by David Hewson
‘And you’re doing nothing with this? Nothing at all?’
Quemada made a face like he had toothache. ‘I take back what I said about you being cop material. We need proof. Rodríguez is smart as a fox. He taught most of us everything we know. With what we have on him now, we can get him for screwing up the show when Menéndez was killed. For anything criminal we need to link him directly with Antonio, with the money, with what’s gone on here. I don’t know . . .’
She pulled away from his eyes, but Quemada didn’t notice. The idea was buzzing crazily around his head, looking for somewhere to settle.
‘You know what I’d really like?’ he said eventually.
She looked at him.
‘I’d like the old man to know for sure you’re OK. To understand he’s really starting to lose his grip here.’
He took one hand off the wheel, reached into a jacket pocket and pulled out the phone, used his free hand to scroll through the stored numbers, found the one marked Rodríguez. He thumbed the green call button, put the handset to his ear, the phone rang three times, then a familiar voice said, ‘Digame.’
Quemada coughed, listened to find out if he could make out any particular background noise, then identified himself. The voice on the other end went silent.
‘Captain?’ said Quemada. ‘Sorry to disturb you, wherever the hell you are. But we got something to talk about.’
He listened to the fizzing of the airwaves and then, finally, Rodríguez barked back, ‘I doubt it.’
‘Oh, but we have. See, I’m here with Maria. She’s a little shook up, but she’s fine. I thought you might like to know. Seems your man, the one we thought got killed at the bullring, he couldn’t resist one last go. Wasn’t him in the bullring at all, but you know that. Some poor guy running a food concession there is missing. Good family man. Looks like Antonio and his’ – Quemada paused and gave the word some extra emphasis – ‘his accomplice killed this guy, put the body in the bull pen while Antonio got out some way – beats me where, but that’s a real old maze down in that part of the ring, and we’d be fooling ourselves if we thought the only way out was through the doors. Then Antonio went after Maria. More fool him. I got a team down there now checking out the body. His body. We lost the police officer too, mind. She was a good woman. Two decent cops in one day. That’s a real waste, a real shame. I guess you’d agree with that anyway.’
They listened to nothing except static, but the line still didn’t go dead.
‘I’m getting the impression I’m not passing on any news here,’ Quemada said. ‘Captain . . .’
Maria snatched the phone from his hand, the hatred, the resentment buzzing in an inchoate mass around her head. ‘I’m alive, you bastard,’ she hissed. ‘Who the hell do you think you are to visit this on decent human beings? To treat them like objects you can dispense with when it suits you?’
She could hear him laughing somewhere out there in the night. The voice filtering into her ear through the phone sounded distant, ancient. And it mocked her.
‘Ah. The clever little professor from the university, full of facts and theorems and certainties. People like you grow up with such certainties. That must be comforting in the world you’ve created. When I was young this city was safe. A family could leave their house unlocked at night and never worry. The crooks, the whores, the trash, all knew their place.’
‘Your father was the biggest crook of all,’ she spat at him.
‘You’re an imbecile!’ Rodríguez roared. ‘My father kept order. Everything in its place. Look at it now. Look at the mess. Do you have some cold little lifeless theory to explain that?’
The words stung her. She couldn’t believe it. Was this all it came to?
‘It’s losing face that matters, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘It’s not the money at all. It’s the power, the respect, the control. Who do you think you are? God?’
There was static again and then, as they approached the hospital gates, she had to take the phone away from her ear as an ambulance, its klaxon screaming into the night, flew past them.
‘I do not waste time on fools,’ Rodríguez said down the line.
Quemada grabbed the phone off her.
‘One more thing. One more thing before you go.’
Nothing but the crackling, like cellophane catching fire.
‘Captain?’
Quemada was talking ever more slowly, like a tape running down. The words came crisp and clear and deliberate from his lips. ‘I just wanted to say. I. Was. Sorry. To. Hear. About. Your. Mother.’
The voice at the other end was almost a whisper. ‘The court jester cracks his final joke. Your tedious cynicism has bored me for years, little man. I will be happy to be rid of it and you.’
