Or the Bull Kills You

by Jason Webster

  Cámara stretched out a hand and patted Maldonado on the shoulder.

  ‘Glad to see you’re up to speed as usual.’

  He brushed past him, heading towards the lifts, hoping like hell the doors would open as soon as he pressed the button, and whisk him away to solitary seclusion. But the great Montesa hadn’t designed elevators for a busy office environment, expecting them to be used only by sedate art-lovers, and the numbers flashing on the wall above the shiny aluminium doors showed that Cámara would have to wait for his deliverance.

  ‘You think it’s strange for a policeman to know what’s going on?’

  Maldonado was standing close behind him.

  ‘Oh, of course,’ he continued, ‘you prefer to just muddle through, waiting for one of your hunches. Don’t you always say that’s your way of doing things? Some might say it’s unprofessional, but hey! It’s working a treat this time. What are you hoping’s going to turn up next? Another dead body? Why not? Go for the hat-trick.’

  The day before, perhaps even only a few hours ago, Cámara might have thrown the case away. He’d never wanted this, still dreaming that he might get some time off, head out of the city with Almudena, try to rediscover some missing, dying element in their relationship. But now…For the first time he realised he cared about the case, that he wanted it, that it had absorbed him. Something – what? Losing Almudena? Seeing what he had just seen in the Albufera? – had hooked him and pulled him in. The realisation seemed to paralyse his tongue, and while normally he would have snapped back at Maldonado, almost relishing their rivalry for the ridiculously childish game that it was – although he knew his adversary failed to see this lighter side to it – this time all he could do was turn and stare at him.

  Maldonado seemed almost perturbed by his silence.

  ‘Some fucking angel passing overhead, or something?’

  The lift pinged and Cámara walked in, keeping his back to Maldonado until he heard the doors finally close behind him. Then he let out a sigh, his shoulders dropping as he reached behind for the button to take him to the second floor.

  Perhaps it was the shock, he thought. It could come in waves like this, a delayed reaction as the various layers of him registered the violence of what his eyes had seen. He never hardened against this, not really. He’d always thought that a day would come when the sight of murder would cease to drain him so, would leave him unaffected, like a surgeon happily chopping away at his patients then going back to his family undisturbed by the blood and broken bodies that had filled his day. But the moment had never come. Perhaps it never would. The wounds from the past refused to heal over, ready to open up and bleed afresh whenever he witnessed the violence and horror that men could inflict on each other.

  Torres was already back in the office when he entered. Cámara walked over and slumped down in his chair, pushing his hands through his hair. The fuzziness in his brain refused to clear, and wasn’t helped by the sensation that he had forgotten something – something important.

  ‘We could do with some more manpower,’ Torres said, screwing up a ball of paper and launching it towards the empty space on the floor where he expected a litter bin to be.

  ‘A proper incident room,’ Cámara said. ‘Get working on it. Pardo will give us the green light.’

  Both of them fell silent, until Cámara spoke.

  ‘You still think Carmen Luna’s behind it?’

  ‘You can laugh.’

  ‘Can you see me smiling?’

  ‘What…You think—?’

  ‘What else have we got?’

  The sound of the phone ringing brought them both up with a jolt. Cámara closed his eyes, breathed in deeply, then exhaled.

  ‘That’ll be Caballero,’ he said.

  ‘It’s time I found that bloody coffee machine,’ Torres said, getting up and walking to the door.

  ‘Where’s the hip flask got to?’ Cámara called after him. But the door slammed behind him and he was left on his own with the ringing phone. He cleared his throat and picked up the receiver.

  A couple of minutes later Cámara went in search of a release form and headed down to the basement. He took the keys from the duty policeman and walked down the narrow corridor in search of Aguado’s cell. The key turned in the lock and the door opened on to a tiny grey space with a double strip light hanging from a flex in the middle of the ceiling. Aguado was lying on his cot with his hands behind his head, one leg pulled up. He looked up at Cámara without moving.

  ‘Another delay?’ he asked with a sneer.

