Death on a Galician Shore

by Villar, Domingo

  The policemen went back to the car.

  ‘Do you know how to get there?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Estevez. The inspector tried Quintans’ number again. It was no longer engaged. ‘It’s Leo.’

  ‘I called you at the station a little while ago.’

  ‘I know,’ said Caldas.

  ‘Diego Neira was working in Ares until three years ago. Did Olga tell you?’

  ‘She didn’t say anything about the name of the village, but she mentioned he’d had an accident,’ said the inspector. ‘I think we’ve found him. I was just calling to say thanks.’

  ‘You’ve got him?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Caldas. ‘We’re on our way there now. Do you know, earlier this evening he prised open part of a front gate so he could break in in his chair.’

  ‘What do you mean, chair?’

  ‘Isn’t he in a wheelchair?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Quintans. ‘At any rate, he didn’t need one three years ago.’

  ‘I thought you told Olga he’d had an accident?’

  ‘Yes, but it was just to his hand, Leo. He lost a couple of fingers using a circular saw.’

  Caldas felt the blood pounding at his temples. ‘What?’ he stammered.

  ‘He lost several fingers,’ repeated Quintans. ‘He was working in a carpenter’s workshop, building wooden boats. From what I’ve heard, he’s quite a craftsman.’

  Diego Neira

  The tyres screeched at every bend, but Caldas didn’t complain. ‘Hurry,’ he kept saying, face raised towards the partly open window, gripping the door handle with both hands. ‘Hurry until we get to the turn-off.’

  Estevez braked suddenly, making the car skid, before turning down the narrow street that led down to the gate.

  Caldas opened his eyes.

  ‘Take it slowly now.’

  As they came round the bend, their headlights lit up the motorbike, parked where its owner had left it. The carpenter was crouched, with his back to them, as if he really were inspecting the damaged gate. He held a torch in one hand and a tool they didn’t recognise in the other.

  For a moment he froze like a cat in the glare of the headlights. Then he stood up and turned round.

  The inspector looked at his bearded face and swallowed hard. He wasn’t as he’d imagined, but it was definitely Rebeca Neira’s son, the man he was looking for.

  Estevez stopped the car. ‘Are we going?’ he asked, flicking the safety catch on his automatic pistol.

  ‘You don’t need that,’ said Caldas.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, Rafa, I’m sure. We’re not going to hurt him.’

  They opened their doors and got out slowly. The headlights were still on.

  ‘Diego Neira?’ Caldas called out.

  The carpenter looked up, trying to see who had called his name, and Caldas saw his neck muscles tense.

  ‘Diego,’ he repeated. ‘I’m Inspector Caldas, of the police. We’re here to arrest you.’

  The man did not reply or shield his eyes from the lights, which must have been dazzling him. He stood before the gate, face blank, arms slightly bent in a defensive position.

  The policemen both moved forward until they were standing in front of the car.

  ‘Put what you’re holding down on the ground, Diego,’ said the inspector, but the carpenter remained motionless.

  ‘Didn’t you hear the inspector, son?’

  Neira slowly lowered his arms, but at the last moment he jerked his arm forward and flung the torch into the air. In an instant, while the policemen had their eyes on the torch, Neira had rolled on the ground and disappeared through the gap towards the house.

  They went after him. Caldas followed Neira through the hole while Estevez vaulted over the gate.

  By the time the inspector had crawled through, Neira was on the ground gasping for air, pinned beneath Estevez’s bulk.

  ‘Don’t hurt him,’ said Caldas.

  While Estevez handcuffed Neira and took him to the car, Caldas approached Valverde. The developer had watched the carpenter’s arrest from a distance.

  ‘Who is that?’ he asked.

  ‘His name’s Diego Neira.’

  Valverde shook his head, as if the name meant nothing.

  ‘He used to live with his mother in Aguiño,’ said Caldas.

  They watched the man being led away, head bowed and hands cuffed behind his back.

