Amaia looked at the photos taken inside the hut again. An antique wooden broom stood in a corner by the chimney, partially concealing a small mound of rubbish. She went back to one of the previous photos and enlarged the image again and again until she was sure of what she was looking at. She dialled the number for Johana’s home and waited until she heard Inés’s mournful voice.
‘Good evening, Inés, it’s Inspector Salazar.’
She listened for two or three minutes to the details of what had taken place at the house, the missing money, documents and more. She waited patiently while the woman went on, her tone bordering on triumph at seeing her suspicions confirmed. When the torrent of information ceased, Amaia continued.
‘I knew about that, Lieutenant Padua called me half an hour ago … But there’s something you can still help me with. Your husband is a car mechanic, is that right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Has he always worked as a mechanic?’
‘He did in the Dominican Republic, but he didn’t find work in his own profession straightaway when he arrived here and he worked for a livestock farmer for a year.’
‘What did his job involve?’
‘He was a shepherd, he had to take the sheep into the mountains; sometimes he spent several days up there.’
‘I want you to look in the fridge, in the kitchen cupboards, in the pantry, anywhere you use to store food. Look and tell me if anything’s missing.’
The telephone must have been a cordless one because Amaia could hear the woman’s agitated breathing and her hurried steps.
‘Holy Mother of God! He’s taken all the food, Inspector!’
Amaia cut the call short as politely as she could and rang Padua.
‘He won’t try to leave the country, at least not by the usual routes. He’s taken provisions for several weeks; he’s up in the mountains, there’s no doubt about it, he knows the herders’ routes like the back of his hand. If he leaves the country he’ll do it via the Pyrenean border, and thanks to his knowledge of the area he’ll be able to cross the valley and get into the mountains without being seen. And he knew the hut, there were sheep faeces at the crime scene; they’d been swept up, but they were in a pile by the fireplace. I’d get in touch with his former boss. Inés told me he’s a farmer from Arizkun. Speak to him, he could be very helpful in terms of the paths and the refuges. Of course the guys from the Nature Protection Service will know the paths.’
Amaia was aware of Padua’s humiliation at the other end of the line in spite of his silence and she suddenly felt furious; he wasn’t going to congratulate her, it hadn’t exactly been a job well done, but she herself was balancing on a tightrope in the midst of an investigation that had ground to a halt and had no suspect.
‘Lieutenant, police officer to police officer, this remains between you and me.’
Padua muttered his hurried thanks and hung up.
31
‘I’m a little girl,’ she whispered. ‘I’m just a little girl, why don’t you love me?’
The child wept as the earth covered her face. But the monster showed no pity.
She could hear the sound of the river nearby, its mineral aroma filled her nose and its cold stones pressed into her back as she lay next to the riverbed. The killer leant over her to brush her hair to either side, perfect golden locks that almost hid her naked chest. And she looked for his eyes, desperate to find pity. The killer’s face stopped close to hers, so close that she could smell his age-old scent of the forest, the river, the rock. She looked into his eyes and discovered that there were only dark pools, black and bottomless, where his soul ought to be, and she wanted to shout, she wanted to release the horror that was gripping her body and driving her crazy. But her mouth couldn’t open, the howls growing inside her couldn’t climb up and out through her throat, because she was dead. She knew that that was what the death of murder victims was like, endlessly trying to give voice to the horror inside … Forever. He saw her anxiety, he saw the pain, he saw the condemnation, and he started to laugh until his laugh filled everything. Then he leant over her again and whispered:
‘Don’t be afraid of Ama, little bitch. I’m not going to eat you.’
The phone vibrated on the wooden bedside table, making a noise like an electric saw. Amaia sat up in bed, confused and shocked, almost sure she had shouted out, and, pushing the locks of sweaty hair that had stuck to her forehead and neck away, she looked at the thing that was moving around the table propelled by the vibration as if it was a gigantic, evil beetle.
She waited a few seconds while she tried to calm herself down. Even so, she felt her pulse beating like a drum inside her head when she held the phone to her ear.
‘Inspector Salazar?’
Iriarte’s voice brought her back to reality with all the speed of a magic spell.
‘Yes, what is it?’
‘Did I wake you up? I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t worry, it doesn’t matter,’ she answered. I almost owe you a favour, she thought.
‘It’s something I remembered. When you saw the body you said something that’s been going round and round in my head ever since. You said, “She’s Snow White”, do you remember? It’s sinister, but I also had that impression, and your comment only strengthened my feeling that I’d seen this before, somewhere else in a different context. I finally remembered when and where. Last summer I went to a hotel on the coast at Tarragona with my wife and children, you know, one of those ones with a huge swimming pool and an activities club for the kids. One morning we noticed that the children were particularly on edge, somewhere between upset and excited; they were going from one side of the garden to the other, collecting sticks, small stones and flowers and acting extremely strangely. I followed them and saw that at least a dozen of the smallest ones had gathered in a corner of the garden and formed a huddle; I went over and in the middle of the huddle I saw that they had arranged a sort of chapel of rest for a dead sparrow. It was lying on a mound of tissues surrounded by round pebbles and shells from the beach, and they had put flowers all round the little bird, forming a garland around it. I was moved. I congratulated them on their work and warned them about the diseases a dead bird might carry and that they should wash their hands; I almost had to drag them away from there afterwards. I managed to put the thought of that little bird out of their heads by playing with them, but I saw groups of children going to the corner where the sparrow lay over the course of several days. I told one of the managers about it and he removed it, despite the complaints and disgust on the part of the kids, even though the poor creature was completely riddled with worms by that point.’
