Death on a Galician Shore

by Villar, Domingo

  ‘There’s no record of a change of address,’ she said after checking.

  Caldas read the police identification number on the report. ‘Would you be able to tell me whose badge this is?’ he asked, and read out the number.

  ‘Let’s see,’ said Nieves, tapping on the keyboard at the other end of the line. ‘It was Deputy Inspector Somoza’s.’

  ‘Was?’

  ‘He’s no longer with the police,’ she said. ‘He retired eight years ago. Do you need anything else?’

  ‘No, that’s all, Nieves. Thanks so much. Sorry to have bothered you.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, and then asked: ‘How’s Alba?’

  ‘Fine,’ replied Caldas tersely.

  ‘Say hello to her from me.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Tell her to look after you,’ she added. ‘And not let you work so late.’

  The inspector swallowed hard. ‘I will.’

  He hung up and rose from his desk. He took his raincoat and the copy of the missing persons report and threw the pieces of ashtray into the wastepaper basket. The cleaner was right: once something had been broken, it could never go back to the way it was.

  Fresh Air

  At seven in the morning it was still pitch-black. The inspector stood waiting in the lobby of his building. After a few minutes, headlights drew up outside and he hurried out. He climbed into the car, leaned back in the passenger seat and opened the window a crack to let in fresh air.

  ‘Morning,’ he said. Estevez’s only response was to press his foot down on the accelerator.

  They drove down the Avenida de Orillamar and continued beside the sea until they reached Bouzas. In the shipyards there were no lights or any trace of the glow of welding that lit up the skeletons of half-built ships during the week. The only illumination was the neon sign of a nightclub across the street, throwing light on the young people queuing to get in, determined to extract a few more hours of fun from their Friday night.

  As they turned off the ring road and on to the coast road, Caldas filled Estevez in. He told him about Captain Sousa’s intention, relayed by radio to another skipper, to shelter in port when the storm broke and that the nearest port was Aguiño. He said he’d found a reference to the disappearance of a woman from the village in one of the newspaper cuttings given to him by the priest of Panxón. He added that he’d got hold of the missing persons report filed by the woman’s son, in which the boy described one of the men he’d seen talking to his mother on the night of the storm.

  ‘Listen to this,’ said Caldas, unfolding the report. ‘He says the man was about thirty, wearing waterproofs and rubber boots. He was slim with very fair hair.’ He put the report away. ‘Justo Castelo was twenty-nine. How many fair-haired fishermen that age could have landed in a small fishing village like that one?’

  Estevez shrugged.

  ‘I’m sure it was him,’ Caldas went on. ‘Don’t you see? The night the Xurelo sank it had been in Aguiño, and they weren’t simply fishing, as they claimed.’

  ‘Do you really think it’s significant?’

  ‘I don’t know. But this is all we’ve got to go on and I want to see if it leads anywhere.’

  ‘So what happened to the woman?’ asked Estevez, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.

  ‘Rebeca Neira? I don’t know – the missing persons report is all I found.’

  Estevez gave him a hard stare. ‘That’s it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Inspector. In that case, nothing happened.’

  ‘I know,’ said Caldas. ‘But if the boat was in Aguiño, I want to know why neither Arias nor Valverde mentioned it. When I asked Valverde why they hadn’t sheltered in a port, do you know what he said? “You’d have to ask the skipper.” Well, now I want them to tell me. I want to know why they hid it from everyone, I want them to tell me what happened that night, to explain again exactly how Antonio Sousa drowned.’

  Estevez shook his head doubtfully. ‘Do you still think Sousa has something to do with Castelo’s death?’

  ‘Don’t forget the things painted on the rowing boat: the word “Murderers” and the date of Sousa’s death, 20 December 1996. It can’t be a coincidence. There has to be a link between Sousa’s death and Castelo’s, and I think the other two know what it is. Otherwise why would they be so evasive when I mentioned the captain’s name?’

