by Don Boyd
Margot immediately thought of Isobel. She hoped that she would be lucky and there would be no difficulty when she arrived which might divert Xavier. She rang the bell forcefully. No immediate reply. She rang the bell again. Nothing. She used the mobile ‘phone this time. She rang Xavier’s number. No reply. She left a message. “Xavier, I am waiting outside. Where are you?”
She didn’t panic at first. She rang Isobel. No reply. She rang Xavier again. The ‘phone switched off message’ was in Catalan. She waited to hear the English version to confirm that Xavier had indeed turned off his mobile. She looked around. The restaurateur asked her if she was okay? She said, “Yes, thank you,” rather curtly and hurried off towards the church.
She tried Isobel again; still no reply. She went into the church. Perhaps she had left a little earlier and Margot had taken longer to walk to the square than she had imagined she would? She had ambled there, lost in her thoughts. She noticed that a policeman had followed her into the church. Coincidence, surely. But now she was nervous. She looked around. She even wandered past the confessional boxes and walked up to the altar. She crossed herself. No sign of Isobel, so she decided to wait. She tried Xavier again. In vain. She felt sure that the policeman was watching her.
After twenty minutes, she gave up and walked quickly back to her office. She played back her messages. Nothing from Xavier. She went over to the window, opened the shutters and saw the policeman who had been in the church. He was on the ‘phone.
And then it happened again. Walking hurriedly towards the tiny alley that led through to Las Ramblas – the unmistakeable form of Xavier. With Archie. There was absolutely no doubt in her mind. He was wearing the bow tie she had given him as a Christmas gift.
They were arguing. In a split second of cold, unemotional clarity, she rang Carlos.
Chapter Twenty Seven
Barcelona’s modern central police headquarters building was located towards the Mediterranean end of Las Ramblas on the perimeter of Raval, where traditionally the criminal community was based during the heady days of the city’s mercantile and naval power. It is now surrounded by what has become the apex of the city’s tourist industry. Without the heavily armed sentry guards and its very modern surveillance cameras, its gates could almost be mistaken for the entrance to a television studio or modern office block.
Carlos had asked Margot if she wanted to be picked up by a police car but she decided to walk the tiny distance from the church where she had made her call. She noticed that she was being followed by a policeman who kept a very discreet distance behind her.
Catalonia has two police forces, both separated from Spain’s national justice system. One deals with civil and domestic matters, Guardia Urbana. The other, Barcelona’s autonomous extension of Spain’s very efficient and effective criminal investigation system and is responsible to Catalonia’s Ministry of Justice, which in turn is part of the Catalan separatist political structure. It is called the Mossos D’Esquadros. Both forces have different uniforms, and differing infrastructures.
Senior officers in the Mossos, like Carlos, are highly respected for many reasons. They have to undertake a very rigorous training to qualify for their work at the vast Police Academy in Barcelona, the newest and best equipped in Europe. They also enjoy a high level of success in curbing Catalonia’s crime. In Barcelona particularly, they have managed to obliterate the appalling image that the Franco regime’s policing system left behind. During the Olympic games in 1992, there were fewer reported crimes than in any city in Europe during that year and since then the Mossos, given its full policing powers in 1994, has managed to control the influx of international criminals who have flocked into the city as it has prospered into the twenty-first century. Of course, like everywhere in the world, there is an unacceptable level of violent organised crime, particularly in the ports of cities like Barcelona and Valencia, convenient trading gateways for both North Africa and the Middle East.
The city’s broad-based racial mix, particularly amongst the poorer immigrant community, has inevitably been a catalyst for tensions and exploitative crime – prostitution, the white slave business and the narcotics trades. These were the normal, more familiar arenas for Carlos’ investigative work.
The Santa Eulalia murder, as it was now known, was unique. Carlos had never been in charge of an investigation into a murder which was so difficult to categorise, but he would merit each investigation at least the same amount of rigorous and meticulous application. The murder of Paolo and Domatilla was particularly poignant because his beloved son was Paolo’s direct contemporary, and because of course, Elvira had known the victims.
When Margot walked into the sparse modernity of the interview room, Carlos decided that his junior investigating colleague should ask most of the questions – he needed to go through the procedures and he was sure that their evening dinner would be the most likely opportunity to provide him with the most crucial information. He also knew that Margot would undoubtedly be very stubborn about the issue of client confidentiality. What he had not been prepared for, was the level of information she seemed to be happy to present for him, volunteered. In his opinion, when people do that, they are usually hiding something darker, withholding another secret.
After thanking him for the invitation to dinner, Margot began by asking a question.
“Have you found the night watchman?”
Carlos and his colleague, Sub Inspector Luis Ramon, looked at her blankly.
“Come on, Carlos. This is hardly a state secret. Have you found the man who reported the crime?”
