‘What is this place?’
‘Training facility – private property.’
‘I didn’t see any signs.’
‘You have a nice night.’ Cousins patted the bonnet and returned to the patrol truck. It didn’t move. This only left Iwata with one path, the main strip out of town. He drove slowly, keeping his eyes on the rear-view mirror.
At the end of Huxley, Iwata made the turning. But the second he was out of sight of the patrol truck, he turned again, sharply, into an alleyway. Before he could think about it Iwata opened the door. The cold was nettles.
Sticking to the shadows, he skirted between homes and non-existent businesses. The alleyways were littered with empty cardboard boxes and discarded building materials, but there was no rubbish beyond this, no food, no piss, no broken glass. In the distance he could hear the patrol truck grumbling through the empty town.
Iwata leaned back against the wall, his heart beating hard. The wind ruffled his hair, cooling the sweat on his forehead. There were other noises now, more engines. Hiding behind a plastic drain pipe, he glanced around the corner.
Three flatbed trucks were rolling into Huxley, each one crammed with people. They were immigrants, all of them sporting coloured wristbands, their hands bound with plastic zip ties. Men with tattoos, ranchero hats and assault rifles gripped on to the roll cages of the trucks and kept their eyes on their cargo. Then they were gone, roaring south.
Taking two deep breaths, Iwata pushed off from the wall and went in the direction of the trucks. He zigzagged through Huxley’s backstreets and followed the distant sound of the engines.
At the fringes of the city, close to the foot of the mountain, he stopped. There were voices, footsteps close together. There was scared weeping, some laughter above it, radios crackling.
Iwata emerged into a dark cul-de-sac. A hundred yards behind him, the flatbed trucks were being unloaded, people being sorted into wristband colour.
The houses on the cul-de-sac were half constructed, just wooden frames. Iwata looked up at the upstairs windows and saw faces. Scared faces. Little grey smudges in the shadow. For a moment, he wondered if they were mannequins. But they were blinking. At the other end of the road, one of these houses had its door open.
Iwata checked behind him. The flatbed trucks were still being unloaded, people being shouted at to jump down quicker. The men with rifles worked dispassionately, two of them watching a video on a phone. Iwata scurried out of his cover. He braced for a shout but he felt only the wind. Reaching the house, he slipped inside and shut the door behind him.
Iwata was in an empty, unlit room painted ashen blue by the moon. There were faint noises coming from upstairs. He drew his gun as he passed a table with what looked like large playing cards on it. Peering closer, he saw they were passports. On the table, there was an ashtray with two recently crushed cigarettes in it. It smelled of sweat here, it smelled of men. Iwata knew he should leave this place, and yet he moved forward with a nauseous conviction. He climbed the stairs slowly, praying for silence in his steps.
Reaching the top, somebody coughed. Iwata froze. When his eyes adjusted he saw he was in a large attic space. He recognized the antiseptic smell from the housing complex he had fled from. There were twelve small cubicles separated by plastic sheeting hanging from hooks – a small abattoir. The stink was overwhelming.
Gun raised, Iwata inched forward. Another cough resounded, making him flinch. It came from the first cubicle. Taking a breath, Iwata peered inside. He saw a thin naked woman lying face down on a bed, her wrists and ankles bound, her eyes wide. Her anus was dark with blood. On the floor there were a dozen discarded condoms. In this gloom they looked like little sherbet UFOs. On the end of the bed there was a clipboard. It showed the woman’s age, blood type and her ‘match’. There was also a date underneath.
Iwata thought back to the housing complex. Since you’re here, I imagine you’d like to view the material? He recalled the face of the little girl tied to the bed, the man babysitting her.
Iwata’s stomach lurched, nausea and realization kicking in at the same moment. He gripped the bed frame to stop himself from falling and the woman began to scream against her gag. Staggering away, Iwata ripped back the sheet to the next cubicle. The next one. And the next one. He found men, he found women – all ages, all colours, all of them bound and terrified. On every clipboard there was a date and an organ underlined:
Cornea
Kidneys
Liver
Fat
Blood
*
At the end of the attic, there was a closed door. Light seeped out beneath it. Iwata found himself wading towards it. He opened the door and stepped into soft lamplight. The nightlight projected Dora the Explorer warmly across the ceiling. The room was filled with small grey Formica tables. On them, there were cardboard boxes. Inside them, squirming little figures. Some of the babies were crying. Some looked sick. Blood types had also been written on the side of these boxes.