  ‘What?’ Cámara asked.

  ‘My lawyer was supposed to show up again today. I suppose you’ve come to tell me there’s been another delay.’

  ‘You’re free to go, Señor Aguado,’ Cámara said. He half-turned to the door, to make way for Aguado to leave.

  From the corner of his eye he watched as Aguado reacted to what he’d said. First a pause, the confusion, as the words registered. Then the hands sliding back from their position behind his head to reach down on to the cot as he slowly pulled himself up, dropped his feet to the floor, waited again for another instant, as though trying to decide what to do or say next, then sharply stood up as the anger kicked in. Some people simply walked out wordlessly at this stage, others needed to give voice to their feelings.

  ‘That’s it?’

  Cámara nodded.

  ‘Just like that? Guilty one minute, innocent the next? No charges?’

  ‘You’re free to leave,’ Cámara repeated. ‘Although,’ he added before Aguado could say anything else, ‘we may want to speak with you again at some point. You were close to Blanco…’

  Aguado stepped towards the open door, pushing past Cámara as he did so.

  ‘Que te jodan,’ he spat. Fuck you.

  ‘You may have information relevant to the investigation,’ Cámara said. ‘Something that might help us.’

  ‘Help you?’ Aguado said. ‘What, like I’m supposed to thank you for your hospitality, or something?’

  He stepped out into the corridor and headed towards the exit.

  ‘You’re all cunts.’

  Cámara followed after him as they climbed the stairs to the ground floor. He passed the form to the duty officer and they stepped towards the main doors. Through the glass a group of journalists was visible, huddling and smoking under the jacaranda trees by the side of the road in front of the Jefatura: two or three camera teams, half a dozen newspapermen and radio journalists with their brightly coloured microphones. Cámara caught the hesitation in Aguado’s step.

  ‘I can get you a car,’ he said as Aguado stared out at the prospect of being pounced on. ‘You can leave by another door. No one will have to see you. Take you wherever you want.’

  Cámara watched as Aguado faltered, caught between a wish to storm out in defiance, and what was almost certainly a long ingrained desire for anonymity. He had tried to keep his relationship with Blanco a secret for so long.

  ‘Very neat,’ he said.

  ‘Listen,’ Cámara said. ‘If it makes any difference to you, I didn’t let them know. I didn’t ask them to be here. It’s just how this place works – information gets out. Now look…’

  He paused for a moment as he looked Aguado in the eye. His face had gone pale with anger, his jaw clenched tightly, lips screwed tight.

  ‘They don’t know who I am,’ Aguado said in a low voice.

  ‘On the contrary,’ Cámara said. ‘They know exactly who you are. Why do you think they’re out there waiting?’

  Aguado was beginning to breathe heavily as rage and panic seemed to grip him. Cámara nodded in the other direction, towards a different exit. Aguado gave him a look, then finally agreed.

  ‘All right.’

  They stepped away from the smoked-glass doors and back into the centre of the entrance hall as Cámara went to order a car to take Aguado away. Aguado stood still, his hands in his pockets, eyes staring down at his feet.

  ‘You haven’t told me why y
ou’re releasing me,’ he said as Cámara beckoned him to follow.

  ‘Ruiz Pastor was killed early this morning,’ Cámara said. ‘We found his body out in the Albufera.’

  He watched for a reaction, but Aguado stared straight ahead as they walked down the white corridor to a back entrance.

  ‘Did you ever meet him?’ he asked.

  ‘Never,’ Aguado replied quickly. ‘I never mix in bullfighting circles. In fact, I loathe bullfighting.’

  ‘Well, if you did remember hearing something that could help…’

  ‘There you are again. You seem to think I enjoy being in your company.’

  ‘This is a murder inquiry, Señor Aguado. For the death of someone you were very close to.’

  This time there was no attempt at denial.

  ‘The fingerprints on Blanco,’ Cámara said. ‘How else could they have got there? The bracelet? You gave him that, didn’t you?’

