by David Hewson
‘What do you want us to do, Señor Mateo?’ asked Menéndez.
‘I want you to protect me. While I’m here. I fight this afternoon, I have to fight, you understand. After that I’ll leave. To hell with Malaga. I’ll go abroad for a while. Till this blows over.’
‘“Blows over”,’ repeated Quemada. ‘I like that. Three people dead, one good cop struggling to make it, all hell breaking loose out there. And you’re going to go sun yourself till it “blows over”. Makes it sound like an outbreak of the flu.’
‘Do I get protection?’
Quemada grinned and said, ‘The way I see it, sir, is, you come to us, you say the brother we’re looking for – the brother who sells you dope – he’s fallen out with you. For some reason you don’t want to tell us. And you want us to divert precious manpower, on the busiest day of the year, to look after you. Here’s some advice. You’ve got money. Go get yourself some bodyguards or something. Can’t see there’s much here that justifies that kind of resource commitment. You might not have noticed it, sir, but we’ve got 99.9 per cent of the police force out there hassling every innocent citizen we can find on the street looking for your brother. Do you think it makes sense we should take them off looking for him and put them on to looking after you instead?’
Mateo popped a thumb at Quemada, looked at Menéndez and said, ‘Is he the boss around here?’
‘No,’ the lieutenant said. ‘But I like to hear him talk sometimes. It makes a lot of sense. Of course if your memory improves, sir . . .’
‘I don’t know any more.’
‘Then in that case,’ replied Menéndez, ‘we all wish you a successful day in the ring.’
Mateo picked up his cigarettes and lighter, then stuffed them into his jacket pocket.
‘I don’t believe this. I really don’t. If that lunatic gets within a mile of me, I’ll make sure you bastards pay.’
‘Sure you will,’ replied Quemada. ‘Before you go, though, I wonder if you could tell us one thing. Luis Romero? You remember old Luis? The guy we found dead in his car? Seems he cut his own wrists? Or maybe not.’
‘I told you before. I may have met him. I didn’t know him. What more can I say?’
‘Don’t suppose you remember where you were the night he died?’
‘Do you remember where you were months ago? Give me the date. I’ll look in my diary. See if there’s something there.’
‘Oh, I’ll do that,’ Quemada said. ‘It’s a promise. When you’re done playing with those stupid bulls today, you and me are going to sit down and go through every day of your diary for this year.’
‘Why?’ Mateo bellowed.
‘Because you want us to think your brother did this to poor old Luis. All on his own. But that just isn’t the case. One man couldn’t have done it. Come to think of it, I don’t think Antonio could have killed the Angels by himself, either. There was dope in their blood, true, but even so. I think someone helped him. Someone fit. Someone strong. Someone the people already knew, so they didn’t guess young Antonio was about to get out his gear and have some fun.’
Mateo looked deathly pale. He said nothing.
‘Now maybe that someone thought there was a reason back then,’ Quemada went on. ‘He understood a little at the beginning. Then when Antonio got, like you say, a little crazy, when he started killing people just for fun, maybe his little helpmate cried foul. Said: No way, I want no part of this. Which is not the kind of thing Antonio might want to hear. Might make him mad, you know. Really mad. You get my drift?’
‘You’re making this up,’ said Mateo eventually. ‘Guessing. He’s out there, sitting, thinking what he’s going to do next, and you’re just frigging around in here like it doesn’t matter.’
‘Are we?’ asked Menéndez.
‘That,’ said Mateo, standing up, ‘is it. I’ve had enough. I tried to help you people, but you’re too stupid to understand. I’m going to work.’
A plain-clothes cop opened the door, walked in and threw a manila folder onto the desk in front of Quemada. On the cover, in a little plastic pocket, was typed the name ‘Antonio Mateo’.
The detective picked up the folder, weighed it in one hand and gave a little wave of his hand: so-so.
‘Say hello to the moo-cows for me,’ Quemada added cheerily as Mateo walked out of the open door.
FORTY-NINE
The heat felt like some vast moist glove that wiped their faces the moment they stepped out of the building. The humidity, even at a little past eight in the morning, was enervating. On the horizon, dimly threatening, stood a puffy line of nascent storm clouds, tops starting to mushroom up into anvils, their bases faintly blackening. The air was charged with static and atmospheric pressure. The weather seemed to be straining to break, to burst.
