by Chris Lloyd
Àlex leaned forward across the table. ‘So how do you feel now that you’ve learned of his death?’
* * *
Barbena considered Elisenda’s question. ‘Nothing. I feel absolutely nothing at Mascort’s death. I couldn’t stand him when he was alive, I didn’t worry about him once when we thought he was missing and I feel nothing knowing that he’s dead. As far as I was concerned, he ceased to exist a long time ago.’
Josep looked directly into his eyes. ‘That’s interesting. You never worried when he was missing. Not even about him coming back?’
‘That didn’t concern me in the slightest.’
‘Because you knew fully well that he wouldn’t be coming back?’
Barbena gave a small laugh and shook his head. ‘If you’re implying that I knew he wasn’t about to return because I’d killed him, you’re barking up the wrong tree. I wasn’t the slightest bit concerned because he wasn’t the sort to show any worries for his wife and son. I believed he was gone for good, of his own accord.’
‘Can you account for where you were last Thursday night?’ Elisenda asked him.
‘Last Thursday?’ He didn’t once lose his cool or falter. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?
* * *
‘I was with Martí last Thursday,’ Esplugues told Àlex. ‘We went out for dinner. Why?’
‘You were both together?’
‘With friends. We went to Cal Ros with another couple.’
‘Can you give me their names?’
Esplugues gave Àlex a couple of names and an address, which he wrote down.
‘Until what time were you with them?’ Montse asked.
‘About midnight, I think.’
‘And after that?’
‘We went home.’
‘Can anyone corroborate that?’ Àlex asked her.
‘It was just the two of us, me and Martí. Our friends walked with us as far as our car.’
‘But they wouldn’t be able to say where you went once you left them?’ Montse pushed.
‘What is this?’
‘How well did you know a man called Ferran Arbós?’ Àlex changed tack.
She paused for a moment, surprised at the turn in questioning. ‘Not at all. I think Martí knows him. Why?’
* * *
‘I’m an archaeologist,’ Barbena told Elisenda. ‘I met him professionally a number of times.’
‘I take it you know that Ferran Arbós was found dead last week.’
‘Of course I know. What I don’t know is what it’s got to do with me. Or Eulàlia. Or Mascort for that matter.’
‘What professional dealings did you have with him?’ Josep asked.
Barbena sat back, a knowing expression on his face. ‘Ah, I see. You think I was part of Arbós’s little emporium of forbidden antiquities and that we fell out, so I killed him. Is that it?’
‘Emporium of forbidden antiquities?’ Elisenda questioned.
‘Don’t be coy. We all knew Arbós was up to something long before he had to leave his job. Dud finds, fake provenance, artefacts not recorded.’
‘But you all turned a blind eye. Why was that?’
‘I didn’t, I think you’ll find. There are reports kept in the archive where I questioned many of his actions. You simply have to look.’
‘And that’s why there was some enmity between the two of you?’
‘Leading to me going to his house and killing him? Because I wrote reports on his misdemeanours over ten years ago? Really? How likely does that sound to you?’
‘Quite likely if you had some involvement in his illegal trading,’ Josep countered.
‘Illicit trading, we call it,’ Barbena corrected him, a smile at the edges of his mouth. ‘Or more commonly, illicit trafficking. And if I were involved in it, why would I bring it to the attention of the authorities by flagging up Arbós’s activities?’
Elisenda stood up. ‘Thank you, Senyor Barbena, if you wouldn’t mind waiting here a while.’
She signalled to Josep and they both left the archaeologist alone in the interview room.
* * *
Àlex had one final question for the time being.
‘Did your husband own a Sony Walkman?’
Esplugues was taken aback. ‘One of those personal stereo things? You must be kidding. They really weren’t his style at all. Anyway, were they even around when he went missing?’
‘Died, Senyora Esplugues, died. Your husband was murdered.’
Àlex and Montse stood up and left her in the room. Àlex watched Esplugues as they went out, her expression one of consternation rather than concern, impatience rather than panic.
