A Body in Barcelona: Max Cámara 5

by Jason Webster

  ‘This world, our world, Max, is changing. Look around – every institution that this country is built on is crumbling: the monarchy, the mainstream political parties, the judicial system, the Church. Do you think it can all hold together for much longer? People are angry. The crisis has exposed the rottenness of the whole structure and it’s in danger of falling down. Everything. We all want change. But the change has to be ordered, it has to be done properly. I want a fairer world, Max. And so do you. But I’m scared, because when things come crashing down, what comes next isn’t always better. In fact, it’s usually a lot worse. Right now I’m not sure that Spain as you and I know it will still be around in a few years’ time. This country is fragile, always in danger of destroying itself. I don’t want to see that happen. And I don’t think, for all your avant-garde political ideas, you do either.’

  It came out in what felt like a single breath, the words cascading like water from his mouth. It was less prepared than the earlier speech, but Cámara began to smile as Carlos reached the end: realisation crept up and grabbed him, like a hand reaching up from some other, non-thinking part of his brain.

  ‘You want me to spy on the anarchists,’ he said simply.

  Carlos did not miss a beat.

  ‘I want you to keep me informed about them, yes. We know about your association with them. And in return I will give you everything you need to wrap up the Fermín case in record time.’

  The rage moved slowly within him, like molten tar. Anger not so much at the man who had dragged him here so much as at himself for taking so long to see it: the manipu-lation, the promises, the threats, the sulliedness of it all. He closed his eyes and let out a deep breath, wondering which words to use; which was, in fact, the most correct way of telling a spy to go fuck himself.

  When he opened his eyes again, however, Carlos was no longer standing directly in front of him, but had taken a step back and was half-turned, as though ready to leave. He was one move ahead of him. In his hand, held out to Cámara, was a card with a phone number on it.

  ‘In case you change your mind,’ he said, and leaned forward to thrust it between Cámara’s fingers. Then he spun on his heel and walked briskly away, quickly disappearing from view, up and out of the river bed.

  Cámara picked up a stick from the ground, smashed it as hard as he could against the trunk of a tree, brushed himself down and turned to leave.

  The cigarette lighter burnt his thumb as he tried to spark it into life.

  SIXTEEN

  THE RIVER BED took him around the edge of the city centre: he could carry on walking as far as the Nuevo Centro shopping centre before cutting left and heading down Fernando el Católico to the Jefatura. At that moment the alternative – grabbing a taxi – did not appeal: he was in no mood to listen to mindless chit-chat about football or the weather.

  He walked past gushing fountains and a shallow, litter-strewn lake. At the bottom of an old stone bridge two young men were ignoring a ban on climbing, scaling the sides with their bare hands, their muscles thin and taught like rope.

  For a second he had a flashback to Barcelona and the medal ceremony at the Palau de la Música. You haven’t gone unnoticed, Segundo Pont had said. Had it been a warning? What did Segundo Pont know?

  He was confused. His instincts – usually so reliable – had deserted him. Nothing was clear: for all his tricks, Carlos had achieved one thing – to throw up so many questions and doubts that he felt as though the light that he was always able to follow – his intuition – had been switched off. It was such a fundamental part of him that he was barely conscious of it, but now its sudden absence made him feel as though a limb had been lopped off. He was crippled, incomplete.

  Walking, he reasoned, would help: the rhythmic motion would soothe, calm his spirit, perhaps allow him to see again.

  But conflicting emotion beat against him like an angry sea. He had been an idiot in so many ways: to allow himself to be drawn in by Carlos in the first place; to think that no one had noticed who his friends were, that he was involved in the food bank – a collective run by anarchists, some of whom were radically inclined and apparently becoming more so. In the end he had left the collective before the vote on whether he should stay to hear about Daniel’s new plans – it had seemed the easiest way to deal with the situation. And he thought that by so doing he was drawing clear lines between the different sides of his life. But to think that he was living in a neat little bubble, complete and isolated, made up simply of his life both inside and outside the police, when in fact he was part of a much bigger world, one that was now trying to ensnare him. He had fallen into the trap, like everyone else, of waiting for things to return to normal after the economic crisis. It was the line that so many had been pushing these past months, even El País, that once great newspaper, now controlled by the banks who had brought the ruin on the country in the first place. Keep tight everyone, the message was repeated, it’s almost over. We’ll all be able to come out of our little holes in just a few more minutes. Trust us.

