Death on a Galician Shore

by Villar, Domingo

  ‘Be brave, Leo.’

  ‘Brave?’

  ‘Yes. Call her,’ said his father. ‘Get back together. Have a family, children, whatever she wants.’

  ‘Children?’

  ‘Why not? It’s a question of priorities. Do you think I liked you?’

  The inspector glanced sideways at his father, who was smiling.

  ‘Before I got to know you, I mean.’

  ‘I don’t know if I could do it,’ mused Caldas. ‘I wouldn’t want them to grow up without a father.’

  ‘Bloody hell, don’t exaggerate. Being a policeman isn’t like going to war.’

  ‘I’m not talking about dying,’ said Caldas. ‘I’m talking about not being there.’

  His father got into the car. He turned the key in the ignition, switched on the lights and lowered the window.

  ‘We do the best we can, Leo.’

  ‘I know,’ said Caldas, and he tapped on the hood a couple of times. ‘See you tomorrow. Don’t worry about me. I’ll grow up.’

  ‘We don’t grow up, Leo,’ said his father before driving away, leaving Caldas standing in the car park. ‘We just grow old.’

  The Map

  After leaving the hospital Caldas walked down the Calle Mexico. Opposite the railway station he turned down the Calle Urzaiz, crossed the Gran Via and continued downhill along the crowded pavement until he reached the cast-iron streetlight designed by the Galician modernist architect Jenaro de la Fuente. Then he made his way along the Calle del Principe accompanied by the smell of roasting chestnuts and buskers’ music. Just before the Puerta del Sol, at a corner where an Andean Indian stood playing panpipes, he turned left into a small side street, the Travesia de la Aurora, and arrived at the Eligio.

  Inside he went up to the bar, greeted Carlos and inhaled the delicious aromas coming from the kitchen.

  ‘Pasta with clams, isn’t it?’

  ‘Bloody hell, Leo,’ exclaimed Carlos. ‘That’s some sense of smell you’ve got.’

  ‘I haven’t eaten all day.’

  ‘How come?’ asked Carlos, setting a glass before the inspector and filling it with white wine.

  ‘I went out on a friend’s boat this morning and got seasick,’ Caldas confessed. ‘I haven’t felt like eating.’

  Beneath his thick moustache, Carlos gave a small smile and disappeared into the kitchen to place the inspector’s order.

  Caldas went over to the academics’ table with his glass of wine and sat down. A moment later, Carlos emerged from the kitchen and returned to his post behind the bar.

  ‘So the patrolman of the waves gets sick on boats,’ he said with amusement.

  ‘I wish it was only boats,’ said Caldas wryly.

  ‘You weren’t on that trawler that sank on the Great Sole Bank, were you?’ teased one of the academics. ‘Did you see the rescue on the news?’

  Everyone had.

  ‘They only just saved the crew before the ship went down,’ added another.

  ‘Where is the Great Sole?’ asked Caldas, who’d heard the name hundreds of times but couldn’t have located it on a map.

  ‘To the south-west of the British Isles,’ said one academic.

  ‘Yes,’ said another. ‘Off the coast of Cornwall.’

  There was praise for the helicopter pilots who risked their lives flying in terrible storms.

  ‘Well, when I was at sea I always looked forward to a storm,’ said Carlos. Before running the bar opened by his father-in-law, he had been a merchant seaman.

  ‘Why was that?’ someone asked.

  ‘Because we’d have to shelter in port,’ Carlos explained. ‘We knew we’d be getting off the ship and having a walk, so when a storm was forecast we were delighted.’

  Caldas recalled one of the cuttings about the sinking of the Xurelo that he’d read that afternoon. A skipper fishing in the area had expressed surprise that the boat had gone down. He claimed that Sousa had told him over the radio that he was intending to haul in all the gear and return to port.

  ‘Is it the same for fishing boats?’ asked Caldas.

  ‘Just the same,’ said Carlos with a deep laugh. ‘In bad weather, everyone heads back to port for a drink and to hell with fishing until the storm eases.’