Then, with a click, the line went dead.
Quemada nodded and put the phone back into his pocket.
‘I hate to admit it, but I enjoyed that. Did he say anything I ought to know about?’
‘He thinks he’s won. He’s untouchable.’
The cop nodded and said, ‘I do believe you’re right.’ The hospital entrance loomed up out of the dark. ‘I spoke to the doctors about Bear while you were in the bathroom. They said there was a real change.’
‘A change for the better?’
‘We’re not relatives. If it was a change for the worse, would they be telling us?’
‘You’re sure?’
‘You know Bear. The man’s built like a mountain. Are you surprised? I’m not. He’s special.’
He bore right, past the white squares marked out for ambulances, towards the entrance, then parked in a spot marked ‘Doctors Only’.
‘Quemada?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Do you always get this hard? Do you just grow a shell and let it bounce off you? I killed someone this evening. I saw that poor woman dead. It was . . . it was a nightmare. And I don’t feel anything. I just feel numb. Dead inside.’
He glanced around at the empty forecourt.
‘You’ll feel it. Believe me. It sneaks up, then hits you when you’re not thinking. They got some programmes. In the force. People you can talk to, people who help. You should try it. Usually I don’t like the mumbo-jumbo routine, but these people, I think they’ve got a point.’
She watched the lights flickering inside row upon row of hospital windows.
‘No, you don’t,’ she said.
‘Excuse me?’
‘You think: She’s a woman, she needs the shrink. If I’d been a man, you’d be slapping my back, congratulating me, taking me out for a beer.’
Quemada thought about it. ‘Yeah. That’s right. Sure. The ice queen knows best. Let’s forget about the guy inside. You want a beer instead?’
‘Not right now.’
‘Ah.’
‘And I don’t want a fucking shrink, either.’
‘Your decision.’
They climbed out of the car and felt the night air hit them. Sometimes it was hard to keep quiet. Sometimes it was wrong too.
‘You know, Professor? Don’t mind me saying this? Well, frankly, I don’t give a shit if you do mind. You kill me. You people from the north. Really. You kill me. You come down here, you say: Whoa, it’s so hot here, it’s so tense, so real. And that’s nice for a visit, that’s nice when it’s a little local colour. But it’s a little too scary for real life, specially when something starts to touch you. This city. It’s a little too close to the edge. So go scuttle back home and wrap yourselves in your closed little lives. Go to your dinner parties and talk, talk, talk, and inside, you keep saying to yourself: Well, it may be boring – no, let’s be frank, it is boring, as boring as watching sheep screw – but be honest, it’s safe. You can’t see the edge. You can’t feel that little nerve ticking away on the side of your face saying, It’s running out, girl, day by day, sand through the glass. Yeah. Go back. Wrap yourself in your little cocoon. I just hope the blanket’s thick. You’re going to need it.’
She looked back towards the
city centre and the halo of light there. The storm was over. The night was clear, the sky a sparkling curtain of stars. In the gardens palm trees swayed and whispered in the light breeze. The fragrance of oleander, heavy as the smell of a red-light-district bar, danced in the air.
‘That is the most number of words I have ever heard you string together in one go,’ she said. ‘Do these long sentences happen often?’
He looked exhausted. And deeply, deeply miserable. She wished she’d never started this argument.
‘I believe it last occurred in 1987. Round October time. Shortly before my divorce. The two things may not be unconnected. It’s also a pile of unmitigated shit. I’m sorry. I’m sorry you’re messed up in this, I’m sorry for the pain. I wish I could do something about it. But I can’t. You’re not the only one who’s still taking the human-being lessons. It’s a really popular course in this job.’
She looked at the little man and wondered how many complexities you could hide so well in such a small frame.
‘Can we see Bear now?’ she asked.
Quemada patted his jacket, felt the bumps underneath it. ‘That’s why we’re here.’
