A Body in Barcelona: Max Cámara 5

by Jason Webster

  Dídac was nodding enthusiastically.

  ‘The question,’ Daniel continued, ‘is not whether Catalonia will break away, but when. And then the real question is how the generals and their friends in Madrid will react. That’s the real concern here. Will they send the tanks in to keep it part of Spain? It’s possible. It’s in the Constitution – the justification is right there.’

  Cámara shrugged. It seemed there was no way of avoiding political discussions tonight.

  ‘As I say,’ he mumbled, ‘I’ve got enough just trying to work out the past.’

  ‘Any interesting cases at the moment?’ Dídac asked. He liked it when Cámara told him stories about detective work.

  ‘Leave the man alone,’ Daniel said. ‘He hasn’t come here to talk shop. He needs a rest.’

  The two men shared a brief conspiratorial glance.

  ‘Anyway,’ Daniel said, ‘I’m glad you’re here. We’re having a meeting afterwards. There’s some stuff I want to talk about.’

  The diners were already thinning out, many making their way to shelters for the night, or a preferred spot in the old river bed under some trees or a bridge. Within another twenty minutes they had all gone and only the members of the collective remained to finish the clearing-up.

  ‘Right,’ said Daniel, sitting at the top of one of the tables with a plastic cup of red wine in his hand. Berto sat down next to him, and the others – three young men and a woman, all in their twenties – gathered round. Dídac swept the floor, while Cámara perched on the table itself, slightly apart from the group.

  ‘I think it’s finally time we stepped up,’ Daniel began. There was a gentle murmur of approval.

  ‘This food bank’s good, but I don’t know how long it can last. We’re small, we’re not connected to any NGOs and we’re clearly not part of the system. So sooner or later they’ll find a way. And my feeling is we can’t keep still. We have to be thinking about what comes next.’

  ‘What about another venue?’ the girl said.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Daniel. ‘But I think we were lucky to get this place anyway. Thanks to Berto.’

  Berto lowered his head and smiled.

  ‘I just don’t know how easy it would be,’ Daniel said. ‘Anyone here know of anywhere?’

  No one said anything.

  ‘What about distributing food in parks and places?’ one of the men said. ‘In the river bed, for example.’

  ‘Might work once or twice,’ answered Daniel. ‘But they’d get wise very quickly. Not sure if it’s worth it.’

  He paused to see if there were any more ideas before resuming.

  ‘No, you see, I’m thinking more than just giving people something to eat. The point is that it doesn’t hurt the people who got us where we are in the first place. And I’m angry, and I want them to know that.’

  ‘We’re all angry,’ Berto said. ‘There just doesn’t seem to be enough willingness for change here. People are stuck, just want to go back to the boom years. No one really wants to change anything, deep down.’

  Cámara kept out of the conversation, watching.

  ‘That’s why,’ said Daniel, ‘we’ve got to go more radical. We’ve been keeping ourselves on the right side of the law. Well, more or less. But the problem is the law – the Establishment – in the first place. There’s no respect for ordinary people. Which is why we should show no respect to them. We’ve got to go in a new direction.’

  ‘What are you suggesting?’ the girl asked.

  ‘We go for the bankers themselves,’ Daniel said simply. ‘They brought this on in the first place. So we demonstrate outside their homes, make a racket, embarrass and annoy them. Make their daily lives as miserable as the ordinary people they left in the lurch.’

  There was a moment’s pause as the idea sank in.

  Daniel had not used the actual word, but Cámara knew precisely what he was talking about: escraches, where groups of people would stand around someone’s house – often a politician – with placards and whistles in a targeted, almost personalised form of street protest. The Madrid government had already taken measures to stop them.

  ‘What would be the point?’ said Berto. ‘They’ve already ruined the country.’

  ‘It’s not about a reaction,’ said Daniel. ‘It’s about prevention. I agree, there’s no point punishing someone afterwards – you’ve got to hit them before. What I’m talking about is action to stop them doing any more harm to ordinary people. Because believe me, they can.’