‘Do you think it was the boy who found her?’
‘His father said that the boy had been up on the hill with other friends. It seems likely to me that the children found the body, but earlier than the day they mentioned it. I think they discovered it and decided to prepare a chapel of rest, the flowers … it was probably them who covered her up. Furthermore, I noticed that the prints that appeared on the perfume bottle were really quite small. We assumed they belonged to a woman, but they could also be a child’s. I’m almost sure it was them.’
‘Snow White and her little dwarves.’
Mikel was eight years old and he knew that he was in serious trouble. He sat on the visitor’s chair in Iriarte’s office swinging his feet backwards and forwards in an attempt to calm himself while his parents looked at him with encouraging smiles, which, far from reassuring him, made him even more aware of his parents’ concern. They were trying to hide it, but their behaviour gave it away. His mother had straightened his clothes and brushed his hair at least three times, and each time she had looked him in the eyes with that worried expression she had when she wasn’t at all sure about what was happening. His father had been more direct. ‘Don’t worry, nothing bad’s going to happen to you. They’ll ask you a few questions, you just tell them the truth as clearly as possible.’ The truth. If he told the truth clearly, something
bad was bound to happen to him. Now that he had seen his friends arrive through the half open door, filing down the corridor accompanied by their parents, and had exchanged some truly desperate glances with them, he knew that there was no escape. Jon Sorondo, Pablo Odriozola and Markel Martínez. Markel was ten and might stand firm, but Jon was a ninny, he’d tell them everything as soon as they asked. He looked at his parents again, sighed and turned to Iriarte.
‘It was us.’
It took them a good half hour to calm the parents down and convince them that there was no need for a lawyer, although they could call one if they wanted; their sons were not being accused of any crime, but it was vital for them to speak to the children. In the end they agreed and Amaia decided to move everyone to the meeting room.
‘Well, boys,’ Iriarte began, ‘does anyone want to tell me what happened?’
The children looked at one another, then at their parents and finally remained silent.
‘Alright, would you prefer it if I asked you questions?’
They nodded.
‘Do you normally go to that hut often?’
‘Yes,’ then answered all at once, like a timid class of frightened students.
‘Who found her?’
‘Mikel and me,’ answered Markel in a whisper, which was not entirely devoid of pride.
‘This is very important. Do you remember what day it was when you found her?’
‘It was Sunday,’ answered Mikel. ‘It was my grandma’s birthday.’
‘So you found the girl, told the others and you went back each day to see her.’
‘To take care of her,’ clarified Mikel. His mother covered her mouth, horrified.
‘But she was dead, for God’s sake!’ exclaimed his father.
A feeling of confusion and revulsion rippled through the adults, who started murmuring. Iriarte tried to calm them down.
‘Children have a different way of seeing things and death makes them very curious. So, you went back to take care of her,’ he said, addressing the boys, ‘and you took good care of her, but was it you who arranged the flowers?’
Silence.
‘Where did you get so many? There are hardly any flowers in the countryside at the moment …’
‘From my grandma’s garden,’ admitted Pablo.
‘That’s true,’ added his mother. ‘My mother called me to tell me about it, she told me that the boy went there every afternoon to pick the flowers from one of the bushes; she asked me if he was taking them for me and I told her no. I assumed they were for some girl or other.’
‘And so they were,’ said Iriarte.
His mother looked shocked as she considered that thought.
‘Did you take her perfume, too?’
‘I took it from my mother,’ answered Jon, almost whispering.
‘Jon!’ exclaimed his mother. ‘How …’
‘It was one you didn’t use; it was sitting there full in the bathroom cabinet …’
His mother lifted a hand to her forehead as she realised he had taken her most expensive perfume, the one she used least, the one she kept for special occasions.
‘Fuck! Did you take the Boucheron?’ and she suddenly looked more angry that he’d taken a five-hundred euro bottle of perfume than that he’d poured it over a corpse.
‘It was for the smell, she was smelling worse and worse …’
‘Was that why you hung up the air fresheners?’ The four of them nodded.
‘We spent all our pocket money on them,’ said Markel.
‘Did you touch the body at all?’
He noticed that the question made the parents uncomfortable, that they shifted in their seats and took deep breaths while shooting him reproachful looks.
‘She wasn’t covered up,’ said one of the boys, justifying their action.
‘She was naked,’ said Mikel. A titter spread among the boys but was rapidly cut off by the horrified expressions of their parents.
‘So you covered her, you wrapped her up, did you?’
