‘I have,’ said Cámara. And he handed Torres a piece of paper with a name and a photograph of a man’s face on it.
‘It’s run by him,’ he said. ‘Colonel José Terreros, former commander of the Legión.’
TWENTY-FIVE
‘I KNOW IT’S probably not a great time to call.’
‘That’s OK. Are you all right?’
‘Yes, I’m fine. I’m at home.’
‘Have you put the creams on and everything?’
‘Yes. All done. The daily ritual.’
‘Good.’
There was a pause. The call was unusual: Alicia knew that it was rarely a good idea to ring him when he was on duty. It was a move towards him, however, a step, and he wanted to welcome it, but he was aware of Torres back in the office working away on their lead. She had caught him in the middle of their breakthrough, throwing his rhythm out, and for a moment it was difficult to change from detective to caring lover.
‘Do you—?’ he began. He was going to ask her if she needed anything – a problem that he could solve – secretly hoping that the answer would be no: he did not want to break away from the investigation just then. But she interrupted him.
‘No, I’m fine. Just wanted to … I’m sorry, you’re busy.’
‘It’s OK. I’m glad you rang.’
Which was true, in a complicated sort of way.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said. ‘We haven’t really spent much time together recently. I mean, properly. Talking. Communicating.’
‘I know.’
‘I thought, perhaps, we could do something. Go out, or …’
‘Of course. I’d love to.’
‘When it’s a good time, I mean.’
‘Yes. No, look,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure about tonight.’
‘No, of course not.’
‘But soon. Very soon.’
‘OK.’
‘We could go somewhere nice. Maybe for dinner.’
‘OK.’
‘Maybe down to the Albufera lake,’ he said. ‘Somewhere, I don’t know, quiet. Romantic.’
‘Sure.’
‘OK, wonderful. Leave it with me. I’ll sort it out.’
‘But only when you’ve got time.’
‘Yes. I’d love to tonight, but it’s just …’ Usually he told her about his cases – they were something he shared. As a journalist, she was interested in his work and often had different, interesting things to say. And he welcomed her comments – had even come to rely on them in the past. But things had changed: he felt guilty – over what had happened to her before, and now over his contact with Carlos, a man from the CNI. A man who dealt in secrets. He felt ashamed and sullied, but excited: for the first time since he had taken on the Fermín murder case he had the sense of moving forward. Standing in the corridor outside his office, looking out over the street through dirty white curtains, he was anxious to get back to work. But this – Alicia suddenly and unexpectedly calling, opening up to him after so long – was as important. Two worlds – his private and professional lives – which in the past had often blended into one, were now separate, but both calling for his attention. Should he let them meet, or keep them apart?’
‘It’s OK,’ Alicia said after a pause. ‘I understand. But soon, OK? Let’s do this as soon as you can.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you can tell me everything.’
‘I will,’ he said.
‘And I will too.’
He put the phone back in his pocket, momentarily disturbed.
As he stepped back into the office, he saw that Torres was staring at his computer screen and typing, a look of brooding concentration on his face: he had something. Waiting, Cámara picked up the printouts they had made a few minutes before and leaned against a filing cabinet, reading through the material again.
Colonel José Terreros had been born in Málaga in 1951. He joined the army as an officer cadet and transferred to the Spanish Legión as soon as he passed his exams and became an alférez – a second lieutenant – in the I Bandera ‘Commander Franco’ unit, based in the Spanish North African enclave of Melilla, eventually becoming commander of the IV Bandera ‘Cristo de Lepanto’, in Ceuta. In 1994, then a major, he was part of the Legión’s contingent of over a thousand men sent with NATO troops to Bosnia during the Yugoslav wars. While he was there he was wounded in action, receiving a bullet in the lower abdomen. The Legión evacuated him back to Spain, where he received medical attention, but his wounds were severe and he was hospitalised for four months.