In the closed courtyard of the station a dozen or so squad cars were backed up nose to tail in rows, pouring hot, choking fumes into the thin, bright air. Miasmic waves of heat rippled above their hoods.
Quemada looked at the jam and grimaced. ‘And to top it all, that lazy bastard Velasco calls in sick too.’
Menéndez tapped him on the shoulder and said, ‘We can walk,’
‘I hate walking. It’s primitive. Like this. All those people there, spending the morning crying for their sins. And the rest of the time trying to work up several hundred new ones for next year. Bad enough when things are normal. With the show the captain’s putting on, they’re going to get awkward before long. If the Pope turns up on a day out, he won’t get nowhere without his ID.’
The lieutenant asked, ‘We’ve got Jaime Mateo being followed on foot?’
‘I grabbed some rookie mug from Vice who was trying to stay out of Rodríguez’s clutches. Roped him in for the job. He’s gone over to Calle Betis now. The guy normally walks from his apartment across the bridge. Maybe he’ll get some goon to drive him this time. Doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t be too difficult, even for Vice.’
‘And the addresses? The ones we got for his brother from the files? Who’s doing that?’
‘I stole some guys from Records. Two on that, two on the mother. Just in case. When the captain hears about this he’s gonna scalp us. You know that, don’t you?’
Menéndez ignored the question.
‘Do you think he’s genuinely in danger? The brother?’ asked Maria.
‘What do you think?’ replied Menéndez.
‘I think he’s a bad liar. That he’s scared of something, but he doesn’t really want to tell us what.’
‘I can buy that,’ said Quemada. ‘What gets me is all those people out there thinking he’s a saint. If they’d seen him squirming like we did back then . . .’
‘They’d still think he’s a saint,’ said Menéndez. ‘It’s not who he is that counts. It’s what he stands for.’
‘Which is?’ asked Maria.
‘Gutter kid made good,’ Quemada said. ‘Scared gutter kid who thinks he’s in danger. Maybe he is. He also thinks he’s pretty much safe once the fight is over. Otherwise he’d be gone by now, otherwise . . .’
Quemada’s words drifted away. His eyes were on the far gate. It looked as if the traffic sergeant had abandoned all idea of getting any vehicles out into the square. Engines were being cut, even on a couple of motorcycles next to the gatehouse. Uniformed cops clambered out of their seats, thrust big hands deep into their pockets and swore half-heartedly.
‘Tell the sergeant on the gate we’ll leave before them,’ Menén-dez said. ‘I planned a little sightseeing on the way.’
Quemada nodded, then scuttled slowly through the crowd, his bald head bobbing among the dark police caps.
‘When Quemada asked him about Romero,’ said Maria, ‘what was that about?’
Menéndez spoke without looking at her. His mind seemed to be somewhere else. ‘He made a good point. One we should have seen. How can one man get another to cut his own wrists? It’s not possible. And the Angel Brothers. It’s fine for the captain to say they had drugs in their
blood. When didn’t they? It still seems a hell of a lot for one person to do. To try to kill two men of that size. Of that background. You’d need a lot of confidence.’ He stared at her. ‘Or you’d need some help.’
Quemada was in deep, animated discussion with the duty sergeant, who was busy scribbling in the log.
Menéndez took her gently by the elbow, then pulled her into the lee of the main doorway, out of the sea of bodies in the courtyard. His face was taut and alert. He touched her on the arm, almost tenderly, and, only briefly, the mask fell from his face. There was concern there. Perhaps even fear. He wanted to speak to her alone.
‘That paper we saw in Castañeda’s office,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Do you remember the names?’
She shook her head. ‘No. I just glanced at it. They were bookkeeping entries. Weren’t they?’
‘Something like that,’ said Menéndez. ‘I took them home. A little light reading.’
She was astonished. ‘You’re not supposed to do that. There are rules.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Menéndez with a dry laugh. ‘There are rules about lots of things.’
The idea, the thought, that someone as rigid as Menéndez would step outside the system astonished her.
‘Did you find something? In the books?’
