The conversation finished and the two men headed up the road in the direction of the Peace Co-op.
‘That’s the last of it today,’ Faro Oscuro said. ‘We’ll pick up again tomorrow at dawn.’
‘So the hunger strike?’ Alicia said.
‘Lasted thirteen days. The regional government had to give in in the end. Well, of course, we were in the right. We were starving here, children, babies, everyone. So they expropriated the land and gave it to the town. And we’ve been doing nicely ever since.’
‘As a collective?’
‘As a collective. Everyone takes part, everyone owns everything. Schools, parks, civic centres, houses – we’ve built them all ourselves. That’s why it’s so cheap. An ordinary rent in Madrid is – what? Eight hundred, a thousand euros a month?’
Alicia nodded.
‘Here we pay fifteen euros. That’s it.’
‘That’s incredible.’
‘But true!’ Faro Oscuro raised his arms in the air. ‘You help to build it, so you get the reward. It’s simple.’
They came out into the main square, where the town hall building stood. Some of the shops had opened now, making up for the lost hours of the early morning.
‘But the struggle continues?’ Alicia asked.
‘Yes, it’s not always easy,’ Faro Oscuro said with a grin. ‘But as I said, I’m even more of a believer now than I was at the beginning.’
‘But for you, personally, I mean.’
Faro Oscuro looked at her questioningly, his small, intense eyes fixed on her.
‘I heard there has been a family tragedy recently,’ Alicia said. ‘Your granddaughter?’
Faro Oscuro breathed heavily through his nostrils, the hairs in his thick beard vibrating. He looked more solid, harder, of a sudden.
‘This way,’ he said finally, turning towards one of the houses lining the square.
‘Come with me.’
THIRTEEN
A DARK PASSAGEWAY led through to a patio where dusty glazed pots were held against the walls in iron brackets – geraniums, mostly devoid of their flowers by now, the leaves looking tired and heavy as though calling out to be pruned before the winter cold. An outdoor stairway led to a second floor, while two rooms opened out to where they stood: one shrouded in heavy curtains; the other, a kitchen, with its glass-pane doors slung back.
Inside, three women sat around a table. Two of them looked to be in their sixties, although one was greyer both of hair and skin than the other. They sat on either side of the table, dipping their hands into a large bowl in the centre to pull out potatoes for peeling.
Between them, at the far end of the table, sat a younger woman with long black hair that fell over her face as she leaned forwards, her back curled as though trying to make herself into a ball. It was difficult to see her features, but a thin mouth was just visible as she drew on a cigarette in short, rapid bursts.
All three of the women were dressed in black. Simple skirts and polyester jumpers for the elder two, trousers and a black leather jacket for the younger woman. They sat in silence, the only sound coming from their hands as they dipped into the bowl and then cut into the potato skin with small knives.
‘I know there are exceptions,’ Faro Oscuro said, ‘which is why I’m showing you this.’
He pointed at the women.
‘Newspapers, the TV – they concentrate on the story of a death, of a killing. It’s dramatic, it’s shocking . . .’
He sighed.
‘But this is the reality. This, what’s left behind.’
He took a step forwards towards the kitchen.
‘But no one wants to know about this.’
Alicia followed after him. Cámara glanced up at the rooms on the floor above: the shutters were all closed. Then he fell in step with the others.
The women barely reacted when they reached the kitchen doorway.
‘Maribel, my wife,’ Faro Oscuro said, indicating the elder of the two middle-aged women.
‘Marta, my sister-in-law, and Olga, my daughter.’
The woman in the leather jacket stubbed her cigarette out on a small tin ashtray, then reached over for her packet to light another one, pulling it out with long, thin, pale fingers.
‘Police?’
Marta had raised her head from the potatoes for a moment and directed her question to Alicia.
‘I’m a journalist,’ Alicia said.
‘And him?’
‘He’s my photographer. From the newspaper.’
Marta nodded and turned her attention back to the potatoes. Maribel and Olga remained silent.
At a signal from Faro Oscuro, Alicia and Cámara turned to walk away.
‘I’m very sorry for your loss,’ Alicia said.
The knives scraped and cut, the smoke curling above their heads.
‘Is that the real reason why you came?’ Faro Oscuro said when they got back outside.
‘It’s not my intention to intrude,’ Alicia said. ‘You can show us and tell us as much or as little as you want.’
‘I want people to see what grief really looks like, what death means. It’s not about the crying, the sadness, the destruction of life. It’s what you just saw – it’s the obligation to survive when all you want to do is die yourself. It’s carrying on in an empty world. Thank God I have my work, and my wife and daughter. Otherwise . . .’
His eyes closed for a moment, then sprang open.
‘It was probably something to do with drugs. Olga has had her problems in the past. It seems my granddaughter did as well. We knew, of course, but we thought it could be kept under control. Recreational drug taking is what has kept humans sane for thousands of years. Even cavemen were eating hallucinogens in the Stone Age.’
He looked at Cámara.
‘But Mirella was all right. Perhaps she took too much, I don’t know. But it wasn’t the drugs that did it. A person killed her, a man. Not some chemical substance.’