  ‘Maybe it’s just a painful memory.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Caldas, closing his eyes again and craning towards the open window. ‘But in that case they needn’t have lied.’

  As they arrived in Panxón, with Monteferro a vague, dark shape against the sky, Estevez said, ‘One thing, Inspector.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Today’s Saturday. I shouldn’t be here.’

  ‘Nor should I,’ said Caldas.

  ‘Are you taking the piss?’ snorted Estevez. ‘We’re here because of you.’

  ‘This isn’t just a whim of mine, Rafa.’

  ‘Well, it certainly seems like it. Couldn’t we have waited till Monday?’

  ‘I told you, there’s no fish market on a Monday.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘What do you mean, so what?’

  ‘That fisherman doesn’t dematerialise on days when there’s no market. It wouldn’t make any difference if we waited till Monday and questioned him at his house.’

  ‘One man’s already dead, Rafa, and there could be more. Time is important. You know that.’

  ‘Of course I do. But time’s important for the living as well,’ snapped Estevez. ‘You can do what you like with your own weekend, but it’s not fair to take other people’s free time as you please.’

  ‘As I please?’

  ‘Yes. It seems to bother you that other people have a life outside work.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me. It doesn’t matter to you whether you phone at night or during the day. To you it makes no difference if it’s a Tuesday, Friday or Sunday. All days are the same. You pick up the phone and off you go without even bothering to ask if someone’s busy or not.’

  ‘If this is because of yesterday, I didn’t realise how late it was when I called,’ said Caldas apologetically.

  ‘Because of yesterday, and the day before, and today …’ Estevez, who’d spoken in bursts, now paused, as if taking aim before delivering the coup de grâce. ‘It’s not my fault if you don’t have a life,’ he said, ‘but you have to understand, not everyone’s like you.’

  Caldas hunched in the passenger seat, not knowing what to say, and Estevez added, ‘You know I like to talk straight.’

  ‘Right,’ the inspector replied, closing his eyes again.

  The Rustling Bag

  They arrived in Panxón at seven thirty. They parked under a street lamp, near the slipway, and waited in the car with the heating on and headlights off. On the water, they could see the lights of Arias’s and Hermida’s boats. The two fishermen were emptying the contents of their traps into black baskets, which they would later unload on land.

  ‘Can I take a look at that report?’ asked Estevez.

  Caldas handed it to him, and his assistant held it up to the light from the street lamp.

  ‘Did you notice the surname, Inspector?’ said Estevez after a moment.

  ‘Whose?’

  ‘Mother’s and son’s,’ said Estevez. ‘They’ve both got exactly the same surname: Neira Diez.’

  ‘She was a single mother. Look at their ages.’

  ‘The boy fifteen, the mother thirty-two,’ read Estevez.

  ‘She was only a kid when she had him.’

  At a quarter to eight the auctioneer arrived in his van. He parked outside the fish market, opened the metal shutters and switched on the lights.

  Soon afterwards, Ernesto Hermida’s wife in her white apron made her way between boats down to the water’s edge to wait for her husband. The old fisherman drew up at the bottom of the slipway in his rowing boat and h
anded her the baskets, which she dropped to the ground. Then, each holding a handle, they lugged the baskets one at a time up to the fish market.

  Arias was in his orange waterproofs. He, too, had filled two baskets, but he carried them easily up the slipway, watched greedily by several seagulls.

  At two minutes to eight, Caldas and Estevez got out of the car and headed towards the market. Hermida’s catch was already set out on the long metal table – shrimp on the right and crabs on the left – beneath the sign cautioning against eating, drinking, smoking and spitting inside the building. It smelled more strongly of the sea inside than out.

  From the entrance, the policemen could make out José Arias’s dark hair and orange waterproofs. He was crouching, sorting his catch. He handed each tray to the auctioneer as he filled it, to be weighed and set on the table.

  There were almost a dozen people waiting for the auction to begin. Caldas recognised the two women and the man with grey sideburns who’d divided the catch between them the last time. They were circling the table, like wolves around a flock of sheep. The other buyers showed less interest.