  But things never returned to how they had been: it was the universal law. The river flowed ever on, new water replacing the old, only appearing to be the same. And now it had caught him in its flow. He had stayed still for too long.

  What would his grandfather say to him now? How would he interpret this, the offer Cámara had just been given to become a government spy?

  He searched, trying to listen to Hilario’s words, but heard nothing. He was in the dark and alone.

  For years he had managed to find a kind of balance; a policeman, an agent of the State and yet also an anarchist of sorts, distrustful of governments and authority. He had managed it somehow, mostly by separating these two, often opposing, sides, reconciling them where and when it suited or was possible, justifying his police work as being carried out in the name of the greater good of society. Or some such bollocks. But banging up murderers brought little in the way of moral grey areas. He did not ascribe to the view held by some anarchists that society itself was the cause of such ills: he had seen too much of the bloody side of human nature to go along with that. Some people were bad in the same way that some people were insane. You had to feel it, to experience it first hand to know the difference. Yes, there were shades and subtleties to it, but no amount of intellectualising could deny the fact. It was something you felt, and once you had tasted it, it could never be forgotten.

  And so he had lived in a curious equilibrium, his life partitioned in relatively neat boxes, the contradictions parked, settled, not disturbing each other.

  But in an instant everything had changed.

  Of course there was no way he was going to spy on his friends, betray that trust. They knew he was a policeman, but they also knew that nothing they did that was illegal – or on the fringes of legality – would ever be exposed by him. It was the rule they worked by. They were safe, he was safe, the system worked.

  And yet … Could Carlos really lead him to Fermín’s killer? It was much easier to assume that it was a bluff, that the CNI man was spinning him along. But what if he was right? What if he really did have evidence – evidence that Cámara himself would never be able to find – that could solve the case? He had a duty to do everything that he could as a detective, but beyond that, he realised that his pride as an investigator was at stake. Pardo had given the case to the Special Crimes Unit, and although their two-man squad was something of a private joke, it meant something to him. Whether or not Fermín’s murder was a special crime, it was his obligation to work on it, to bring it to a close. But the only door that had been opened for him – one which he did not know he could trust – merely served to bring his own fragile balancing act crashing down.

  It was easy to say no, easy to tell Carlos to fuck off. But …

  He blinked and saw that he was gripping his phone very tightly in his left hand. He wanted to call Alicia, to tell her about this, to get her thoughts. But he rejected the idea almost as soon as it came into his mind. If C
arlos knew so much about him it was reasonable to assume that his phone was being tapped. Besides, he had got Alicia too involved in the previous case, with horrific results. She needed protecting.

  He slipped the phone back into his pocket. Inside he felt Carlos’s card. His fingers wrapped around it and he crushed it into a ball. As soon as he found a waste bin he would toss it away.

  It was late by now, and dark. Steps led him up from the relative tranquillity of the river bed to street level, where he crossed the road and started heading down Fernando el Católico, with the cacophonic backdrop of a thousand cars and buses and motorbikes charging past like frantic beasts, some people heading home, others coming out, perhaps for dinner. Ahead, in the direction of the Jefatura, he could see blue lights flashing: an imminent arrest, he thought; some operation perhaps about to get under way.

  A mood of uncertainty and fraughtness increased as he got closer, however. People on the pavement appeared to be rushing at a greater pace than usual; he saw concerned faces, small groups in corners staring down at mobile phone screens with expressions of alarm. Even the breeze rustling the plane trees by the side of the road had a curious tightness to it.

