The Butterfly Effect

by Luis A. Santamaría

  "So that's what this is? Are you lecturing me? I think I'm old enough, Salas.”

  Friday, November 10, 2006

  The asphalt of Oxford streets was still damp, though it was no longer raining, when police officer Alfred Horner ran from his house. It was 02:15 in the morning. He got in his Alfa Romeo and started it. He moved between the lanes at full speed, skipping every red light that was on the road with the emergency light activated (by absolute precaution, since at that time there was no soul in the city). He had a bad feeling and wanted to get to the scene as soon as possible.

  It was not the first time someone woke him up in the middle of the night (or while having sex with a woman) to report a crime, theft, or vandalism. However, not long ago fear had stalked him that way. Once, almost four years ago, when he was twenty-four and he had just begun to work for the police force, Horner was engulfed in a nightmare of such caliber that even now he wondered why.

  It was the fall of 2002, and the young man was struggling to start a new adult life in the city of Oxford. He liked motorcycles and was passionate about the action of his work. He had just met a girl. Her name was Donna Miller, a hippie three years his junior who lived with her parents in the Headington neighborhood, east of the city. They met one Saturday night, when he, on duty, tried to stop her over a marijuana joint that the young woman had while she was having fun with some friends. He didn’t arrest her, since it wasn’t marijuana what she smoked, but tobacco. He, of course, had known it from the beginning, but it was as good an excuse as any other to enter into conversation with the beautiful girl with the curly, flowing hair.

  One Wednesday night at approximately eleven, Alfred was about to walk back to his flat, which he had rented downtown. He had spent the evening at Donna's house and they had just decided that they would live together as soon as they told her parents. That night they had made love for the first time on the couch in the Miller's living room, taking advantage of the fact that her parents were on a pleasure trip.

  As soon as he left the house, the newly appointed policeman turned to look back. Behind the second-floor window he saw the profile of Donna raising her hand for the last time, with a grin from ear to ear and giving graceful jumps of happiness. He lost sight of her as he entered Warneford Lane, a wide but poorly lit road, unfrequented at that hour of the night. However, he didn’t know any bus routes in that area and he hadn’t seen any taxi pass in the way that he had to walk, so he decided to walk to his house, which was less than two miles.

  He had been walking for more than ten minutes when the first car passed him. The halo of the headlights illuminated a section of the road that, surrounded by rows of trees, offered a ghostly appearance. He didn’t see him coming. Suddenly, a car went up onto the sidewalk where Alfred walked and crossed violently a few yards from him, closing the way. The young man did not react. He continued to move forward and changed course with the aim of changing sidewalks. He didn’t want problems and he had no choice. His heart pumped his blood harder than usual. As he passed the back of the car, Horner heard the door of the car open. The driver was carrying a brass knuckle in his left hand and was aggressively advancing on him, ready to split his face. Alfred paled and remained frozen. He reached into the leather holster for his pistol, but forgot that he wasn’t on duty and that he wasn’t carrying it. He had no time to put his hands to his face and wait for the attacker to tear it apart.

  The first impact was the worst. He felt as if all the bones in his head had shifted and his vision partially blurred. Without knowing how, he had hit the ground. While he was beating his kidneys, Alfred could guess that he was a man older than himself, and despite the darkness, he could get an idea of what his face looked like. For that matter, that mysterious son of a bitch did not open his mouth at any moment. Alfred began to lose his vision. He barely felt anything when the aggressor changed his target and kicked him in the face with unrestrained violence.

  A taxi driver found him ten minutes later, unconscious, and took him to the hospital.

  After a couple of days in a coma, Horner woke up with several broken bones on his face, plus five ribs. They did some surgeries and they managed to return him to his natural appearance. He spent two months in the hospital. He returned to work and invested all his effort in hunting the bastard. But he didn’t succeed; he didn’t even get a single clue as to whom he might be. At the end of seven months, Donna, the only woman he had wanted not only for primitive sexual desire, had left him. Could he blame her? His character had changed, and the twenty-year-old had no desire to endure for life a policeman tormented and obsessed with his work. She did not want a James Bond in her life.