He started crossing the road, heading back towards the town hall.
‘She needed some space, some time on her own. It’s what Olga never understood. So we let her go, when she said she wanted to go to the city. She was old enough. It would be good for her. There were problems at home with her mother. It’s why she was here in the first place, to get away for a while.’
He paused on the step outside the front door.
‘And so we let her go. Now she’s never coming back. The worst thing is that no matter how I reason it out to myself, I still feel guilty. Some bastard out there killed her, yet I’m the one to blame.’
Alicia took the keys from Cámara’s hand and sat behind the wheel.
‘I’ve never driven a BMW. Let’s see what all the fuss is about.’
The car rolled along the cobbled streets until reaching tarmac again on the outskirts of the village, and she pressed down the accelerator. Their heads pushed back against the rests as the engine surged.
‘Not bad. Thrilling, actually. Is this something to do with penis envy?’
‘If you want mine, it’s yours.’
‘Oh, I know that.’
She giggled as they passed the last of the trees lining the road out of the village, and broke out into the empty landscape once more.
‘I have a theory,’ Cámara said as field after field of light brown soil flew past. ‘The madness round here actually comes from the land itself, as though it runs through the earth like some invisible current, or underground rivers and streams, and it seeps into you if you stay here too long, soaking into your feet and up your body until it reaches your brain.’
Alicia swerved a little to avoid a lorry driving almost in the middle of the road.
‘I mean, Cervantes had to make Don Quixote a madman – or at least he had to make his madman come from La Mancha. Nothing else would make sense. Look around you.’
He waved a hand out of the open window.
‘Even the rocks and stones here are insane. Just look at them.’
; Alicia gave him a quizzical look.
‘And another thing, where are all the saffron fields? There was a lot of saffron in that warehouse, but I don’t see much of it being grown around here. Certainly not enough to justify the piles of it we’ve just—’
CRACK!
For a moment the car sped on, neither of them speaking.
‘What . . . ?’
Cámara turned around: the back window had shattered.
‘Did we just hit a stone, or something?’
‘DRIVE DRIVE DRIVE!’ he shouted.
‘What?’
‘Put your foot down. Now! Drive!’
There was no hesitation. Immediately the car pulled away faster as Alicia accelerated. Cámara looked round at the back window once more: the bullet had left a neat hole on the left side, but the rest of the glass was about to fall in from the impact.
‘We’re being shot at. Don’t stay on a straight line. Swerve the car.’
Unbuckling his seat belt, he climbed on to the back seat and pushed away at the glass, scattering bits of it over the road as they sped along. No one was following them – the lorry had disappeared and there was no other car visible. Whoever it was was almost certainly shooting from a fixed position.
‘This is a long straight road,’ Alicia said, her voice steady but nervous.
‘Keep going. Don’t stop. But move the car around.’
He was thrown to one side as the vehicle pulled to the right and then the left.
‘Not too regularly,’ he said. ‘You have to make yourself a difficult target.’
CRACK!
Another shot. They both felt the impact as the bullet seemed to hit some part of the car.
‘Are you all right? Are you all right?’ Cámara screamed.
‘I’m OK,’ Alicia said. Their eyes met in the rear-view mirror for a second.
‘Keep going.’
The car swerved again.
‘There’s a turning ahead.’
‘He’s shooting from behind us. Go, go, GO!’
He couldn’t tell where the bullets were being fired from, but it seemed a reasonable guess. And he had to reassure Alicia somehow, tell her that if they could get to the corner and off the straight they would be all right. But would they?
He looked back through the hole he’d punched in the glass, then ducked his head again. The car bodywork offered little protection, but it was better than nothing. Alicia, however, was exposed. He heaved himself over to her side of the car: if the firing was indeed coming from behind, he might at least offer some protection with his own body.
He glanced quickly ahead: the turning was only metres away.
CRACK!
It felt like a very hard punch in the hip, as though someone had taken a large heavy stick and hit him at the top of the thigh. He let out a low grunt and surged forwards, his hands gripping at the pain.
The car turned the corner, Alicia accelerating harder as they pulled out of it and away down another straight. Shorter this time: in a few seconds they would reach another corner.
‘Keep going. Don’t slow down.’
He tried to disguise the strain in his voice.
‘Max?’
‘I’m fine. Keep driving. Don’t look back.’
She turned to look down at him curled up in the well of the back seat.
‘I’m fine.’
The car sped along. Cámara pulled his hand away from his leg: it was dry.
A minute later they joined the main road and were heading back towards the city.
‘Just take us back to the centre,’ Cámara said. ‘We’re safe now. Trust me.’
‘Are you all right?’
He undid his zip and pulled his trousers down a fraction: the skin at the side of his upper thigh was red and mottled with burst capillaries, but there was no blood. He heard something fall to the floor. Reaching down with a grunt he lifted up the bullet that had struck him. A hole in the upholstery beside him showed where it had come through the bodywork of the car.
His head fell back against the door and he closed his eyes, cold shock swimming through him with a steady pulse.
