The Beggar's Opera

by Peggy Blair

  THIRTY - FOUR

  Inspector Ramirez was surprised when the Minister of the Interior’s clerk phoned to summon him to a briefing with the minister about the charges.

  The minister, although responsible for the Internal Order and Crime Prevention section of the ministry, including the Cuban National Revolutionary Police, rarely spoke to Ramirez.

  Ramirez was a high-ranking police officer, but his position in the food chain of Cuban politics was only slightly above that of an eggplant. At the evolutionary level of perhaps a chicken. Ramirez smiled at the thought.

  He drove past El Paseo del Prado, one of the most beautiful avenues in Havana. The bronze statues of lions and cobbled pavement showed its former elegance, a contrast to the destruction of the tenements. He drove past a poster for the Museo del Auto Antiguo, the Old Havana vintage car museum. A redundancy, if there ever was one, thought Ramirez. The entire city was one big car museum.

  He parked his small blue car and walked briskly down the cracked path to the government offices at the Plaza de la Revolución, although he expected he would probably have to sit on a hard wooden bench in the hallway for at least an hour until the minister deigned to see him.

  “Go in, Inspector,” the clerk said, motioning him through immediately. “He’s expecting you.”

  Astonished, Ramirez pulled open the heavy wooden door to the minister’s private office.

  “Inspector Ramirez.” The politician waved his arm expansively. “Please. Come in, come in. Sit down.”

  Ramirez lowered himself into one of two soft leather armchairs on his side of the massive mahogany desk. It was an office designed for smoking, not working. The minister had a reputation for being one of the most bureaucratic and least efficient of Castro’s inner circle, which was quite an achievement, given the competition. Ramirez was surprised at being feted so warmly.

  “You have a Canadian policeman in custody.”

  Ramirez thought the politician looked worried. Or perhaps distracted. There was no mention of Christmas; none of the usual felicitations. It was unusual in his experience for a politician to get so directly to the point.

  “Yes. Michael Ellis. I arrested him for the rape of a young boy. I expect to charge him with the child’s murder as well.”

  “Was he beaten?”

  “The boy? Yes.”

  “No, the suspect. I have to deal with his embassy. I approved a prison visit by a Canadian consular official last night.”

  “No,” Ramirez said. “Señor Ellis has been very well treated.” He filled in his superior on the details of the investigation.

  “I want you to report to me on this matter directly,” said the minister. “And I want to review copies of all your reports, understood?”

  “Of course. Whatever you wish,” said Ramirez, surprised at the minister’s interest. The last time he had seen the Minister of the Interior quite this animated was after the ministry had seized a cargo of smuggled rum. The minister had insisted on sampling bottles from several crates personally. To ensure the rum was genuinely old.

  “Are there any known co-conspirators?”

  “We believe there was at least one.”

  “Have any of these photographs shown up in your internet monitoring? And what about the other men in those pictures, are they identifiable?”

  Ramirez shook his head. “Sometimes the faces were cropped. In others, the pictures were shot out of focus. There is nothing in the frames to identify where they were taken. As for the internet, Detective Sanchez handles that surveillance. I think if any of the pictures had been distributed online, he would know about it.”

  “Good. It means there is still time to control this situation.” Ramirez wasn’t exactly sure what situation the minister was referring to.

  “Thousands of sex tourists come here every week,” the minister said, frowning. “Fidel Castro does not want Havana to become a sex tourist destination. He is extremely worried about the incidence of AIDS, which at the moment, as you know, is very low. You know the president’s commitment to combating this disease.”

  Ramirez nodded. Castro had recently sent dozens of Cuban physicians to Botswana to help fight AIDS. But he had also sent several thousand doctors to Venezuela in exchange for oil. With the American dollar no longer legal, Cuban doctors were the new currency.

  “Speaking of the president, how is his health?” Ramirez inquired.

  Castro had missed his eightieth birthday party in early December. The celebrations were supposed to complement the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Granma boat landing. Rumours were rampant that Castro had pancreatic cancer and was refusing treatment.

