City of Buried Ghosts (An Inspector Domènech Crime Thriller Book 2)

by Chris Lloyd

  ‘Well,’ she went on, ‘it is our investigation now and we’re going to make sure we nail it. The first thing we have to do is ascertain the victim’s identity. It’s more or less certain that he died in 1980 or 1981, but we’ll know for sure later today when Riera carries out the post mortem. Àlex, I’d like you to attend that.’ Because if anything can bring you back from your inertia, she thought, it’s Riera’s goading.

  ‘What makes us think it dates from that time?’ Montse asked.

  ‘A Walkman was found in the trench where the body was buried, with a cassette from 1980 still in it. Científica are checking on the model to see what years it was in production. Also, it was found underneath the body. It seems highly unlikely that an item from that era would find its way underneath an earlier body. So I think we should work on the assumption that this murder does date from that time unless we get any evidence to the contrary from Riera.’

  ‘What sort of person would have had a Walkman in those days?’ Josep asked.

  ‘Young, I’d presume,’ Elisenda replied. ‘Riera should give us an accurate age range, but we can start on the assumption it was someone in their late teens or early twenties, would you say? The problem being that finding missing persons records from that time isn’t going to be easy. Different times…’

  ‘…different police,’ Montse finished her well-used sentence for her.

  ‘Smartarse.’

  Montse grinned at her. Elisenda relaxed and let the others speak, their interest in the case rising.

  ‘Police records will certainly be difficult,’ Josep agreed. ‘Our best bet is probably newspaper archives. I’ll get on to them.’ He sat more upright in his chair, not appearing to mind for once being the tallest person there.

  ‘And I’ll take police records,’ Montse offered, ‘but I don’t hold out much hope.’

  ‘If the killer is still alive,’ Elisenda reminded them, ‘they’re going to be in their mid-fifties at least. We also need to check other incidents around the same time that might have a resemblance. The murder appears to resemble a ritual form of killing used by the Indiketa, the tribe that lived in that settlement. Therefore, the killer would in theory be someone who is aware of the practice, conceivably an archaeologist, although their custom of inserting spikes into the skulls is very widely known.’

  ‘I remember more being discovered a couple of years ago,’ Àlex said. ‘There was a news report on it. But would ordinary people have known about it back then?’

  ‘Possibly,’ Elisenda answered. ‘I remember two of them in the museum in Ullastret when I was a kid. We’ll check up on it, though. But first, I’d like Josep and Montse to get out to El Crit, familiarise yourselves with the scene and the lie of the land. The head archaeologist, Doctora Fradera, mentioned a colleague. See if you can speak to him.’

  The other three made to get up, but Elisenda waved at them to stay.

  ‘There’s just one more thing.’ She chose her words carefully. ‘The process to find a new member of the team is going ahead. I’m supposed to be looking at the candidates for the job.’

  Her words were met with silence. She looked from one to the other, their faces numb, the enthusiasm of the last few minutes instantly tempered.

  It was Àlex who spoke first, his damaged voice all the more stark. ‘We understand that, Elisenda. We knew it had to happen.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ was all she could say. ‘I don’t want to have to replace him either.’

  ‘At least it means they’re not going to close us down,’ Josep decided. ‘That would have been worse. A worse way to remember, I mean.’

  ‘We’re understaffed,’ Montse added. ‘We can’t carry on as we are.’

  ‘No, we can’t,’ Elisenda agreed with her.

  Chapter Seven

  ‘I was expecting Elisenda.’

  Riera stared at Àlex, all the while buttoning up his coat. He took a folder handed to him by an assistant, holding Àlex’s gaze throughout.

  ‘What we expect and what we get are often very different things.’

  The pathologist grunted and turned away. ‘You’ve become very philosophical since your near-death experience, Sergent Albiol.’

  ‘Good of you to remind me of it.’

  Riera spoke over his shoulder as he walked briskly off along the pale corridor of the Institut de Medicina Legal. ‘I didn’t tell Elisenda, but Doctora Fradera has agreed to attend as well. Her expertise in ageing bones may be useful. I presume that won’t be a problem. Not that I’m particularly concerned whether you object or not.’

