The White Corpses

by Gemma Herrero Virto

  ‘How just one? He has to have reasons for killing all three of them.’

  ‘No... Don’t you see it? He’s made us believe that he was a serial killer. He’s killed several women of similar age, created a set of crime scenes that simulate those of a ritualistic murderer with religious delusions... It was all a simulation. This guy knows us, works with us, and knew that they were going to assign us the case and that I’d fall into the trap of their mind game...’

  ‘Seriously, I ought to have recorded this conversation, to play it back to you again and again.’

  ‘God damn it, Carlos. Listen to me. If he isn’t a serial killer, he has to be someone who’s has a connection with the environment of one of the victims. Their husband, some past boyfriend, some resentful suitor... We have to start from the beginning.’

  ‘Okay, calm down. We will do, but there’s no need for it to be tonight. I’m going to go around here a couple more times, and then I’ll head off home and we’ll talk about it. All right?’

  ‘All right.’

  Carlos hung up, put his phone away in his pocket, and looked at his coat before putting it on. Just as he had feared, that scumbag nicknamed Rabbit had poked a hole in it with the knife. He was going to be right after all: Carlos was going to remember him, at least enough to break his nose again the next time he saw him. His phone rang again. Carlos sighed and answered it once more.

  ‘Hello, Natalia. I already told you not to worry, and that I’ll be making tracks right away.’

  ‘This isn’t Natalia. It’s Aguirre.’

  Carlos was so caught by surprise upon hearing the sergeant’s voice that he very nearly dropped the mobile. He had to remind himself that Aguirre did not know where he was, nor what he was doing, and he had to seem calm.

  ‘Aguirre, what’s up? What do you need?’

  ‘Subordinates who don’t get on my nerves as much as you. That’s what I need.’

  Even though he knew that he was only messing around, Carlos ran his eyes all over the walls of the toilet, fearing he would find a microphone or a security camera.

  ‘I don’t understand, Aguirre. What have I done now?’

  ‘I’ve just received a phone call from Daniel Gómez’s parents saying that a very friendly officer went to their home this afternoon, interested in the death of their son. They are very cooperative people, and have promised not to pose any impediment to the exhumation of their son’s body if that will help solve his murder. Do you know anything about this madness?’

  ‘Honestly, no...’ Carlos lied.

  ‘Carlos, God damn it... Do you think I’m an idiot? The description they gave me of the friendly officer who visited them is a match for you. What the bloody hell are you doing?’

  Carlos remained silent, trying to come up with some story, or hoping that the floor of the toilet would open up and the ground would swallow him. He took advantage of those seconds to take out a fresh cigarette and light it. In the end, he was just asking for them to kick him right out of that bar, but in that very moment, that was the least of his problems.

  ‘Carlos, are you still there?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m here... Look, Aguirre, I know you’re going to be pissed off, but I believe that Daniel’s death was no accident and that, somehow, it’s related to Roberto’s case.’

  ‘Are you pulling my leg? Are you still carrying on with that?’

  ‘Well, the case is closed, exactly as you asked, but you can’t prevent me from investigating in my free time.’

  ‘Of course I can prevent you from doing it. I told you to forget about all of that.’

  ‘But I can’t forget about it. The case has holes in it left right and centre, and I’m finding clues that could prove that Roberto was innocent...’

  ‘I’m going to explain it to you just one more time to try to get you to see reason. I’m going to do so because I don’t want to sack you, but I need you to stop.’ Carlos heard Aguirre take a breath on the other end of the line. ‘Do you realise the damage you’re doing; the amount of vain hopes you’re creating? You have told Roberto’s parents that their son could well be innocent; Daniel’s parents that their son might not have been an idiot who drank and was killed in a car accident... There are many people who have suffered because of this. Roberto had friends in the station who thought highly of him, and for whom all of this has been a very hard blow... Have you not thought about Salazar for a single moment? His wife was murdered by one of his work colleagues. Can you imagine what this must be like for him?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I was only trying to uncover the truth...’