  But late on Christmas Eve, a Spanish specialist in oncology and intestinal disorders had been rushed to Castro’s hospital from the airport along with some sophisticated medical equipment. Perhaps Castro had changed his mind.

  “El Comandante should be returning to his duties soon. But he remains actively involved in all important issues. This situation with the Canadian is of considerable concern to him. As you know, we increased the penalties under the Penal Code to deter extranjeros from coming here to commit sex crimes. After this Canadian is convicted, I want to assure you, he will be executed.”

  Ramirez nodded. It was a lot trickier executing a prisoner before a conviction.

  “A strategic execution will serve our domestic purposes. The people get soft when there are too many commutations of the extreme penalty. They begin to take liberties. Besides, it is in our political interest to draw international attention away from the dissidents for a while. It will send a message to the Damas de Blanco, with their stupid flowers. Counter-revolutionary worms.” The minister shook his head in disgust.

  Ramirez was surprised to hear that the minister perceived the Ladies in White as a political threat. The middle-aged women protested by walking silently around Havana every Sunday after mass holding pink gladiolas. Their husbands and relatives were political prisoners. Or as Fidel Castro would describe them, “American-controlled mercenaries.”

  “Canada is a friendly country, Minister. I had planned to ask the Attorney General to consider capital punishment, but I meant to ask: are you at all concerned about the possible diplomatic repercussions if things take that direction? We haven’t had an execution here for several years.”

  The last involved a group of men who had hijacked a ferry in 2003, intending to flee to the United States. A week after their trial began for terrorist activities, three of them were slumped on the ground in front of a firing squad. Come to think of it, Ramirez wasn’t sure if they’d ever been formally convicted. Maybe it was easier to execute a prisoner than he remembered.

  “What repercussions?” The minister laughed, shaking his head. “There is a new government in Canada that probably wishes it still had capital punishment. All I expect from the Canadians is a congratulatory phone call.”

  THIRTY - FIVE

  An hour or two after his meeting with Celia Jones, Mike Ellis heard steps in the corridor. Three prison officials walked towards him, accompanied by a guard. The oldest of the three poked his fingers through the bars and waggled them at the prisoners as if they were exhibits in a zoo. All wore the green military fatigues and high brown boots of the Ministry of the Interior. A guard pointed to Ellis. The one with the most stars on his lapel spoke to Ellis in fluent English.

  “Your lawyer wants to speak to you on the phone. This request has been approved by the Minister of the Interior and Inspector Ramirez. It is a privilege not usually extended to prisoners. You will have access to such calls for the next twenty-four hours only. You will pay for this courtesy: fifteen CUCs.”

  But when the guard took Ellis to the phone, it was a public pay phone, where his side of the conversation could be easily overheard. To use it, he had to either have money or a prepaid card. He had neither.

  “How am I supposed to speak to my lawyer here? There’s no privacy.”

  The guard leaned over, keeping his voice
down. “I can take you to a private room with a telephone. But you will have to pay me.”

  “You people have all my money; it was in my pants when you booked me in.”

  “What size are your shoes?”

  The guard took Ellis, barefoot, down the hall to the same room where he had spoken to O’Malley two days before, and waited outside the door.

  “Oh, good, Mike. I’m glad they let me call you. Inspector Ramirez said it’s no problem if I need to get hold of you by phone.”

  “Then I guess I’ll need more shoes.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “They’re like cigarettes in jails back home.”

  Celia Jones sighed. “I was afraid there might be strings attached. Okay, leave it with me. I’ll see what I can do. I just wanted to tell you that I listened to the interview tapes and went through the photographs on the CD.”

  She said the pictures had been violent, as Ramirez had warned her they would be. Ellis knew what she was thinking. If he collected child porn, she wouldn’t care if he rotted to death in a Cuban jail. But she was a professional and kept her thoughts to herself.

