Fatal Sunset

by Jason Webster

  He leaned down and brushed his hand through a low bush at his side, then lifted it to his face and sniffed the deep, warming scent of rosemary carrying memories of every paella he had ever eaten. What looked like lavender plants were also scattered about, with bright little spots of lilac at the ends of their stalks.

  ‘It’s a lovely spot,’ said Vicente. ‘Enrique might not be all right up here –’ he tapped the side of his head – ‘but he was right to put the chain there, stop people from coming up. They wouldn’t appreciate it anyway. What with the amount of drink they take. And other things.’

  It took Cámara a moment, but there was a sound in the background, like a faint hum. Then he noticed a number of grey-painted wooden boxes lined up on the far side of the track. The sound appeared to be coming from there. He crossed over to investigate.

  ‘Enrique’s beehives,’ explained Vicente.

  ‘And they’ve been here …?’

  ‘A couple of weeks. Not much more.’

  Cámara approached cautiously. Apart from the humming sound, there was little activity. A small gap in the wood near the bottom of each box appeared to be the entrance. At each one, two or three bees dozily sat, like guards. Occasionally a solitary bee would appear and fly off, disappearing into the trees, or buzzing around the rosemary and lavender bushes looking for some previously missed droplets of nectar. They didn’t seem the kind of bees one might have to be careful with.

  ‘They’ll be sleeping now,’ said Vicente. ‘Having their siesta. Bees like the mornings. That’s why the openings are facing east, so the dawn wakes them up. That’s when they’re busiest.’

  Cámara walked back along the track towards him.

  ‘What time was it when José Luis came up?’

  Vicente thought for a moment.

  ‘Must have been around midday,’ he said. ‘Perhaps a bit after. Before lunch, anyway.

  ‘Bees still active at that time?’

  ‘They’re beginning to quieten down by then,’ he said. ‘Usually.’

  ‘But these are an aggressive strain, you said.’

  ‘Well, they must be,’ said Vicente, a defensive tone creeping into his voice. ‘They stung José Luis, didn’t they?’

  Cámara nodded.

  ‘Where was José Luis when they found him?’ he asked.

  Vicente pointed to a patch of ground near where he was standing, at the edge of the track.

  ‘But you didn’t see him yourself,’ Cámara said.

  ‘My wife brought me, showed me where.’

  Cámara narrowed his eyes.

  ‘And you call this place the Chain.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Vicente said. ‘On account of the chain over there. Didn’t have a name before. Or not that I remember.’

  ‘Paco told me that José Luis was up here to have a meeting with Enrique.’

  Vicente frowned.

  ‘I wouldn’t know anything about that,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Did they often meet up here?’

  Vicente looked uncomfortable.

  ‘First time I’ve heard of it,’ he said. ‘They usually met down in the village, at the bar, I thought. That’s when they were still talking to each other, at least.’

  They headed back down the slope towards the nightclub.

  Cámara scoured the ground for the viper, but there was no sign of it.

  TWENTY

  Marisol had done considerably better than the military spokesman at Palma. Her tone of voice had not wavered, her fluency unhindered by any doubt or concern. As the head of the press office at the Ministry of Defence, shielding inquiries from journalists over sensitive information was a daily occurrence, and the fact that she had survived in the job for so long was testament to her skill. Alicia had been impressed and reflected that she might even, at some future date, listen to her recording of the phone conversation as an example to study. Despite all the time they had spent together in the past, Marisol still had something to teach her.

