Fatal Sunset

by Jason Webster

  Cámara tried to remember whether he had been stung by a bee before. It was the kind of thing you wouldn’t forget. Perhaps, based on his reaction now, this was one childhood rite of passage that had passed him by. It felt like nothing he had experienced before.

  Time passed – he was unsure how long. Perhaps as much as an hour; or as little as a minute. He checked the position of the sun, but it was invisible behind the wall of trees. A few yards ahead lay Enrique’s farmhouse. He took a deep breath and started walking towards it.

  The house was a simple, unprepossessing structure with small windows and thick stone walls smoothed over with decades of whitewashing. The roof was covered with light terracotta tiles and a small chimney with a ceramic flue jutted out at the top. To one side of the building was a field with over a dozen well-tended olive trees, the light red soil beneath them entirely clear of weeds. A rusting abandoned car – an old Renault 4 – sat under the shade of the largest tree, useless now even for spare parts, but too difficult, presumably, to get rid of.

  Cámara approached slowly, more through discomfort than any sense of caution. He was hoping that Enrique might be prevailed upon to offer him a glass of water at least: the shock of the bee stings had left his mouth dry.

  Something, however, was puzzling him: if Enrique was there, why hadn’t the dog barked? Both he and Vicente had heard it from down at Sunset. Had Enrique left in the meantime? Cámara had heard no car. Yet if Enrique were here, the dog would surely have made a noise by now, have signalled the presence of a visitor, of a stranger.

  Cámara stepped around the corner of the house. Beyond, on the far side, was a garden area, with vegetables growing in neat rows. A green container next to the building collected rainwater from the roof, with a black plastic irrigation pipe running from it and branching out into smaller ones over the lines of sprouting plants. The soil was newly damp, stained dark against the drier earth nearby. Someone had switched this on in the past few minutes, for there was no sign of any automatic or timed switch to make the water flow.

  ‘Hello?’ Cámara called out. ‘Anyone here?’

  There was no reply.

  Around the next corner was a covered patio area with a couple of red plastic bar chairs. Beer advertisements on the backs had faded and been almost entirely blanched by years of sunlight. One door from the area was closed and appeared to lead into the house, while a second, at right angles to the first, was open. Beyond was a single room with a concrete floor and a tiny opening near the top of one wall to let in some light. Cámara stepped inside. It was dark and there was a tangy, disturbing smell, like the tight winds of an approaching storm. As his eyes adjusted he made out a large white chest against one wall, while opposite was a long, wide counter at waist height made out of a single slab of marble. On it were dark, indistinguishable shapes, yet the sound of flies buzzing fiercely about them made him lean in closer to see more clearly. He prodded at one with his finger: it was hard and cold and damp. The flies jumped up as one and formed a cloud around him, then the object fell to one side with a thud. Cámara looked into a single yellow eye bulging out of a fur-lined socket; it was the sectioned head of an ibex.

  A quick glance at the other objects revealed their identities as more pieces of some once-living beast – or perhaps beasts. Cámara couldn’t tell if they were all ibex, or if other animals had also been cut up and put on display in this amateur abattoir. The counter surface was sticky with old, infected blood.

  ‘You should turn around now.’

  He heard a voice from behind, trembling yet certain. It was accompanied by two other sounds: that of a dog growling very softly, as though desperate to lash out; and the unmistakable sound of a firearm being thrust against a man’s shoulder and raised to take aim.

  Slowly and carefully, with his hands clearly displayed at either side of him, Cámara began to turn around. Standing in the doorway, with an Alsatian glowering obediently from his side, was an elderly man with a tattered black baseball cap on his head, a deep scar running down the left side of his face, and a Remington hunting rifle pointing directly at Cámara’s head.

  ‘That’s it,’ said Enrique. ‘I prefer to look a man in the eye before I shoot him.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  She thought it would be Max, but instead a woman’s voice came on the line.

  ‘Marisol?’

  ‘How soon can you be in Madrid?’