  “Listen, Mike, there isn’t much I can complain about in the interview, except it sounds like the tape was turned on and off at least once. When it resumes, Inspector Ramirez refers to something that wasn’t discussed in the recording before: the Rohypnol they found in your room. Do you remember why he turned the tape off?”

  “Yeah. He stole some rum from the exhibit room. That’s good, isn’t it, for us? Won’t that make the tape inadmissible?”

  “In Canada, yes. Here, I don’t know. In a country this poor, I have a feeling that lots of things walk out of that exhibit room. I don’t know what the law is here on recording statements; you’d need a Cuban lawyer for that. But that’s not really why I wanted to speak to you. The more I think about it, the more I think that woman drugged you. But the police didn’t do any blood work on you. I don’t know why. Maybe Cuban law doesn’t permit it. If they had, I could get it tested for Rohypnol. This long after your exposure, it’s unlikely there are even trace amounts left in your system.”

  “Do you want me to volunteer blood samples?” Ellis asked, anticipating her request. “Ramirez asked me for DNA; I said no.”

  He heard the uncertainty in her voice. “It’s risky. It could clear you, but it could also convict you. If you have Type A blood, that supports the police case. Probably clinches it. On the other hand, if you don’t, I can prove your innocence.”

  “Can’t you get my blood type from my service records in Ottawa? It should be on my file. That way you won’t have to disclose it if you don’t want to.”

  Except if it turned out Ellis had the same blood type as the samples taken from the boy, that would be the end of his legal representation one way or another.

  “Great idea,” said Jones, sounding genuinely relieved. “I’ll get hold of O’Malley and ask him to send your file here somehow. Good thing you signed that release for me today.”

  Right now, as bad as it looked, she explained, the police had little hard evidence to connect Ellis to the boy’s rape. Their case was completely circumstantial. The police and the technicians had collected all their incriminating evidence from a hotel room. Lots of people had stayed there, probably hundreds. The variety of hair samples, no matter how good the cleaning service, would be a dog’s breakfast of elimination and comparison. To link Ellis to the boy conclusively, they needed his DNA to compare to the semen on his sheets and the samples recovered from the boy, and as far as she knew, they didn’t have any.

  “Be careful, okay?” she said. “Suspects in Canada get convicted all the time because of discarded tissues or gum that the police seize and test. Even combs, toothbrushes. It’s probably the same here.”

  There was no toilet paper in the cell, and the idea that Ellis might see a comb or a brush during his incarceration was almost laughable. He didn’t even have a toothbrush. The contestants on Survivor were better equipped than inmates in a Cuban jail. He thought back to the mug of coffee Ramirez had tried to have him drink.

  “They don’t have any DNA, I’m pretty sure. What about that Rohypnol? Ramirez said it isn’t very common here. Can you trace that somehow? Find out more about it? Find the woman that way? Whoever she got it from may know where she is.”

  “I was thinking the same thing. I’ll try, Mike.” He could hear the fatigue in her voice as she added another item to her to-do list. “I’d better get going. I’m running out of time.”

  THIRTY - SIX

  Detective Rodriguez Sanchez walked into Ramirez’s office and pulled the door tightly closed. “Any problems with the Canadian lawyer?” he asked.

  “Other than the fact that she’s here? Nothing unexpected. Señor Ellis continues to claim his innocence but maintains he can’t remember what happened. He said nothing inconsistent with our evidence. By the way, I gave her copies of all our reports.”

  “Was that wise?” asked Sanchez.

  “I thought it best to provide her with as much disclosure as possible. We don’t want the Canadian government complaining of unfairness in a capital case. And besides, the evidence is strong.” He described his meeting with the Minister of the Interior.

  Sanchez leaned forward, puzzled. “Isn’t it strange for the minister to be this closely involved in a felony investigation?”

  It certainly was, thought Ramirez, given the politician’s reputation for doing as little as possible. “He must have the Canadian embassy breathing down his neck.”