  ‘But the thing is we already have the truth. Think for a moment about what all of this has had to mean for Salazar. He was on the verge of performing the post-mortem on his wife. He did not want to even take a single day off. He was here, suffering, every day, and trying to help in every way possible to ensure that the investigation went ahead and that the death of his wife would not go unpunished. And in the end he found out that he crossed paths every day with the man who had killed her. Can you stop for a moment to think about the hell that poor man will have gone through?’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘I hope so.’ Aguirre went back to letting out long sigh. ‘You have to allow the wounds to heal, Carlos. This is the last time I’m asking you.’

  The sergeant hung up without even saying goodbye. Carlos sat still in the middle of that toilet cubicle looking at his mobile phone. The previous conversation with Natalia returned to his mind. The killer had to be linked with one of the three women. They had investigated the environment of both Estefanía and Andrea, and had questioned their husbands without getting anything, but they had not questioned Salazar, because they had respected his pain. Perhaps he might have some lead: perhaps he would be able to tell him something about Carmen’s past that could put him on the right track.

  For a few seconds, he thought about whether he ought to listen to Aguirre and stop, but he immediately discarded that. He had known Salazar for years. He had worked with him on a multitude of cases. In fact, until Natalia arrived, he had been his “go to medical examiner”. He had always been a methodical man, a tireless worker who did not give up until he found the truth. As much as it may hurt him to remember the death of his wife, he would be prepared to help him. He unblocked his mobile and dialled the number for headquarters.

  ‘Administration. How can I help you?’

  Carlos remained silent for a couple of seconds, trying to remember the name of the man who had answered the phone.’

  ‘Is this Iñaki?’

  ‘Yes. Who’s speaking?’

  ‘It’s Carlos Vega. Listen, could you do me a favour? I need the address of Dr Salazar, the medical examiner. You wouldn’t have it to hand, would you?’

  CHAPTER NINE

  Natalia lit a fresh cigarette and sat down opposite the window to gaze at how the rain fell over the grey streets of Bilbao. She spent a while trying to calm down, but she was finding that to be impossible. The more she thought about her latest conversations with Carlos, the more nervous she felt.

  She could not believe that she had been so wrong again. She had insisted right from the start on the idea that they could be after a serial killer, and had not been able to consider any other hypothesis. The more she turned it over in her mind, the more it seemed to her that the killer had manipulated them; that he knew them so well that he had been playing with them from the beginning. He had planned out a series of murders that were straight out of the psychopathology textbook: a set of perfect crimes, a careful and considered ritual to point towards an obsessive and religious killer... The type of case that somebody like her would die to uncover.

  And then there was the thing about pointing the finger at Roberto as the culprit, a guy whom Carlos hated, whom he would have been delighted to arrest. The killer had chosen him so that Carlos would discover him and, being swept along by the dislike he felt towards him, would believe that he was guilty without any further question. T
he only place where the killer had gone wrong was in knowing the strange forebodings and dreams that Carlos experienced at times, and which tended to be incomprehensibly on the mark. That, along with his extreme pig-headedness when he was after the truth.

  She angrily stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray and tried to let her mind relax with the image of the rain behind the window, but it did not work. She was feeling furious. They had played with her, they had manipulated her, and she fallen for it like a novice. Who could the killer be? Who knew them well enough to have planned all of this?

  Unable to stay still a minute longer, she got up off the sofa and went for her coat. She would go to headquarters for the report on Daniel’s post-mortem, to find out any other thing that could have escaped them. If she hurried, she would be able to get back before Carlos returned home. She knew that she had promised him that she would stay put and wait until he returned, but if she stayed there doing nothing, she would go mad.