He thought for a moment, then said, ‘I don’t know. There are entries that don’t make sense, at least not without some other pieces of information, and I’m not sure I can get them.’
He looked over to the gate, across the crowd. The bald head was bobbing back towards them again. She felt his grip on her arm tighten until it began to feel half-painful. He bent down and stared intently into her face.
‘Whatever happens today, you have to remember to trust me, please. Until this is over, it’s important we stay together. It’s important you do as I say.’
He waited for an answer. She didn’t know what to say. Quemada bobbed towards them, pushing hard through the crowd. He didn’t realize they’d moved. He couldn’t see them and he looked worried.
‘OK,’ she said without feeling. With that, Menéndez took her arm and pulled her into the body of the crowd, waved to Quemada and they were walking, pushing their way through.
‘Good luck,’ said the gate sergeant. ‘You’re going to need it.’
He threw back the big black iron bolt, rolled the gate to the left, and, for a few moments, opened up the yard to the outside world.
‘Stay together,’ yelled Menéndez. ‘Follow me. There’s somewhere we can watch.’
Maria had seen the square more times than she could remember, but she didn’t recognize an inch of it. At eye level there was nothing but people, a vast ocean of bodies moving, swaying, as if to a swell, spreading out in every direction, so tightly packed together that it seemed impossible anyone, any single person, could be directing the proceedings.
The gate slammed shut behind them and immediately she felt the press of bodies crush her against the metal. The breath was squeezed from her chest in a single pained gasp and, for a second, she thought she would faint. Then Quemada stepped in front of her, turned round to face the crowd, took as much of the pressure as he could. Menéndez, his back to them, facing the gate too, took her by the arm and shouted, ‘Hold on to me.’
And they began to fight their way along the perimeter of the square.
From the crowd came a cacophony of sound. The vast flow of humanity seemed to speak a language of its own, one of cries and whimpers and low, fleeting groans. It behaved like a single creature, with a single, manic mind. What individuality lay in the body of the beast was temporarily submerged. The people had fused into a unified entity that lived a fleeting existence of its own. In that union lay comfort, lay safety.
The noise grew louder. She could see bands of colour in the bodies beyond her. White, with ecclesiastical gold, the pointed hats of the penitents, black, purple, white, scarlet, a forest of vivid peaks that jerked and twitched like something out of a show performed by gigantic marionettes. The wall behind her, biting into her back, became more uneven, more uncomfortable. Still Menéndez dragged her by the arm, elbowing a path at the very edge of the crowd, ignoring those who turned and stared at their intrusion.
She wondered where it would end. What it was for. Everything was too indistinct, too noisy and close, to make sense. It was like sitting at the very front of a cinema, a foot away from the screen. The sound, the colours became everything. There was no way to distinguish them from the components of the event.
Menéndez stopped in front of her, leaned his hand against a narrow wooden door and motioned for her to stand beside him. Quemada joined them from behind. There was a key in Menén-dez’s hand. He pushed it into the brass lock and said, ‘When I count three, we go in . . . One, two . . .’
She never heard the last word. The door flew open and she felt the pressure of the crowd force her into the blackness behind it, like a cork being pushed out of a bottle. Quemada followed her, then Menéndez. He jammed the door shut with his shoulder and they stood, panting in the dark. Menéndez clicked a light switch and they found themselves in the modest entrance hall of what appeared to be a small apartment block converted from an older tenement building. Cheap little doorbells were screwed to the downstairs doors, weak lights illuminating the name-cards. A worn red carpet covered the floor and a narrow set of stairs that led off from the rear half of the hallway. Menéndez turned on another switch and a light came on upstairs. They followed him, padding up the threadbare fabric. On the first floor there was a wide open corridor with several doors leading off it, each again with a doorbell. Menéndez turned back, towards the street side of the building, walked to the last and threw it open. He was smiling, almost bashfully.
‘Excuse the mess,’ he said. ‘You know how bachelors live.’
Maria and Quemada walked in. It was painted plain white and sparsely furnished with the kind of items she associated with a chain store. At the front, a good ten feet deep, were casement windows that gave out onto the square. Three cheap canvas chairs were already lined up a few feet away from the glass, turned towards the street.