  “Do you think so?” said Sanchez. “They don’t usually do much except hand out their little pamphlets.”

  “Well, someone seems to have pushed the minister’s buttons.

  Maybe it’s because Señor Ellis is a policeman. Think about it: when was the last time the Canadian authorities sent a lawyer all the way here to deal with a client in our custody?”

  “That man from Alberta is the only one I can think of. The oil worker. But his lawyer was privately retained, not like this. And that didn’t work so well for him.”

  Ramirez nodded. The oil worker was charged with having consensual sex with a fourteen-year-old girl. In Cuba, that was old enough for her to be married with parental permission. Apparently, he failed to propose. The girl complained when she learned he didn’t plan to take her back to Alberta as his bride. His first mistake. His second, from what Ramirez understood, was refusing to pay the prosecutor, Luis Perez, a bribe.

  The man’s lawyer flew all the way from Edmonton to Cuba to watch the trial. He stormed out of the courtroom, angrily calling the proceedings a “kangaroo court” after the panel refused to hear his submissions. But he wasn’t a witness or a Cuban lawyer. The panel, under the constitution, had little choice but to ignore his tirade. Except when it came to sentencing. The oil worker was sentenced in November to twenty-five years in prison.

  “I’m almost glad to see the minister’s interest,” said Ramirez, “although it means more work for both of us. Otherwise, the chances of these charges ever getting to court would be slim once the prosecutor gets his hands on the file.”

  “Perez.” Sanchez shook his head with disgust.

  Ramirez nodded. He and Sanchez often worked long nights processing indictments for serious cases only to have Luis Perez slip a few thousand pesos in his pocket and make his own visit to the exhibit room to dispose of vital evidence. Without sufficient evidence to pursue charges, the extranjeros returned to their countries as free men.

  A few years ago, a politician from the Bahamas was arrested for having sex with young boys. He was released after he paid a hefty bribe to the prosecutor, rumoured to be twenty-five thousand American dollars. Ramirez had laughed out loud when Castro declared the currency illegal the following week. This had happened only one month before Christmas, and afterwards Perez was as poor as the rest of them. Ramirez and Sanchez had taken great pleasure in wishing the glum prosecutor Feliz Navidad every time they crossed his path.

  Lawy
ers. Ramirez shook his head. It didn’t matter which side they worked on; they were no friends to the police.

  THIRTY - SEVEN

  Celia Jones checked at the business centre in the hotel. Her laptop was useless. There was no internet access. There had been none for over a week, the young woman explained. And no, they had no idea when service would be restored. Get used to it, the woman’s tone implied, although she was smiling. This is Cuba, Señora.

  Jones needed to find a secure computer somehow, one that wasn’t monitored by whoever was in charge of surveillance. One where she could find information away from peering eyes. The courts in Canada discouraged trial by ambush. In Cuba, ambush was all she had.

  She walked into the hotel lobby, past the sweeping Gone-withthe-Wind-style staircase that defined the Parque Ciudad’s main floor. Miguel Artez, smart in his grey uniform, hat, and white gloves, stood chatting with the concierge. She walked towards them.

  “Miguel, I need a favour.” She tried to appear relaxed, not as sure as Mike that Artez could be trusted.

  “Hola, Señora …?” He waited for her to give her last name.

  “Please, just call me Celia.” She shook his gloved hand and he gave her another big smile.

  “How can I help you, Señora Celia?” Teasing, knowing that wasn’t her last name.

  “Miguel, is there any way that I can get internet access in Havana? Do you have internet cafés here, for example?”

  “I am sorry, Señora, we do have such places, but Cubans can only use them to send messages on the island. Most sites are blocked by government firewalls. There is no access to international websites at all. But you can use the intranet in the correos.” The Cuban post offices.

  “Is there no way to access search engines here?” she asked, disbelieving. “You mean I can’t even get email in this country?”

  The concierge walked away from them to answer a call at his desk, disengaging from their conversation. Artez bent towards Jones and lowered his voice.