Death on a Galician Shore
Page 34
‘How’s it going with Neira?’ asked the superintendent.
Caldas shrugged.
‘Estevez is trying to get something out of him, but so far he hasn’t let down his guard. He admits to the graffiti, but still claims he had nothing to do with Castelo’s murder.’
‘Do you believe him?’
‘No.’
Caldas went to his office. He slumped into his desk chair and rubbed his eyes. A moment later Ferro dropped by.
‘Any luck finding the car?’
‘No,’ said Ferro. ‘We’re still looking. I’m here about something else.’
‘Go on.’
‘José Arias has got a police record.’
‘Has he?’
‘For criminal damage,’ said Ferro. ‘He was arrested in 1995. He wrecked a bar in Baiona. It took two whole squads to overpower him.’
Caldas went back to the interrogation room and found Diego Neira with a red mark on his left cheek.
He approached Estevez and hissed in his ear, ‘I told you not to hit him.’
‘But he refuses to talk,’ muttered Estevez.
Caldas ordered his assistant out and sat down opposite Neira.
‘I’ve just seen Marcos Valverde,’ he said. ‘He’s told me about the night your mother disappeared.’
Neira looked into his eyes. ‘Who was it?’
‘They were all involved.’
‘Was it him?’
‘No, it was Arias.’
‘And you believe him?’
‘Yes. I think he’s telling the truth.’
The young man went back to staring at the wall, as if trying to bore through it. ‘Will you catch him?’
‘Yes, of course we will.’
‘Do you know where he is?’
‘We think he’s gone back to Scotland. The judge is willing to issue a warrant to get him back. Then he’ll pay for what he did.’
‘Did Valverde tell you where my mother is?’
‘He thinks she’s at the entrance to the harbour at Aguiño.’
‘In the sea?’
‘Yes.’
Neira looked at him. He seemed calmer now. ‘Will you look for her?’
‘We’ll try,’ said Caldas. ‘But we can’t give any guarantees. It’s been a long time.’ Then he asked: ‘Did you used to have a polka-dot blanket?’
‘Yes, it was mine,’ said Neira. ‘It disappeared the same night as my mother. Why?’
The inspector did not reply.
‘Do you know, I even got to the point where I prayed she was dead?’ Neira confessed. ‘Anything was better than thinking she’d abandoned me.’
Caldas looked down and leafed through some documents to delay returning to the subject of Castelo’s murder.
‘If you’re innocent, why did you try to run away yesterday at Valverde’s house?’
‘I’ve told you, I’m not too fond of the police.’
Caldas moved his chair closer to the table.
‘Here’s what I think happened: you met up with Castelo on Saturday night. You’d arranged it in one of the notes you left him. You thought he needed to talk, to unburden himself, but he refused to tell you what happened to your mother. You made some excuse and went to your car. You took a spanner from the boot – the kind you use on wheel nuts – and you hit him on the head. Then you bound his wrists and went through his pockets, where you found the keys to his boat. You waited for him to come round and threatened to throw him into the sea unless he talked. Where did this happen?’
Neira remained silent.
Caldas offered him a way out: ‘Did he fall?’
‘You’ve got the wrong man, Inspector,’ muttered Neira, still staring at the wall.
‘You were afraid that Castelo had warned the other two, and thought you’d make it look like suicide so they wouldn’t be suspicious, didn’t you? At dawn the next day you drove to the lighthouse at Punta Lameda. You knew the spot. You knew you’d be able to land there without being seen. You walked back to Panxón wearing waterproofs like Castelo’s. You sailed his boat to the lighthouse, jumped ashore and sank it, covering your tracks. Then you got into the car and disappeared. That’s it, isn’t it?’
Silence.
‘Whose car is it?’ Caldas pressed, trying to catch him out. ‘Who was helping you?’
Caldas went on questioning Neira until mid-morning. Then he was taken before the judge for more questions.
The response was always the same: a fixed stare and sealed lips.
Solid Proof
Caldas had lunch alone at the Bar Puerto and spent all afternoon in his office. He was just about to start writing his report when Ferro rapped on the glass door. He’d come from searching Neira’s house and the workshop at the yacht club.
‘You wanted to see me, Inspector?’ he said from the door.
‘Did you find the car?’
‘No, nothing: no documents, keys or garage at the house. The neighbours have only ever seen him on a motorbike.’
‘What about the cable ties?’
‘We didn’t find any of those either,’ said Ferro.
Caldas went back to his papers.
‘Was there anything else?’ asked Ferro.
‘What about Valverde’s gate?’
‘There must have been twenty tools in the workshop that Neira could have used to prise off the panels.’
‘Right.’
Ferro was about to leave when Superintendent Soto came to say that the judge had remanded Neira in custody, awaiting trial, but had also called to urge them to find the 4x4.
‘Without the car, I think a conviction’s unlikely,’ said Soto. ‘We’ve got no solid proof.’
‘Do you really believe that?’ asked Caldas.
‘The fact is, everything we’ve got is circumstantial. No confession, no witnesses, not even a fingerprint.’
Caldas looked at Ferro.