  She spoke almost continuously for ten minutes, producing such a barrage of words that it was impossible for Alicia to butt in or stop her midstream. That in itself was admirable, for in those ten minutes she gave away virtually nothing more than what Alicia already knew – that the island still belonged to the military despite being declared a nature reserve, that military manoeuvres were under way as part of a build-up to bigger war games that were due to be played with other NATO countries, that this was not a permanent measure but that no date could be given for when the island would be returned to its previous state. How, in effect, nothing unusual was actually taking place. The whole thing might not be exactly routine – nothing like this had happened on Cabrera before – but it was as good as. And she stressed in the most emphatic terms that no harm would come to any of the wildlife on the island, that the military respected the local ecosystem, that its being a military possession in fact was beneficial to the natural habitat and that the real threat was from the masificación of building projects designed to cater for tourists and holiday homes of the kind that had caused so much damage on the rest of the Balearic islands.

  It was perhaps this last point that had set Alicia’s alarm bells ringing, although if truth be told she had suspected something almost from the moment she had heard Marisol’s voice on the other end of the line. When the conversation ended shortly after – Marisol having to dash off to a meeting, but so lovely to hear from her again and they really must get together as soon as possible – it was this emphasis on Cabrera wildlife that had stuck in Alicia’s mind. Since when did the military care so much about a few jellyfish and a handful of plants? That, and something else. Not so much what Marisol had said, but what she hadn’t. The obvious line of defence – not just from a Ministry press officer but from Marisol specifically – would have been to wonder why Alicia was sniffing around this in the first place, to question her journalistic judgement for spending any time at all on it. There was no story, was the obvious thing to say – the same line Sergi at the newspaper had used. And while the suggestion had been there, with talk about the measures on the island being almost routine, it had not been spelled out or stated clearly. And that, more than anything else, persuaded Alicia that there was, in fact, something to be investigated. That there was, to use a phrase that Max was fond of, un gato encerrado – a dead cat locked up somewhere, invisible but letting off quite a stench.

  It was time to dig a little deeper. It was already early evening and the street outside was beginning to buzz to the sound of children coming home from school and the honking of horns as traffic built up. She felt the thrill of excitement, a sensation she had not enjoyed for several years – the possibility that she was on to something, something that no one else was even remotely aware of.

  She rubbed her hands together and sat down at the computer, her fingers moving rapidly over the keyboard. It was time to do some background checking on Cabrera. Some clue might lie in the open air waiting for her to stumble upon it.

  She brought up a handful of web pages on the island. The photos showed a beautiful, unspoilt place with limestone rocks breaking out of crystalline water to low peaks perhaps two hundred metres high. The landscape was covered with typical Mediterranean scrub plants, spattering the paleness of the rock with a light coating of olive green. There were few buildings apart from a lighthouse, the remains of an old castle and a handful of temporary structures in what was known as the ‘Port’ – the bottom point of a cove cutting into the northern coast of the main island that served as a natural harbour.

  The history of Cabrera centred on this natural formation – Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans had all used it at various times as a place to shelter their sea vessels. There was even a legend that the great Hannibal had been born there. During the Middle Ages a monastery of some kind had been set up, but the monks appeared to have gone over to the enemy after the island became a base for Barbary pirates. The castle was built around this time, but the place was virtually deserted for the following centur
ies.

  The next time Cabrera played a role in history was during the Napoleonic Wars in the early 1800s.

  And as Alicia read on she discovered something – something that set her teeth on edge.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Vicenta appeared at the sound of their footsteps, crossing the courtyard to meet them as they descended the path towards the nightclub.

  ‘Abi says he’ll speak to you now if you want.’

  Cámara nodded. Vicente headed back to the kitchen while Cámara followed the old woman to the door that Abi had passed through earlier.

  ‘He’s upset, still quite weepy,’ said Vicenta. ‘He’s taken a sedative.’

  ‘When?’ asked Cámara sharply.

  Vicenta looked concerned.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Have I done something wrong? I just gave him one now. A minute ago, no more.’

  ‘Never mind,’ said Cámara. ‘It’ll need a few minutes to take effect.’

  She opened the door and he stepped inside. Vicenta made to come in with him.

  ‘I’d rather speak to him alone,’ he said, turning and standing in the doorway.

  ‘Of course,’ she said. And she closed the door behind him.

