A Death in Valencia

by Jason Webster

  An officer in black GEO kit, with a helmet and body armour and a sub-machine gun strapped to his thigh, walked up to Maldonado. It was Cámara’s friend, Enric Beltrán.

  ‘Chief Inspector?’ Beltrán said.

  Maldonado nodded. ‘Right, brief me,’ he said. ‘I was expecting to hear from you earlier over the radio.’

  ‘You need to see something,’ Beltrán said. He led Maldonado through the maze of police vehicles, with Cámara and Torres behind. They came out into an empty space in the street, where the rest of the GEO team were standing around with their arms crossed.

  ‘Are you sure you got the right address?’ Beltrán said bluntly.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Maldonado said. ‘I gave it to you very clearly. Calle San Pedro ninety-five.’

  Beltrán grabbed him by the arm and pushed him forwards.

  ‘Well, that’s number ninety-five,’ he said, pointing ahead.

  Maldonado fell silent: in front of him was an open space reaching through to the next street along.

  ‘What the hell…?’ Maldonado muttered.

  ‘Got pulled down two days ago,’ Beltrán said. ‘At least, that’s what a kid riding past on his bicycle told us. And before you ask,’ he carried on, ‘yes, of course we’ve checked the other houses. Empty, most of them. There’s an old lady living three doors down, very friendly, and she did invite us in for coffee, but there was no sign of your missing woman anywhere. Unless she chopped her up and fed her to her cats, of course.’

  Maldonado’s face had dropped, gripped by a white fear of looking ridiculous. From further up the street a television van with satellite dishes on its roof was pulling in to get some shots.

  ‘Looks like you got dodgy info,’ Beltrán said, brushing past as he walked back to his men. ‘Either that or you’ve been seriously stitched up.’

  Twenty-Eight

  He walked away from the police cars and television vans, passing through a gap that had once been a house, and slipped into the streets of El Cabanyal. The church was a ten-minute walk from here. He might even arrive a bit early.

  Maldonado had done his best, but the truth was that the operation had been a disaster. Searches were ordered of the other houses, until almost the entire street had been covered, but nothing, no sign of Sofía, emerged. Meanwhile, teams of officers were sent around the neighbourhood to talk to residents to see if anyone had seen anything on the day Sofía had been kidnapped, leading up to the day of the house’s demolition.

  ‘Perhaps Navarro did bring her here,’ the comment went among the policemen at the scene, ‘but she was then moved somewhere else before the house was demolished.’

  If so, who had taken her, and where? Was she even still alive?

  The Guardia Civil had meanwhile got wind of the Policía Nacional’s fruitless swoop on El Cabanyal, and whoever it was who had been feeding Maldonado information from inside had fallen silent.

  ‘They’re closing ranks.’

  ‘We’d do the same.’

  ‘Yeah, but we’re the ones looking like idiots right now. Nos han jugado.’ They’ve played us along.

  And so, when he got a chance, Cámara pulled away and melted into the streets; he was needed more elsewhere than here.

  Para aprender, perder, ran the proverb in his mind. In order to learn you have to lose. The police had lost face. Was there anything they could gain in all this?

  The Iglesia de los Angeles was set in a small square in the northern part of El Cabanyal, an unexceptional, baroque church with a brown-and-white painted facade of columns and statues. Enrique and Maite were standing outside with Carlos, their two other boys looking more subdued than the night before in their ironed shirts and black trousers.

  ‘I haven’t had a chance to change,’ Cámara said as he strolled up to the family group. Enrique smiled, clearly glad that the godfather had not only arrived, but had done so before the ceremony had actually begun.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘It’s only a baptism after all. Not a wedding. It’s a good job you and I have the same shirt size,’ he joked, ‘otherwise you’d still be wearing yesterday’s smelly rags.’

  ‘Yes,’ Cámara said, ‘I need to get myself sorted out.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. Our sofa’s got your name on it for as long as you need. And you can have as many clothes as you want. Donde comen tres, comen cuatro,’ he added. Four can survive on the food for three people.