Terreros could have taken early retirement and lived off his pension at that point, but true to the legendary fighting spirit of the Legión, he had chosen to continue his military career, taking charge of the training duties at the Ceuta barracks. He had eventually risen to colonel and was effectively the second in command of his unit when eventually, some ten years before, he stepped down from active service. He retained his rank and stayed in Ceuta, where he set up the Veteran Legionarios’ Welfare Association, a kind of club for former servicemen to keep in touch, organising events and dinners for veterans of the elite infantry force. The association also controlled a fund to which veterans could apply for financial assistance if they found themselves in difficulties. Terreros was both secretary and manager of the association: the titular president was the Christ of the Good Death, the representation of the crucified Jesus at Málaga cathedral which legionarios paraded every Easter. The image of the tortured, dying yet brave Messiah, his loincloth practically falling off his bronze, sculpted flesh, typified, in the hearts of legionarios, the idealised, quasi-erotic end to earthly life.
Cámara considered himself fortunate that the Legión had featured little in his life. He remembered a boy at school in Albacete who had done his military service with the force. It was generally considered the worst fate that could befall a young man – for those not of a military bent – and the kid, barely eighteen at the time, had ended up on the barren Chafarinas islands, a tiny Spanish archipelago three and a half kilometres off the Moroccan coast and not far from the border with Algeria. The strict, punitive discipline of the Legión combined with the boredom of his two-year posting had driven him to drugs. Within six months of his discharge he had committed suicide, his mind a tangled mess.
The incident only served to confirm the prejudices Cámara already had against the Legión. It was old Spain: backward, military, religious and conservative. Franco himself had risen from among its ranks and this supposedly elite force had carried out some of the worst atrocities of the Civil War. Now it was operating within a modern, Western army, carrying out so-called peacekeeping operations. But he was less than surprised to see that the bandera based in Melilla, where Terreros had first been posted, still bore the name of the former Spanish dictator. Hitler had fought in the German army in the First World War: did his former unit bear his name today? Somehow he thought not. But Spain was Spain, Spain was ‘different’ as the hackneyed saying went. And the Legión – this supposedly elite unit of morally dubious, often ridiculous men with their aquamarine uniforms, shirts open to the belly, jogging rather than marching in order to demonstrate their superior fitness and manliness – represented so much of a rancid traditionalism of his country.
He had had nothing to do with it. Until now.
The material that Carlos had given him appeared to point towards Terreros, this former Legión colonel, as being involved in the Fermín case in some way. Why else did the Hacienda investigation into Segarra’s wife end so suddenly as soon as he had been named? The blundering stupidity of such a move had the air of authenticity about it: an alert had gone out, someone higher up had been warned, and the thing was brazenly shut down. No subtlety about it. There could be other reasons why the Hacienda inquiry was terminated, and if necessary he could look into it, but right now he had to go with the obvious, what was staring him in the face: Terreros was hot, and no one was allowed to get near him. Which almost certainly meant that there was something more to his story
.
One thing looked quite clear already: Segarra’s wife, and then Segarra himself, had been taking him large amounts of money on a fairly regular basis. And it looked as though that money had now stopped.
He tossed the printouts on to his desk and looked over at Torres.
‘What’ve you got?’ he asked.
Torres bent down and opened a drawer, pulling out a small glass bottle and throwing it across the office. Cámara caught it with expert hands, a look of surprise on his face.
‘We celebrating already?’
‘Have a drink, chief,’ Torres said.
Cámara unscrewed the top of the brandy and took a swig: it felt sweet and warming.
‘So?’ he said, licking his lips clean.
‘I’ve been digging,’ said Torres.
‘Good.’
‘Looks like there’s something we missed.’
‘There often is. What is it?’
‘About Segarra. He’s ex-Legión.’
Cámara smiled. The dots were beginning to join up.
‘What?’ he said. ‘Military service?’
‘Yes,’ said Torres.
‘Which bandera?’