There was a hint of desperation in her voice. Margot knew that if they had found him, he would have been another factor to help them piece together what had happened while Tilly was dying. Surely he would have tried to help her, to save her?
“Yes, we have. His body was found early this morning, washed up on the shores of the large reservoir near the airport. We are waiting for the results of the post mortem from our colleagues in the ABP which controls the outer regions of the city.”
Luis, like Carlos, spoke perfect English.
“You know that I have a duty towards my clients and that the information I have about them is confidential. Has a judge been appointed for the investigation?”
Margot knew a little about the Catalonian judiciary. Before any criminal investigation could go forward, a judge had to be appointed.
“A judge will be appointed if we need to make an arrest. My boss, Major Montaner, has informed the British consul and he is personally co-ordinating the Strategic Planning Division. He was at school with Paolo’s step-father, Eusebio Casals, and is a family friend. The Mossos are very careful about the murder of any tourist or foreigner. Our tourist industry is a source of great pride in Barcelona. I am in charge of the preliminary investigation. ‘On the ground!’” Carlos was proud of his command of English colloquial phrases. “In Spain, we have the same procedure as in your country when we need to request confidential information. In police matters, it is customary that reputable doctors and psychotherapists help us do our job without betraying any part of their professional obligations to their clients. Especially in a murder case. And this is definitely a murder case.”
“I am aware of my obligations personally, but I don’t know much about Catalan law. I understand that it is much the same here as in the US.” Margot made it clear that she was resigned to that. Carlos explained that in Barcelona, like in the US, the legal system was particularly hampered by very similar and strict procedural bureaucracy.
“At Chicago, questions of client confidentiality and the ethical and moral implications of privileged knowledge were important issues, fiercely debated. But we were always to be encouraged to be as helpful as we could with the police.”
“You are not, of course, a suspect. We are absolutely certain that you had no direct connection to the deaths of your clients. My colleague, Luis, needs to ask you questions which will help us trace their killer.”
�
�I will give him as much help as I can. Who are the suspects?”
There was a fresh, almost cold, confidence in Margot’s voice, as if she had regained control of her destiny, and no longer needed help from anyone. She knew that she had to be very careful. With the new knowledge she had learnt from Isobel, for Isobel’s sake. She also had to protect Laura, and she felt a strong sense of responsibility towards Robert (his relationship with Tilly was a secret), and of course, to Paolo and Tilly’s parents. But she also knew that Carlos was a professional and apart from his own investigative work, which would have thrown up information at least as effective as some of the knowledge she had gleaned more privately, Carlos would also be ruthless in his determination to prise from her everything she knew. She wanted to give him and his colleague the impression that whatever she told him now would be as much as he would need to lead him to Xavier without revealing anything whatsoever about her relationship with him. Her main problem was that her only known public encounter with him had been at the Liceu with Robert. To that extent, Carlos would hardly have known that she had any special knowledge about Xavier. Even her notes about Paolo and Tilly made no reference to him. And then there was the thorny new factor – Archie’s connection.
“The only official suspect at this early stage is an English journalist, a Mr Alton. And we have been interviewing your husband.”
Margot smiled at Luis. Robert and Archie?
Luis began with a series of simple perfunctory questions about her job and her clients. Background more than anything else. He wanted to know first if she ever mixed with her clients socially.
“Yes, I do! Many therapists are stricter than I am. In the small community of British and American ex-patriots, it would be very difficult to avoid overlap. I have found a way to make it work for my clients and for my own peace of mind. It is sometimes awkward. But Tilly became my client because her father was my husband’s best friend…”
Carlos and Luis knew that they didn’t need to establish her connection, but this of course allowed them to ask questions about Paolo and Tilly that had roots in her social connection with them, as opposed to their professional relationship. This in turn gave Margot the opportunity to pass them a series of useful facts and connections. The obsession about Pre-Raphaelite painting. The enthusiasm for digital work. The language school. Catalan history. Even Xavier’s past in the context of the language school (although she had to hold back the knowledge that Paolo had been taught by Xavier at the same school he had been fired from. Xavier had told her that. Not Paolo). Her volunteered information about Xavier went strangely unnoticed at first. Neither policeman seemed particularly interested.
“Did you know that Tilly’s arms were mutilated, scarred? Self-inflicted.”
“No, but I saw her do what she did on the DVD.”
This was true. Tilly had obviously been very clever and like most self-harmers, had covered the evidence. She wore long-sleeved tops to all her sessions with Margot.
“Why did she do this awful thing to herself?”
“She took her artistic projects very seriously.”
“Who would have told her about the Austrian artist, Günter Brus? It might have been your husband?”
“MACBA had an exhibition of his work.”
“Why would she have known about this?”
“They were very inquisitive artists. They would have been fascinated.”
“Is there anyone else you know who might have shared their enthusiasm for this kind of perverted behaviour, under the guise of ‘art’?”