  ‘Or in your case, Donde comen cinco, comen seis,’ Cámara laughed. Six instead of five. ‘You’d better start thinking about family planning soon if you don’t want to fill the house up.’

  ‘Shh,’ Enrique hissed with a smile. ‘The priest might hear you. He’s feeling more anti-contraception than ever, what with the Pope’s visit. Got to kiss the holy one’s ring, apparently. And yes, I’m talking about the one on his hand.’

  ‘It’s you who’s having Carlos baptised.’

  ‘Maite wanted it,’ he said with a shrug. ‘What the hell, gives us an excuse for a party.’

  With the other guests–members of the family, along with a few friends and neighbours–about two dozen people were gathered outside the church door, many having a last-minute smoke before heading inside.

  ‘Who’s the godmother?’ Cámara said as he stubbed his Ducados out on the edge of a column.

  Enrique gave him a look.

  ‘You mean we didn’t tell you?’

  ‘Maybe you did and I forgot.’

  ‘She’s over there.’

  Enrique pointed to a woman with dyed blonde hair and red-rimmed glasses, wearing a low-cut denim dress and black high heels, standing on the other side of the doorway, smiling at them.

  ‘Max,’ Enrique said, walking over to her, ‘you remember Marina.’

  It was a relief to get out. Rather than going through the motions, the priest had insisted on giving them the longer version of the baptism rite, with a full-blown Mass and sermon about the responsibilities of the parents and godparents to the baby now embraced into the bosom of the mother Church. The monotony of the man’s self-importance was relieved only by Enrique singing a beautiful nana–a flamenco lullaby–for his new baby boy towards the end.

  Who can tell my child about the water,

  With its long tail and its salt of green?

  Sleep, O carnation, the horse does not want to drink.

  Sleep, O rose, the horse is beginning to cry.

  The words were by Lorca; the great Camarón had sung it in the past.

  Cámara sought the shade of a nearby tree as photos of the baby were taken in front of the church door.

  ‘Oh, Ducados,’ a voice near him said. ‘Can I have one?’

  He and Marina had exchanged a couple of ironic glances through the course of the ceremony, both aware that neither of them was well suited to the role of spiritual guardian that the priest was busy trying to spell out for them in Carlos’s life.

  ‘Did he specifically say we couldn’t smoke?’ Cámara asked.

  ‘I’m sure it would be frowned on,’ Marina said. ‘Especially in the child’s presence.’

  ‘Perhaps we should turn our backs.’

  ‘God will still see you all the same, remember. And punish you!’

  She widened her eyes dramatically.

  ‘Joder!’ Cámara laughed. ‘Carry on like that and you’ll end up converting me.’

  ‘That’s the plan,’ she said. ‘Here, give me a light, will you?’

  She grabbed his hand and brought the lighter to the end of her cigarette.

  ‘There,’ she said as a trail of smoke drifted up into the tree above their heads. ‘That’s better.’

  They were encouraged to sit together when they arrived at La Pascuala restaurant. Cámara was happy to be with her; she was fun and friendly, but in the back of his mind was a concern that there might be an imbalance in what each was hoping to get from the encounter. His head was filled with too much else to be able to consider anything more than just a few
drinks and a chat. A question kept playing through his mind: what had Sofía talked about with Lucía? What had been so important that she’d sought her out and called her like that? Was it something Roures had told her when she’d visited La Mar? There was no choice: he would have to confront Lucía directly about it. Now that Maldonado’s operation had run into the sand he might be able to grab a moment to go over and talk to her. But he’d like to find out from other sources, or at least find a clue from elsewhere, first. He preferred not to go in hard and cold.

  Except with Cuevas. But that was for Susana and Tomás’s sake.