Behind, in the dark, there was the sound of tyres on asphalt, and the headlights of another car lit up the broad, sweeping steps to the hospital entrance. They walked up, checked at reception, then pushed their way through the revolving doors and made their way to intensive care. The hospital was silent except for the tapping of shoes down polished linoleum corridors. Somewhere, she thought, lies the corpse of Cristina Lucena. Unvisited, unremarked. And across the city her son is wondering what remains of his life.
Maria looked through the glass window and her heart stopped. The big man was surrounded by white coats. Doctors and nurses bent over the bed, completely obliterating the view. They could hear the beeping of the monitors through the partition and see nothing but this wall of white backs, bent over the body.
‘Oh, crap!’ said Quemada. ‘Don’t do this to us, Bear. For pity’s sake . . .’
Then a white coat pulled back, followed by another. Clipboards moved, pens scribbled, a ragbag collection of medical implements went back into pockets and sanitized metal sleeves attached to the bed. Torrillo was propped upright on the bright white sheets, his huge chest bare and covered in bandages. He looked at the doctors and nurses around him with polite, only faintly disguised boredom, stifled a yawn, then gazed back at them through the glass. A big, broad smile broke out on his face and he made a massive round O with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand.
Maria blinked like crazy to keep the tears out of her eyes and saw that Quemada was trying to do the same.
‘You big fat bastard,’ muttered the man next to her, rubbing at his face with his sleeve.
One of the doctors followed the line of Torrillo’s gaze and saw them behind the glass. His face dropped to a sub-zero temperature and he walked briskly out of the room.
‘Who the hell are you?’ He had thick horn-rimmed glasses, a bald head and an excess of negative charm.
‘Police,’ said Quemada, flashing his ID. ‘Colleagues. We stopped by to see how he was.’
The doctor stared at the silver and leather badge, looked them up and down.
‘He’s getting better. He’ll live. He doesn’t deserve to. If he didn’t have enough fatty muscle on him to float a whale, he wouldn’t have done.’
‘But he’s going to be OK?’
‘No sign of any permanent damage that I can see. More’s the wonder. I want him in here for a little while. Then he’s back with you. Doing whatever he does.’
‘He’s a . . .’
‘No. Please. I don’t want to know.’
Maria smiled stupidly at him and felt she was pouring a small glass of tepid water on an iceberg. ‘Can we see him?’
‘See him? Of course you can see him. There. He’s the other side of the glass.’
‘I mean. Can we visit him?’
‘Go down to reception. Look on the wall. You’ll see a list of visiting hours. That’s when you can visit him.’
‘No special favours, huh?’ asked Quemada. ‘Us being police and all that?’
The doctor gave a passable impersonation of a basilisk. ‘Get out of here.’
Quemada peered through the glass, got Torrillo’s attention, jerked a thumb at the doctor and stifled a very deliberate yawn.
‘You’ll tell him,’ she said. ‘You’ll tell him we’ll be back. Tomorrow.’
‘Yes,’ the man said testily.
‘And tell him this too,’ added Quemada. ‘This is very important. This will make him feel better. Tell him . . . case closed. Got that? Closed.’
Something about the tone in Quemada’s voice knocked the edge off the doctor’s roughness.
‘I’ll tell him that.’
‘Good,’ said Quemada, waving through the glass a couple of times. ‘You get good medical care here, Doc? From what I see.’
‘We think so.’
‘Guess that must be the case. Let’s face it. You sure as hell didn’t charm him better, did you?’
There was a touch of colour on the face of the basilisk and Maria shot Quemada a glance that said: Let’s go. He stuck his hands in his jacket pockets, smiled, then walked out into the corridor. She followed him, watching the floor, and they went downstairs into the big, airy marble reception.
He was shaking his head. ‘I’m not looking forward to telling Bear it was the captain behind all this. He hero-worshipped the old guy. We all did in a way. But not like Bear.’
‘He’ll cope,’ she said.