Dora the Explorer was swinging from a vine, a smile on her face. A shadow crossed over her. Iwata turned. There was a flash, then a heavy weight on his temple.
Iwata slumped against the wall and dropped his gun. The wood was rough against his cheek. Warm blood tickled his ear as he looked up.
‘I told you to get the fuck outta here, didn’t I?’ Cousins picked up the gun, then crouched down as though admonishing a badly behaved puppy. ‘But you had to take a piss on my leg and tell me it was raining, huh?’
Iwata punched him in the windpipe – instant, brutal. Cousins frowned, hacked, then fell forward. Iwata grabbed his gun back. A gunshot erupted. Iwata looked down at himself. The bullet had gone through his upper arm. The gun dropped from his hand, as though suddenly commanded. Ortega was in the doorway, his pistol raised, face illuminated pink and blue from the nightlight. He stepped forward and lined up the shot. Iwata closed his eyes and thought of Cleo and Nina.
No shot came. Iwata opened his eyes. Something had happened to Ortega’s face. It was a plastic, crinkly outline, sucked in at the mouth. Hands appeared at either side of his head. Mara Zambrano was behind him, suffocating him with a plastic bag.
Ortega bucked hard but Mara did not waver. Her poise was perfect, the distribution of weight incontrovertible. Ortega had no foothold; he could only claw at the plastic.
Then, just as his struggle was fading away, she dropped the bag. Ortega fell against the wall, his skin purple, his eyes pink, choking for his own existence.
Mara Zambrano looked down at him with no expression. ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’
Ortega looked up at her, in terror, in disbelief.
‘Then let me remind you.’
With an open palm she smashed his nose in. Then, fast, before he could understand it, she had him around the neck from behind, forcing him to keep his head up – as if a mother holding a child above water. She held him as he thrashed and gargled on his own blood.
When Ortega had drowned to death Mara dropped him. She peered at her hands in the moonlight, front and back, as if they had been lent to her.
Iwata’s consciousness bled out.
27. Sins as Scarlet
Cold and warm currents meet in Chōshi’s waters. Every morning at Wholesale Fish Market Number 1 boat after boat unloads a hearty catch and the tuna auctions go nosebleed high. Large bays open on to the sea where trawlers unload directly for maximum freshness. Fishing is the lifeblood of Chōshi so when a man is stabbed over swordfish Iwata is not surprised that Morimoto calls on him, despite the time off he has been granted. Can’t have bad blood at the fish market, Iwata. I’m sorry, I know your wife is, uh, unwell, but you’ll be done in a few hours. With little choice, Iwata responds to the call.
He parks the squad car behind a warehouse, preferring, as always, to arrive unseen. This draws less attention and minimizes time for people to think up excuses. Skirting old forklifts, Iwata squints as the cold morning sun catches the glistening, dismembered f
ish in the ice boxes. Wooden pallets are laid out on the wet concrete. They hold countless neat rows of tuna fish, their expressions in death identical. Men in caps and rubber boots crouch down to inspect the carcasses. Wholesalers and private bidders are covering their mouths as they speak into their phones. The oily stench of guts is thick on the ocean air. And then, just as Iwata spots the uniformed officer talking with the stabbing victim in the first-aid room, his phone rings.
‘… Where are you, Kosuke?’ Cleo sounds distant, sleepy.
‘I’m at work. Are you okay?’
‘It’s a beautiful day today.’
‘Yes. How is Nina?’
‘We’re going for some air.’
‘Okay. I’ll be back soon, I promise.’
‘I love you, Kosuke. Goodbye.’
‘Me too.’
Iwata hangs up, then stops still. He calls Cleo back but she doesn’t pick up.
‘Oh no.’
