The call ended without Verónica having a chance to ask if there were any firm leads in the case so far. She thought of the article Álex Vilna would now be writing. It crossed her mind to ask Patricia to send her the text before publication to see if he’d written anything stupid. Then she realized that meant acting like those interviewees who want to read the article before it comes out. She had always refused to let them. So she should be consistent now and not bother Patricia.
Luca reminded her of the invitation to lunch at Club Náutico. Since the autopsy results weren’t arriving until afternoon, they might as well spend those hours doing something. It was all the same to Verónica whether she spent the time in Yacanto or some other place, so she told Luca she would go with them. She invited Federico too, but to her surprise he declined the invitation. He had things to do in town. Was Federico carrying out his own investigation? And if so, why wasn’t he sharing his findings with her?
Her phone rang, interrupting these thoughts. It was her friend Paula again; she’d had three missed calls from her the day before. This time she decided to answer. Hearing her friend’s voice was like stumbling across an oasis.
“Do you want me to come up there? Look, I can leave Juanfra with his father and be there in a few hours.”
“No thanks, Pau. Federico’s here.”
“That’s reassuring.”
“Tell me what you’re up to. I need to hear about something different from what happened here.”
“The other day I nearly beat the shit out of a guy who was trying to sneak into an event with a writer.”
“And I punched some dickhead in the face yesterday.”
“We’re two mean bitches.”
“Damn right.”
“Ah, and something really strange happened to me. I don’t know if I should tell you.”
“Details, please.”
“I used your apartment for a tryst.”
“OK…”
“But something strange happened.”
“I hope you haven’t left condoms all over the place.”
“That’s the thing. For reasons we needn’t go into, I left my thong on the floor in the bathroom.”
“Yes, spare me the details.”
“And the next day I went to water your plants and collect my underwear, but it wasn’t there.”
“Are you sure?”
“A hundred per cent. I left it on the floor by the bidet. It was one of my favourites, with a kind of dotty pattern.”
“That figures. You don’t think you took it home the same day as the tryst?”
“No, darling. Walking through the streets with no underwear on is not an experience one forgets. I’m a hundred per cent sure I left it in your bathroom and that it disappeared. I reckon the doorman came in and took it.”
Verónica ended the call feeling concerned. Marcelo had a key to her apartment. That didn’t mean anything, though: he was incapable of doing such a thing. He might have the hots for her, but he had principles too. He would never steal an item of underwear, or spy on her, or lie to her.
She decided to call him. After the usual greetings, and without telling him what had happened in the last few days, she got to the point:
“Hey, Marcelo, have you by any chance been in my apartment in the last few days?”
“Not even once. Why?”
“And you haven’t noticed any strange activity?”
“In your apartment? No. Do you want me to go in and check everything’s all right?”
“No, don’t worry. My friend Paula is going every so often to water the plants.”
“Now you mention it, there was something a bit odd: someone came to leave a package for you, but he wouldn’t let me take it. And the guy wasn’t from any of the usual courier companies. I suppose he could have been from a private messenger service. It’s not as if I know them all. Some of the questions he asked … how can I put it … there were just too many of them.”
What was going on? Someone had got into her apartment. They were looking for her, going through her things. At least here in Yacanto del Valle she could feel safe. But when she went home she would have to find out what new trouble she had stumbled into without even knowing it.
V
Danilo Peratta took the bus that went from Los Cercos to Coronel Berti. He walked around the town, which was quite a bit bigger than the other two. He was looking for an old car to steal, one you could start by hot-wiring. He wanted to avoid taking out the car’s owner because that would attract a lot of attention. In an alleyway leading to a stream, he found a Dodge 1500 that had to be at least thirty years old. He stood there for a while casing the area. There was no house nearby, no neighbours around. After twenty minutes he approached the vehicle. The doors were unlocked. One of the advantages of living in a small town.
He got into the car and looked into the rear-view mirror for a few seconds. Nobody to be seen. He used a screwdriver to unlock the steering wheel and looked for the ignition wires. The dashboard lights came on and the engine purred. Slowly, checking to see if anyone was watching or following him, he drove out of town.
Arriving in Yacanto del Valle, he parked the car two hundred yards from the hotel where his target was staying. There seemed to be some unusual activity in the street leading to the square. He saw an outside broadcast van from Buenos Aires go past. It must be journalists arriving to cover the women’s murder. With any luck they’d soon be talking and writing about the murder of one of their colleagues, too.
It suited him to have a lot of outsiders arriving in town. It would make it easier than usual for him to go unnoticed. He walked towards the hotel then stopped a block away and stayed there, watching the entrance. The sun was beating down and he began to feel hot. He thought of going to the grill opposite the hotel, but the receptionist he had spoken to might turn up there and recognize him. He couldn’t take that risk.
