For years, back in the 1990s, when he was still in Albacete, struggling to get promoted to inspector, people had spoken of little else. The GAL, the so-called Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación–the anti-terrorist liberation groups–had been active in the mid-1980s. They were a shadowy and violent bunch of anti-ETA activists, who murdered over twenty people during their campaign. Their targets were ostensibly ETA members, but innocent people, including several across the border in the French Basque Country, also suffered at their hands. By the late 1980s their string of kidnappings and shootings appeared to have ended, but then, in the early 1990s, a group of investigative journalists began to report that the GAL’s members were in fact mostly mercenaries, policemen and Guardias Civiles, controlled by members of the government. After a judicial investigation, Interior Minister José Barrionuevo and his deputy Rafael Vera were jailed for their part in the conspiracy. The Prime Minister himself, Felipe González, was investigated at one stage and cleared of involvement, but there were plenty who still thought he had been the mysterious ‘Señor X’, the supposed leader of the GAL. It was enough to give Spain’s young and delicate democracy a serious jolt, and to lose the Socialists the election in 1996.
The fallout within the Policía Nacional and the Guardia Civil had been less visible but no less far-reaching. Older officers tainted by the scandal were moved on or forced to retire, one of the reasons, Cámara knew, why he himself had made chief inspector before he hit forty.
He became aware that the GAL comment had shocked others around him. Some were staring into space, others shaking their heads. Most were talking, either to themselves or to anyone who would listen.
‘This is not mere conjecture.’ Maldonado raised his voice over the hubbub to make himself heard. Feedback whined from the microphone and he had to hold it further away from his mouth.
‘We’ve received information that I can’t disclose right now that suggests that members of the Guardia Civil–and Comandante Lázaro may be among them–have created an illicit group to carry out acts of terror with a socially conservative agenda. If this is correct, then the kidnapping of Sofía Bodí may be their first, high-profile step. And I don’t need to remind you that the GAL’s kidnapping victims often turned up dead. We probably have very little time to get a satisfactory result.’
‘Where does the info come from?’ came a question. ‘The CNI?’
Maldonado nodded. ‘The intelligence services are involved, which is why I can’t say any more at this point,’ he said.
Cámara groaned silently. The Centro Nacional de Inteligencia was not especially renowned for the accuracy of its information. Years before, when they were still called the CESID, the Centro Superior de Información de la Defensa, he’d heard a rumour that other national intelligence organisations tended to bet against any ‘information’ coming out of Madrid, with consistently high returns. Changing their name had done little to improve their reputation.
Still, Comandante Lázaro already had a reputation in police circles for his reactionary views. He was a member of a right-wing officers’ group, one of whose members, a few years back, had been forced into early retirement after calling on the armed forces to step in to prevent Catalonia’s gradual but steady dislocation from the rest of Spain.
A hand went up. Maldonado nodded for the officer to speak.
‘Is the Guardia Civil intelligence unit involved in this investigation? Will we be liaising with them?’
‘Yes. But the Servicio de Información are talking directly with the CNI,’ Maldonado said. ‘Anything we need to know will be passed on to me.’
He walked over to a large television set on top of a wooden bookcase and switched it on.
‘We have reason to suspect that Sofía Bodí may have known that an attempt of some sort was being planned against her.’
He picked up a remote control and pressed a button.
‘This is a recording of a news conference she gave yesterday morning.’
There was a whirring sound and colours flashed across the screen, before the image became clear. The Policía Nacional, it seemed, was still using video tape to record material from the television.
Cámara saw a picture of a slim, middle-aged woman with short silver hair sitting down at a table while cameras flashed on her. She was wearing rectangular, black-framed glasses–they didn’t seem to make any other kind these days–and no make-up. Her face was drawn, and from the heaviness around her eyes she looked exhausted. She started reading from a prepared statement.
‘Yesterday the offices of the Clínica Levantina de Salud Ginecológica were raided for a second time by agents of the Guardia Civil Seprona Unit…’
Speaking in a low, weak voice, she gave details of the ‘harassment’ she said she had been receiving over the past months, reminding the public of her lifelong campaign in favour of abortion, her time working in France before the practice was decriminalised in Spain in 1985, how her clinic had been one of the first to be set up in Spain after that, and her attempts to have the law changed to make abortion fully legal.
‘Though I may not wish to advertise the fact, my clinic is a high-profile target for the anti-abortion movement. I do not think this is a coincidence when we are talking about the so-called investigation that is being carried out at present. I call on Spanish society to witness what is taking place, and to make up its own mind, and not to accept the lies being fed by the conservative media. We reject all allegations being made against us, and are confident that there is no evidence to substantiate the claims being made. However, certain powerful forces are involved. They must understand that there will be consequences if things continue as they are. Authoritarianism is deeply ingrained in certain sectors of our country. We cannot allow them to control our lives as they once did. This is a time for action, to stand up and reject all attempts to smother a legal and ultimately humanitarian activity in the name of tradition and faith. Nothing less than the future of our democracy is at stake.’