  Yes, Cuevas. His Guardia Civil connection with Navarro was interesting. He thought for a moment about texting Torres to get him to look into it more, before stopping himself. This was time off–a baptism party where he was the godfather. He owed it to Carlos and Enrique to forget about things at least for the next couple of hours. He needed the rest himself, anyway.

  Besides, the chances were that Torres was on to it already.

  He shivered, despite the heat: Torres, he realised, was the nearest thing he had to a stable relationship.

  La Pascuala was more a bodega than a restaurant, a bar and wine cellar where they served freshly cooked food in workers’-sized portions at prices the locals could afford. Only open until lunchtime, it was packed virtually from the moment things got started at seven in the morning to around four in the afternoon, when the last of the lunchers finally made it out through the door.

  ‘It’s an El Cabanyal institution,’ Marina said. ‘Look at the names of the sandwiches on the board up there.’

  He glanced up. The paint was faded and dirty, but he made out names like The Republican and The Bribe-Giver and chuckled to himself. More irreverent Valencian humour.

  ‘Emilia wants to pull the place down,’ Marina added. ‘It’s in the firing line for her development plan.’

  They ate paella; the chef brought it out in an enormous flat pan and presented it to them for their approval before hauling it over to a side table where he and a helper dished it out on to individual plates.

  ‘La Mar must be close to here then,’ Cámara said. A waiter was placing a jug of sangría down on the table between them and he had to lean out of the way to let him through.

  ‘Just a couple of blocks further down,’ Marina said, refilling their glasses. Above their heads ancient bottles of brandy covered in thick layers of dust and grease stood in long rows along the edge of the wall. A black-and-white photograph of a local group of pelota players was cocked to one side where the hook from which it was suspended had come loose in the plaster.

  ‘Enrique said you were working on the Roures case,’ Marina said, moving closer to speak in his ear.

  Cámara sniffed.

  ‘It’s all right if you don’t want to talk about it,’ she said. ‘It’s work. I understand.’

  They ate their paella to the background clatter of a dozen other conversations around them, Cámara picking up pieces of rabbit with his fingers and teasing out bone splinters from the meat.

  ‘He was a lovely guy, Pep,’ Marina said after a while. ‘I’ll miss him.’

  ‘Everyone in El Cabanyal seems to have known him, or at least known of him,’ Cámara said.

  ‘That’s the great thing about this area–it’s like a village. Everyone knows everyone else. Its got its bad side as well–it’s hard to have secrets. But…’ She shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t have it any other way.’

  ‘Did you use to eat at Roures’s…at Pep’s place?’

  ‘Often enough,’ Marina said with a smile. ‘I’ve known him for ever. We were at school together.’

  She leaned over and looked him in the eye.

  ‘And you know what? He gave me my first kiss!’

  She giggled for a moment and then stopped, her face taking on a more serious expression.

  ‘It’s strange that,’ she said. ‘It makes me feel old just saying it. The man who gave me my first kiss is now dead. It’s as if he’s taken a tiny little piece of me with him.’

  Cámara filled her glass with more sangría. It was getting hotter and noisier inside the bodega, and they were drinking it like water.

  Marina was still facing him, but her eyes were unfocused as she remembered.

  ‘It was outside the El Polp bar,’ she said. ‘I was sixteen. I remember because it was the day of the big march for the Estatut. It felt like a party. Everyone had been out on the street. We loved it–it gave us a chance to go out and get properly drunk for the first time. And we were still too young to understand, but I think it was the first time that we really felt that Franco was dead. I mean, we knew he’d died a few years before, physically, but that was when we got the sense he’d actually gone for good. Do you remember?’

  She focused on him again as she was brought back to the present.

  ‘Oh, I forgot. You’re from Albacete, aren’t you? And just a little bit younger than me.’ She squinted her eyes at him playfully. ‘But I suppose you must have been through something similar, right?’

  Something must have happened, he thought to himself. He’d barely noticed. A murdered sister and a crumbling family had smothered everything, almost all of his certainties.

  ‘Albacete isn’t Valencia,’ he said.