  After that fateful event, it took Horner several months before he could sleep at a stretch. Once he had looked death in the eyes and gone unscathed, since then he hadn’t felt fear again until that night.

  He still had a few blocks to get to the address he had been told, when he already saw a commotion in the street. Something supernatural for those hours in the morning, a pair of police cars and dozens of neighbors in pajamas invaded Cowley Road around number 219. The officer stopped the car, put on his jacket where he kept his badge and gun, and went out to meet Carroll, who was waiting for him. He summarized the situation. He led him inside the house, where Horner saw the whole situation. Then he introduced Carl and Amy, an adorable old couple who, were nervously jabbering, explained their version: "We were lying down and I couldn’t sleep," Carl said, shivering. “Then I heard a sharp, crackling noise, like a firecracker! I got up in alarm and opened the door to look out into the street. But there was no one, just the door to this open apartment. I came over to check when I saw... when I saw this...” Carl pointed to the inert body, but was not able to continue.

  The elderly couple lived in gate 221. They were the second and third people to approach the scene of the crime.

  Then Carroll led Horner to the other side of the street, where a group of three policemen were taking a declaration from a frightened young woman. She must not have been more than thirty, Horner thought as he approached. "This girl was the first to arrive. Carroll brought him up to date quickly. “She was already in the house when Carl came. At least that's what the old man told me."

  After presenting himself as an agent of the Oxford police, Alfred begged the other officers, including his companion, to leave her alone with him. He decided to seat her in the passenger seat of the Alfa Romeo, where he began an impromptu interrogation.

  “Name and surname?”

  “Sara Mora.”

  Alfred nodded in silence. First conclusion: by name and accent, she’s not British, he noted mentally. Then he asked to see her documentation. City of origin: Ámber (Cantabria). Country Spain. The agent took some time to observe the young woman. She seemed to be in another world. It had been several hours since the attack, but her adrenaline seemed to be in the clouds. Despite her taut, tired frame and her wet hair from the storm, she seemed to be an attractive girl. And the fact that she was Spanish made everything much more interesting.

  He also noticed that she had an almost imperceptible bloodstain on her right hand.

  "She's the prime suspect right now," Carroll had assured him an instant ago. “Why do you say that?” Horner wanted to know. "Because of all the suspects," said his companion, "she's the only one who doesn’t live here. Besides, nobody saw her arrive."

  The policeman left the identity document of the girl on the dashboard and returned to her, this time in Spanish, a language that he dominated well.

  "I want to know your version. What did you see? Don’t skimp on details.”

  The young woman armed herself with courage and began her story:

  "I arrived in the evening. No," she said, "it was quite dark at night. I had been walking the city on foot, so I was tired. As I passed the door, I found it open. And the light from the hallway is on.”

  "Didn’t you hear a shot?"

  "No... no..." she whispered.

  "Neighbors say they heard
a shot. Besides, I wouldn’t want to appear hasty, but it is quite obvious that there was a shot,” said the agent sarcastically, referring to the unquestionable weapon of the crime.

  “I was tired and had my earphones on. I was listening to music," she said.

  From the interior of the car, the street looked like a tunnel flashing by the gleaming lights of the other two police vehicles. It was as if everyone had disappeared.

  “Agreed. What did you do then?” Horner continued.

  “I approached, and then I knew something was wrong. I saw some neighbors coming out of their homes, alarmed, and I realized that they too were heading to where I was. I asked them about what happened when they were close, more out of strangeness than concern. Then four pairs of eyes surrounded me: two men and two women of a retired age. All four were in their pajamas, and one of the ladies wore her curlers.”

  “Did they tell you anything?”

  "They said they heard a gunshot. That's when I really freaked out.”

  “Okay. Proceed.”