  The auctioneer finished weighing the catch, checked that all the trays were marked with their weights and positioned himself behind the table. Then he puffed out his top lip and blew out the air suddenly.

  ‘Let’s begin, it’s five past eight,’ he said, rubbing his hands. Then he called out, ‘I’m selling shrimp! I’m selling shrimp!’

  The buyers moved up to the table, as if drawn by a magnet. Hermida and his wife also stepped forward to follow the progress of the auction. Arias, however, went on cleaning out his baskets, as though it had nothing to do with him.

  ‘We’ll start at forty-five euros,’ the auctioneer announced, indicating the trays of shrimp wriggling in the cold blue light of the fluorescent tubes.

  Then he took a deep breath and began calling out prices as if reciting the letters of the alphabet: ‘Forty-five, forty-four and a half, forty-four, forty-three and a half, forty-three, forty-two and a half, forty-two …’

  One of the women halted the bidding and selected the best items. José Arias meanwhile headed towards the entrance, carrying his empty baskets in one hand and a blue plastic bag in the other. If he was surprised to see the policemen there, he didn’t show it.

  ‘Good morning, Inspector Caldas.’

  ‘Do you have a moment?’ asked Caldas.

  ‘You’re here to speak to me?’

  Caldas nodded, and lit his first cigarette of the weekend. ‘But we’re not in a hurry,’ he said and, gesturing towards the plastic bag that contained several wriggling crabs, added: ‘Go ahead and finish what you’re doing.’

  Arias glanced back inside the fish market. The auctioneer’s chant floated out through the open door.

  ‘Now’s fine,’ said the fisherman in his deep voice. Caldas realised that Arias would rather talk there in the empty street than later when the auction was over. ‘Is it about El Rubio’s phone call?’

  ‘You tell me,’ replied Caldas and motioned towards the spot where the fisherman had released the female crabs the previous Tuesday.

  Arias crossed the road and went down the slipway. The policemen followed, making their way between rowing boats lit up by nearby street lamps.

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘I don’t like being lied to,’ said the inspector.

  The fisherman halted. ‘I told you, I’d forgotten about the call.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So what do you want?’

  Caldas drew on his cigarette before answering, ‘The truth.’

  ‘I told you the truth, Inspector. El Rubio lost one of his fenders out at sea and …’

  ‘Do you expect us to believe that?’ Caldas interrupted.

  ‘I don’t expect anything,’ said Arias slowly. The plastic bag rustled in his hands.

  ‘Do you remember the date painted on Castelo’s rowing boat?’

  The fisherman nodded.

  ‘There was the word “Murderers” as well,’ said the inspector.

  ‘I know. You said.’

  ‘What happened that night?’

  ‘The boat went down. You already know.’

  ‘Apart from that.’

  ‘Isn’t that enough?’

  ‘What happened to Captain Sousa?’

  ‘He drowned,’ said the fisherman gravely.

  ‘Why was the boat out at sea instead of sheltering in port like all the other fishing boats?’

  ‘It was the skipper’s call.’

  ‘So you didn’t put in to port?’

  The tip of the inspector’s cigarette glowed.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  The fisherman nodded.

  ‘You’re lying to me again,’ said Caldas.

  ‘What did you say?’

  The plastic bag rustled again as Arias gripped it more tightly. Caldas was glad Estevez was with him.

  ‘Did you put in at a port?’ Caldas pressed.

  ‘No,’ replied the fisherman, but then corrected himself: ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘You stopped in Aguiño, didn’t you?’ asked Caldas.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Aguiño,’ repeated Caldas. Arias said nothing, simply looking towards the beach.

  ‘What happened that night?’

  ‘It was a long time ago, Inspector,’ said Arias, dodging the question. ‘I’m telling you, I don’t remember.’

  ‘You can’t have forgotten.’

  ‘Well, I have.’

  In the dawn hush, the plastic bag rustled again.

