The irony that such allusions should be made in the twenty-first century to an operation designed to incarcerate and expel large numbers of Muslims and people of North African origin will not be lost on public opinion – both at home and abroad.
When completed, the detention facility on Cabrera will resemble the US camp for suspected Islamic militants at Guantánamo. It will not be the first time that Cabrera has been used in this way. During the Napoleonic Wars it was turned into a concentration camp – arguably the world’s first – for captured French troops. From 1809 to 1814, some 9,000 enemy soldiers were held prisoner there, of whom only 3,600 survived.
The documents obtained go into great detail about the planning and various stages of the project, as well as the various government departments and even some of the personalities involved in its operation. These include …
Alicia looked away from the screen. The window on to the street was open and she thought she heard something, a footstep that was familiar.
With a sigh of relief and joy she realised it was Max, finally coming home. She got up from her desk and went over to see.
FIFTY-NINE
He felt happy, happier than he had for a long time. Even Commissioner Hernández hadn’t quite managed to put a dent in his mood.
‘For a moment there,’ he had told her back in her office, ‘I thought you were trying to get rid of me.’
She hadn’t responded well to his grinning face, couldn’t see the lighter side of it. Not only was there a murder where there shouldn’t have been one – in her eyes – but he had successfully solved it. Abdelatif Cortbi had buckled quickly once in custody. He seemed to long to confess. One of those ones seeking forgiveness, redemption, by recounting all their sins.
Except that there would be no forgiveness for him. The sentence would be long and lasting. A triple murder in cold blood. He would be old, probably dead, before his release date.
And unloved. There would be few visitors for Abi in jail.
The others – Bogdan, Dorin, Paco and Father Ricardo – were all, as far as he knew, safely in Guardia Civil custody, facing long prison terms for drug offences.
So now there was the question of Cámara himself.
‘You know, Rita, you should have said if you were trying to push me out. It might have worked. I’m a reasonable man, after all.’
She looked at him as though she had swallowed the contents of an ashtray.
‘I will not be spoken to like that. I am your commanding officer.’
Cámara shrugged. And took a look around her loveless office. He pitied the colleagues brought in here and made to stand to attention while she read them the riot act.
‘Listen,’ he said.
Her hair stood on end.
‘I’m a policeman; I solve crimes.’
He drew his sentences out.
‘So, after much consideration …’
He nodded to himself, as though confirming the results of a long internal discussion.
‘I’ve decided to stay.’
She stood, watching him with silent loathing, teeth grinding, blood vanishing from her cheeks like morning dew evaporating in bright morning sun.
‘There will always be plenty more crimes to solve.’
She couldn’t speak, her jaw frozen, muscles tense with rage.
Cámara tilted his head and gave her a quizzical look.
‘I sometimes get the feeling you don’t like me very much,’ he said.
It had been simple in the end. A question that had dogged him time and again over the years now dealt with, the decision made, no more doubts or self-examination. He was just himself.
It felt like a lifting of some great weight, a rock he had been carrying like Atlas with the Heavens, condemned to bear for eternity. And yet all he had to do was put it down and leave. He felt light, free and unburdened, as though layers of his past, his own self, were slipping away.
I can finally live up to the promise of my name, he joked to himself. Clean, unsullied, with open, non-judging eyes. I am Max. I am a Cámara.
Torres had mumbled something earlier on their way back to the Jefatura about a celebration party for solving the Sunset case. He wondered how many would come.
Just a few drinks in a bar, he had insisted. No need to make a show of it. He would give him a call soon, once he’d seen Alicia.
It was late evening. He had done the minimum necessary – dealing with the paperwork and clearing up at the end of a case. Even now that he was trying to move it on it seemed it could barely bring itself to let him go.
For a moment, it was true, he had thought about leaving the police, of finding a place with Alicia in the mountains, starting something new away from the city and the coast. The severance money would have made it worthwhile, would have been a start, enough to get them going.
