He looks her in the eye as he speaks, but she can tell he is uncomfortable. From time to time he glances at the clock against the wall, as if he has lost his train of thought. He seems keen to keep the conversation brief—a tiresome formality.
“Was she badly … mistreated?”
The man makes a vague gesture.
“She was not violated, if that is what you mean. Otherwise … well … it was not a peaceful end. Death never is …”
He trails off, leaving Lolita Palma to imagine the rest. She shudders again, still unable to believe what is happening. In spite of herself, she peers into this abyss of pain and terrifying darkness.
“She was little more than a child,” Lolita murmurs, devastated.
She goes on twisting the handkerchief. She is determined not to falter, not to seem weak. Not in front of this man—nor in front of any man. Cousin Toño, who came the moment he heard the news, is upstairs traumatized, slumped in an armchair, weeping like a little boy. With him are Curra Vilches and some of the neighbors.
“Have you caught the man who did this?”
The same vague gesture. The question seems to add to the comisario’s uneasiness.
“We are working on it,” he says neutrally.
“Is it the man who murdered the other girls? For some months now, there have been rumors—”
“It is too early to tell.”
“I heard that a bomb fell almost on the same spot shortly afterward … Is it true two people were killed, and another three gravely injured?”
“So it would seem.”
“What an unfortunate coincidence.”
“Very unfortunate.”
Lolita Palma notices that the policeman is looking distractedly at the pictures on the walls, as if eager to change the subject.
“Why did the girl leave the house?” he asks.
Lolita explains briefly: she had been sent on an errand to the apothecary on the Calle Cruz de la Madera. Rosas the steward is ill in bed. He needed some curative and asked Mari Paz to fetch it.
“Alone, at such an hour?”
“It was not very late: ten o’clock or thereabouts. And the apothecary is only three blocks from here … out of range of the French shells. This has always been a peaceable area, safe and respectable.”
“And no one was worried when she did not return?”
“We did not realize. Dinner had already been served … The steward was asleep in his room, and I was upstairs in my office. I was not intending to come downstairs, and I had no need to call her.”
She pauses, thinking back over the evening: she in her study upstairs, oblivious to what was happening to the unfortunate girl. Working late into the night on official paperwork relating to the recovery of the Marco Bruto and the loss of the Culebra. Moving like a soulless automaton, reluctant to think about anything unrelated to the practicalities of the matter. Her eyes dry, her heart calm. And yet from time to time, despite everything, she found herself going over to the window and staring through the potted ferns at the halo of moon in the misty sky. Remembering Pépé Lobo’s green eyes. Admit to me that it is too much to ask. Those were his words. If this were any other place in the world, I would …
“This is dreadful,” she says. “Horrifying.”
The policeman’s voice sounds normal: brusque and professional. “Did she have a beau …? Admirers?”
“None that I know of.”
“Did she have family here in Cádiz?”
Lolita shakes her head. The girl was from the Isla de Léon, she tells Tizón, from a poor but decent family working on the salt flats. Her father is a good man: Felipe Mojarra. He is one of the company of fusiliers led by Don Cristábal Sánchez de la Campa.
“Does he know what has happened?”
“I sent word to him with my coachman, and a letter asking his superiors to give him leave to come here … poor man!”
She falls silent, distraught. Now, finally, her eyes well up with tears, imagining the pain this family is going through. The poor mother—her daughter slaughtered in this terrible fashion, barely seventeen years old.
“It’s unbelievable. Unbelievable and horrifying … Is it really true, what you told me? That she was tortured before she was killed?”
The policeman says nothing; he simply looks at her blankly. Lolita Palma feels a tear trickle down her cheek.
“My God,” she sobs.
She feels ashamed, showing weakness in front of a stranger, but she cannot help it. Her imagination gets the better of her. That poor girl.
“Who could be capable of …?”
She chokes on her words. The dam bursts and she feels hot tears coursing down her face. Embarrassed, the comisario turns away and clears his throat. After a moment, he takes his hat and cane and gets to his feet.
“The truth, señora …” he says gently, “is that anyone could.”
She stares at him, not understanding. What is he talking about? Who does he mean?
“I hope you find the killer.”
Tizón’s lips curl into an animal rictus. A gold tooth flashes—a canine.
