‘The very same people who are kicking him out of his flat are also the same people who gave him a job for all those years and who then dumped him.’
‘He was at Caja Levante?’
‘The very same.’
‘It’s unbelievable. You’d think . . .’
‘You’d think they’d look after their own,’ Torres said. ‘Even if they had sacked him a few years before. But that’s how bad things are these days. No one is safe. Not even the guys pulling the purse strings.’
Torres poured himself the last of the bottle of wine.
‘And now he’s skydiving from the second floor.’
‘Second floor?’ Cámara asked.
‘That’s where his flat is. The one he was about to lose. Second-floor flat.’
Cámara frowned.
‘What?’
‘Not very high,’ he said.
‘Depends how you fall.’
‘I know. But if he wanted to be sure. How did he fall?’
‘There’s a nasty fracture at the front of his skull,’ Torres said.
‘But he clearly didn’t fall head first. Otherwise he certainly would be dead, even from only a second floor.’
‘His arms and legs are a real mess. Bones smashed to pieces.’
There was a pause. Both knew the implications of what he had said.
The bar owner came out to see if they wanted anything else. Cámara asked for another beer and some ham and bread. Torres ordered another bottle of wine for himself.
‘I can hang that up inside if you want,’ the bar owner said, pointing at Cámara’s helmet.
‘It’s fine, thanks,’ Cámara said. ‘We might have to come inside in a minute anyway.’ He nodded in the direction of the demonstration, where a couple of drums were beating a slow, threatening rhythm to accompany the piercing whistles.
‘We could be in for a long night,’ the bar owner said. ‘I thought about not opening. But I’m a Republican, so I thought, Damn it. But we’ll be closing early if this looks like getting out of hand.’
‘We’ll keep you posted,’ Cámara said. From the corner of his eye he thought he could make out a couple of police riot vans moving down alleyways to the side of them, finding back routes to get to the rally. They sat in silence for a few moments, gauging the mood. Their view was partial as the narrow street only gave them a small window on what was going on in the square.
‘Might have to make a run for it,’ Torres said, only half-joking.
‘And which way would you go?’ Cámara asked. ‘Towards them, or away from them?’
Torres nodded.
‘Well, that’s just the problem, isn’t it. But you look at any revolution or social unrest, and it’s the role of the police that’s key. Not the army. The military can intervene one way or another. But the ones who really tip the balance of power are the police. Always.’
‘You know,’ Cámara said, ‘Franco refused to join the rebellion against the Republic until he felt certain that the Guardia Civil would be on side. Hilario told me once. And where the Guardia Civil did support the military uprising, the area quickly fell into their hands. And where they didn’t . . .’
‘Like here and Barcelona,’ Torres said.
‘Exactly. Stayed in government hands.’
‘Proves my point.’
‘So who’s your money on now?’ Cámara asked. ‘Assuming this does get nasty.’
‘If it was just me and you in the police,’ Torres said, ‘I’d say the government should be boarding their escape helicopters right now. And of course, if everyone in uniform was like you we wouldn’t even be having this conversation because the whole country would be some communal paradise with everyone dancing naked through the fields.’
‘If only I were king,’ Cámara sighed.
‘But they’re not. Too many Maldonados among our colleagues, as you know. So what do we get? A police force that’s almost as divided as the country. Which makes me even more worried.’
‘Not like you to brood.’
‘Fuck off.’
More police vans were appearing. Two of them were trying to squeeze up the narrow street where they were sitting. In a minute they would be forced to pull up their table and chairs to let them get through.
‘You’re either dealing with one very confused guy who’s not sure if he really wants to kill himself . . .’ Cámara began.
‘Yeah,’ Torres said, pouring himself another glass of wine and ignoring the riot squad members closing in on them. ‘Yeah, I know. I’ll get one of the científicos to check the place out tomorrow.’
He should do more, Cámara thought. He should take a look at the man himself, check for any bruising, take a tissue sample from under his nails – the usual steps to determine if there had been a struggle before he died. Oliva himself might give them some important clues, despite being unconscious.
He was about to say it, but something held him back. Torres knew the procedure, and would certainly be carrying it out himself. Perhaps he already had. But he was hiding something.
The poison – Maldonado’s brew – was already seeping in.
A riot squad man jogged up and asked them to move their table so they could get the van past. From the square they could hear the sound of shouting and women screaming. Better to leave now than be forced home with streaming eyes and a burning throat from the tear gas. But Torres took his time, getting up as slowly as he could, acting as though the riot squad were not there.
‘Of course,’ he said as the van finally rumbled past them, its tyres squealing on the cobblestones, ‘if Oliva ever wakes up I’m sure he can tell us what happened.’
SEVEN
THE ENTRANCE WAS in the back patio behind a small restaurant in the Barrio Chino, not far from his flat. The owner was in on the secret and let people get through to the exit beyond the toilets where there was a hatchway with a metal ladder leading underground. It was originally meant as an air vent and service access point. Now it was the only way to get inside the brand new but abandoned metro line.