‘There’s some people I met up there,’ Cámara would tell her when he got back. ‘Jimmy and Estrella. I think you might like them.’
But he could already see the expression in her eyes and knew that it would never happen.
‘De viejo morirás y aprendiz quedarás,’ she would say, nodding her head in his imaginary conversation with her like a patient schoolteacher. You’ll die of old age while still being an apprentice.
‘Hold on, since when do you speak in proverbs?’
‘I’ve got a few of my own tucked away, to be used at the right moment.’
He laughed: she was right – as if the conversation had already taken place.
Now Alicia was waiting for him at home. He wasn’t sure what he would do: perhaps have a shower, lie down for a while. Then they would be off later in the evening with Torres, and whoever else showed up. Azcárraga would be there. Perhaps some of the others. Even Laura. He would introduce Azcárraga to her, set in motion the process of getting him inside Homicidios. Certainly they could do with more like him.
And what would they have to drink? He looked forward to something cold, something fun, something to inspire a relaxed, frivolous mood for everyone. They needed it; they deserved it. Yes, he thought, as his mouth began to water at the idea: a nice big jug of Sangría, with plenty of ice and fruit. That would do it.
Just for starters.
SIXTY
There was a cracking sound from somewhere out on the street, like a single firecracker being let off. Just an ordinary sound in a city like Valencia.
BANG BANG BANG.
A sudden hammering came from the door.
‘ALICIA!’
She was expecting Max. It was him, but it wasn’t him. For a moment she didn’t understand; she knew that voice. Yet the context, the urgency of it, confused her for a second.
‘Alicia! You need to run! Now!’
She took a step towards the door.
‘Is that—?’
The door swung open. Outside, Torres stood with a younger uniformed policeman she didn’t know. Both were armed, their pistols drawn.
With his free hand, Torres grabbed Alicia by the wrist and jerked her out of the flat, pushing her towards the other policeman.
‘This is Azcárraga, a friend,’ Torres said, bustling her down the stairs. ‘No time to explain. We have to go.’
Alicia looked at Torres with incomprehension.
‘They’re coming to kill you,’ he said.
SIXTY-ONE
He parked the motorbike, locked his helmet in the topbox, then turned the corner of the street and headed down towards his flat. The prostitutes were out, looking sleepy and bored as they stood in the shade of doorways or smoked in groups of two or three by the edge of the pavement. Cámara glanced up at the balcony window of his flat a few metres further on. The shutters were almost pulled down, but he thought he could see Alicia there, waiting for him. He had emailed before leaving the Jefatura, said he was on his way.
The sun flashed, reflecting off a shop window. He was blinded for a second and stopped, rubbing his knuckles into his eyes. When he opened them, he blinked, trying to see. Someone
was standing in front of him: a woman. Was she trying to get past?
He stood to the side, but she moved with him. Then he took a step the other way. Who was she? There was something familiar about her, yet still his vision was blurred by the startling sunlight.
He raised a hand, blocking out the light. He saw blonde hair, a heavily painted face: clearly defined cupid’s bow and pencilled eyebrows arching like black rainbows high into her brow.
Cámara stopped, his heart suddenly frozen.
How many times had he imagined this moment, only to dismiss it. The only policeman to live in the centre of the city. They all shook their heads at him: no other was prepared to take the risk of being easily found, of reprisals being taken against themselves or their families. The outlying towns and satellite villages were much safer. Only a lunatic like Cámara would be so stupid as to have a flat not only in the centre, but in one of the roughest areas. Yet Cámara hadn’t minded. This was life, he thought. Anything else was unreal.
But he had never, in his heart, imagined this moment ever really coming to pass. There was, in his imagination, not fully recognised, a sense that he was protected in some way, that no serious harm would come to him. He had been wounded in the course of his policing years, it was true, but death had never formed a part of his musings on his position, his risk, his openness.
And yet, now, here She was: Death staring down at him through the coal-black eyes of Ileana.
‘For Bogdan,’ she said. ‘For everything.’
