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

by Chris Lloyd

  Standing up, he pulled his jacket off the back of the chair and put it on. ‘That was a sotsinspector from Barcelona getting back to me,’ he explained to the other two. ‘He was a sergent at the time that Serveis Art, the bonded warehouse, was raided. The owner was arrested and imprisoned.’

  ‘You going to see him?’ Josep asked but Àlex shook his head.

  ‘He died last month, apparently. He was in prison for four years at La Roca, and discharged just over a year ago. Diagnosed with cancer when he was still at La Roca. I’m going to see his widow. She lives in Palamós.’

  ‘So he couldn’t have been responsible for Arbós’s death,’ Montse commented.

  Àlex shrugged. ‘My gut feeling is he’s not our dealer, just a link in the chain. I’ll see what I can get from his widow.’

  ‘Want me to come?’ Montse asked him.

  Àlex glanced at the desk sinking under the papers from the Archaeology Service and shook his head. ‘Better if you both stay here working together through all this lot.’ He looked pointedly at the two caporals. ‘Better for us all.’

  Chapter Thirty Five

  The house stood between the small Palamós football ground and the pitted old main road running from the new dual carriageway to the neighbouring town of Sant Antoni de Calonge. The old road still busy, a relic of a less affluent past, the new buildings and highways a reminder of a more confident, more recent history, now also gone. A tall hedge of bamboo and rushes shielding the short terrace of modern houses from the road whispered in the cold wind, now and then chattering angrily in the wake of a car speeding past on the other side before settling down once more into idle winter gossip.

  Àlex parked the pool car in front of the house he was after and rang the bell. An elderly woman answered, an old-fashioned nylon housecoat spread tightly over a faded sweater and cardigan, a small and ancient bulldog wrapped between her stout legs. On her feet were frayed fleece-lined slippers, scant protection from ceramic floor tiles thought more for the heat of summer than February’s chill. She pulled the coat and cardigan tightly around her and looked quizzically at Àlex.

  ‘Thank you for seeing me,’ he told her after introducing himself.

  ‘Why now?’

  ‘May I come in?’

  Nodding in curious resignation, she turned and led the way along a corridor to the rear of the house. The dog waddled snuffling ahead, turning from time to time to keep a rheumy eye on the newcomer. Àlex followed, closing the front door behind him, conscious of his shoes resonating on the incongruously cheerful honey-coloured floor. It was a building meant for summer.

  ‘Why now?’ the woman repeated after she’d shown Àlex to an old and expensive leather chair at one end of a mahogany and marble coffee table. A similar chair stood empty at the other end. The woman sat down on a long sofa of the same pattern. Glancing around, Àlex saw that the room wasn’t crammed with bric-a-brac as he’d first thought, but with a jumble of tasteful pieces of sculpture and figurines, the refinement of the individual items undermined by the over-indulgence of the whole. The paintings on the wall were originals, some of them by Catalan artists that Àlex recognised. Old money. A lighter, oblong patch on the wall opposite gave away the woman’s financial straits. Old money that wasn’t growing any older.

  ‘It’s in connection with another investigation,’ he told her. ‘We aren’t reopening anything to do with your husband’s conviction. I’m simply here to ask you about that time.’

  ‘Conviction,’ she spat out bitterly. ‘Scapegoat.’

  ‘Why scapegoat?’

  ‘I lost the last five years of my marriage, Sergent Albiol. My husband died here in this house but he was killed in prison. Before he even went to prison. The worry killed him, and the fear. That man killed him.’

  At her last words, Àlex remained calm. He recalled the notes that the sotsinspector in Barcelona had given him on Joan Canyellas, the woman’s husband and owner of the bonded warehouse through which illicit antiquities had been traded before it had been closed down. Àlex had had a suspicion all along that Canyellas had been a minor player, and the woman’s words seemed to be confirming that. He needed to know who the man was that she’d referred to, but he knew he had to tread carefully if she wasn’t to clam up.

  ‘What was he afraid of?’

  ‘The devil.’