  He turned to look at Àlex, preparing himself for a comment from the policeman, but Àlex simply caught him up in the corridor and carried on walking to the double door at the end. He waited for Riera to catch up, holding the door open for him.

  ‘You have a lot less to say for yourself these days,’ he muttered as he walked through. ‘Quite dull.’

  Staring into the middle distance, Àlex followed the pathologist along another shorter corridor to an anteroom. He didn’t even smile to himself at Riera’s frustration at his not taking the bait. Unknown to him, Elisenda’s plan to draw his old self back was going badly wrong.

  Doctora Fradera was waiting for them in the anteroom, accompanied by the assistant who’d given Riera the folder. Deep in affable conversation with the archaeologist, the young man immediately hushed when the pathologist entered the room. Riera took a look through the contents of the folder, half a dozen pages dense with text.

  ‘Sergent Albiol,’ Àlex reminded Fradera who he was as Riera read the notes. ‘Of the Mossos d’Esquadra. I was at El Crit yesterday with Sotsinspectora Domènech.’

  ‘Right.’

  He could see she didn’t remember him.

  Riera finished reading and handed the folder back to the assistant without acknowledging him. ‘This way, Doctora Fradera,’ he invited the archaeologist into the examination room. ‘I carried out a preliminary investigation this morning. I’d simply like to ask you to corroborate my findings.’

  Àlex followed, standing a short distance from the two of them. He was quite relieved to be forgotten as it allowed him to engulf himself in his thoughts. He stood and stared at Riera as he worked. He had to admit that he was an exceptional pathologist. A pity, then, that Àlex should find him so objectionable a man.

  Riera called him over. ‘You can tell Elisenda that Doctora Fradera and I are in agreement regarding our findings. Everything indicates that time of death would be at the time the discovery of the Walkman would suggest, the early 1980s. As for his age at time of death, we would place him in his mid-twenties. Much of the fusing of the skull and the pelvic region was complete or almost complete, so I would say that mid-twenties is fairly accurate. He also had dental work that’s in line with Spanish dental practices of that time. Other than that, there are no distinctive signs, no fractures.’

  ‘The murder weapon?’ Àlex asked.

  Riera pointed to the mattock protruding from the skull. ‘What do you think, Sergent Albiol?’

  ‘The murder weapon, Doctor Riera,’ Àlex insisted.

  ‘It’s a mattock,’ Fradera answered, gesturing to Àlex to take a closer inspection. ‘If you look here, you’ll see that the pick end is what entered the victim’s skull. The hole where the shaft would have gone still has wood fragments in it. That also dates the tool to the time we say. A modern one would have a fibre glass handle. You can see the adze, the end we use for scraping, protruding from the wound.’

  ‘You would say it’s most likely a tool used by an archaeologist?’ Àlex asked her.

  She looked thoughtful. ‘They are used in other fields. Farming, forestry as well, I think, but it is definitely a tool that an archaeologist would use.’

  ‘How much force would it take to penetrate the skull to that extent?’

  ‘Considerable,’ Riera spoke. ‘The angle of entry would imply that the attacker was right-handed and standing directly in front of the victim.’

 
‘Man or woman?’

  Riera considered for a moment, but Fradera answered before he could. ‘Either, I would say. I use a mattock in my work. They are light and balanced. This one would have been a little heavier because of the wooden shaft, but nonetheless, they’re tools that are extremely wieldy and that can exert a great deal of force. We have to break some very tough soils in our work, Sergent. It really wouldn’t take much effort with a strong downward swing.’

  ‘Yes, I think I would agree with that, Doctora Fradera. There are also no other blows elsewhere to the body. It would have been a single movement.’

  ‘Done in anger,’ Àlex muttered, more to himself.

  ‘You really miss nothing, do you, Sergent Albiol?’ Riera commented. ‘Despite your new-found calm.’

  A darkened candle flickered somewhere inside Àlex.

  ‘No, Doctor Riera, I don’t. And one day this calm will go and you will make one comment too many. Make the most of it while you can.’

  Àlex turned and walked out of the door of the examination room and began to walk along a shortening corridor.