  Alicia blinked, then checked her watch: it was past eight o’clock in the evening.

  ‘I think the last AVE leaves at around nine,’ she said cautiously. ‘What … What is it?’

  ‘If you make it …’ Marisol began, then halted.

  ‘What?’ insisted Alicia.

  ‘I’ll tell you.’

  Alicia breathed in.

  ‘You mean—?’

  ‘No, Alicia!’ Marisol butted in. ‘Not now … You know that much at least.’

  ‘I …’ Alicia was trying to think: throw a few things in a bag, catch a taxi to the station. She probably just had time to buy her ticket. She could be in the capital by about eleven o’clock. And Lucía would be happy for her to use the flat. She still had the key her friend had given her with the invitation to stay there whenever she needed. The place was empty anyway – it was good to have people in and out.

  ‘It has to be tonight,’ Marisol said. ‘Otherwise …’

  ‘I can do it,’ Alicia said. ‘But it’ll be late.’

  ‘No matter.’

  ‘I’ll call you when we’re pulling in.’

  ‘No.’ Marisol’s voice thudded like a heavy rock falling into a stream. ‘I’ll call you. And you’ll do exactly what I say.’

  Twenty minutes later Alicia was ready to go, spongebag, laptop, notebooks and clean clothes packed into a small wheeled suitcase. As she was leaving she remembered her phone charger and quickly grabbed it from the counter in the kitchen where she kept it plugged in, stuffing it inside her coat pocket where it jangled next to the keys to Lucía’s flat. She would call her on the way, make sure no one else was staying there that night. But in the meantime she dialled Max’s number just to fill him in on what was happening.

  His phone, however, did not ring, passing straight to voicemail. Wherever he was and whatever he was up to he had either switched the damn thing off or had no coverage. Normally he would have been back by now. Something must have come up. It sometimes did.

  No matter. She had her own investigation and had to dash. There would be time to talk – or exchange text messages – later.

  She made sure all the lights were switched off, bolted the windows and checked everything was OK. Then she closed the door behind her and turned the key, listening for the double clunk of the bar as it shot across, firm and secure.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  ‘Shooting me is not a good idea, Enrique,’ said Cámara. ‘I’m a police officer.’

  Something glinted in Enrique’s eye: a look of suspicion and fear.

  ‘Policía Nacional,’ continued Cámara. ‘I’m here investigating the death of José Luis, from the nightclub.’

  Enrique’s rifle lowered marginally from the side of his face.

  ‘Prove it,’ he said.

  Cámara’s right hand began to move very slowly.

  ‘I’m reaching into my jacket pocket to get my ID,’ he said. ‘I’m unarmed.’

  Enrique’s hands gripped the weapon tighter. Cámara pulled out his wallet and fished out his police card, offering it. Enrique appeared more focused on Cámara himself, staring him hard in the eye before finally lowering the rifle to his side and snatching the card.

  He spent some time reading it, the struggle to understand its few words visible in his eyes. Cámara waited.

  ‘Don’t see many of your kind round here,’ said Enrique, handing the card back. Cámara slipped it inside his wallet again and reinserted that into his jacket pocket. As he did so, a renewed throb of pain from the bee stings coursed through his body, making his head spin.

 
‘You all right?’ asked Enrique.

  ‘Got stung,’ explained Cámara. ‘Back at the Chain.’

  ‘Perhaps the bees don’t like the smell of policemen.’

  Another glint in his eye, of defiance and pride.

  ‘I could do with a glass of water,’ said Cámara. ‘Could I get one?’

  Enrique pursed his lips. There was something impenetrable about the man. His face was set, like concrete. Deep dark lines ran across his forehead and down the sides of his cheeks near his mouth, and his complexion was like toasted bread, hard, pockmarked and burnt in places. The scar that sliced the skin on one side was visible more for the lighter tone of the healed tissue, with clear, almost white, slash-like marks running across it in places. A knife cut, perhaps? Had Enrique been involved in a fight? It seemed possible.