  ‘Is he that girl’s son?’ said Valverde at last.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why me?’ he whispered. ‘I had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘That’s not quite true, you did have something to do with it.’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said adamantly.

  ‘Sometimes that’s not enough,’ said Caldas. ‘You knew what happened that night. You could have confronted the killer, turned him in to the police.’

  Valverde looked up and gave a long snort, trying to release some of his tension.

  ‘Confront him?’ he said. ‘And end up at the bottom of the sea like Captain Sousa?’

  Caldas reflected that he himself had floundered in this case just as Sousa must have done in the waves all those years ago.

  ‘We’re going to look into the events of that night,’ said Caldas. ‘But there’s still time for you to speak to us voluntarily.’

  The developer gave such an extended snort that this time he almost winded himself.

  ‘I’ll be going to see my lawyer tomorrow,’ he said at last. ‘Maybe I’ll call in at the police station afterwards.’

  Face to Face

  The next morning, Caldas sat facing the carpenter, still trying to extract a confession. He hadn’t managed to get a single word from him the night before. He’d mentioned Panxón, the graffiti and Justo Castelo’s death before moving on to the subject of Aguiño. The response had always been silence.

  The inspector had hoped that a few hours in a cell would make him more willing to talk, but the man continued to stare at the white wall ahead of him almost without blinking.

  ‘I’m not like Somoza,’ said Caldas. ‘I’m certain your mother didn’t leave you. The men you saw at your front door were at the Bar Aduana the night she disappeared. She met them there.’

  Still Neira said nothing. But the look in his eyes seemed to convey that thirteen years was too long.

  Caldas tried again. ‘We’re determined to get to the bottom of things, but we need your help. You came to us once and we failed you,’ said Caldas. ‘Give us a chance to put things right.’

  Neira spoke for the first time, ‘So you’re saying that for you to charge my mother’s killer I’ve got to confess to murder? And you claim you’re not like Somoza? You’re all the same.’

  Caldas reflected that at least the silence had ended.

  ‘You smoke?’

  ‘No,’ muttered Neira.

  Caldas lit a cigarette.

  ‘I’m not asking you to admit to anything you haven’t done.’

  ‘Well, I haven’t killed anyone.’

  ‘So tell me what happened. I’m prepared to listen.’

  ‘Are you? I’m honoured.’

  ‘And to believe you if what you say is credible,’ added Caldas.

  Neira looked him in the eyes. ‘I had nothing to do with El Rubio’s death.’

  ‘You didn’t throw him into the sea?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And you didn’t bind his wrists with that cable tie? Where did you get it?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘So it wasn’t you who daubed his boat with graffiti?’

  ‘Of course it was me. I’d been doing it for months. But that doesn’t mean I killed him.’

  ‘You’d been painting graffiti on the boat for months?’

  ‘I graffitied his rowing boat, left notes at his house, on his boat, in his traps. I wanted to get him off balance so he’d lead me to the man who killed my mother.’

  ‘Did you succeed?
’

  ‘Almost.’

  ‘Almost?’

  ‘He was about to crack when he died.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘You should have seen him. He can’t have been getting more than a couple of hours sleep a day. Until yesterday I was convinced he’d killed himself.’

  ‘Until yesterday?’

  ‘When you told me in the car how the cable tie was fastened.’

  The day before, during the drive back to Vigo, Caldas had explained how they’d tracked Neira down, assuming that he’d confess when faced with the evidence. He’d been wrong.

  ‘Did you ever speak to El Rubio face to face?’

  ‘Face to face?’

  ‘Did you ever tell Castelo who you were?’

  ‘Of course I didn’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I was scared of ending up like my mother.’

  ‘What were you going to do when you found the man who was with her?’

  Neira looked Caldas in the eyes. ‘I wanted to ask him why,’ he whispered. ‘I wanted to ask him why he had to kill her.’

  Caldas swallowed. ‘And then?’

  Neira shrugged. ‘I’d have thought of something.’

  He’d waited over thirteen years. He was in no hurry.