  Carlos’s words echoed in Caldas’s head. Suddenly he was alert. ‘In bad weather, everyone heads back to port,’ he repeated to himself.

  He went up to the bar. ‘Hey, Carlos, if you were sailing near Salvora and a storm broke, where would you shelter?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Carlos. ‘Why?’

  ‘I need to know.’

  ‘Wait there.’

  Carlos went to the bookcase by the door and returned with an atlas. He set it down on the bar and opened it at the page for the Rias Baixas, the southerly estuaries of the Galician coast.

  ‘This is Salvora here,’ he said, placing a finger on the island at the mouth of the Ria de Arousa.

  ‘So where would you shelter?’ pressed the inspector.

  ‘I suppose I’d head for Ribeira or Villagarcia,’ said Carlos, stroking his moustache. ‘They’re deep enough for merchant ships.’

  ‘What if you were in a small fishing boat?’

  ‘What size?’

  ‘The kind that goes out for a couple of nights.’

  ‘Ah, then I’d head for Aguiño.’

  ‘Aguiño?’ asked Caldas. ‘Sure?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Carlos, taking another look at the map. ‘Yes, I’m sure. What’s up?’

  ‘I’ve got to check something,’ muttered the inspector, setting off back to the police station. He still hadn’t had anything to eat.

  Cuttings

  Caldas greeted the officers chatting together on duty at the entrance and went straight to his office. There he lit a cigarette, opened the blue folder and took out the newspaper cuttings that the priest of Panxón had kept for over a decade. He unfolded them one by one, certain he’d seen the name Aguiño somewhere.

  He found what he was looking for in an article from a local newspaper dated Monday 23 December 1996, three days after the sinking of the Xurelo. Beneath an account of the resumption of the search for Sousa’s body were two shorter items. The first noted that two hooded motorcyclists had held up a petrol station. The second briefly reported the disappearance of a woman from Aguiño.

  AGUIÑO WOMAN MISSING

  A resident of Aguiño, Rebeca Neira, aged thirty-two, has been missing from her home since last Friday night.

  Her disappearance was reported by her son yesterday morning, Sunday 22 December. During the afternoon, groups of neighbours and members of the Civil Protection Force searched for the young woman in the vicinity of her home. The search was halted without success as darkness fell.

  Police sources told this newspaper that they consider the most likely explanation for her disappearance to be that she left home of her own free will, but they are not ruling out other possibilities.

  Caldas read the article twice. The woman had last been seen on the evening of Friday 20 December, the night of the sinking of the Xurelo.

  There was a small photograph with the article. It showed a man searching a ditch at the side of a road. The inspector looked through the other cuttings, hoping to find more about the disappearance but there was nothing else about the Aguiño woman.

  Maybe it had nothing to do with the sinking of the Xurelo, but the two incidents had occurred on the same date, and the port of Aguiño was the closest to where the boat had been fishing when the storm broke.

  Caldas slumped in the black chair, stomach rumbling. He took a drag of his cigarette to quell the hunger pangs and picked up the newspaper cutting again. He stared at the photo of Captain Sousa, whose wrinkled face stared back at him from the top of the page. Then he read the article about the disappearance of Rebeca Neira once again. This time his attention was drawn to the fact that her son had reported her missing. A copy of the missing person report must have been forwarded to Galicia Po
lice Headquarters for its records.

  Caldas picked up the phone. The officer who answered at Police Headquarters said that Nieves Ortiz did indeed still work the night shift.

  ‘Would you put me through to her, please?’ Caldas asked. ‘I’m Inspector Caldas, from Vigo.’

  A moment later Nieves’s high-pitched voice came on the line. ‘It’s been a long time, Patrolman,’ she said. Caldas pictured her broad grin and tiny eyes.

  It was over a year since she’d requested a transfer to the Headquarters in La Coruña, but at the station in Vigo they still missed the way she roared with laughter.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ she said, after asking after former colleagues.

  ‘I need to check a report.’

  ‘Fire away.’

  ‘See if you can find a missing persons report on a woman called Rebeca Neira,’ said the inspector.