Outside, they found Elisenda and Josep waiting for them in the corridor.
‘Well?’ Elisenda asked them.
‘If they did do it, they’re good,’ Àlex commented.
‘If they did do it. And if they did, which one did they do? Mascort? Arbós? Both? Or did one do Mascort and the other do Arbós?’
‘What did the post mortem on Arbós find?’ Josep asked Àlex.
‘Much as we all saw,’ Àlex told him. He’d attended Riera’s examination that morning while the others had gone to bring Esplugues and Barbena in for questioning. He’d only had time to tell Elisenda what the pathologist had said, but not Josep and Montse. ‘The chisel through the front of the skull is what killed Arbós, but there was also a blow to the back of the head consistent with the hammer, most probably used to knock him out so the killer could position him for the blow with the chisel.’
‘Hell,’ Montse whispered. ‘So cold.’
‘Precisely,’ Elisenda said. ‘Arbós’s killing was cold, calculating. Some sort of display or reprisal.’
‘Or warning,’ Montse added.
‘Indeed. But seemingly carried out with complete calm, the perpetrator cool enough not to leave any traces. Whereas Mascort’s killing looks like it was done in anger, a heat of the moment attack with the nearest weapon to hand.’
‘So you’re saying not the same person?’ Àlex asked.
Josep nodded at the door to the interview room where Barbena was sitting. ‘Guy in there’s pretty cold. Nothing seems to get him worked up.’
‘He doesn’t strike me as the most compassionate of people either,’ Elisenda agreed. ‘I couldn’t see him doing anything out of anger or that he didn’t plan, but a cold act of reprisal or warning or whatever we think the motive is. That’s possible.’
‘And I’d say that after years of marriage to Mascort,’ Montse added, ‘Esplugues would be capable of losing her temper enough to lash out at him.’
‘A lot of people would by the sound of Mascort,’ Àlex said. ‘But given that she was the one to suffer the most at his hands, it does put her in the frame for his death, despite what she says about waiting for a divorce.’
Elisenda listened to them all in turn before speaking. ‘So we think it possible that she could be responsible for Mascort’s death, and Barbena for Arbós’s death, possibly even to protect Esplugues if Arbós had something on her after Mascort’s body was found.’
‘Or they were both involved in Arbós’s killing,’ Àlex suggested. ‘Could one person have carried out the attack on their own?’
‘We need to consider that,’ Elisenda agreed. ‘The question is, do we have enough to hold them? We’ll have to take what we’ve got to Jutge Rigau and see what he has to say.’
‘You’re not entirely convinced, are you?’ Àlex asked her.
‘Are you?’
Her mobile chimed to tell her an email had come in, and she opened her bag to hunt for it.
Àlex looked over his shoulder at the room he’d just left and shook his head. ‘No, I’m not.’
Elisenda read the message that had just come in for her and looked in surprise at Àlex.
‘I’m less convinced now,’ she told him, brandishing her phone. ‘DNA results. The body at the El Crit dig. It isn’t a match for Mascort.’
Chapter Twenty T
hree
Jutge Rigau’s office was as bland as her own, Elisenda thought, looking around at the smooth plasterboard walls and ceiling set just too low to feel anything other than steadfastly crushed. The thin windows, which were partially crossed with curious grey strips of concrete that did nothing to enhance the building, inside or out, looked out on to the drab and regimented car park. There were few vehicles left there at this time of the evening. Elisenda watched as two women laden with heavy briefcases emerged from the courthouse and made their way slowly through the gloom to separate identical cars. We all wear uniforms, she thought, looking down at her own brown leather jacket and hard-wearing office trousers. Like her, Rigau had nothing on his walls that revealed anything of him, just the obligatory framed degree certificates and membership of the bar association. No family photos or scenes of past sporting triumphs, not even any of the shop-bought prints that Elisenda used to give nothing of herself away.