  Berto frowned and nodded in agreement. As the group digested Daniel’s new ‘direction’, a few pairs of eyes turned round to look at Cámara.

  ‘Do you think …’ Berto began, looking at Daniel. ‘He’s a friend, I know, but he’s also …’

  Daniel looked Cámara in the eye and tilted his head up, as though asking a question.

  Cámara sniffed.

  ‘You know that anything that’s discussed here stays with me,’ he said. ‘That’s always been the rule and always will be.’

  He shuffled on the table, swinging his legs down and turning to face them more squarely.

  ‘But you might want to ask yourselves,’ he continued, ‘whether you want to talk about potential lawbreaking in front of a policeman. Ojos que no ven, corazón que no siente.’ What the eyes don’t see the heart cannot feel.

  From the corner of the room, Dídac smiled. Typical Cámara to use a proverb like that, he thought. He was becoming more like Hilario now that the old anarchist had died.

  Daniel paused before his face broke out into a grin.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘You’re absolutely right. Perhaps it’s our fault for putting you into too difficult a position.’

  Berto nodded.

  ‘You’re one of us,’ he said to Cámara. ‘That’s obvious.’

  ‘But it doesn’t mean,’ Daniel added, ‘that he has to know everything we’re up to.’

  Cámara shrugged. The situation felt tense, even artificially so. He was beginning to feel uncomfortable and would happily walk out.

  ‘I suggest,’ Daniel said, ‘that we put it to a vote.’

  There was a general murmur of assent.

  ‘All those in favour of the chief inspector staying for the rest of the meeting?’

  SEVEN

  ‘THE SITUATION IS getting more and more serious by the day, and no one in Madrid is doing anything about it. Just because the last attempt failed doesn’t mean that it can’t happen this time. And now that the Left-wingers are in power, things have—’

  ‘The new Catalan government has less room to manoeuvre than it likes to think, we all know that. And Segundo Pont is an influential and stabilising force. He’s a man who Madrid can do business with. But apart from that, any unilateral move on their part has already been ruled unlawful by the Constitutional—’

  ‘You don’t get it, do you? This is the same language the Madrid government has been using from the start – a purely legalistic approach to the—’

  ‘What other approach is there? Laws are what keep—’

  ‘People on the street are making their opinions known very loudly. Last month, on Catalan National Day, over three million people marched in support of breaking away. And ultimately legitimacy comes from them.’

  ‘It’s not going to happen. I’m telling you now. Over my dead body. Over the dead bodies of millions of Spaniards will we let Catalonia become—’

  ‘You’re not listening. Even the Vatican is moving its pieces in preparation. The Pope has made the Archbishop of Barcelona a cardinal.’

  ‘Forner?’

  ‘Archbishop – soon to be Cardinal – Forner, correct. And Forner has been saying for weeks that the Catalan Bishops’ Conference should no longer form a part of the Spanish conference. The fact that the Vatican is making this move is a clear indication—’

  Cámara switched off the radio with a sharp prod of his finger, drained the last of his coffee and put on his jacket to leave. Everyone always spoke
at once during these political debates, as though the rightness of each pundit’s position was measured less by their reasoning than by how loudly they could shout. La Ser was, on the whole, one of the better radio stations, but no one, he was certain, ever changed their minds by listening to it. If anything, the posturing only served to harden positions. An anti-Catalan movement was getting stronger in Spain – it was visible from the graffiti and the comments you overheard. Families of Andalusian and other migrants who lived and worked in Catalonia and who went back to their home village every summer to see relatives were struggling with shifting feelings about regional identity: now rejected as ‘Catalans’ by their own people, they were joining the separatists in droves, pushing the numbers wanting independence ever higher.