  When she was on the verge of leaving, she realised that she did not have a car. She had lent it to Gus for one of his dates with Lorena. After cursing through her teeth a couple of times, she thought about what she could do. She could get a taxi to take her to headquarters, but at that hour, on a Saturday, and considering the fact that it was tipping it down, it would be difficult to find one. She thought about calling Gus. She knew that he tended to go to bed late, and that perhaps he had already returned from his date with Lorena and would not mind taking her to the station, helping her check the report, and bringing her back. She took out her mobile and waited a few seconds for him to answer the call. The first thing she heard when he picked up was the sound of raucous music at full blast, mixed in with shouting and laughter.

  ‘Natalia, give me a second. I’m not going to be able to hear anything in here. I’m going.’

  Natalia waited patiently, although she began to think that she would have to end up calling for a taxi. Judging by the noise she had heard, Gus was still out on the town and it would not be right to ask him to come and fetch her.

  ‘I’m outside now. What do you want?’

  ‘Nothing, I’m sorry to bother you. I was going to ask you to come and fetch me to take me to headquarters for some papers, but I get the impression you’re not at home.’

  ‘I was in a club, but I can come to you, no problem.’

  ‘I can’t ask that of you. Leave it, I’ll phone for a taxi.’

  ‘Seriously, I can come and fetch you. In fact, I’d love to. Like I said, I’m at club. Gus-club... Gus-club... Isn’t there something about that combination that grates on you? Do you think they’re going to put on a single song here that I could come to tolerate? You’re not doing me any injury. Quite the opposite, you’re saving my life.’

  ‘But you’re there with Lorena...’

  ‘Yes, and she’s spent more than an hour dancing with her friends without even paying a single flaming scrap of attention to me. If I don’t tell her, I don’t think she’ll realise I’ve left until she wants to go home. I’m coming to get you. I’ll be there in quarter of an hour.’

  After hanging up, Natalia said goodbye to Art, checked that she had her keys on her, and went down to wait for Gus. The weather was even worse than it had seemed whilst she had been gazing at the street from her cosy living room. The rain had intensified, and a cold wind meant that, every now and then, she would be struck by a gust, in spite of protecting herself in the doorway to the building. Fortunately, in just a few minutes she heard the sound of a familiar engine, and saw that her Mercedes was approaching along the road. She went over to the edge of the pavement and made signals for him to stop. She positioned herself at the driver’s side window and gave it a couple of little knocks. Gus lowered the window and poked his head out a bit.

  ‘What are you doing standing there? Get in, you’re going to get soaked.’

  ‘No, you get out and into the passenger seat.’

  ‘What do you mean? Aren’t I supposed to have come to be your taxi driver?’

  ‘I saw the way you meandered as you drove up here. How many rum and cokes have you had?’

  ‘Three or four, I don’t know.’

  ‘If I were a traffic officer instead of a medical examiner, you’d be arrested by now. Come on, get out.’

  Gus alighted, protesting in a low voice, went around the car, and sat down, getting into a mood in the passenger seat. Natalia got in and pulled away.

  ‘I ought to be very angry with you. I’m not lending you my car so that you can kill yourself in it.’

  ‘When you talk like that, you sound like my mother.’

  ‘I don’t care how I sound. As a mater of fact, we’re going to headquarters to look at the post-mortem report of a young man who got drunk and killed in a car accident. And, as punishment, you’re going to see the photos, so that you learn what can happen to you.’

  ‘My stomach’s already feeling a bit unsettled anyway, so you decide whether you want to end up with your shoes covered in vomit,’ joked Gus. ‘And is that what you were in such a hurry about? The post-mortem of a traffic accident?’

  ‘Well, it’s the post-mortem of Daniel Gómez, the techie from headquarters whom we suspect changed the records. Carlos has been interrogating several people, and thinks he could have been murdered.’

  ‘So then he wasn’t killed in a traffic accident through being drunk. You’re lesson is going to be of no use to me.’

  ‘Smart arse,’ murmured Natalia. ‘How’s it going with Lorena? Did she get really angry when you told her you were leaving?’

