Or the Bull Kills You

by Jason Webster

  Not that it was much good anyway, the guard had insisted – all it showed was a grainy black-and-white image. Wouldn’t even recognise himself if he appeared on it. It was only when he’d gone for a piss at half-time that he’d noticed something strange in the middle of the ring. Of course the floodlights were off, so he couldn’t see, and he wasn’t allowed to switch them on. Rules. Still, he’d gone out there to take a look, not that he was supposed to walk into the ring, mind. And that’s when he’d found the body. Still hadn’t got over the shock. Wouldn’t do his blood pressure any good.

  Far from being concerned that the crime of the year had taken place under his nose on his watch, he’d been more interested in complaining about the inconvenience this had caused him. Cámara had encountered this kind of thing before: one minute competing with the dead man for victimhood, the next he’d be down the bar milking it with his mates about having been there ‘the night Blanco was butchered’.

  The guard had called a local policeman to the scene, who had immediately contacted the Policía Nacional. The Municipales were for keeping traffic moving, sorting out domestic disputes, taking direct orders from the Town Hall. Murder was for the real police – the Nacionales – to sort out.

  They found Blanco’s driver back at the Hotel Suiza, where the matador had been staying. He’d waited after the fight, but Blanco never showed up, something the other bullfighters’ drivers confirmed. When Blanco failed to appear after half an hour, he left on his own, assuming that Blanco had already gone without telling him. He was fastidious about some things – like visiting the chapel – but then he had a habit of disappearing sometimes, breaking away from his entourage without telling anyone, perhaps vanishing for anything up to a couple of days before returning as though nothing had happened.

  ‘We were never allowed to talk about it, or even ask,’ he told the policeman who interviewed him. ‘Just had to fit round him. The way it goes – he was the one paying the wages.’

  He’d only been with Blanco for a couple of months, and had already been ticked off by the matador’s apoderado, Ruiz Pastor, for trying to second-guess where he wanted to go.

  If ever he doesn’t show, you wait a bit, but then leave, Ruiz Pastor had told him. Don’t ever go around looking for him.

  Cámara reread the notes.

  ‘I never asked,’ the driver said. ‘He’d disappeared for a couple of hours around lunchtime as well, just before getting ready for the fight. I suppose I thought it might have something to do with all those rumours about him having a boyfriend and stuff.’

  There was still no sign of Ruiz Pastor himself. The hotel staff said he hadn’t returned since that morning, but he hadn’t checked out, either. Other members of Blanco’s cuadrilla – his two banderilleros, a couple of picadors, and his personal assistant, his mozo de espada – had all left the city together in a minibus after the fight to head back to their homes in Albacete. Blanco wasn’t due to fight again for another month.

  A change in the images on the TV caught Cámara’s attention, and he looked up to see a second familiar face looking out from the screen. Pale skin, dreadlocked hair tied back in a bun. The words ‘Marta Díaz – spokesperson for the Anti-Taurino League’ flickered underneath.

  ‘So we’re against this killing. We’re against all killing. But he got what he deserved. He who lives by the sword, you know, kind of gets it in the end.’

  The image cut back to the newsreader.

  ‘The Anti-Taurino League have been staging demonstrations against bullfighting throughout the week, but decided to suspend their activities temporarily on hearing the news of Blanco’s death. In a statement, they said they would be resuming their rallies tomorrow, although they denied allegations of taking advantage of tonight’s events to further their cause.’

  Cámara made a mental note of the girl who had burst into the Bar Los Toros earlier in the evening, putting a name to the face.

  On the TV, the newsreader was interviewing an overweight man in an electric blue suit, billed as Javier Flores of the Town Hall, ‘right-hand man of Mayoress Emilia Delgado’.

  ‘Of course we condemn this appalling act in the strongest possible terms. Valencia is a civilised, peaceful city, and this has rocked its inhabitants to the core. I cannot stress enough: we condemn this utterly and totally.’