The court building was just a few blocks from La Bisbal’s charming main drag, studded at one end with the cavernous ceramics shops and potteries for which the town was famed and at the other with faded antiques shops. The two sides met at the river, separated by a bridge and a fine old building with shops and cafés under high porticoes like a benevolent checkpoint. It was a very different world from the legal offices and the new Mossos station in the dusty, modern streets apparently hidden away beyond the old town.
She looked back to the judge, who was raising his eyes at her as he tried to finish a phone call that was evidently heavy going. He bowed his head in exasperation for a moment and she saw for the first time that his hair was thinning, his winter-pale scalp visible through fine black hair. He looked up and she found it hard to reconcile with his childlike face behind the grown-up glasses.
‘Sorry about that, Elisenda,’ the judge told her once he’d hung up. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘Eulàlia Esplugues and Martí Barbena,’ Elisenda began, going on to explain that she and her team had questioned the two suspects in Girona. ‘Nothing in their story wavered at any time. Each corroborated the other, neither incriminated themselves.’
‘But?’ Rigau added for her.
Elisenda sighed and shook her head. ‘That’s the rub, Pere. I do have some doubts about their involvement in the two murders, but I think that there is the possibility that Esplugues would have had the motive, means and capability of killing her husband in anger. And Barbena strikes me as being cold enough and arrogant enough to have killed Ferran Arbós in the way in which he was murdered.’
‘To silence him? Arbós knew about Esplugues killing her husband and was blackmailing her? He has a record of trying to make easy money.’
‘Yes, possibly to silence him if she was indeed involved in her husband’s murder. But the staging still suggests retribution or a warning to me.’
‘Which would conceivably rule out your theory,’ Rigau considered. ‘You want me to instruct the investigation in the direction of them as suspects to give you time to turn up anything more?’
‘That’s rub number two,’ Elisenda had to admit. ‘We’ve just learned that the DNA sample we took from Esteve Mascort’s father doesn’t match the body we found at El Crit.’
Rigau sat back heavily and let out a low whistle through his front teeth. ‘Meaning, apart from anything else, that Esplugues and Barbena fall out of the frame if the victim isn’t her husband. In that case, Elisenda, I can’t really sanction your continuing to investigate them as suspects. Unless you have a strong argument otherwise.’
‘Not a strong argument, Pere, but there is a circumstance that I think we need to consider. Esplugues admitted that Mascort wasn’t the natural father to their son. Now, we only have DNA from Mascort’s father.’
Rigau nodded, a smile on his face. ‘And you think that’s a precedent.’
‘It feels uncomfortable, but we have to consider that just as Esteve Mascort wasn’t his son’s birth father, then Mascort senior might not have been Esteve Mascort’s real father. We only have his DNA to go on to identify the body at El Crit.’
‘Visiting the iniquity of the fathers on to the children,’ the judge said. ‘Only in this case, the mothers.’
Elisenda could feel a flare of irritation rise up in her. ‘That’s harsh, Pere. Any iniquities of one of the mothers at least seems to me to be more than understandable and far less iniquitous than anything her husband subjected her to.’
Rigau held his hands up in front of him in placation. ‘Merely quoting, Elisenda. I agree with you. So what do you want from me for the investigation?’
‘I want Esplugues and Barbena to continue to be people of interest, but I also want to find another of Mascort’s relatives, on his mother’s side, to take another DNA test.’
Rigau moved a couple of folders about on his desk while he considered her requests. ‘Yes, of course,’ he finally assented. ‘Do you have any other suspects?’
‘We’re following up the other archaeologists and students from the 1981 dig. One of them, Ricard Soler, has gone missing. It’s possible the news of Arbós’s death prompted that. We want to find his whereabouts and interview him, so I need a warrant for an alert out on him. If Mascort’s killing is not related to a domestic issue, or if the body at the El Crit dig really isn’t Mascort, we’re also considering the illegal trafficking in archaeological artefacts as a motive. Soler’s disappearance makes him someone that we’re interested in seeing regarding that.’
The judge made a note of Ricard Soler’s name. ‘Illicit trafficking,’ he corrected her absently. ‘You think the media might have flushed Soler out in some way? Do you have pictures of him we can circulate?’