  * * *

  Elisenda was sorely tempted to keep her foot on the accelerator and carry on driving. She was on the same road through the Pedret suburb that she and Àlex had driven along the previous evening, this time heading back in the direction of the coast.

  ‘I want to see the sea,’ she murmured to herself, impatient behind a slow-moving Mercedes. ‘Only without the spikes and the skeletons.’

  Instead, she turned left almost immediately after leaving the city centre on to the tree-lined road that ran parallel to the main route out of Girona. The building she was looking for stood out, the most elegant in a short staccato row of simple nineteenth-century houses, incongruous amid the functional render and aluminium of car repair shops and industrial glaziers. Parking in front of the austere gateposts either side of the entrance, she went in and showed her ID to the guy at the reception desk.

  ‘I don’t suppose Doctora Fradera is here?’ she asked him.

  He checked but doubted it. ‘I saw her leave a short while ago. I don’t think she’s come back.’ There was no answer on the internal phone and he shook his head.

  ‘No worry,’ Elisenda said. ‘I’m interested in the records of an archaeological dig in 1980 to 1981. At El Crit.’

  He thought for a moment and picked up the phone. ‘I’ll ask someone in Admin, see if they can put you on to the right person.’

  After a few minutes, she was shown up to a room on the first floor. A slim woman in a snug blue dress and low heels that clopped on the tiled floor came up to greet her. Her hand hovered constantly near her nose, clutching a paper tissue.

  ‘Gemma Cardoner,’ she introduced herself. ‘Don’t come too close, I’ve got a streaming cold.’

  ‘Hot whisky and honey,’ Elisenda suggested.

  ‘Does that work?’

  ‘No, I just like the taste.’

  Gemma laughed but burst immediately into a coughing fit. Out of guilt, Elisenda reached into her bag and handed her a small packet of tissues.

  ‘The El Crit site,’ Elisenda said, once the other woman’s throat had calmed down. ‘Do you have any records of the 1981 dig that I could look at?’

  ‘I thought you’d be here about that. Everyone in the Archaeology Service has been talking about it since Doctora Fradera told us this morning.’

  Oh good, Elisenda thought, but hardly surprising. ‘How much has she told you?’

  ‘Just about the body found there. A recent one, but done up to look like an Indiketa killing.’

  ‘I see.’ She preferred to say nothing more but registered the archaeologist’s interpretation of it. ‘So, would you still have the records of the 1981 dig here?’

  Gemma nodded enthusiastically. ‘Any records will be here in the new wing.’ Elisenda had seen the low building with odd arrow-slit windows tacked on to the original house, forming a courtyard used as a car park. ‘Not computerised, I’m afraid, and it might take me some time to dig them up, but I’d be more than happy to hunt them out.’

  ‘Would there be any point in my looking for them?’

  Gemma let out a small laugh. Elisenda worried she’d start coughing again. ‘You’d never find them, I’m sorry. At the time of the dig, the municipal archaeology service would have been based in the Casa de Cultura, in the city centre, but we’re now over two sites, this one and the museum itself. What we have will be here, at the Archaeology Service, but most of the material is boxed up. The files we keep here are pretty extensive. I can start trying to track them down this afternoon.’

  ‘That would be very useful, thank you. How long do you think it might take?’

  ‘I can’t really say. I might be able to get something to you by tomorrow morning, but I can’t really promise. I have a general idea where they’ll be stored, but it’ll still take some searching.’

  ‘Thanks, I’d be really grateful.’

  Elisenda left Gemma eagerly anticipating looking for the records and returned to her car for the drive back to Vista Alegre.

  ‘Everyone wants to be a detective,’ she muttered on the traffic-light crawl back into the city centre. ‘Just try and make sure your cold keeps off till tomorrow.’

  * * *

  Montse and Josep had also driven through Pedret, but unlike Elisenda, they’d carried on the same road, Montse at the wheel for the half-hour’s gently swooping drive to Palamós, where Senyor Ferran was waiting for them with his boat. Most of the journey had been in silence. His seat lowered as far as it would go, Josep had surreptitiously studied Montse’s profile as much as he could. She had steadfastly concentrated on the road.