He didn’t have to wait much longer. A 4 × 4 pulled up at the entrance to the hotel. Soon afterwards his target came out of the hotel with two men, one of whom was the receptionist he had spoken to before. They got into the pickup and drove off towards the main road. Peratta quickly turned round and walked back to the Dodge. He saw the pickup turn south on the main road. It wasn’t difficult to catch up. They drove for about twelve miles before turning onto a smaller road.
Peratta tried to be inconspicuous, but it was difficult on a road with so little traffic. He let the pickup get as far ahead as possible without losing sight of it. The vehicle turned onto a short road that ended at the entrance to a sailing club. Driving on, he stopped the car a few yards ahead. He couldn’t do anything inside the club; he would have to wait for her to come out, ideally on her own, although that seemed very unlikely. Peratta was going to have to take all four of them out. A complication, but not a serious one if none of them was armed.
He made a plan. Driving back past the entrance to the club, he continued, stopping about five hundred yards further on. He positioned the car at the side of the road. When he saw the pickup appear, he’d move the car, blocking their path, and gesture for help. He’d approach the 4 × 4 as though to explain what the problem was and then shoot them. First the driver, then the other two men, and her last. Before he killed her, he’d take the thong out of his pocket and show it to her. He’d tell her that he wasn’t just going to kill her, he was going to fuck her too. That seemed fair compensation for what she had put him through.
Not many cars came along this road and all of them were going to the sailing club. Time passed slowly and only the odd person cast him and his old car a half-interested glance. He should have brought a hip flask with some gin in it.
Peratta felt drowsiness gradually overcoming him. Suddenly his phone pinged and the noise struck him as out of place. It was a text message from a number he didn’t recognize, containing just one phrase: Throw it away.
Who had sent this, and what did they mean? Or had it been sent by mistake? Only Doctor Zero’s people, El Gallo Miran
da and Nick, knew this number. And throw what away? All at once he understood. He had to get rid of the phone. This fucking gadget could lead them to him.
Peratta looked at it now as though he were eyeing up a traitor. He got out of the Dodge and walked a few yards towards the trees. Further on there was a pond. He hurled the phone in that direction and watched it sink like a stone. When he returned to the road he paid no attention to the car driving towards the sailing club. But the car did not continue. Ten yards beyond the Dodge it came to a stop. Only then did Peratta start paying attention. A man got out of the car and began walking towards him. The man was carrying a rifle. Was it one of the security guards from the club coming to ask what he was doing? Peratta smiled at him to seem friendly. But the man lifted his weapon, pointed at him and fired.
8 The Mind of Man Is Capable of Anything
I
In normal circumstances, it would have been a perfect day to spend in the country. The morning was sunny, there was almost no wind. It was perhaps a little too warm for the end of March, but ideal for eating in the shade, as they did, the four of them, on the terrace of the sailing club. Verónica tried to concentrate on the food, on each mouthful, but it was impossible; impossible, too, to follow the others’ conversation. If they noticed she wasn’t paying attention, they were polite enough not to mention it.
Halfway through lunch, Verónica called Federico. She wanted to run past him the questions she was thinking of asking the judge: what had happened to the girls’ phones? Had all their clothes been found or were some items still missing? Had they checked the security cameras at Ramiro’s house yet? But Federico wasn’t answering his calls.
When they had finished eating, Ramiro invited them to go out sailing for a bit. Verónica wasn’t in the mood for a boat trip but she also didn’t want to seem unfriendly to Ramiro, who kept insisting on taking her to see his boat (a Bermuda Twentyone, as he was keen to tell them). She agreed to a spin on the lake, on condition they head back to Yacanto afterwards.
They walked to the jetty and Ramiro asked for the boat to be lowered into the water. As the club employees were manoeuvring the vessel, Ramiro’s younger brother Nahuel appeared and greeted Verónica with indifference. He was wearing a sleeveless shirt that showed off his muscular arms. Ramiro had mentioned at some point that Nahuel was a rower. The boy seemed rather agitated and drew his brother aside for a quiet word.
Verónica stood watching from the shed as the blue and white boat was lowered into the water. When the Bermuda was ready by the dock, Ramiro came back alone.
“One prize idiot – that’s my brother.”
“What’s happened?”
“I don’t know. It seems his girlfriend is pregnant and wants an abortion. He was asking me for some money, so he’s going to drop by the gallery later on.”
They got on to the boat. Ramiro gently steered it away from the dock.
“I hope you don’t get seasick.”
“My dad used to have a boat moored in Tigre, so I’m used to it. I used to steer it, in fact.”
Ramiro invited her to take the helm. Verónica’s father’s boat had been much less sophisticated, but it wasn’t very different to handle. Ramiro put his arms around her, circling her waist in a subtle embrace. Verónica didn’t stop him.
“I’ve got a confession,” Ramiro said. “When I was little I was terrified of water. I didn’t know how to swim. By the time I learned, I was quite old – seventeen, eighteen – and I never got to be a good swimmer. I flounder about in the water. Nahuel, on the other hand, can do everything: rowing, jet-skiing, diving – you name it.”