“If things go as planned, we should catch him very soon.”
“And what will happen to this brute?”
The cold, hard gaze seems to go right through Lolita, as though he is staring at some point far away. Some dim, unfathomable place that only he can see.
“Justice,” he says, his voice almost a whisper.
A FEW SHORT steps away, light is streaming from the south; the sky is so pure, so blue that it dazzles. The Calle del Rosario looks utterly different from how it did last night: shimmering whitewash, golden sandstone, pots of geraniums hanging from the balconies. Standing in the sun’s glare, sweaty and disheveled, his face bearing the marks of lack of sleep, Rogelio Tizón’s assistant hangs his head like a lumbering mastiff.
“I swear to you we are doing everything we can, señor.”
“And I swear to you that I will personally kill every last one of you, Cadalso … If this man has escaped, I will rip out your eyes and piss in your skulls.”
The henchman blinks, knitting his brow, seriously weighing up how much of this threat is hyperbole and how much is serious.
“We have scoured the street, house by house,” he says finally. “There’s no sign of him. No one knows anything. No one saw anything … The only thing we know for certain is that he was wounded. You shot him.”
Tizón walks a little way, swinging his cane, livid. There are guards at either end of the street and in the doorways of some of the houses: twenty officers and nightwatchmen spread out around the area, keeping order under the critical eyes of neighbors who peer down from balconies and windows. Cadalso points to a portico near the corner of the street.
“He left a bloody handprint when he leaned here. And another one over there.”
“Have you checked the man is not local?”
“We have checked the municipal register and the list of inhabitants name by name.” Cadalso nods to the locals leaning out of the windows. “No one around here is injured. And no one went out after ten o’clock last night.”
“That’s not possible. I cornered the bastard right here, and I didn’t move until you and this gang of cretins showed up, blowing your whistles.”
Tizón steps over and studies the reddish-brown handprint on the whitewashed doorframe. At least one of his shots hit home, he thinks with grim satisfaction. Clipped the bird’s wing with some lead.
“Couldn’t he have disappeared in the fog, señor?”
“I already told you he didn’t, damn it. I was right behind him—he didn’t have time to get to the end of the street.”
“Well, we have set up a cordon covering the two blocks to left and right.”
“Have you checked the basements?”
Cadalso’s sullen pout indicates he is clearly offended at the suggestion. He is, after all, a professional.
“With a fine-tooth comb. We’ve searched the woodpiles and the coal bu
nkers.”
“And the terraces?”
“All checked, one by one. We still have some officers up there, just in case.”
“This is impossible.”
“Well then, tell me what to do.”
Tizón taps the cobbles with his cane impatiently.
“I’m sure you must have blundered somewhere.”
“I’m telling you, señor, we haven’t. Take my word for it. We followed your orders to the letter—I saw to it personally.” Cadalso scratches his head, bewildered. “If only you had got a look at his face …”
“You should have seen him; he walked right in front of your nose. Idiot.”
Cadalso bows his head, offended less by the insult than by his boss’s lack of faith. Turning his back on his assistant, Rogelio Tizón walks away, studying his surroundings.
“Someone must have slipped up,” he mutters, “I’m convinced of it.”
Cadalso trails behind, like a faithful puppy following the master who has just whipped him.
“Anything is possible, señor,” he finally admits. “But I swear we did the best we could. We sealed off the area last night. He couldn’t have got far.”
There is an explosion nearby. A bomb has just fallen on the Plaza del Palillero. Cadalso flinches and glances toward the sound and many neighbors disappear from their windows and balconies. Rogelio Tizón does not react, but walks as far as the Iglesia del Rosario. Like many churches in Cádiz, it is not a separate structure, but integrates with the cornices of the adjoining houses. Only the towers stand out, soaring above the vast doorway, which now stands wide open. Last night it was closed. Tizón goes inside, checking the pulpit and the side aisles. At the far end, beneath the altarpiece, the sanctuary light is burning.
“Besides,” Cadalso says, catching him up, “if you don’t mind my saying, I treated the case as a … well … a personal matter. The shock I got when I went into that yard to piss and stumbled on that poor kid … Jesus. You heard me screaming to let everyone know. And it was lucky you were close to the suspect. Otherwise he would have escaped again.”