  Cámara took a step into the room. It was dark inside and he was partially blinded from the harsh sunlight outdoors.

  ‘Come in,’ said a drowsy voice. ‘Please, take a seat where you like.’

  Cámara felt his way forward, holding out his hands to avoid bumping into anything.

  ‘Can I offer you anything to drink?’ said Abi. Cámara still couldn’t see where he was. The tone of voice was sorrowful; the offer might be genuine yet the underlying hope was that Cámara would refuse.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said.

  ‘As you wish.’

  After he had stumbled a few more steps, the room came into focus. There seemed to be no windows in what was a large, high-ceilinged room. At the side were some metal steps leading up to a mezzanine area where a mattress and an unmade bed were just visible. Down on the ground floor was a living room with a tiny kitchen area tucked into one side. A door at the back presumably led to a bathroom.

  The living room had a table in the middle, a very large television screen on one wall, and a dark brown L-shaped sofa opposite. On it, draped with a fuchsia-coloured blanket, was Abi, his head resting on white satin cushions. One arm, uncovered, lay at his side. It was long and thin, like a dancer’s. Judging by the length of the man, stretched out horizontally now, he was quite tall – taller than he had looked when he had got out of the car.

  A single lamp on a sideboard near his head cast a faint light. Cámara got a better view of his features: a long, thin, prominent nose; hollow cheeks; pronounced Adam’s apple. There was barely a gramme of fat on him.

  In his hand, Abi loosely gripped a white cotton handkerchief not unlike the one Cámara had seen Vicenta with. Perhaps she had lent him one of her own.

  Cámara sat down in a chair on the other side of the glass-topped table. A couple of gossip magazines were stacked neatly at the corner.

  ‘Forgive me,’ said Abi. He slowly lifted himself and sat up on the sofa, pulling the blanket over his shoulders. He looked older and weaker than his age.

  ‘Vicenta just gave me a sedative,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we should talk before it kicks in. Although my head’s spinning already.’

  ‘I have a few questions,’ said Cámara.

  ‘About yesterday,’ said Abi. ‘Vicenta mentioned.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Abi shook his head.

  ‘I was out,’ he said. ‘Went to the village.’

  ‘Why?’

  Abi closed his eyes.

  ‘It was José Luis’s birthday,’ he said at length. ‘We’d …’ He paused. ‘We’d had an argument earlier in the morning. I wanted to make it up to him. I drove to the village to find him a present. Something special.’

  ‘What was the argument about?’

  ‘Just, you know, couples’ stuff.’

  ‘Like?’

  Abi shrugged.

  ‘José … I usually called him José, not José Luis. He didn’t like it. José said I wasn’t doing enough for his birthday. That it was special – he was turning sixty. He could be like that, sometimes, a bit spoilt. I didn’t want to tell him about the party I was planning – it was meant to be a surprise. But, well, he got cross. And I left.’

  He sniffed and put the handkerchief to his nose.

  ‘Which was clearly the wrong thing to do, in hindsight.’

  ‘That’s when you went to the village,’ said Cámara.

  Abi nodded.

  ‘Is that your own car?’

  ‘Yes. José didn’t like driving. Preferred to be driven.’

  ‘Did he have a licence?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Abi. ‘I saw it once. But he had delusions of grandeur. He was like that. Thought it would make a better impression to have someone else at the wheel, like some kind of pasha.’

  ‘Can’t have made life easy, living out here.’

  ‘It’s why he always needed someone like me around, to be his chauffeur.’

  Abi’s mouth flattened into a humourless smile.

  ‘But you were more than just his chauffeur, weren’t you?’

  A tone of defiance crept into Abi’s voice.

  ‘I was his partner,’ he said. ‘His lover.’

  ‘Did he live here with you?’ Cámara’s eyes darted around the small, rather cramped living space.