“No!” she lied for the first time. Robert, of course. And Xavier.
“Did Tilly ever discuss this with you?”
“No!” This was true, of course.
“How long were they your clients? Why did Paolo want to stop coming?”
These were all legitimate questions. Routine. Margot answered them efficiently. She wanted to find a simple mechanism which could lead them to Xavier without directly incriminating him. In this first round of questions there had been no opportunity.
But Carlos had been waiting to ask her the one inevitable question she had hoped he would ask.
“Do you know Xavier Innes-Hopkins?”
“I have met him once at the opera house. He is a friend of one of my clients.”
“What do you know about his relationship with your clients?”
Margot paused.
“As far as I was aware, in looking through my notes, and from my sessions with them, they never mentioned Xavier. But of course, he was obviously helping them with their art projects.” Again this was true, but Carlos was no fool.
“We asked him to come in here this morning which he did very willingly. He told us that he had a long and complicated relationship with both Domatilla and, of course, with Paolo. We have a register here in Spain, of people who might have committed crimes in another country, bad crimes, of suspected paedophiles, for example. Mr Innes-Hopkins was the subject of a long, unsuccessful investigation by the Scottish police. Paolo was taught by him at the boarding school which eventually fired him for suspected homosexual relationships with his pupils. He is on our list. And a list they have at the consulate.”
“Is he a suspect?”
“Of course, but so are many others. We had thought that the night watchman was the major suspect until this morning. And then there is your friend and client, Señor Robert Alton.”
“I heard that the night watchman had ‘phoned the ambulance.”
“You need to meet our criminal psychologist, Olivia. He will tell you that many killers, psychopaths particularly, ‘phone somebody from the scene of their crime.”
At this point, Margot seized her opportunity to point them in the right direction. The Mossos had obviously been very thorough and she was able to help them with her own work as a sleuth.
Without hinting at her secret relationship with Xavier in any way at all, she explained that using the DVD and the script, and her husband’s knowledge of both Pre-Raphaelite art and Catalan history, she worked out that Paolo and Tilly’s artwork had involved someone else, another person whose boundaries were broader. After the funeral, she had watched the DVD again, paying attention to every detail rather like a detective, and in particular she had amplified the off-camera voice, which she had thought was familiar. She was pretty sure that the voice on the DVD was the same voice she had heard somewhere else. One of her clients had asked her about Xavier and the strange moment at the crematorium. Robert had mentioned Xavier’s school of languages connection and she had then realised that in all the time the couple had been seeing her professionally, Paolo and Domatilla had deliberately, mysteriously disguised and hidden one crucial relationship in their lives. Why? Putting two and two together, she surmised they had been hiding something, very uncharacteristically. She played the tape once more, and then knew that the off-camera voice was Xavier. Looking at the script, she also realised that to complete it, they would have had to involve somebody else. A third person to visualise their demise?
“But the script is only about Santa Eulalia. There is no mention of Paolo. Or a young man being nailed to a cross… Paolo and Tilly could have done all this on their own.”
Margot looked down. Until then she had been able to separate the grisly details from the realities of Paolo and Tilly. She composed herself, as the police officer continued.
“Señor Inns-Hopkins confirmed everything you have suspected. He admitted that he had helped in the shooting of parts of Tilly’s film. But he denies any involvement in their deaths. He also has a powerful alibi for Monday night. He tells me that Señor Alton left the Liceu before you.”
Luis was determined to trick Margot into giving up some of her privileged secrets. He doggedly pitched in again. His voice had the tone of a man who sensed that he was dealing with a liar. Margot tried to judge her situation objectively. This was a police investigation, for God’s sake! Her two favourite clients had died violently, almost certainly aided and abetted by her love
r, and they were trying to lay the blame on one of her husband’s oldest friends.
“We are confident that he has told us the truth. We had hoped that you might have had some more information which could have come from your notes. Do you use tape recordings?”
“Not always, but yes, sometimes. It depends on the client. With Paolo, yes. Not for Tilly.”
“Do you know Mrs Isobel Komura?” The question she had most dreaded. What did they know?
“No! I don’t. Who is she?” Another lie.
“You know who she is. She is the woman who slapped Señor Alton’s face in the crematorium.”
“Oh, yes! Extraordinary… Have you talked to her?” she asked very casually.
“No, not yet. We have been interviewing everybody at the language school who knew the victims. She is on our list for tomorrow’s interrogation.”
Interrogation? Both men were silent as if they were waiting for her to tell them something. Margot needed time. She had told them what she had thought would be enough to nail Xavier. All to no avail. But she was determined to hold back.
“Why are you interviewing my husband?”
The two policeman looked at each other.
“I would have thought that would have been obvious. He was Domatilla’s godfather, and he had taught at the same school as Paolo.”