Tizón shakes his head in disbelief. With every hour that passes, everything begins to stink a little more of failure. And failure has become an old acquaintance in this case. It is more than the comisario can bear.
“But he escaped again anyway. With or without my help.”
Cadalso raises a hand, awkward as always. For a moment, it looks as though he is about to pat the comisario on the shoulder. If he does, Tizón thinks, I’ll split his skull with my cane.
“Don’t say that, señor.” Seeing his boss’s expression, Cadalso leaves his hand hovering in the air. “We’ll find him. He can’t have got far with a bullet in his side … He’ll have to go somewhere to take care of the wound. Or to hide.”
I don’t even have the energy for insults, thinks Tizón. I’m so sick and tired of this whole case.
“Somewhere, you say?”
“Exactly.”
Further down the street, near the entrance to the church is the grotto known as the Oratory of La Santa Cueva. Beneath the triangular pediment, the door is open.
“Did you check in here too?”
Another offended pout at the thought that Tizón could doubt him.
“Of course.”
Rogelio Tizón steps into the vestibule and glances around. He is about to go on his way, but just as he is leaving something catches his eye and makes him look again: something to the left of the double staircase leading down to the subterranean chapel. It is as familiar to Tizón as it is to everyone in Cádiz, since it is a part of the traditional statuary of the region. It is an effigy he has been familiar with all his life, or almost. And yet, in this case, it takes on a new, startling quality.
“What is it, señor?”
Rogelio Tizón does not answer. Rooted to the spot, he stares at the glass case that stands at the foot of the stairs on a floor tiled in black and white, just like a chessboard. Inside the case is a statue depicting Ecce Homo: Christ in the throes of His passion, between Herod and Pilate. There are hundreds of statues like it in churches around the city, in Andalucía and all over Spain. The version in the Santa Cueva is a particularly expressive example of its kind: lashed to a pillar, His flesh is marked by countless red weals, slashed with bleeding wounds by the whips of His tormentors. The figure conveys a sense of exalted agony, of helplessness and absolute suffering. And suddenly, as though a veil has been torn away, the comisario realizes its significance—what it represents. Founded thirty years ago by a priest of noble ancestry—the late Father Santa, Marqués de Valde-Íñigo—the Santa Cueva is a private subterranean oratory, like a basement, beneath a small chapel of elliptical form. The lower part is dedicated to the ascetic practices of a religious brotherhood well known in Cádiz: wealthy people, people of high social standing, scrupulous in their observance of Catholic orthodoxy. Three times a week, the brothers gather to take the sacrament and practice traditional devotions with extreme rigor. This includes the use of whips. Flagellation to mortify the flesh. To subdue it.
“What’s in the cave?” he asks.
An unsettling silence, lasting three seconds precisely. Tizón does not look at his assistant. Instead he stares at the chessboard-patterned floor beneath the statue of Christ.
“The cave?” echoes Cadalso.
“That’s what I said. There is a chapel upstairs and a grotto below. That’s why it’s called the Santa Cueva … Santa because it is Holy, Cueva because there is a cave. Do you need me to draw you a picture?”
Cadalso shifts his weight from one foot to the other. Embarrassed.
“I thought …”
“Out with it, then. What the fuck did you think?”
“The doors downstairs are always locked. That’s what the guard said. Only the twenty or so members of the brotherhood have keys. The guard doesn’t even have one.”
“And?”
“And … that’s all.” Cadalso shrugs evasively. “I thought that no one would have been able to get in there last night. Without a key.”
“Unless he was a member of the brotherhood.”
Another silence, longer and more awkward this time. Cadalso looks anywhere but at his boss.
“Of course, señor. But they are respectable people. Religious. What I mean is this place is …”
“… private? Holy? Sacrosanct? Above suspicion?”
The assistant’s whole body seems about to dissolve into liquid.
“Well, yes, I suppose—”
Tizón raises a finger to silence him. “Listen, Cadalso.”
“Yes, señor?”
“Damn you to hell!”