  Aguado stared back at him, then cast his eyes down to the ground.

  ‘The morning of the fight,’ he said after a pause. ‘He came round. It was the last time I saw him.’

  ‘Did he say anything?’ Cámara said. ‘Any comment that suggested he felt in danger in any way?’

  Aguado kept his eyes to the floor, breathing heavily.

  ‘Where’s this car, then?’ he said, looking up with a start. ‘Or am I going to have to wait for that like I did for the lawyer who never showed up?’

  Cámara ushered him along to the back exit. A uniformed police officer was sitting at a desk nearby. He looked up as they approached. On the desk in front of him were Sánchez’s photocopies of the pictures of Carmen Luna. Clearly, there wasn’t a single policeman left in the entire city who hadn’t seen them. Aguado leaned forward to see, shuffling the sheets of paper round to get a good look.

  ‘Good old Carmen,’ Aguado said.

  The metal door buzzed loudly and swung open, revealing an unmarked patrol car.

  ‘Still doing her bit.’

  Ten

  Bullfighting is a mysterious art form – half vice, half ballet. Those of us who dream of one day becoming bullfighters live in a vibrant, intimate and colourful world of caricature

  José Camilo Cela

  Tuesday 14th March

  Road sweepers were coming to the end of the night shift when Cámara stepped out into his street and started the ten-minute walk to Almudena’s door. A handful of labourers were drinking brandy-laced carajillo coffees in a working men’s bar on the other side, while the smell of fresh bread from the baker’s oven around the corner filled his nostrils with the promise of croissants and coca de llanda cake. The light was pale and lemony still, the sun low on the horizon as it began to arch up from the sea. The first blossom on the Judas trees was appearing, brightening up the dawn with powerful shades of lavender-pink. Within another couple of hours or so shops would be opening, the closely packed apartment buildings reflecting the rattle of their metal shutters as they were raised for another day. In general, Cámara was not at his best early in the morning, but when there was a sense of peace, like now, of calm before the city fully awoke, he almost felt like getting up at dawn every day of the week.

  Brandy and the last of his maría had helped smooth over the night before, to the point where the images of a mutilated Ruiz Pastor had lost some of their sharpness, and he had eventually slipped into a heavy, dreamless sleep. Yet he had woken with a start in the early hours, and despite trying to will himself back into unconsciousness, he had lain restless for over half an hour before realising it was pointless. He was early enough not to have to rush back to the Jefatura, and whatever Pardo had waiting for him there. Would he be taken off the case? For some reason he thought not: there was a danger at this point that it might reflect badly on Pardo himself, suggesting incompetence in his managerial abilities. No, for now he’d hold back.

  He knew her morning routine well enough to predict almost exactly what she would be doing. The alarm always went off at a quarter past seven, and after pulling up the shutters at the front and back, she’d slip out of her pyjamas and into the shower. After which came her regimented breakfast rituals: hot coffee with three splashes of semi-skimmed milk with added omega-3 – always served in a glass, never a cup. Then she’d carefully peel a kiwi, cut it up into slices, place them on a saucer and eat them with a teaspoon. At this point she would switch on the radio, listening to La Ser while she decided what to wear. By about now, Cámara reasoned, looking at the time on his mobile phone, she’d be putting the last items into her handbag and about to head out the door, picking up her bicycle from the cupboard at the bottom of the stairwell before going to work.

  He turned the corner and her building came into view, the morning sun shining brightly on it now. A smile played on his lips as he thought of catching her by surprise at the door. She had loved it when he’d done this, years ago at the start of their relationship – rushing over after a night spent apart to see her and make love hurriedly and urgently in the doorway of her flat before she’d pull away, never wanting to be late. He’d been amazed that someone could be so set in their routines. He’d almost admired it then, seen it as a sign of self-discipline. Even when they’d been up most of the night, sweating and breathless in a pile of ruffled bedclothes, her morning rituals had never changed. The alarm always waking them at a quarter past seven…

  He drew closer to the front door of her apartment building and looked up. On every floor he saw open windows, light glinting off the glass, even a curtain blowing in the breeze where someone was letting in the fresh morning air. Yet on the third floor, on Almudena’s floor, the shutters were firmly closed.