  ‘You should have come to us,’ said Caldas.

  Neira smiled contemptuously.

  The carpenter admitted what Caldas had guessed: he’d seen El Rubio on the news. Over a decade later, he’d found the fair-haired man of his nightmares staring at the camera self-consciously, holding up a tropical fish on a hook. He was a little heavier, but it was the same man who’d passed Neira as he sheltered from the rain on that night long ago. By the time he switched off the television, he’d decided to go and find work in Panxón.

  ‘Do you have a car?’

  ‘No, a motorbike.’

  ‘The one you were riding yesterday?

  ‘Yes.’

  Caldas didn’t press him further. Ferro was in Panxón searching Neira’s house. If he had a car, Ferro would find it.

  ‘What were you doing the evening of the Saturday before last?’

  ‘I was at home. I never go out in the evening,’ said Neira without hesitation.

  ‘Were you alone?’

  ‘With Charlie,’ he replied, and the inspector remembered the grey cat at the workshop.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Could you do something for me?’ said the carpenter.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Would you have a word with Dr Trabazo and ask him to look after Charlie?’

  Drawing on his cigarette Caldas assured him that he would, before continuing the interrogation. ‘When did you break down Valverde’s gate?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You didn’t pull off those panels?’

  ‘My job is to fix things, Inspector, not break them.’

  ‘But damaging the gate gave you the perfect excuse to be alone with Valverde, one of the Xurelo’s crew.’

  ‘That’s true. But I didn’t do it.’

  ‘Were you intending to kill them all?’

  ‘I wasn’t intending to kill anyone,’ he said. ‘It was them who killed my mother.’

  ‘I can understand how you feel—’

  ‘How can you understand?’ Neira interrupted scornfully.

  ‘I assure you I understand better than you think,’ said Caldas quietly. He didn’t say that he, too, sometimes got up in the middle of the night to look at a photograph because he’d forgotten someone’s smile.

  Neira lowered his eyes.

  ‘Tell me what happened with Castelo,’ said the inspector and, deciding to offer him a way out, he added: ‘Was it an accident?’

  ‘I can’t tell you,’ whispered Neira. ‘Because I don’t know.’

  Caldas was about to start all over again when there was a knock at the door and he was handed a yellow Post-it note: Marcos Valverde had arrived.

  The inspector left the interrogation room and went to get his assistant.

  ‘You carry on,’ he told Estevez. ‘See if you can get him to tell you any more.’

  Nodding, Estevez headed towards the closed door.

  ‘Hey!’ the inspector called just as Estevez was about to go in.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Go gently.’

  The Way Back

  ‘José Arias was a heavy drinker. He had a more or less official girlfriend – Alicia, the teacher. El Rubio’s sister,’ said Valverde. Caldas nodded. ‘But by the third drink he’d forget all about her.’

  ‘Didn’t Castelo ever say anything?’

  ‘El Rubio had enough to deal with, coming off heroin. He was getting better, but wasn’t all the way there yet. We had some terrible times with him on the boat. Sousa was like a father to him. He forgave him everything.’

  Keen to keep him to the subject of the shipwreck, Caldas asked, ‘So what happened at the bar?’

  ‘We sat outside, on a covered terrace where the owner had left our meal. The woman arrived just as we were finishing. She wanted to buy cigarettes, but the bar was closed. We offered her ours and she came to sit with us. Arias and El Rubio started making her laugh. Sober they were pretty quiet, but with a couple of drinks inside them they were funny. You’d never guess it, would you?’

  Caldas shook his head. He hadn’t known Castelo, but Arias didn’t seem like much of a joker.

  ‘The girl was enjoying herself, but after a little while she said she had to leave. Arias and Castelo offered to walk her home. “We’ll make sure you don’t drown,’” I remember them saying. Because it was pouring with rain.’

  ‘What was Captain Sousa doing?’

  ‘He’d gone back to the boat to sleep as soon as we finished eating. He was in his sixties. He always liked to turn in early when we put in to port.’