  Cámara saw a greasy, clean-shaven face, jowls bursting over the edge of a tight red-and-white striped collar, a hammed-up expression of concern shaping his knotted brow and downturned mouth.

  Newsreader: ‘Will you be suspending the elections because of this?’

  Flores: ‘No, not at all. That is a constitutional matter, and completely out of the question.’

  Newsreader: ‘Yet your anti-bullfighting policies—’

  Flores: ‘Look, a horrendous crime has taken place tonight. This is not the time to be talking politics. This is a time for vigilance and mourning. Our thoughts go out to Blanco’s family. It’s true Mayoress Delgado has promised to ban bullfighting in the city when she is re-elected, but as I say, this is a tragic night for Valencia, and it’s a tragic night for Spain. I have nothing more to say.

  Cámara undressed and dropped his clothes on the ground where he stood, then walked over the white tiled floor towards the bathroom. Leaning over, he switched on the hot tap, and the shower spluttered into life. He had one foot inside when his mobile rang.

  ‘Dime,’ he said after checking the name on the screen: Huerta from the Científicos. ‘Anything?’

  The voice on the other end was unmistakably flat and deadpan.

  ‘Don’t be so fucking cheerful, Cámara. I’ve been on shift for sixteen hours and I want to go home.’

  ‘Not every day you get such a famous marrón on your hands,’ Cámara said.

  ‘Glad to see you’re treating the deceased with the respect they deserve,’ Huerta said. ‘I prefer the word “corpse”. I take it you’re not a fan.’

  ‘Of him – couldn’t really care. It was his way of making a living I wasn’t sure about.’

  ‘We’re all trying to pay the bills, Cámara.’

  A cold draught coming in from the door to the balcony at the back reminded him that half of his body was wet from the shower.

  ‘So, got anything?’

  ‘The Municipales made a nice mess of the place, as you’d expect. And that ape of a guard didn’t help.’

  No comments of Huerta’s would have been complete without the usual preamble about the endless difficulties he faced carrying out his job. Somewhere in his imagination there existed a perfect crime scene, a place so unsullied by any other agent except the murderer and the victim that little more than five minutes were needed before he could stand up and point the finger with scientific exactitude at the perpetrator. He was overworked, understaffed and his equipment was mostly years out of date. His outburst years back, directed at an eager young inspector hoping for quick clues, that ‘This isn’t fucking CSI Miami,’ had since become an unofficial police motto. Cámara had only ever known him like this. No one at the Jefatura could remember him having been any other way. But they accepted it: Huerta had never been known to get anything wrong. Ever.

  ‘Still,’ he continued, ‘let’s start with what there isn’t.’

  Cámara waited, but Huerta seemed to be expecting him to say something.

  ‘Go on,’ he said at last.

  ‘We’ve got no obvious exit point,’ Huerta said. ‘I’m assuming our man got inside the bullring along with everyone else. But how did he get out?’

  ‘The gates were locked,’ Cámara said.

  ‘Not only that, there’s no sign of them being forced in any way. Either he’s still in there somewhere – which I doubt. Or he managed to vanish somehow.’

  ‘Perhaps he jumped from the outer passageway.’

  ‘A bit high,’ Huerta said. ‘And a bit public. Someone would have seen him. And he’s nothing if not careful, this one.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Cámara wa
s beginning to shiver in the cold. He reached for a blanket flung over the edge of the sofa and did his best to wrap it around himself with one hand.

  ‘He raked over his own tracks. We would have got some nice prints from that sand, but he went to the trouble of raking after himself.’

  ‘Have you found the rake?’

  ‘Of course we’ve got the fucking rake. But it’s useless: no prints we can use. The point is I don’t think our man would have been so stupid as to have left prints everywhere, either.’

  ‘OK. I understand,’ said Cámara.

  ‘We found something else, though,’ Huerta said. ‘A silver man’s-style bracelet not far from the body. Initials A.A. engraved on the inside.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean anything to me,’ Cámara said. ‘I’ll have a look at it tomorrow. Any fibres?’