  The eyes were the only thing that gave anything away, yet reading their expression was made difficult by their smallness, mere dots partially veiled behind folds of wrinkled, well-used skin, with a final curtain of thick grey bushy eyebrows that trailed downwards, almost covering the apertures of his eye sockets.

  He was a small man. Yet he stood erect and proud here in his own home, with powerful limbs and an animal-like sense of purpose about him. Enrique was no thinker; he was a man of action, of deep and perhaps thwarted passions; and he was dangerous.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he said. ‘Where are the Guardia Civil?’

  He was still holding the rifle by his side in his right hand.

  ‘It’s a Policía Nacional case,’ said Cámara. ‘José Luis—’

  ‘José Luis got what he deserved,’ interrupted Enrique.

  ‘Meaning?’

  Cámara could sense the pain building up to pulse through him again, like the pull-back of the sea before sending out another crashing wave. He leaned his weight against the counter behind, trying not to touch the coagulated blood. He braced himself; the crescendo flashed into his brain as he forced his eyes to remain open, show no sign.

  ‘He wasn’t mountain people,’ said Enrique. ‘Not from round here. Didn’t fit. Things will be better without him.’

  Cámara tensed what felt like every muscle in his body, sweat trickling down the centre of his back. The pain subsided. He let out a breath and looked Enrique in the eye.

  ‘Is that why you killed him?’

  Enrique’s immobile face performed the impossible and froze even more. The eyes were dead still behind their walls of protection, the expression as motionless and unrelenting as before. Cámara noticed his knuckles turning white where he gripped the rifle.

  ‘You hated José Luis,’ Cámara continued. ‘You hate the nightclub and everything that goes on there. And you had a long-standing feud with him over the Chain. That’s why you put the bees there.’

  He barely registered the tiniest flicker in the eyes.

  ‘Not just to frighten people away, to keep the clubbers from Sunset off your land, or from going down to the Molino.’

  Enrique tilted his chin. Cámara could sense a momentum building.

  ‘But because you wanted the bees to get rid of José Luis for you. So you put an aggressive strain of them right at the edge of your land, where it borders José Luis’s estate. You know he’s not a fit man. You demand an urgent meeting, get him up to the Chain supposedly to discuss matters, then let the bees do the rest.’

  Yet just as the momentum had appeared to be growing, it was lost. Cámara could feel it draining away even before he had finished. Enrique’s dark, impenetrable eyes opened a fraction.

  ‘If I’d wanted José Luis dead,’ he said simply, ‘I would have shot him years ago.’

  From somewhere in his body, Cámara could feel another wave rushing towards him. Had the stings unbalanced him?

  ‘I don’t know if you’re accusing me of José Luis’s murder,’ continued Enrique. ‘From the sound of it you’re saying I got the bees to kill him for me.’

  His little mouth almost cracked as it curled into something like a grin.

  ‘Now, I know bees. Had them all my life, as did my father before me. And I know their ways – what they like and what they don’t like. And I could make another animal attack someone at my command. This dog, for example.’

  The Alsatian had not moved its gaze from Cámara’s face the entire time.

  ‘One command and he’ll tear into a man without any hesitation.’

  Cámara swallowed hard and gripped the counter behind him with both hands.

  ‘But even I can’t make bees attack someone when I ask them to. And I don’t know anyone who can.’

  The tremble returned, sweat building up once more as Cámara’s blood pressure rose with the tide of pain. A searing sensation, like a band of hot iron, crossed his brow and seemed to bore into his skull. And he felt certain that Enrique was aware of his condition, was watching him the way a child might observe a dying fly on its back, flailing its legs furiously in the air. There would be no glass of water.

  ‘You’re the strangest-looking policeman I’ve ever seen,’ said Enrique. ‘You sure you’re in the right place? I’ve half a mind to go and call the Guardia Civil. I know Corporal Rodríguez. He’ll be able to tell me what this is all about.’

  It was desperate, but Cámara had got this far and could only carry on.