  ‘Where from?’

  ‘Aguiño.’

  ‘Do you know the date?’

  ‘Between 20 and 22 December 1996.’

  ‘Ninety-six?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I’ll have to go to the archives,’ said Nieves. ‘Do you want to wait or shall I call you back in a minute?’

  ‘If it’s only a minute I think I’ll wait,’ said Caldas, lighting another cigarette.

  ‘I’ve got the report,’ she said when she came back on the line.

  ‘Anything else in the file?’

  ‘Nothing,’ replied Nieves. ‘There’s a handwritten note in the margin of the report that says: “Enquiries are being made which will duly be recorded”. But there are no more documents.’

  The inspector tutted.

  ‘Maybe it was a false alarm,’ said Nieves.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Caldas, annoyed that another line of enquiry had come to nothing.

  ‘Shall I send you this anyway?’ she asked.

  ‘Would you mind?’

  ‘Shall I fax it to you at the station?’

  After the inspector had thanked her and hung up, he sat smoking at his desk. If there were no more documents in the file, it must be because the woman had turned up safe and well soon afterwards. He looked again at the yellowed newspaper article. It stated that the most likely explanation for Rebeca Neira’s disappearance was that she had left home of her own free will. Caldas knew that things were usually as they seemed.

  He stubbed out his cigarette and left his office carrying the ashtray. He emptied it in the waste bin in the toilets and rinsed it under the tap. Back in his office he put the ashtray in a drawer. Then he looked at his watch.

  It was gone ten thirty at night when Caldas left the police station. He was hungry and felt as if he’d spent all week going round in circles investigating Justo Castelo’s murder, ending up right back where he started.

  An Old Report

  He was tired and, though tempted by the pasta with clams at the Eligio, decided not to go back there. He just wanted to have a quick snack and go home, so he walked round the corner to the Rosalia de Castro café. He went up to the bar and ordered a cup of broth, an omelette and a glass of wine, and then sat at a table in the window to wait for his meal.

  On a TV up on the wall they were replaying aerial shots of the boat listing in heavy seas on the Great Sole Bank. The sight of the waves reminded him of the attack of seasickness that had forced him ashore at the cove in Monteferro. He tried to console himself with the thought that, thanks to that, Trabazo had found the spanner among the rocks. Caldas was convinced it had been used to strike Castelo on the head. Why else would someone throw away a new spanner like that if not to get rid of evidence?

  It was eleven fifteen by the time he finished his meal. He asked for the bill, lit a cigarette, paid and left. He felt the wind that had chilled the night air and heard the young people partying in the Montero Rios Gardens, by the marina. Every Friday, they came from all over the city to celebrate the end of another week.

  He rubbed his hands vigorously and set off home. As he passed the police station, he stubbed out his cigarette and went in to see if Nieves Ortiz had sent the missing persons report on the Aguiño woman.

  He found the report in the fax in-tray, and sat down to read it at one of the empty desks. Thirteen years earlier Diego Neira Diez, aged fifteen, had reported the disappearance of his mother, Rebeca Neira Diez, aged thirty-two. He had contacted the police at eleven in the morning on Sunday 22 December 1996, stating that he hadn’t seen his mother, with whom he lived in the parish of Aguiño, since the night of Friday 20 December.

  According to the statement, at around eleven on the Friday night, Rebeca Neira told her son that she’d run out of cigarettes and left the house. She returned over an hour later, and Diego heard her talking to someone under the small porch at the front door. A man burst out laughing and his mother asked him to be quiet, reminding him that her son was in the house. This made Diego Neira uncomfortable. Opening the front door, he found his mother there with two men. He muttered that he was going to spend the night at a friend’s house and ran off.

  It was pouring with rain, so he stopped to shelter in a nearby shack. From there he saw one of the men enter the house with his mother while the other man headed back towards the port. Once the rain subsided, Diego Neira set off once more for his friend’s house.

  He returned home the following day, the Saturday, at around one o’clock. He found the house empty, clean and tidy. He remained there, and when it got dark he went to bed.