‘Yes, with her clothes … they were torn,’ said Jon.
‘And with the cushion,’ admitted Pablo.
‘Did you notice whether the girl was missing anything? Think carefully before you answer.’
They looked at each other again nodding and Mikel spoke.
‘We tried to move her arm so that it would hold the bouquet, but we saw that she didn’t have a hand, so we left it where it was because seeing the wound scared us.’
Amaia was amazed at how the infantile mind worked. They were afraid of a wound and yet they were impervious to the horror of discovering a desecrated body; they were scared by a clean, albeit brutal, cut, but they had spent all their free time the previous week keeping a vigil over a body that was decomposing further every minute without experiencing any fear at all, or perhaps the fear was overwhelmed by curiosity and the herd mentality that children sometimes display and which always surprised her when she came across it.
Amaia intervened.
‘The whole hut is very clean. Was it you who cleaned it?’
‘Yes.’
‘You swept the floor, hung up air fresheners and tried to burn the rubbish …’
‘But it gave off a lot of smoke and we were afraid someone might see it and come and see and then …’
‘Did you see anything that looked like blood, or dried chocolate milk?’
‘No.’
‘There was nothing poured over the body.’
They shook their heads.
‘You went every day, right? Did you notice whether anyone other than you had been there during those days?’
Mikel shrugged. Amaia made her way to the door.
‘Thank you for your help,’ she said, addressing the parents. ‘And you boys should know that if you find a body you should call the police immediately. That girl has a family who were missing her; furthermore, her death wasn’t natural, and the delay in telling the police could mean that her murderer, the person who killed her, might escape. Do you understand how important what I’m telling you is?’
They nodded.
‘What’s going to happen to the girl now?’ Mikel wanted to know.
Iriarte smiled as he thought of his own children. Snow White’s little dwarves. They were in a police station, they had just been interrogated, their embarrassed parents were torn between horror and disbelief, and they were worrying about their dead princess.
‘We’ll give her back to her mother, they’ll bury her … They’ll put flowers on her grave …’
They looked at one another and nodded in satisfaction.
‘Perhaps you’ll be able to visit her grave in the cemetery.’
They smiled enthusiastically and their parents gave him a last scandalised look at such a suggestion before pulling their little ones towards the door.
Amaia sat down facing the pin board, to which they had added the photos of Johana, and marvelled again at how adaptable a child’s mind was. Iriarte came in with Zabalza and smiled openly as he placed a cup of milky coffee in front of her.
‘Snow White,’ he laughed. ‘I’m sorry for the poor kids, their parents will be taking them straight to the psychologist. And there’ll be no more trips to go exploring up on the hill.’
‘Well, what would you do if they were your children?’
‘I suppose I’d try not to be too hard on them; once upon a time I might have given you a different answer, but I’ve got kids now, Inspector, and I can assure you that I’ve learned a lot over the last few years. We’ve all gone out exploring like that, especially those of us who’ve grown up in rural areas; having come from around here you must have gone down to the river to explore, too.’
‘Yes, a degree of childish curiosity seems perfectly normal, but we’re talking about a body here, you’d expect that to send kids running and screaming.’
‘Perhaps it does for the majority, but not all once the initial shock has passed. The fear factor in children is much more to do with imagina
ry terror than real horrors, that’s why they are victims in so many cases, because they’re incapable of distinguishing between real and imaginary risks. I expect it gave them a good shock when they saw her, but then curiosity and their morbid fascination grew, children are incredibly morbid. I know it’s not really comparable, but we found a dead cat when I was seven years old. We buried it in a mound of gravel on a building site, we made a cross for it out of some sticks, we laid flowers and even prayed for it, but a week later my brother’s friends dug it up and then buried it again, just to see what state it was in.’
‘Yes, that sounds more like childish curiosity to me, but it was just a cat. They must have been horrified faced with a human body. It’s in our nature to instinctively reject the idea of identifying ourselves with death when it appears in its human form.’
‘That’s true of adults, yes, but children are different. It’s not the first time something similar’s happened. A few years ago the body of a girl who’d disappeared from home several days earlier was found at some allotments near Tudela. She’d died of an overdose and some young boys found the body. Instead of reporting it, they covered her with plastic bags and pieces of timber. When the police did find her, there was a lot of confusion and uncertainty over what had happened to her; the overdose was revealed by the autopsy and the police quickly traced the boys from all the fingerprints they’d left at the scene, but their actions had still altered the investigators’ first impressions.’
‘Incredible.’
‘But true.’
Jonan knocked as he entered the room.
‘Inspector, Lieutenant Padua just called, they’ve arrested Jasón Medina at Gorramendi. He was in a hut on the mountainside not far from Erratzu. They also found the car hidden among trees about twelve kilometres away from there. There was a sports bag containing girls’ clothing, Johana’s passport and a cuddly mouse in the boot. They’re holding him at the barracks in Lekaroz. Padua’s said he’ll wait for you to arrive before he starts the interrogation.’
The Invisible Guardian Page 24
