Or the Bull Kills You

by Jason Webster

  He closed his eyes as a door opened and the sound of footsteps came from across the hall.

  ‘Chief Inspector?’

  He stood up and saw the familiar face of Emilia Delgado beaming at him, with just the slightest of reactions when she caught sight of his split lip. Her face was blotchier than in the photos, Cámara noticed. Perhaps the rumours of her heavy drinking and smoking were as true as the ones about her private life.

  She stood where she was, waiting for him to walk over to her, then held out a hand framed by heavy gold bracelets; Cámara shook it, and they gave a self-satisfied rattle.

  ‘I’m so glad you came, Chief Inspector,’ Emilia said, her voice deep and husky. ‘This is my campaign manager, Javier Flores.’

  Flores looked the same as he had on the TV news the night before: heavily overweight, the kind of man who hadn’t seen his own penis without the aid of a mirror since the age of twenty-five. He was wearing a black suit with a pale green shirt and bright pink tie with a wide knot. His clean-shaven face was covered with a thin film of grease. He gave Cámara a limp handshake.

  ‘I hope we didn’t wake you,’ he said.

  Ever since she’d been in power there had been stories about which one of her underlings the famously single Emilia was sleeping with. All part of an image that the former cabaret singer never seemed at pains to play down. These days her bed partner was Flores. Allegedly.

  ‘Step inside,’ Emilia said.

  Cámara was shown into a large room with high windows looking out on to the main square outside. A Valencian flag – red, yellow and blue – was draped on the back wall, while photos of Emilia with visiting dignitaries were placed on all available tabletops and shelves: Emilia with King Juan Carlos, Emilia with the Pope, Emilia towering over the boss of Formula 1. Next to them were other shots of girls in traditional Valencian eighteenth-century costume, their hair in tight flat rolls on the sides of their heads, a golden comb placed at the back: the fallera beauty queens for each year Emilia had been mayoress of the city.

  Emilia walked round to behind her desk. Cámara sat down in one of the green tapestry chairs. Flores remained standing, his arms crossed.

  ‘Drink?’ Emilia asked as she placed her large, skirted behind down on her black leather executive chair. She waved an arm at a cabinet where Cámara caught sight of at least a dozen bottles of malt whisky. He tried to make out if there was any brandy.

  ‘1866,’ he said. ‘If you’ve got it.’

  Emilia motioned to Flores, who uncrossed his arms and paced over to the drinks cabinet. He poured a large measure, then brought it over, the brandy sloshing inside the glass as though desperate to get out.

  Emilia cleared her throat.

  ‘Chief Inspector, I suspect you’ve guessed why I asked you to come.’

  Cámara nodded.

  ‘The situation is…delicate,’ Emilia said.

  ‘Because of the elections?’ Cámara asked, momentarily surprised at how innocent he could sound when he wanted to.

  Emilia smiled.

  ‘That’s part of it,’ she said.

  ‘Surely Blanco out of the way makes things easier for you,’ Cámara said more sharply this time. ‘He was, after all, the main reason behind the recent rise in bullfighting’s popularity.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Chief Inspector,’ Emilia started, ‘I hope you’re not insinuating—’

  ‘You misunderstand me, Mayoress,’ Cámara said. ‘But perhaps we can clear something up: am I here to talk about the police investigation, or the politics of Blanco’s murder?’

  From the side of the room Flores seemed to twitch.

  ‘You’re right,’ Emilia said after a pause. ‘We need to make ourselves clear.’

  She stood up and walked over to one of the windows, pulling back the blinds to gaze at the crowds quickly filling the square outside.

  ‘We’ve got television crews here from CNN, the BBC, and channels I’m ashamed to say I’ve never even heard of. All sitting on our doorstep, all desperate for news about this killing,’ she said. ‘And while we appreciate the coverage the city is getting,’ she turned back to face Cámara, ‘this is hardly the image of Valencia we’re trying to get across. I’m sure you understand.’

  Cámara took another mouthful of brandy, and felt the ache in his ribs from the night before losing its edge for a few precious moments. The perfume and delicacy of an 1866 put it above the ones he usually drank – a Carlos III, or a Torres 10 – but it felt wasted here; it was best savoured alone, at home listening to Enrique Morente singing a Seguirilla, finding gaps between notes that no one else even knew existed. For Cámara he was still the greatest flamenco singer alive – one of the very best there’d ever been.