“He certainly looks sporty.”
“When I was at school, about ten or eleven years old, a teacher mentioned that orangutans never learn how to swim. So from that day onwards they called me Orangutan. Even in secondary school, although they shortened it to Oran. And some bastard just called me Onan.”
“Good nickname.”
“Yes. Oran stuck for such a long time that there’s still the odd friend from my adolescence who calls me that.”
They cruised for a few minutes. In the middle of the lake the tranquillity was absolute. Ramiro got her to stop the boat, which rocked gently.
“Whenever I want to get far away from the world, I come here.”
It was certainly far away from everything. The shore was barely discernible, just water on every side. Ramiro tried to kiss her but Verónica gently stopped him.
They returned to the shore, where Mariano and Luca were waiting for them, then set off back home. Verónica called Federico, who still wasn’t answering his phone. None of the four of them noticed the bloodstains by the side of the road.
II
After talking to Decaux, Verónica’s knees were shaking. The district attorney had promised to email her a summary of the report, but he had ended up telling her over the phone instead.
What was known so far was that Frida and Petra had been murdered within twenty-four hours of the party. They had been savagely beaten, both with fists and with a machete. Both showed signs of having been raped. Both had traces of semen in the vagina and anus. Although the DNA analysis was still pending, all the evidence pointed to two or more perpetrators. Frida had been strangled. Once dead, she had been shot in the back of the neck. In Petra’s case, the cause of death was a bullet that had perforated her lung and heart and exited below her left nipple. She had died instantly. Both had epithelial cells under their fingernails, which suggested an effort to fight off their attackers. They had died in the place they were found. The forensic biochemist wanted the search widened to include nearby trees whose branches might have scratched the assailants and thus collected some biological material.
The DA told her that they were still searching for genetic fingerprints, that hairs had been found which could belong to the attackers. There were prints left by footwear and tyres too. Everything was being analysed.
Verónica asked Decaux about the girls’ mobile phones. He told her they were discovered at the scene of the crime and that so far nothing relevant had been found on them. The same applied to the clothes, which had been torn or destroyed. They were still being analysed.
The security cameras from Nicolás’s house had not revealed much. Although the girls were not captured leaving the property, that was not altogether significant because the recording only showed people sitting in the front seats of their cars or leaving the property on foot.
So far the strongest lead was the Umbanda offering left beside the bodies. The hypothesis was that the women had been tricked into leaving the party by someone who had then taken them to the gathering of some kind of sect.
Verónica asked if he had been in contact with the people attending the party and the DA conceded that it was impossible to investigate everyone. There had been a lot of them, and no guest list. He was hoping a witness would come forward who remembered having seen the two young women with someone and that the information would shed some light on their last hours.
After ending the call, Verónica couldn’t stand up. The shaking began in her legs and extended up to her jaw. It was a few minutes before she was able to calm herself. She drank some water and called Federico again. This time he answered. He said he was in the hotel dining room. Verónica went downstairs and found him sitting at the back of the room drinking a coffee. He looked like a contented regular, whiling the time away.
“I’ve been calling you all day,” Verónica reproached him.
“I had things to do.”
She told him about her conversation with the district attorney. “I have the feeling we’re missing something obvious,” she added.
“Like when you lose keys that were in your hand a minute earlier.”
“Exactly.”
“In that case you have to do what I do when I lose mine. I go back and repeat all the movements I made since the last time I had them in my hand.”
“So I have to reconstruct everything that’s happened since we separate
d at the party?”
“Ideally.”
“That’s impossible today. But I do need to go back to the beginning of the investigation. I ought to speak to the person who found the bodies.”
“She’s a teenager who lives out in the backcountry. The investigating judge told me. The girl lives near to where it happened.”
“Do you have her name?”
“I can get it.”
Minutes later they set off in Federico’s car. The judge had not only given them the girl’s name, Mercedes, but he had instructed Chief Superintendent Suárez to wait for them at the crime scene and direct them to her house. Once they were in the car, Verónica told Federico that someone had gone into her apartment while she was away. He waited a few seconds before replying.
“Yes, that’s true.”
“You knew?”
Federico concentrated on the road ahead and Verónica said impatiently, “How could you know and not tell me? Who came into my house?”
“Danilo Peratta, the sole survivor from the four guys you ran down in front of the building.”
“But wasn’t he in prison? Didn’t he get a life sentence?”
“He escaped from the hospital where he’s been having check-ups.”
“What did he want going into my apartment?”
“He wanted to know where you were because he wanted to kill you.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me?”
“I was going to tell you as soon as it became necessary. I came here for various reasons, but the main one was to make sure he didn’t get near you.”
“Does he know where I am?”
“It’s sorted, Verónica. The guy’s not going to be a problem.”
“What do you mean? How do you know?”
“Today I waylaid him on the way to Club Náutico. I shot him.”
“Are you mad, Federico? The man’s an assassin, he could have killed you.”
The Foreign Girls Page 16