  When he noticed armed policemen on guard at the main doors to the Jefatura, he knew that something serious must have happened. He flashed his badge and went inside: the lobby was a scramble of bodies, dashing in all directions at once.

  Avoiding the lift, he climbed the stairs two at a time and dived into his office. Torres was there, his face pinned to his computer screen.

  ‘OK,’ said Cámara. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘It’s Barcelona,’ Torres said, looking up.

  ‘Josep Segundo Pont has been assassinated.’

  SEVENTEEN

  THE CALL WAS anonymous, short and direct.

  Colonel Terreros listened without interruption, then hung up and went to switch on the television in the living room of his flat. The State twenty-four-hour news channel was already reporting the story, showing stock images of the street where it had taken place.

  It was still fresh, however, and there were few details to report beyond the attack itself. The newsreaders were only saying that an attempt had been made on Segundo Pont’s life, and were unable to confirm whether he was alive or dead. The colonel’s source, however, was better informed and had told him categorically that the Catalan interior minister had indeed lost his life.

  Terreros felt the thrill of indignation course through his blood. It had already come to this! Political assassinations on the streets of Barcelona. The situation was out of control: he had waited too long. But there was a chance, now, to act. A chance, still, to restore order.

  After a couple of minutes, he switched off the television and went back into the kitchen. His coffee was still warm: he drank it in one gulp, then calmly rinsed the cup in the sink and placed it to dry on the rack. He pushed his chair into its place at the side of the room, made sure that everything was in order, then stepped out into the hallway, where his jacket was hanging on a hook. Putting it on, he checked that he had his keys and his wallet, then patted his groin: no pain – the adrenalin rush was taking care of that.

  He opened a drawer and pulled out the small Glock 26 pistol that he kept at home, placing it into the small of his back. From now on he would arm himself at all times. The world had changed: it was his duty as a citizen and a future saviour of Spain to be prepared for any eventuality. The terms of his position as the head of the Veteran Legionarios’ Welfare Association stated that he must carry no weapon: his way around it had been to keep one gun at the office and the other at home. But walking the streets at a time like this without any means of defending himself was out of the question. All the rules had changed.

  After one final check to make certain that he had everything, he carefully opened the three locks on his door one by one, pulled it open as far as the security chain would allow, checked that there was no danger on the other side, and let himself out of his flat. With his hand behind his back, fingers brushing the Glock, he went lightly down the stairs and out into the street, scanning in both directions before crossing and walking with a steady, unhesitating step towards the city centre.

  Within moments of reaching his office and sitting down, he heard Paco the barman coming up behind him with his tray.

  ‘I saw you walking past, coronel,’ he said. ‘I thought you might appreciate a glass of something. On the house.’

  When he had heard about Segundo Pont on the news, Paco had immediately thought of his favourite customer. The colonel would certainly have something to say about this. Moments later he had spotted him walking to his office. It was closing time, and he was tired after a long day, but an opportunity to hear the man’s opinions on the traumatic events could not be missed. The assassination confirmed everything that Terreros had been warning about over the past months: a country on the brink, the threat of anarchy and chaos. But the look that Terreros gave him as he stood at the green door made it very clear that his presence was not required.

  Paco placed a glass of whisky and ice on the table. Terreros uttered a polite yet curt ‘Gracias’ and kept his eyes on clearly very important papers on his desk that required his immediate attention.

  ‘Hasta luego, Señor Coronel.’ Paco bowed his head a little as he bade him goodbye, then he turned and left, closing the door gently behind him.

  It was an honour to serve such men. Men of the kind that Spain needed right now. Paco had heard, just as he was stepping out of the bar, that the Catalan minister had died in hospital. The doctors had tried everything. The poor wife – pregnant as well with their first child. He hoped – prayed – that whoever had done this would be caught and brought to justice. They should bring back the death penalty for such things. The garrotte had served well in the past; it was time they reintroduced it.