  He knew as soon as the words left his mouth that it was the wrong thing to say.

  ‘Fibres?’ Huerta laughed. ‘It’s a fucking bullring. The place was packed with people and bleeding animals until only an hour or so before. Yeah, we’ve got fibres, hairs, bits of dry skin, you name it. Anything to do with the murderer? Probably not.’

  ‘Quintero said the actual murder probably took place somewhere else,’ Cámara said.

  ‘I was coming to that,’ Huerta said. ‘We’re looking at the chapel as a primary. Possible signs of a struggle there: a few knocked-over chairs. We’re taking a closer look at it in the morning.’

  The question remained, though: why go to the trouble of stripping the body, carrying it out to the middle of the ring and mutilating it?

  ‘A message, that’s my guess,’ said Huerta. ‘Either that or a sicko.’

  ‘A sicko could pick on anyone, though,’ Cámara said.

  ‘As I say, then: a message.’

  What message? Who was it for?

  Cámara glanced up at the clock.

  ‘OK. Thanks. Anything else?’

  ‘Pardo’s daughter?’ Huerta said.

  ‘Christ! I forgot. Any news?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Huerta said. ‘Which probably means everything’s fine. Believe me, if the commissioner’s daughter had pegged it we would have heard. Even on a night like this.’

  The phone went dead. In the background the TV blared on. Cámara put his phone back down on the table, then looked up in time to hear his name mentioned.

  ‘Heading the investigation is Chief Inspector Max Cámara of the Policía Nacional…’

  He reached for the remote and killed it.

  Joder. Who gave a fuck what the policeman in charge was called? No one needed to know. Pardo was usually more than happy to take the applause. Or at least once a case was closed.

  He stepped into the shower. By now most of the hot water from the tank had run off, and he had to rinse himself quickly in rapidly cooling water.

  ‘Me cago en la puta.’

  Five minutes later, wearing a clean shirt, his hair still damp, he stepped out into the brightly lit, empty street to walk the ten minutes to Almudena’s flat, on the other side of the Ruzafa quarter. Lying just to the south of the old centre, it was no longer the refuge of drug dealers it had once been, but Moroccan grocery shops sat next to Chinese wholesalers of cheaply made clothes and antique dealers selling Art Deco furniture. Cámara liked it for its friendly, village-like atmosphere.

  Architecturally, like much of Valencia, it was a mixture of elegant, brightly painted Eclectic apartment blocks – five or six storeys high, with tall narrow French windows and ornate iron railings – standing next to younger, more awkward siblings: ugly, brown-brick structures from the 1950s and 1960s, with bright orange awnings and aluminium doors. The Carmen area a twenty-minute walk away – the oldest quarter, near the cathedral – managed to retain a more historic feel. There the streets were narrower, windier and dirtier, giving a sense of the labyrinthine atmosphere of the medieval city, and a feeling of intimacy – in a relatively small city like this it was common to bump into friends and acquaintances.

  Among the graffitied walls and abandoned houses with weeds growing out of their crumbling roofs, some of the more important buildings, like the late-Gothic Lonja silk exchange with its spiralling pillars and lustful gargoyles, and the Generalitat palace, with delicate needle-column windows and large fan-like stone arches over the main doors, were a reminder that five hundred years before, Valencia had been the richest and most important city in Spain, home to the Borgias – before they became Popes and moved to Rome – and powerhouse of the Spanish renaissance.

  Fallas, the biggest fiesta in the city’s year, was just beginning and some of the roads had already been cleared of parked cars for the garish wood and papier-mâché statues that the next day would be erected at every crossroads and on every street corner. The falleros – those Valencians actively involved in the fiesta – always took over the city for a fortnight like an army of occupation. And this year – as every year, it seemed – the authorities were boasting of a million visitors expected from abroad and other parts of Spain. When it came to Fallas, there was a clear division in the city between those who loved it and those who didn’t and who left town to get away from the all-encompassing noise. Cámara had long counted himself among the anti-fallero group.