‘Check all the Land Rovers registered in Neda and Ares,’ he said. ‘They’re the places Neira lived before he moved to Panxón. Maybe the car belongs to someone he knows.’
‘What about checking the ones in Aguiño?’ asked Ferro.
‘Yes, them, too.’
When Ferro had left Caldas asked the superintendent, ‘Does the judge know we arrested Neira at Valverde’s house?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘And?’
‘That’s why he hasn’t let him go,’ said Soto. ‘But he wants the car.’
It wasn’t his last conversation with the superintendent that day. Around six in the evening, Soto summoned him to his office.
‘José Arias has been found in Scotland,’ he said. ‘He was caught this morning at the home of his former partner. He’d gone to collect his daughter.’
‘Has he made a statement?’
‘Yes,’ said Soto. ‘He admits he was in Aguiño and that he’d had a bit too much to drink, but he claims all he can remember is the freezing water. It seems he’s going to accuse Valverde of murdering all three: Rebeca Neira, Antonio Sousa, even Justo Castelo.’
Caldas reflected that, having fled twice, the fisherman would have trouble convincing a judge of his innocence.
‘When is he being brought back?’
‘I’m not sure,’ answered Soto. ‘Soon.’
The Woman in the Yellow Dress
At nine o’clock, when he’d written his report, Caldas walked up the Calle de la Reconquista, crossed the Calle Policarpo Sanz, and went a little way along the Calle del Principe before turning into the Travesia de la Aurora. He pushed open the wooden door of the Eligio, greeted the academics and went up to the bar.
He really needed the glass of white wine that Carlos poured him.
‘Tired?’
‘A little.’
‘How’s your uncle?’
Caldas clicked his tongue and headed outside to make a call. At a table at the back, one of Pavlov’s dogs had started whistling ‘Promenade’.
‘He’s doing OK,’ said his father.
‘Don’t worry about it. How are you?’
‘Tired,’ he said, then added quickly: ‘Fine.’
‘I’ll be going into Vigo tomorrow around midday,’ said his father. ‘I’ve got to buy a pulse oximeter.’
‘A what?’
‘It’s for measuring how much oxygen Alberto needs.’
‘Right.’
‘If you like you could come back here with me afterwards.’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘It’s Friday,’ said his father. ‘I thought you said you’d be coming here on Friday?’
The inspector suddenly felt overwhelmed. He decided to put off making a decision for a few hours. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow morning to confirm.’
‘You won’t forget?’
‘Of course not,’ he said, knowing that he probably would.
He went back inside the Eligio. He leaned on the marble bar and stared at the small painting by Pousa of the woman in the yellow dress with the same sad eyes as Alicia Castelo. The fisherman’s sister had called that afternoon: there was a rumour going around the village that a man had been arrested for Justo’s murder.
‘He’s only a suspect,’ said Caldas.
‘It isn’t José, is it?’ she asked and held her breath. When Caldas didn’t reply she pressed him: ‘Did he kill my brother?’
Caldas couldn’t bring himself to tell her that she’d have to get used to living without Arias, that although he hadn’t killed her brother she’d lost him again.
‘No.’
‘Thank God,’ murmured Alicia Castelo before hanging up.
Taking his glass, he went to sit at a small table at the back. In the corner, the poet Oroza was chatting with two young women.
Carlos brought him another glass of wine and a plate of octopus with potatoes.
‘Take a seat?’ said Caldas.
Carlos fetched a bottle from the bar and went round refilling glasses.
‘So they won’t keep pestering me,’ he said, sitting on a stool opposite the inspector.
They sat, drinking, conversing in silence. Like Uncle Alberto and his father. Like the two old men in the film he’d seen with Alba.
The Driver
When he entered his office the next morning, Caldas found a yellow Post-it note stuck to his desk.
He picked up the phone.
‘What’s up?’
‘I think you need to see something, Inspector,’ said Barcia.
‘What’s it about?’
‘The security camera video. Can you come by?’
‘Now?’
Caldas and Estevez went into the Forensics viewing room. They sat on the chairs closest to the monitor.
Once again they saw the black-and-white image of the garden, the shrubs and winding path leading to the front gate. Barcia paused the recording at the shot of the Land Rover, visible above the gate, on its way back from the lighthouse.
‘Look closely,’ she said, zooming in on the driver.
‘At what exactly?’
‘The driver’s hands,’ she whispered.
She didn’t need to say more.
The image was blurry but they could still make out five fingers on the hand holding the steering wheel. ‘Are you sure that’s the right hand?’
‘It makes no difference,’ she said, rewinding the recording until they saw the 4x4 drive past in the opposite direction.
The driver’s other hand also had all five fingers.
‘That’s not Diego Neira,’ said Barcia.
‘Clearly not,’ said Caldas, sighing.
He didn’t open his eyes until Estevez parked outside the police station. He was wondering whose hands they’d seen on the recording.
Neira hadn’t taken the Land Rover or Castelo’s boat to the lighthouse, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t guilty of El Rubio’s murder. Someone had helped him to dispose of the boat, but Caldas couldn’t work out who. He swallowed. He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out. He knew that he himself would have helped a friend who had no one else to turn to.