  But a greater worry beat at his breast: he had heard some say that Segundo Pont was the only politician in Catalonia who could hold back the more radical members of the new Barcelona government. With him gone, the push for independence would only accelerate. This would be the beginning of far worse to come.

  Unless …

  As he walked across the square back towards his bar, he felt a curious mixture of emotion: fear combined with hope, and a sense that in the end everything would be all right. Spain had been close to disaster in the past, but had always managed to come back from the brink. At such times Destiny provided a man who could restore order.

  Was everything about to change? Was the world about to be turned upside down? Perhaps. There were forces around him intent on such an outcome. But equally he knew that there were good men, strong men, who would save the country from the disaster that now loomed on the horizon.

  And he felt certain that one of those men was the officer from the Legión that he had the honour of serving.

  Colonel Terreros would see that the forces of destruction did not prevail. Colonel Terreros would make sure that nothing would change.

  One day people would write books about that man. And he would be able to say that he had known him well, considered him a valued friend.

  Back in his office, Terreros stared at his computer screen.

  It was time.

  EIGHTEEN

  THE WINDOW FRAMES shook whenever a lorry passed in the street, despite the flat being on the top floor of the block. During the evening rush hour the noise was so bad it was impossible to sleep, no matter how tired he felt, or how drugged he might be.

  The remains of a half-smoked joint grinned at him from the ashtray on the floor at the foot of the mattress, but he ignored it and got up, stepping through to the living room.

  ‘¿Hola?’

  There was no reply. The flat was dark and empty: his father must have headed out.

  As he pissed in the toilet, he looked at himself in the mirror. A couple of spots were forming at the side of his chin – too fresh to squeeze yet: he would wait a day or two before having a go at them. The glass showed
the stains where pus had splattered from previous eruptions. He did his best to clean it off – Daniel hated it – but it was not always easy to remove once it had dried a bit. He should get a knife or something to scrape off the bits where it had hardened. It was difficult enough, the two of them living together without his mother. He did his best, but his father was not always easy to please.

  After the shooting session in the mountains things had changed for a while. He got the sense – for the first time that he could remember – that Daniel was pleased with him. Dídac was a good shot, ‘had a natural instinct’, he said. And he felt something that he had failed to recognise at first: a sense that he had done something that his father admired. They had even chatted for a while in the car on the way back to the city: usually it was either silence or political talk, stuff about the collective. But as they passed through a village they had spotted a group of pretty young girls and Daniel had made a joke and started talking about his first girlfriend – someone he had been at school with back in Castelldefels. He had been so nervous and unsure that the girl herself had grabbed his hand while they were kissing and placed it on her breast. ‘You’re supposed to touch me there.’ He made up for it once he got the hang of things.

  And Dídac had glowed: first the gun, and now this – his father opening up, telling him the kinds of things that he never talked about, about his life, his past, what he was feeling, not just his plans and ideas.

  ‘You should get yourself a girlfriend,’ he said as they approached the city. ‘Not gay, are you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So what’s stopping you?’

  And Dídac did not know what to say. The conversation ended. By the time they got back to the flat the feeling, the glow, had gone.

  That had been almost two weeks ago. Since then things had gone back to normal – the work at the food bank, collecting scraps from restaurants, preparing, setting up, clearing up. Today was his day off, and he was resting as best he could. When he was on duty, it took up most of his time and he was happy to do the work, especially for the children. Playing with them after dinner was one of the highlights – they were happy, properly fed for once, alive to the moment, not burdened with the worries of their parents. And they were receiving aid from them, from the right kind of people. In time they would recognise that and follow them, become like them as well. Little by little, drop by drop. And finally the world could be turned into a better place. You just needed to catch people’s attention and make them listen. The collective was not just about nutrition for the body, it was food for the mind as well. You attracted them with something to eat, and you fed them ideas at the same time, ideas that would free them from the invisible chains that tied them down and made them poor in the first place. Through their stomachs you could reach their souls: that was why they were doing this.