  Àlex stayed silent, simply looking at the woman, who suddenly seemed a lot smaller, engulfed in the heavy brown sofa. Seated on the floor in front of her, the dog sensed something and moved closer. She reached down and stroked its head.

  ‘The devil,’ she repeated quietly. ‘With the face of an angel. Joan was so frightened of him, he didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t get away from him. He said he felt he was strangling the life out of him.’

  Tears began to run down her lined cheeks. Àlex seemed uncertain for a moment, staring unsure at the woman. At once the room seemed hot, the sparse garden through the French windows crowding at the glass, the air thin. Àlex could feel the breath catching in his throat, his neck burning, his mouth unable to form words, a silent noose closing around him. He had no idea how long he sat stock still before a jolt appeared to go through him and he hurriedly leaned forward to take the woman’s hand. She squeezed his tightly and his lungs filled with air, the sound of life in his chest filling his ears with a cleansing rush, like water over pebbles.

  ‘What was he afraid of?’

  ‘I never knew his name. Joan wouldn’t let me know. He said he didn’t want me to know who the man was so that I’d be safe from him. Joan was so afraid. The man made him keep all these things in his warehouse and sell them through his business. Those things the police found when Joan was arrested weren’t his.’

  ‘But you saw him once? You said he had the face of an angel.’

  ‘I went to see Joan at his office one day, but before Joan realised I was there, the man showed up. I knew it was him by the terror in Joan’s voice, so I hid. Joan never knew I was there that day, I never told him. But I saw him and I heard him speak. He was the devil with the face of an angel, and the coldest voice I’ve ever heard. He could say things you wouldn’t think were threatening, but they somehow sounded so horrible in that voice.’

  Àlex knew the answer, but he had to ask it. ‘Why didn’t your husband tell the police the truth when they arrested him? Or at his trial?’

  The woman shook her head, grief and anger fighting each other for precedence. ‘He was terrified. He knew what the man would have done to him, but he was more worried about me. He made me swear never to breathe a word about it to anyone, not even when he was in prison or when he was dying.’

  ‘Do you know where the man is now?’

  She shook her head. ‘After Joan was imprisoned, I never knew any more about him. Joan wouldn’t speak about him, and after he came home, the man didn’t ever come back. Joan had lost his business then and he wasn’t well, so he had nothing the man would have wanted. He finally left him alone when he was already dying.’

  Àlex went to the kitchen and made them both a cup of coffee, sitting with her and talking about her and her husband’s shared love of art and antiques until she was calmer. He knew he wouldn’t get any more out of her of help to the investigation, so after a time he stood up to leave.

  ‘I will do what I can to find this man,’ he told her. If he’s still alive, he thought to himself. At the door, he asked her if there was anyone who could sit with her for a time.

  ‘My neighbour is very good, but I’m all right. I’m used to being on my own now.’

  ‘Do you have any children?’

  ‘No.’

  So no sins of the fathers revisited on the child, Àlex couldn’t help thinking on the drive back to Girona. He thought, too, of Clara Ferré and her description of the man who’d tried to sell artefacts to her boss when she was a junior curator. He had no doubt it was the same person Joan Canyellas’ widow had been describing.

  Imperceptibly, he pushed harder on the accelerato
r as he drove on the return journey, speed and urgency filling his head.

  * * *

  ‘This guy’s new.’

  ‘Show me,’ Josep said.

  Scanning through the page again, Montse handed him the flimsy piece of paper. While he read it, she drained the last of the coffee that Josep had gone to fetch about half an hour ago. She shuddered at the cold, grainy feel of the drink and threw the cup into the bin.

  ‘Ivan Morera,’ Josep read, shaking his head. ‘He hasn’t come up before. Not in the personnel listings. Or anywhere else.’

  Montse took the piece of paper back from him and checked the details. It was the carbon copy of a letter from the Archaeology Service in Girona to Morera at an address in Barcelona, giving him the details of how to get to El Crit, where he was apparently to be working as a volunteer for the summer of 1981, and an address in Palamós where he was going to be staying.

  ‘They even give his National ID number,’ Montse commented, pointing to the reference bit by the address.