  There was a sound behind him, something out of place, but he didn’t feel the blow to his upper back, just an empty lost second as though for a moment he had ceased to exist; and then the sensation of falling. Awareness of what was happening came just in time for him to avoid landing on his face, and he twisted his body quickly to the side, his shoulder taking most of his weight as he crashed to the pavement. The edge of his mouth caught the cement as he turned, however, and he felt the skin of his lip tearing. A kick bore into his stomach in the second that he lay still, the first of more he sensed were to come. He retched, but before a second kick landed he was up on his knees and scrambling to his feet, lifting himself up with his hands and jerking away from the direction of the attack so as to get back upright. Never stay on the ground. In a normal street fight it paid to stay vertical.

  Gripping his stomach with his left hand, breathing deeply to clear his head, he saw three forms darting around him, preparing to strike again. Despite the darkness, they were under the direct glow of a street lamp and Cámara could almost see their faces. Instinctively, he crouched slightly, rounding his shoulders and lowering his weight into his hips and thighs. Prepared.

  The first one came in with a swinging haymaker punch. The dropped shoulder, the grimace, the arc of the fist as it started low around the hip and closed in on his face. Cámara blocked it easily with his left wrist and drove the knuckles of his right hand into the man’s throat with a straight, short stab. A little too hard, perhaps. As long as he could still breathe once he hit the ground. Break the trachea and he might have problems.

  One down, two to go.

  The second attacker, enraged at seeing his colleague on the ground gasping for breath, came in next, charging with a kind of war cry and lunging with both arms as though reaching for his face. Cámara just managed to twist out of his way in time, spinning on his heel and feeling the man’s breath on his skin as he brushed inches away. Then he chopped down with his right arm on the man’s outstretched arms as he sailed past, tipping him off balance and forcing him to the ground, where he tripped and crashed his chin against the edge of the pavement. There he lay motionless, emitting a low, sobbing groan.

  Cámara quickly looked around for the third, wondering what he would do, but already he appeared to have thought better of it and taken flight, his footsteps echoing as he raced round the nearest corner, out of sight.

  The taste of blood from his split lip distracted Cámara’s attention for a second. He placed his hand to his mouth and felt the cut. Not too bad, he thought, but it would make him a bit of a sight for a couple of days. The bottom of his ribs ached from the kick to his stomach, the pain spreading from his solar plexus round and up his back to his shoulders before shooting down his arms and finally int
o his groin.

  ‘Hijos de puta.’

  He heard a sound. The second attacker had managed to get back up on to his feet and was speeding away as fast as he could, barely able to keep a straight line as he staggered and hopped his way down the street, his hand to his chin, spitting as he reached the corner before he, too, disappeared from view.

  It was over. Like so many fights, it had barely lasted beyond the first exchange of blows. Only professionals could make them continue for any length of time.

  Cámara bent down to look at the first attacker, still lying on the ground with his hand to his throat. The man was motionless, his eyes wide open, staring at him in fear and pleading, his breathing steady but difficult. He’d be OK, Cámara thought, but would need some attention fast.

  He shook himself as he got up to walk away, his hand gripping the throbbing in his stomach. In the circling chaos of his thoughts it was clear that they had gone for him deliberately. Any number of people had reason to have a grudge against him: people he’d put away; friends and relatives of people he’d put away. It was one of the reasons why so many policemen lived outside the city, in anonymous estates and tower blocks near the beach. Cámara had never joined them, refusing to give in to fear.

  He wondered about these three, though. Others might simply have knifed him and have done with it. These guys had come unarmed – and completely unprepared. Whoever they were, and whatever they were after, it made little sense.

  He tried to catch the blood dripping from his mouth, but the splashes from the palm of his hand were already scattering a shower of crimson over the pale cotton of his jacket, showing up as dark purple under the orange street lights. He leaned in heavily against a public phone booth and called 112 for an ambulance. Crossroads of Antiguo Reino and Salvador Abril, there’s a man on the ground. Looks like he’s having trouble breathing.