  He didn’t get worried until the Sunday morning when he saw that his mother hadn’t slept in her bed. He then phoned Irene Vazquez, a close friend of his mother’s. She, too, had not heard from Rebeca since the Friday afternoon and, after hearing the boy’s account, went with him to the police.

  Diego Neira stated that he didn’t know who the two men were and hadn’t even seen one of them properly, only silhouetted in the darkness. But he’d got a good look at the other one, who’d headed back to the port. He’d passed very close to the shack where Diego was sheltering from the rain and the road was well lit.

  He was wearing waterproofs and rubber boots, like those used by fishermen. He looked about thirty, and was slim with a shock of very fair hair. Diego Neira had never seen him before.

  Caldas reread the boy’s description of the stranger. It couldn’t be a coincidence.

  He got up and went to his office. There, at his desk, he read through the report once again. Then he dialled the number of Galicia Police Headquarters and, for the second time that evening, asked to be put through to Nieves Ortiz.

  ‘Did you get the report?’

  ‘Yes. Thanks,’ said Caldas. ‘Are you sure there’s nothing else in the file?’

  ‘Absolutely, Leo.’

  The inspector sighed. ‘Could there be a more comprehensive report somewhere else?’

  ‘There shouldn’t be,’ said Nieves.

  ‘Could you check?’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘I can try. But why the rush? It was over twelve years ago, wasn’t it?’

  ‘It may have something to do with the case I’m working on.’

  ‘What was the missing woman’s name again?’

  Caldas read out the name on the report. ‘Rebeca Neira,’ he said. ‘Rebeca Neira Diez.’

  The inspector took his ashtray from the drawer and lit a cigarette, as Nieves tapped away on her keyboard at Police Headquarters.

  ‘I can’t find anything else on the computer, Leo,’ she said a moment later. ‘But let me have another look in the archives. Give me three minutes and I’ll call you back.’

  Caldas thanked her and hung up. If the missing persons report was the only document in the file, perhaps the woman had turned up. But he was sure the fair-haired man the boy had seen was the fisherman who had been found floating in the seaweed on the beach in Panxón thirteen years later.

  Caldas wondered why José Arias and Marcos Valverde had lied, why neither of them had mentioned that they�
�d sheltered from the storm in the port of Aguiño. He wanted to hear their answers and watch their faces, and find out why they had set sail again despite the storm, in seas so heavy that their boat had foundered.

  He picked up the phone again and called Estevez.

  ‘Do you know what time it is?’ said his assistant.

  Caldas looked at his watch: it was twelve thirty.

  ‘Were you asleep?’

  ‘No,’ muttered Estevez.

  ‘I don’t think the Xurelo was on its way back from fishing when it sank.’

  ‘It happened over twelve years ago,’ groaned Estevez. ‘Couldn’t you have waited till Monday to tell me?’

  ‘I need to speak to José Arias and Marcos Valverde. I want to know why they hid this from us. Will you come and pick me up at seven? I’d like to be in Panxón when Arias gets back from fishing.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘When you say tomorrow you mean in seven hours’ time?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Estevez gave a deafening snort. ‘Tomorrow’s Saturday, Inspector.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Couldn’t we ask him about it on Monday?’

  ‘The fish market’s closed on Mondays, Rafa,’ replied Caldas. ‘Will you pick me up at seven? I’ll wait downstairs.’

  He extinguished his cigarette and went to the toilets to empty the ashtray. As he was rinsing it, it slipped from his fingers and broke in half in the washbasin.

  Holding a piece in each hand, Caldas approached the woman who cleaned the police station.

  ‘You don’t have some glue by any chance, do you?’ he asked, motioning towards the trolley loaded with containers that the woman was pushing with her foot.

  ‘No,’ she replied, staring at the two halves of the ashtray. ‘Anyway, even if you stick it back together, it’ll never be the same.’

  Five minutes later Nieves Ortiz called him back.

  ‘I’ve had a look, Leo, but I can’t find anything other than the report I sent you. That must have been it.’

  ‘Do you know if they still live in Aguiño?’