Iwata sprints back to the car. He backs out of the wharf and screeches along the oceanfront road. Telephone poles, fluttering grass banks and warehouses blur by. He swerves around lorries and powers through intersections until he reaches the road leading to the lighthouse. Iwata makes the turning at the old seafood stalls, then speeds over the paving stones towards his apartment. He screams to a halt outside his apartment and is running up his stairs when he sees it. A police cordon has been set up around the lighthouse. Already, a pack of journalists are jostling with each other, craning their necks to catch a glimpse. A busload of tourists has just arrived.
In the scrum, Iwata identifies himself and a paramedic leads him to the ambulance. His shoulders are covered with a shock blanket and the paramedic asks inane questions. What’s your date of birth? Who is the prime minister? Iwata answers numbly and just looks out over the Pacific. Today it is a vitric blue. The blanket crinkles in the wind, its silver surface sparkling in the afternoon sun.
Taba and Morimoto are off to one side. Iwata supposes the chief is trying to convince his old partner to come and comfort him. Iwata hopes Taba does not come. There is no point. The paramedic instructs Iwata to lie back and lift his feet over his head. He feels empty and clammy.
‘What have you been doing this morning?’ the paramedic asks.
‘What?’
‘Well, what do you remember?’
It has been a normal morning, or whatever passes for normal these days. Cleo seemed in a good mood. They ate slices of orange before he had to leave.
Iwata will not remember, for a long time, slipping under the police cordon. He will not remember, for a long time, the sight of his wife on the rocks below the lighthouse, her legs broken at horrific angles. He will not remember, for a long time, the way Nina looks next to her mother, wrapped in a yellow blanket, her head like a little garlic bulb torn in half. He will not remember, for a long time, the airlift helicopter coming for the loves of his life, nor the seagulls inquisitively circling above.
Iwata feels a thick hand on his shoulder and Taba appears next to him.
‘I just got off the phone. The helicopter arrived at the hospital and it’s good news, Cleo’s still fighting.’
Iwata doesn’t respond. He looks at the witness, who is being questioned off to one side. He looks like a fisherman, his rubber boots bright yellow. He looks upset and embarrassed all at once.
‘Look, Kosuke.’ Taba sits down next to him and the ambulance creaks. ‘I wanted to let you know, what happened with us is over. And I just want to say I’m sorry. For all of it, I know you love Cleo and Nina.’
Iwata puts his head between his thighs and throws up. A few cameras flash. Taba pats his back like it’ll all be okay. Iwata blinks tears out of his eyes. ‘What about Nina? Where is my baby?’
Taba says nothing. They both listen to the policeman off to one side questioning the fisherman. ‘And can you remember anything else?’ he asks. ‘Anything at all?’
‘Just what I told you,’ the fisherman says. ‘She was telling the baby it would be over soon.’
Iwata woke up in a mobile home. It was small and neat except for a stack of cardboard boxes filled with papers in the corner. Iwata was tied to the bed, his head distantly pulsing with pain. He couldn’t tell how tightly he was bound, not that he had the strength to test his restraints. His right arm, where he had been shot, had been elevated, the wound dressed. There was a small bedside table. On it he saw a blood-splattered Top Cat wallet. Next to it there was a framed photograph of Evelyn Olivera hugging Adelmo Contreras. Iwata finally understood. It felt as simple as just waking up.
‘You were lucky.’ It was a woman’s voice. ‘The bullet only grazed you. When the painkillers wear off it’ll hurt, but you’ll be okay.’
Lifting his head, Iwata saw that it was Mara, sitting before a mirror, two lamps duct-taped to it. She was doing her make-up, her movements, quick yet precise, almost like incisions. Her vanity was heaving with products, an altar to cosmetic perfection. Ben Nye Creme Stick in soft beige. Mehron CreamBlend in Cocoa No. 3. Honey-chocolate hues for the cheekbones, temples and hairlines. Pigment for delicate application to the eyelid. Extra Dimension Eye Shadow in Dark Dare to line the eyes with feline essence. On and on it went.
‘Mara.’ Iwata’s voice was sluggish.