  He was fond, if not enamoured, of Catalonia – the pine-covered mountains and valleys near Tarragona were beautiful and some of the wines were delicious – but he had never quite fallen for the charms of Barcelona. Yes, parts of it were attractive, and Gaudí’s buildings were eye-catching and iconic, but what had once, very briefly in 1936, been a revolutionary anarchist city now managed to be both grubby and affected at the same time, and suffocated by tourists.

  The current developments there were splitting families apart, as could be expected. If enough Catalans wanted to create their own country, he thought, they should be allowed to. The idea that they should be forced to remain part of Spain was anathema to the anarchist in him, although ideally he would prefer them not to bother with the business of statehood at all. Far better to experiment with different, more flexible structures that would resist the inevitable drift towards tyranny that came with any kind of authority. They had done it in the past, if not wholly successfully.

  Yet he was disturbed by the aggressive reaction of so many Spaniards to the idea of Catalonia breaking away, acting like a bitter, potentially violent husband, determined not to give a divorce to an unloved wife. No one in Madrid was trying to woo Catalonia back into the marriage bed: at most the couple would be allowed separate rooms, but there would be no talk of allowing her to move out. Central government was behaving according to type, acting the role – centuries old – of the autocratic patriarchal father holding the Spanish family together not through love, but through stubbornness and force.

  He poked his head around the door: Alicia was still asleep, breathing heavily, lying on her front in almost the same position in which he had found her the night before. He wondered about kissing her silently on the cheek, but thought better of it and left. It was time to report back to the office; he had not been there for weeks.

  On his motorbike, he could worm his way quickly through the early-morning traffic jams. Someone ahead had double parked, leaving their emergency lights on while they nipped into a nearby office. But it meant that the bus he was trailing could not get past. Unable to squeeze down the side, he mounted the pavement, scooted past a handful of pedestrians, bypassed the obstruction, and was soon on his way again, the sound of the bus’s horn behind him echoing down the tall, narrow street.

  At the Jefatura, he inched his bike into a space round the back between a Harley-Davidson and a Japanese moped, before going through the main entrance, taking the lift to the first floor and walking down a grey passageway to a door marked ‘UCE’.

  ‘Morning, chief.’

  Inspector Torres sat at a small desk next to a grimy window in a corner of their shared, tiny office. He stared at his computer with an absent-minded look on his face, clicking his mouse and not bothering to look up as Cámara walked in.

  ‘Nice to see you’ve missed me,’ Cámara said.

  Still looking at his screen, Torres pursed his lips and blew a kiss in his general direction.

  ‘Where’s my present from Barcelona?’ he asked. ‘You haven’t brought me anything, have you? Not even a bottle of cava.’

  ‘They’re not letting you export it out of Catalonia any more,’ Cámara said, deadpan. ‘Hoarding it all for themselves to celebrate when they finally get independence.’

  Torres snorted.

  ‘It’s all me, me, me with the Catalans,’ he said. ‘They’re so tight I wouldn’t be surprised.’

  ‘Becoming another Catalan-hater?’ Cámara said.

  ‘I don’t have a problem with them,’ said Torres. ‘Just as long as they don’t try to include Valencia in their plans for a Greater Catalonia. But for a bunch of people who are supposedly good with money, they don’t seem to have worked out what happens if they do break away. What will they do for cash? Go back to using ducats?’

  ‘Well, at least with gold coins you’d know the worth of things,’ said Cámara. ‘Still can’t get used to bloody euros.’

  He sat at his desk and instantly felt the weight of three weeks’ catching-up fall upon him like cold wet sand. None of it would be important or have any direct relevance to his work as a detective, but he could already sense the hundreds of memos, emails and directives he would have to wade through over the coming hours before he could lift his head up and get on with police work.

  He paused before switching on his computer and exposing himself to the deluge. At times like this his natural inclination was to go out, find a decent bar somewhere and have a long lunch. It was the best way to get things – real things – actually done. But it was only half-past nine, that awkward hour: too late for breakfast and not quite late enough for an almuerzo mid-morning snack. Lunch itself was a mere spot on the horizon, barely visible in the fog of morning.