Tizón turns away from his assistant. He feels a shudder run through him, like a silent, long-suppressed sigh. It is almost pleasant. After the initial jolt of surprise, and the subsequent flash of anger, there now comes a determined wolfish snarl, the reaction of a trained bloodhound on finally discovering—or rediscovering—the trail. Suddenly, everything is no longer intuition, but certainty. Descending the stairs under the mournful gaze of the flagellated Christ, the comisario feels his blood pulsing, slowly, powerfully, overcoming his exhaustion. It feels like he has stepped once again into one of the impossible or improbable places where silence becomes absolute and the air seems to hang, suspended. The bell jar, the vortex that leads to the next square of the chessboard that is the city and the bay. He has finally seen the game. And so, rather than rush forward with a shout of triumph or a growl of satisfaction, the comisario moves diagonally across the checkered floor, slowly, soundlessly; he carefully scrutinizes everything, and savors the prickling sensation in the fingers that grip his cane. He moves toward the grotto door. If only, he thinks abruptly, this moment of jubilation would never end.
“If you want, I can have it opened,” says Cadalso, trotting behind. “It should only take a minute.”
“Shut your trap.”
The lock on the door is of a commonplace variety, requiring a large ke
y. Tizón takes out his picklocks and manages to slide back the hasp within a minute. Child’s play. With a soft click, the door opens onto a windowless grotto. Tizón has never been here before.
“Fetch a candle from the chapel upstairs,” he tells Cadalso.
From below comes a smell of must and damp, and a chill draft which grows colder as Tizón steps further into the cave, his way lit by Cadalso holding a large candle aloft. The shadow of the comisario glides along the walls. Every footfall echoes in the confined space. Unlike the chapel above it, the cave is sparsely decorated, its walls stark and bare. It is here that members of the brotherhood perform their rituals. Above one of the arches, Cadalso’s candle picks out a skull and crossbones painted on the ceiling. Beneath it is a dried, brownish stain—a trace of blood.
“Holy Mother of God,” cries Cadalso.
The man is huddled in a corner against the back wall of the cave, a dark shapeless mass, softly whimpering and moaning like a hunted animal.
“WITH YOUR PERMISSION, sir.”
Simon Desfosseux looks away from the eyepiece of the Dolland telescope, the image of the twin spires of the San Antonio Church still burned on to his retinas: 2,870 toises, he cannot reach them, he thinks gloomily. His maximum range is 2,828 toises. None of the French shells that have fallen on Cádiz have gone further than this. Nor will they ever, now.
“Go on, Labiche. You can take her.”
Assisted by a group of soldiers, the sergeant dismantles the telescope and folds the tripod, packing everything away. The rest of the optical instruments from the observation deck are already stowed on the carts. The Dolland was left until last, so that he might observe the last shots from the Cabezuela. The very last was fired from Fanfan twenty minutes ago. A 100-pound bomb containing a ballast of lead and sand which fell short, barely grazing the city walls. A sad end.
“Any other orders, sir?”
“No, thank you. You can take it away.”
The sergeant salutes, and he and his men go back down the ladder with the equipment. Looking through the empty embrasure, Desfosseux sees smoke rising vertically in the waning afternoon light—there is not a breath of wind—over most of the French military posts. All along the line, the imperial troops are dismantling their positions, burning equipment, spiking any field guns they cannot carry and throwing them into the sea. King Joseph’s hasty departure from Madrid, and the news that Field Marshal Wellington has marched into the Spanish capital, has put the army in Andalucía in a quandary. The order is to retreat to safety on the far side of the canyon of Despeñaperros. Preparations have begun for the evacuation of Seville; tossing gunpowder reserves from La Cartuja into the river, destroying the foundries, the arsenal and the saltpeter works. The whole of the Premier Corps has retreated northward: pack mules, carts and carriages laden with pillaged booty, convoys of the wounded, the supply corps and Spanish troops loyal to the Emperor, who cannot safely be left behind. Around Cádiz, the orders are to shield the retreat with a constant bombardment from positions in the channel around Chiclana and bastions along the coast from El Puerto de Santa María all the way to Rota. As for the Cabezuela, one small battery of three 8-pound guns will continue to fire at Puntales until the last moment, to keep the enemy occupied. Any artillery that cannot be transported will be thrown into the bay, into the mud along the shore, or left abandoned in the redoubts.
The Siege Page 64