‘None have come to light. His old employers have nothing, no family, no criminal record and we’re not going to get hold of his ID card details anytime soon for the obvious reasons.’
Rigau looked up and grunted. ID cards were a national matter and so their jurisdiction was retained by the Spanish Policía Nacional. The wheels between the two forces were slow and unoiled. ‘Okay, I’ll do the necessary. Keep me informed of all the avenues and let me know if any more come up.’
‘I’d also like a warrant to search Soler’s flat in Barcelona.’
The judge thought for a moment and shook his head. ‘I can’t sanction that until we have evidence of any wrongdoing on his part. If you come back to me with just cause for me to issue a warrant, I’ll consider it.’ He held his hand up to stop any further argument on the matter.
Not entirely satisfied, Elisenda left the judge in his dark grey basilica and drove on towards the coast away from Girona. She knew that with the interviews for the new caporal later in the week, she’d have to spend a night or so in her own apartment, so she wanted to make the most of her sister’s house in La Fosca and the unexpected solid nights’ sleep it was bringing her.
‘Move to the coast,’ she suggested out loud to herself as the car ghosted through the shuttered villages on the main road, but then she thought of Girona and how hard she’d worked to move back to the refuge of her city from Barcelona and her failed marriage and dead daughter. ‘Who are you kidding?’
She thought of another death and of the shortlist she’d given to Puigventós after Eulàlia Esplugues and Martí Barbena had been allowed to go home. The inspector had quickly counted them.
‘Only one woman out of the five?’ he’d questioned her.
‘There were only three in the ten candidates in the longlist,’ she’d replied, although to be honest, she hadn’t realised she and Àlex had only put one woman in their probables lists. When Josep had come in and told them of Barbena being married to Mascort’s wife, she’d been grateful to scoop up the applications and stuff them in the folder to give to Puigventós. Another unwanted matter forgotten about for a day or two.
‘I want Mosso Paredes to be included,’ she’d insisted one more time.
‘Forget it, Elisenda.’
On impulse, on the road to the coast from La Bisbal, she ke
pt on going past the turnoff for La Fosca and drove on to Palamós, leaving her car in the public parking area by the port, under the old harbour walls. The sea had receded over the past few centuries and the imposing stones of the medieval dock were now stranded a couple of hundred metres inland, their mooring arches home to boutiques and restaurants. Walking through the tiny Plaça de Sant Pere, surrounded by bars and restaurants, quiet and colourless on a February Monday, she smiled to herself as she always did at the broad canopy of the single pine tree growing out of its raised stone-clad bed. She remembered as a child watching in thrall as cars tried to get round the tree in one go, everyone in the square sitting in cold silence every time a Guardia Civil patrol failed and had to manoeuvre its way around in embarrassment, the entire crowd waiting until the police got fifty metres down the road before breaking into a cheer. That was long ago. The square was one-way now and the area behind the tree paved, the Mossos spared the ignominy of their predecessors.
Climbing the steep street from the little road at the end of the square to the warren of narrow streets between the church, looming over the old town as they always did, and the small balcony overlooking the sea, she found the hotel she was looking for and went in to the warmth of the small lobby. Once a nondescript place for low-cost tourism, its cheap tile floors and mock-Castilian dark wood furniture had been ripped out some twenty years earlier and the whole turned into a boutique hotel that teetered on the edge of being too chic for its own good. In its former life, it would have been closed in the winter, but the canny new owner had seen the potential of a quality place to stay for weekenders from Barcelona and kept it open all year round. One of its attractions was its restaurant, which is where Elisenda was now headed and which was nonetheless quiet despite the hotel’s new persona.
It was the owner who served her. Like many of his guests, he too was from Barcelona, Elisenda could tell by his accent. She’d only visited the place once before, with friends, and didn’t know him. She ordered and waited for him to return with her wine, a Raimat red from Lleida, one of its recent very good vintages. She’d seen the owner nod in appreciation when she’d ordered it. By the time he brought it, the only other diners in the room, a couple, had paid for their meal and left.