  "I made my way through them and rang the doorbell at the same time I entered the house. I don’t know why I did it.” She shrugged, staring at nothing. “I guess to scare away the fear. Inside it smelled of gunpowder, and I felt an overwhelming desire to vomit. Then I went to the service door, the light was also on, and then I saw... then I saw...”

  Sara began to convulse and to cry uncontrollably. She covered her face with both hands, and she remained in this state of nervous breakdown for several minutes. The interrogation was automatically interrupted, though Horner did not need further details. He knew perfectly what Mora had seen.

  "Get ready," Carroll had whispered in his ear when, a few minutes earlier, both policemen entered the house to analyze the body. Next to the door of the first-floor sink, a man lay on his back in the middle of a huge pool of blood. When Horner, more by police instinct than by mere usefulness, approached to take the pulse, he discovered a crater the size of a plum at the level of the right cheekbone, between the ear and the mouth. The bullet had torn part of the jaw and had come out of the nape of the neck. The right eye socket was hollow. The impact had been so violent that the tiles on the wall closest to the mirror were splashed with what had been part of the man's encephalic mass. Somewhat stunned, he asked his companion about the identification of the corpse. According to his documentation, his name was Miguel Lennard and he was forty-one years old. And that was exactly what Sara had seen.

  When the suspect calmed down a little, the policeman decided that he would not waste any more time, so he continued with the round of questions:

  "What were you doing in this neighborhood? And don’t tell me to take a walk,” he warned. “No one comes to this street to take a walk.”

  “No, I came to see someone,” was the mysterious response of the young woman.

  “Who?” Insisted Horner.

  "I'd rather not say that, Officer.”

  "Did you know Miguel Lennard?"

  “No,” she responded.

  Alfred knew she was not being honest. Her expression was not that of someone who doesn’t know who she’s talking about. It's that sort of thing that a good cop doesn’t miss. Besides, he had seen them together the other afternoon under the Bridge of Sighs. There was no doubt about it: the young Mora knew the deceased.

  Suspect Sara Mora lies, he wrote with a pen in his personal notebook.

  As she did so, she took the opportunity to scrutinize him in more detail. If something defined the policeman was the security that he seemed to possess in himself, although she assumed that his actions were from boredom and bad mood. The bones of his cheeks, populated by a ten-day beard, were marked by a very masculine outline. Under the right eyebrow, a scar of at least five centimeters stood out above everything else. She had not yet seen him smile, though she bet he boasted perfect teeth. The eyes, sad and deep blue, were his strong point. He was by far the handsomest rugged guy she’d ever seen. The last thing that caught her attention before turning back was a bandage that covered his right wrist under his jacket. She didn’t care, though. She had more important things to think about.

  Horner leaned sideways on the seat so that he could look directly into the eyes of the suspect, although this, somewhat intimidated her, she again fixed her eyes on the dashboard. He formulated the million-dollar question:

  "Who do you think killed Miguel Lennard?"

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen anything at all, as I told you," Sara replied, still looking very confused

  "Listen, this is very important," the policeman insisted. “Do you know anyone who had reason to kill him? Someone with whom he owed some outstanding debt?”

  Mora's answers seemed to be over.

  “I don’t know, I really don’t know, I repeat that I don’t know that man!” For the first time, Sara looked Horner in the eye. Her face was the vivid image of bewilderment. “I didn’t know that man...!” She repeated.

  The words died in her mouth as the tears came again.

  Horner sighed, aware that he was going to get little more out of the conversation. He read what he had just written, suspect Sara Mora lies, and underlined it.

  At about 5:30 in the morning, Carroll invited his partner for breakfast. There were no more photographs of the crime to take, nor any witnesses for questioning. Lennard's body had been taken to the morgue for the autopsy, and little by little, the street was returning to normal; no one was seen either on one side or the other, except for the neighbors who were early risers, most of them walking their respective pets. It was still dark, but a nearby coffee shop had already opened its doors. The two officers sat down at a table near the entrance of the small establishment and ordered a couple of donuts and a single coffee for Carroll. Horner preferred a whiskey on the rocks.