  Emilia continued.

  ‘All eyes are on whether we – or rather you – can resolve this as…painlessly as possible.’

  Cámara stared down into his brandy, not wanting them to see into his eyes. Did they know that Aguado had been picked up? If so, why all this?

  ‘Reputations are at stake,’ Emilia said.

  From his position near the drinks cabinet, Flores spoke up.

  ‘All we’re asking, Cámara, is that you don’t screw it up.’

  Cámara looked at him. He’d been trying to work out what kind of animal the man reminded him of, and now he could see it: an overfed bull terrier.

  ‘I appreciate your concerns, but there seems to be some mistake,’ Cámara said, turning to Emilia. ‘This is a Policía Nacional case. We take orders from the Ministry, not the Town Hall.’

  ‘It’s my job to think about what’s best for Valencia,’ the mayoress said, ‘and it’s yours to solve crimes, Chief Inspector. What we’re hoping for is a degree of…harmony between those two objectives. I know I can count on you. I am a very good judge of character.’

  ‘We’re watching this case,’ Flores barked.

  ‘Now I would offer to refill your glass,’ Emilia said, ‘but we are rather busy, as you’ll appreciate.’ She looked at the gold watch on her wrist. ‘The mascletà will be starting soon.’

  Cámara got up to leave: he had a murder case to solve; she had to oversee the lunchtime firecracker display. Emilia stood up, smiled and shook his hand firmly from behind her table. Flores stayed where he was.

  Cámara walked to the door and let himself out.

  Five

  A bullfighter is never a coward, although, sometimes, he can experience an indescribable sensation of fear

  Victoriano de la Serna

  Cámara walked down the white cement steps to an annex section of the building. When Montesa had been designing the place, this area had been intended as storage space for the art museum. Now it served as the interrogation rooms of the new Jefatura.

  Aguado was being interviewed in Room 2/N. Cámara peered in through the small, wired glass window at the top of the door and saw a youngish man, perhaps in his late twenties, slightly built with a pale face and straight black hair, wearing jeans and a white shirt, a black belt with a silver eagle buckle shining from the reflection of the strip light above. He looked wounded, but resolute.

  Torres had his back to the door. From the shape of his shoulders, Cámara could tell things weren’t going well. He knocked twice, and without looking round, Torres got up and came outside.

  ‘I need a smoke,’ Torres said, stepping into the corridor and closing the door behind him. ‘What the fuck happened to your face?’ he added, catching sight of Cámara’s lip.

  ‘Nothing.’

  Cámara grabbed Torres’s arm as he tried to step away.

  ‘Wait,’ he said.

  He reached over to Torres’s hand and took his packet of cigarettes off him. Then he unlocked the door and stepped into the interrogation room.

  The place already stank of lost, rotting humanity despite only having been in use for days at most. Instead of leaving the walls bare, as they had been in Fernando el Católico, these had originally been painted in a soft off-white. N
ow they were scarred and scraped, the marks from backs of chairs, dirty shoes and occasionally rougher interrogation techniques already mapped out on the smooth surfaces.

  Aguado didn’t look up as Cámara walked in, keeping his gaze fixed on his hands pressed between his knees. His hair was falling over his eyes, the fringe cut at an angle so that it almost covered one half of his face. Cámara observed his slim build, the rising and falling of his chest as he breathed; his shirt looked one size too small and it seemed to stick close to his skin. Cámara had seen others wearing a similar style recently: it must be the fashion.

  Pulling out the chair on the opposite side of the desk, Cámara sat down and pushed out the lighter tucked inside Torres’s packet of cigarettes. Then he loosened one of the cigarettes and held it close to Aguado’s face.

  ‘Smoke?’ he said.

  Aguado kept his head down.

  Slowly, Cámara withdrew the packet and took the cigarette for himself, then he placed it in his mouth and lit it. The smoke danced in the air above them as he inhaled and exhaled a couple of times. Smoke alarms had still not been installed in this area. Aguado didn’t move.

  When half the cigarette had been smoked, Cámara leaned in and slid the packet over the table towards Aguado, almost forcing it on him.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he said.