  ‘The usual. She spends the whole night ignoring me, but gets angry if I refuse to stop indulging her and adoring her.’

  ‘So much bitterness! It sounds like it’s not going very well...’

  ‘I don’t know... I’ve spent the day considering whether I’m happy... We don’t have anything in common, I don’t feel she loves me, or appreciates me for who I am, but, when I’m not with her, I miss her. Don’t listen to me. I’m drunk.’

  Gus stopped talking and focussed on looking out of the window. Natalia carried on driving without saying anything. She thought that this girl was no good for him and that she was hurting him, but it did not seem like a good idea for her to get in the middle of that relationship.

  ‘The problem is that I do love her,’ Gus continued speaking, almost as if to himself. ‘When I look at her, I think that I don’t deserve her. I can’t believe anybody so wonderful is with me. I sometimes feel like my chest is going to explode with happiness about being with her, but other times... I don’t know, I feel like she doesn’t know me; like she doesn’t see who I am, and, on top of that, like I don’t matter to her. I’m just her latest acquisition, her new toy... But I feel as though I can’t protest; that I must be grateful that somebody like her is with somebody like me and that, if I behave how I really am, or tell her what I think, she’ll realise that I’m not worth anything and she’ll leave me. And thinking that makes me feel so scared... I feel my heart stopping in my chest, and like I can’t breath when I imagine that I could lose her... Bloody hell, this whole love thing is shit.’

  ‘No, Gus. Love isn’t shit. Your problem is that you don’t value yourself, that you don’t love yourself,’ replied Natalia. ‘Until you love yourself, you won’t deserve to have anybody else love you. How is she going to love someone like the real Gus if you don’t let her see it, and if you’re afraid of not being enough for the others?’

  Natalia pulled into the car park at headquarters and searched for a place to park, whilst she allowed Gus to reflect on her words. The young man’s head was still turned towards the side window, and he was not saying anything. She feared that he could be crying, so she placed a hand on his knee to comfort him.

  ‘You’re a great guy, and you’re so worth the effort. Once you see it, everyone else will see it. Stop hiding your soul behind the mask that the others want you to put on.’

  Gus nodded, got out of the car, and set off directly towards the sta
tion. Natalia pretended to be searching for something in her bag, in order to give him time to regain his composure, and then left after him. The rain was growing increasingly heavier, so she had to run in her super high heels over the waterlogged ground. On day she would listen to Carlos and she would buy herself a pair of trainers for going to work in.

  She entered the station with Gus, explained to the young man on the desk where they were going, and went down in the lifts to the morgue area. The lift doors had not yet opened when she noticed that Gus had come up to her and had taken hold of her arm.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Are there dead people down here?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course. What were you expecting there to be?’ Natalia could not suppress a laugh upon seeing that Gus had turned pale. ‘Don’t worry: we don’t keep them on show, dispersed about the place. We keep them put away in refrigeration.’

  ‘And what if they get out?’ asked Gus, trembling.

  ‘Have you really only had three or four rum and cokes? How are they going to get out?’

  ‘I dunno... I’ve seen many films about ghosts and zombies... Maybe I ought to wait for you in the car.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid. Nothing’s going to happen to you, and we won’t be very long. Besides, we’re not even going to go to the room where we keep them preserved.’ Upon seeing that Gus’s expression was not improving, she took him by the hand and pulled on him to get him to step out of the lift. ‘Don’t worry, the refrigeration units can’t be opened from inside. They’re trapped.’

  Gus followed her, although he was looking all around as if expecting, at any moment, a dead person to jump on them to devour their brains. Natalia ignored him and continued walking towards the room where they kept the reports. When they went in, she headed towards the filing cabinets to search for Daniel’s report, whilst Gus sat down in a chair facing the door, as if not wanting to drop his guard at any moment. Natalia found the file with Daniel’s report and sat down beside Gus.

  ‘Now you’re going to start looking at photos of dead people next to me,’ protested Gus. ‘Seriously, I’m not made for this.’