  Thomas Carroll was born in Scotland thirty-six years ago. His father was a Presbyterian farmer from Glasgow and his mother an atheist from Liverpool who wrote erotic novels. It was she who took care of his education, so that when one of her most ardent trilogies rose to fame, the whole family moved to London. It’s not known whether it was by a registration mistake or by a Machiavellian maneuver by his mother, allergic to everything Scottish, the fact is that Thomas' passport claimed that he was a citizen of London. The photo showed a long, zucchini-like face with a prominent chin, devoid of hair and pallor as the most genuine of the Anglo-Saxons (in their social circle they used to call him Snowflake). However, his hair was so bright and turbulent that the most ignorant dared to call him contemptuously the albino. And he hated it.

  His appearance when working incognito, (usually all the time), was a reminder of the typical bohemian Paris artist Woody Allen. But he was neither a writer, nor a painter, nor a poet, but a conscientious policeman who had begun to work as a member of the City of London police force in the early 1990s, patrolling the streets in the center of the capital and hunting purse thieves. Almost a decade later, he was offered a position as a detective at the DCI (Department of Criminal Investigation) in the city of Oxford. The DCI had dozens of agents in the field, but Carroll had formed a partnership with a newcomer to the team, though he was very private about talking about his personal life. His name was Alfred Horner, and despite his introversion, he seemed like a good guy. And he was an excellent cop. Soon after starting to work together, Alfred invited him for some drinks on his new boat, which he used as a second home; a shelter anchored on the Thames to where he went when he wanted to disconnect. Since then, Thomas had considered him his friend. They made a good team, and over the years, Carroll willingly accepted Horner to assume the role of leader, despite being considerably younger than he in age and less experienced. Alfred played the role of bad cop and Thomas was the good cop. Both were comfortable with their role.

  “Are you okay?” Carroll asked, noticing the complexion of his companion paler than usual. “I didn’t want to tell you anything in front of the others earlier, but I noticed that your lip is swollen.”

  "Don’t worry,
it doesn’t matter, it’s just a blow.”

  Thomas gave him a wary look.

  "You don’t look well, Fred.”

  "I'm fine, really," Horner said, taking the remark with a wave of his hand to dismiss it. “It's just that I've slept little, and I've been shocked by that man's appearance.”

  "Yes, the truth is that it has been quite mind-boggling.” Carroll shook his head and took a sip of his coffee. “What do you think of the case?”

  "At the moment we have very little.”

  "Without saying." Snowflake looked into his companion's eyes. They shone especially brightly. “You're still thinking about the witness, aren’t you?”

  The detective nodded thoughtfully.

  "Come on, Fred, she's just a young tourist who hardly speaks our language. She wouldn’t be able to kill a fly!”

  "Hey, we don’t know that yet.” Horner, who didn’t seem to be in the mood that morning, pointed at him with his index finger. “For now, she’s the only one that nobody saw arrive. She was already there when Carl and Amy left their house.”

  “That doesn’t make her guilty," Carroll said.

  "But not otherwise," Alfred countered. “Besides, she lied to me.”

  Carroll frowned.

  "What do you mean, she lied to you?"

  "She knew Miguel Lennard.” Horner wiped the cold sweat from his brow with his hand and ended his theory. “I saw them together the other day, under the Catte Street Bridge.”

  "Don’t fuck with me.”

  "On the other hand, hasn’t the name of the victim caught your attention?"

  Thomas associated ideas at full speed.

  “Miguel?” He said.

  “Exactly!” Horner nodded somberly, though proud of his simple conclusion. “It’s a Spanish name. Crystal clear.”

  Carroll remained thoughtful as he finished drinking his coffee. Then he pointed to Alfred's right arm with his chin.

  “What happened to you?”

  The man raised his right hand and rolled it over, showing a bandage from the wrist to the elbow.