While the bullet warmed in the palm of his hand.
FOURTEEN
‘WE NEED TO get that seen to.’
‘I’m all right. Let me . . .’
Alicia had pulled the car to the side of the road on a quiet street. The smashed back window was attracting suspicious looks from passers-by.
Cámara opened the door and hauled himself out. Alicia jumped out from the driver’s seat and went to help him.
‘I’m OK.’
He took a step forward, grimacing at the pain shooting through his leg and hip as it took the weight.
‘It’s all right. I’ll be fine.’
‘Let me see.’
Gently, she pulled his shirt tail up where it was covering his upper leg, letting out an uncontrolled gasp when she saw the swelling skin.
‘It’s bruised, that’s all. It’s going to hurt for a bit, but I can take some anti-inflammatories.’
She stood up and kissed him tenderly near the mouth, her eyes tearful.
‘Oh, Max.’
He kissed her hair where she rested her head on his shoulder.
A bar stood a couple of doors from where she’d parked. Brushing herself down, she walked in and a couple of minutes later emerged with two plastic cups with large doses of brandy inside.
They drank in silence, both looking at each other, feeling the warmth of the liquor trickle its way down. Bit by bit, they began to breathe more deeply again, drawing cool air into their lungs.
‘I need to sit down.’
She led him round to the passenger seat, then sat back down in the driver’s seat beside him.
‘Someone was shooting at us,’ she said.
Cámara nodded.
‘Were they trying to kill us?’
‘I don’t know.’
Had someone been trying to frighten them? Or was it a serious, if failed, attempt on their lives? He couldn’t say. Perhaps the bullet, now nestling in his trouser pocket, would give a clue.
‘We need to go to the police.’
She turned to him, but he didn’t move.
‘Shouldn’t we?’
After a pause, he shook his head.
‘No. At least not now.’
She slumped back into her seat, closing her eyes and sipping on her brandy. Cámara reached into his jacket pocket, lit two cigarettes and then placed one between her lips. She accepted it without looking at him.
‘What’s going on?’ she said at last. ‘What haven’t you told me?’
A couple of teenage boys were staring in at the back of the car, where odd shards of glass were scattered over the bodywork and inside on the seats.
‘Fuck, look at that!’
‘Looks like they had a crash or something.’
‘What, reversing?’
‘Shut it.’
‘We’ll have to take this back to your friend Gerardo at the garage,’ Alicia said. ‘Or is that off the cards as well?’
‘We’re safer here than we would be at the Jefatura,’ Cámara said.
Alicia drew on her cigarette, watching the boys as they walked down the street and glanced back at the strangely damaged car.
‘It’s not clear who can be trusted.’
He finished the brandy; his leg was aching and he longed for a refill.
‘What’s going on?’ Alicia said.
‘I don’t know. There’s at least one corrupt officer, perhaps more. I haven’t had the full story myself.’
‘We were set up?’
His cigarette was burning close to the skin of his fingers.
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know? We’ve just been shot at. We could have been killed. You could have been killed. And you don’t know? Where the hell have we just been? Some scam involving the saffron business, was what you said. I didn’t know we were heading into some kind of gang warfar
e.’
‘Neither did I.’
‘Didn’t you? Didn’t you really? You mean you had no suspicions?’
‘Look!’ He turned to face her. ‘The police may be involved in some saffron mafia. That’s what I was told. That’s what I’m telling you now. If I’d known it was going to be so dangerous I would have taken precautions. I had no idea this was going to happen. No idea.’
She stared out of the window, taking a last drag of the cigarette before throwing it out on to the road.
‘God knows I would never have brought you along if I’d known.’
She reached over and took his empty cup. A few minutes later she had returned from the bar with more brandy for both of them.
‘They’re talking about us in there,’ she said.
‘We’ll have to move.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘For the moment, it’s back to Gerardo’s’.
They manoeuvred past scattered spare parts and left the BMW in the centre of the garage, next to the office.
Gerardo grinned when he saw them. Only when he caught the expression in their eyes did he begin to have doubts.
He stood up and walked out into the workshop.
‘What happened? No, no, no. Please, tell me it’s all right.’
Wordlessly, Cámara walked him around to the back of the car. Gerardo’s face dropped when he saw the smashed rear window.
‘A stone hit you on the back?’ he asked incredulously.
Cámara sighed. With his finger he traced over the bodywork, searching, then stood up and pointed when he found the hole. Gerardo looked at him, then bent down to have a look.
He stayed there for almost a minute, then very slowly lifted himself up, still gazing down at the curious mark on the metalwork.
‘Now you’re going to tell me that it isn’t what I think it is.’
Cámara lifted his hands up and shrugged.
Gerardo gave him a look of fear and surprise.
‘Tell me that sudden limp you’ve developed isn’t anything to do with this, either,’ he said.
Cámara said nothing.
Gerardo nodded towards Alicia, who was still sitting behind the wheel.
‘Fine,’ Cámara said. ‘We’re both fine.’
The Anarchist Detective (Max Cámara) Page 10