  ‘No. No, it isn’t.’ She grinned.

  ‘Was Lucía there?’ he asked. ‘At the bar when you got your first…kiss?’

  ‘Lucía?’ Marina looked surprised. ‘Of course. You mean Pep’s wife? Well, she wasn’t Pep’s wife at the time, obviously…’

  ‘Yes. That Lucía.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘We were all there, all our crowd.’

  ‘So she and Pep…’

  ‘No, no. She didn’t like redheads. She told me. Pep came over to our table. He was still wearing his pelota kit. I think he’d come over from practice, or a game, or something. And he was chatting to me, and then he went away to get his mates, and Lucía said, she told me, she said, “He’s cute, but he’s got red hair!” I think she was drunk. Didn’t stop her later, though, did it?’

  Cámara felt a buzzing in his pocket as his phone began to ring.

  ‘So she and Pep…?’ he said. ‘That night?’

  ‘No. I told you. That came later. Pep was after me that night.’

  Cámara lifted his phone out, but kept looking at Marina.

  ‘And he was very much the gentleman,’ she went on. ‘Only kissing. Nothing more. I was a bit disappointed, to tell you the truth. The drink, the party, I could have done anything that night.’

  The phone was insistent in Cámara’s hand. He could sense the call was important and that he’d have to take it, but still he refused to look down at the screen to see who it was.

  ‘What about Lucía?’ he asked. ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘Oh!’ Marina thought for a moment, as though trying to remember. ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘She wasn’t left on her own. There was a boy in Pep’s group. I didn’t know him. She went off with him, I think. I’m not sure now. It’s a long, long time ago.’

  She raised her eyebrows and smiled.

  ‘Do you remember anything about him?’ Cámara asked. She seemed to catch the tone of urgency in his voice.

  ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps there was something about his…’

  Her eyes went vacant as she tried to recall, and she lifted her hand to her face.

  The phone was about to divert the call to voicemail. Cámara glanced down at the screen.

  It was Flores.

  Twenty-Nine

  Torres came running up to him as he entered the Jefatura.

  ‘Chief, I’ve got something.’

  ‘So have I.’

  ‘OK, you first.’

  They found the lift and started heading up to their office.

  ‘Flores wants to come in and make a statement,’ Cámara said once the doors closed and they were out of earshot.

  ‘Flores?’ Torres did not have the most demonstrati
ve of faces, not least because most of it was covered in thick black hair, either from his beard or his eyebrows, but the surprise in his expression was evident nonetheless.

  ‘In person,’ Cámara said. ‘I’ve had him on the phone just now asking for a formal interview.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  It wasn’t a facetious question: they both knew from experience that Flores was not the kind of person who did anything without various other motives–ulterior or otherwise–being in play.

  ‘I told him to come down right away, but that I would only do it here and with Pardo present as well.’

  The doors pinged as they reached their floor.

  ‘I’d like you to join us.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ Torres said. They stepped out on to the corridor, but remained standing for a moment before walking towards the incident room, where other officers were milling around.

  ‘What do you think it’s about?’ Torres said in a low voice.

  ‘Well, I don’t think he’s coming to discuss the arrears on my driving tax.’

  ‘Yeah, I got that.’

  ‘So what’s your news?’

  Torres glanced down the corridor, then back at Cámara.

  ‘This Navarro guy,’ he said, ‘and his connection with Cuevas, the head of Valconsa. You remember Maldonado mentioned it in the squad car?’

  ‘Yes,’ Cámara said. ‘What did you find out?’

  ‘I was digging around. Maldonado was right–Navarro served under Cuevas in the Guardia Civil’s intelligence unit, the Servicio de Información, ten years back. It was the last position Cuevas had before he quit the Guardia Civil.’

  ‘And walked into the job at Valconsa.’

  ‘Right. They made him director of communications at first, but he took over as CEO five years ago. Well, look.’

  Torres pulled out a paper he was holding and showed it to Cámara.