Valencia already had a functioning metro system. It worked relatively well, bringing people from the outlying towns and villages into the centre, or shipping students across to the university faculties; it was less a way of getting around inside the city itself. But during the boom years, with so much money seeming to pour in from some benevolent god in the sky, the authorities had decided to build a new line to add to the existing four. This one would go underneath the old part of the city, finally turning the network into a proper urban underground railway. When work on it had begun, the city’s mayoress had effusively compared it with the circulatory system: the new tunnels, she said, would be like veins under the skin bringing much-needed blood to the centre.
Cámara had direct and bitter experience of the building of the new line. To date, no official or building contractor or politician had even apologised for the loss of his block of flats. Not even for the deaths of Susana and little Tomás. A neighbourhood pressure group was still clamouring for someone to stand trial and be punished.
Cámara had left Valencia shortly afterwards, and on his return had assumed that the metro line would be complete and running. But because of the economic crash the entire project – which had already cost almost half a billion euros – had been mothballed. The new line only had months to go before it was meant to see its first trains in operation, but now lay silent and abandoned beneath the city streets.
Forgotten. At least by most Valencians.
The restaurant owner nodded to him as he walked through. It was relaxed and relatively cheap, one of the more alternativo places. Regular diners might guess what was going on round the back, but would not tell.
There was usually someone sitting out on the patio, a kind of guard to warn those underground in case the wrong sorts were trying to get in.
‘Evening, Max.’
Tonight it was Dídac, Daniel’s son. He was in his late teens and strong, with dark blonde dreadlocks and biceps that seemed to
shine in the dark. He took a long drag on the joint drooping between his lips.
‘Want some?’ he said, offering it to Cámara.
‘I’m fine. Thanks.’
Cámara left his helmet beside a pile of coats folded neatly on a stone bench next to Dídac. It could get warm and clammy down in the tunnels and the patio acted as a kind of cloakroom where people could drop off whatever they did not need for the night before picking it up again on their way out in the morning.
‘Everyone in?’ Cámara asked.
‘Yeah,’ Dídac said. ‘Mostly. Danny’s just popped out. He’ll be back soon.’
Cámara smiled to himself at Dídac calling his father ‘Danny’. When it came to some things he was a traditionalist at heart.
The ladder descended to a small platform, then a staircase took him down even further. A few light bulbs had been strung along to illuminate the way. Some electrician who was helping them out occasionally had found a cable that he could connect the wiring to. The result was that they now had a primitive form of electricity at no cost, although some people still preferred to light candles and brighten up their little corner that way.
The staircase came to an end inside one of the tunnels. A doorway led out on to where the tracks were supposed to have been laid and then it was a short walk to the ‘station’, where people tended to congregate. He had to be careful as he stepped along in the half-light. The earth beneath Valencia was notoriously wet and soft – ancient Moorish irrigation waterways still coursed beneath the tarmac and concrete – and large puddles could develop spontaneously. There was even a danger of flooding, but luckily it had been a dry spring. The advantage was that it was relatively easy to get hold of water for cleaning. One of the first things that Hilario had done when they arrived was to oversee the digging of a well. He was almost going to do it himself before Cámara and Daniel had stopped him.
‘We need your brains and experience,’ Daniel had said. ‘There’s plenty of muscle to spare.’
Helping out every night had given Cámara’s grandfather a boost after their arrival in Valencia. Despite his advanced years, it had intensified the sparkle in his eyes.
Cámara mounted the ramp that led up to the platform. Some bodies at the far end were already bedding down for the night, rolling out camping mattresses and sleeping bags. Despite their best efforts to keep the place hygienic – a regular cleaning rota, rules about washing and food, even a smoking ban, which people only followed for the children’s sake – the smell of so many bodies living and sleeping in the same place could never really be disguised. Some tried with joss sticks, but to Cámara’s mind they only made things worse.
He found Alicia standing at the edge of a group of half a dozen children sitting in a circle. A clown with a red bowler hat and a painted face was telling them a bedtime story.
‘Some are even switching off their computer games to listen,’ Alicia said. She watched for another moment and he leaned over to kiss her on the temple, gazing at the long, sharp profile of her nose, the dimple on her cheek where she smiled, and the light reflecting from her large brown eyes. Her hair was longer and looser these days, falling to her shoulders and curling in slightly beneath her chin; sometimes she hooked it behind her ears, revealing the gold hoop earrings that she usually wore.
‘How many are there tonight?’ Cámara asked as they stepped away. He could see that the clearing up had already begun in the ‘kitchen’.
‘About sixty, we reckon,’ she said. ‘A Peruvian couple came in about an hour ago. She’s heavily pregnant. We’re not sure if it’s going to happen tonight. They say they can’t go to the hospital because their papers aren’t in order and they’re frightened of being turned away. Hilario’s with her. Has he trained as a midwife, do you know?’
Cámara shrugged.
‘The thing with him is you never can tell,’ he said.
‘Even if he hasn’t he’d probably give it a go.’
‘Yes, but even so . . .’
‘Daniel’s gone,’ she said. ‘To see if he can find someone who knows what they’re doing.’
She slipped her arm into his. He turned and they kissed.
‘You smell good,’ she said.