She stood up, apparently unwilling to answer any of the dozen questions fired at her by the attending journalists. Then she stopped, leaned in to the microphone again and said:
‘Right-wingers also abort.’
Maldonado hit a button on the remote control and froze the image.
‘Take note of the words she used,’ he said, turning to face the group. ‘She mentioned “powerful forces”. We’re working on the hypothesis here that she had some inkling of what was going on, that there may have been more behind the official Guardia Civil investigation, that rogue elements may have been about to make a move on her. She stopped sleeping at her own flat, and moved in temporarily with her business partner and lover Cesc Ballester. We’ve taken a preliminary statement from him already, and will be conducting more interviews with him shortly. According to Ballester, Bodí was uncomfortable staying at home, and only went to her flat this morning to collect some belongings, while he went to the clinic. We suspect that it was as she was approaching her flat that the kidnappers moved in.’
He stopped, and scanned the faces looking up at him.
‘Any questions?’
A few hands went up.
‘If rogue members of the Guardia Civil are involved, why did they bother with the official investigation to begin with?’
‘You expect me to explain the workings of the Guardia?’ Maldonado said with a smirk. A few at the front tittered. ‘Look, it’s possible they were trying to shut down the clinic by legal means. When they saw that was likely to fail–and we understand there was a high probability that the case was going to collapse, even with a sympathetic judge at the helm–they decided to move on to plan B, as it were. That’s the hypothesis.’
Pardo had been sitting quietly during all of this, but now he stood up and moved towards Maldonado, who passed him the microphone.
‘As you all know, Maldonado is in charge of the day-to-day running of this investigation, while I, as head of Homicidios, will be overseeing. We need our best people
on this. It’s an extremely sensitive case. High-ranking members of the Guardia Civil are under suspicion. We need to be very careful, and watch what we say. Which is why all informal contacts between everyone in this room and members of the Guardia are now forbidden: no drinks, no chats, no off-the-record briefings. We cannot allow any leaks. They know this police investigation is starting, so they’ll be prepared.’
Cámara started shuffling uncomfortably in his seat. He’d been sitting still too long, and his thighs were going numb. And for something that didn’t concern him directly, the meeting was taking up too much of his time.
‘The Ministry is fully aware of the situation,’ Pardo continued, ‘as is the government delegate in the city. We have their full support. Memories of the GAL are still fresh. No one wants a repeat of the fuck-ups of back then. This is a high-publicity case, an opportunity for us to shine. Judge José Luis Rulfo is the investigating magistrate in charge of the legal side, and you all know as well as I do that he’s not an interferer, but he expects an efficient, professionally done job. It’s got to be wrapped up as quickly and cleanly as possible. The Pope’s coming to town, people are marching in the streets over the new abortion law. A kidnapped abortionist whose life is in danger is top priority.’
He took a deep breath, flaring his nostrils.
‘Which is why I’m ordering everyone here in this room to suspend any cases they’re working on. As of now you’re all on this detail.’
Ten
July was the worst month. Already the temperatures were in the high thirties, but rather than slowing down people were possessed by an urgent and frantic need to get things done before the country closed for the August holidays.
He stepped out of the mobile phone shop, a new–and overpriced–charger stuffed in his pocket. The traffic was bumper to bumper, some drivers cocooned in air-conditioned bubbles, others in older cars with the windows open, breathing in hot smoke streaming from a thousand exhaust pipes as sweat dribbled down their cheeks. The sun was high in the sky, and the tall, skinny palm trees lining the avenue gave little shade. The weather was uppermost in everyone’s minds at this time of year, official announcements on television reminding citizens to keep cool and drink plenty of water. Heatwaves could be lethal. They didn’t want scores of the elderly giving up the ghost just as the Pope rocked into town.
Conversations tended to be monotonously alike from now until late August: someone would mention how hot it was, as though it were the strangest thing in the world, then positions would be taken between those who liked the summer, and thrived in these temperatures, and those who loathed the sticky, clammy heat, and longed for it to pass. Each one would try to convince the other that only their own position was correct. Even when it came to something as basic as the weather, his countrymen felt the need to identify with either this or that group, like political parties.
Cámara himself could bear the heat well enough, but was damned if he was going to get ideological about it. Some could cope with it, some couldn’t.
A group of teenagers walked in front of him, yellow-and-white rucksacks slung over their shoulders. Publicity for the Vatican, and its front man, due to arrive in a couple of days’ time. Something in him sank when he saw young kids like this being sucked into the game, each tribe–left or right, secular or religious–trying to draw them to their side, like chips in some unending poker match. He could still remember the time, back in 1978, as the country had voted on the new democratic constitution, when the priest at his school had taken him to one side.
‘And if you were old enough to vote,’ Father Dionisio had asked him–Cámara had only been twelve at the time–‘would you vote in favour or against?’
And Cámara, not really knowing, but remembering comments his grandfather had made back home that, despite being an anarchist, he considered a new constitution the lesser of the two evils, had said he’d vote in favour. And Father Dionisio put on the special look he used when he wanted you to know you’d done something gravely, gravely wrong: head tilted back, eyes wide open and tight, trembling lips.