‘Take a seat,’ he said. ‘I’ll make some coffee.’
Quemada sat down first, followed by Maria. They watched him disappear into the kitchen.
‘You know,’ Quemada whispered, ‘I never knew he lived here, so close to the station.’ He thought about it. ‘Matter of fact, I never knew he lived anywhere at all.’
Maria could feel her senses returning, her hearing going back to normal. She looked out of the window. The crowd was more comprehensible from this distance. The frightening closeness of its presence was kept in check. She could look at it, study it and remain detached.
‘Where did you think he lived?’
‘General theory is . . . in a coffin somewhere.’
He registered the disquiet in her face.
‘It was a joke. Menéndez, you know, he’s not the most popular of people around the station. Too quiet. Too aloof. Too ambitious. He’s got his sights on the captain’s job, fair enough, but he lets you know it a little too often.’
‘I know what you mean.’
‘Yeah. And this is where he lives. Look at the place. No decorations. No colour. Nothing. This guy’s got nothing in his life. No woman. No kids. Nothing but the police. Why else would he live so close to the job?’
‘But he’s a good cop. You trust him.’
‘He’s a good cop. Yeah. Trust him?’
Before he could answer there was a sound behind them, half-drowned out by the clamour from the window. Menéndez was putting a cafetiere on the table, watching them with an expression she could not decipher.
Quemada looked at the browny-black fluid swirling in the glass tube and said, ‘Mind if I have a beer?’
‘Yes,’ said Menéndez. ‘We have a busy day ahead of us. Beer makes you sleepy.’
‘Keeps me awake,’ said Quemada. ‘Honest.’
‘I don’t have beer.’
Que
mada blinked, astonished. ‘Guess it’s coffee then. What you want us to do?’
‘You watch at the window. See what’s going on. Over there?’
He pointed to the far side of the square where a huge gold and silver platform, a still figure held in its centre by a surrounding frame, was rocking slowly from side to side, making a stumbling ingress through the masses.
‘That’s where the brotherhood will come in. They’ll be following the line of the priests and choirboys.’
‘I knew that,’ said Quemada.
‘Good,’ said Menéndez and passed them each a coffee mug. ‘Watch them. Look out for anything unusual. I have some phone calls to make in the other room. Keep an eye on the people in red. Maybe our man is there, maybe he isn’t. Keep an eye on the square too.’
‘Jesus, Lieutenant, even if our man pulls out a machine gun and goes wild out there, the guys in uniform are going to get to him before we do. It’s hopeless. Can’t we go into the crowd?’
‘Anywhere in particular?’ said Maria. ‘There’s got to be a few thousand people down there. You can’t choose to be anywhere.’
‘Exactly,’ said Menéndez. ‘Besides, he isn’t going to do anything like that. I don’t think he’s going to do anything at all. This isn’t . . .’
Menéndez checked himself. They both saw it.
‘Isn’t what?’ asked Quemada. ‘I think you’re beginning to lose me a little here.’
‘It isn’t what it seems,’ said Menéndez. ‘Now, will you do as I asked? Here.’ He threw a pair of binoculars across to Quemada. They were narrow pocket Pentaxes.
‘These are fancy glasses, Lieutenant. The kind you use for birdwatching?’
‘You’re uncovering all my secrets today. My, aren’t you going to be popular in the canteen once this is over and done with?’
‘You’re the boss,’ grunted Quemada. ‘Jesus . . .’ He scowled at the little binoculars. ‘How does a man get to look through these things without squinting?’
But Menéndez was gone.
‘You try them,’ said Quemada. ‘They look like a ladies’ size to me.’
Maria’s fingers slipped round the matt gun metal of the binoculars, felt for the focusing ring, then she pulled them up to her face. It took a moment or two to get the focus right, then the scene shot into close-up with a sudden, startling clarity. She scanned the crowd: the bare faces of the priests fixed in some sad rapture, the agony of the platform carriers straining beneath their burden, struggling a little more than might really be necessary. And behind, in so many different colours, the masked penitents, hoods swaying in the hot breeze. She swept the glasses across the hordes of men there and from somewhere came a noise: the distant rumble of thunder.