  Inspector Caldas gestured for him to get back to the night in Aguiño.

  ‘They went off with the girl, but El Rubio came back pretty soon after. He couldn’t really compete with Arias when it came to women,’ smiled Valverde. ‘We finished the wine and left.’

  ‘Back to the boat?’

  ‘Yes. We sat in the cabin, resting. The skipper was already snoring in his bunk.’

  ‘When did Arias get back?’

  ‘He turned up about an hour or so later. He woke El Rubio and asked him to go ashore. I was half asleep, but I saw them leave.’

  ‘Didn’t you think it odd?’

  ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘They were close. I thought they were going to carry on partying, like other times.’

  ‘When did they return?’

  ‘I don’t know how much time passed, Inspector. Around dawn, I was woken by the skipper yelling so I went up on deck. Sousa was furious, saying who did they think they were, casting off without his permission.’

  ‘How did they respond?’

  ‘El Rubio told him to keep quiet, but Arias didn’t say a thing. He just carried on unmooring the boat, ignoring Sousa. You’ve seen him,’ said Valverde, raising his arms. ‘Well, fifteen years ago, he was even scarier.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘But Captain Sousa didn’t scare easily. He stood up to them. He insisted that the Xurelo wasn’t leaving port unless he said so, and he tried to retie one of the loose mooring lines, but Arias pushed him aside. The skipper fell over but he still wouldn’t be intimidated. He got to his feet and faced Arias. He asked what had happened with the girl to make them want to get away. Then Arias hit him – several times on the head with a bottle. We threw ourselves at him, but by the time we stopped him the skipper was unconscious. Arias took him aft while El Rubio cast off.’

  ‘And what were you doing meanwhile?’

  ‘Surviving,’ he murmured. ‘I thought we were going to head into the estuary, to shelter from the storm. But El Rubio set a course south. Arias handed me a life jacket and told me to get ready to swim. I asked what they were going to do. He just told me to put on the life jacket and go into the ca
bin. He went aft along the gunwale.’

  Valverde paused and snorted as he had the night before outside his house. Then he went on, ‘There was a bundle on the floor, wrapped in a dark polka-dot blanket. He tied it up with a rope at either end and wrapped a chain around it. As we rounded the jetty, he threw it overboard. I thought it must be the skipper’s body and I started crying. The waves were getting really big. Arias went back to the cabin and took the helm, steering towards Salvora. When we were only a few dozen metres from land, he yelled to us to get ready. A few seconds later the three of us jumped into the water and started swimming for shore. As we reached it we saw the Xurelo hit the rocks. It sank soon after.’

  Valverde snorted again.

  ‘Before we set off towards the village to report the sinking, Arias made us rehearse the story I told you the other day: that we were heading back with a full hold on the skipper’s orders and were caught in the storm, and that the boat hit rocks and went down before Sousa had even had time to put on his life jacket.’

  ‘Right,’ murmured Caldas. ‘Rebeca Neira, the woman in the bar – was she on board?’

  Valverde nodded. ‘I didn’t see her. But when the skipper’s body turned up in the nets of that trawler I realised it was her that had been in the blanket that Arias dumped overboard.’

  Caldas got to his feet. ‘You’ll have to repeat all this in front of a judge.’

  ‘I know,’ replied Valverde, looking at him with shining eyes.

  Caldas wasn’t sure whether it was remorse, fear or a sense of deliverance he could see in them.

  The Blanket

  Caldas went to see Superintendent Soto and filled him in on what Valverde had just said.

  ‘How did you get him to talk?’

  ‘He realised he’d have to sooner or later,’ said Caldas. ‘He knows we’re going to reopen the investigation and he chose to make a statement without Arias being there. I don’t think he could have done it otherwise. He’s terrified of him.’

  Soto nodded.

  ‘Will you speak to the judge?’ asked Caldas.

  ‘I’ll do it today,’ said Soto. ‘Did you record Valverde’s statement?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ replied Caldas with a tight-lipped smile.