  ‘Everything all right?’ Montse had asked him.

  ‘Just wondering what we’ll find,’ he’d replied.

  From the busy fishing harbour in Palamós to the beach at El Crit, and then up the steep steps to the headland and the archaeological site, Caporal Fabra had accompanied them, making any further conversation impossible. Both relieved and frustrated by that, Josep wondered how Montse felt about it. Since Pau’s death, he had no idea any more. He put that out of his mind as they walked through the pines and holm oaks framing the cleared area of the dig.

  A man with a wide moustache and a small pointed tuft of hair on his chin, like an old-fashioned grandee in a black-and-white film, looked up, startled by their approach.

  ‘Caporal Capdevila,’ Josep introduced himself, showing the man his ID.

  ‘Caporala Cornellà,’ Montse gave her name.

  The man in the trench appeared relieved. He got to his feet and directed himself at Josep rather than Montse, which annoyed Josep.

  ‘You’re here about the other skeleton,’ the archaeologist guessed.

  ‘Pardon me, your name is…?’ Josep asked him.

  ‘Doctor Llàtzer Bosch.’

  ‘Doctora Fradera isn’t here, I take it?’ Josep asked.

  ‘She’s in Girona. I’m also a senior archaeologist on this project. How can I help you?’

  ‘You seem nervous, Doctor Bosch,’ Montse commented.

  Bosch pointed down the gentle incline to the new trench, cordoned off with tape. ‘Dead body found over there. I’ve already had the press here today. One or two ghouls as well. Wouldn’t you be nervous?’

  ‘You must be used to bodies.’

  Bosch waved the trowel in his hand vaguely at the Indiketa skeleton in the trench he was in. ‘I’m used to bodies like this. No matter how much respect I feel for them as people who once lived, they’re still thousands of years old and far removed from today. I know where I stand. I’m not used to bodies like that one down there.’

  ‘We understand you were with Doctora Fradera when she found the other body,’ Josep continued.

  The archaeologist shook his head. ‘That’s not entirely accurate. I was up here, working in this trench. The trench down there is Doctora Fradera’s idea. She found the body and called me over.’

  ‘Was this once s
he realised there was something wrong?’

  ‘No. The first time was when she’d just discovered it. I think she felt the need to justify digging so far from the main site, so she showed me the body to try and prove her point.’

  Josep and Montse didn’t need to look at each other. Both knew the other had picked up on the barb in the archaeologist’s words.

  ‘The first time?’ Montse questioned him.

  ‘I went back to my own work. Then she called me over again when she found that the body wasn’t what she thought it was.’

  ‘And who alerted the Mossos about the discovery?’

  ‘Doctora Fradera did. She went to phone. You can only get a signal down the path a way, near a house at the end of one of the tracks from the main road.’

  ‘And you stayed by the other trench?’

  ‘No. I’ve got work to do. I came back to this trench and carried on working. But no one came here. Look around, it’s pretty isolated at this time of year.’

  ‘You don’t agree with the second trench, Doctor Bosch?’ Josep asked him.

  Bosch shook his head in irritation. ‘As I say, look around you. What on earth is an important find like this doing with just two archaeologists? If you go off scratching around all over the place, of course no one’s going to have any confidence in funding you.’

  ‘Have there been any other archaeologists working on this site?’

  ‘Couple of students last summer. Another one for a short time in the autumn. That’s it.’

  Josep thanked the archaeologist and asked if he was based in Girona.

  ‘I work out of the Archaeology Service on Carrer Pedret, like Doctora Fradera, but I live in Palamós.’

  On the drive back to Girona, Josep commented: ‘Not a happy couple, are they? Fradera and Bosch?’

  Montse stared at the road. ‘No, they aren’t, are they?’

  ‘They don’t communicate.’

  ‘No.’

  Montse dropped Josep off by Plaça Catalunya and took the car back to Vista Alegre. He watched the tail lights disappear over the bridge and turned away to walk down Plaça Pompeu Fabra as far as the modern bar on the corner opposite the Casa de Cultura. Ten minutes later, his girlfriend of one month walked in and kissed him.