‘I wish I could say the same about you.’
She laughed. ‘I’ve been here since six. What time is it now?’
‘Past eleven, I should say.’
‘Have you had anything to eat?’
‘Just a nibble. I could do with something more. Is there anything left?’
She led him over to the kitchen. A team of helpers – Cámara counted three women and a young man – was folding away trestle tables and plastic chairs. On a side counter – what had originally been designed as the ticket office – were a couple of trays with leftover tapas. Cámara helped himself to two slices of toast with cream cheese, smoked salmon and caviar before moving on to the jamón ibérico and chorizo sausage dipped in romesco sauce. He wiped up the remains with a slice of onion-and-rosemary bread.
‘There’s some wine left as well,’ Alicia said, passing him a half-finished bottle of Rioja Reserva.
Cámara chuckled.
‘The standard seems to be rising,’ he said. ‘Not bad for an underground anarchist collective.’
‘It’s the restaurants round here,’ Alicia said, pushing past him to help clear away some of the plastic plates. ‘Word is spreading. No one wants to be known as the place where they throw their leftovers away. Not these days. And it looks good, being part of this.’
‘That could be dangerous.’
‘Perhaps. But in the meantime we’ve fed sixty people who would have gone hungry otherwise. It’s Hilario who does it. You know how he is. He charms them – they’re almost begging to give him stuff.’
‘I should go and see how he is,’ he said.
‘Good day?’ Alicia asked. She wanted to hold on to him for a few minutes longer. The irony was that now they were living together, back in Valencia, it felt as though they saw less of each other than before. His police work, her freelance journalism – no newspaper was offering contracts any more. And then there was this – trying to give homeless people shelter and food for a night or two while they sorted themselves out. Daniel had started it earlier in the year when he found the secret entrance down into the unused metro line. Millions had been spent building the thing only for it to be abandoned. And with so many people losing their jobs and being thrown out of their homes, what better way was there to help them than by setting up a hostel in the very facility they had paid for with their taxes? There was no more time for theorising, Hilario had said. The situation demanded direct action. There was still a chance, he insisted, that the soul of the country might be saved.
‘I’ll tell you about it,’ Cámara said. ‘In fact, I need to tell you about it. It’s not nice. But you’ll find it interesting.’
Alicia looked at him expectantly.
‘But first I need a pee.’
He crossed to the other side of the ticket hall. A man in his fifties who had once been an accountant at a construction firm was sitting with a group of friends playing the guitar and singing protest songs from the 1970s. They did not have to worry too much about making a noise: the stairway of the planned station came out on one of the busier streets in the centre. The traffic would drown out any sounds from underground.
Gingerly, Cámara stepped into the toilet area. One advantage they enjoyed was that the washrooms had been completed before the project was cancelled. There was no running water, but the toilets were plumbed in, so all they had to do was pour water from buckets drawn from the well in order to flush. It was a good plan, and it worked most of the time, but with so many people coming and going – many only stayed for a couple of nights or so until they could find themselves a more permanent place – the system sometimes broke down. Tonight the light bulb had mysteriously vanished, and Cámara fumbled his way towards a cubicle. Kicking the door open, he stepped in something soft and slippery, almost l
osing his balance as he fell backwards.
‘What the fuck?’
He pissed into the bowl, aiming as best he could in the dark, then walked over to the sink. His left foot made a sticky sound as he trod. He pulled his shoe off and strained in the half-glow from the ticket hall to see what it was, but the smell told him instantly. Fighting an urge to throw up, he pulled out some paper towels from the machine on the wall and wiped the turd off with some water. Next time he would bring a torch.
He found Daniel when he stepped back out.
‘Alicia told you about the pregnant woman?’ he said.
‘You found someone?’
‘A nurse. She’s with them now.’
They were a similar age, but very different. Daniel was one of those men in their mid-forties who still kept the waistline of a twenty-year-old. He wore one large, red-feather earring and often sported a black vest, his fat-less, leathery skin rippling over taught muscles. Cámara could never understand why a man bent on working against the system would spend so long trimming his beard: the goatee that framed Daniel’s thin lips was manicured to an almost absurd degree. Who had time in the morning to shave only the top half of their bottom lip? The rest of his time and energy was focused on running the shelter.
‘Let’s hope they can sort it out,’ Cámara said. ‘If it’s looking like it’s going to happen we’ll have to get her to a hospital. We can’t be delivering babies down here. It’s not clean. You won’t believe what I’ve just stepped in.’
Daniel was about to ask when Alicia came running over to them.
‘What’s the matter? Is she all right?’
‘She’s fine,’ she said. ‘No, it looks like a false alarm. But it’s Hilario I’m worried about. He’s dizzy, has a bad headache. Couldn’t stand up. He’s mumbling his words. Said something about his blood-pressure pills.’
‘Idiot must have forgotten to take them again,’ Cámara said. ‘Where is he?’
‘On the platform.’
They ran over together, Daniel tagging behind. Hilario was lying on the floor, his eyes open but looking pale. A heavily pregnant Peruvian woman was stroking his hair, trying to soothe him. Cámara knelt down.
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