He went to Superintendent Soto’s office and told him what Barcia had shown them.
‘So who the hell is it then?’
‘We don’t know,’ said Caldas. ‘But it definitely isn’t Neira.’
‘What do I say to the judge now? He’s fixated on the Land Rover.’
Soto was starting to have doubts so Caldas tried to reassure him. ‘Don’t say anything, Superintendent. At least, not until we find the car. The driver has to be someone close to Neira.’
‘You think so?’
‘Definitely,’ said the inspector. ‘It has to be.’
The Winemakers
At one o’clock his father drew up outside the police station. Caldas had told Superintendent Soto that he’d be leaving for the weekend a few hours early. He needed to distance himself from the case, to get some perspective.
‘You can get hold of me on the mobile if anything crops up,’ he’d said. ‘Though I don’t think we’ll get much further today unless the Land Rover turns up.’
His father smiled as Caldas got into the passenger seat and lowered the window a fraction. He’d been expecting him to cancel at the last minute.
‘Alberto’s really looking forward to seeing you.’
Caldas nodded and closed his eyes.
Twenty minutes later he opened them when his father asked, ‘Have you spoken to Alba?’
‘No.’
‘When are you going to?’
The inspector sighed and opened the window a little wider. If they hadn’t been driving on a motorway at over a hundred kilometres an hour, he’d have thrown himself out of the car.
‘I don’t know. I don’t even know if I’m going to call her.’
‘Can you open the glove compartment?’ asked his father.
‘What?’
Caldas’s father pointed.
‘That’s the glove compartment.’
‘I know.’
‘Well, open it,’ said his father. ‘Inside there’s a blue notebook. Would you mind entering a name on the last page where you see writing?’
Caldas smiled. ‘You keep the Book of Idiots in here?’
‘Only when I’m going somewhere.’
The inspector opened the glove compartment and took out the notebook. His father called it blue, but the covers were so worn it was impossible to tell the original colour.
He placed it on his knees. There were notes explaining why each person had been included in the Book of Idiots. As Caldas flicked through the pages the names became more familiar.
He had to shut it quickly as he felt the first waves of nausea. He was about to put it back in the glove compartment when he saw, among all the papers his father kept there, a small sealed transparent plastic bag.
‘If you don’t write your name in there, I will,’ said his father, but Caldas wasn’t listening.
He was holding up the bag, unable to take his eyes off the plastic cable ties inside.
‘What’s this?’ he asked.
‘They’re ties. You fasten them like this,’ said his father, taking his hands off the steering wheel momentarily and miming the action.
‘Where did you get them?’
‘We were given a sample a couple of weeks ago before the start of pruning, at a winemakers’ meeting. To see if they were any good for tying vines. They’re meant to show less if they’re green. I’d forgotten they were there.’
‘All the winemakers got a bag like this?’
‘All the ones at the meeting.’
‘Damn,’ muttered the inspector. ‘Can you turn round?’
‘What?’
‘I have to get back to Vigo,’ said Caldas.
He didn’t need to add that it was important.
He called Superintendent Soto from the car. ‘I think I know where the 4x4 is,’ he said. ‘We’re going to need a search warrant. Can you have a word with the judge?’
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The Tie
They took the turn-off to Monteferro and then the narrow lane leading down to the Valverdes’ house. A couple of workmen were installing a new gate, identical to the damaged one, which now lay on the ground. A van bearing the logo of Valverde’s construction company was parked to one side.
They rang the bell and Valverde’s wife came out. She was wearing a leather jacket and jeans tucked into high boots.
‘Good afternoon,’ said Caldas. As always, her smile reminded him of Alba.
Between the lapels of her jacket, the top buttons of her black shirt were straining.
‘I’m so glad to see you. I was going to call to thank you. Marcos told me about the other night. If you hadn’t been there, God knows what would have happened.’
Caldas shrugged.
‘Would you like to come in?’
‘Yes,’ said the inspector, glancing at Valverde’s black sports car parked beside his wife’s red SUV. ‘Is your husband in?’
She gestured towards the other side of the house.
‘He’s out the back with one of his men. We’re having an alarm put in. We’re also going to get a dog,’ she said resignedly. ‘Even though you’ve arrested that man, I’m still going to have trouble sleeping here.’
‘Did you stay in Vigo last night?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And we’re driving back there as soon as the gate’s fitted.’
*
She led them round the house, stopping before the large window that overlooked the garden and the bay. A leafless chestnut tree stood in the middle of the lawn and, beneath it, a metal bench. The air smelled of damp earth and the sea.
Marcos Valverde, in a grey suit and tie, was talking to a young man by the wall that surrounded the property. Catching sight of the policemen, he motioned to his employee and they both started back towards the house.
As the two men made their way across the lawn, Caldas said to Valverde’s wife,
‘How long will you be staying in town?’
‘Until the alarm’s ready,’ she sighed. ‘Though if it were up to me I’d never come back.’
Caldas nodded. ‘You said you go to Vigo every week, didn’t you? To concerts.’
‘Yes, on Saturdays,’ she said.