  ‘No, no,’ said Abi. ‘We shared a bed sometimes. But José has …’ He checked himself. ‘Had his own living quarters across the courtyard. Much grander than this little hole.’

  ‘You didn’t …?’ said Cámara.

  ‘Separate living areas,’ said Abi. ‘Each person with his own space.’

  He shrugged.

  ‘It’s not a bad arrangement. If you can afford it.’

  ‘But you’d been together for a few years.’

  ‘Over a decade.’

  He sniffed.

  ‘Perhaps that’s why we stayed together for so long. Not getting on top of each other all the time.’

  ‘What about enemies? It sounds as though he – this place – was quite unpopular among the locals.’

  ‘It’s certainly not the locals who tend to come to Sunset,’ said Abi. ‘Although I’m certain that secretly a few of them would like to give it a try.’

  He squinted at Cámara.

  ‘But you’re not suggesting …?’ he said.

  ‘These are routine questions,’ said Cámara.

  ‘Surely not …’ Abi began.

  His shoulders began to shake under the blanket.

  ‘We need to look at these things thoroughly,’ said Cámara.

  Perhaps even too thoroughly, he thought to himself. He had spent most of the day on this case already. Was it really the best use of a chief inspector’s time? And yet he got the sense that there was something to be uncovered here, even if it wasn’t a murder.

  ‘I don’t know everything that was going on here,’ said Abi, ‘and I don’t want to name names, but things had been tense with Enrique recently.’

  Cámara waited.

  ‘What was going on?’ he asked when Abi said nothing more.

  ‘I don’t know. I just know it was getting worse. All this business about the Chain. José was angry – it was beginning to get to him. I heard him cursing. He was getting grumpy about it. It’s one of the reasons why I wanted to throw the party for him. Not just for his birthday, but because things had been getting to him. This Chain business.’

  He was starting to drawl a little and he was swaying slightly from side to side. The sedative was starting to take effect.

  ‘People round here are different,’ Abi went on. ‘Mountain people. They’re strange, closed folk, hold grudges for years. Families up here still not speaking since the Civil War.’

  His eyes were closed; he looked as though he were about to fall back down on to the sofa. Cámara spo
ke quickly.

  ‘Did José Luis ever take drugs?’ he asked.

  Abi waved a limp hand in his direction.

  ‘All the time.’

  He checked himself.

  ‘Well, not all the time. But often enough. Kind of goes with the job.’

  ‘What did he take?’

  ‘The usual.’ Abi’s eyes were rolling, the whites just visible under his eyelids.

  ‘There’s so much cocaine up here sometimes you could scour the floors with it.’

  He giggled softly.

  ‘Anything else?’ Cámara asked. ‘Did he ever use needles?’

  ‘There was some new stuff around,’ said Abi. ‘Didn’t try it. Don’t know what it was.’

  ‘Do you know who supplied it?’

  Abi’s head hit the cushion with a soft thump. His body was close to rolling off the sofa. Cámara walked across and pushed him firmly into place, lifting his legs and doing his best to drape the blanket over him.

  He looked around the room, glancing at the door through which he’d entered.

  ‘You won’t mind if I have a little snoop around now I’m here,’ he said.

  Deeply asleep now, Abi made no reply.

  ‘I’ll take that as a no,’ said Cámara.

  TWENTY-TWO

  He entered the main building of the nightclub through the front doors. The entrance was large and semicircular and had a high, domed ceiling, with a crystal chandelier on a long chain suspended from the keystone and a black-and-white chequered tiled floor. Large, leafy pot plants stood in classical urns on top of white stone pillars near the windows. It was bright and grand and gave the sensation of entering a palace rather than a discotheque. Cámara wondered how it looked so immaculate and well kept. It smelt of fresh, watery perfume.

  At the side was the cloakroom: a counter, with rows of empty coat hangers suspended from steel bars. A wicker basket at the side for ticket stubs had been emptied and a cloth wiped over the marble top: Vicenta must have passed through here not long before.