  ‘What really happened to Captain Sousa?’ asked the inspector. ‘Why did someone daub “Murderers” on Castelo’s boat? Why was El Rubio killed?’

  Arias opened his trembling hands and the baskets and plastic bag fell to the ground. Caldas shrank. Had Estevez not been there, he would have backed away.

  ‘Didn’t you hear the inspector?’ interjected his assistant, not looking in the least bit intimidated.

  ‘I can’t remember anything,’ Arias whispered, eyes cast down.

  They questioned him a little longer, but his answer remained the same.

  ‘He remembers the whole thing,’ said Estevez, opening the car door.

  Caldas stubbed out his cigarette on the ground. ‘I know.’

  The inspector had seen the fear in the fisherman’s eyes and he wondered what had really happened on the Xurelo. Why was Arias so afraid of someone finding out the truth?

  ‘Aren’t we going to arrest him?’ asked Estevez.

  ‘And charge him with what?’

  Estevez shrugged, started the car and reversed. As Caldas lowered the window he saw the fisherman on the slipway. He was sitting on one of the boats, like a felled colossus. His orange waterproofs glowed in the early-morning light. On the stone slipway, the crabs had found their way out of the plastic bag and were scuttling down to the sea.

  The Fortress

  They stopped for breakfast at a bar facing the Playa de la Madorra. Estevez leafed through the newspaper. The sinking of the Galician trawler on the Great Sole Bank filled the front page.

  ‘Did you see the rescue on TV?’

  Caldas said he had. Through the window he contemplated the fortress at Baiona, which was still lit up, across the bay, and the waves breaking on the seaweed-strewn shore.

  As they returned to the car the bells of the Templo Votivo del Mar struck nine o’clock. They took the road to Monteferro and turned off to the left, down the narrow street that led to the large wooden gate.

  They got out of the car and pressed the buzzer. Marcos Valverde’s wife answered.

  ‘Hello, this is Inspector Caldas,’ said Caldas.

  The gate slid open, revealing the grey concrete bunker-like façade.

  There were two cars, wet with dew, parked in the courtyard. One was Mrs Valverde’s red SUV. The other was a black sports car. In the gravel garden, pansies were beginning to open in the first rays of the su
n.

  Caldas was hoping Mrs Valverde’s smile would greet him, but it was her husband who came out. His hair was wet and combed back as if he’d just got out of the shower. He was wearing a dark green poloneck and beige corduroy trousers.

  ‘Is something the matter?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ said Caldas, thinking how different Valverde looked without his suit and tie. ‘I apologise for coming so early.’

  ‘Please don’t worry. I’ve been awake for hours.’

  ‘Could we speak to you for a few minutes?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Valverde, but didn’t invite them in.

  Caldas saw the verbena growing against the house and was tempted to go and inhale its fragrance. Instead he took his packet of cigarettes from his pocket.

  ‘Do you smoke?’

  Valverde shook his head. The inspector placed a cigarette between his lips and held the lighter to it.

  ‘My father remembers you,’ he lied. ‘He sends his regards.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Valverde. ‘But I’m sure you didn’t come here just to tell me that.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ said Caldas gesturing towards the house full of sharp edges. ‘Do you recall our conversation the other day?’

  The former crewmate of Arias and Castelo nodded.

  ‘Do you remember that I asked why you didn’t shelter in port the night of the wreck?’

  ‘Yes, of course. I told you, we had a full hold. I assume that’s why the skipper decided to return to Panxón.’

  ‘Would you mind if I repeat the question?’ said Caldas, drawing on his cigarette.

  Valverde looked at him, then at Estevez, then at the inspector again.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘It’s very simple. Did you put in somewhere the night the Xurelo sank?’

  ‘I already said we didn’t.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Valverde opened out his arms and smiled. ‘Of course I am.’

  ‘You haven’t forgotten anything?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  Caldas spoke very slowly: ‘In that case, I can only think that you were lying before and are lying again today.’

  ‘What?’ said Valverde, no longer smiling.