  He sat back in his chair and glanced across at Torres.

  ‘Any special crimes to report while I’ve been away?’ The weight on the words ‘special crimes’ and the innocent, almost singsong lift at the end of the question made his subordinate chuckle, and Torres finally turned away from the screen to look at him.

  ‘You just won’t let it rest, will you?’

  Four months had passed since they had arrived in their little hole on the first floor. At first their new unit had been identified by a handwritten piece of paper tacked to the door. This was later replaced by a second piece of paper with the initials printed out in bold lettering. Finally they were given a plastic plaque with white lettering on a black background. Neither of them had ordered the changes – in fact they could not say exactly who was responsible. But the reasoning at some higher level appeared to go that the more formal the door to their office looked, the more justified their existence was. ‘UCE’ supposedly stood for Unidad de Crímenes Especiales – the Special Crimes Unit. Torres had rechristened it the Unidad de Comidas Especiales – the Special Eating Unit – for the amount of time they spent out of the office at bars and restaurants trying to work out exactly what they were supposed to be doing.

  The idea for the two-man team had come from Commissioner Pardo, their superior and head of the judicial, investigative police. Cámara and Torres had regularly worked together before in the murder squad, where they were something of an unofficial institution – Estarski and Khutch, people with memories of the 1970s TV cop show called them behind their backs. But with the economic crisis, cuts had been demanded and the powers at the top of the Jefatura ordered that one of them had to go. Pardo was not about to lose his best detectives, however, and so worked out a plan with the accounts department to take them both out and place them in a new unit instead. That way the numbers could be moulded to make it look as though savings were being made, whereas in fact nothing had really changed. Pardo came up with UCE – it was vague enough to cover almost anything, he said. In reality they were meant to be an adjunct of the murder squad on the ground floor – two senior colleagues with bags of experience who could be called upon at any time.

  The reality was that Chief Inspector Laura Martín, the new head of Homicidios, kept them at arm’s length. Her team was doing fine on their own, she would say whenever the question of Cámara and Torres came up. Don’t need them.

  The first few weeks in UCE had been fun, particularly in the wake of their previous murder case, when a fear o
f losing his job had pitted Torres against Cámara for a while. Their friendship had survived, however, and became strengthened once more as they eased their way into their new ‘unit’, spending considerable amounts of police time thinking about what they might dedicate themselves to – with the help of an occasional bottle of Ribera del Duero and a paella or two.

  As weeks turned into months, however, the mood began to change. A paid, working holiday was fine for a while, but they were both keen policemen who operated best when focused on a case. So far all they had come up with was scouting for potential new methods that criminals might use in the future that the police would need to be aware of. Pardo loved it; it smacked of a research-and-development department in a commercial company, and to some degree Torres was happy to go along with the charade. But Cámara treated it as a mere stopgap, longing for the concrete reality of an actual crime to solve rather than the almost make-believe world of ‘what might happen’.

  Travelling up to Barcelona, having an actual investigation to deal with – albeit one involving supposed police brutality – had come as a relief. But now, returning to the vagueness of his unit felt all the more frustrating.

  He turned back to his desk and reached out for the on button of his computer.

  ‘What are you checking out?’ he asked.

  Torres swung his screen round for him to see. Cámara saw pictures of what looked like toy helicopters.

  ‘They’re called drones,’ Torres answered his silent question. ‘They’re remote controlled. People put cameras on them and fly them around to get aerial video shots.’

  Cámara raised his eyebrows with only moderate interest.

  ‘New to me as well,’ Torres said. ‘But apparently a few have started appearing during recent fiestas. It’s just a hobby, but it’s making someone nervous.’

  He clicked his mouse and a new image appeared of a typewritten note.

  ‘New directive,’ he explained. ‘Reminding us that all use of such aircraft in public places is illegal.’

  Cámara turned back to his desk.