‘But who,’ he boomed, ‘has put this porquería, these disgusting, filthy thoughts into your mind?’
In the end, the constitution hadn’t needed Cámara’s pubescent vote to get through. But any doubts he might have had about the clergy were removed from his mind at that moment. True spirituality may have meant something to a handful of priests out there somewhere, but the Church was just about politics and power, like so much else in the country.
Even police work.
Today Spaniards were not firing at each other in open field, as they had done in living memory, but state forces were still engaged in a long-running, mostly bloodless war, a continuous struggle for political supremacy; a fight over the identity of Spain. Was it to be a country of tradition, of order, commercially vibrant, but which, socially at least, remained relatively static, where due respect was given to institutions which had forged the country, such as the Church and Army? Or was it a country that looked to change, eyeing with envy the ‘progress’ of other European nations, that accepted its own social diversity and regional differences, even at the danger of breaking up and dissolving into separate mini-states?
Now, just as always, it seemed, these two forces were going head to head, and everything and everyone was supposed to declare for either one or the other.
And so began another skirmish–this time dividing the Policía Nacional and the Guardia Civil. The Guardias were mostly to the right politically, and for many on the left they represented the repression of the Franco era, a hangover from the dictatorship that ought to be abolished. The Policía Nacional, on the other hand, had been created when the country became a democracy, to defend citizens’ “rights and freedoms”, and was perceived as being more to the left. But Cámara had met enough liberal Guardias and authoritarian Nacionales to know the image didn’t always fit.
Meanwhile he had a real dead body to deal with, but poor old Roures was just a paella chef. He would have to wait; even the judge presiding over his case had been forced to agree to a temporary suspension of the investigation. Political points needed scoring, and Cámara was being forced to play a part.
Abortion. First they’d legalised gay marriage–that had got them out on to the streets–now they were legalising the killing of embryos and foetuses. Few things were guaranteed more to galvanise the conservative right into action.
And Spanish democracy had still to root itself properly–you could tell by the way politicians had worn the word out through overuse.
Now he was supposed to go and look for an abortionist, one who might have been kidnapped by reactionary Guardias gone off the rails with their dreams of ‘order and progress’–the watchwords of the Franco regime. It wasn’t that he was against abortion per se, he convinced himself. On balance he probably preferred a world where you could get it done properly rather than having to deal with a quack, or travel abroad, as in the past. It was just that he had better things to do.
Alicia. God damn her. She hadn’t even asked him first.
The written orders Maldonado had given him involved heading over to Sofía Bodí’s flat to have a sniff around. It was clear that as a member of Homicidios he was being sidelined, left with mundane tasks while Maldonado’s people got the more interesting jobs. Doubtless Maldonado felt pleased with himself at this, another point scored in his ongoing feud with Cámara, but he didn’t understand that this was actually a gift. For Cámara, pottering around the sidelines while the rest of the group ran after the main quarry suited him ideally. It was what he usually did anyway; he’d noticed it tended to bring in better and often faster results. Usually the problem was having to produce enough smoke to disguise the fact that this was how he was in fact carrying out his investigation. Superiors and administrators demanded a display of thorough working and methodology, like those maths tests at school, when you couldn’t just give the answer, but had to explain how you’d arrived at it. But in his o
wn experience answers came more often than not from unexpected and inexplicable sources, ones that couldn’t be part of any ‘method’. How could he include in the reports his dreams, intuitions, or overheard conversations in bars or buses that had nothing to do with the case at hand, but which somehow crystallised an aspect of it in his mind? Even folk tales, jokes and of course the proverbs that seemed to run through his blood had given him insights in the past. And he’d had to find a way of explaining it all, sometimes inventing stories to formulate his ‘workings’ in a manner acceptable and comprehensible to the force.
Now that would be unnecessary.
Yet still he felt this was a waste of time. He was in Homicidios; he should be dealing with Roures, a dead man, not Sofía Bodí. Not someone who made a living out of killing. The chances were she was still alive. Although, admittedly, for how much longer was uncertain.
Eleven
Sofía Bodí’s flat was in the Eixample area near the Colón market, an expensive part of town where fashion designers tended to have their boutiques. The buildings had mostly gone up in the early twentieth century, well-built eclectic structures with decorative motifs in stone around the doors and windows. The district had a graceful, almost Parisian air, while the Colón market itself was an architectural highlight of the city, designed by a follower of Gaudí. They’d renovated it a few years earlier, trying to turn it into Valencia’s Covent Garden. But from being a thriving neighbourhood market, it had turned into a den of expensive bars and coffee shops, empty but for the occasional couple of middle-aged women showing off their jewellery as they sipped on cafés cortados and nibbled at madalena cakes.
A Policía Nacional was standing outside the main door, in the street. Cámara reached for his badge as he approached, but the man seemed to recognise him and nodded him through the large, open door of polished dark wood.
A Death in Valencia Page 8