‘I’m working.’ She blinked her eyes gently as the bristles tickled. Her movements were meticulous, her words clear. But her voice and her gaze seemed to come from somewhere else. There was a veiled distance there, as if she were programmed.
In this light Iwata could see Mara clearly for the first time. His mental image of her, one always rooted in glances, in darkness, in cloudy deliriums, was now gone. In its place, he saw her, at last, in truth. And there was the tattoo along her collarbone.
‘Isaiah 1:18,’ he whispered.
Mara paused her brush and looked at him in the mirror. ‘Si vuestros pecados fueren como la grana, como la nieve serán emblanquecidos. You know what that means, don’t you, Inspector.’
‘Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.’
‘Those words matter.’ She considered him in the mirror for a moment. Then she carried on with her routine as if someone had pressed Play on a tape. ‘The look must be absolute.’
‘It’s you. You were Adelmo Contreras.’
Mara put down the brush, turned, and looked at him. Her eyes held his at first, then seemed to fade, as though drifting away. ‘Yes.’
‘Those women aren’t missing, are they? You killed them. You killed Meredith. You killed Talky. You killed Geneviève. You killed them all.’
Mara walked over to the little window. She looked out at the desert and gave a slight shrug, as if it was water under the bridge. ‘I did what I had to do.’
‘But why?’
She snapped her head round, her gums revealed, the rage beneath the make-up impossible to mask. ‘You think I wanted this? You think I started this?’ Her glare fell on the photograph of Evelyn and Adelmo on the bedside table and she softened. ‘No, Inspector. I just wanted a life.’
‘Then why Meredith?’
Mara’s eyes were glazed now; she still hadn’t blinked. A single tear fell and immediately she wiped it off, like disinfecting a wound. The name ‘Meredith’ was nothing to her; Mara’s tears were for herself.
‘We lived in an old cottage. When I was sick, Evelyn would boil lemons so that our whole apartment smelled like’ – she closed her eyes – ‘beauty itself. We had nothing, you understand. But we cooked stews on an open fire. Jackrabbit meat tasted smoky in a way I wouldn’t know how to begin describing. We had an old school projector and we’d watch movies on the wall while we ate. His Girl Friday; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; A Farewell to Arms; Mambo; Le Notti Bianche. When I think of happiness, it’s the smell of lemons, the taste of smoke, the sound of dialogue from old movies …’ Mara’s chin trembled. ‘Evelyn knew who I wanted to be. Who I was. We were cousins but, even from an early age, we knew it was something more. We understood each other more than we u
nderstood ourselves. And the closer we got, the clearer it was that there would be nobody more perfect than Evelyn for me. It didn’t matter that we wanted different things. It didn’t matter that I’m a woman. That I want men. We were never lonely, we had each other. We loved each other.’
‘But she came to the priest and asked for his help. She wanted to escape. It was the baby, wasn’t it?’
Mara closed the window and looked at him like it was obvious. ‘Evelyn wanted to be a mother and I loved her. Of course I was going to look after her. But we knew we had to get out of Ciudad Cabral. Leave for ever.’
‘You went to the refuge.’
‘We took the medical tests like everyone else. The price was much better that way. You must already know what happened to us after that.’
‘Yes. You were double-crossed.’
‘You got my coordinates, you know how they operate by now.’
‘They get the migrants across the border in the normal way. Somewhere in the desert they’re intercepted by Border Patrol. They’ve already done the tests to determine who’s valuable and who’s expendable. Those carrying the right colour wristbands are loaded on to trucks; those who aren’t are killed.’
‘Huxley is the same as Valle Dorado. They look like small towns but they’re operating theatres for black-market body parts. There are countless others just like it. Rich people with sick children come and they leave with a brand-new kidney. The rich take the very last thing the poor have left to give, their own blood, their own organs. The First World eats the Third World and La Familia turns a profit.’
Iwata felt like a telephone operator who had accidentally patched into a hundred conversations at once.
‘For the first few metres, we were free. I just remember Evelyn’s smile in the moonlight. I’d never seen her so happy. And then Border Patrol arrived. They told us to get down on the ground. They started shooting. We managed to get away, but it was dark …’
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