‘Yeah. Bear’s a coper. Bear’s an object lesson in coping for all of us.’ He stared her straight in the face. ‘You sound better. You sound like we can talk now. You can’t stay here. You know that. It don’t make any difference to Bear. He’s going to be OK. We can look after you better someplace else. If this comes to trial, you’re a witness. An important one. You’re going to need protection.’
She didn’t say anything at first. He knew he’d won on that one.
‘Quemada?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Does your mouth get you into a lot of trouble?’
He stopped, looked at the visiting rotas, wrote down the times in his police notebook.
‘Lots. Lots. The captain used to have a go about it. Tell me how bad I was. Lippy. You name it. Said if I could keep a lid on it I’d make sergeant one day.’ He turned to stare at her, genuinely bemused. ‘This was an incentive? I asked him.’
Maria laughed, and it felt clean and good. ‘You are an appalling human being.’
‘That, I have to tell you, is not an original observation. But before this discussion goes any further, can I please make a request? I am hungry. I am thirsty. I am tired. I got to get you somewhere to stay, before I find out what the rest of our merry men have been up to this night. Can I drive you to a hotel now?’
‘I think that would be a very good idea.’
‘Yeah,’ he said, and they walked out into the fresh, fragrant night. She took a deep breath and felt the air rush into her lungs, clean and heady and soporific.
I will sleep tonight, she thought. There will be no dreams, no nightmare visits to La Soledad. Or anywhere else.
Quemada slipped around the far side of the car and got in the driver’s seat. She opened her door and almost fell inside.
‘I hope this is a comfortable hotel, Quemada. I want first-class at the very least.’
He said nothing, so she turned to look. The gun shone dully black at the window and poked into Quemada’s right temple. Beyond it, pale and tense in the darkness, Rodríguez stared at them, mouth half-open, his breath painting condensation clouds on the glass. With his spare hand he felt inside Quemada’s jacket, pulled the revolver out of its holster, then stuffed it into his coat pocket.
‘I’m going to get into the back of the car now,’ he said, and his voice sounded different, sounded as if it belonged to someone else. ‘When I get in, you’re going to drive
to the river. The jetties near the Triana bridge.’
‘Nothing there, Captain,’ Quemada said straight away. ‘Just one big dump waiting for the builders to turn up.’
The gun jabbed at him. He fell silent.
‘Do anything I don’t like and she’s dead now,’ Rodríguez said.
‘Am I getting overtime for this?’ Quemada asked. ‘See, if I’m just the cab driver, that’s OK. But I’d like to know, kind of, either way.’
The big service revolver flashed in the dark and hit him on the temple. Maria watched the line of blood come through the skin, run down his forehead, form a dark stain down his cheek.
‘I’ve taken your crap for twenty years. I’m tired of it now. Just drive.’
Quemada wiped the blood away with his sleeve and listened to the door opening and closing behind him.
‘Down the avenida,’ said Rodríguez.
‘I know the way.’
They pulled out into the broad avenue, now almost deserted. Only a few cabs cruised the streets looking for early-morning revellers on their way home.
‘This is crazy,’ said Quemada.
‘Shut up.’
‘Captain. This is crazy. There’s records stacked up against you by the million. What are you gonna do? Tomorrow, the next day, they’ll be coming for you. Sure as hell. You’re making it worse.’
‘Records? You read those records, Quemada?’
‘Yeah. Some of them.’
‘They’re just names. Companies. Insignificant details easily changed. The rest is circumstantial. If you were a better cop, you’d know that. If you were a better cop, you’d know not to make phone calls from hospitals. Sirens in the background. Everyone knows where you are. Stupid!’
‘Sure. I’m just some dumb detective. Menéndez was smart. He went back through the records. He found out who was signing off those accusations against Alvarez all those years ago. For a long time it was people who got dead in the meantime. Then guess what? Somewhere around 1960, a new guy comes on the scene. By the name of Sergeant Rodríguez. And from then on he takes a real interest in signing off all the complaints against Alvarez. Surprise, surprise. Menéndez found out whose name was behind some of those companies in Castañeda’s office. Same name. All those years. What a lot of dough it must be.’