‘The “Commander Franco” in Melilla.’
‘When was he there?’
Torres raised a dark eyebrow.
‘Coincides entirely with Terreros being there,’ he said. ‘So yes, in theory, he could well have served under Terreros.’
‘Rank?’ asked Cámara.
‘He left as a corporal.’
Cámara brought the bottle to his mouth again, took another swig, and grinned.
‘Good,’ he said. And he stepped over to hand the brandy to Torres. ‘You should have some as well.’
Torres drank from the bottle, a dribble of the brandy tricking into his beard.
‘So Segarra and Terreros know each other,’ said Cámara. ‘I think we can work on that assumption. We need to find out more about the colonel, though. What does he have to do with Fermín’s murder? If these two men know each other, have served together, why is Segarra’s wife – almost certainly on her husband’s instructions – taking him so much money over all these years? What’s the money for? And what’s the connection with Segarra’s illegitimate son?’
Torres pressed a button on his computer and across the room the printer kicked back into life.
‘I thought you might ask that,’ he said as pages began to spew out. ‘And I don’t know if this is relevant. But as I was sniffing around I saw a reference to this – a report on military tactics Terreros wrote about twenty years ago.’
He walked over to the printer, shuffled the papers together and handed them Cámara.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘What do you think of this?’
TWENTY-SIX
IT WAS LATE when they arrived. The coach broke down as they were approaching Tarragona and they were forced to wait by the side of the road, sitting in the scant shade of an umbrella pine while a substitute bus came to pick them up. Daniel grew angry, swearing at Dídac to shut up whenever he spoke. By the time they reached Barcelona, they had spent the entire day travelling and it was dark. Dídac was thirsty and tired. When it came to other people, his father was all patience and caring. But never with him.
At the station he dumped his rucksack by a drinks machine and tried to fish in his pockets for some coins to buy an overpriced bottle of water, but Daniel was already on the move.
‘Come on. We’ve lost enough time as it is.’
Dídac scrambled to follow him as he walked out of the station and into the street. Wherever they were headed, they were going on foot.
He had only been to Barcelona a couple of times before – short trips when he was a child. On both occasions he had been with Daniel, his father returning to his native city for meetings and dragging Dídac along because no one else could look after him back in Valencia. There had been no sightseeing; Daniel seemed to have little interest in showing his son his home town. And so the city was practically unknown to him. He had studied maps of it from time to time, whiling away long afternoons by trying to memorise street names and landmarks. Now, the excitement of finally being there was marred by the fatigue of the journey. He wanted nothing more than to stop, have something to eat, and sleep.
Daniel pushed on, four paces ahead of him. After walking what felt like several kilometres, they left the wider boulevards and delved into narrower, darker alleys. Dídac had managed to catch sight of a handful of street signs and guessed that this was the beginning of the old quarter, the Barri Gòtic.
It felt silent and creepy. The shops were closed and mostly boarded up for the night. The occasional light in the distance, as though at the end of a tunnel, indicated the existence of the odd bar or two. But the only other people apart from themselves walking the streets appeared to be tourists, entering the heated labyrinth for a late-night stroll, taking flash-shots with their cameras of one another before heading back to their hotels for the night. It felt quite different from Valencia: more serious, more uptight. Less fun. And he felt the apprehension of a nascent solitude begin to spread its roots within him.
Near the Plaça Reial, Daniel turned left down a narrow street, tall stone buildings walling them in on either side. He felt cobblestones under his feet, the trickling of sweat down the back of his neck, and a musty smell of dank drains creep into his nostrils. Still Daniel walked on.
At a low archway with the number 2 painted in white above the door, his father stopped, pulled a key out of his pocket, slotted it into the lock and opened. A light inside illuminated stone steps leading up. Dídac followed through and closed the door behind him. The stairwell was so narrow he could barely squeeze in, his rucksack brushing against the stonework on either side as they curled towards the upper floors in a tight, square spiral. On each storey, two small doors hinted at the existence of small, cave-like homes. And he wondered how anyone ever managed to bring any tables or furniture up such a tight entrance. It felt like a prison.