  Aguado lashed out with his right hand, sending the packet back over the table towards Cámara.

  ‘I don’t want your cigarettes,’ he said, momentarily looking up, before resuming his previous position.

  Cámara finished smoking and got up, stubbing the cigarette out on the floor with his toe.

  He stepped outside and rejoined Torres.

  ‘Come on, let’s go,’ he said.

  They climbed up the stairs and found an emergency exit half hidden behind a buttress wall. Torres pushed on the bar: after the second go the door opened out on to a wasteland at the back of the building. From the amount of cigarette butts dotted on the ground, it seemed they weren’t the first to discover this addicts’ refuge.

  Torres pulled his packet of Habanos back from Cámara, placed a cigarette in his mouth and lit it. Smoke drifted out of his nostrils and filtered down through his thick black beard. Cámara grabbed his hand and took another one out for himself before he could put them back in his cardigan pocket.

  ‘I thought you’d given up,’ Torres said.

  ‘I have.’

  Smoking maría when he got home after work, he told himself, didn’t count. Torres’s Habanos were one of the strongest brands you could buy, like a mini-cigar wrapped in white paper – guaranteed to leave a coating of tar on the back of your tongue for at least a week afterwards. He was amazed they were still on sale these days.

  ‘So what do you think?’ Torres asked.

  ‘About Aguado?’ Cámara paused. ‘He’s a smoker. I saw the stains on his fingers. Yet he refused a cigarette.’

  ‘Perhaps these are a bit too much for him,’ Torres said with a grin.

  ‘Maybe,’ Cámara said. ‘But it was a lifeline of sorts, and he turned it down.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Ah, I don’t know,’ Cámara said, waving the idea away. ‘But a guilty man might have accepted – have leapt through the door that had just been opened for him.’

  Torres shrugged.

  ‘What do we know about him?’ Cámara said.

  ‘Sculptor. Got a little workshop at his place in El Cabanyal. Lives on his own, no job, no pets, not much of a life, as far as I can see.’

  ‘How does he make a living?’

  ‘The sculpture, I suppose.’

  ‘Any exhibitions? Is he known?’

  Torres sucked on his cigarette.

  ‘I’ll get on to it,’ he said.

  ‘What’s he saying?’

  ‘About the time of the murder?’

  Cámara nodded.

  ‘At home, on his own, not doing very much,’ Torres said.

  ‘He said that?’

  ‘More or less.’

  ‘Did you sort out the lawyer?’

  ‘I put in a call for a duty one to come down.’ Torres exhaled deeply. ‘Or at least I think I did. It’s a Sunday, anyway. No one’ll be showing up for a while.’

  ‘How long has he been here?’

  ‘Three or four hours,’ Torres said under his breath. ‘There’s a bar round the corner I wanted to try for lunch.’

  ‘Any good?’ Cámara said.

  ‘All right. Bit expensive. Nice waitress. Redhead.’

  They both finished their cigarettes.

  ‘What’s he saying about him and Blanco?’ Cámara asked.

  ‘Just good friends.’

  ‘Well, at least he admits to knowing him. Nothing else?’

  ‘What do you want me to do? Ask him if he and Blanco ever did it?’

  Torres started playing with his wedding ring, rolling it around his finger with his right hand.

  ‘What did he say when you mentioned his fingerprints being found on Blanco’s body?’

  ‘Nothing. Just sat there.’

  ‘And the bracelet?’ Cámara asked.

  ‘That was a bit more interesting. Claimed he didn’t know what I was talking about, but when I pulled it out to show him…’

  ‘Yes?’ Cámara asked.

  ‘Well, there was definitely a look of recognition there.’

  Cámara waited for a second.

  ‘Is that it?’

  Torres nodded.

  ‘Fantastic,’ Cámara said. ‘Caballero’s going to love this. No confession, but we did get a strange look when we showed him Exhibit A. Open and bloody shut case.’

  ‘All right, you gilipollas. Give it a rest,’ Torres said.

  ‘What’s Pardo got against this guy anyway?’

  ‘You know what he’s like about maricones.’

  ‘Are we even sure Aguado and Blanco were lovers?’ Cámara said. ‘What are we basing it on? Gossip magazines?’

