's a hopeless case.'

  'The lab report from the pathologist said he had three types of semen in his rectum, two different types in his stomach and he was HIV positive.'

  I threw up my hands.

  'I don't like not giving my full attention to a case, but you have to recognize when it's unwinnable. Narciso knows. He's put us out to grass.'

  'So...' he said, weighing things up, 'we have lunch in Alcântara?'

  'You're learning,' I said. 'You're learning too fast.'

  We sat outside the Navigator restaurant, two establishments up from the Wharf One nightclub, with a large platter of sardines, boiled potatoes, grilled peppers and a salad. We shared a carafe of white wine. The sardines were perfect, not too large and fresh off the boat. We dismantled them without speaking. The waiter came and took our plates away. We ordered coffee.

  'Let's think about what we've got,' I said.

  Carlos took out his notebook and flicked through the sheets. He began a résumé.

  'We've got a sexually loose girl, called Catarina Oliveira, who was last seen getting into a black C series Mercedes 200, petrol, with tinted windows and the letters NT in the registration. This happened about an hour before she was murdered and took place about a hundred metres from her school on Avenida Duque de Ávila.

  'It seems this girl would do anything for her father to get his attention, but despised her mother to the point where she would collude with the father in her humiliation, probably in a desperate attempt to strengthen her relationship with her father.

  'We don't think that the lawyer is the real father,' he concluded.

  'Have you checked that in the hospital records?' I asked.

  'Yes, Dona Oliveira was definitely the mother. There's no doubt about that.'

  'I'm impressed.'

  'You don't have to tell me to do everything,' he said. 'I even checked the librarian at the Biblioteca Nacional and all the other alibis.'

  'I'm not used to initiative,' I said. 'Carry on.'

  'The victim is associated with Valentim Almeida, the guitarist in the band who we suspect is a pornographer and who had sufficient hold over her to persuade her to indulge in an unusual sexual act in the Pensão Nuno, during the lunchtime before she was killed.'

  Carlos flicked backwards and forwards through his notebook.

  'There's no evidence so far that the killer followed her from the Pensão to the school ... or rather the café near the school.'

  'Go back to the notes you took from the people we interviewed at the bus stops. Four of them saw her get into the car. Did any of them say where the car came from?'

  'We didn't ask that question. We just wanted to know about the car she got into.'

  'You've got all the telephone numbers of those people at the bus stop. Call them and ask that question,' I said. 'If he was a passing motorist that's one thing, but if he was waiting for her to come out of the school then he'd already tracked her down.'

  'The barman in the Bella Italia said she was alone when she drank the bica.'

  'I tried to talk to him the other day but he was off,' I said. 'I'll try again after I've been to the dentist.'

  'And then there's Valentim,' said Carlos. 'He's still got something to tell us. I don't know what, but ... something.'

  'I wouldn't mind establishing a link between him and Dr Oliveira.'

  'There's one already. The lawyer gave us his telephone number.'

  'I mean a relationship of some sort.'

  'A financial one ... the video equipment?'

  'Maybe. That's an interesting possibility. He won't tell us anything but maybe we can surprise it out of him. Is he still being held in the tacos?'

  'I'll check.'

  I left Carlos making calls and told him to carry on working the Xe
ta case in Alcântara while I went to my dentist on Campo Grande. I took the 38 bus all the way from the docks. It took for ever.

  I sat in the waiting room flicking through Caras magazine, looking at all the half-celebrities, thinking about Luísa and her dismay at the idea of sex scandal in a serious business magazine. I dropped Caras and picked up VIP, another in the genre. Flicking from the back I came across a bunch of photographs of charity functions. There was one at the Ritz and the photograph showed Miguel da Costa Rodrigues and his wife in a line-up of people who mattered. Senhor Rodrigues was wearing one of Olivia's ties, the same one he'd been wearing that Friday night in Paço de Arcos. His wife was wearing a suit that I'd seen Olivia working on for the past month. I tore the picture out and folded it into my wallet to show Olivia later.

  The dentist patched up a small gap between the bridgework and my tooth. It took her thirty seconds and she told me I'd have to come back for a filling. The repair work cost 8000 esc. and the filling would be another 12,000 esc. It sounded like easy money to me if you could bear looking in rotten mouths all day.

  I came out of Campo Grande and tested my repaired bridgework with a coffee. I found myself looking at a building, which I realized was the Biblioteca Nacional. I wandered in and around the stacks of books until I got to the psychology section. I saw him from the back first, with that swag of brown ringlets. He was out of the tacos. That hadn't taken long, I thought. I sat down next to him. He glanced over and I had his full attention.

  'Are you interested in books, Inspector?'

  'I like José Saramago.'

  'Really? You surprise me.'

  'He has the same attitude to punctuation that I do.'

  'You don't need it.'

  'Or maybe he's no good at it,' I said, thinking. 'It's a solution, isn't it?'

  He nearly smiled. I nodded in the direction of the door and we left the building. We sat outside the café on white plastic chairs. He ordered a bica. I had a glass of water this time. He took one of my cigarettes. I let him.