  Josep looked at her and nodded. ‘What do you want to take?’

  ‘I’ll do the ID if you want to check up the addresses in Barcelona and Palamós.’

  ‘I’ll also double-check with the other student volunteers that summer, see if anyone remembers him.’

  Montse nodded. ‘Okay, and we’d better look into the person who signed it, see if they’re still there. They might remember something. I’ll take that.’

  ‘This is looking good,’ Josep said. He leaned back and stared at the paper Montse was holding, a deep breath of satisfaction after hours of bureaucratic slog escaping from him. He sat forward again, tentatively. ‘Want to go for a coffee first? This could be a long haul.’

  She stared at him and thought for a moment. ‘Sure. Why not.’

  Chapter Thirty Six

  ‘I’ve never liked that name,’ Josep muttered darkly.

  ‘Good to see you going into this with an open mind,’ Elisenda told him.

  For a morning meeting with so much news, it was proving to be surprisingly heavy going. Elisenda had got home to her apartment in Girona late the previous evening, too wrung out even for a licor de café while watching the lights in the river from La Terra, and she’d lain awake thinking of the day’s selection panel to the murmuring undertone of Lina’s nursery rhymes floating by in the dark.

  Each of the panel had had a different first choice, so everyone’s subsequent choices were totted up, the candidates given a descending mark according to their position in the ranking. The classic decision by committee, Elisenda thought as the scores were added together to find the overall favourite. In the end, with the result being a two-way tie and the discussion looking like it would never end, the other three panel members had given her the final say. After yet more argument and a sleepless night, she’d come in that morning and the first person she’d seen had been Paredes. Stifling a sigh, she’d hoped she’d made the right choice.

  ‘Manel,’ Josep repeated. ‘Bit old-fashioned.’

  ‘His full name’s Joan Manel if that suits you any better,’ Elisenda told him. She knew that telling her unit about the new member of their team was a difficult moment for everyone and she was determined to go easy on them.

  ‘You could call him Joanma,’ Montse offered. Surprised, Elisenda caught the lack of any antagonistic tone in her voice.

  ‘Compound names,’ Josep muttered. ‘They’re even worse.’

  ‘As I said,’ Elisenda told him. ‘Good to see you keeping an open mind.’ Two thoughts struck her. The first was that she knew that she was also struggling to be positive about the idea of an outsider joining the team and had to suppress that. The second was a stirring in her mind, triggered by Josep’s comment about compound names. About how Joan Manel could have chosen to call himself by any combination of those names. About how anyone else could do the same and so be perceived to be a different person.

  ‘Manel Moliné,’ she repeated for them all, putting the last thought away for another moment. She looked pointedly at Josep. ‘From Lleida, so don’t complain about his accent. You Barcelona types sound odd to those of us who speak proper Catalan.’

  Àlex and Josep exchanged a wry smile. Elisenda paused before carrying on. ‘Now I know we’re all reluctant to have an outsider coming in to replace Pau. Pau can’t ever be replaced and we have to accept that.’ She saw Àlex turn away to hide his expression. Montse and Josep both looked down, their faces impassive. ‘But we’re stretched enough as it is. We need new blood. And most of all, we have to be fair to Manel, none of what happened is his fault, we have to accept him as a new member.’

  She heard Montse take a deep breath before looking up. Josep continued to stare at his lap.

  ‘When does he begin?’ Àlex asked.

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  The one word was met with silence.

  ‘We found something last night,’ Montse finally said, cracking the thin ice that lay over the room. ‘In the carbon copies. A student on the 1981 dig called Ivan Morera who doesn’t turn up anywhere else in the records.’ Between them, they explained what they had found to Elisenda and Àlex and the paper trail that they were pursuing. ‘But he seems to have vanished into thin air before he even appeared,’ Montse concluded.

  ‘We called all the other students who worked on the dig that summer and the previous Easter,’ Josep told them, ‘but none of them had heard of him. I’ve tracked down the address in Barcelona. He was fostered by a couple, who are still living there now. We can go and see them tomorrow. As for the address in Palamós, it turns out he was going to be renting a room from an elderly widow who lived there. She’s now died, so I don’t know if he ever showed up there, but I’m trying to track down any family members who might be able to tell me something.’