He watched in silent resignation as she lifted the gun, pulled the trigger, and felt the kick of the explosion within the barrel.
And the bullet, spinning towards him.
And very slowly he put his hand out and lowered himself to the ground, just as Jimmy had described. In a world beyond time.
The sun itself reached out golden hands to catch him.
‘Hello.’
He heard a voice. It sounded like Hilario, his grandfather.
‘Wasn’t expecting you so soon.’
SIXTY-TWO
Carlos stood over Cámara’s immobile body, watching the blood seep out of him and stain the paving stones around. The street was deserted: the drug dealers and prostitutes had fled at the first sight of trouble, abandoning the stage. Ileana panted heavily at his side, chest heaving violently as she breathed in and out through flared nostrils, lips wrapped tight like a tourniquet. She raised her hand to fire once more, gripping the butt of the pistol that Carlos had handed her with white intensity.
‘No!’ A single order, barked with clear authority. And she obeyed, slowly lowering her hand again.
‘Go,’ he said, gesturing up the street.
‘Five doors up. The woman is there.’ She looked at him with eyes like tar-black pits. White spittle drying at the edge of her mouth.
He nodded to her.
‘Finish the job.’
She hurried away, running in near silence and disappearing through the doorway to head upstairs. It was messy, but necessary. Soon the Beneyto woman would be dead, the files recovered, her computer drives erased. All traces – of Navas, Clavijo, and most importantly of Abravanel – gone. The public would learn about the internment camp on Cabrera eventually – such a thing could not be kept secret for ever. But how it was being funded – Operación Abravanel and the connection with the drug trade – must at all costs remain classified. No one must ever know about it, or about the role that members of the Brothers of Cáceres – including the unfortunate Father Ricardo – played in its operation. The Brothers’ loyalty was first and foremost to the State, not the Church. But in return the State had to look after them. Father Ricardo had been unlucky, but was now a free man – at least for the time being. Everything must be done to remove any suspicion surrounding him, and if necessary he, too, could be liquidated.
Soon – very soon – there would be no one left who could tell. Ignacio, the marine biologist, dead. Marisol, the traitor from the Ministry of Defence, dead. Beneyto, the journalist who discovered too much, as good as dead. And Cámara, the man who never knew quite what he had uncovered, slowly bleeding to death in front of him. It was right that Cámara should die in ignorance: a man who in the past had uncovered some of the biggest scandals, now breathing his last with no knowledge of the vast government project that his little murder investigation in the mountains had come so close to unravelling. Should Carlos bend down now and whisper everything in his ear? Tell of how, through sheer coincidence, his beloved Alicia had stumbled on the same story? And was now going to die for the same reason?
Carlos checked himself. No, that would be cruel. And he smiled to himself: he had come close to losing control.
Besides, there would be much to do now, and quickly. Afterwards it would be easy to make everything stick on the Romanian woman. Ileana, another useful idiot, happily playing the role of embittered, vengeful spouse. Something about her willingness to take up Carlos’s offer had scared even him. She could be seen to, once she was taken into police custody. A suicide driven by remorse. There was something of a loose cannon about her. Someone to be taken care of before entering the category of ‘enemy’.
Carlos took a last look at Cámara. He was lying on his back, face draining of colour as the bullet wound pulsed life out of him. And for a second his eyes opened, staring up at Carlos in the fading evening sun.
His lips were moving. Was he trying to say something? Utter his last words?
Carlos checked his watch: he had to go. Soon the Beneyto woman would be dead too and the clear-up operation would have to sweep into action. There was no time for this. No time for sentimentality.
He took a step back, lifted his own pistol, and pointed it at Cámara’s head.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks first to Rob, without whom this book would never have been written.
Also to Peter Robinson for his warm-hearted support throughout.
Finally to my Mother and Father, and to Salud, Arturo and Gabi for so much that cannot be expressed here.
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First published by Chatto & Windus in 2017
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Fatal Sunset Page 32