His legs were beginning to tire as Daniel pushed on relentlessly. As they climbed, a young man and woman brushed past, heading down the stairs, and shoved him to one side. The man had a thin black goatee that framed a smirking, knowing grin; the woman’s hair was cut short at the sides, hanging long at the back and over her forehead.
‘Hola,’ Dídac creaked, his throat dry.
They barely spared him a glance as they skipped past.
Finally, Dídac and Daniel reached the top floor. His father knocked and was let in by a large man with powerful shoulders and a mop of dark curly hair and a beard. His left arm was held in a white sling.
Daniel shook the man’s hand and stepped inside; Dídac followed.
‘This is Dídac,’ Daniel said.
Dídac put his rucksack down in order to be able to greet the man properly, but when he held out his hand, the man had gone, leading Daniel through the flat to a room filled with books at the far end.
‘Make some dinner, will you?’ Daniel called back to Dídac. ‘We’ve barely eaten all day,’ he added in a lower voice to the man.
‘Of course,’ came the reply. ‘But first, this. We were expecting you much earlier.’
The two men stepped into the end room and closed the door behind them, their voices muffled and unclear.
Dídac pushed his rucksack into a corner, and started looking around. There was a strong smell of tobacco and incense in the flat. The entrance where he was still standing was gloomy, the walls painted in some deep maroon colour. He ran his hand along the wall, feeling his way along, and found a light switch. In an instant, a kitchen, nestling to one side of the hallway, came into view. A work area was covered in plates and cooking implements, all of them needing a wash. Stepping closer, he tried to find something edible among the debris of crumbs, spilt milk, and splashes of grease. At first glance, a crust of bread, hard and with a dubious white growth on the corner, was the only thing visible.
‘You look hungry,’ said a voice – a girl
’s – from behind.
He jumped and turned around. The girl was laughing.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Did I frighten you?’
Dídac saw brown eyes smiling at him.
‘No. Yes,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’
‘Sorry for what? I’m the one who should be apologising.’
She took a step closer. She was about the same age as him, perhaps a year or so older, he thought. Her straight hair, dyed with dark red and blonde streaks, fell almost to her shoulders, with a fringe cut halfway down her brow. She wore a bright red-and-white striped T-shirt and underneath, he could not help noticing, no bra.
‘You look lost,’ she said with a smile. ‘Haven’t seen you here before. You just arrived?’
‘Yes,’ he said, coughing to clear his throat. ‘Just now. We, er, we came up from Valencia. On the bus.’
‘Oh,’ she said, as though this meant something to her. ‘Yes.’
‘I just, um …’ he said, glancing around the kitchen.
‘You’re hungry,’ she said. ‘Of course you are. We had dinner with the guys earlier on, but I think there’s something left, if we look around.’
He had no idea who ‘the guys’ were. The couple who had passed him earlier on the stairs? Who, indeed, was she?
‘I’m Dídac, by the way,’ he said.
‘Yes, I gathered that,’ said the girl. And she leaned forwards and kissed him on the cheeks.
‘Sònia,’ she said. ‘Here, let me help you. It’s not every day we have visitors up from Valencia.’
She squeezed past him in the tiny space of the kitchen, trying to get through to the fridge. He caught her scent as she brushed past: there was something rich about it, like a strange and exotic spice. As she crouched down, the inside of the fridge casting a warm yellow glow on her face, the top of her jeans at the back lowered to reveal the curled V-shape of a red thong grinning up at him.
‘There’s some cheese,’ she said, thrusting her hand in to scout for something edible. ‘And some salad. If you want, we could fix those up and fry some eggs. Would that be all right?’
A Body in Barcelona: Max Cámara 5 Page 14