  Elisenda was about to praise him, but decided it was better to keep silent. It was Montse who took up the reins.

  ‘The copy of the letter we’ve got was signed by the then director. He’s also died now, and I can’t find anyone there who remembers anything about the student. There’s no record of an Ivan Morera working on any dig before or after that. But what we do have is his ID number. It was at the top of the letter.’

  ‘Good,’ Àlex commented. ‘That should give us the answer.’

  Both Montse and Josep shook their heads in unison. Elisenda forced herself not to smile.

  ‘The ID was due for renewal in 1985, but it was never renewed. It simply expired without anyone doing anything about it or reporting anything. No loss or theft. No death certificate, no record of emigration, nothing. He just vanished and no one appears to have noticed. I’m going to check social security records today to see what that turns up, but I don’t think I’m going to find anything.’

  ‘And we’re hamstrung as always with missing person records from that time,’ Elisenda commented, ‘even if anyone did report him missing, which doesn’t sound likely.’

  ‘One thing,’ Montse added. ‘By the date of birth on his ID, he would have been a mature student at the time, about the same age as Esteve Mascort and the other two junior archaeologists. It might be significant, it might not.’

  Elisenda nodded her head slowly, taking it all in. ‘Good work, you two. Keep chasing the various leads up. Since none of the students on the dig knew him, see if you can find anyone who was on his university course in Barcelona. Someone from there might remember him.’

  Checking her mobile when the others left the room to carry on with their searches, she saw that she had four missed calls, one from Poch, the sergent in charge of the Local Investigation Unit in La Bisbal, and three from Doctora Fradera. She rang Poch first. He told her of a man and a woman caught in the small hours of the morning nighthawking at Ullastret.

  ‘Nighthawking?’

  ‘Using metal detectors to steal archaeological artefacts. They were looking in the area to the west of the main site, inside the complex. Someone living in a house nearby saw the light from their torches and called the Mo
ssos. It was Caporal Fabra from the Palafrugell station who found them, but we’ve got them in custody in La Bisbal. I thought you might want to see them.’

  ‘You thought right. Thanks, Jaume. I’ll be with you as soon as I can.’

  Grabbing her things, she phoned Fradera. The archaeologist had called her with the same news.

  ‘I’m on my way to La Bisbal now to question them,’ Elisenda told her and hung up.

  Out in the main room, she looked at the other three and took a decision.

  ‘Àlex, come with me to La Bisbal. There’s been an attempted theft at Ullastret. It might have some bearing on the Arbós case.’

  Àlex logged out of the computer he was on and picked up his coat. ‘Keep us posted,’ he told the other two.

  They drove in silence out of the city and past the Devesa, which had a naked air today compared with the bustle of the market the last time Elisenda took this road.

  ‘Are we stopping to see Doctora Fradera?’ Àlex asked as they passed the Archaeology Service.

  ‘She’s in Ullastret. She wanted to meet us in La Bisbal. To lynch these two we’re going to see, I imagine, so I told her it wasn’t a good idea.’

  Àlex made a noise that could have been a laugh. They still hadn’t spoken properly since their argument the previous morning.

  ‘Micaló apologised to me yesterday,’ she finally told him.

  Surprised, he took his eyes off the road for a moment to see if she was being serious.

  ‘For a comment he’d made about losing a member of the team,’ she added.

  A muscle in Àlex’s cheek twitched. ‘So he should, the prick.’

  ‘Show some respect, Sergent Albiol, he’s a senior officer.’

  ‘And a prick.’

  ‘And a prick,’ she agreed.

  ‘I wouldn’t trust him. He’ll see his apology as being in credit until the next time he tries to pull one over us.’ He accelerated a moment to pass a Sarfa bus, all but empty on the winter morning run to the coast. ‘You’re not expecting me to apologise, are you? You still look terrible, by the way. I take it you spent last night in Girona.’