  He knew at once what had happened, and could see clearly in his mind the unslept-in bed inside, but where violent thoughts and images had filled his brain outside her office the day before, now there was nothing: a tired, strained silence which gave no indication of what he should do next. Should he ring the bell, just to make sure? Call her up, to see if she was all right? Perhaps she’d gone to stay with a friend. But all this was as dead skin lingering after the life of their relationship had slithered away in front of him. What had he expected? Why had he come here? A last attempt to save things, fuelled by some kind of blind optimism? He’d seen enough.

  After a few seconds he remembered to breathe, and the air cut into his lungs like shards of glass.

  No, clearly they weren’t simply business partners; it had gone further than that.

  He turned and headed up the Calle Ruzafa and struck into the city centre, blind, unfeeling, shock tightening around him like a cord.

  The central falla statue in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento was already half-built. Traffic had been blocked next to the central isle and a gigantic, brightly painted figure six storeys high rose up from the ground, a female torso with plump, sharply pointed breasts and a smiling, heavily made-up face with a flame of strawberry-blonde hair cascading down her voluptuous shoulders. In one hand she held out a mirror to get a better look of herself, while in the other she was pointing a camera at her face as though about to take a self-portrait. Beneath her, dwarfed by her colossal size, ninots representing TV cameramen and technicians jostled about, pointing up at the starlet above them. Doubtless it was meant to be some message about the modern obsession with physical beauty and becoming famous at whatever cost, Cámara mused, but in the meantime the men of Valencia – and the foreign visitors as well, of course – were content to ogle at the oversized mammary glands which had now become the main attraction in this focal point of the city.

  Something at the side of his vision stopped him. He turned his head and glanced across at the newsagent. The now familiar photographs of Carmen Luna in Entrevista were staring out from copies of the magazine clipped on to a rack with clothes pegs. He took a step closer: something else at the kiosk had caught his attention. A man with a grey hat had stepped forward and was looking at the headlines, momentarily blocking Cámara’s view, but after pausing for a second he pulled out a cop
y of El Diario and headed to the cashier to pay. The headlines of half a dozen papers stared up at him.

  Second murder in El Caso Blanco

  Blanco’s apoderado found dead in Albufera

  Bullfighting world in mourning after slaughter of Juanma Ruiz Pastor

  Those were just in the national, Madrid-based papers, the ones with less stake in the local politics. But soon Cámara’s eye fell on the Valencia publications, with their more emotional take on the story.

  Emilia calls for renewed police efforts to solve Blanco murder

  That was in the relatively sedate La Veritat. Its rival El Diario, however, was more forthright.

  Blanco investigation in chaos as fresh corpse discovered

  Flores slams police methods

  Cámara had always liked to assume that he was never the kind of policeman to worry too much what the newspapers said. Many journalists simply repeated the press releases that the Jefatura put out, barely troubling to examine the facts. But a more aggressive journalistic style had emerged which liked to consider itself more rigorous in its approach, but concentrated on raising the emotional pitch, tickling its readers with stories of secret ‘plots’ and ‘conspiracies’, or corruption and gross incompetence in government, while stroking their egos by claiming to be high-brow and a cut above the other rags. This combination of frightening, enraging and flattering the public had been a commercial success. Now barely a headline could be written without there being a sense that, each time, they were designed to bring down the authorities or at least make heads roll.

  Cámara thought again about Pardo, about how he would react to all this. That – not how people in the street might view him – was of concern.

  It was all horse shit, though, he thought as he stepped away, dismissing the idea from his mind. What had he realised almost the first day he’d joined? Promotions and demotions came and went like flu epidemics. Sometimes you were lucky, and sometimes you weren’t. Worry about all that stuff too much and you ended up like Maldonado: reason enough never to think about it again.