  ‘The fingerprints?’ Torres said. ‘It would explain that. Perhaps he and Blanco, you know,’ he jerked his head to one side’ ‘just before the bullfight.’

  ‘In which case they can hardly prove he killed him as well.’

  A group of eight-year-olds had arrived on the far side of the wasteland and were throwing firecrackers at one another’s feet, dancing and laughing as they popped around their ankles.

  ‘Still,’ Torres went on, ‘the mutilation. It’s…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, you don’t try and cut the balls off a dead man for no good reason.’

  Cámara gave him a look.

  ‘It’s a crime of passion, chief. Got to be. Who else is going to do that but a jilted boyfriend?’

  ‘Was he jilted?’

  ‘Might have been.’

  ‘We need more on Aguado,’ Cámara said. ‘Who are his friends, people who know him? Has he got any family? Can someone confirm for us that at least he and Blanco were an item, albeit in secret? At the moment we’re not even treading water. Who’s with us?’

  ‘Sánchez and Ibarra,’ Torres said through his teeth.

  ‘Send them back to El Cabanyal. Get them talking to people, neighbours, anyone.’

  ‘And me?’

  ‘Stick with Aguado. It’ll keep Pardo happy at least.’

  They turned and headed back to the emergency exit. Behind them, the group of children were trying to get louder and louder bangs by simultaneously throwing as many firecrackers to the ground as they could. Squeals of laughter came from the girls watching as the boys took turns to set off the mini explosions.

  ‘So how was Emilia?’ Torres asked as they got back inside.

  ‘Well, she didn’t get fresh with me, if that’s what you mean,’ Cámara said. ‘Her lapdog got quite friendly, though.’

  He turned to leave.

  ‘So Flores was there as well, was he?’ Torres called after him. ‘They really did want to put the thumbscrews on.’

  Cámara headed out of the buildi
ng, crossed the former river bed, and slipped into the Carmen district. Something was on his mind, something he had to do, but his thoughts were moving in several directions at once, and he couldn’t remember what it was. Just keep going, he thought. Whatever it was had something to do with coming this way.

  More fallas were being erected: caricature statues over five metres high made of wood and plaster then painted in bright colours. Cámara had often thought they looked like rejects from a 1950s Walt Disney film, characters that hadn’t quite been drawn well enough, or were deemed too ugly or too obscure to make the final cut and which had been sent here into a kind of cartoon exile world. They were usually three-dimensional satirical comments on politicians, or people who’d been in the headlines over the previous twelve months. With half an eye Cámara looked out for any ninots, or images, of Blanco. The man who had revived bullfighting would certainly have caught the attention of some of the falla-builders, working away for months so that their colourful structures could be given this briefest of displays before being ceremoniously burnt on the Cremà, the night of 19 March. Would any references to him be taken down now out of respect? Something in him doubted it.

  The sound of explosions came from further ahead, and the smell of gunpowder filled his nostrils as he wound his way through the alleyways. It would be good preparation for war correspondents to come to Valencia at this time of year, he thought: a quick intensive course in how to train your nerves. He kept moving, past walls with graffiti paintings, nineteenth-century blocks of flats slowly crumbling and sinking into the soft, watery earth, but still he couldn’t remember why he was here, or what he’d meant to do. The afternoon sun reflected off a high window and into his face.

  He closed his eyes…

  …and saw the sea, the smell of salt waves as they crashed against the rocks below. Formentera, his favourite corner of the Mediterranean. The two of them had gone the year before to escape the Fallas madness, stripping naked on the beach, feeling the sun on their skin for the first time that year. Cámara braved the freezing waters to look for cuttlefish. Even Almudena dipped her toe into the sea for a few minutes, screaming as the waves licked up her knees before she ran back to their suntrap beneath the rocks. And when he emerged from the water she told him she wanted to try for a baby. After two years together she said it was time. They ran along the waterfront together in the shade of the umbrella pines, calling out names to one another for their future child: Enrique for a boy; Susana if it was a girl. Perhaps they should live together, he said. But no. She insisted. This was how they would do things. The child would bring them together. She’d stopped taking the pill a couple of weeks before. It was only right he should know. And he held her in his arms, her nakedness against his, and made love to her, lifting her up on to him with his powerful hands, resting his back against the trunk of a tree.