  ‘The call,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘You called José Luis yesterday and demanded to meet him at the Chain. Why did you do that?’

  The eyes narrowed.

  ‘What?’ spat Enrique.

  ‘I know about the call,’ insisted Cámara. ‘You wanted to meet José Luis at the Chain. Said it was urgent. Why else would you do that if you weren’t luring him into a trap? I know it was unusual. You’d never done anything like this before.’

  ‘Never done it before, and never done it at all!’

  Enrique thrust out his chest. At his side, the dog stood up, readying itself.

  ‘What call are you talking about?’ he demanded.

  ‘You called Paco, the manager at Sunset,’ said Cámara, looking at Enrique while keeping an eye on the Alsatian.

  ‘You left a message. Said you wanted an urgent meeting at the Chain.’

  ‘Paco?’

  For the first time there appeared to be a clear expression on Enrique’s face: confusion.

  ‘I’ve never spoken to Paco in my life,’ he said.

  ‘You know who he is.’

  ‘Course I know who he is. But I’ve never spoken to him. Never want to speak to him. Why would I call him? Don’t even have his number.’

  The throbbing had eased a little. Cámara tried to clear his head.

  ‘You’re saying you didn’t call Paco yesterday,’ he said.

  ‘Not yesterday. Not never!’ cried Enrique. ‘I don’t talk to people like him.’

  ‘People like him?’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ spat Enrique. ‘You’re supposed to be the policeman. That Rodríguez from the Guardia Civil—’

  ‘Will be informed of everything in due course,’ interrupted Cámara. He held up a hand.

  ‘Your phone records can be checked,’ he continued. ‘Both landline and mobile, if you’ve got one.’

  ‘No signal out here,’ said Enrique. ‘Only use it when I’m in the village if I have to. But it comes to the same. You’ll find nothing. Not about me calling Paco.’

  Cámara paused, trying to deepen his breathing.

  ‘You’ve got José Luis’s number, I take it,’ he said at length.

  ‘Not much use to me now.’

  ‘Did you ever use it?’ asked Cámara. ‘Did you ever call José Luis on that number?’

  Enrique shrugged.

  ‘Well, did you?’

  ‘Once or twice, maybe in the past,’ said Enrique eventually.

  ‘When was the last time?’

  ‘Years ago.’

  ‘When you were still talking to each other.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘When you and José Luis were still talking.’<
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  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘And when was that?’ asked Cámara.

  Enrique thought.

  ‘Perhaps a couple of years ago,’ he said.

  ‘You’re saying you hadn’t spoken to José Luis for at least two years?’

  Enrique nodded.

  ‘About that.’

  ‘Did you arrange a meeting with him yesterday?’ Cámara asked.

  ‘No, I’ve already told you.’

  ‘Did you have any reason to arrange a meeting? Was there anything new to discuss?’

  ‘We went beyond discussing a long time ago.’

  ‘So there is no possibility that you might have wanted to see him yesterday at the Chain.’

  Enrique shook his head.

  ‘I’ve already—’

  ‘Answer the question,’ ordered Cámara.

  ‘No,’ Enrique said at length, his eyes boring into Cámara’s head.

  ‘Tell me where you were yesterday,’ said Cámara. ‘What were you doing late morning?’

  From Enrique’s side, the dog began to growl, as though obeying some unspoken command from his master.

  ‘If you’re not going to arrest me,’ said Enrique, ‘then it’s time you left. I’ve answered enough of your questions.’

  With a flick of his wrist he motioned with the gun barrel, indicating for Cámara to step outside.

  Cámara sniffed and did as he was told. He had got what he wanted.

  The dog’s head lurched towards him as he stepped past, as though making to take a bite out of his leg. After a pause, Enrique ordered it to stop.

  ‘I’ll be telling the Guardia Civil about this,’ said Enrique as Cámara made to leave. ‘They’re proper police, they are. Know what they’re doing.’

  Cámara walked with heavy steps back down the track in the direction of the Chain. And the hives.